The evening after the after-party ended. Instead of returning straight to Busan, Lee Seo-a decided to stay at Ian’s place for the night. For one thing, she still hadn’t retrieved her luggage from the cruise, and for another, she had no urgent schedule, so there was no reason to hurry back.
Ian said it might be a little awkward for her to be alone with a man, but she reacted far more casually than he expected.
“If anything happens, my guardian spirit will protect me. And from what I’ve seen so far, you’re not that kind of person.”
“…I have no idea what you’re trusting in.”
“Intuition, obviously. A mage’s intuition is pretty reliable, you know.”
With her putting it that way, Ian gave up and let Lee Seo-a into his home.
A small studio apartment. The cramped space contained nothing but a rough mattress, a table, and some boxes.
The faint trace of Ian’s scent floating in the air mingled with the diffuser, spreading a rather pleasant fragrance. To Ian, it was an everyday smell, but to Lee Seo-a, who had never once been to a man’s place in her life, it was quite a stimulating scent.
‘Do all men smell like this?’
Without realizing it, Lee Seo-a sniffed the air as she looked around the room. Ian left her be and opened the window.
Cold winter air seeped deep into the room through the insect screen. It brushed the tip of her nose, carrying with it the faint, distinct scent of winter.
Ian stared for a moment at the cold cityscape beyond the window, then realized he had run out of cigarettes and let out a sigh.
“I’m going to buy some cigarettes. Wait here.”
At Ian’s words, Lee Seo-a, who had been sitting quietly and sniffing the air, got up.
“You’re going to the convenience store, right? I’ll come with you.”
“Is there something you need to buy?”
“We’ll see once we get there. Come on, let’s go.”
There was no particular reason to refuse, so Ian took Lee Seo-a with him to the convenience store near his home.
“Welcome.”
A tired-looking part-timer greeted the two of them, and Ian familiarly bought the cigarettes he usually smoked. Lee Seo-a clasped her hands behind her back and looked around the store.
“Huh?”
Then, a small liquor fridge entered her field of vision.
A refrigerator filled with all sorts of alcohol, from soju to beer. Until just a few months ago, when she had still been a high school student, they had been things she didn’t need to care about at all, but now it was different. She was old enough to drink legally.
‘Come to think of it, I haven’t even tried alcohol since becoming an adult.’
Two months had already passed since the New Year. Her classmates had long since started going to clubs and drinking, but she had never even tried it because she wasn’t particularly interested in such things.
If she had family, perhaps it would have been different, but unfortunately, she was an orphan. There wasn’t a single person to teach her how to drink.
Since things had turned out this way, it didn’t seem like a bad idea to try it today. Deep down, she was also curious about what alcohol tasted like.
The picture of drinking alone with a man was a little strange, but once the premise that both of them were mages was added, it didn’t really mean much.
It felt a little odd to say this as a mage, but all mages were, in truth, lunatics. It wasn’t that they had no sexual desire, but at the very least, there were hardly any who turned into dogs just because they had a drink. Lee Seo-a had no doubt that she, too, belonged to that category of human being.
Jingle.
Her hesitation was long, and her action was brief. Lee Seo-a picked up two bottles of soju and two cans of beer and brought them to the counter. Ian, who had been opening his cigarette pack without much thought, frowned when he saw what she had brought.
“…Alcohol?”
“I want to try it. Don’t worry, I’m an adult now.”
“No, that’s not what I meant… Whew, forget it. I’m sure you’ll manage on your own.”
Ian answered that way, then added as he headed out of the convenience store.
“If you’re buying that, get some snacks too. Whatever you feel like eating.”
“Let’s not buy it here. Let’s order chicken at your place.”
“Well, that works too.”
Leaving Lee Seo-a to pay, Ian sat at the table with the ashtray and smoked. Faint smoke rose into the air, then soon dispersed.
A short while later, Lee Seo-a came outside carrying a bag with the alcohol inside after finishing the payment. Ian finished his cigarette and stood up.
“Let’s go.”
“Yeah. But what does smoking taste like?”
“Like cigarettes. Don’t you start doing this…”
“I wouldn’t even if you told me to. You should quit too.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He said that, but Ian had no plans to quit smoking yet. Lee Seo-a shook her head.
The two of them returned straight home without stopping anywhere else. Lee Seo-a set out the alcohol she had bought, and Ian opened a delivery app and ordered chicken.
Thirty minutes later, the food arrived.
When he brought the bag in and placed the box on the table, the rich smell of savory oil and seasoning spread out. He had ordered boneless chicken, so there were no drumsticks, but perhaps they had used thigh meat, because there were no dry pieces in particular. The taste wasn’t bad either.
And so the two of them ate chicken while chatting quietly. Then, at some point, they each took a can of beer and began to drink.
To Ian, it was a familiar taste. Even if he didn’t drink often, he did sip on it now and then when he was bored. To Lee Seo-a, however, it still seemed to be an unknown taste she was unused to.
“Blegh.”
Her face twisted sharply the moment she put the barley juice to her lips.
“It tastes disgusting. Why do people drink this?”
“You drink it for that taste. You’re still too young to understand.”
“There’s barely any age difference between us, so what are you talking about? More importantly, this really tastes awful. Ah, I shouldn’t have bought it.”
Grumbling, Lee Seo-a set the beer can down on the table. Her gaze shifted to the green soju bottle.
“Does this taste good?”
