The Line Must Be Drawn
He was about to snap at her — don't get the wrong idea, that will never happen — when it happened.
Rrring!
A heartless alarm shattered the silence. Minju clenched her jaw and forced down the words that had been about to burst out of her. Losing her temper here and now would only mean being dragged along exactly as he intended. She shot Seokjun one cold, chilled glance, then rose from her seat without a word and headed for the next table.
She could feel Seokjun's relentless gaze boring into her back, but Minju never once looked over her shoulder. If anything, she walked with her spine even straighter, as if to make a show of it.
She knew perfectly well that the most perfect answer she could give Seokjun was not anger, but indifference — proof that he could no longer shake her.
Waiting for her at the next table was Munyeol, fidgeting in an entirely different sense than Seokjun had. He sat perched on the very edge of his chair like a student at a job interview, his legs bouncing beneath him.
"Sorry to keep you waiting long?"
"Yes. A really long time. What could you and Seokjun possibly have had so much to talk about? You made my blood run dry."
Minju had expected him to politely say it was nothing, and his sharp-edged reply made her brow furrow. His inability to hide his jealousy didn't come across as honest — it came across as rude. A different kind of fatigue than the pressure she'd felt facing Seokjun settled over her.
"Let me pour your wine."
Munyeol, utterly failing to read her stiffened expression, picked up the wine bottle. But his overeagerness had thrown off his control, and red liquid came gushing into Minju's glass in great gulps.
"Oh — hold on!"
"Ah, oops. I poured too much, didn't I? My hands were shaking from thinking about you, Minju. Hahaha."
Munyeol withdrew the bottle with an awkward laugh, but the glass was already filled to the brim, wobbling dangerously. At the crude spectacle — like someone sloshing makgeolli around at a cheap tavern — Minju felt a sigh rising instead of a smile.
"Actually, I'm more of a soju person. I just wanted to impress you, Minju. Haah, everything's going wrong from the start."
Munyeol scratched the back of his head and stared at her openly. For an unguarded confession, his gaze was far too blatant. Before she'd even recovered her composure, worn down by Seokjun's relentless needling, she now had to absorb the full force of Munyeol's excessive energy. The situation was becoming exhausting.
"Well then — cheers, at least!"
Munyeol raised his wine glass with theatrical flourish. Minju lifted hers carefully, cradling the base so the sloshing wine wouldn't spill. But Munyeol, oblivious to her caution, couldn't master his own strength and slammed his glass against hers.
Clang!
With a sharp, grating sound, the wine in both glasses swayed perilously close to the rim. But Munyeol, fired up with excitement, paid it no mind at all — he gulped down his wine in great swigs and drained half the glass in seconds.
Minju swallowed her rising irritation, barely touched her lips to the glass, and set it back down.
As a heavy silence settled over them, Munyeol seized a fork with grim determination, as if he simply had to say or do something, and speared a piece of melon.
"Minju, try this. They say it pairs best with today's wine. Come on, say ah~"
"No, that's all right. I'll eat it myself."
Minju reached out politely to decline, but Munyeol was relentless. He'd apparently dismissed her refusal as mere courtesy, and leaned his upper body clear across the table, thrusting the fork toward her lips.
"Aw, come on. I want to feed it to you myself. Hurry up."
Minju reached out again to decline with all the politeness she could muster, but Munyeol, driven by his desire to dote on her, pushed the fork even closer. The moment Minju, flustered, instinctively leaned back, Munyeol's elbow — hovering over the table in his eager bend — knocked the wine glass that had been sitting precariously at the edge.
"Ah!"
In an instant, the deep red wine bloomed across her once-clean skirt like a flower, spreading in a ruinous stain.
"Oh no, this is a disaster — Minju, I'm so sorry! Let me wipe it off for you!"
Munyeol went pale, flung the fork aside, and grabbed the nearest napkin, reaching straight for her thigh.
"Stop! I'll do it myself!"
Minju cried out and batted his hand away, but Munyeol, blinded by guilt, roughly pressed his hand against her skirt anyway. His flailing, panicked efforts did nothing to remove the stain — they only spread it wider.
