8. Currents (2)
Mun Dawon blinked blankly. Chicken? Out of the blue? You and me?
And the thought that followed was this.
Is this guy… hitting on me?
Her reasoning was sound. A suggestion to eat chicken on a Friday evening, extended to a coworker she shouldn’t be contacting anymore, was suspicious no matter who looked at it. It seemed to have a special purpose. Even more so if it was a man-woman relationship like hers and Seo Eungyu’s.
The strange kindness the man had shown since Monday flashed quickly through her mind. She reached the conclusion that all those suspicious actions that had confused her might have been his intentions all along.
Holding her phone to her ear, she muttered slowly. The competitive spirit—the very source that kept her alive—awoke from its slumber and raised its head.
If Seo Eungyu was interested in her, if he was making clumsy moves because of that, perhaps she might gain the upper hand in this tiresome relationship for the first time.
“Okay.”
Her eyes, clouded with fatigue, regained their vitality. Excitement seeped into her voice.
“Are you coming to my place?”
— Yeah. I’ll get it to go. It’ll take about thirty minutes.
Mun Dawon moved quickly the moment she hung up. She ran the vacuum once and quickly finished her shower. She didn’t have time to dry her wet hair completely, but she succeeded in changing into clean homewear before the doorbell rang.
“Hello.”
Mun Dawon opened the front door with a bright smile. Seo Eungyu’s face, holding a bag of chicken, stiffened rigidly. She must have shown too much eagerness. Composing her expression, she stepped aside to let him in.
“Hello.”
The man was dressed in comfortable black sportswear instead of a suit. His hair, which he always neatly swept back, was naturally disheveled. His bangs slightly covered his sharp eyes.
Seeing his appearance, as if he had come over to a neighborhood friend’s house, she briefly wondered if she was being delusional.
Her ex-boyfriend from three years ago had only shown himself perfectly dressed from head to toe for months even after they started dating. Seo Eungyu’s current look seemed far too comfortable for a man visiting a woman he was interested in.
Maybe because his raw features were so exceptional, he had the confidence for it. You should really be grateful to your parents. Hiding her displeasure, she sat down on the floor.
“I didn’t know what you’d want to drink, so I bought both cola and beer. Is that okay?”
“Yeah. Good job. Want to watch something while we eat?”
While Seo Eungyu arranged the food on the table, she grabbed her tablet and turned on a popular variety show. Time alone with him was bound to be suffocating, just like the day they drank cocoa, so she needed some noise.
The small one-room apartment, now echoing with loud laughter from celebrities, was less agonizing than before. The man placed a chicken drumstick on her plate and opened a lemon-flavored beer with only 2 percent alcohol for her.
“This is basically just a soft drink.”
Mun Dawon chided him, asking if he had really bought this calling it beer.
“You had a company dinner on Monday, and you got drunk off two beers on Wednesday. Today, just get in the mood.”
He clinked his can against hers and gulped it down. Seeing his thick Adam’s apple bob up and down made her feel thirsty too. Maybe that was why, although it was a fruit-flavored beer she wouldn’t even glance at normally, today it was drinkable enough.
They ate chicken diligently in silence. Their gazes were fixed on the 12.4-inch tablet screen, but neither laughed along with the people on it.
As Mun Dawon moved the cleaned bone to an empty plate after stripping it bare and reached with her chopsticks for a chicken wing, another drumstick was placed on her plate. Her puzzled gaze turned to the man across from her.
“Don’t you eat drumsticks?”
“I’m on a diet.”
The man, who had been picking the dry breast meat from the start, took the second piece from the breast too. What difference could there be in calories between drumsticks and breast? No, more than that, he didn’t look like he had any weight to lose.
Mun Dawon glanced at his firm upper body visible even under the black sweatshirt. She had tried spending Friday evening with him to find his weaknesses, but instead, she only ended up glimpsing how thorough he was.
Nibbling on the drumstick, she also stole glances at his knee sticking out beside the low table. He looked quite uncomfortable with his long legs folded in half, yet he was eating neatly without dropping a single crumb.
To avoid being intimidated by the perfection Seo Eungyu displayed, she had to conserve her energy. Tonight she needed to thoroughly dig into his suspicious ulterior motives, so she had to eat even harder.
The moment Mun Dawon cleared the cleaned bone, two chicken wings flew onto her plate as well. Seo Eungyu still only picked the dry parts. Wings probably didn’t make you gain weight. But she, who liked drumsticks and wings, ate whatever was given without complaint.
“The chicken places around the training center must still be doing well, right?”
She brought up a memory while moistening her mouth with beer. It was a place in the foothills of Gangwon-do, somewhere you had to drive forty minutes just to catch a movie on the weekend. Yet around that training center, there had been five chicken restaurants.
