The Perfectly Transparent Man

The weather was beautiful.

Gazing up at the sky beyond the café window, Ju-ri took a sip of her coffee.

Today was the second planning session for the camping club, and unlike the first meeting—which nearly everyone had attended—quite a few people had signaled their intention to skip this one. The symbolic pull of the *first* gathering had worn off, and the fact that it was a weekend probably played a part too.

Even so, they were only skipping the meeting, judging by the activity's overall buzz they'd likely show up in droves for the camping itself. Since they'd agreed to follow whatever got decided, in a way the meeting itself might be easier than the last one.

Having arrived almost first today as well, Ju-ri passed over the large group table and settled into a seat along the window. The season had tipped fully into spring, and the sky felt like picking up treasure just by looking at it.

On a day when the sky was as clear as this, *not* looking felt like a loss.

She'd worried that Han Geon-joo might be here, but thankfully, he wasn't.

Maybe this time he's finally lost interest in me.

Since that day, there had been no run-ins, no conversations.

Well, even the most oblivious person would have figured out by now that their wants didn't align.

Still, the camping club was currently their only shared connection, so she'd thought they might cross paths here—but apparently he had no intention of coming.

Savoring the quiet leisure, she took another sip of her warm coffee.

"Hello there."

Ju-ri turned her head. A strangely sweet scent brushed past the tip of her nose. Park Hae-seong, with his bright curly hair and luminous skin, was pulling out the chair beside her. He sat down lightly and turned to her with a wide grin. That easy, guileless friendliness—utterly free of awkwardness or sheepishness—had a way of slipping past the boundaries people implicitly drew.

Ju-ri didn't dislike that type of person. They stepped over lines others had drawn as if they simply hadn't seen them, but leaving was just as effortless. Relationships with people like that tended to be refreshingly clean. Was that why? He reminded her of an ex-boyfriend—not her most recent, but the one before.

Though honestly, women who disliked this kind of man were probably the rare ones.

"You're here early."

"Yep, nothing to do."

"Oh, is that table for here?"

Hae-seong set a dark-brown tray down on the counter between them. In an instant, a rich wave of cheese hit the air. On the tray sat an iced Americano packed full of ice and an orange-topped cake dusted with cubes of yellow cheese. He moved the cup and cake onto the table and slid the tray aside.

"Have some of this with me."

"You didn't buy that for yourself?"

"I bought it to share. I don't like sweet things."

"Isn't yellow cheese a love-it-or-hate-it thing?"

"If I were alone, I wouldn't have tried it."

His grinning face looked utterly fresh-faced.

"Are you actually thirty-three?"

"Want to see my ID?"

"You hear that you look young a lot, don't you? Well, I'll dig in."

Ju-ri cut herself a modest slice of the cake.

"Honestly, all the time. Last week I even got carded at a convenience store."

She chuckled as she took a bite.

"That must have felt nice."

"You probably get told you look young a lot too, Ju-ri."

Huh, this is better than I expected.

A touch of saltiness suited even her sweet-averse palate surprisingly well. She'd only meant to have a polite taste, but she cut herself another slice.

"Not at all. Free pass every time I hit the convenience store."

"Oh, really?"

Hae-seong laughed behind the back of his hand.

"That's strange. Is it because you're not wearing makeup? I could almost mistake you for a college student."

"I appreciate the flattery, but I am wearing makeup right now."

"Huh? Doesn't look like it."

Hae-seong tilted his head and stared openly at her face. He'd claimed the seat beside her without a moment's hesitation, and clearly staring into someone's face didn't faze him either.

That gaze would leave any rival red-faced if they lacked immunity to his kind of personality—the look of someone giving you their complete, undivided attention. Plenty of women must have fallen for that eye contact.

"I just skipped the eyeliner. And the mascara."

"What's on your eyes here, then?"

"A light touch of shadow."

"Ahh, so you did wear some. It really suits you. Done, but not done, you know?"

"Is that your type?"

Hae-seong's lightly pigmented eyes brimmed with laughter.

"What man would say no to that?"

The moment her gaze met his, the realization nudged her.

Ah. This guy's interested in me.

Flirting that never crossed into burdensome—just a faint, unmistakable warmth of intent beneath the words. With looks like that and a personality like this, dating him probably came with zero difficulty. That easygoing face surely kept his social life running smoothly too.

