The Little Princess
"I'm glad you've made more friends."
The pet café sold more than just dogs and snacks; they had all sorts of puppy merchandise too. Seolhwa was beaming as she hugged a dog plushie just the right size to cradle in her arms, saying, "Yeah, Tosuni will love this."
It was a cheap souvenir, but if it made her this happy, the value was more than worth it.
And when had she even given it a name…? While I was thinking that, Seolhwa was already muttering things like, "Would this one like being called Meongdoli?"
This is exactly why people end up treating her like a little kid, whether she likes it or not…
I couldn't risk sulking her during a date, so I held my tongue, but there was no denying she had her childish sides.
Then again, looking at it the other way—maybe it meant she trusted me enough to show those sides without hiding them?
"…What is it?"
I must have been staring too hard without realizing. Seolhwa tilted her head, and I answered, "It's nothing," as I stroked her hair.
"I was just thinking this moment is perfect."
At the sudden praise her cheeks flushed, yet she couldn't quite hide her joy as she smiled.
In that expression, the old darkness was so thoroughly gone you couldn't find it even with a magnifying glass.
"Your smile really is the best thing to look at."
Maybe those words had pushed past her limit; I almost thought I heard a soft poof from the hair I was still petting.
"…Even if you praise me like that, nothing's going to come of it, you know?"
"Plenty already is."
She used to lower herself with constant apologies, but this pure, smiling face of hers really was the best.
"Just watching you is more than enough of a bargain."
"…Somehow it always feels like I'm the only one getting swept along."
"I don't think that's true…"
Seolhwa could be bolder than she looked sometimes, and with all the useless random knowledge people kept stuffing into her head, there were moments that genuinely left me flustered as a guy… so I had no choice but to shake my head at that claim.
"We already had lunch at the café. Anywhere else you want to go?"
"Hmm…"
She walked along, thinking hard, then suddenly stopped and pointed. "Then… over there."
It was a public library that had been around for quite a while.
"You can read without buying anything, so I used to come here a lot… I always wanted to try coming with someone else at least once."
Room cafés and places like that were trendy these days, but this old-fashioned feel suited Seolhwa far better.
"Then let's make that wish come true today." I took her hand and headed for the library.
The library was neat on the outside and just as neat inside.
Even with e-books and room cafés and everything else, people still wanted quiet, spacious places to look for paper books, it seemed.
The large library was fairly crowded, yet somehow it kept a silence broken only by the turn of pages and soft footsteps—almost like a classroom in the middle of a lesson.
I had never been much of a book person, so I couldn't fully understand why people bothered coming all the way to a library, but I found myself liking this still atmosphere more than expected.
I said I had nothing to do with books, but lately I'd been trying to pay a little more attention to studying, so I ought to get used to this kind of mood.
…Or so I wanted to claim.
"I have no idea what I should even read."
The few things I'd ever read were all comics, after all.
Wandering the shelves alone only made my complete lack of culture painfully obvious, and all I could do was sigh.
"Oh? Yuseong-sunbae?"
While I was locked in a pointless staring contest with the tightly packed shelves, a familiar voice came from behind and a finger poked my back.
"Oh, Jiwu. Running into you here of all places."
"I come here a lot when I need to study—it's easy to focus. Though shouldn't I be the one saying that? Yuseong-sunbae in a library… heh."
"You…"
She was right; anyone could see I was the one who looked out of place, so I had nothing to argue.
I scratched the back of my head vaguely, and Jiwu, wearing her usual easy smile, asked, "Is this a date?"
"You're sharp." When I answered, she said, "Of course I am. There's nothing to be sharp about."
"You're like a needle and thread. Besides, you don't seem like the type who'd come somewhere like this without Seolhwa-sunbae."
"Yeah, yeah. Aren't you clever…"
If she hadn't added that last bit I might have been honestly happy… but as I thought that, I decided it was for the best after all.
"Come to think of it, you seem like someone who reads a lot. Got any recommendations for a complete beginner?"
"Oh my, may I?"
"Well, since we ran into each other, it wouldn't hurt, right?"
"That's true."
Jiwu murmured "Let's see…" to herself and began scanning the nearby shelves.
Even back in the resource room she had always given off a serious air; unlike me, fumbling around like an idiot, she looked completely natural in a library.
"How about this?"
Before long she held out a small novel titled The Little Prince.
"The one with the snake that swallowed an elephant?"
"A boa constrictor. It's not very long, so it's perfect for a light read. And the story…"
She cut herself off mid-sentence and gave a soft laugh. "Well, you'll understand once you read it."
If Eunha was the kind of hyperactive kid you could barely handle, Jiwu was the complete opposite… more like an old soul in a young body.
"Ah, you were thinking I seem like a little old lady, weren't you?"
