An Outing
“Yeah, the cool weather feels nice.”
Hyun-soo answered with a smile and took a sip of his coffee.
“Those two up ahead look like a couple, don’t they?”
The silhouettes of the couples walking ahead stretched long under the streetlights. The outline of a man holding a woman’s hand overlapped with the lights glittering on the Han River. Jung Na-yeon watched them and answered briefly.
“Looks that way.”
Her voice was calm, but her gaze stayed fixed on their clasped hands. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had walked hand in hand with her husband. She didn’t know when it had started, but the fact that she could no longer recall the feeling meant it had already lost all meaning.
Then a warm touch wrapped around her left hand.
Jung Na-yeon’s steps stopped.
The body heat slipping between her fingers touched her skin more clearly than the night wind. The sound of her heart pounding against her ribs rang louder than the river. She lowered her head and looked down at their joined hands. Her own hand had disappeared completely inside Hyun-soo’s broad palm.
Jung Na-yeon did not pull away.
Instead she tightened her fingers and gripped his hand firmly.
The left hand holding the Americano cup trembled faintly, but the right hand that held his stayed solid.
“It’s warm…”
She managed only those words. Whether she meant the wind or his hand, even she couldn’t tell.
“Right?”
The tips of his ears flushed red again under the streetlight. He turned his gaze to the surface of the Han River while biting the coffee straw, but he couldn’t hide the way the corners of his mouth lifted.
The two of them walked the riverside path in silence. The couple ahead sat down on a bench, and Na-yeon and Hyun-soo passed them, heading deeper in. Still holding his hand, she gradually shortened her stride, as if she wished the path would never end. The rainbow fountain on Banpo Bridge lit up, pouring colored light across the water. Na-yeon stopped and leaned against the railing. She tilted her head lightly against Hyun-soo’s shoulder and whispered.
“Let’s stay a little longer. Right here.”
“Shall we?”
“Mm…”
The pulse beating between their laced fingers was racing in both of them.
Hyun-soo smiled and took another sip of his iced Americano without letting go of her hand.
“Do you think we look like a couple too?”
His question rode the river wind and struck Na-yeon’s ears. The shoulder she had been leaning against the railing twitched. Unconsciously she tightened her grip on his hand.
Her heart hammered wildly inside her ribs.
A married woman and her tenant.
The words of reality flashed through her mind, yet she stared at the rainbow light shattering across the Han River’s surface and parted her lips.
“We might.”
She tried to say it evenly, but the end of her voice trembled and scattered on the wind.
Na-yeon took a sip of her iced Americano.
The cool coffee slid down her throat, but the heat in her face would not fade.
She set the cup on the railing with her free hand and turned her head to look up at Hyun-soo’s profile. The streetlight painted his face gently, and the clothes she herself had chosen for him made him look handsome no matter who saw him.
The man I made.
The thought made her heart race all over again.
“I hope we do…”
Na-yeon murmured softly.
“Sorry?”
“Nothing.”
Her voice was so quiet that Hyun-soo didn’t catch it properly.
“Keep dressing like that from now on. You look so good.”
She tossed out the light words with a smile, but unease mixed into that smile.
Was it all right for a married woman to feel this way? Was it all right to keep holding this hand? She had left her wedding ring on the vanity that morning. She hadn’t done it consciously. Or maybe she had. She realized that Hyun-soo’s fingers were filling the empty place on her left ring finger. The realization made the corners of her eyes burn.
Na-yeon rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.
The night wind blowing off the Han River tousled both their hair together.
“You know what, though.”
“Yes?”
“Whether we look like a couple or not doesn’t matter. Because this moment right now feels good.”
Their pulses beat in unison between their joined fingers. The Banpo Bridge fountain went dark, then lit again, painting a fresh rainbow on the water.
Without opening her eyes, Na-yeon wrapped his hand more deeply in hers.
“I’d rather we looked like a couple, though.”
Hyun-soo’s fingers sliding between hers made her heart pound hard.
He had interlaced their fingers.
It was on a completely different level from simply holding hands.
