2. First Date, My First Love Grew Up Beautifully, So Let's Devour Her.
2. First Date, My First Love Grew Up Beautifully, So Let's Devour Her.
"That girl walking by, that's the famous Seo Mi-na. The Nammun Middle School goddess, Seo Mi-na. What a coincidence to see her here."
The province where I spent my student days was a fairly large city.
So there were many schools,
But when it came to Seo Mi-na from Nammun Middle, she was such a hot topic that even people who had never seen her face knew her name.
"Wow..."
Why? Because she was fucking pretty.
Naturally, I was curious too.
Just how pretty could she be?
Rumors always get exaggerated, don't they?
Saying she's prettier than a celebrity,
Or that she glows when you see her in person.
I'd never been the subject of a rumor, but as a consistent consumer of them, I wanted to do a proper fact-check.
"Seong-cheol, you were right... There's something different about her vibe. It's like she was copied from a different screen. Hah... she's fucking pretty."
Verification results: there was zero exaggeration.
They weren't false listings; they were genuine, honest-to-goodness sources.
We're both in 9th grade, but her aura is just different.
I'd even say she's on a different dimension.
There were several other pretty girls nearby, but it was to the point where you wouldn't even notice them, thinking, "Was she there too?"
The beauty of Seo Mi-na, whom I saw from afar after my middle school friend Seong-cheol pointed her out, was that overwhelming.
"But aren't the kids with her the Nammun Middle delinquents?"
"Right. They say Seo Mi-na transferred in during 8th grade, and she's been hanging out with the delinquents since the end of last year."
Why were there several less pretty kids next to a pretty kid?
Because it was a delinquent group.
Seo Mi-na was also a delinquent belonging to that group.
So, the additional rumors I heard about Seo Mi-na, besides that she was fucking pretty, weren't very positive.
Of course, I couldn't verify her behavior, so I just dismissed it as hearsay.
My philosophy was to keep it in neutral gear until I experienced a person's behavior myself.
Then, not long after, an opportunity arose to decide whether or not to shift out of neutral.
'Holy shit, Seo Mi-na is sitting next to me.'
I entered high school,
And not only was Seo Mi-na, who came to the same Dongmyeong High, in my class, but a miraculous coincidence unfolded where we were seated as desk partners.
"Wake me up when the teacher comes."
"Ah, yeah. Okay, Mi-na."
Because of that, the Seo Mi-na I observed from the side for about a month and a half was as follows.
'The rumors were just rumors. She just hangs out with delinquents, that's all, nothing else?'
I heard she was a loose cannon, but that was far from the feeling.
'If anything, she's closer to a model student. Especially inside school.'
She studied very well and didn't skip class.
She didn't smell like cigarettes at all, either.
Unlike other delinquent kids who basically wear makeup, she was always bare-faced.
Maybe her closest friends just happened to be delinquents; she just killed time with them, that's all.
"Why are you staring so intently? Is there something on my face?"
"Just... looking at your face makes time go by fast, Tae-yang."
However, a trait I felt separate from that was the fact that she had a significant streak of being a weirdo.
Her eyes alone weren't the eyes of a pure high school freshman.
"What is that you're drawing?"
"My heart looking at that Agrippa."
You might ask how I could be sure of that in just a month and a half, but it wasn't difficult.
We both had a hobby in art, so we both applied to the Art Club.
Seo Mi-na's art world was excessively intense.
"Oh? Tae-yang, do you work part-time here?"
Furthermore, her persistence was also significant.
And from a certain point on, I became the target of that persistence.
"Yeah. It's been about a month. This is all 25,000 won."
My parents passed away early, and I lived alone with my grandmother.
In that situation, since my grandmother worked from 2 PM to 10 PM, I also worked part-time after school until 9:40 PM before going home.
But one day, Mi-na came to the convenience store where I worked part-time with other delinquent friends.
"A month..."
Mi-na's eyes, upon learning about my part-time job, looked full of curiosity.
"Why weren't you at the convenience store?"
"The convenience store?"
"I went to the convenience store where you work at eight yesterday, but you weren't there."
"Ah~!"
A week after that incident, Mi-na reportedly stopped by the convenience store again.
Judging by the nuance, it seemed she stopped by specifically because I was there.
"I changed my part-time job. To a cafe."
"You changed it? When?"
"It's only been a few days. The convenience store kept going past 10 o'clock. Besides, the owner of the cafe I'm at now knows my grandmother. I used the acquaintance card, and she agreed to pay me a higher hourly wage."
But I wasn't there at that time.
Because I had found a better part-time job.
"Hmm... a cafe...!"
However, the move to the cafe part-time job made me feel Seo Mi-na's persistence with my whole body.
