A Date Interrupted
"Wow, that looks super expensive. Can I try spraying some?"
"What would you even do with men's cologne?"
"Hmph."
I snatched the perfume away from Lee Jieun, who was puffing her cheeks out adorably, and tucked it back into the shopping bag. Price aside, I had pulled that bottle from a gacha draw. I would never be able to buy another even if I wanted to. Better to use it sparingly.
"Anyway, I'll buy you lunch. What do you feel like eating?"
"I eat pretty much anything!"
It had already been several months since I had gotten to know Lee Jieun, but this was the first time we had ever met while the sun was still high in the sky.
Then how about we hit a karaoke place tomorrow afternoon? I'll bring the perfume so you can see it for yourself.
I had used the perfume she had been so curious about all through yesterday's shift as an excuse to set up this outing, but now that we were actually here, she did not seem all that interested in it.
"We can look at the perfume some more after we go eat, right?"
Or maybe not. Had she just handed it back because it felt awkward to stand around sniffing cologne on the street?
The place we were standing was a plaza I had been to before. Being a weekday afternoon, there were nowhere near as many people as there had been on Christmas Eve. But the enormous tree they still had not taken down, and the twinkling little lights strung across it, brought someone to mind.
"Sure. You like Western food?"
A restaurant that any girl would love popped into my head immediately. It was not really my kind of place, but the interior and the plating were so pretty that Jieun would definitely be happy.
"Yeah! I love it! And I am not about to be picky when someone is treating me. Hehe."
I started walking, memories of a few days ago with Seong Gaeul flickering through my mind, and we reached our destination in no time. A two-story white building. The inside, by contrast, was done in slightly darker tones, with lush green plants providing the accent. I had felt it last time too — the atmosphere here was genuinely great.
I glanced over to see how Jieun was taking it, and our eyes met. She gave me an uneasy look and whispered.
"Oppa... isn't this place expensive?"
"Nah. It's not that bad."
I led her up to the second floor. There were not many customers, so we were able to sit at a table by the window.
"Eek...!"
She sat down, looked at the menu, and recoiled in horror.
This is cheap, isn't it?
As long as you did not order drinks, it would not even come to fifty bucks a person. The two-person set was a full course for just seventy dollars. I thought that was a steal, but apparently she did not.
"Um... I'll have this. The shrimp cream pasta."
She picked the cheapest thing on the menu — a fifteen-dollar dish. I ignored that and called the waiter over.
"We'll take the two-person set. The couple's course, please."
"The couple's course...? Oppa, that's seventy dollars."
"I said I'm paying. Just eat and enjoy it."
She was not some kid living off an allowance. She even had a part-time job. And she was sweating seventy dollars? But the more I thought about it, the less strange it seemed. Jieun and I both made about fifty bucks a day. Our monthly pay was a little under fourteen hundred. Thinking about how she had been working even while going to college, she probably was not exactly flush with cash.
And then there was her age. She was twenty — twenty-one in just a few days. Back when I was that age, hanging out with friends meant a rice-soup joint or a snack bar, and if we wanted meat we hit an all-you-can-eat place. The only time I ever splurged was on an anniversary with a girlfriend — and Jieun had never even dated anyone, had she?
"Six-fifty an hour, so... ten hours? No, eleven?"
I could not help but snort. Watching her calculate the price against her hourly wage — that miserably frugal side of her was something I had never seen before, and somehow it was just cute.
"What are you calculating so hard? Isn't this place pretty?"
"It is pretty, but..."
She still could not enjoy herself, too hung up on the price. I figured I needed to change the subject.
"More importantly — you said you wanted a proper look at this perfume."
I pulled the Men's Perfume from the shopping bag I had brought from home and handed it to her. Only then did Jieun's eyes light up as she turned the bottle over in her hands.
I wonder if she would still look like that if she knew what this thing costs.
What kind of face would she make if she found out that perfume was more than fifty times more expensive than the meal we had just ordered?
"Oppa, can I take a picture of this?"
She asked my permission, then held up her phone and started snapping away at the perfume bottle. And that phone did not stop even after the food came out.
"Wow, it's so pretty! I have to show this off to my friends!"
