A First Confession, and Who Are You?
April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land — or so the famous line goes. I agree with it wholeheartedly. It could hardly be a crueler day. Today is early April: my first outing since putting on the leather, and the outing where my expectations shattered to pieces.
"Hngh...!" I sniffle and rub my hands around the mug sitting on the table. It's 12:30 in the afternoon, and I'm holed up in a cafe a few blocks from my studio apartment. This week's forecast promised clear, sunny skies straight through the weekend, and it got it half right: clear but chilly, chilly but clear.
The first moment I realized something had gone wrong came less than thirty seconds after I'd marched out the door. Instead of the warmth of spring, all blossoms and birdsong, the raw chill of late winter bored straight into my bones. I hurriedly pulled out my phone to check the day's forecast — sudden spring cold snap this, unseasonable freeze that. Ah. I'm screwed. Completely screwed.
At that point I should have either called the whole outing off or at least thrown a coat over what I was wearing, but I did neither. For one, a men's jacket would have wrecked the entire look. For two, giving up felt like a blow to my pride.
Abandon my monumental first outing with the leather over a little weather? After spending the whole week waiting for nothing but today? Not a chance. Clinging to the hope that the sun might warm things up once noon rolled around, I steeled my resolve and headed back out into the cold.
I shouldn't have. Thirty minutes of walking was all it took for me to wave the white flag. Are the women of modern society who stroll around in stockings and short skirts in the dead of winter all somehow desensitized from the neck down?
I lifted my cup and took a sip of cocoa. Warmth spread through my whole body, and my face melted into something soft and contented. This cafe is famous for its adorable interior — popular enough with couples and female college students to have made a real name for itself. Until today, the pink decorations and the happily laughing couples pressing in from every side had driven me to takeout only, but the current me could sit down at a table and drink my cocoa with my head held high.
Let's see, who's around: three couples, and a mixed group of college students who looked like a study group. Everyone deep in conversation, gazing at each other like their lives depended on it, and watching them filled me with an inexplicable dissatisfaction —
Would it kill someone to come talk to me?
Not "inexplicable," actually. The thing I'd looked forward to most on this outing was seeing how people would react to me in the leather, but the bitter cold had left the streets all but deserted. A few passersby had given me glances, but those were less admiration than something like, she's out in this weather dressed like that? — suspicion tinged with pity.
How did I know? Because the expressions I caught in passing were laced with bewilderment and something distinctly awkward.
Maybe, contrary to my hopes, people really don't spare strangers much thought at all. Maybe the expectations I'd built up were nothing but self-consciousness run amok. Sulking, I downed the last of my cocoa and rose from my seat.
"Um, excuse me — do you have a moment?"
"Yes?"
Is he talking to me? Half doubting, I turned around. One of the male students from the study group, the one who'd been chatting away so animatedly, was standing there. Slacks and a denim jacket, a clean-cut sort of face. Early-to-mid twenties, maybe, and tall enough — a little over 180 centimeters — that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. I stand 163 centimeters these days. It had been a very long time since I'd last looked up at anyone.
"Ah, sorry, sorry. It's just — you're so beautiful. Would it be okay if I got your number? I live around here, so—"
The rest of it never reached my ears. My eyes went from the male student, cheeks faintly pink as he worked up the nerve to talk to me, to the other members of his study group hovering near the cafe entrance at a respectful distance, watching with what looked for all the world like encouragement.
Wait, seriously? Am I getting confessed to right now? No, hold on — is this flirting? Making a move? What do people even call this?
My expression stayed perfectly composed while my brain spun in circles. Just a few hours ago I'd been thinking it might be fun if someone struck up a conversation, and now it was actually happening. Far more flustering than I'd imagined... and, God help me, it felt good.
Let me be clear, so nobody gets the wrong idea. I wasn't happy because a man was hitting on me, and I am most certainly not gay. It was the situation itself — a complete stranger walking up to me first and telling me he was interested — that warmed me like nothing I'd ever felt. In all my life, not once had anyone of the opposite sex confessed to me, and not once had my own confessions succeeded. For someone like me, the kindness he was showing was a kind of warmth I had never once experienced.
"...I'm, um, I'm sorry. I already have a boyfriend..."
"Ah... I see. Hahaha, no, I'm the one who should apologize. That caught you off guard, didn't it?"
