An Errand, If You Please
The door swung open with a bang and slammed shut behind them, and Woo Tae-kyung's footsteps slowed to a crawl.
The way Lee Do-hee had been clinging to him one moment and then forgotten his very existence the next, absorbed in something else entirely, struck him as utterly deranged. If he turned back now, he might just be forgotten. Left to her own devices, unchased, he would remain forever the sort of person she never thought to look for—until the day she wanted someone, anyone, and never even knew he'd been there.
Somewhere along the corridor, Woo Tae-kyung's expression drained away entirely, and he watched Lee Do-hee from a distance, as a stranger might.
Then at last she opened the door to one of the department lounges—and instead of shutting it behind her, she froze mid-step, rooted to the spot.
"Sunbae!"
Woo Tae-kyung stopped where he stood.
Because he had just witnessed Lee Do-hee light up with that same adorable face she saved for her mother—beaming, radiant, all sunshine.
Her voice climbed an octave. You could hear how overjoyed she was to see this person, how vividly the relief of the reunion washed over her.
"Oh? Do-hee! When did you get back to school?"
"Why didn't you ever come see me, sunbae? I went looking for you over and over."
The voice answering from inside the lounge was unmistakably a man's.
Woo Tae-kyung watched her slip inside, still wearing that wide, bright smile. When the door failed to reopen, he simply stood there, waiting, eyes fixed on it. Out of habit, he dragged a nail across the scar on his face until it left a mark. He knew perfectly well that the more he rubbed it, the redder and angrier the raised flesh became, the uglier he looked—and he couldn't have cared less.
His fingers tapped lightly against the pocket where the black gin sat.
"We agreed you'd tell me how many minutes you'd be."
She was the one who'd insisted on that arrangement.
Not the bathroom, fine—but telling someone how long you'd be away from your post was surely the same principle, wasn't it? Woo Tae-kyung was still working out his own generous interpretation of the rules, debating whether he ought to walk in there after all, when the door burst open again.
And Lee Do-hee emerged latched onto someone's arm.
Exactly the way she'd once latched onto his—her chest pressed firmly against a man's sleeve, her forehead resting sweetly against his shoulder as she pulled him along.
"You should've come visit me at the detention center, sunbae. I'm honestly so hurt. And here you were, saying you liked me."
"No, I was just—shocked, that's all. I couldn't believe it. But I always believed you were innocent."
The man was taller than Do-hee, with a clean, handsome face.
Soft, unweathered by a single hardship, he flushed pink just looking at her. The babyish lilt in her voice as she pouted those red lips made Woo Tae-kyung dig at his ear again.
Had the eggs he'd boiled for her lunch gone bad, or what.
Expressionless, Woo Tae-kyung went on staring at the pair of them. The man—some prissy little professor's pet, practically wriggling with joy at having Lee Do-hee glued to his side—couldn't seem to get his grinning mouth under control. Then his eyes met Woo Tae-kyung's.
He flinched.
Lee Do-hee was nuzzling her cheek against the man's forearm, cooing, oblivious.
Then she followed the gaze of this so-called sunbae, who had just pulled away from her, to see where it had landed.
"Ahh~ my Tae-kyung was waiting for me! Since sunbae wouldn't come play with me, I've been playing with him."
"Do-hee, you know this guy? His face is a little…"
The man lowered his voice to a whisper meant only for her as he brought up the face. It was so pitiful that Woo Tae-kyung simply stayed where he was, motionless.
"Isn't he pretty? I like faces like Woo Tae-kyung's. Of course, I love yours too, sunbae."
Lee Do-hee murmured it like a doll murmuring sweet nothings. And without ever letting go of his arm, she brushed past Woo Tae-kyung and said, perfectly casual:
"I'm walking sunbae home to his officetel."
"Yes, ma'am."
Woo Tae-kyung's answer was short.
"Ah, so he's someone your father assigned to you. Haha, no wonder he seemed a bit rough around the edges."
Woo Tae-kyung, long accustomed to talking freely with the likes of Jang Hee-jo and then switching to polite honorifics the moment the company changed, felt nothing at all. He took the lead toward the parking garage, and behind him Lee Do-hee's giggles rang out, louder than they needed to be.
"Don't mind Woo Tae-kyung. I say 'wait,' and he waits. That's just what he does."
"Do-hee, you can't just tell a person 'wait.'"
