After seeing the customer out and returning to the counter, Seohui tilted her head toward me and smiled.
“Why are you staring so hard? Is there something on my face?”
“No, it’s just… you could’ve just woken me up and sent me off like that customer.”
At my words, Seohui paused for a moment, then rested both arms on the bar table and leaned her upper body toward me.
“…!”
When the handsome face of Seohui, dressed as a man, suddenly came close, my heart seemed to quicken.
“Well. Yeonseo, you… I just couldn’t send you off alone.”
“…Why?”
“Because you had the kind of face that looked like it might shatter at any moment. It felt like someone had to stay by your side.”
“I looked that bad…?”
“Yes.”
Seohui’s low voice tickled my ears more than the carbonation in the cocktail.
‘Ah, whatever!’
To hide my flushed face, I downed the rest of my Midori sour in one go.
I fiddled with the empty glass after finishing it and bit my lip.
‘Ah… I already finished it…’
If I could, I wanted to order another drink and chat with Seohui more, but the money I had left was in a very precarious state.
Perhaps reading the hesitation in me, Seohui took the empty glass and smiled gently.
“Yeonseo, if you don’t mind, I can make you one more on the house. Don’t worry about the money.”
“…Huh? Is that okay?”
“You can come by often from now on. What kind do you like?”
Despite feeling shameless, I nodded and answered.
“Anything Seohui gives me is fine.”
“Anything… That’s the hardest order.”
Seohui thought for a moment, then took a deep purple bottle from the shelf behind her.
I stared blankly at her precise movements as she shook the shaker.
The slender wrist peeking out from beneath her shirt sleeve drew my gaze in a strangely captivating way.
Before long, a glass of bewitching red-tinged color was placed in front of me.
I quickly lifted the glass and took a sip.
A rich sweetness wrapped around the tip of my tongue, and the alcohol was definitely stronger than in the Midori sour.
“It’s a cassis frappe. A lot of people like it because it’s so sweet, but do you know what its nickname is?”
“No idea.”
“They call it the cocktail that invites a kiss.”
Seohui’s eyes curved slightly as she whispered playfully.
“Kgh…! Cough, cough!”
Thanks to that, I ended up choking.
“Yeonseo, it looks like you’re weak against embarrassing lines.”
“Please don’t say things like that…”
After a few more sips, my face quickly grew hot.
Maybe because I’d worn myself out composing during the day, I felt the tipsiness rising faster than usual.
“…You know, Seohui.”
“Yes?”
“What if I really get drunk? Are you going to carry me home today too?”
At the words I blurted out in my hazy state, Seohui stopped wiping the glass in her hand and looked at me.
“Mm… I might?”
“Umm…?”
At that answer, I tilted my head slightly in confusion.
It wasn’t a serious situation like yesterday, but she was saying she’d take me home again.
For some reason, I felt a strange sensation, as if I were receiving special treatment.
But I didn’t dislike it. No, if anything, it felt like my heart was beating a little faster.
“Yeonseo, are you drunk?”
After a little while, Seohui checked to see if I was drunk.
“Nooo… I’m not drunk.”
I tried to deny it, but the slightly tangled pronunciation spilling from the tip of my tongue exposed my lie at once.
“…You’re drunk.”
Seohui rested her chin on her hand and stared at me.
When the eyes of her, dressed as a man, came straight into view, my face turned red enough to burst—whether because of the alcohol or because of that gaze, I couldn’t tell.
“Yeonseo, isn’t your face too red?”
“N-no it isn’t!”
Pointlessly embarrassed, I snapped my head away.
When I turned back again, that deep gaze was still fixed on me.
Sweating nervously, I emptied the rest of my glass.
“Was it all right?”
“It’s good…”
I mumbled an answer to her question and flopped down onto the table.
The strength had suddenly gone out of me.
And in my dazed state, I asked a question.
“Seohui… do you have a boyfriend?”
“No, not yet.”
At Seohui’s simple answer, I smiled foolishly and continued.
“Wow, seriously… Whoever dates you later is going to be pretty happy.”
“Really?”
