His Hands
After they finished their meal and stepped outside, Seok-hyeon suggested a walk through the nearby park. They set off naturally, as if shaking free of the heavy mood that had settled over them.
Dry leaves crumbled with a crisp crackle underfoot. Listening to that sound, the heaviness that had weighed on her heart only moments before began, little by little, to ease back toward normal.
Seok-hyeon had been matching Da-yeon’s stride in silence when he suddenly stopped. He bent and picked up a rubber band from the ground.
“Do you know this?”
He looped the band between his fingers and wove it with practiced ease. In moments a star took shape in his palm. When Da-yeon looked, his fingers moved again. Now there were two stars.
He wove and unwound a few more times, producing in turn the shapes of trousers and a pistol. It was nothing more than a simple bit of handplay, yet Da-yeon found herself smiling without meaning to.
Seok-hyeon smiled with her, reading her thoughts.
“Pretty good at tricks, right?”
“You call this… a trick?”
“My younger sibling picked up the way the older folks talk… said a man shouldn’t be good at tricks.”
Once he had her full attention, Seok-hyeon flicked the rubber band away into the air.
She could feel him watching her carefully, gauging her mood. The quiet determination to lighten the atmosphere reached her, and her own heart grew lighter in answer.
At the same time her gaze drifted first to his hands. The palms were broad, the fingers long and straight. Those cleanly extended fingers were so lovely she could not look away. Sensing her stare, Seok-hyeon opened both hands for her to see.
“Your hands are pretty, Seok-hyeon.”
A flicker of worry crossed her mind—would a man mind being told his hands were pretty?
Seok-hyeon seemed to consider for a moment, then pressed his wrists together and held both hands beneath his own face like a flower pedestal. Da-yeon’s eyes went rounder still at the sudden, playful gesture.
“Only my hands?”
The unexpected coyness left her mouth open. She managed an answer only with difficulty.
“…Your face is pretty too, I think.”
“Then please dote on me a great deal, Da-yeon.”
Telling a handsome man he was handsome was no crime, yet the shameless teasing so unlike his usual image snapped the remaining tension clean away. As if that had been the point all along, Seok-hyeon gave a small smile.
Completely at ease now, Da-yeon pressed further.
“What else is pretty? Brag a little.”
Seok-hyeon made a face as though the request were difficult.
“Not pretty, exactly… but do you know how many shops we passed walking from the restaurant to here?”
“…How many?”
“Twenty-two.”
The precise number was startling.
“You count them as you walk?”
“Once I see something, I remember it. As if a photograph has been stamped into my head…”
“You have an excellent memory.”
“Something like that.”
Suddenly she wanted to test him. Da-yeon thought for a moment, then asked,
“Do you remember what color I was wearing the first time we met?”
Seok-hyeon answered at once, without a second’s hesitation.
“White, wasn’t it?”
“Ah… wrong. It was an apricot-colored dress.”
Da-yeon smiled a little, as if disappointed. Remembering the exact number of shops yet forgetting the color of a woman’s clothes was so very like him.
Watching her treat his mistake as something almost endearing, Seok-hyeon soon laughed with a quiet sigh.
“…You’re right. It was apricot.”
In that instant his atmosphere seemed to shift. A lonely feeling brushed her, and Da-yeon hastily changed the subject.
“What else are you good at?”
She wondered whether he would start counting trees. Instead Seok-hyeon said something unexpected.
“I know how to braid hair. Shall I braid yours?”
An unlooked-for talent. Letting someone touch any part of her body was not entirely comfortable, yet curiosity won. When she nodded, he pointed to a nearby bench. They sat side by side on the straight wooden seat. Da-yeon remained still and turned her back toward him.
Without the slightest awkwardness Seok-hyeon calmly gathered her long hair. His long fingers swept downward, smoothing the strands. Every time those fingers parted the locks and the tips brushed the nape of her neck, every sense she possessed seemed to rush upward into her scalp.
Dividing the hair, parting it again, weaving it—every motion was practiced and sure. Once he had shaped the braid, secured it with a band, and finished, his hands finally fell away. Da-yeon swung the single braid forward over her shoulder to examine it. It was so naturally and neatly done that she was startled. Those small, careful details could only come from someone who had braided long hair many times before.
“…You seem better at this than I am.”
“Next time I’ll make it even prettier.”
Outwardly she offered praise, yet a sharp little thought rose unbidden: whose hair had he practiced on to become this skilled? Her heart grew pointed. She studied the fingers that had stirred such conflict inside her. All at once a thought flashed past like a moving image.
