This Isn't My Home
I never thought the day would come when I'd have to say this, but here it is.
When I opened my eyes, it was an unfamiliar ceiling.
There was a time when that line felt fresh and original, the perfect way to signal the start of a story. Then it became the trendy frontrunner of openers and promptly collapsed into cliché, a walking contradiction. And now I had become the protagonist of that very cliché, possessed by the spirit of the Unfamiliar Ceiling.
Not that I'd been isekai'd or anything. I simply woke up to the reality of myself lying under a strange ceiling, covered by a strange blanket, on a strange bed.
What the hell? Where was this?
It wasn't my place.
If it had been my place, the blanket would've been gray. This one was navy. Plus it was microfiber, soft and fluffy as hell.
Think, Gam Injae. Remember yesterday.
"Ugh!"
The hangover was no joke. Three days of drinking in a row, and finally my liver and the rest of my detox organs had thrown up their hands and gone on strike.
Alcohol. Right. I'd been drinking.
With who? With Riyeon.
When I told her I actually enjoyed texting with her, she'd been so moved she laughed and cried at the same time. Then she said she couldn't drink and drive, so she'd leave her car near her place and we should grab dinner and a few rounds nearby.
"No chugging, okay?"
"Then Oppa has to control the pace when we clink glasses."
Miraculously, that night's drinking session had been peaceful. Peaceful compared to the previous ones, at least.
Riyeon had gone on and on about how deep the wounds in Even After Knowing Everything of You ran, listing pure-love highlight reels and raging about how anyone could do that to someone. I just listened quietly and threw in the occasional agreement.
The night stretched on. Second round at a raw fish place, third at a gamjatang joint, fourth at a beer bar. By then I was clinging to my glass and bobbing my head like I was about to face-plant into the table.
"Oppa~."
"Yeah."
"Heehee… It's so nice having you here~."
"Why's that?"
"You talk to me~."
I remembered laughing emptily at that. After a while Riyeon stopped saying much of anything. She'd call my name every so often, and when I answered she'd just giggle. And then… and then… and then I must have fallen asleep.
Riyeon had said something or other. I gave her some vague reply, closed my eyelids completely, and the next time I opened them I was here.
In other words: end of regression. Return to the unfamiliar ceiling.
"This is bad."
Where I was mattered, sure, but the headache was spreading across my entire skull. The real curtain rising on a hangover filled me with dread. If it got any worse, I'd be stuck knocked out in some stranger's house for hours.
First things first—I needed to sit up. Lying down only made my head hurt more.
"Ugh… huh?"
Something was wrapped around my right arm. It had serious weight to it. I looked over, but there was nothing except blanket.
"……."
Just in case, I lifted the edge of the covers and peered underneath.
Riyeon was there.
She was wearing pajamas. Pajamas that looked like a boyfriend's dress shirt. The kind that buttoned down the front—except they were only fastened up to the center of her chest. Looking closer, I saw the buttons above that point had been ripped clean off.
I swear I wasn't trying to look at her cleavage. I was investigating the buttons. But investigating the buttons required looking at the cleavage too.
A few veins faintly visible—natural and abundant. And those abundant breasts weren't just pressed against my arm; they were squashed flat enough to lose their shape as she hugged it tight.
The scent of Riyeon's hair tickled my nose. The pretty duality of black and blue hair spilled right under my face. And my reason spilled right along with it.
"Hhk!"
I didn't scream like some old romantic comedy manga. I did suck in a huge startled breath, though.
What the hell? Why was I sharing a bed with Riyeon?
Emergency situation. If I didn't handle myself carefully here, I could end up facing a MeToo accusation or a false report. Based on everything Riyeon had shown me so far, I wanted to believe she wouldn't do that—but you never really know what's in another person's heart. Even if things went sour much later, there was still the risk of a revenge report. The world had gotten full of ugly incidents like that; I had to be careful too.
I carefully tried to free my trapped arm, shifting toward the opposite side.
Sliiiide.
"Mmm…."
Riyeon stuck to me and followed. Her brow was furrowed.
Sliiiip.
"Ah, for fuck's—!"
I moved again, and she followed again. She even cursed under her breath. By the way, I'd already shifted sideways twice in big movements and there was still room left on the bed. I rolled my eyes around, but I still couldn't see the edge of the unfamiliar ceiling.
Yu Riyeon.
She had more assets than I'd thought. Way more than me. That gap in wealth created another kind of distance in my mind, and that mental distance made me want physical distance too.
I put some force into it and tried to shove my right arm free from between her breasts—
"Oh, come on!"
Thud!
"Guh…!"
A straight punch landed in my gut. I figured it was the kind of protective fist you throw when someone tries to snatch your toy. Problem was, that fist was extremely effective.
"Uuung~."
My vision went white, then finally flooded with darkness. And the Riyeon who still had my arm in her grip rubbed her head against my shoulder and made a thoroughly satisfied little sound.
I opened my eyes.
The cream-colored ceiling above me had become slightly more familiar, which made it a little less of an unfamiliar ceiling than before. Looking to the side, I saw the blanket had been neatly arranged right along the outline of my body. Riyeon was gone.