Something only lovers did.
Na-yeon flinched, then came back to herself. The forehead that had been resting on his shoulder lifted as she turned her head. Under the streetlight the interlaced fingers of their two hands showed clearly. She stared down at those hands and could not look away.
She barely held back the moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes.
“You’re really bold.”
Na-yeon said in a trembling voice.
“If you’re going to hold hands, you should do it properly.”
Properly.
Her chest seemed to beat even harder.
She had no intention of unlacing their fingers.
Instead she slowly stroked the back of his hand with her thumb.
It was an unconscious motion, yet she knew better than anyone what it meant. Had her heart raced like this on her first date with her husband ten years ago? She couldn’t remember.
Na-yeon turned from the railing and began walking the path again, their interlaced hands hanging quietly between them without swinging.
A jogger glanced at them as he passed; a young couple coming the other way brushed by. Na-yeon was aware of those eyes yet still did not let go.
Instead she pressed closer to Hyun-soo until their arms were completely flush. The heat of his forearm seeping through was hotter and more certain than the night wind.
After walking a long while, Na-yeon stopped first.
It was a spot under the cherry-tree streetlights where moonlight poured through bare branches that had not yet formed even flower buds. She looked up into Hyun-soo’s eyes.
“This way we definitely look like a couple, right?”
She whispered it with a smile.
The corners of her eyes curved, and the streetlight flashed.
After walking hand in hand like lovers, they returned to the car.
“Doesn’t it feel too soon to just go back like this?”
Hyun-soo, seatbelt already fastened in the passenger seat, spoke again.
“How about we drive somewhere with a pretty Seoul night view and rest a bit before heading home? Listening to quiet music.”
Na-yeon’s hand, about to turn the key in the ignition, froze while still gripping it.
Too soon.
That single word read her heart so precisely it was as if he had looked straight into it.
The afterimage of the fingers they had unlaced on the riverside path still lingered on her left hand.
If she took the wheel, that warmth would vanish, so she unconsciously curled her fingers.
Night view, the inside of a car, quiet music.
Every word Hyun-soo spoke struck a married woman’s chest dead center.
Na-yeon glanced at the rearview mirror.
In the glass, her own eyes were already answering.
“A night view…”
She murmured as if to herself and touched the navigation screen.
Her finger hovered over the search bar, then typed in Bukak Skyway. The estimated time was over thirty minutes.
“I know a place. You can see all of downtown Seoul from there.”
Her voice sounded natural, but strength had entered the hands gripping the wheel.
She didn’t want him to notice how excited she was.
As the car left the riverside road and headed north, Na-yeon connected the Bluetooth and put on music. Soft sound filled the speakers. The car’s interior was wrapped in the gentleness of the song.
Outside the window, Seoul’s lights slid past.
Not bad at all.
Hyun-soo found nothing about the situation unpleasant.
When they finally parked at the overlook lot, the entire city of Seoul spread out at their feet.
The red lights of Namsan Tower, the yellow glow of the Gwanghwamun area, even the blue silhouette of Lotte Tower in Jamsil far away.
Na-yeon left the engine running and slid her seat back one notch.
The ballad flowing from the speakers wrapped the car’s interior.
She gazed at the night view beyond the window, then slowly turned her head to look at Hyun-soo.
“I’ve never even come here with my husband.”
She herself knew the weight carried in that single sentence.
It meant she was sharing a first with him.
“Really? It’s my first time too… but surprisingly there aren’t many cars tonight.”
He looked around at the tinted view outside; there were indeed far fewer vehicles than expected.
The parking lot was quiet.
Only the nightscape of downtown Seoul glittered and poured through the windshield.
The melody of the ballad from the speakers set the mood.
“Na-yeon…”
She kept her hand resting on the console box and heard his voice call her name.
The moment she heard “Na-yeon,” the atmosphere inside the car seemed to shift into something strange and charged.
She did not answer.
Instead she slowly turned her head and met Hyun-soo’s eyes.
The soft glow of the dashboard lights revealed the line of his jaw and his face.