The Cardigan
The evening streets were alive. Once the day's grind was over, working people poured out into the night like a dam had broken.
Sometimes it was teenagers, freshly sprung from school, hopping between restaurants and karaoke rooms. Other times it was office workers, riding the never-ending after-work dinner train. And sometimes it was college students, determined to burn through their youth, tearing through downtown.
All manner of desires and emotions collided and mixed on a single street. In a way, downtown was a monster that fed on desire itself. And right now, we were exploring the belly of that beast.
Surprisingly, this monster's stomach wasn't lined with blood and gastric walls — it was packed with delicious food and fun things to do.
Seven o'clock in the evening. We were currently wandering around looking for a bar.
"Oppa, I found a really good pocha."
A bright, cheerful voice rang out from ahead of me. It was Lee Eun-byul. Walking out in front, she looked like she was in high spirits — her steps were light, her voice pitched higher than usual.
Well, the evening streets had a way of stirring something up all on their own. The latest pop songs spilling out of storefronts, people milling about in every direction. The energy of people who'd come out for no reason other than to have fun had a way of seeping into the air itself. Even I was in a slightly elevated mood.
First drink in almost ten days, huh.
I'd mentioned this before. I was pretty fond of drinking. That particular haze that settled in after a few glasses — the floaty, loosened feeling — always sat well with me. It also wiped my cluttered mind clean and short-circuited logical thought, which had the handy side effect of blocking out stray thoughts before they could take root.
I was a fundamentally negative person. Left to my own devices, idle thinking tended to spiral toward the gloomy, and alcohol was what put a stop to that. Which was why I drank fairly often even when I was alone. And yet lately, I hadn't touched a drop.
I'd just been too busy. Drinking required both money and time, after all. Between commissions and school, there'd been so much on my plate that alcohol had naturally fallen by the wayside. On top of that, I needed to start planning the comic I'd be uploading to my Pinbox supporter account, so my brain was already overflowing with things to think about.
Shutting down my thought process with alcohol in a situation like that? Under normal circumstances, that would be a terrible idea.
Honestly, I'm busy today too, but...
So what. How was a person supposed to live on efficiency alone? Even machines overheated if you ran them too hard. People needed at least twice as much rest as that. Sometimes you just needed to let your head cool off.
And separately from all that, it had been a while since I'd seen Eun-byul. I'd been using the whole push-and-pull excuse to dodge meeting up for almost a week now. So tonight's plans had a few different reasons mixed in.
...And maybe that thin outfit of hers was one of them, too.
"Come on up this way."
We arrived at our destination, and she pointed a finger toward the third floor. A sign reading 1944 hung above the entrance — that had to be the name of the place.
She went up the stairs first, and I followed behind her. Thump, thump. The sound of our shoes hitting the steps rang out thinly. When I lifted my gaze, Eun-byul's backside naturally filled my view.
The tight jeans clinging to her body left nothing to the imagination. Slim, well-trained thighs, and a pelvis that flared wide in contrast. That overwhelming rear view only grew more pronounced with every step she climbed.
"Ahem. Ahem..."
I turned my head away from the indecent sight. Quietly, I started reciting the national anthem in my head. Until the East Sea's waters and Mount Baekdu wear away... As the lyrics progressed, the turmoil in my mind seemed to fade, just a little.
Whew. I couldn't lose my reason. After holding my desires in check for nearly two weeks, there was no telling what would happen if I let go now.
In that sense, the cardigan she had on was an excellent restraint. It was a bit annoying that it covered her back, sure — but right now, that annoyance was actually working in my favor.
"After you."
Fortunately, there weren't many flights of stairs, so we reached the top quickly. Arriving at the entrance, she gestured inside with both hands like a shop attendant. Her own little joke of an escort.
I snorted a laugh at the sight and stepped inside. Then the interior came into view.
"Oh."
A short sound of admiration slipped out. The bar had a rather upscale feel. The overall atmosphere was dark, with soft lighting laid over everything. A small chandelier hanging in the center of the room and the smooth marble floor added a touch of luxury. Stylish enough, lively enough. Exactly the kind of bar I liked.
"Not bad."
"Right? The food here's really good, too."
She said it like she was showing off. From the way she talked, it sounded like she came here often with her friends. Well, she was the outgoing type — she'd probably been around.
We found a reasonably tucked-away spot and sat down. The center was too loud, and the far edges were too gloomy. A table two or three seats in from the corner was just right.
Once we sat down, conversation started up naturally. The first topic, of course, was a debate over drinks and food.
"What do you want to drink? They've got all kinds of soju here. Grapefruit soju, green grape soju... oh, there's mint soju too. Wanna try it?"
"That stuff? Even a dog wouldn't drink that."
"Dogs don't drink alcohol in the first place? Come on, what's the harm. It's about the experience. You never know, right? It might actually be good."
And so the order was settled: one spicy jjamppong stew, one plate of fried chicken skin, two bottles of regular soju. And one bottle of mint-choco soju... She actually went and ordered it. Eun-byul apparently had a strong adventurous streak.
"Wow, three bottles of soju right from the start. There's only two of us. Aren't we going a little hard out of the gate?"
"That's because you ordered the mint-choco soju. We can always slow down later."
"Don't you dare say the mint-choco soju is good."
