Battle of Wills
Han Ki-ju knocked back three stiff drinks in quick succession, then spoke.
"I came here to have a good time, you know? Like last time. But if I'm the owner, does that mean I can't?"
Kim Namhu thought it over for a moment.
Rich or poor, every person carried some kind of lack. Some could fill that emptiness on their own. Others never could.
Han Ki-ju was a woman who could not resolve her own deficiency. In that sense, she was not so different from Ha Ji-yeon. A woman who, if you recognized that lack first and filled it for her, could become an excellent regular.
But in the end, she's still the boss.
That position made everything between them awkward. And Namhu knew exactly what kind of woman Han Ki-ju was.
Ha Ji-yeon, at the very least, had enough brains to land a prosecutor husband and choose a comfortable life on her family's money. Han Ki-ju did not even have that. She had desire, but no idea how to satisfy it. She could read other people well enough—she simply never saw herself clearly. A woman who would thrash about, swept along by her own appetites, until she died young of liver cancer.
In short, a stupid woman.
He had no particular wish to drag out a long relationship with someone like that. There were many reasons he had started working as a host at The Queen, and Han Ki-ju being the owner was not one of them.
In my last life, we barely crossed paths.
Back then, when Namhu had worked at The Queen, he had not been a host anyone noticed. The two of them had hardly ever run into each other—just the occasional glimpse at a company dinner. Namhu had been too busy looking after himself, and Han Ki-ju had never spared a thought for one host among many.
But the more I succeed, the more history keeps rewriting itself.
Originally, he had never intended to build anything deep with her. Yet she kept coming on so aggressively, and knowing her future the way he did, he found himself paying attention whether he wanted to or not.
After a stretch of deliberation, Namhu spoke.
"Then how about this."
"What?"
"I can't sit and drink with you. If I did, my liver would be wrecked. Instead, I'll hang out with you like a friend."
"A friend?"
"I can't treat the boss like a customer. But I can be friends with the boss."
"Does that even make sense?"
"There are plenty of bosses and employees out there who really are friends."
They were the same age, after all. If they wanted to be friends, they could be.
Becoming friends with a silver-spoon heiress won't be easy…
But if it failed, the one left wanting would be Han Ki-ju. Namhu decided he might as well try. He had nothing to lose.
No one had ever spoken to her like this before. The idea of becoming friends with a host she employed actually sounded fun.
"Fine. No—we're friends, so let's drop the formal talk. Yeah. Let's do that."
Namhu smiled.
"Then call it a night for now. Friends don't show up at their friend's host bar to hang out. We'll set a time later and go out properly."
"Yeah? So when do you get off today? I'll wait."
Namhu sighed. Of course this silver spoon had no idea how exhausted a person was after clocking out.
"Do you have any idea how hard host work is? You spend the whole night catering to this woman and that woman, sipping drinks the whole time, and by the end everyone looks like a zombie."
"Oh. Really? Sorry."
At least she wasn't a bad person. When Namhu explained something carefully, she actually listened.
"I'll leave a little early tonight. Just this once. Hanging out after work is a one-time thing."
"So what time?"
"I still have to work until two. That's when most of the customers come in."
Han Ki-ju nodded. They exchanged phone numbers.
Two o'clock arrived.
Namhu had already cleared it ahead of time that he would be leaving early. At that hour, new customers rarely poured in, so anyone who wanted to clock out could usually manage it without much trouble. Besides, Namhu kept bringing in steady sales through his regulars and handled the basic host work well enough that no senior was going to give him grief for ducking out early.
He checked his phone to see where Han Ki-ju was and what she was doing. She was killing time at a nearby café. When he got there, she had piled the table with snacks she wasn't even eating and was watching a drama on her phone. The moment Namhu sat down across from her, she looked up and smiled.
"Work rough today?"
"Not too many customers, so it was manageable."
"Yeah? That's good."
"Is the owner allowed to say that? It's your shop."
Namhu gave her a light scolding, and Han Ki-ju just laughed easily.
"So what should we do? Drinking's out, right?"
Obviously. Drinking was his job, and he lived on hangover cures the way other people lived on vitamins. The last thing he wanted was to drink on top of that while hanging out with a friend.
"What do kids our age even do for fun these days?"
Even Namhu only had fragmentary knowledge of how men and women around college age actually spent their free time. His upbringing had seen to that.
"Drink. Game. Amusement parks, karaoke. That about covers it."
"Wow. That's really nothing."
Han Ki-ju had money. The kind of money where, if she suddenly craved ramen, she could buy a plane ticket to Japan on the spot. Ordinary amusements barely registered. Right now, only one thing held her interest—the host who seemed completely unmoved by her wealth. Kim Namhu.
She made a sudden, unexpected proposal.
"Want to go have sex?"
"What?"
"Sex. What, you don't like sex?"
Of course he liked sex. If he hated it, he never would have chosen to be a host.
"Are kids these days just this shameless now?"
Even the women who came to host bars rarely propositioned someone that bluntly. Only the truly starved ajummas behaved like that.
Han Ki-ju answered as if it were nothing.
"These days people call it friends with benefits—guy friends and girl friends who sleep together. There's even a phrase for it: sex first, date later. Friends can have sex. Is there a better way to get to know someone than mixing bodies?"
Sex first, date later—try the sex, then start dating. Namhu had heard of people like that, but this was the first time he had met a woman who actually used the phrase out loud.
He thought it over, then said,
"Fair enough. There's no law against friends having sex. But are you sure you're okay with that? It'd be a real problem if you caught feelings for me afterward."
Han Ki-ju burst out laughing. She was a beautiful twenty-one-year-old. Even without the silver-spoon pedigree, she could walk into any club and have a one-night stand with whoever she wanted. To her, sex was just another game. The idea of falling for someone over it was absurd.
"Are you any good?"
"I've never heard anyone say I'm not."
They headed straight for a nearby motel. Namhu paid. If this had been a client, the client would have covered it—but if it was sex between friends, it looked better for the man to handle the first bill.
The moment they stepped into the room, Han Ki-ju latched onto his upper body and kissed his neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark.
"Nnh."
She admired the hickey she had made.
"I like sex a lot. But most guys can't satisfy me, so you'd better put in the work."
On nights when her libido boiled over, she went to clubs, picked out the man with the best body, and took him home. A well-built guy at least stood a decent chance of having the stamina to make it worthwhile. By her standards, Namhu did not fit the type. He was lean and wore clothes well, but there was something almost fragile-looking about him.
She dropped to her knees in front of him at once and stripped off his pants and underwear.
"I was working, you know. I sweated quite a bit. Wouldn't a shower first be better?"
"No. I like that smell too."
Han Ki-ju took his cock into her mouth in one go. It was better than she had expected—thick enough to fill her completely. She worked her tongue over him with eager focus, and between strokes she asked the things she was curious about.
"You've got regulars, right? So if you need sex, you can get it whenever?"
"Something like that."
If he let the blowjob continue like this, he was going to finish in her mouth on the first round. Namhu pulled her up. Han Ki-ju looked at him, curious what he would do next.
He pushed up her top and bra and began kneading her breasts.
"Mmm. You're good at this."
Namhu was no longer a man starved for sex. Whenever he wanted it, there were regulars ready to open their legs for him.
But this really is different from sleeping with a regular.