Deception
“Hmm, I wonder~?”
Lee Eun-byul answered with a sly little smile. Soft lighting filled the bar and cast shadows across her face. She was still wearing her baseball cap.
I clicked my tongue at the sight of her.
Tch.
It was a maddeningly evasive answer. Whether she genuinely didn’t know or was only pretending not to, I personally leaned toward the latter. From everything I’d seen of her today, her instincts were anything but ordinary. There was no way she didn’t understand why I was asking. And if she was still playing dumb… maybe she simply didn’t want to answer. Whatever she was scheming, I couldn’t tell.
Just then, Lee Eun-byul stood up from her seat. She checked her phone, then offered me an awkward smile.
“Ah, oppa, sorry. I’m gonna run to the bathroom real quick… hehe.”
She clutched her stomach as she rose. I knew exactly what that gesture meant.
“Yeah, yeah, go ahead.”
It wasn’t the kind of subject you pressed someone on, so I nodded right away. A stomachache was a stomachache. Best to just let her go.
She headed toward the counter on slightly unsteady feet. One bottle in, and the alcohol was clearly starting to hit her.
Ding-a-ling.
The clear glass door swung open and shut, the little bell above it ringing bright and clean. Lee Eun-byul vanished down the stairs below. Silence settled over the table at once.
“······.”
Sip.
I drank and watched her go.
“······Hoo.”
Lee Eun-byul stepped out of the shop and let out a breath. Cool night air met her the moment she hit the outdoors. She pulled off the baseball cap she’d been wearing and brushed her bangs aside. A crisp breeze swept through, cooling a mind already warming with drink.
The time was 9:12. It was that hour when people just heading into bars and people finishing parties and heading home still shared the same streets.
“Hey! Ji-eun’s buying tonight! Order the hell out of everything!”
“When the fuck did I say that.”
“Blaaaargh!”
“That’s exactly why I keep telling you to drink in moderation.”
A drunk street stretched out before her. People shouted and laughed as they passed; a few were even frying up kimchi pancakes against utility poles. Eun-byul watched for a moment, then lifted her phone. She punched in a familiar number and hit call.
The person on the other end was Yu Bo-ram.
Brrring… click.
The ringtone barely had time to sound before Bo-ram picked up—so fast it felt like she’d been waiting for the call.
The second the line connected, Yu Bo-ram’s voice came through.
"So? How’s it going? You reeling him in or what?"
She already knew Eun-byul was out drinking with Lee Se-won.
Eun-byul answered—expression blank, tone like it was nothing at all.
“Yeah. Ridiculously easy.”
Her head was already full of fifty thousand won.
…She’s taking forever.
Sip.
I nursed the soju in my glass and thought it over. Five minutes had already passed since Lee Eun-byul disappeared toward the bathroom, and there still wasn’t so much as a shadow of her.
Big one, maybe.
If it was a big one, sure, that would explain the wait… but it was still awkward as hell. Five minutes wasn’t that long, objectively. Alone at a table, though, it was more than enough time to feel like an idiot. Sitting by yourself in a bar… this wasn’t even a jazz club.
Which meant the women at the nearby tables were staring.
“Hey, look over there…”
“Oh… damn.”
It wasn’t pity, either—not the ugh, is that guy a loser? Why’s he alone? kind of look. If anything, the glances were interested. An izakaya’s warm atmosphere had a way of dressing people up. However it was working on me, it seemed to be giving off some kind of vibe.
“Mm…”
Even interested stares got awkward once there were enough of them. Under eyes that felt like they were taking me apart piece by piece, every little movement started to matter. I wasn’t even dressed revealingly today—I had a cardigan on over everything—and still those sidelong looks refused to leave.
This is so fucking awkward.
In the end I couldn’t take it and stood up.
Nope. Not doing this.
I figured I’d clear my head and empty the yellow liquid building up in my bladder while I was at it—a bathroom run.
Ding-a-ling.
The counter door rang clear and bright as it ushered me outside. Crossing a single door was all it took for the air to change completely. Cold air welcomed me. I let it wash over my skin for a moment, then thought,
Eun-byul went downstairs earlier, so…
The bathroom had to be down those stairs too. That was my assumption as I headed below.