And just like that, a casual drinking session got underway. The spicy aroma of the jjamppong stabbed into my nostrils. The savory scent of the fried chicken skin teased my taste buds. I cracked open a bottle and threw back a quick starter shot to settle my stomach.
Tasting the bitterness of the soju, I thought to myself:
Still, I should drink in moderation.
Of course, those words had never once been followed.
When the food was good and you had someone to talk to, glasses emptied themselves. A sip here, a sip there, conversation flowing in between — and before you knew it, a whole bottle was gone. Especially when the food was spicy and salty. You had to keep reaching for your glass just to soothe the fire building in your gut.
Why not just drink water?
No. Water was out of the question. Water was the kind of thing only gay people drank.
...Okay, look, people could drink whatever they wanted — but in this particular moment, drinking water absolutely made you gay.
The real turning point had been when Eun-byul first reached for the water and Se-won offhandedly shot back, What, you chicken? That was the big one. Chicken was a magic word. It could take someone who wasn't thinking anything at all and hoist them right up onto the fighting stage. From that point a small battle of pride took shape, and before long the formula had been established: drinking water = gay = lesbian.
Which brought them to the present. The two of them, knocking back drinks without a moment's rest, were now on their fourth bottle of soju.
No — four and a half, to be precise. They'd abandoned the mint-choco soju about halfway through, so four and a half was right. It really did taste awful. The peculiar bitterness of mint chocolate colliding with the bitterness of soju was enough to make your whole face crumple on its own. In the end they'd given up trying to force it down, and Eun-byul had agreed to cover the cost of the mint-choco bottle.
"Urgh..."
Se-won gave his head a vigorous shake. His skull itself felt heavy. The moment he let the tension out of his neck and closed his eyelids, his head would simply drop. Thought was going numb. His mind was turning hazy. His vision swam, and every so often his fingers looked like they had doubled.
He'd told himself he'd drink in moderation... but that was a hard rule to keep at a drinking table.
He'd been confident. Objectively speaking, Se-won could hold his liquor. His manageable limit was a solid two and a half bottles. To get anywhere close to blacking out, he'd have to put away at least three. In glasses alone, that was somewhere between seventeen and twenty-one shots. He'd been sure he could win this, sure he could last through a long session without getting drunk.
But maybe PE majors really were built different. Eun-byul was keeping pace with him almost evenly. They'd each put away about two and a quarter bottles. It already felt like half his stomach was sloshing with nothing but alcohol.
Eun-byul looked at Se-won with his head hanging and tossed out a line.
"Huh? What, you're done already? And here you were the one who asked if I was chicken."
The taunt punched straight through the haze in his skull. Even in the fog, the mockery came through loud and clear. And Se-won was not the kind of man who would sit still and take that kind of garbage.
"Hey now!"
He snatched up his soju glass and dumped it straight down his throat. Gulp, gulp. The cold alcohol slid down inside him like it had been greased.
"Where do you get off spouting that nonsense! I'm nowhere near done!"
Se-won thrust the empty glass high and bellowed. He might as well have been declaring to the room that he was still perfectly fine. Eun-byul took one look at him and burst out laughing. The contrast with his usual composed atmosphere was a delight all its own.
Inwardly, though, she was stunned.
He's insane...
They'd been drinking nonstop. He looked a little wound up, sure, but he was clearly still in possession of his faculties. His head drooped, but he wasn't passing out, and even if the occasional bit of nonsense slipped out, he was holding up his end of the conversation just fine.
Truth be told, she was drunk enough herself that any real judgment was impossible. Two bottles of soju was a heavy load for her, too. She was already hovering right around her limit. Another two or three glasses and she'd probably be gone — that was her guess. But she'd been challenged, and there was no sitting still after that.
Eun-byul followed his lead and knocked back her glass.
"...Khh."
The cold, bitter alcohol raced downward. What slid down her throat was ice-cold, and yet her head felt like it was only getting hotter. Maybe the day had warmed up too fast for anyone to adjust the air conditioning — the air itself felt strangely warm.
So, without thinking about it at all, she shrugged off the cardigan she'd been wearing.
"...Haaah."
A cool breeze brushed over newly exposed skin. A thin V-neck crop top came into full view, showing off the smooth skin beneath. At the sharp downward point of the V, the cleft between her breasts was laid bare.
Se-won, who had just lifted his head, found his eyes nailed in place.
Uh...
His gaze was pulled toward her cleavage as if by a magnet. With that thin layer of fabric peeled away, her figure was downright destructive. A clean set of abs etched into a well-kept stomach, breasts swollen to a generous size, a slender, curved hourglass body — all of it put on display at once.
In an instant, the blood rushed downward. A mind already paralyzed by alcohol had a habit of throwing reason out first. Into the emptied corners of his brain, instinct came flooding in, and instinct wasted no time summoning a raw, primitive desire.
Why were men so obsessed with breasts? Biologically speaking, they were nothing more than lumps of fat. Just overgrown mounds of flesh that happened to take the shape of water balloons. And men lost their minds over them anyway.
A scorching heat felt like it was swallowing his entire body. His blood was suddenly running hot, and the warmth spread through him in a wave. A chain reaction of heat. Wanting to cool his overheated head, even for a moment, Se-won pulled off his own cardigan this time.
The white short-sleeve tee he'd thrown on at home without much thought came into view.
And now it was Lee Eun-byul's turn to react.
...Huh?
Her gaze locked onto Se-won's body and stayed there, nailed in place.