TLR 06

Chapter 6 …

Hearing his low voice right next to her ear gave her a strange, tingling sensation. Seol held her breath and waited for him to keep talking.

— Where are you answering this from?

“Oh! Yes, I’m still at the café. You left your phone behind on your chair.”

— Ah. Well, that was pretty stupid of me.

“Not at all. You’d be surprised how many people leave things behind.”

— Would it be alright if I swung by to grab it now?

“Right now?”

— Is that a total hassle? It’ll probably take me about fifteen minutes to get there.

“Oh, no, that’s fine. Come on back.”

— Thanks.

The line went dead with a click.

Wiping her slightly sweaty palms on her thighs, Seol sank into the chair where he usually sat.

[Mom, I’m going to be about twenty minutes late.]

Predictably, there was no reply. Is she drunk again? Seol’s expression hardened.

Lately, Donghee had been drinking a lot. Actually, “a lot” was putting it lightly—it was getting pretty tough to catch her sober.

Donghee had always enjoyed her drinks and held her liquor well, so when Seol first saw her plastered, she didn’t think much of it. She assumed her mom was just dealing with a lot of stress and needed to blow off steam.

She’ll snap out of it soon, Seol had told herself. She’ll be back to her normal self in no time.

Then came the day Seol realized the pile of empty soju bottles was getting out of hand.

She had tried dropping subtle hints, saying things like, “Maybe tone it down a bit for your health,” but she only ever got lazy, half-hearted nods in response.

Seol desperately wanted to spend more time with her mother, but cutting back on her part-time shifts just wasn’t an option. She had to cover the rent and living expenses all on her own, not to mention saving whatever little bit she could.

Plus, if she wanted to start applying for jobs later this year, she’d need cash for that, too.

“Though I wonder if applying will even matter…” Seol muttered softly to herself.

By then, would people have finally forgotten about Han Iju? Or should she just stick to applying to smaller companies?

The more she dwelled on it, the bleaker the future looked.

Better not to think about it at all, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut.

Junhyuk pulled the glass door open.

Even with only the lights around the counter turned on, ambient light washed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, keeping the café from feeling too dark.

Seol was sitting there with her eyes closed, her head tilted at an angle against the back of the chair.

Even without saying a word to her, he could tell she was fast asleep. That was the upside of having spent countless hours staring at her face when she was awake.

He thought about waking her, but ended up just pulling out the chair across from her and sitting down instead. The fact that neither the chime of the door bell nor the scraping of the chair woke her meant she was completely knocked out.

Leaning in close, he caught the faint, rhythmic sound of her breathing, soft and steady like a sleeping baby’s. The relaxed corners of her eyes and her slightly parted lips made her look deeply at peace.

Junhyuk leaned his upper body further across the table, taking her in completely.

Thick, long eyelashes. A delicate face. He already knew the color of her eyes—a deep, rich black, like a little country pup’s.

Her gaze usually seemed calm on the surface, but every now and then, it would flicker with a hint of anxiety or sorrow.

She worked so impressively hard at life. Watching her faint, quiet glow—like the moon hanging in a dark night sky—felt insignificant and almost pitiful, yet he found it impossible to look away.

For the first time in his life, he had met a woman he actually lusted after, and of all people, she just had to be this complicated.

Earlier, after hanging up the phone with his hands practically aching, the faces of Moon Pilyong and Han Iju had suddenly flashed in his mind.

Han Seol looked so completely different from Han Iju that it was almost hard to believe they were sisters. Was it a small mercy that he and his father didn’t share the same taste in women?

“Mm…”

Seol, who had been sleeping so peacefully, suddenly let out a strained little groan. Her brows knitted tight, as if she had just wandered into a nightmare.

As if drawn by a spell, Junhyuk stood up and gently cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand. He had been dying to touch her, just once.

Ah. A light touch like this isn’t nearly enough to satisfy me, the realization hit him instantly.

He applied a tiny bit more pressure to his fingers, feeling more of her warm skin press into his palm. He brushed his thumb against her soft bottom lip, his heart hammering wildly against his ribs as if it were about to burst.

What else can I do right now? How much time do I have left?

Just as he was about to lose whatever composure he had left, a car drove past outside, letting out a long blast of its horn.

Like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head, the sudden wave of heat filling the space instantly vanished. Junhyuk snapped his hand back.

“…Huh?”

Waking up with a start, Seol blinked a few times, trying to figure out what was going on.

“You must have been pretty exhausted.”

“…Pardon?”

“I called out to you, but you didn’t wake up.”

“Oh… right.”

Sensing that something felt a bit off, Seol lightly rubbed the spot where his hand had been with the back of her fingers. Then, picking up the phone sitting on the table, she handed it over.

“Here’s your phone.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure…”

Seol’s voice trailed off as she checked the time on her own phone. Her slender eyebrows twitched for a brief second before settling back into place.

“I ended up keeping you late.”

“Oh, no. It’s not much different from usual.”

“Let me give you some taxi fare. Is 50,000 won enough?”

“What? No way! I walk home! So really, you don’t need to give me anything!”

