For Ruby — Chapter 7

"Is this how we're supposed to sit?"

"Yep."

Ruby, who hadn't taken his eyes off her for a single moment since they'd faced each other, answered with the certainty of someone stating an obvious fact.

The table sat lower than the sofa, so Haeseo's eye level had dropped along with it. Because of that, she felt utterly exposed before Ruby, like something laid out bare with nowhere to hide.

It was a subtly dangerous feeling… as though she'd become an animal locked inside a cage.

His sprawled legs never touched her so much as a single hair, but merely knowing how thick and hard they were — frighteningly so — was enough to squeeze her heart tight.

Ruby… grew… this much? Haeseo tilted her head slowly, slowly enough to creak.

Ruby's finger, which had been tapping rhythmically at her shoulder with a satisfied smile stretching the corners of his mouth, suddenly stopped.

"Let's talk quickl—"

"Don't rush me. Haeseo, you're always slow when I want you fast, and fast when I want you slow."

"Excuse me? Hup."

After muttering this incomprehensible nonsense, Ruby's upper body loomed close — close enough to embrace her.

But he merely stretched out those long arms, grabbed a glass and the bottle, and smoothly withdrew. In that brief moment, his warmth had seared through her whole body, and she flinched as goosebumps rippled across her skin. And naturally, her lower abdomen clenched, a ticklish heat pooling below.

So Baek Ruby's drinking habit is skinship, apparently. Surely it wasn't intentional — but from the standpoint of someone hopelessly in love, it was the worst possible torture.

Ruby, naturally oblivious to the mess he'd made of her heart, held out a whiskey glass filled with orange liquid.

"…This isn't alcohol, right?"

"It's orange juice. Don't drink booze. It's a hundred harms and zero benefits. Blegh."

And with those words, Ruby tipped a generous splash of whiskey into his own glass and brought it to his lips.

"Then you shouldn't drink either, Team Leader."

When Haeseo reached out and lightly stopped him, Ruby broke into another smile. That feels nice, he murmured.

This time the smile was so close her heart stuttered. And for so many reasons, too. She'd drank nearly her limit before coming, but her heart seemed far too promiscuous. Haeseo let out a bitter laugh, tipped the glass back, and drained the juice in one go. The sweet-tart flavor flooded her mouth.

"Oh, this is really tasy… mh?"

The finish came with a sharp, stinging burn of alcohol. She'd always been hopelessly weak to liquor, so even the smallest amount registered instantly. No way… was this glass used for whiskey originally? Was there residue left inside?

"Oh no."

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud. Her heart pounded far faster than it had all night.

Haeseo had never once drunk whiskey in her life. Forget hard liquor — she got drunk off beer alone, which was why she'd never even attempted soju.

What's more, she'd always stopped right at that tipsy threshold, so she'd never found out what happened once she crossed the line.

"Hng."

Feeling a hiccup coming, Haeseo sucked in a sharp breath and covered her mouth.

"I feel… weird."

As Haeseo, experiencing the sensation of alcohol spreading rapidly through her body for the first time, swayed and wobbled, Ruby narrowed his thighs and pinned her firmly between his knees.

Then, with just his index and middle fingers, he carefully pressed them to her forehead.

"You okay?"

Even those two short words dripped with worry.

"A little hot…"

Haeseo fanned herself with her hand. Not that such tiny flapping hands could produce much of a breeze. Snorting with laughter, Ruby fanned her face himself to cool her down. The breeze felt so pleasant that Haeseo brushed her bangs back with both hands and let her eyes flutter shut.

"Whew…"

Haeseo drew a slow, deep breath. The sudden rush of heat had settled, but it hadn't simply evaporated away. As if it had taken up residence inside her body, her temperature warmed, and her limbs went deliciously slack. Her mood, too, began lifting in strange, buoyant waves.

"Haeseo, get up. Let's go home."

Just as Ruby — his mind already consumed entirely with worry for her — tried to help her to her feet, Haeseo's eyes snapped open.

"Hee. Team Leader."

Her pupils soft and hazy, she gazed up at Ruby — and this time it was Haeseo who smiled. Even the thudding, thudding of her own heartbeat now sounded like a cute little drum roll, and that reassured her.

"Haah. Haeseo, please."

At that smile, Ruby's hands started toward her cheeks — then froze in midair. Left hanging, he clenched and unclenched his fists, at a complete loss.

Unable in the end to let himself touch her the way he craved, Ruby lowered both hands to the sofa.

"Give me your hand."

Haeseo spread both palms and held them out before Ruby. After the briefest silence, he laid his hand over them.

After patting her two pressed-together hands with his enormous palm — nearly the size of both of hers combined — and smoothing them out prettily, Haeseo lifted his hand and pressed it against her own cheek.

The round cheek against his broad palm was so much hotter than what two fingers alone could feel… and soft and yielding as a marshmallow.

Haeseo's skin, touching me this directly. Hup — the breath that escaped Ruby was embarrassingly fevered, and he buried his head in his remaining free hand and groaned in deep self-loathing.

