Ketchup Hearts and Counterattacks

Within the school walls, the couple's worlds ran on perfectly parallel lines. But the moment they opened the front door and stepped inside, the marriage of Kwon Hwi-young and Kwak Som-i traced a peculiar orbit all its own.

It was a string of days that felt all the more thrilling precisely because no one else knew.

"Here, smell it."

Hwi-young thrust his open palm right in front of her face — the same palm he'd just used to scoop up Som-i's lotion.

"Doesn't your scent come off my hand?"

"What is wrong with you."

Flustered by behavior so shameless it had started first thing in the morning, she felt an entirely unnecessary blush creep up and swatted his hand away. Hwi-young simply reclaimed the rejected hand, pressed it to the tip of his nose, sniffed, and grinned.

Pretending not to notice the frantic pounding of her own heart, Som-i bolted for the kitchen as if fleeing for her life.

Haah….

Slapping both hands against her cheeks, she rolled up her sleeves.

The moment she opened the refrigerator, a sigh came pouring out. Every single shelf was crammed full of eggs sent from her parents' home. She had pleaded with them — explicitly — not to send so many because she'd never finish them all, and yet her father shipped a fresh carton every three days like clockwork.

I said send a reasonable amount, please.

cheeks puffed out in a pout, Som-i deliberated for a moment before pulling the eggs out of the fridge.

A little while later, the table was set: golden toast, soft-boiled fried eggs, and two glasses of milk. A respectable little breakfast spread, all things considered — with two eggs per person, naturally.

Squeeze, squeeze—

Clutching the ketchup bottle with both hands, Som-i moved with the utmost care, channeling every ounce of her strength into preserving the perfect symmetry of the shape she was drawing when—

"Whatcha doing?"

A voice swooped in from right behind her, along with the scent of his shampoo. Som-i jolted, her hand flying. A great glob of ketchup came splattering down over the design she'd been so painstakingly creating.

"Ah."

She turned, her face a picture of utter devastation. Hwi-young had crept up right behind her without her noticing, and was peering down at the toast.

…….

For a moment he stared in silence at the ketchup-drowned toast. Then he drew a slow breath through his lips.

"A teddy bear?"

"No."

"A bunny, then."

"Nope."

"Then what was it supposed to be?"

"Well…."

Som-i's lips wavered. She would rather have died than admit it was a heart.

"Wow. And man, that is red."

Hwi-young murmured it like he was genuinely impressed. Even to her own eyes the visual was beyond salvaging, and Som-i bit down hard on her lower lip. She felt like an idiot who couldn't even manage to squeeze ketchup onto a piece of toast properly.

Click.

At the sudden shutter sound, Som-i — who had been sulking down at her toast — snapped her head up.

"Ah, don't take a picture!"

But Hwi-young was already reviewing the photo he'd just taken on his phone.

"Delete it! Delete it right now. Please?"

Som-i clutched his arm and hung on desperately, even stretching up onto her tiptoes to reach — but Hwi-young just snickered and raised his already too-long arm higher out of her grasp.

"What, it's cute."

Som-i, who had been flailing at his arm for her life, suddenly froze.

Kwon Hwi-young had been acting strange lately. Had he always been this fond of taking pictures? He kept capturing the most insignificant things whenever the mood struck him.

Her character-print socks hanging on the drying rack. The half-drunk glass of milk stained with her lip tint. The bobby pins that somehow always ended up rolling around on the table.

Just yesterday, she'd gone out to grab a package wearing his slippers and run straight into him at the front door. The slippers were far too big for her feet, her toes poking out past the toe caps, and the sight sent Hwi-young lunging for his camera. Which was how she'd ended up standing in the entryway, wrestling with him for a solid stretch of time.

He was really, really, really strange.

"Can I post this on Instagram?"

"What?!"

Som-i's head shook violently.

"Why would you post that? What if someone recognizes us?"

"It's just toast with ketchup on it. What could anyone possibly figure out from this?"

"No. Absolutely not!"

Som-i lunged for the phone, but infuriatingly, Hwi-young didn't budge an inch, arm held high. No — had he always been this childish and disobedient?

Ever since they'd started living together, sides of him she'd never seen kept sprouting up out of nowhere. Those silly, unfamiliar faces he let loose only when the two of them were alone. And each time another one stacked itself onto the pile, Som-i felt a strange, dizzying vertigo wash over her.

