To Speak of Someday
Ever since Mother learned of Seol-hwa's existence, packages had started showing up at the house with some regularity.
Clothes, women's essentials — most of it things meant for Seol-hwa.
This woman, I swear…
But when I saw what had arrived this time, I let out a long, wordless sigh.
"…It's huge."
"It really is."
Unlike the usual deliveries, a conspicuously oversized box was sitting there, so I tore open the packaging to see what was inside — and out came a large backrest cushion.
The problem, as I'd already noted, was the size.
One look was enough to tell it wasn't meant for a single person, and I could practically picture Mother snickering to herself — With this, the two of them can get all lovey-dovey, right? — and I sincerely hoped that was just my imagination.
I banished the unnervingly high-energy version of Mother from my mind's eye and sighed again, inwardly this time.
"Wow…"
I glanced sideways. Seol-hwa, who had no way of knowing an adult's ulterior motives, was staring at the cushion with her eyes sparkling like a little kid in a toy aisle.
She had her childish moments now and then, but this time she wasn't even trying to hide it. Gazing at the cushion with those bright, round eyes, she looked ready to fling herself at it any second — like a dog off its leash on a walk.
"Hold on a second. Let me get the cover on first."
I gave that figurative leash a gentle tug, and sure enough, Seol-hwa snapped back to her senses, ducking her flushed head with a flustered, "R-right, of course…"
I cleared away the remaining plastic wrapping, slipped on the cover, and just like that, our house had one of those proper oversized cushions you always see on TV.
"Want to sit on it?"
She looked like she couldn't hold out much longer anyway.
Watching her fidget in silence, I let out a small laugh and asked. Seol-hwa answered with a startled look, as if the question had caught her completely off guard.
"Is that really okay…? Mom sent it to you, Yu-seong. Shouldn't you try it first…?"
"Anyone can see this wasn't sent just for me alone."
"Th-then…"
Murmuring a polite "Excuse me," Seol-hwa settled carefully onto the cushion.
It had looked plush enough at a glance, and it proved just as soft in practice — the moment she sat down, it gently gave way beneath her.
As if she found the whole thing endlessly fascinating, Seol-hwa started shifting around, examining the cushion from every angle. Before long she seemed to discover the perfect position, sinking into it the way you'd sink into a bed, until "buried" felt like the only word for it. "Amazing…" she murmured.
Was this what parents felt, watching their kid run around at the park?
I was watching her revel in the cushion's softness with a quiet fondness when Seol-hwa — who of course had no idea what I was thinking — patted the empty space beside her with her palm.
"You sit too, Yu-seong."
It was a two-seater, sure, but sitting down would mean being pressed right up against each other. Did she even realize that when she said it?
"I can sit later. It's fine…"
The moment I said it, Seol-hwa's voice drooped with disappointment. "…You don't want to?" Her eyes fell at the corners.
I wanted to protest that the expression was cheating — though maybe the fact that I thought of it that way meant I was the one who'd gone soft.
She probably just wanted to share how nice and fluffy it felt. When I thought about it, we already hugged all the time, sometimes even slept side by side — we'd done just about everything. Getting flustered over this felt almost ridiculous.
"All right. Excuse me, then."
I sat down beside her.
It was comfortable, no question — living up to whatever trend had made these things popular. But more pressing than the comfort was Seol-hwa's warmth and scent, closing in at zero distance.
She'd only just finished washing up, and the faint smell of shampoo and the soft dampness of her skin were dangerous in more ways than one.
I was busy driving out the little devil in my head that looked like Mother giving me a thumbs-up and crowing Nice! when Seol-hwa asked for my verdict.
"It's… comfortable."
While I waged a grueling war against assorted stray thoughts, Seol-hwa seemed to have melted completely into the comfort. Her expression gone soft and loose, she leaned gently against me.
Feeling a little put out that I was the only one suffering here, a mischievous impulse took over, and I pulled her firmly against me.
"Y-Yu… Yu-seong?!"