"Why did you come here?"
"Why do you ask? I came as a customer."
From a few days later, Mi-na started following me on my way home from school,
And eventually, she even sat herself down at my part-time cafe.
"Weren't you supposed to hang out with your friends after school?"
"I have my reasons. Don't mind me, just work hard at your part-time job."
And she did it alone.
Without bringing a single one of the delinquent friends she used to hang out with.
"Aha... so that's why?"
That situation led to me accompanying her to the bus stop she takes after my cafe shift ended.
When that had been going on for about two weeks,
The reason Mi-na had been hanging out with the delinquent kids was revealed.
"I didn't like being home alone after school, so I hung out with the kids, but my mom in Seoul found out and was really worried."
Mi-na's main home is in Seoul, and her father works in the province.
Her father and mother don't have a good relationship,
But Mi-na said she came down in 8th grade because she thought her father would be lonely on his own.
However, at some point, her father's return time started getting later and later, and Mi-na started having more time alone.
She needed people to spend that time with, and in the end, it was the delinquent friends.
"So I'm trying. Please cooperate with me. Thanks to that, Mom's voice on the phone has gotten brighter lately."
"If that's the reason. I don't really have any reason to refuse."
In other words, Mi-na's point was that I had appeared as a relatively wholesome way to kill time.
'Hmm... I heard she came from a very wealthy family, so I guess it was true.'
By being in the same high school and being desk partners, I acquired information about Seo Mi-na that I hadn't known before.
Information other than the fact that she was a weirdo.
For instance, Mi-na's father runs a business in the province,
And her mother runs an art-related business in Seoul.
Not just any business, but a business in the range of well over 100 billion won,
She's the daughter of an excessively wealthy family.
Mi-na's nuance right now confirmed that that information wasn't a lie.
"What did the owner say to you earlier? I saw him glancing at me too."
"He asked if you were my girlfriend."
"And?"
"I just said we were friends."
"Idiot."
Like that, we shared about three hours a day for about half a year, which was a rather mysterious time.
It was a time when many conversations were exchanged, and the memories are still so vivid that if asked to talk about them, the stories would flow right out.
"Tae-yang. You're so poor and you only have your grandmother to rely on. Doesn't that make it hard? Don't you resent the world or get angry?"
Then one day, Seo Mi-na asked a question that was not only very cheeky but also direct.
Look at the way she speaks, pouring out facts without hesitation while mentioning poverty to me, despite being rich herself.
"Ah... I see. That could be the case."
However, there was no wavering in me.
Since middle school, I had already been satisfied just with being born with a healthy body.
I just needed to live and function well as a human being with this body.
Of course, I didn't answer like that to Seo Mi-na.
Anyway, at my sincere answer given calmly about other content,
Mi-na seemed to accept it, nodded with a mysterious smile, and got on the bus.
'She disappeared with the wind.'
That was the last time I actually saw Mi-na.
Because not long after, Mi-na transferred to Seoul.
'Looks like her phone number changed?'
We spent quite a bit of time together, but I didn't text Mi-na often.
We weren't the type to text much in the first place,
But at least when Mi-na's father came home much later than usual, she would text me occasionally.
Even after she transferred, texts came sporadically,
But at some point, the time without texts became long, and when I tried calling, I found out Mi-na's number had changed.
'Yeah, that's how it is, everyone goes their own way in their own world.'
I could have tried to contact her with the information I knew about Seo Mi-na, like SNS.
But I gave up. Because that seemed like the natural order of things.
After making that decision, the existence of Seo Mi-na also gradually drifted far away from my consciousness.
'Seo Mi-na! That's right... Now that I think about it, it's definitely Seo Mi-na!'
But then, about 6 years passed, and we met again.
Leaving some provincial city, inside a cozy cafe on the outskirts of Seoul.
"Looks like you remember. I knew as soon as I saw you."
Heh...!
As I seemed to have remembered, Mi-na slightly raised the corners of her mouth and looked satisfied.
It felt like if I hadn't recognized her any further here, she would have been very offended.
"Oh, yeah! I remember, Mi-na. Seo Mi-na. My desk partner in 1st year of high school!"
I was glad. My feelings were complicated, but she was a friend I could call my first love.
And by my standards, the loss of contact wasn't such a bad feeling either.
So I responded with a bright smile.
"What? Do you really know her, Tae-yang?"
"Yes, Hyung. She's a classmate from the provincial high school I attended. Her original home was in Seoul."
"I, I see...!"
Myeong-ho hyung was shocked once again.
Myeong-ho hyung, who had been sending suspicious glances, thinking, "No way, you really know each other?"
This must be the reaction created when the "no way" turned out to be true.
