Clothes
Clothes.
On the day of her third appointment, Seo Ha-rin stood for a long while in front of her wide-open closet.
The first thing her hand landed on was the ivory blouse she'd worn last week. It didn't plunge too deep at the neckline or cling to her body, but the line running from shoulder to waist was clean and elegant — a piece she was quietly fond of. It wasn't the kind of thing she threw on for just any occasion. Maybe not quite broadcast-shoot material, but she pulled it out once or twice for dinners with association officials or meetings with people she was seeing for the first time — moments that demanded a little more care than usual. Last week, too, she'd caught herself thinking, it's just an appointment, do I really need to go this far? before choosing it anyway.
Her makeup had followed the same logic. Even if she'd spent a little more time than an ordinary outing required, it amounted to little more than tidying her eyes and adding some color to her lips — yet it was the first time she'd ever gone to that trouble for a hospital visit. She hadn't just thrown her hair into a loose tie or hidden it under a hat either; she'd styled it properly, and before leaving the house she'd stood in front of the mirror and smoothed the collar of the blouse one last time.
And it wasn't as if there were no reason to.
After her first appointment, there had been a remark that stayed with her strangely long.
"You're actually really pretty, you know."
Something the director had blurted out before the session even began.
Truthfully, that day Ha-rin had been nowhere near a state that invited compliments about her looks. She hadn't slept properly in days, so a faint shadow sat under her eyes, and the rims of them were red and swollen from crying only shortly before. She'd barely worn any makeup, and her hair was a mess from having a hat pressed down over it for hours.
And yet the man had looked at that face and said she was actually pretty.
She'd liked that. A lot. Enough that she'd even sent him a text.
...Next time I should come looking prettier.
So last week she'd picked out a blouse she loved, done her makeup a touch more carefully than usual, and taken real time with her hair. She hadn't assumed the director would call her pretty again — but apparently some part of her had been looking forward to it a little. After all, on the very first day, he'd seen her utterly undone, unprepared face, and the words had escaped him anyway.
The result?
Ha-rin pulled the blouse from last week off its hanger and held it up to the mirror. Even now it was a neat, lovely piece of clothing — but looking at it brought last week flooding back: the week she'd gone to all that trouble dressing up, and in the end had done absolutely nothing. She stared at her reflection beyond the blouse, then pouted faintly, dissatisfied.
For nearly an hour, they'd held hands.
Truly.
Only hands.
And on top of that.
She hadn't even been told she was pretty.
"......."
Ha-rin's lips pushed out a little further.
On the first day, he'd looked at her — sleepless, tear-streaked, eyes puffed up like dumplings — and called her pretty. Yet on the day she'd actually made an effort to look nice, he'd said nothing at all.
Of course, she knew that was the normal one.
Of course she knew. A psychiatrist going "you look lovely today" and "that outfit suits you" every single time a patient walked in for a session would be the strange one. It was the first appointment — the sudden you're pretty before things even started — that had been the anomaly. A quiet, commentary-free session like last week's was far more natural.
Ha-rin understood all of this perfectly well, in her head.
But understanding it and being a little hurt by it were two entirely different things.
...He could manage at least one line.
It wasn't as though she'd worn the blouse just to hear that one sentence.
Probably.
But what she'd gotten out of last week, in the end, was one warm hand.
She still remembered how, during that first session, she had all but wrapped herself around the director's arm — so if she claimed she hadn't been secretly hoping history would repeat itself, she'd be lying. But the moment the second session actually began, being the one to close the distance first had felt inexplicably embarrassing.
So she'd asked him to just hold her hand.
And so he had held just her hand. Truly. He hadn't leaned in, hadn't wrapped an arm around her like the first day — their shoulders hadn't even brushed once. From beginning to end, the only points of contact had been their palms and their fingers laced together.
And here was the funny part.
It had been good.
Really good.
His hands were warm, and that warmth alone had been enough to loosen the tension coiled through her body, little by little. They'd talked about the incident again, but she hadn't suddenly lost her breath the way she had during the first session, and whenever the memory turned sharp and uncomfortable, a small tightening of her fingers around his was enough to make it bearable. She'd slept well when she got home, too, and the nightmares had visibly thinned.
The problem was that being satisfied and feeling shortchanged were, apparently, not mutually exclusive.
...We only held hands.
And.
He didn't even say I was pretty.
Only after following that thought to its end did Ha-rin realize exactly how childish her grievance was.
"...God, what is wrong with me."
Even muttering it, she didn't put the hanger back down.
The warmth she'd felt when she'd frantically clung to his arm at that first session still lived in her memory, vivid as ever. She'd simply pressed herself against one arm, and somehow it had made her feel unaccountably safe — like whatever happened, wherever it happened, she'd be all right for the moment.
Last week, she'd wanted to feel that again.
Just a little.
But she hadn't moved first, and the director, naturally, hadn't moved either. So an entire hour had passed with nothing but their hands clasped.
Only their hands.
Ha-rin still found that a little — no, a lot — unfair.
And there had been a bigger mistake, too.
"How have you been sleeping?"
"Well."
"Nightmares?"
"Almost none."
