A Path Walked Alone
The food at the restaurant Seong Gaeul had reserved wasn't all that good, if I'm being honest. The prices were reasonable, though, and the plating came out so pretty it was exactly the kind of place women went crazy for. After a light lunch there, we headed to karaoke.
"Two people, one hour."
"That'll be fifteen thousand won."
Telling me to leave my wallet behind hadn't been a joke — Seong Gaeul stepped forward and put her card down again. I could feel the male part-timer, who'd been staring at Gaeul from the moment we walked in, sneak a glance at me. That look said, Who the hell are you to show up with a girl like this and let her pay? A certain smug satisfaction bloomed in my chest.
"Room sixteen."
A little tension crept in as we headed for the room he'd pointed out. The last time I'd set foot in a karaoke place was already four years ago. The girlfriend I'd dated at twenty, before I enlisted, had loved karaoke. Or rather — it wasn't that she loved karaoke so much as there weren't many places a broke college kid living on allowance money could actually go. Take your girlfriend to a PC cafe? A pool hall? Even a movie ran you nearly twenty thousand won for two people, which was more expensive than it had any right to be. So the karaoke joint in front of campus — five thousand won an hour, and during the day they piled on so much free extra time you could stretch two or three hours for cheap — was inevitably our main date spot.
"Wow, it's been so long since I've been to karaoke. Want to go first, oppa?"
Seong Gaeul looked around the instant we stepped inside, the same way I was, like it really had been a while for her too.
"Nah. You go first, Gaeul. I'll look for something to sing in the meantime."
"It's only been two months, so I don't really know what's popular these days..."
Watching her work the remote with practiced ease, like she'd been waiting for this, left me with nothing to say. Been a long time, she said... Was two months what counted as a long time? Then again, I'd come two or three times a week myself back when I was twenty.
Gaeul queued up a song from the charts and launched straight into it.
"I saw you standing there alone again today~"
She wasn't a great singer, exactly, but her voice itself was so pleasant that just listening was a pleasure. That soft tone, plus a face pretty enough to stir any man's heart, deserved extra points. There was a reason even professional singers needed to look good.
"That smile of yours~ made me think you liked me~"
"That's how foolish a girl I am~"
The song climbed toward its chorus, and a strange sense of déjà vu started getting in the way of simply enjoying it. An unfamiliar song, and Seong Gaeul. What song is this? When have I heard it before...? This was definitely our first time at karaoke together, so why did this song and Gaeul feel so familiar side by side?
I turned it over, and then it clicked. The song she was singing was the OST from We Walk Together — a movie she and I had watched together. That was why watching her sing it felt like a scene I'd already lived.
I'd been wondering what to sing, and a good one came to me right then. I picked up the remote and queued My Own Path, the OST from the prequel, I Walk Alone. The movie was already a few years old, but it had been big enough to spawn a sequel, and the soundtrack was so good you still heard it on the street now and then. I'd always liked the song myself. I'd just never actually sung it, which had me a little worried.
"It was hard~ at first. Being all on my own~"
A voice good enough to startle even me rolled out through the microphone. Gaeul, who'd been hunting for the next song on the remote, looked over at me with open admiration. What the hell? Why am I singing this well?
At first I figured I was just in unusually good condition today. Or that the song happened to sit right in my range.
"This path that doesn't even get a cheer~"
But the longer I sang, the more I realized it wasn't just the voice. My timing didn't slip by even a fraction, and every note landed with the kind of accuracy that belonged to someone with perfect pitch.
"I walk this path alone~"
"The road I'm on~ isn't the kind you walk with someone else~!"
The chorus sat so high I'd braced myself for my voice to crack — and instead a clean, soaring high note came out that gave even me goosebumps. What was stranger still was that my throat felt completely unstrained.
"Whoa... holy crap...!"
Her voice cut in during a brief stretch of melody. I looked over and found Seong Gaeul staring at me, remote still in her hand, her face openly stunned.
On the way out after our time was up, I finally understood what the trait I'd bought yesterday with Sex Coin had meant by "your singing improves."
You hold your liquor well, and your singing and dancing skills improve.
And the degree of that "improvement" was beyond anything I'd imagined. No wonder it raised my value by a whole fifty.
The moment I finished my first song, Gaeul — who'd been about to queue one of her own — pressed the remote into my hands. I was too thrilled by a singing voice I could genuinely admire to refuse, and I went straight into a second song, then a third. She sang a little whenever I needed a break, but in that entire hour she only got through three songs.
"If I'd known you sang like this, oppa, I would've come all the time! What a waste."
She said it with real regret as we stepped out, having spent the hour listening to me instead of singing.
"We can just come again."
"I'd love to hear you sing again, but it's not like we'll be seeing each other after this."
"Huh? Why? You're not gonna see me anymore?"
I'd thought the mood today was pretty good, so Gaeul's sudden wall threw me. Was this because she'd quit, so we had no more business together? Was it just part of the job after all? Then why spend her own money to go on this date?
