Change (3)
"Juyeong?"
"H-huh?"
It was break time when a girl from my class—someone whose name I didn't even know—suddenly called out to me. She hadn't come alone, either. She'd dragged a whole cluster of friends along with her.
The unexpected approach left me stammering, but she pressed on as if she hadn't noticed at all.
"What's with the new hairstyle?"
"Oh... I just figured it was going to get hot soon, so..."
"Wow... why didn't you do this sooner? It looks way better now."
"Haha... yeah, I guess so..."
Having a girl I couldn't even name come over and compliment me left me scratching my cheek, feeling awkward. Not that the girls in front of me noticed. They were too busy looking me over from every angle.
"Have you thought about trying a different style?"
"I don't know. I don't think it'd really suit me."
"Aww, come on, just try it once. You never know, right?"
"Maybe if I get the chance later."
I was giving her halfhearted answers, wondering why they'd suddenly taken an interest, when a chill ran straight down my spine.
I glanced around, searching for the source—and my eyes met Yeonhee's, sitting in the seat right beside me. Alarm bells went off in my head.
Puffed-out cheeks. A sulky little pout. A glare, a scowl. All the usual signs of someone being jealous—and if that had been the extent of it, I could have written the whole thing off as cute.
Dead eyes.
Not even the ghost of a smile touched her face. A shadow seemed to hang over her features, and her pupils held not a single speck of light. It was a perfect window into what she was feeling right now.
I swallowed hard. The air around us seemed to have gone ice-cold, and a bead of sweat traced its way down my cheek.
"Hey. Does it feel like it suddenly got chilly in here?"
"Yeah, it does."
The girls in front of me started rubbing their arms and drifting back toward their seats.
"Juyeong, let's talk later, okay?"
"Uh... yeah. Okay."
Blissfully unaware of what they were leaving me to deal with, they headed off giggling among themselves and dumped the entire aftermath in my lap. I'd answered because she'd called my name, but the temperature seemed to have dropped even further. Maybe that hadn't been the right call.
The moment they disappeared, Yeonhee shot to her feet and came walking toward me, each footstep slow and deliberate. The closer she got, the more the air seemed to freeze—so much so that I could have sworn I was hallucinating the world behind her washing over in blue.
"Yeonhee...?"
I tried calling her name, just in case. She didn't answer.
And when the distance between us closed to nothing—
A voice so chilling it might as well have been cold mist spilling from her quietly parted lips.
"Y-yeah...?"
Thump. Thump. It wasn't excitement making my heart race. It was something far more primitive. Fear.
"Legs."
She didn't finish the sentence, but I knew exactly what she wanted. I snapped my thighs together. Without a word, she turned around and dropped herself onto my lap, and a flicker of light had already returned to her eyes.
The blank expression from a moment ago had given way to a sulky pout, and it wasn't long before her lips parted again.
"Hold me."
I did as I was told, sliding my arms under hers from behind. A faint flush colored her cheeks, and she started muttering under her breath.
"They treated you like you didn't even exist all this time... and now they suddenly take an interest, when you're mine..."
She was talking about me like I was a thing she owned. The sheer force of that possessiveness, that need to have me all to herself, made me think that if something like this ever happened again, I'd be in genuine trouble. And yet, at the same time, I couldn't help but smile.
"Change your hair back to how it was!"
"Isn't that a little unreasonable...?"
Yeonhee had suddenly started throwing a tantrum. I'd changed it specifically so I'd look better for someone—and now she wanted me to put it back? That seemed a bit much.
"I don't care! That's what's making the girls come over!"
"I used to look like this gloomy, washed-out kid, and then I suddenly changed. They're probably just staring because it's weird."
As if anyone would fall for me based on my looks. And that wasn't even the half of it. Anyone who heard about my family situation would run for the hills, even if they were already dating me. The only person in the world who'd accept someone like me was her.
I tightened my arms and pulled her closer.
"Want to go to the department store after school today?"
"...The department store?"
"Yeah. I figured I could use some clothes for the school trip."
"Yeah! Let's go!"
She must have been thrilled. All the jealousy from a moment ago vanished without a trace, and she started humming. Still—she really shouldn't have been bouncing around like that while sitting on a guy's lap. Most guys would drop dead from that.
Or wait. In a situation like this, would it be more accurate to say they'd come back to life?
"So, what kind of style do you like?"
"Nothing too flashy, I guess."
We were on the clothing floor of the department store, weaving through the men's section one shop at a time as Yeonhee picked things out for me herself.
Since I'd already decided to start taking care of my appearance, I figured I might as well pick up a few outfits while I was at it. Thinking back to the last time I'd opened my dresser at home, it had been a pitiful sight—nothing but the same kinds of clothes, over and over.
But if there happened to be someone nearby who actually dressed well and had a good eye? If I asked her for help, wouldn't she pick out clothes that would make both of us happy?
That was the idea, anyway.
The shutter clicked.
"Next."
It clicked again.
"Next."