"And at the scenes?"
"Much better."
All of it true.
Which was why the words that came back to her at the end were so terribly reasonable.
"Your progress is better than I expected. If things hold steady like this, we'll keep to the current schedule through next session, and after that we can start spacing the appointments out a little more."
Ha-rin had nodded on the spot without thinking much of it — and only after she'd come home did the full meaning of that sentence land.
Why did I say everything was fine?
She had slept well, and the nightmares really had all but vanished. She hadn't once had her breath seize up or her fingertips go cold when she used her Quirk, the way she used to — so there was nothing wrong with the director concluding her condition had improved.
It was just that this particular week had been a little different.
Ha-rin slowly lowered the blouse she was holding.
Honestly, it had been rough.
With the Liberation Front ramping up its activity, incidents had been erupting across Seoul one after another. There was a time when a single dispatch a day felt like a lot; this week there had been days when, returning from a morning call, she'd had to reroute straight to another scene, and nights when she'd come home before dawn, slept less than two hours, and been summoned right back out.
And through all of it, whenever a camera appeared, she smiled.
"Everything's under control. Citizens, please rest assured."
"The scene will be cleared up shortly."
Saying things like that was part of being a Pro Hero, too.
It wasn't genuinely unbearable. Her body ached and her head felt heavy, but she wasn't so fragile that this level of hardship deserved complaining. The problem was that after days of saying she was fine — of showing everyone around her a face that was fine — by today, what she actually wanted had become strangely, unmistakably clear to her.
She wanted someone to lean on.
Not to pour out her troubles and hear solutions, not to be told to just grit through one more day. She simply wanted a person she could lean against without saying a word. Someone who wouldn't rush to produce answers no matter what she said — someone who would just murmur, today must have been hard, and then quietly stay by her side.
Standing before her open closet, Ha-rin went still for a moment.
She could have joked about it with the teammates she worked alongside — this week is seriously killing me — or called a friend and vented until she felt a little lighter.
But when she pictured them one by one, the person who remained in her head until the very end was someone else entirely.
The director.
"......."
They'd met exactly twice.
And yet the moment she thought I want to lean on someone without a word, it was last week's hand that surfaced first — and one step past that came the memory of that warm palm and that solid arm, and then the sensation of her breathing easing the closer she'd leaned toward him, until the vague want suddenly took on a very concrete shape.
...I wish he'd hold me.
The thought was almost embarrassingly honest.
"I've lost my mind."
Normally she'd have laughed it off right then and there. This time, that didn't happen.
She really did want that.
All week she'd saved people, stood on the front line in someone else's place, and worn a composed face for the cameras — so today, of all days, she wanted to lean on someone for a little while. Holding just his hand, like last week, would surely have been nice. But honestly, if that was where it ended again, she had a feeling she'd come home, lie down on her bed, and circle right back to the same thought.
Why didn't I go a little closer?
Why did I just wait again?
So today.
Not just hands.
A little more.
She wanted to be comforted.
It had been a hard week.
Ha-rin lifted the blouse again and held it up to the mirror.
Last week she had, by her own standards, gone to real trouble dressing up. But if she wore the same blouse, sat in the same seat, and once again didn't move first and simply waited, she had a feeling she'd come home having held hands and nothing more.
Maybe.
Maybe without even hearing that she was pretty.
After that thought, Ha-rin stared at her own face in the mirror for a while.
...Do I want to hear that line again?
She hated admitting it.
But she did.
She wanted his gaze to catch on her for even a moment, the way it had that first day. She wanted it to show on his face that he thought she was pretty — and if possible, she wanted to hear him say it out loud.
And there was something that mattered even more.
Last week had settled it beyond doubt.
If she stayed still, nothing happened.
He would hold only her hand.
"...Not this one. Not today."
Ha-rin dug through the closet a while longer. A sweatshirt made it into her hands and right back out again; a tight black dress she pulled out and held against her body for a moment before shoving it back — it made her look like she was trying far too hard. On any ordinary day she'd have grabbed the first thing she touched and been done with it, but today, strangely, every garment she picked up came with its own objection. Too casual. Too obviously an effort. Too indistinguishable from last week.
After turning over several more, the last thing her hand landed on was a thin cotton knit in a deep charcoal — a shade lighter than black.
Ha-rin slipped it off the hanger and studied it. The color was subdued and the design unremarkable, just a long-sleeved knit — but the fabric caught between her fingers was thinner and softer than it looked. It didn't read as something deliberately, overtly dressed up, yet she suspected that once it was on, the lines of her body would show through quite clearly.
She decided to try it on.
She pulled the knit over her head, drew the hem down over her waist, and stepped in front of the mirror.
"......."
Unmistakably different from last week.
The neckline was modest, and there was no plunging cut. At a glance it was simply a knit in a calm, quiet color — but the fabric was thinner and softer than it appeared, and it traced the contours of her body almost exactly as they were. The line flowing from her shoulders to her chest went undiminished, and her chest — already famously large — gained a sharper definition beneath the dark cloth rather than losing any. And there, where the fabric stretched taut, even the color and edges of the underwear she'd been wearing all along showed through, ever so faintly.