At my detailed additional information that followed, Myeong-ho hyung accepted it with deep regret.
"Nice to see you, Mi-na! To think we'd see each other again like this! This is my workplace superior, Myeong-ho hyung."
"Hello, Ms. Mi-na. My name is Yu Myeong-ho. I hadn't heard that Tae-yang had such a pretty female friend, hahahat!"
"Yes, hello."
I, who expressed my gladness, introduced my companion Myeong-ho hyung to Mi-na.
Myeong-ho hyung's eyes, hoping for an introduction, were desperate.
Myeong-ho hyung's long-winded self-PR unfolded,
And the Seo Mi-na-style short-answer response, which I had forgotten for 6 years but remembered immediately upon tasting it, greeted Myeong-ho hyung.
"It seems you have plans with your senior, but actually, I have to go now too. Tae-yang, give me your phone."
After glancing slightly at Myeong-ho hyung, Seo Mi-na, who fixed her gaze back on me, demanded my phone.
"You're not busy this evening, right?"
"Nothing to be busy with."
"Then I'll text you."
After entering her number into my phone and making a call, Mi-na handed it back with a cool-vibrating force.
"This makes no sense... This is an absurd thing..."
"......"
Seo Mi-na walking out of the cafe exuding an overwhelming aura,
Myeong-ho hyung was blatantly shaking his head, denying reality,
And I watched Mi-na without a word.
[It's me.]
After eating dinner with Myeong-ho hyung, I returned to my semi-basement room around 10 o'clock.
And a little more time passed, around 11 PM, I got a text from Mi-na.
[Oh! I finished all my plans and just got home a little while ago. Did you get home okay?]
[Yeah.]
After taking a refreshing shower, I lay down on my bedding.
Actually, in the middle of eating dinner with Myeong-ho hyung, I debated whether to text her first, but I just gave up.
[Are you busy tomorrow?]
Mi-na's question about whether I was busy tomorrow felt like she wanted to make plans if I wasn't.
[I only work on weekdays and I'm off for two days in a row, Saturday and Sunday. I'm not busy.]
[Ah, so you're working?]
With my answer just now, Mi-na must have realized my situation of jumping straight into the front lines of life without going to college.
[Then you can meet me tomorrow. Let's see each other.]
Thus, Mi-na threw out a meeting appointment without any preamble.
'Mi-na was more of a person of action than text or phone calls, though...'
I was also very glad to be reunited with Mi-na after 6 years, so I naturally accepted.
After that, I tried to sleep late at night, but various thoughts came to mind.
Mi-na's nuance of wanting to make plans? It's because for some reason, it felt like whatever she had to say would come out.
Looking at it so far, it seems like Mi-na's personality hasn't changed much from high school.
Dopamine is already surging at what kind of story will come out.
[I'm planning to take the subway. If I go now, it'll take about an hour, right?]
[Really? Then I'll come pick you up.]
Since it was a holiday, I slept in until noon, then ate a late lunch and received Mi-na's text.
She said she had booked a cafe.
Since it's quite a distance from where I live, she asked how I was going to get there, so I said I'd take the subway.
'Hmm... Seo Mi-na driving...'
Even back then, she was from a family wealthy enough to be called a diamond spoon, and now, even Myeong-ho hyung, who was called a young master, would have to yield a few steps, so having her own car must be a given.
But it doesn't feel real.
Because she was Seo Mi-na, who walked to the bus stop with me almost every day during high school.
'If it's a place that takes reservations, it must be quite a luxurious place.'
So I told her the area near my house, and while heading to the pickup spot on time, I straightened my clothes.
One of the scoldings I get from Myeong-ho hyung is,
"You've come to such a nice place, what's with the state of your clothes?"
Back then, I just mumbled that I was dressing according to my means, but since the other person is Mi-na, I feel like I need to pay attention.
'Whoa...!'
But when I arrived at the meeting place near my house, a scene unfolded that made my efforts to clean up and look nice feel like a waste.
'Isn't that a Porsche??'
Stumble!!
I discovered Seo Mi-na, who had parked the car, gotten out, and was waiting for me while sitting on the bumper.
Her haughty and charismatic appearance,
That in itself is clearly amazing.
But the fact that the car she drove was a Porsche Panamera made my footsteps freeze on their own.
How do I know it's a Panamera? Since I had to match Myeong-ho hyung's car hobby, I had quite a few things imprinted in my head too.
After that, I, Geum Tae-yang, approached her unable to control my wide-eyed expression,
"Get in."
Perhaps thanks to Myeong-ho hyung's great lecture, this one word from Mi-na, which was so cool it was beyond plain, hit me with a lot of impact.