“Yeah…”
At the interest in Seohui’s voice, I answered while counting on my fingers one by one.
“First of all, you’re such a good listener… and you’re incredibly kind. On top of that, you’re this, this handsome and pretty too. Who wouldn’t like you…”
At that, Seohui looked into my eyes and asked,
“Then do you like me too, Yeonseo?”
“Of course I like you… Ah… I don’t mean in a dating way or anything.”
Seohui suddenly smiled in a meaningful way.
“Yeonseo, these conversations we’re having right now… do you think you’ll remember them tomorrow?”
“Hmm… No, I don’t think I will…”
I was answering hazily under the influence of alcohol when—
“…!”
Seohui slowly lifted my chin with one hand. Her face came dangerously close before my eyes.
“I didn’t want to do this in this form, and especially not to someone who’s drunk. But I really can’t hold back.”
“…What are you talking about?”
To me, frozen in confusion, Seohui confessed in a low voice.
“I’m sorry for saying this already, but I’ve come to like you, Yeonseo.”
“S-suddenly…?”
“I do have a proper reason… but it would be hard to tell you right now.”
“That’s… I…”
“…As expected, it’s a little much, isn’t it?”
No, I haven’t even given any kind of answer yet?
When I couldn’t continue and only stared blankly, Seohui lowered her head bitterly.
Then Seohui added in a weak voice.
“…Is it because I’m a woman?”
In that instant, before I even had time to think, an unconscious answer burst from my mouth.
“No! It’s not that!”
Even after saying it, I was startled by myself.
My head became a mess, unable to define whether I meant, “It’s not that I dislike you because you’re a woman,” or “It’s not that I dislike you.”
Seohui’s eyes, staring intently at me, wavered deeply.
“Then, Yeonseo, can I do one terrible thing?”
“One terrible thing…?”
I instinctively knew what she wanted, and what was contained in that short sentence.
It was a situation where I ought to refuse, but the air mixed with Seohui’s scent was far too dizzying to resist.
As if bewitched, I nodded very slowly.
In that instant, Seohui’s hand cupped my cheek.
The sensation of her long-jointed fingers touching my skin was cool yet hot.
Then a soft warmth carefully met mine.
At first, it was very light, as though confirming something, but soon a slightly deeper, richer weight settled over my lips.
“Mm…”
When her face, wearing the mask of a handsome man, filled my vision, an unreal sense of elation swept through my entire body.
It was an unfamiliar sensation, but it was by no means unpleasant.
If anything, each time that soft warmth touched me, it felt as though a hardened corner of my heart was melting away.
After a time that was both short and long, Seohui pulled away first.
She let out a deep breath and smiled with difficulty.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s selfish… but I guess even I wanted to lean on someone once in a while.”
The tenderness in her eyes and the weight of those meaningful words poured into me all at once along with my drunkenness.
I had to answer. I had to say something… But my consciousness, having reached its limit, ended there.
With Seohui’s face looking down at me as the last thing in my eyes, I collapsed onto the table and sank into deep darkness.
***
The next day, I woke to sunlight pouring through the crack in the window.
“…So she ended up taking me home again.”
I got up in my usual daze and headed to the kitchen.
Just as I picked up a spoon and was about to open the refrigerator door, one of yesterday’s memories flashed through my mind.
“Yeonseo, these conversations we’re having right now… do you think you’ll remember them tomorrow?”
“…Huh?”
In an instant, the hand gripping the handle froze.
Not long after, memories that had been hazy as fog began to replay in my head.
Starting from when I asked whether she had a boyfriend, to when I drunkenly babbled that whoever dated Seohui would be happy. And most decisively, Seohui’s confession.
“Ah, fuck…”
And it didn’t end there.
The sensation of those hot fingers, the unreal softness that had settled over my lips, and her low, hushed breathing.
Every scene returned more vividly than it had been yesterday.
It was too clear a sensation for me to dismiss it as a distorted memory.
“I’m fucked. I’m really fucked…”
I flung the spoon away, clutched my head, and sank to the floor.
Of all things, today was the day I’d promised to buy her a meal.
Just what kind of face was I supposed to make when I saw her now?