“I went to lecture there last year instead of the section chief, and there were two more chicken places. The newbies must be ordering like crazy.”
When you gathered enthusiastic new hires who had just joined the company in a mountain valley, there wasn’t much to do at night. Chicken and beer became good friends to them.
“I think I ate all the chicken I’d eat in a lifetime back then.”
Mun Dawon crushed the empty beer can and opened a new one.
“Sometimes I think about the chicken from back then and order from the same brand, but it’s not as tasty as I remembered.”
“It’s because you’re eating alone.”
Seo Eungyu curled the corners of his eyes as he drank his beer. She reflexively tried to find words to refute him, then nodded as his words seemed reasonable.
“This chicken is from the place we used to order from at the training center. What do you think?”
“What?”
“Isn’t it delicious since we’re eating together?”
It was the moment her guess was confirmed. Seo Eungyu definitely had ulterior motives toward her.
The way he smiled, gently curving his eyes, the way he emphasized his presence with a soft voice—he was no different at all from men who fluttered over a woman they fancied.
A leisurely composure slowly filled Mun Dawon’s heart. The instinctive realization that if his heart was like that, she held the initiative in this relationship, brought her ease.
“Yeah. It’s delicious.”
That was why she could answer so readily. The man smiled brightly.
Seo Eungyu cleaned up the finished chicken and stood. Mun Dawon hesitated over whether to just send him off like this or drag it out longer to test him. But then he took something out of his pants pocket and asked her,
“Can I use your bathroom?”
What he took out was a portable folding toothbrush and a plastic case with a finger-length tube of toothpaste. He was saying he would brush his teeth here.
So that meant the reason was probably… Her thoughts jumped several steps ahead.
“Yeah. Use it comfortably.”
The man went into the bathroom and closed the door. Soon, the sound of brushing teeth was faintly heard. She pricked her ears at the sound and paced anxiously around the room.
What should I do? I hadn’t thought this far ahead.
No, that was a lie. She had even dreamed about it. Moist red lips had devoured her, sucking away all the saliva in her mouth. The sensation of entwining soft tongues was still vivid.
A powerful premonition that that dream might soon become reality washed over her.
But Mun Dawon hadn’t reached any decision yet.
Click—the sound of the bathroom door opening rang like thunder. Seo Eungyu came out looking refreshed after brushing his teeth. Their eyes met. Wahaha—loud laughter was still pouring from the tablet.
“I should… brush my teeth too.”
Mun Dawon muttered awkwardly to herself as she passed him. He turned his shoulder to make way for her to enter the bathroom.
His chest was right beside her ear. She tried not to breathe in deeply and rushed into the bathroom as if fleeing.
Inside the mirror stood a woman with a face flushed bright red. Initiative in the relationship, my foot. The woman in the mirror smirked crookedly and snorted. All she saw was herself being swayed this way and that by a man who hadn’t even done anything yet.
Mun Dawon finished brushing her teeth and returned to the room. Seo Eungyu was sitting with his long legs stretched out, watching the tablet. The man in comfortable clothes was close in physical distance, yet felt very far psychologically.
As she approached hesitantly, he lifted his hips and moved over. Then he tapped the spot beside him. She, who had been about to sit across from him, looked at him with bewildered eyes.
“It’s comfortable to lean back against the bed.”
She pressed her lips tightly and sat down beside him. Their firm forearms touched. Afraid their hips might touch too, she didn’t stretch out her legs and drew them in toward her body.
Though this was clearly the house she had lived in for three years, surrounded by furniture she used, every muscle in her body tensed as if she were giving a presentation to the CEO in an auditorium. She couldn’t understand why the celebrities on the screen were laughing.
“What time do you usually sleep?”
She hadn’t even realized Seo Eungyu had asked a question. Only when he turned to look at her with a puzzled face did she realize she had missed something.
“Huh?”
“I asked what time you usually sleep.”
“Around eleven-thirty to twelve.”
He checked the time on his phone. The clock was busily racing toward nine.
“It’s still early to sleep. Can I stay a little longer?”
While she hesitated to answer, the variety show ended. He naturally began picking another program.
A normal host would tell him to make himself comfortable and bring out more snacks. But Mun Dawon, whose brain had stopped working moments ago, merely stared blankly at the man’s knuckly fingers.
“Sleepy?”
Seo Eungyu’s face suddenly drew close. Her eyes went wide in surprise.
“Get a hold of yourself, Dawon.”
He gently brushed her cheek, as if she had forgotten how to breathe. His eyes gleamed with a peculiar light.
“If you keep acting like that, I might start thinking the wrong things.”
Mun Dawon gulped dryly. Seeing the red lips right before her, she wanted to satisfy only one desire.
She grabbed his hand that had brushed past her cheek.
“Want to?”