"Um... Yeonhee?"
"What?"
"Could we take a little break...?"
I'd been in and out of the fitting room dozens of times. Yeonhee had piled my arms with not only spring and summer clothes, but autumn and winter pieces for seasons that hadn't even arrived yet, and I'd been trying them on one by one.
The first time I stepped out of the fitting room, she looked me up and down with a deadly serious expression, then pulled out her phone and started taking pictures. A dress shirt and chinos with a clean, formal feel. An oversized hoodie and cargo pants for something hip. A sweater and jeans for casual. I changed, and changed again, the shutter snapping over and over, until I'd become nothing more than Yeonhee's mannequin, running the same fashion show on repeat.
Apparently she just liked shopping—whether the clothes were for her or not didn't seem to matter.
I'd asked her to help, sure. But this was getting to be a bit much. A session at the gym would've been easier. It wasn't even winter yet, and I was standing there in winter clothes, starting to sweat. So I floated the idea of a short break.
"...I wanted to take more pictures, though."
Ma'am. The ones you've already taken would fill several pages of an album all by themselves.
Still, she must have noticed I was sweating, because she bought a few of the pieces she'd set aside and led us somewhere we could rest.
"Haa... I'm exhausted."
We ended up back at a cafe we'd visited the last time we came to this department store—a place I hadn't been to in a while.
"I'll go order. You just sit and rest, okay?"
"Would you...?"
"Sure. What do you want?"
"Blue lemonade, please."
"Got it."
I watched her back as she headed for the counter. It was the same place as before. We weren't the same as before.
Whenever I found myself somewhere familiar and thought about what we were to each other, it hit me all over again, as if for the first time. That beautiful girl is my girlfriend.
I didn't have to wait long. She came back carrying a tray with my blue lemonade, along with a slice of chocolate cake and a vanilla latte that were apparently for her, and sat down in the chair across from me.
"Now that I think about it, you don't drink coffee, do you, Juyeong?"
"Yeah... I just don't handle caffeine well."
"Really? How bad is it? You can't even have one cup?"
"To be precise, it's not that I was always like this. I made myself this way."
A few years ago, not long after I'd been thrown out, the nightmares came every night. I started drinking more coffee than water just to keep myself from falling asleep. I drank so much that some days I skipped meals entirely and ran on coffee for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I'd been fine at first. But over time my hands started shaking, and I could feel my own heartbeat pounding in my chest. I figured I was heading for real trouble, so I quit after that.
When I told Yeonhee all of this, her face crumpled into the kind of guilty look a puppy makes after doing something wrong.
"Sorry... I shouldn't have asked."
It wasn't as if not being able to drink coffee was some forbidden topic. She really would apologize for anything.
"It's fine. I don't get the nightmares much anymore, anyway."
Even after I told her I was okay, her expression stayed painfully gloomy. I hadn't told her any of that because I wanted her to look like this, and watching her sit there like that only made me feel worse for bringing it up.
I couldn't just leave her like that, so I spoke up quietly.
"You'll be there for me from now on, right?"
I said it while looking away, offering the consolation as gently as I could. Her face brightened at once, like the sun coming out, and in that moment she looked infinitely precious to me.
"Heh~ Even if you asked me to let go, I wouldn't. You'd better be ready."
I snorted at the way she declared, with great ambition, that she planned to stick even closer from here on out.
"You're one to talk."
As if I'd ask her to leave now. If I'd been going to do that, I would have clenched my teeth and turned her down when she first confessed.
"Is everything else okay, besides coffee?"
"A few things I had too much of and got sick of, but other than that, I'm fine."
"Then want a bite of cake?"
"If you're offering, I'll gladly take it."
She cut a generous piece with her fork and held it out toward me.
"Say ahh~"
"..."
Doing that here, with people around, was a little embarrassing.
"What's wrong? Not a fan of chocolate?"
I'd just been staring at the fork without a word. She let out a thoughtful little hum, then spoke in a whisper.
"If you don't want the chocolate, the only other thing I can give you right now is this."
And then she ran her tongue across her lips, slow and sultry.
The whisper was sweeter than the cake, and a shiver ran straight through me.
She's a minx. An absolute minx.
Before any strange sounds could escape me, I leaned forward and took the bite. She smiled.
"That's it, good boy~"
...That's ridiculously sweet.
I sat there in a daze, the sweetness lingering in my mouth, until Yeonhee finished the rest of the cake a few minutes later and spoke up first.
"Shall we head back up?"
"...Still?"
"We only bought a few things and you're already tired? We're nowhere near done."
At that, I glanced at the shopping bags under my chair. Four of them. Spring, summer, autumn, winter—one outfit tucked into each, a full set for every season.
Didn't people who couldn't care less about clothes just rotate two outfits per season? And these were the ones we'd picked after I'd tried on and taken off who knows how many?
"Come on, up you get."
"Haha... go easy on me..."
By the time we finally finished shopping, both of my hands were overflowing with bags.