Woo Tae-kyung laughed without a sound as he walked ahead. The man's voice—purring at Do-hee, so eager to play the reasonable, sensible adult—simply disgusted him. And yet, he supposed it was a small mercy that this school had at least one person Lee Do-hee was over the moon to see.
If she'd been dodging his calls on purpose when her phone was right there in her possession, that was a problem in its own right—but for now, at least, she was genuinely happy.
When they reached the car, Woo Tae-kyung opened the rear door. Lee Do-hee, who'd been angling for the passenger seat, slipped in first instead, and her sunbae climbed in awkwardly beside her.
Thud.
He shut the door with a solid, deliberate sound, rounded to the driver's seat, and before pulling out, checked on the two of them in the rearview mirror.
Whatever had passed between them, Lee Do-hee was giggling again, her eyes never leaving the man. Her arm was still locked tight around his. He knew the man was staring down at her chest where it pressed over that arm, all while pretending not to look—and when she stretched her other hand out and gently swept the hair from his face, his gaze slid right back down to the valley of her chest. However hard he tried to hide it, to Woo Tae-kyung it was glaringly obvious.
Lee Do-hee paid it no mind. She smoothed the man's hair and idly touched the skin just beneath his right eye.
"Do-hee, there are people around, so maybe…"
"Why? He's just some guy who follows me around anyway. You said you liked me. You said it. Is it embarrassing now, that I went to a detention center? Is that why you've been avoiding me? You kept saying you liked me."
There it was—Do-hee's lunatic streak, switching on again.
Her face went flat and cold in an instant, and she pressed the man with terrifying insistence: what, you don't like me anymore?
So that's just what she does, Woo Tae-kyung thought. Anyone she takes a shine to, she digs into like this.
He wrote it off simply—this man, too, was just another toy being dragged around by her mercurial moods—and drove toward the officetel near campus, the one she'd pointed out to him herself. He'd thought, briefly, that he understood her. Then some version of her he'd never seen would surface, and understanding flew out the window. She was impossible to read.
One thing was certain, though: Lee Do-hee was on her way to this man's officetel right now.
His role, for the moment, was to stick to her side like a dog, so Woo Tae-kyung parked at the building, let them out, and rode up in the elevator with them—whereupon the man, flustered, asked her:
"He's coming up with us?"
"Why? Is Tae-kyung not allowed to watch?"
"No, it's just—awkward."
"Sunbae's the one who said he'd give me the family registry, so why? You say that and it makes it sound like you and I are about to do something."
Lee Do-hee called out his desires with brutal, unvarnished precision, and kept at him—why? why?—all the way up. She clung to him until the elevator reached the upper floors, turning her small face this way and that, until the man who'd been dodging her eyes was finally forced to look at her.
They got off, and he stopped at the very first door on the left. As he unlocked it with his fingerprint and ushered her in, the troubled expression he'd worn the whole ride vanished, and he turned to Woo Tae-kyung with a smile and the tone of a man giving orders.
"Could you run out and buy some condoms for us? We're all out."
Lee Do-hee, who had surely heard every word from inside, said nothing.
"Sunbae, can I use your computer for a bit?"
Woo Tae-kyung tilted his head at an angle. He knew perfectly well what these two were here for—but playing chaperone for Lee Do-hee one minute and then shamelessly appointing himself to her position the next, ordering him around like the hired help?
Kids these days really do have no idea what fear is.
As the man slipped inside after his request, Woo Tae-kyung caught the front door with one hand.
The man strained to pull it shut, sneaking glances inward, but Woo Tae-kyung didn't let go.
"She says she'll handle the birth control herself, and you're still asking me to buy them."
The face that had been so helplessly sheepish around Do-hee this entire time hardened and began to growl—as if contraception were some monumental favor. The real problem was that it read as cowering, tail tucked, scared of the family standing behind Lee Do-hee.
"Is this a mugging? Then pay me for the errand, you little bastard."
Woo Tae-kyung bared a canine, and the man froze for a beat. Then he hurriedly fished out his wallet from his back pocket, and just as he was pulling out a card, Woo Tae-kyung's hand took the wallet instead. Inside sat 130,000 won in cash.
The man pulled out every last bill.
An amount smaller than what Woo Tae-kyung earned in a single minute—and as a fee for an errand, it was pocket change so pitiful it drew a snort. He stripped out the cash, tossed the empty wallet through the doorway into the entryway, and shut the door with the bills tucked away.
The last he saw of the man was his back—he'd started to say something, then, unwilling to spoil the mood with Lee Do-hee, spun around in a panic to retrieve his wallet.