Welcome Back

The two of them slipped out of the officetel where Lee-kyung kept his studio and walked for about five minutes.

The street was lined with small, charming cafés, each one showing off a sensibility of its own. Matching her pace to his, Won-young stole a glance at him.

In a coat, Lee-kyung looked every inch a grown man. When she had first seen him in the studio she had only thought he was dressed rather comfortably, but a single black jacket thrown on without any care had already changed the impression he made. There had been a lean look to him before; now his frame had filled out far more than it had then.

She caught herself wondering how she appeared in his eyes. A woman of thirty was hardly going to look as baby-faced, or as cute, as she once had.

Maybe I'm not pretty anymore.

She followed him with her eyes a moment longer, then turned her gaze elsewhere and asked.

"This place has changed a lot. It's a café street now, isn't it."

Unable to settle her eyes anywhere, she kept turning her head this way and that, and Lee-kyung slowed his steps to answer.

"Yeah. It used to be almost nothing but metal shops. Now it's all cafés. On weekends they open a flea market, and you can barely find room to stand."

"Do you come often, sunbae?"

"No."

"These days, is Seon-jae oppa still the only person you see?"

"Yeah."

Sunbae was not a sociable man. That had been well known for a long time. With people he was always prickly, or blunt. He reacted so sharply even when someone, meaning well, tried more than once to talk to him that a few had gone so far as to call his personality fucking unbearable.

Won-young, of course, liked that about him. She knew he was a man who quietly offered the smallest considerations—the kind no one else ever noticed.

A small smile had barely caught at her lips when he took her wrist and pulled her in. A motorcycle was coming at them at a fair clip from the other side, and she had not seen it. He warned her, low.

"Careful."

"Okay."

A quiet stillness settled. As he always had, he chose the side nearer the road for himself.

Knowing that kindness for what it was, Won-young walked with her shoulder aligned to his, then stared at him outright as an old thought surfaced. Sunbae was truly handsome—not in a flashy way. His looks were cool, even cold, and all the more impossible to look away from for it: artistic brows, the sharp ridge of his nose, a mouth drawn in a clean line, down to the Adam's apple, where the veins looked ready to stand out at any moment. He carried an air you could not easily step into. Everything about him sat a fair distance from ordinary, a face that now and then set a possessive hunger alight.

Was that why? Meet again, after years, the person you had fallen for at first sight, and did you simply fall once more?

He's still beautiful. Sunbae is.

"What are you staring at."

His gaze traveled down from the crown of her head and rested at the corners of her eyes. She swallowed. If she was not going to be able to hide it anyway, she wanted to be honest, the way she used to be.

"You're still so handsome. I was just looking."

Lee-kyung swept his palm playfully across her face. As he did, the pojangmacha he had mentioned came into view. They turned right out of the café alley, and there in a quiet, out-of-the-way spot stood a red tarp tent. Curiosity rose in her, and she asked at once.

"Is this your regular place, sunbae?"

"Yeah."

"Are you drinking soju? I want somaek—soju cut with beer."

The stall owner, recognizing Lee-kyung, greeted him warmly. He ordered an assortment of food the way he usually liked it, along with soju and beer. Won-young followed his lead, dragged over a blue plastic chair, and sat.

Setting down the basic accompaniment—a spicy mussel soup crowded with chili—and the drinks, the owner asked Lee-kyung with a sidelong look.

"Girlfriend?"

He shook his head. She had hoped he might add a word and introduce her as something, but nothing more came. Won-young pretended it did not matter and poured beer into an empty glass in a rush.

"Are you having somaek too, sunbae?"

"No."

Without ceremony, Lee-kyung poured soju into his own glass and drank it straight down. Won-young, who had been about to touch glasses with him, bit her lip hard and shot back.

"Why are you drinking alone? Did you come here by yourself? Can you not see me?"

Their eyes met. Wearing the faintest smile, Lee-kyung poured into her beer as well, then passed her the soju bottle as if it were nothing. This time she slowly filled the glass he had just emptied. The two of them raised their glasses at the same moment.

"Thank you for coming all the way out to the airport yesterday. For taking me home, too. And for eating late-night food with me that night—I was grateful."

"…"

"Say something, sunbae."

"Say what."

"Anything. Just say something."

After a small silence, he opened his mouth.

"Welcome back."

"Yeah."

In the brief instant their gazes tangled, they struck their glasses together.

When they stepped out of the pojangmacha, rain began to patter down. Of the two, it was Lee-kyung who held his liquor better, and so he walked out perfectly steady while Won-young was pleasantly, moderately drunk.

"Oh. It's raining."

Unable to hide how the sudden downpour had thrown her, she scratched at the nape of her neck. Not even noticing how red her cheeks had gone, she looked at him with her lips parted wide.

"What do we do?"

He said nothing. Caught in the gaze looking straight down at her, her heart kicked up for no good reason. His scent, threaded through the smell of rain, rushed into her nose, and she thought, all at once, that the mood of this moment suited him terribly well. A black night, cold rain falling, droplets leaping without fail, a chill against the skin—and so a faintly dangerous air that looked, somehow, exactly like him.

"Stay right there."

"Huh?"

"I'll buy an umbrella and bring it."

"Ah. Okay."

The words were hardly finished before Lee-kyung ran out into the rain. She meant to run after him, but what he had said a moment ago held her fast.

In the end, even watching his back grow distant, she could not take a single step. She stood blankly in the rain and watched him run.

"…I could have gone with you."

He always leaves me alone like this.

Memories of those immature years, when they had met and loved each other purely, washed over her like a wave. Perhaps it was the drink, but she felt a little hurt. Back then she had always been the anxious one—afraid, every time, that he might leave her behind like this, and afraid that one day he would tell her in cold words that he did not love her anymore, and go.

If only, back then, I had known a little better what kind of person he was. If only my heart had had a little more room.

…Maybe we never would have broken up.

The time that had passed, and the time that had been cut short, both felt unkind, and she resented them for it. Just as that thought grew heavy, Lee-kyung came back. He had an umbrella open over himself, and in his other hand was a second one for her.

Won-young grumbled to herself. Why buy two? We could have shared one. What is this, showing off that you've got money? Did you really have to buy two before you felt satisfied?

"Let's go."

The moment he called her and moved to hand her the new umbrella, she drew her back straight and stepped in beneath his.