Except—
“…Huh?”
There was no bathroom down there. Just an exit leading straight out of the building. Which meant the bathroom was up the other flight of stairs.
That left me with a question.
What the hell?
I’d clearly watched her go downstairs. Had I misseen it? No—that didn’t make sense. I wasn’t even that drunk. More than anything, I’d seen that blue baseball cap disappearing downward.
“······?”
A faint sense of wrongness settled over me, and I decided to wander a bit. My bladder could still wait, and I wanted to cool my head in the night air anyway. While I was at it, I could look for Eun-byul. If I didn’t find her, fine—by the time I looped back, she’d probably be at the table again.
I was walking without any real destination when I found her trail sooner than expected.
“…Hey, so how’d you reel him in? Spill.”
“I barely did anything.”
From behind a street corner came a familiar girl’s voice. Two voices, actually.
“I just kept smiling and reacting, and he started responding?”
“That’s seriously all? Don’t bullshit me.”
At the laughter threaded through both voices, I stopped walking. The vibe said I shouldn’t go any farther, so I only craned my neck around the corner for a look.
Behind it, Lee Eun-byul was talking with another girl. The other one was Yu Bo-ram. I still didn’t know most of the class that well, but I knew her—she was the one always yelling for 5v5 customs.
She said she was going to the bathroom?
Something felt off. I pressed myself against the wall behind the corner. Why was the girl who’d claimed a bathroom trip standing here, and where had this friend suddenly come from? None of it made sense.
The two of them kept talking, completely unaware I existed.
“No, for real. Near the end oppa asked why I’d brought him to a bar, all loaded with this interested vibe… haah, I felt it right then.”
“What the… a guy drops his guard in two days?”
“Hehe. You better have that fifty thousand ready.”
Eun-byul said it with a sly grin; Bo-ram grumbled back.
Fifty thousand?
I tilted my head. What were they even talking about, and what was this sudden fifty thousand won?
I leaned in a little harder and listened.
“Turns out Se-won sunbae’s an easy guy. I figured just getting him out for drinks would take four months.”
“Heh. That’s how insane my charm is.”
“Bullshit.”
Their conversation rolled on. I’d come in midway, so I didn’t have the whole picture, but the rough shape of it was clear enough. The two of them had made some kind of bet about me. Money was on the line over whether Eun-byul could seduce me.
My mood soured on the spot.
These little…
They were treating me like some challenge. Hearing other people talk about you somewhere you weren’t supposed to be was never a pleasant feeling.
“Still, he hasn’t confessed yet. You’re not getting that Shin Saimdang bill.”
“It’s basically mine already, though?”
“You’ve gotta see a game through to the end, you asshole. The year’s not over yet.”
Yu Bo-ram swore and sighed. The thought of fifty thousand won in pure cash flying out the window seemed to genuinely hurt her. She stayed quiet a moment, then asked something else.
“…So what are you gonna do if he confesses?”
“Huh?”
“If he confesses, are you gonna date him? Be honest—Se-won sunbae’s hot. He’s more than dateable.”
At that, I pricked up my ears again.
…Yeah?
Honestly, being the subject of a bet still pissed me off. It felt like I’d been played, and my face wanted to twist. But if it meant I could actually date her?
Thinking it over again… it didn’t seem so bad. A girl on Lee Eun-byul’s level was the kind I never could have even approached in my old life. And now I could get her just by confessing first? Even if the dating came with the greasy stain of a bet attached, wasn’t that still a win for me?
More than anything, this was a world where male and female libido had been flipped. The one coaxing things toward bed first might very well be Eun-byul. In that case… maybe we could even skip ahead to sex pretty fast?
…! Sex!
A confession alone as a high-pass straight to sex! In other words, getting laid! Actually having sex! For me, that wasn’t just someone spoon-feeding me—it was them setting the whole table. If she was open to dating, there was zero reason not to confess.
But then—
“Mm… nah, I’d probably turn the confession down.”
“Huh? Why?”
Why the fuck!
I almost shouted it out loud.