Seol shouted back-to-back, her eyes wide with shock.

It was a situation where she could have easily accepted the money without any fuss, yet watching her stubbornly hold onto her pride made her look strangely pitiful.

Right. Well, she really isn’t like her sister.

“It’s past midnight. Take a taxi back.”

Junhyuk made it clear once again that he intended to give her the money.

“I’m honestly fine. It only takes me twenty minutes to walk, and it’s along the main road, so it’s not dangerous at all.”

“Then I’ll walk you home.”

“What?”

Her eyes, already large, widened as if they might pop out. Anticipating her reaction, Junhyuk offered a dry reply:

“If you’re worried about me finding out where you live, I won’t walk you all the way to your front door.”

“No, really, it’s fine.”

“It’s not like adding one more person is going to clog up the entire main street.”

“No, seriously, I’m totally fine.”

“If I send you off by yourself and something happens to you, that falls on me.”

Junhyuk stood up from the sofa and looked down at her.

“And I absolutely hate being held responsible for things that aren’t my fault.”

“…”

“What are you overthinking for? Are you going home or not?”

“You sent your sister off by herself yesterday. So why…?”

“It was still early back then.”

“Yeah, but she was completely wasted.”

Junhyuk stopped mid-sentence and let out a dry laugh. She sure knew how to talk back crisp and clear, which was undeniably cute.

“If we had left when I first brought it up, we’d already be a quarter of the way there by now.”

Junhyuk held up his phone, making sure she saw it.

“Give me your account number.”

“…”

“If you don’t want the money, get moving.”

Seol thought about it for a second, then stood up with a slight frown.

Having finally gotten his way, Junhyuk slipped his phone back into his pocket.

They walked side by side, keeping a bit of distance between them. There were only a few scattered pedestrians on the sidewalk, though a fair number of cars were still zipping down the street next to them.

Hunching her shoulders against the chilly spring breeze, Seol stole a glance at the man beside her.

He was walking with one hand jammed into his pants pocket, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

This is just him being polite, not him being interested, she reasoned.

She had been confessed to by a few guys in the past. If it hadn’t been for Shin Cheolman strictly enforcing her curfew back then, her dating history might have been a bit longer.

The way this man looked at her and acted was completely different from those guys.

There was zero warmth or affection in his eyes. In fact, every now and then, she picked up on a subtle, strange sense of hostility from him instead.

“Are you a student?” he asked out of nowhere.

Seol turned her head. Without slowing his pace or taking his eyes off the path ahead, the man pressed on:

“Or are you taking a break from school? It must be tough working every day while balancing classes.”

“I’m taking a gap year to job hunt.”

“Ah, a job hunter.”

And just like that, the conversation died. Seol pulled her canvas bag higher up her shoulder and lowered her gaze.

“Is this the only part-time job you do?”

After another ten meters of walking, he brought up another question.

“No. I do a few others, too.”

“You really work hard at life.”

It was a generic compliment delivered in a completely nonchalant tone, but for a split second, a surge of hot emotion welled up in Seol’s throat.

Realizing just how starved she was for validation and praise from others brought a sudden wave of gloom and embarrassment over her. She had only been struggling for a few months—she couldn’t afford to be burned out already.

Trying to shake off the gloomy mood, Seol deliberately forced a cheerful tone:

“So, um, what do you do for work?”

“I work at an office around here.”

“Ah, okay.”

Seol gave a small nod.

She had a feeling that was the case. Sometimes he wore a tie, sometimes he didn’t—it was pretty much a fifty-fifty split.

They arrived at a fork in the road.

“Well, this is…”

I just need to head up this alley. Seol started to say the words, but stopped short.

The man had come to a halt before she could even finish her sentence. Up until now, neither of them had paused their feet while talking, so the sudden stop felt a bit jarring.

“This is…?”

The man asked, brushing back his hair that had been slightly windblown.

“Oh, I just need to head up this path from here. Thanks for walking me.”

Dismissing her fleeting hesitation as overthinking, Seol gave him a polite bow.

“Get home safely the rest of the way.”

A faint smile touched the man’s lips.

“Thanks, well then—”

“By the way, have we met somewhere before?”

Seol had been turning around to say her goodbyes, but paused mid-motion, caught off guard.

The man narrowed one eye slightly as he continued:

“Since I see you almost every day, I thought you just looked familiar, but it feels like I’ve seen you even further back than that.”

“Ah…”

“Have we met before?”

“You asked me if I had a lighter on the street a while back.”

“I asked you?”

“Yes.”

Seol answered with a quick nod.

“When was that?”

“Earlier this year.”

“That was quite a while ago then…”

The man’s voice trailed off, and he let out a low chuckle with his eyes lowered.

Seol bit her lip softly. Compared to him, who didn’t even remember it clearly, she felt a little embarrassed that she remembered the exact conversation they had.

“Looks like neither of us could forget the other.”

“…Yeah.”

Seol answered in an even quieter voice.

He was probably just stating the facts, but for some reason, it sounded like he was implying they had both been thinking about each other all along.

“I caused you a lot of trouble, and I’m late on introductions. I’m Park Junhyuk.”