I mourned the lost sensation on my empty arm for a second, then let out a sigh of relief and sat up. Looking around, I realized this was a bedroom. The reason I registered it as a "bedroom" instead of a studio apartment was because I could hear a TV from beyond the door.
Riyeon was in her early twenties and living in a place with two or more rooms. A woman of means.
Wait a second.
Did Riyeon live alone? For all I knew she lived with her parents. What if I opened the door and her parents or some siblings were standing there? What the hell would I do then?
The dilemma didn't last long. Five years of working life had taught me one thing: if there's no clean way out, get fucked as fast as possible. At least then it's over quicker.
I opened the door without hesitation.
Unbelievably, a living room and kitchen appeared.
I was fucked. This had to be a place she shared with her parents. No way it would be this spacious otherwise. My bold resolve had already shriveled into a nervous crouch.
"Oppa, you're up?"
Riyeon was sprawled on her stomach on the sofa, watching something on an iPad. Her two kicking legs were white and smooth, and my eyes went straight to them. Following those legs up to their source, I found a springy pair of hips wrapped in nothing but that single layer of boyfriend-shirt pajamas.
Damn it. This was brain-meltingly erotic. The whole scene felt like a newlywed couple's weekend morning, and my heart started pounding at the thought of whether a feeling like this could actually last.
"Where's the rest of the family?"
"Family?"
True to form as an HR guy, I started by checking the number of cohabitants. Riyeon tilted her head, then shook it side to side.
"I live alone?"
"You live here by yourself?"
"Yeah. It's my place."
"Jeonse? Monthly rent?"
"I bought it."
"The title's in your name?"
"Yeah."
Just how much money did this girl have? Driving a Genesis and owning her own place in her early twenties?
"How many pyeong is this?"
"It's a little small. Around twenty-eight?"
A little small? Twenty-eight pyeong was more than enough for a newlywed couple with a kid. One surprise after another, but there was something I needed to confirm first and foremost.
"Uh… Riyeon."
"Yeah? Oppa, you hungry? Want me to order delivery?"
"No, it's just…"
"Yeah? What?"
"That…"
My mouth wouldn't open. But I had to say it like a man. Still, it was harder than delivering a termination notice at work.
"We… uh, we were sleeping in the same bed…?"
"Oh, that? You were so wasted I brought you home."
"We only slept, right…?"
My spineless little question seemed to fascinate Riyeon. She kept snickering, and I couldn't manage any other words—just waited for her answer like a death-row inmate waiting for the verdict.
"We didn't. We really just slept."
Thank god!
"But I liked it."
Liked what?!
"Holding Oppa while I slept was way better than a stuffed animal."
"Riyeon, if you say stuff like that I'm going to get the wrong idea. And why would you put me in the same bed instead of just dumping me on the sofa? We're getting closer, sure, but we're still a man and a woman."
I tried to lecture her in a mature way, but Riyeon was bold. Beyond bold—she was a one-woman army.
"What's there to get the wrong idea about?"
"What?"
"I feel really good about Oppa. Don't you?"
"I do feel good about you, but…"
Riyeon's attitude took a load off my mind. Honestly, having her come out this confidently was cleaner and easier for both of us. So that meant she had feelings for me, right? I was grateful I didn't have to stew and agonize over it alone.
Then maybe I should try telling her what I thought too.
"Why? Why do you have feelings for me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Come on, be realistic. I'm not even that good-looking, I've put on weight from quitting smoking—objectively speaking, I don't have any attractive points."
"Oppa, do you not like that I like you?"
"…I do like it. Why wouldn't I? You're pretty."
But why would a girl this pretty like me?
"Then just take it happily. And if I want to like you however I want, why are you complaining?"
"I'm not complaining. It's just that, by social convention, this kind of setup is a little hard to buy…"
"Oppa, am I pretty?"
Where did that question come from all of a sudden.
"Yeah, you are."
"How pretty?"
"Really pretty."
"I'm this pretty and I've been a total virgin hermit until this age. I don't even have friends. Does that make sense by social convention?"
It did not make sense. For it to make sense, her social skills—which were currently stuck at the bottom of the abyss—would have to make sense first. Even if I was being generous, I couldn't claim Riyeon's social skills were functional.
"And I'm a good judge of people, okay? Ever since I got to know Oppa, things between us have gotten… a lot more comfortable and fun. I really like that."
"We've worked together for half a year. Why didn't you notice me before that?"
"There has to be a trigger! A trigger! Didn't you watch Even After Knowing Everything? There's always a catalyst, and then the heroines start blushing around the male lead!"
Was this girl's entire framework for judging reality based on romance manga like that? She was even more of an otaku than I was. Terrifying.
Riyeon turned her head back toward the iPad with a half-hearted air and spoke.
"Still, I'm sorry about that."
"About what? What? Did you do something wrong to me?"
"Yeah."
"What is it?"
"…Not realizing sooner that Oppa is a good guy."
The ear visible through her hair had gone bright red. For a moment I thought of Kim Chun-su's poem Flower.
"That doesn't mean we're dating or anything. We're still getting to know each other. I don't want to look easy."
That was a relief, honestly. I was still mid-quit on smoking myself—I didn't have the bandwidth to start dating anyone right now. If she had asked me out, I would have hurt the one person who liked me, the only person I could actually talk to.