While I was turning it over, she tossed the next line out like it was nothing.
I stopped short, unable to answer.
Me, dating Gaeul?
No matter how I turned it over, it was impossible. Not because she'd worked at a room salon. Not because she was lacking in some other way. The problem was Sex Coin.
In just two weeks, Sex Coin had completely remade me. And Sex Coin did not want me loving one person. The more I had sex with the same woman, the lower her Difficulty fell. Given enough time that Difficulty would hit zero, and even sex itself wouldn't yield a single coin.
Could I love just one person through all of that? Could I give up Sex Coin? Could someone like me even date anyone — get married?
"Tch, forget it. A boyfriend's too much of a luxury for a bitch who sells her body anyway. Especially dating someone you met in a place like that..."
"No, that's not—"
"Hehe, I'm kidding. I don't have the time or the intention to get a boyfriend anyway~. That's why today's the last! I'll deactivate that number I gave you right after Christmas."
Acting was one of Seong Gaeul's talents, all right — her expression and the whole atmosphere flipped in an instant. I just couldn't tell whether the sulking from a moment ago had been the act, or whether this bright face was.
"Thanks to you, oppa, I got to work easy before I quit~."
She slipped past me at a quick walk, and I could have sworn the rims of her eyes looked a little red.
I first met him about two weeks ago.
A nomination had come in during the day, and the room I was supposed to take the client in hadn't even been cleaned. I was already thoroughly annoyed when I received a young customer.
"Excuse me."
The man who came into the room was awkward and almost painfully polite. When I took his arm, his face went red just from that — cute, for someone who'd come here to have sex. But that was all he was. An ordinary client, nothing more. Except that I happened to be in a terrible mood that day.
The session had ended unusually fast, and I wanted to see a movie or something to reset, but I didn't want to go to a theater alone. The man in front of me seemed decent enough once we talked, and he was around my age, so going together wouldn't look strange. It was the first time I'd ever gone on a date with a client outside.
After the movie and a meal, he was about to leave without even walking me anywhere, and that stung a little — until he asked, right away, what time I started work the next day. An after, if you could even call it that. I felt a lot better.
From that day on he nominated himself every single day, and from the way he spent, the thing about making money off coins seemed to be true. He tipped well, never so much as glanced at the other girls, and asked for me and only me. The jealous looks from the unnies felt good. So did the way the manager practically begged me to stay a little longer, saying this regular would stop coming if I quit.
The problem was that, for all his impressive equipment, he was terrible in bed. If you could even call what he did skill. The first day he just lay there, did nothing, spurted, and it was over. From the second day he charged in saying he'd take care of the foreplay himself, and even that was a little disappointing.
But it was sex twice a day, every day, and his skill grew the way it had to. He started learning where I was sensitive. The insertion time that had made me wonder if he was just a two-pump chump stretched out and out, and somewhere in there our bodies started fitting together. Maybe that was why he began to look more attractive. His face seemed a little handsomer. His body seemed better in the span of a few days. Even his height felt like it had shot up overnight. I mixed him up with another client once because of it — a small, stupid incident — and he let it go like it was nothing.
It occurred to me, suddenly, that if I ever had a boyfriend, I would want him to be someone like this.
That tiny spark ballooned through three orgasms on the last day.
"So... if you're free tomorrow, oppa, do you want to meet outside?"
Christmas Eve, as it happened. My second date with a client, and it was the same man.
"Ugh, I have nothing to wear."
The second I thought of it as a real date with a man, not work, I realized I had nothing to put on. If I'd known, I would have bought some winter clothes ahead of time. I had no choice but to pull out the things I'd worn once last year and sworn never to wear again in winter. A skin-tight white sheer top under a beige coat. Stockings thin enough to show my legs, a short skirt hidden under the coat, and three-inch heels. I'd given up warmth in exchange for a look that could turn a man's head.
God, it's cold... When is this oppa getting here!
I was standing there shivering, feeling every passerby's eyes, when Kim Minseok arrived right on time. At a hundred sixty-seven centimeters I was tall for a woman, which made wearing heels on a date with a man almost impossible — but standing next to him, the height difference was just right.
A light meal at the restaurant I'd reserved, and then karaoke together.
"Whoa... holy crap...!"
I had never heard anyone sing like that. I could feel "a man who sings well" about to write itself onto my list of ideal types. I gave up on singing my own songs and just listened, for a long time. An hour of karaoke was over far too fast.
Tsk. They're not even giving us extra time?
I knew complimentary extensions were a long shot on Christmas Eve. I was still disappointed.
And then that lovely hour was over, and we were on our way out.
"Of course today's the last. It's not like you're going to date me, oppa."
I had only ever received confessions. I had never given one. Probing him like this was the best I could manage.
But the man went quiet in an instant.
My first confession in this life was cruelly broken in the silence.