"No, no, it's fine. Really, it's fine."
I smoothed it all over with a plausible excuse and a polite laugh. We exchanged a few more words, and then he walked back to his study group.
See, I told you she'd have a boyfriend. Someone that gorgeous, single? Does that even make sense?
Hey, shut it. Is that really what you say to a guy who just got shot down right in front of you?
The condolences should go to her, not to you. She looked pretty rattled back there.
Rejected is rejected, but if you wanted a girlfriend so bad you should've asked me. Want me to set you up with someone?
Their voices faded little by little as they filed out of the cafe, cackling. I watched them go, stood there a while longer, then settled my bill and stepped out onto the street with a surprisingly light step.
That was a new feeling.
Maybe it was the female leather, but I felt somehow more sentimental than usual, softer around the edges. Humming a little tune, tap-tap-tap, I made my way down the tree-lined street. People looked at me. Some wore puzzled frowns; some gave me a single once-over and went on their way; some stared openly at my chest before hastily looking anywhere else. Different gazes, different feelings — not quite what I'd imagined, but yes, this was its own kind of fun. Even the bite of the cold snap seemed to have eased a little.
After that I wandered all over the place. I bought a warm fish cake from a tteokbokki stand on the corner, ducked into a coin karaoke booth by myself and belted out every song I'd been dying to sing, and strolled through a park happily watching ducks bobbing on the lake. None of it required the leather, and I'd done it all before — so why did everything feel so different? Was it because of being confessed to at that cafe? Or did simply wearing the leather itself hand me a confidence and happiness I didn't otherwise have? I turned it over in my head, but no answer came easily.
Mm, mmm-hmm, mm-mm-mmm, mm-hmm-mm-hmm
Humming my way around town, I lost track of time, and by the time I noticed, the sky had gone dark. My phone read nine o'clock already; I'd probably pass ten by the time I got home. But tomorrow was Sunday, so even rolling in late wouldn't wreck my schedule. I headed back with a spring in my step. Walk and walk, and I reached the intersection in front of my building. Stretching my arms as I shuffled along, I glanced up at it — and something looked off.
"Did I leave the lights on?"
The light was on. This morning when I left, I was pretty sure I hadn't turned on a single lamp... though my memory was hazy. It was an old building; maybe the lights came on by themselves? I let the thought slide and stopped in front of my door. Beep-beep-beep-beep — four digits of the door lock code — and I pushed it open.
"Hey, what took you so long? Don't you have anything to do tod—"
Wait. What. Someone's in here? Halfway through opening the door, I froze solid. From the way the voice cut off mid-sentence, whoever it was seemed just as flustered — but more to the point, who? The voice was somehow familiar, and someone who'd know the password would have to be...
Oh.
Right. Exactly one person. My old friend — I'd invited him over when I first moved in and given him the code. I'd told him to drop by whenever he felt like it, but every time we actually met it was at a bar or a billiard hall, so we hadn't set foot in this apartment together since that day. Which is why I'd forgotten all about it.
Carefully, I poked my head past the door. Baek Chiwon was staring at me with the expression of a man whose brain had stopped working. On the desk right beside him sat a bag of fried chicken, a pile of fries, and two cans of beer. Two pairs of chopsticks, too — he'd clearly bought it all planning to eat together. My heart was genuinely touched. The timing, however, was a catastrophe...!
An awkward silence stretched between us. In the end it was Chiwon's flustered voice that broke it.
"Um... you didn't come to the wrong room, by any chance?"
"Ah — no... this is the right place."
And then more silence. I could practically see his pupils vibrating. Then again, from where he stood, I probably looked exactly the same. After a moment of wearing the strangest expression, Chiwon cleared his throat and introduced himself.
"I'm Baek Chiwon, a friend of Park Inje — he's the one who lives here. Inje gave me the door code a while back, and I snuck in without a word to surprise him. First time in ages."
"I see..."
"So, uh — who might you be?"
There was only one way out of this. I'd have to cook up a mountain of excuses later, but that was still a far sight better than confessing I'd spent the day strolling around in female leather.
I steadied my breath, lifted my chin, and declared with all the confidence I could muster:
"Hello! I'm Park Yerim, Inje's girlfriend. It's a pleasure to meet you!"