The Girl I Can't Beat

Ji-an was on her way back from a quick stop at a venue, checking the wedding flowers booked for the weekend. This time of year the ceremonies piled up, and the orders came flooding in with them. It was the sort of season when even ten of her would not have been enough, and still she did not begrudge a single minute spent on Won-young, home in Korea for the first time in years. For several minutes now she had been watching, worried, as Won-young fanned herself with one hand.

"Won-young. You okay? Want another glass of cold water?"

Won-young gave her a crooked little smile.

"No, I'm fine. I've calmed down. But you really didn't know?"

Ji-an frowned as if she truly hadn't.

"No. Oh Se-hyung was a woman? Every time I had coffee with my brother, Se-hyung would call. He always finished the call outside and came back in, so I honestly thought Se-hyung was a man. Twenty-one, you said?"

"Yeah."

This time Ji-an's brow dug in deeper.

"...I see."

"Since when does Seonbae give other people the studio passcode? He always hated that."

"He gave her the passcode too?"

"Yeah."

"Even I didn't know that."

"..."

Won-young's face darkened all at once, and Ji-an bit her lip. She wished she had not admitted that she didn't know the code either.

If she was honest, when Won-young had suddenly said she was coming back to Korea, Ji-an had hoped. Maybe. Maybe she would see her brother again. The thought had lifted in her, foolish and bright. When the two of them first said they had broken up, and when Won-young left for Japan as if she were fleeing, Ji-an had spent months in a gloom so deep it felt like grief. They had met too young, and it was the sort of ordinary breakup everyone went through, but she had worried all the same that it might open a distance between her and Won-young. Afterward, though, Won-young had kept looking after her with a stubborn, almost clinging care. Ji-an had not forgotten that kindness. She had always wished that Won-young—who put everyone else before herself—would meet someone good. In truth, she had wished that someone would be her brother.

Ji-an closed her hand around her water glass, then let it go.

"Um. Can I be honest? When you said you were coming back, I caught myself hoping. I didn't even mean to."

Won-young blinked.

"Huh? Hoping for what?"

"That you and my brother would find each other again?"

"..."

"Is that too selfish? I'm sorry. I know how badly he hurt you. I know all of it. And I still wanted the two of you to be all right."

Ji-an, her bob cut as clean and straight as a blade, smiled, a little abashed. Looking at her, Won-young lifted her eyes, suddenly serious.

"Ji-an."

"Yeah?"

"Why do you want me back with Seonbae?"

Because they're lonely. Because I know the life my brother has lived, and I know how my friend Noh Won-young held on to that warmth. Eyes gone faintly wet found Won-young.

"Because I was happy."

"Happy how?"

"Watching the two of you made me happy. I envied it. It was so tender I wanted to live that way too."

The word happy reached Won-young and quieted the heart that had been racing. She had been gazing out the window; slowly she turned to Ji-an, a faint smile on her lips.

"I did come back because of Seonbae. One day he just came to mind, and I made up my mind. I have to go back to Korea. I have to see his face again."

"..."

"That's as far as I thought it through before I came. I can't promise where my heart will go, or where his has gone. But you know me. Once I decide something, I do it. Right now the goal isn't to make things work with Seonbae. I just wanted to come back to this place—the place where I used to be. Because you're here too."

The words you're here too must have pleased her. Ji-an smiled, soft and moved.

"I like that. Those words."

"Yeah."

"Hold on a second."

Ji-an made a point of getting up, pouring another glass of cold water, and bringing it over. Won-young thanked her, face still thoroughly scrunched, then propped her chin on her hand and asked, all mischief.

"Twenty-one's way too young, isn't it?"

Ji-an played along well enough.

"It is."

"Seonbae doesn't like younger women, right?"

"...Is there a man who... doesn't like younger women?"

A strange silence settled between them. No matter how they put their heads together and turned it over, they arrived at the same conclusion: in the end, Ryu Lee-kyung was a man too. Won-young had gone quite grave, and Ji-an couldn't hold back a laugh—then she lit the fuse.

"What do we do. I can't beat a younger bitch."

Won-young gulped the cold water down. She stared at the emptied glass, then narrowed her eyes.

"Ryu Ji-an."

"Yeah?"

"You really can't beat a younger bitch?"

"Nope. Can't."

"You little brat. Listen to you, so sure of yourself. Annoying. Go away."

"No. Not going."

Ji-an leaned into Won-young's shoulder, her eyes gone soft with affection. Soft, as ever, and warm. How long has it been since I felt this? I'm so glad she came back.

"You like me that much?"

"Yeah."

"Me too."

Won-young let out a deliberately grandfatherly laugh and lightly stroked the cheek of the girl still resting against her shoulder.

The sky behind the clouds was nothing but dark. Won-young sat at a window with a clear view of the street and knocked back a cocktail. Seonbae had said he would be there by nine at the latest. There had not been so much as a phone call, and not a glimpse of him.

"Why isn't he here."

Gazing at the glass, flushed a lovely pink, she sank into thought. What were the odds that Ryu Lee-kyung and Oh Se-hyung would end up together? What kind of woman did he like, again? A good figure? A pretty face? Come to think of it, she had never once heard him talk about his type. The morning after that fevered night, the moment she opened her eyes she had asked, "Seonbae, we're dating now, right?" and all he had said was, "Yeah." Sometimes, when she asked why he liked her, he would only mess up her bangs as if she were something cute, and she never got to hear anything else.

All at once she remembered the unusually large breasts she had seen on Oh Se-hyung in the studio. They had been the first thing she noticed, so there was no way Seonbae didn't know. And come to think of it, that first night the two of them had slept together...! The memory reached that far, and goosebumps rose from her scalp to her toes.

Oh, no.

"This bastard. He likes women with big breasts!"

"Likes what?"

Right on cue, Lee-kyung crossed from the entrance of the cocktail bar to the window seat and sat down. Won-young glared at him, thoroughly sour.

"You said two hours."

"Sorry. I stayed to look at Se-hyung's painting a little longer."

"Isn't that too much? If you were going to do this, I would've just gone to dinner with Ji-an and the others. How do you leave someone starving until this hour? And someone who's been saying she's hungry since earlier, at that."

She didn't hide her hurt at all, and he leaned in.

"You mad?"

"Yeah. The Ryu Lee-kyung I know was punctual to the minute even at his part-time jobs, and if he worked so much as ten minutes extra he'd claw every last bit of it into overtime pay. He never did anything that cost him. And now you're giving extra lessons?"

"I'm doing it because it's worth it."

"Who even is she. What, is she some chaebol's daughter?"

Chewing the popcorn that had come as a basic bar snack, Lee-kyung nodded. The look of complete indifference came with it.

"Yeah. Se-hyung's my patron's daughter. Third generation of Haeahn Group."

Son of a— goddamn it. Won-young felt a curse she never used surge up her throat and thought, so this is what it feels like to face an opponent you can never beat. She had not come back to see a sight like this.

"R-really? Uh, since when have you been looking at her paintings?"

"About two years."

"It's been that long? Does she paint well?"