Those well-shaped fingers approached and opened the front of Da-yeon’s trousers. The zipper slid down in one smooth motion, and the hand entered as though it already belonged there. Long fingertips slowly pushed the fabric of her underwear aside and slipped deeper. Finding the cleft between soft folds, a finger tapped the small, swollen peak, then stroked it with gentle care.
A moan escaped her, and the finger slid farther in. Something pressed inside, parting her most private place. Softly, insistently, it worked deeper while stretching her inner walls. At the fine, rhythmic pressure Da-yeon’s body twisted. Strong hands held her collapsing form in place while those fingers continued their relentless exploration.
Wetness trailed after the man’s fingers. While her slick skin learned the exact length and thickness of each one, someone leaned in and kissed her.
The man who took her lips while never pausing the work of his hand below wore Seok-hyeon’s face.
The vividness of the fantasy jerked Da-yeon back to herself with a start. Shame flooded her for having, without conscious intent, spun such raw imaginings around him.
As her expression changed, Seok-hyeon’s own face grew serious once more.
“Da-yeon?”
She whipped her head away to hide the flush rising in her cheeks and stood abruptly.
“I should go. I’ll go alone today.”
“What?”
“I have an appointment.”
It was a lie. Seok-hyeon only watched her in silence. He rose as well and stepped in front of her.
“Where is this appointment?”
“Far from here. I can take a taxi.”
“Even by taxi it would be a long way.”
“You’re busy.”
“I can at least see to your coming and going. I’ll take you. Call me again when it’s finished.”
She wanted only to escape the strange, mortifying feeling, yet he kept looking after her with stubborn care.
Seok-hyeon stepped closer to the woman who still would not meet his eyes and tried to catch her gaze.
“I remember almost everything I’ve seen or heard even once.”
“……”
“So if I ever make you uncomfortable, tell me right away. I’ll remember, and I won’t do it again.”
“It’s not that.”
“……”
“You haven’t done anything wrong, Seok-hyeon….”
How was she supposed to say she had imagined those hands caressing her sex?
Yoon Ju-ha’s old words—that Da-yeon had gone mad over some worthless man and gotten herself pregnant—had not been entirely wrong. If she could fantasize about such acts with a man she had barely met a handful of times…
In her teens she had tried so hard to live uprightly, to be a model of good behavior. Without her knowing, her body had learned men, and now she was behaving like a creature in heat. The shame of it burned. The thought of Seok-hyeon seeing her that way burned worse.
Yet Seok-hyeon showed no sign of giving up.
“What kind of appointment is it?”
“Do I have to report every single thing to you?”
“…Are you going off to meet Park Yeong-taek again or something?”
Unable to make sense of her sudden mood, he grew peevish. The mention of President Park made Da-yeon’s own heart tighten. She turned fully toward him, anger plain on her face. Still Seok-hyeon refused to retreat.
“I know you don’t have an appointment.”
“Why would you think that?”
“…When you lie, you hide your thumb inside your fist.”
She started. While she was still turning the claim over in her mind—had she really done that? When had she lied to him?—his voice cut in again.
“Do you have any intention of marrying me, Da-yeon?”
Seok-hyeon bent so that their eyes met once more. The gentle light behind his glasses settled on her.
“If you do, then tell me every time something makes you uncomfortable.”
“……”
“I’ll fix it. I don’t want to spoil your mood and shorten the time we can spend together.”
The honest plea for her to speak freely moved something inside her as well.
“I think… I’m too conscious of you.”
For the first time Seok-hyeon looked genuinely taken aback.
“…Is that a problem?”
“Because I… feel you as a man…”
“And yet you don’t want to stay with me? Shouldn’t that make you want to leave?”
She could not bring herself to admit she had imagined far more, and so she simply closed her mouth. Seok-hyeon did not press her. With a quiet sigh he straightened.
“Where shall we go? I’ll take you.”
The plain offer to drive her home left her feeling strangely contradictory. Had she expected him to take her hand the moment she confessed she saw him as a man? Was she the only one worked up over this almost ascetic man?
Dealing with people had always been difficult and unfamiliar—ever since roughly three years of memory had evaporated completely. Whatever experience she might have gained in that lost time had vanished with it. While she had stood still, her peers had grown. Her body had matured; her heart had not.
She could not bear the gap, and so she always tried to flee. Wasn’t that exactly what she had done again just now—unable to handle a sudden rush of feeling, she had tried to run from Seok-hyeon? Yet watching him stubbornly refuse to leave her side softened her heart another degree.
She thought she was beginning to understand why, from the very first, he had felt different from everyone else.