Staff were rushed in to deal with the chaos that the table had become. While they sorted out the mess, Minju half-rose from her seat and stared down at her wine-soaked skirt in dismay.
She bit down hard on her lip. Seokjun's arrogance had been hard enough to bear, but Munyeol's rudeness — trampling all over her boundaries in the name of being nice — was now beyond the limit.
No more of this.
The patience she had barely scraped together to maintain basic courtesy was spent. She made up her mind: she would have to draw a clear line, starting now.
Just then, Seokjun — who had been watching the whole scene unfold — shot up from his seat and ran to the main writer.
"A blanket, anything — is there something I could use to cover her up?"
"No, not right this minute..."
It was a sweltering summer day, and everyone was dressed lightly. There was no chance of a spare change of clothes anywhere.
Seokjun's brow knitted at once.
"Could I run out to my car for a moment?"
"Oh, yes! You've finished your turn, so go right ahead."
As Seokjun sprinted full-tilt toward the parking lot, Sangho strode over to Minju's side.
"Minju, are you okay?"
"Huh? Oh, yes, I'm..."
Despite her words, Minju answered while doing her best to hide the wine-darkened hem of her dress. Without a moment's hesitation, Sangho slipped off the wine-colored cardigan he was wearing and handed it to her.
"Here, cover up with this for now."
"Oh, thank you, Sangho."
Minju tied the cardigan around her waist, hiding the stain from view. Fortunately, the cardigan was almost the same shade as the blot on her dress, so it blended in seamlessly.
"I'll wash it and return it to you."
"It's fine. I can do the laundry, so just bring it back whenever."
"It's expensive — how could I not?"
Having it lent to her at all was generous enough; she couldn't possibly treat a high-end cardigan that sold for hundreds of thousands of won at department stores so carelessly. When Minju shook her head firmly, Sangho gave in with an easy smile and took a step back.
"If it bothers you that much, then do whatever's comfortable for you. Truthfully, if it means I get to see you one more time, that's a win for me anyway."
At his unexpected answer, Minju's eyes widened slightly. It was a plain, unmistakable expression of interest, folded inside his considerate gesture. Sangho's warm words settled pleasantly over Minju's heart, which had been worn ragged by Seokjun's barbed provocations.
At that very moment, Seokjun came running back, breathless to the point of choking, holding a garment she could actually wear.
But his footsteps stopped dead, as if nailed to the ground at the entrance to the rooftop. His gaze had locked onto the cardigan wrapped around Minju's waist.
While he'd been gone, Sangho had evidently given her the very clothes off his own back.
The ragged breathing from his all-out sprint began to tremble far more violently, tangled up with fury and self-loathing.
Seokjun crushed the now utterly useless garment in his fist.
Minju, who had no idea Seokjun was standing there watching them with icy eyes, finally let out a breath of relief.
Just then, a staff member approached and asked cautiously,
"Minju, would you like to go back to the lodging and change?"
Minju hesitated. If she went back now, filming would obviously be delayed, and she didn't want to make the other cast members and the staff wait on her account.
Besides, the next scene had them seated anyway, so covering it with the cardigan looked like it would be fine.
"No, I'm all right. Let's just keep going like this."
With Minju's considerate decision, the halted filming resumed immediately.
Unlike the botched encounter with Munyeol, the date with Sangho passed in the blink of an eye. If not for the PD's final call, they might well have talked straight through the night.
The nerves that had stood on razor's edge — from her standoff with Seokjun and then the wine catastrophe — melted completely soft, all thanks to Sangho, who had steered the atmosphere with unfailing gentleness from start to finish.
Minju laughed freely, heartily, for the first time in what felt like ages.
Perhaps it was the comfort that had gone to her head. Or perhaps it was because she had deliberately emptied her glass, playing it cool, so as not to think about Seokjun. Before she knew it, the wine bottle stood empty at the bottom of the table. Only then did she look around — and she and Sangho were the last two left on the rooftop.