And when it ended, he'd probably bow out cleanly, too.

She knew thinking about the ending before anything had even begun was a bad habit, but she couldn't help it. She'd been built that way.

"Everyone's tastes differ, I suppose."

Ju-ri said it breezily, hiding what she'd realized. Hae-seong, who had likewise noticed that she'd caught on, gave a light shrug.

"True enough, but there are degrees of preference. More people like mangoes than durians, after all."

"Durian? That's an odd comparison."

When Ju-ri wrinkled her nose, Hae-seong scratched the back of his head, saying, "Was that off?" Deceptively loose and open, yet somehow not the type to be handled easily.

Ju-ri sipped her coffee, which had cooled to just the right temperature as they talked. Hae-seong drank along with her and murmured,

"Anyway, I like it when women wear light makeup. No makeup at all is the best of all. Anything on your face besides toner just feels stifling, doesn't it?"

"You don't even wear sunscreen?"

"Unless it's the middle of summer."

His smooth, glossy skin caught her eye as he smiled like a blade of grass bending in the wind.

They say nothing's as hereditary as skin.

"But calling that taste a mango doesn't quite work—plenty of people love the dramatic look too."

"……"

"Of course, the most important thing was never whether you wear makeup. It's whether you're pretty or not."

The matter-of-fact tone somehow made it sound all the more cynical. Ju-ri, lips still touching her cup, studied Hae-seong's wide-eyed face and screwed one eye shut.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"Ahaha."

At the sudden burst of laughter, Ju-ri raised an eyebrow. The corners of Hae-seong's crescent eyes creased into natural lines shaped by years of smiling. Those creases were the only thing that made his age feel real.

"I didn't say anything. You're teasing me for calling it exactly right."

"……"

"You, of all people, really don't need makeup, Ju-ri."

A hitch.

She turned her head with a mouthful of coffee. Hae-seong smiled, easy and warm. She tugged one corner of her mouth downward.

He's different when it's just the two of us, this one.

"Good afternoon."

Ju-ri's eyes went round. A question mark floated across the face of Hae-seong, who'd been sitting across from her. Her own reaction made her realize she had startled herself more than strictly necessary—which made sense, given that this was the person she'd been convinced wouldn't show up at all.

Swooosh.

A thin shadow fell across the space between Ju-ri and Hae-seong. A shadow carrying a presence as heavy as the man's voice.

Ju-ri turned her head slowly.

Hair like a magpie's nest. Glasses that shrank his eyes to slits. A well-shaped mouth and shoulders spread impossibly wide.

It's only been a few days, right?

Ju-ri had privately suspected that her failure to run into Geon-joo meant he'd been avoiding her. She'd been caught off guard, but she quickly gathered herself.

"You made it. Should we move? The time's about up—one or two more people will trickle in."

"Sure."

Hae-seong, noticing nothing odd, nodded readily. As he loaded the tray with his coffee cup and cake plate, Ju-ri's gaze collided with Geon-joo's. The silver-rimmed glasses—an upgrade from the perpetual whirlpools he used to wear—reduced the distortion between lens and eye, but the eyes behind them were still far smaller than the originals. And though the eyes had shrunk, the sharp glint in them had sharpened beyond usual. Not so much because of the smallness of the eyes itself, but…

What exactly is his problem?

At that glowering stare, Ju-ri tilted her head the barest degree.

"Where should we sit?"

Hae-seong, finished tidying up, rose with the tray in hand. In that instant, Geon-joo's eyes flashed darkly toward him.

Ah.

She very nearly laughed out loud before she could stop herself, pressing her lips together and dropping her gaze. If she so much as met Geon-joo's eyes, she doubted she could keep her expression hidden.

How can anyone be this transparent? It's all written on his face.

Once unlocked, Han Geon-joo was like a box made entirely of glass.

"That spot looks good. We should have around ten people today."

The moment she answered Hae-seong, Geon-joo's gaze whipped toward her. Pretending not to notice, Ju-ri reached out her hand.

"Give it here. I'll carry it over."

"Aw, no need. Let's hurry, Ju-ri."

After barely a few minutes of separate conversation, the air between them had grown remarkably intimate. Ju-ri walked off naturally at Hae-seong's side.

The gaze boring into her back was scorching, as if it carried actual heat.

Thud, thud.

The heavy footsteps trailing behind them sounded distinctly murderous.