No matter how hard he scrunched his face, his body refused to calm down.

"This is what you wanted to do, isn't it?"

"……"

"You don't even have to say it. I waited on you hand and foot for three whole years, you know."

As Haeseo boasted proudly of her insight, Ruby twisted one corner of his lip and gave her cheek a gentle tug.

"Ow."

"Yeah. Keep taking care of me like that forever — where do you think you're going?"

"……"

Perhaps it was the suddenness of it — Haeseo, who had widened her eyes, let her murmuring lips fall silent.

Even a single second of her silence was unbearable to him. Truthfully, even asking the question was agony. The mere thought of meeting her eyes and talking about this subject made his chest feel like it would burst apart from anxiety.

It was only because he was in a state of diminished capacity — a man who believed alcohol served no purpose in life whatsoever, yet had let Gong Jigang goad him into drinking himself into a blackout — that he fired off the question point-blank.

"Baek Gi-baek… he's offering you a lot of money?"

Feeling the blood drain rapidly from his entire body, Ruby slammed the cheap question home like a fastball. His eye rims flared scarlet in an instant.

"Excuse me?"

"Baek Gi-baek. Do you like him better?"

Even as his breath came ragged and shallow, Ruby couldn't stop the questions. A car that had already jumped the rails and was plummeting toward a cliff had no hope of braking in time.

Crack. Boom. Smash. His heart pounded violently, as if the chassis were careening off the boulders at the cliff's base.

"It's not like that."

Even Haeseo's hard-won answer did nothing to ease his anxiety.

"Then why, exactly?"

Ruby gripped her shoulders firmly and locked his eyes with hers. So she couldn't run.

Haeseo struggled to lower her gaze and evade him, then peeked up at Ruby in furtive glances. She saw the slightly crumpled chest of his shirt, the peanuts scattered carelessly across the table, her own legs folded primly between Ruby's thighs.

No matter how busily her eyes darted about, Baek Ruby looked at her and her alone. With a gaze as potent and dangerous as the first whiskey she'd ever tasted in her life.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The drumbeat of her heart, pounding since earlier, only grew louder. It was a rhythm she absolutely could not handle. Drunk already — and getting drunker still.

How strange. How can only my senses stay razor-sharp while the brain that commands my thoughts, my judgment, my very movements goes blurry?

"…You're leaving."

"Where?"

"Haah, you're leaving for America soon. So I should quit. Isn't that the right thing…?"

Haeseo mumbled in a voice barely loud enough to hear.

"How is that right, damn it."

"……"

"Stop dodging the question. Tell me straight — why did you try to quit?"

The moment a crack appeared in Haeseo's lips, an impatient Ruby pressed her sharply.

Grr. He's younger than me, too. Haeseo grumbled internally as her upper body swayed faintly. All those years serving him, she'd never once thought about who was older or younger. But now she felt as though something was quietly slipping right out of her grasp.

Her heart, beating fast and furious, sent blood coursing through her entire body, and she was swept away helplessly by that tide.

Because Team Leader Baek and Ruby are two different people.

"Because I've started to like Ruby…"

"……"

"Haah, move over."

Haeseo shoved firmly against Ruby's immovable wall of a torso, then picked up the glass beside her, refilled it with orange juice, and gulped it down.

"Say it again."

"Say what…"

"Wh-what-what do you like about me?"

Uncharacteristically stumbling over his words, Ruby this time grabbed both her cheeks without hesitation and tilted her face up. Oh my. Ruby's eyes…

Maybe it was the second glass of orange juice, but the circles within Ruby's pupils seemed to be spinning. Round and round, endlessly… Ah. Hypnotic eyes.

"Ruby, I li— Hup!"

As she spoke, Ruby urgently bent his head down through her parted lips. His soft mouth pressed precisely against her full lips, and his tongue slipped swiftly inside through the gap.

It all happened in a blink, so all Haeseo could do was blink her own eyes and clutch desperately at the collar of the shirt now looming before her. Without a moment to be flustered, Ruby's face tilted, and his tongue pushed deeper, lapping at the delicate skin inside her mouth.

The lewd, wet sounds of him stealing her saliva and feeding her his own rang out with shameless clarity.

"Hng, ah."

He grazed her upper lip teasingly, then sucked at the tender flesh as if to devour it, chewed slowly at her lower lip — moving as though he meant to swallow her entire mouth whole.

Even in the precious gap where the breathless Haeseo tore herself away to gasp for air, he kept his tongue stretched out long, flicking playfully at the tip of her tongue that peeked out. Kisses that gave her no room even to breathe — Haeseo's body trembled with a fine shiver.

The strange, illicit stimulation against her tender skin was more than enough to awaken the sensitivity of other equally soft places. Her nipples prickled with heat.

This time she tried tipping her head back harder, further. But Ruby, handling her the way one handles a squirming infant mid-feeding, caught the back of her neck and held her firm. The sticky, unhurried sounds of his tongue exploring her mouth never stopped.