"Oops. Just posted it."

At that perfectly calm voice, the screen flipped in an instant. The catastrophic photo of the toast — looking for all the world like a fresh crime scene — now hung proudly at the top of his Instagram feed.

A long, deep groan escaped the lips of Som-i, who had frozen mid-thought.

"……Haah."

Taking in her face — the face of someone watching the world end — Hwi-young simply curved his mouth into a mischievous smile. And it was exactly that shameless grin that ignited something stubborn in her.

"Fine. Then I'm taking one too."

Som-i snatched up her own phone from where she'd tossed it on the table.

"Hm?"

The moment Hwi-young echoed her in bewilderment — click— — the shutter went off on the phone she'd thrust straight at his face.

"…Som-i."

Ambushed without warning, Hwi-young blinked his eyes slowly, utterly dumbfounded.

Som-i quickly checked the photo of him on her screen. His freshly washed bangs hung half-dry and tousled over his forehead, and his pajama shirt had slipped down with one button undone, baring the line of one collarbone.

Most of all, because the camera had been shoved at him so suddenly, his usual languid composure was nowhere to be found. It was the fleeting face of a man who hadn't quite processed what was happening — caught off guard and disarmed, and that was exactly what made it so funny.

"Pfft."

The laughter that had been sneaking out between her lips finally burst free in a full-blown eruption.

"Hahahaha…."

Like a bean pod popping clean open, once the laughter started it showed no sign of stopping. Som-i's shoulders shook again and again until her eyes were brimming with tears, laughing herself into a complete daze.

Hwi-young simply stood there, gazing at her from a distance. He couldn't remember ever seeing her laugh out loud like this. The laughter spilling out in peals from behind her shielding hand, the way her eyes folded into round crescents — it was innocent in a way that defied all description.

It was as if some enormous stone had just dropped into the depths of his chest; Hwi-young stood rooted to the spot, speechless. Oblivious to it all, still unable to contain herself, she let slip a single remark.

"You look silly."

"…What?"

Only then did Hwi-young snap back to his senses and stride right up to her side.

"How could you? Let me see it."

And just as he had done, Som-i thrust the hand holding her phone high into the air. But the moment she realized her own arm could dangle no higher than the crown of his head, she hid the phone behind her back with a look of pure defeat.

Too late, though. Hwi-young had already glimpsed his own dazed face flashing across the screen.

"Som-i, that's not fair."

"Why not?"

Hwi-young pressed a hand to his forehead like his head ached.

"Delete it. Please."

Som-i's mouth curved up sharply at the corners.

"I don't want to."

"Haah… Som-i."

At the sight of Kwon Hwi-young sighing deeply and pacing in agitated circles, Som-i burst out laughing yet again.

"Delete it, and I will. Okay?"

Wiping the tiny tear at the corner of her eye, Som-i pointed at his phone with an artfully haughty expression.

"Take down the toast picture first."

"Yeah. Taking it down right now."

Watching him grovel at the speed of light, Som-i nodded with deep satisfaction.

The two of them sat down across from each other at the table and deleted the photos from their respective phones. A perfectly satisfying negotiation.

Before long, Hwi-young bit into the toast in front of him as if nothing had happened. Watching him, Som-i followed suit without a second thought, taking a big bite of her own — and in that instant, a sourness so sharp her tongue went numb flooded her entire mouth. Som-i shuddered violently, her face scrunching up.

"Ughhh…."

Pfft — this time it was Hwi-young who couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.

Hadn't the two of them agreed, well in advance, to leave for school separately? Then there was no explanation for why Kwon Hwi-young was trailing doggedly along behind her right now.

When she'd left through the front door, he'd been sitting on the couch just like always. He'd seen her off with a bob of his head — heading out first, have a good day today — snickering as she bowed politely, and she'd left the apartment ahead of him, leaving him behind.

When the school gate came into view in the distance, Som-i pulled the earphones out of her ears. Then, turning her backpack around to her front to stow them in the case, she happened to glance back over her shoulder —

"Uh…?"

Som-i's eyes went perfectly round. Barely two or three meters behind her, Hwi-young was walking along in silence, white headphones hooked over his ears. One hand was tucked in the pocket of his varsity jacket, the other gripping the strap of the bag slung over his shoulder.