“It’ll probably taste worse than beer. Personally, I don’t like soju either.”
“You should’ve told me earlier!”
“You bought it because you said you wanted to drink it, so why is this my fault?”
“Anyway, it’s not my fault.”
It was truly mage-like speech and behavior. Ian chuckled, ate a piece of chicken, and took a sip of beer. Lee Seo-a also seemed intent on finishing the beer she had opened, because she grimaced fiercely while drinking beer and cola at the same time. Then she unconsciously let out a small burp, and her face turned bright red.
“…Did you hear that?”
“All I heard was a foghorn.”
“Die!”
The drinking session went on for quite a while. The only alcohol they were drinking was the single can of beer each of them held, but neither of them drank particularly fast, so compared to the amount of conversation going back and forth, the amount of alcohol disappearing was noticeably small.
However, neither of them saw that as a bad thing.
The two of them naturally sipped their drinks at their own pace in a relaxed atmosphere. At some point, Lee Seo-a seemed to have grown used to the taste as well, drinking her beer without much change in expression.
And so, at some point as they shared drinks in a harmony of chicken, beer, and conversation—
As if something had suddenly occurred to her, Lee Seo-a tilted her head with a slightly tipsy expression.
“Come to think of it, Lunar New Year is soon. Are you going back to your family home?”
“I’m an orphan.”
Ian answered immediately. Lee Seo-a let out a short phew, as if surprised.
“Oh, really? I’m an orphan too. A voluntary orphan.”
“…What the hell is a voluntary orphan?”
“An orphan whose parents died, who lived with her grandmother, then left home. I didn’t want to become a shaman, so I changed classes to mage.”
“So you did have parents, at least. Since you’re different from a regular-grade orphan like me, I’ll specially refer to you as a premium orphan.”
“Yay, thank you.”
Lee Seo-a giggled and bobbed her head up and down. Her short black hair swayed along with the movement.
“Anyway, that means you’re not going anywhere for Lunar New Year either, right? Great. At least we won’t have to get our New Year’s money extorted.”
Black comedy possible only because they were both orphans. Ian chuckled and drank down the last sip of his beer.
Unlike Lee Seo-a, who was half-drunk, his mind was no different from before. His face hadn’t reddened either.
By contrast, while Lee Seo-a’s face wasn’t exactly red, a fairly distinct flush had risen to her cheeks. It seemed she was weak to alcohol.
Well, she was probably talking about her family circumstances all of a sudden because she was drunk.
It wasn’t a matter he was particularly curious about, so Ian more or less let her words pass and put the empty can into the bag. Lee Seo-a also drank her final sip, then put her trash into the bag. The two cans struck each other with a clatter.
“Phew! That was a good drink. I’m never drinking alcohol again…”
“Once you go to university, you’ll end up drinking whether you like it or not.”
“Why would I go to university? What a waste of time. Now that I’ve got plenty of breathing room, I should start working in earnest as a mage.”
Saying that, Lee Seo-a looked at Ian.
“As soon as graduation is over, I’m going straight up to Seoul. I have plenty of money, so I’ll get a house and workshop right away, and I should buy a car too. Ah, maybe I need a license first.”
“Do you have a house in mind?”
“Nope.”
She grinned.
“I’ll just pick somewhere around here. If there’s a decent listing, I’ll sign right away. Let’s get along as neighbors.”
“Whew, a neighborhood a necromancer moved into. Property values are going to drop.”
“Ah, real estate manipulation. That’s something I’m good at.”
“…”
“I’m kidding, kidding. Don’t look so serious. I’ve only done it once.”
Lee Seo-a flopped backward and giggled. Ian looked down at her, then let out a deep sigh and cleaned up the drinking table.
“Ah, I’ll help too—blegh!”
Lee Seo-a tried to sit up to help him, only to sway from the alcohol and collapse onto the bed with a plop. More precisely, she buried her face in the pillow and wriggled around until she found a comfortable position.
“What perfume do you use? You smell nice…”
“I don’t use perfume. And if you’re drunk, hurry up and wash before going to sleep. Don’t lie on my bed in clothes covered in sweat.”
“Don’t wanna. I’ll just sleep here. Good night.”
“What are you… Hah.”
Ian tried to drag her down, but when he confirmed that she had really fallen asleep, he let out a hollow laugh.
Sleeping whenever she wanted to sleep and lying down whenever she wanted to lie down—she was practically an animal. It was absurd that a single can of beer had done that to her.
“Haa…”
Ian shook his head, roughly cleaned up the table, then spread a blanket on the floor. After washing up, he lay down on the blanket.
It was still too early to sleep, so he turned off all the lights, took out his phone, and logged into the community. The familiar nonsense warmly greeted him.
There were no particularly nutritious posts. Ian read through the few popular posts there were, then wrote one of his own.
[Guys, a lot happened to me today.]
[Yeah, yeah.]
I’m going to sleep now, so leave me some good night emotes.
[Upvotes 0] [Downvotes 0]
[Comments]
-TamingMaster: (Get out of our village! emote)
-DeepSeaAnglerfish: Good night.
-★Godmother: (Mage good night emote)
Comments from the community ghosts quickly appeared. Ian chuckled, set his phone down beside him, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
And then, the next day.
“The world is spinningggg…! Nngh!”
Lee Seo-a, staggering from a hangover, stubbed her little toe on a corner.
Served her right.