Only then did my girlfriend seem to register the lack of distance. She startled, her eyes spinning wildly with nowhere to land.
"…This is usually how it goes."
I said it as if to ask whether she had any idea what I was dealing with — and instead of pulling away, Seol-hwa tugged at my sleeve and rubbed her cheek against my arm.
Then she looked up at me… and dropped a bombshell out of nowhere.
"I don't… mind, though?"
I froze, at a total loss for words. Watching me, Seol-hwa smiled faintly and murmured, "I win."
"Yu-seong."
A familiar voice reached me.
"I love you…"
The difference was the heat in it — thicker, stickier than usual.
Had she always been capable of a voice like that?
But she didn't give me time to think. Seol-hwa climbed onto me where I lay on the bed and leaned her body down toward mine.
I barely felt her weight. Had the situation numbed my senses somehow?
The warm touch of her skin and the scent rising from her denied that theory outright.
Nearly collapsed against me, Seol-hwa stretched out both arms and wound herself around me like a snake coiling tight, leaving me no room to move.
My gaze drifted of its own accord — and caught the pale skin visible through the gap of a pure white dress.
Not large, but shaped with unmistakable form, a small valley that my eyes threatened to fall into. I tried to turn my head away, but Seol-hwa wouldn't allow it. Her arms slid from my waist up toward my neck.
Our faces drew close — close enough that our breath touched.
We'd slept side by side before. We'd kissed. But the density of the atmosphere was nothing like usual.
Eyes glistening and wet, cheeks flushed hot and red… it almost felt like my feet were sinking into a swamp.
"I want you to touch me more…"
As she said it, Seol-hwa reached for the strap slipping down her shoulder—
"…I've lost my mind."
My eyes flew open, and sure enough, I was in my own room. Sleep had been thoroughly banished. I threw open the curtains to clear the air, and morning sunlight filtered in through the window.
The clock read six a.m. Reality settled over me at last, and I pressed my fingers to my brow in silence.
What the hell was that…
Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
I'd been living with Seol-hwa for quite a while now, and she had appeared in my dreams before — but never with desire this thick, this raw, bleeding through.
The cause was obvious without looking. Last night.
"…This is the worst."
We were dating, so maybe it wasn't something to feel guilty about.
But… when it came to wanting to treasure her, it was a complete foul.
I didn't want her beside me as an object of appetite. She was precious enough that I wanted time, wanted steps, wanted care — and the fact that I'd let that kind of impulse surface at all only fed the self-disgust.
Of all days, today was one when Seol-hwa didn't have a part-time shift.
Ordinarily we would have spent the time together, gone on a date — but after a dream like that, I couldn't face her.
I bolted out first thing in the morning and didn't come back until lunch, and even once it was time to eat, I couldn't meet her eyes properly.
"Um… Yu-seong."
"…What is it?"
"Are you… mad at me?"
The way she said it, she looked unmistakably deflated. On my end, I'd only been trying not to focus on her because of how unsettled I felt — but to her, it must have looked like I was ignoring her.
The moment I realized that, I felt nothing but pathetic for having created this situation in the first place.
"It's not like that."
And all I've done is make her anxious.
Berating myself inwardly, I smoothed a hand over Seol-hwa's hair — but she only looked up at me with worry, the hurt still plain on her face.
"It is like that, though."
"The atmosphere's been weird all day, and the way you've been acting is off… Did I do something wrong?"
"There's a reason I can't help, it's just…"
Lying wasn't good, but being honest about this was awkward on too many levels. I couldn't help hedging.
Put yourself in the other person's shoes — blurting out I had a dream about you, that kind of dream would only put her on the spot, wouldn't it?
"Maybe you… don't like me anymore, or…"
Letting it spiral into a catastrophic misunderstanding was nonsense no matter how you sliced it. I shut it down immediately.
"That's not it!"
"But you can't tell me what it is…?"
"It's not that serious a problem… I just need to settle my feelings a little."
"…Does having me around make that harder?"