"…Do you read minds or something?"
"Of course not. I've just heard similar things often enough that I took a guess."
"Honestly… don't tease me for no reason." When I sighed, Jiwu said, "Ahaha, sorry," yet she never lost her smile.
"Since we ran into each other, why not at least say hello to Seolhwa?"
I was sure Seolhwa would be happy. I made the suggestion, but Jiwu shook her head.
"Interrupting a date isn't my hobby. I'll save it for next time. Just give her my regards."
"I don't really think of it as interrupting."
I was grateful she even thought that way. There were a couple of shameless people nearby who never considered such things at all.
"See you next time." With that, Jiwu pressed The Little Prince into my hand, waved, and left.
Seolhwa came back with a book of her own, and we found a decent spot to sit.
"You ran into Jiwu?"
"Just by chance."
When I told her about Jiwu, Seolhwa tried not to show it, but she couldn't quite hide the disappointment; the corners of her eyes drooped a little.
"She said she'd leave it for next time, so she'll come find us again."
I was trying to cheer her up so she wouldn't feel too bad when her gaze drifted to the book I'd been given.
"Is that the one Jiwu picked out for you?"
"Yeah." I nodded.
"'The first line isn't even that long,' huh… We've only known each other a little while and she's already seen right through how little I've got."
Well, if she'd handed me some thick tome out of nowhere I was pretty sure I'd have given up halfway and put it down, so it was a funny kind of certainty.
I laughed off the bitterness and was about to open the cover when Seolhwa suddenly pulled her chair right up beside me and started peering at the pages.
"Trying to do reading and dating at the same time?" I joked, and only then did she seem to realize what she was doing; her face went bright red.
"Th-that's…! It's been so long since I saw this book, I just wanted to look… Is that okay?"
We were in a library, so she couldn't raise her voice; she just hung her head and mumbled. I wordlessly rested my hand on her hair and stroked it.
"You know something?" I asked, and she tilted her head.
"You've gotten a lot better at speaking up for yourself."
"H-have I…?"
"You have." I gave her a small smile.
The old Seolhwa never would have done something like this—the girl who always bowed her head and assumed everything was her fault.
It meant she felt comfortable enough with me, with the life we shared now… Realizing that sent a warm, sunlit kind of joy welling up inside me.
"You can be a little more selfish. You've held back long enough."
There was no answer. Seolhwa's eyes simply blinked at me in silence.
Maybe it took her a moment to understand. Her cheeks flushed for a different reason this time, and she smiled. "…Thank you."
"Just don't turn into Eunha."
I added the joke about cutting back on the completely outrageous stunts, and Seolhwa's usual smile returned as she answered, "She'd get mad if she heard that."
Reading a book together was a first for me.
I don't know how other people do it, but I have a habit when I read.
I take the words and paint the scene in my head—like turning what I've read into a movie playing behind my eyes.
A little prince who lived on a tiny planet, never able to connect with anyone.
When he felt sad, he said he watched the sunsets… I quietly pictured that.
Dwelling on loneliness, pulling up baobab shoots, doing nothing but watching the sun go down… Imagining a life like that made even me feel small and shabby.
He grew a rose, wandered from planet to planet, met a fox, and finally learned what it meant for something to be precious. And then there was the pilot who met that prince.
Jiwu had said I'd understand why she recommended the book once I read it.
Maybe I was overthinking it, but the pilot and the prince in the story… they felt a lot like Seolhwa and me.
When I was little, I thought I was special.
I believed that if you worked hard enough you could make any dream come true, that there was nothing in this world you couldn't do… and then I lost so many things.
I woke up to reality, fell into despair, and started becoming just another ordinary, boring person like everyone else.
The pilot had given up his childhood dream of being a painter and compromised with the reality of flying planes.
If he'd kept living that way, he would have turned into just another dull, ordinary adult.
Before that could happen, he met the little prince.
Someone who had faced loneliness head-on on his own tiny planet and in his own narrow life.
After meeting Seolhwa, a lot of things changed for me.
Maybe they didn't change. But at least I became able to think that I wanted them to.
I never achieved my dreams, but I found someone who told me it was all right to just be myself.
Once, in the past, I had been tamed.
And because of that, I had cried.
So this time…
That was how I felt. I wondered how it was for Seolhwa.
The whole time I was reading, I kept glancing at her profile out of the corner of my eye.
Unlike me, her gaze stayed fixed on the book.
When the drunkard's story came up she looked sad; when the lamplighter appeared she watched with something like longing; when the fox showed up she wore a happy expression—every page brought a different reaction.
She never said a word, but this was a girl who took everything seriously, so of course she would read the same way… that thought crossed my mind.
Looking at Seolhwa's face as she read, it felt like a scent that calmed the heart was drifting from her.