Only after every dish that arrived had been added to her camera roll did we finally get to taste anything.
"Wow, this is delicious! Definitely worth the price!"
"Eat up, Jieun."
Still was not my kind of place.
After lunch, we hit a karaoke room, and then wrapped up with a movie theater — a textbook-perfect date course.
"Wow, that was so fun. Oppa, isn't Lee Harin just gorgeous?"
The greasy line You're prettier than her, Jieun rose all the way to my throat, but I swallowed it. That was a bit much.
"Yeah, she is pretty. That's why she's a movie star, right?"
I had run through a bunch of simulations, and this was the best answer I could come up with. But she did not seem to care much about my answer, launching into a completely different topic.
"Do people actually date like that in real life?"
"Beats me. I wouldn't know. But they must, or they wouldn't make movies about it."
"Aww, I want to date like that too!"
The movie we had just watched together was We Walk Together. I had already seen it, but it was not like I came to the theater because I particularly loved movies. There just was not a better date destination than a movie theater, so I had pretended I was seeing it for the first time and picked it.
Definitely a good movie for a date.
It was fun even on a second watch. And there was no shortage of things to talk about.
"Jieun, I don't think you could pull that off."
"Huh? Why not?"
"Didn't you see? Lee Harin makes the first move at their very first meeting."
The movie opens with a male lead chasing his dreams and a female lead who falls for him at first sight and goes after him. There were some small misunderstandings and gag bits in the middle, but the thing driving the whole story was clearly that the heroine, Lee Harin, had fallen first.
"I can make the first move too if I see a guy I like, you know!"
"Pfft. Yeah, right."
We kept up the light banter as we left the theater, and then the timing got awkward. It was 5:20. Too early to clock in for work, too little time to do anything else. I was thinking we might as well take a walk until our shift when—
"Minseok? Jieun?"
We ran into someone I never would have imagined.
"Heejung unnie! Are you done with work?"
"Ah, yeah. Wait, did you two come to see a movie?"
"We just finished and were heading back. Unnie, have you seen We Walk Together? We just watched it and..."
Jieun chattered away without a care, but my throat went dry. Of all the times to run into her. And given the hour, had Cha Heejung come straight to the theater the moment her shift ended?
I pulled out the phone I had turned off for the movie and snuck a look. One missed call from Cha Heejung, and a few texts.
Apparently she had called me the second she got off work. I just had not known because I had turned my phone off for the movie.
"Ah, I've seen that one. I like movies, so I came here alone last time and watched it."
Cha Heejung put extra weight on the word alone as she glared at me. I felt wronged. It had not even been that long since Heejung and I had gotten close, and our schedules barely overlapped. By the time her shift ended, I was about to start mine. By the time mine ended, it was past two in the morning. Unless it was a day off, or a day my shift wrapped up early like last time, it was hard enough just to see each other's faces.
"Anyway, my movie's about to start, so I'm heading in. You two work hard!"
"Ugh, I'm so jealous, unnie. I don't wanna go to work."
Leaving Jieun clinging to her and me standing there frozen, Cha Heejung disappeared into the theater.
"Well then... Jieun, should we head to work too?"
"Hiiing.... I don't wanna go in...."
As Jieun and I walked slowly toward the shop, my phone buzzed.
Ah. Right. I spun my brain as fast as I could and sent the best reply I could come up with.
Her texts hit the bullseye, but I could see an opening.
Yesterday? After work, past two in the morning?
What was that supposed to mean? Was she telling me to text her, or to meet up? After some thought, I sent a message.
Whether I had gotten it right or not, there was a playful glint in her sticker. Things between Cha Heejung and me were the kind of relationship that was hard to put a name to, so I had been pretty worried. If she had come at me like a girlfriend, snapping at me for hanging out with Jieun, that would have been annoying in its own way.
But Cha Heejung was not mad that I had been with another girl. She was mad that I had not contacted her. The ideal would be never getting caught with another woman in the first place, but having the relationship redefined like this was not so bad either.
I wish every girl in the world were like Heejung!
As if I had just cleared a massive obstacle, I felt a whole lot lighter.