"It's not that either. Look, the thing is…"
Honestly, I'd be bothered too if our positions were reversed. There'd been that whole misunderstanding about her part-time job not long ago… I couldn't put her through something like that again, but figuring out how to explain this was genuinely painful.
"I had a dream. A… not exactly wholesome one."
"…A dream?"
"You were being, uh, a little more bold than usual. Demanding things. That kind of dream… I guess."
I wrung the words out as best I could, but Seol-hwa only tilted her head with a look of pure, uncomprehending innocence — whether she was simply dense about this sort of thing or not, it only made everything more awkward.
"I-I don't usually dream like that, okay? And then yesterday you said something so cute, and looking at you got… awkward. No — embarrassing…"
"…What kind of things did I do?"
"Are you trying to kill me?"
She'd asked it with genuine curiosity. Was this what people meant by humiliation play?
No — she had no awareness of it. But somehow that made it even more terrifying.
"Kill you…? I just wondered if I'd really been that forward. Enough to get you like this. I was going to use it as reference…"
"Reference for what, exactly."
"…I feel like I'm not assertive enough."
"No. You're already more than enough. Plenty and then some."
If last night hadn't happened, I probably never would have had a dream like that. Lately it felt like she was picking things up from Eun-ha and Mother — learning every trick in the book for doing terrible things to a guy's heart.
Watching the darkness in her fade, watching her change, was a good thing. But as a man, I was finding myself in increasingly difficult situations these days.
Seol-hwa, who had no way of knowing any of that, simply smiled — light and relieved, the anxiety gone from her face.
"…That's a shame. But as long as you don't dislike me."
"There's no way I could dislike you. And don't go wishing for the other thing, either."
Any further and things were going to get dangerous in several directions. I raised both hands in a genuine gesture of surrender, begging for mercy — and out of nowhere, Seol-hwa started patting the cushion, gesturing for me to sit.
I tilted my head but sat down obediently. The next instant she announced, "This is your punishment," and climbed right onto my lap.
"Uh, Miss Yun Seol-hwa…?"
"…It's a punishment, so stay still!"
I could only see her back, but the tips of her ears were red.
I wanted to point out that she seemed pretty embarrassed herself, saying that — but she'd told me to stay still, so there wasn't much I could do. I couldn't afford to make her sulk any further.
This girl… at the pool, and again yesterday… she's got a surprisingly bold streak.
About half the time it was pure, thoughtless goodwill. But even looking at just the other half, she was already well past the point of anyone calling her insufficiently assertive.
"…Is this how you felt, Yu-seong?"
I was chanting mental sutras to keep my composure under the onslaught of sensation when Seol-hwa suddenly spoke.
"Felt how?"
"When I hid my part-time job from you. When I was avoiding you… I wondered if you felt this kind of isolation too."
"…Ah."
I couldn't flatly deny it. The more you care, the stronger the backlash — the anxiety that had taken root in me then had been real.
I was inwardly scolding myself for still being hung up on the past when Seol-hwa apologized instead.
"I won't do that again… so you shouldn't either, okay?"
"…I'll keep that in mind."
"Mm. That's enough."
She looked like she still had more to say, so I tilted my head. Seol-hwa went on, "In the first place."
"Yesterday I only said that because it was you, Yu-seong… I really meant it. That it was okay."
"You…"
From Seol-hwa's back, pressed flush against me, I could hear her heart pounding. She held me dear.
Listening to that heartbeat that let me feel the truth of it with my whole body, I drew a quiet breath.
"Me too."
I said it carefully, and wrapped my arms gently around her waist.
"To me, you're… incredibly precious."
I felt her body flinch, then gradually settle, as if she were entrusting herself to me. I smiled wryly.
"So I want to think it through carefully. It's an important matter."
Which was exactly why having that dream left me… I was about to sigh when Seol-hwa's soft laugh cut across it.
"That makes me even happier… Thank you."
Things like that can wait until someday — until we've truly become a family. It won't be too late then.
I swallowed those words and made a quiet promise to myself: to become the kind of adult who could say them out loud.