Ha-rin blinked.
"...Huh?"
She took a step closer to the mirror.
From a distance, it was just a form-fitting charcoal knit. It wasn't sheer enough to show everything underneath. But up close, the color and lines beneath were vaguely perceptible — and at the chest especially, where the fabric pulled tautest, they stood out that much more.
She studied herself head-on for a while, then slowly turned to the side.
"......."
This was... a bit much.
Very much a bit much.
Facing forward, she could almost pass for a subdued knit; the moment she turned, the thin fabric clung to the curve running from her chest down to her waist with almost nothing left to the imagination. Her figure alone drew the eye — and up close, the color underneath came through as well.
Chin lowered, Ha-rin gazed at her profile in the mirror for a long time. She smoothed the hem once with her hands, then, for no particular reason, squared her shoulders too.
The moment her posture straightened, her chest pushed naturally forward, and the silhouette grew that much clearer along with it.
On any ordinary day, she would have changed out of it on the spot.
It wasn't a broadcast shoot. There was no reason on earth to wear something like this to a psychiatric appointment.
But today, before the thought of changing even formed, something else surfaced first.
If the director saw this....
Ha-rin looked quietly at her reflection.
Since becoming famous, she'd heard commentary about her figure until she was sick of it. There were as many comments about her chest as there were about her face, and remarks about how nothing she wore could hide it had long since stopped being news.
Needless to say, there were far cruder comments than those. When people crossed the line it still disgusted her, and some days she closed the comment section entirely — but after years in the public eye, there was no pretending she didn't know how people looked at her body.
Then, out of nowhere, something someone had once said on a set floated back to her.
Practically no man alive dislikes a large chest.
At the time she'd rolled her eyes — here we go again — and let it slide. But today, for some reason, the words snagged on something.
The director's a man too, isn't he?
Watching her own face flush faintly in the mirror, Ha-rin bit her lower lip. The instant the thought first appeared she'd tried to wave it off as nothing, but once she'd become aware of it, it refused to fade.
She wanted to look a little prettier.
It was true that she wanted to be called pretty again, the way she had that first day.
But to put it a little more precisely than that —
She didn't want to look like a pretty patient.
She wanted to be seen as a woman.
The moment she admitted that thought, her face grew hotter still — yet strangely, she felt no urge to take the knit off. Instead she took another step toward the mirror and confirmed, once more, just how eye-catching her current state was.
And then the thing that had been bothering her came back into view.
Her underwear.
Just a little.
No — plainly, visibly.
Ha-rin stared at the mirror for a while.
At first, she rather liked it.
And then.
...No, wait.
Come to think of it, this was going a bit too far.
She was going to an appointment.
Not a date.
Not yet.
The moment that thought arrived, the look that had seemed fine a minute ago suddenly felt far too obvious.
So Ha-rin took the knit off again and opened her underwear drawer.
This time she picked a set in a nearly invisible, nude-adjacent shade.
She changed into it, put the knit back on.
Stepped in front of the mirror.
"......."
Clean, without question.
Her silhouette itself remained, but the color and lines underneath had all but vanished. For wearing out in public, this was far more natural, and there was nothing here that warranted a second thought.
Several seconds passed.
And strangely, she didn't like it.
A minute ago it had felt too revealing, so she'd changed it — but now that everything was covered, it looked too utterly unremarkable. In truth, anyone else probably wouldn't have noticed any difference at all.
But Ha-rin knew.
She knew it was different from moments ago.
A difference only she could perceive — and somehow, that made it feel like a waste.
"......."
Ha-rin looked down at her own body through the knit.
She hesitated for a moment.
Then she grabbed the hem again.
"What am I actually doing."
She said it out loud, but the decision had already been made.
Off came the knit again.
This time without a shred of deliberation.
She picked up the underwear she'd taken off just before.
The one she'd been wearing from the start.
She changed back into it, pulled the knit on once more, and stood before the mirror.
As expected, she liked this version better.
It wasn't sheer enough to be blatant.
From a distance, it was simply a deep charcoal knit.
But up close —
Ha-rin squared her shoulders once more. Her posture straightened, her chest pressed naturally forward, the fabric pulled a little tighter — and the color and lines beneath grew that much more distinct.
She relaxed immediately.
For no reason.
A moment later.
She squared her shoulders again.
That's just sitting up straight, that's all.
Looking at her own face in the mirror, even her own excuses weren't working on her anymore.
She simply wanted to show him.
A little.
She put more care into her makeup than last week, too — working her eyes until they looked sharper than usual, and changing her lip color three times before settling on the one she liked best. She spent longer on her hair than normal, then stepped back a few paces from the mirror to check the whole picture.
There was no question — it was different from last week.
By her own judgment, she was beautiful.
And today, she wanted the director to notice it too.
Ha-rin allowed herself, just barely, to hold back the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and pulled on her long coat. As she fastened the buttons one by one, the silhouette so clearly on display in the mirror vanished piece by piece beneath the heavy fabric, and only when the last button was closed did the fluttering in her chest finally settle a little.
Now, no one outside would know.
Not on the way to the hospital.
Only inside the coat.