So I Decided to Be Kind to You

The price of failing to answer was brutal. Of everyone I knew, Min Chae-yoon had the most ruthless follow-through. Claiming she'd already been thinking about it before she even opened her mouth, she showed me a lightly packed bag and told me we should leave work together.

Min Chae-yoon plastered herself against my arm and walked at a slant, putting nearly her full weight on me, and the looks on the secretary team's faces were a sight to behold.

"The driving—"

"I'll drive myself. You can go home."

"Yes. Yes. Of course."

His pupils darted somewhere between me and Min Chae-yoon as if he'd seen a demon. It wasn't my volunteering to drive that had startled him. I kept a chauffeur, but I sometimes drove myself when I went out on personal business. And that personal business was usually going to see Min Chae-yoon. The driver, a man in his fifties, stammered with a face that had no idea what to do, then bowed and fled. Min Chae-yoon cackled as she climbed into the passenger seat.

"What's so funny?"

And why are you so unfazed.

The words I wanted to say hovered at the tip of my tongue and refused to leave my mouth. My paltry pride stood in the way. I was dying, replaying yesterday's kiss over and over, and she—ha. How many times had she done this, to be this calm? I guess for you, Min Chae-yoon, it was as ordinary as eating a meal.

No matter how I put it, it would come out as a sneer. Min Chae-yoon was usually so even-keeled she might as well have been water mixed with water, liquor mixed with liquor—but once something set her off, no one could handle that temper. All that willowy slenderness, and the only thick thing about her was her nasty streak, and she wasn't even strong. I tried to hold the sarcasm down.

I'd already told people I'd been dating Min Chae-yoon for two years, and no one else could play this part. If she had the gall to hand back the five hundred million won and refuse, I'd have no way out.

"It is funny. How much have you been tormenting the secretary team on a regular basis? They looked at you escorting me like it was the parting of the Red Sea."

"I've always observed proper manners."

I'd been taught that not putting your hands on a woman you weren't close to was manners.

"Then I guess we looked enough like a couple."

I started the engine and shifted into gear, and Min Chae-yoon smiled mischievously as she laid a finger on the back of my hand. I startled and looked at her, and she shook her head.

"I won't tease you. I'll stop, I'll stop."

"Don't touch me while I'm driving."

"I know my own life is precious, thanks."

You don't seem to have the faintest idea your life is precious.

If you knew you were precious, how could you say you'd roll into a man's house even if it was only for six months?

But I knew. I did. Min Chae-yoon meant she'd use it as lodging, the way high schoolers used a training camp or athletes used a dorm. My apartment was a spacious two thousand square feet, and the guest room only shared the front door—bathroom and kitchen were separate. She wasn't even proposing we live together. More than that, the very premise that I might lay a hand on her didn't exist.

Not because I was a man she could feel safe with. Because I was a man who couldn't touch her anyway. She knew how much women disgusted and unsettled me, so she didn't even think about it.

"Why the sudden sulk, Princess? I didn't even touch you."

"......"

"Have you had dinner?"

"What, did a starvation ghost possess you? You ask me if I've eaten every single time."

Min Chae-yoon drew a short breath. The beat of her not firing back immediately felt awkward, so I glanced her way while the car was stopped. She was smiling bitterly. I lost my words again.

"Right. I guess that's all you're curious about."

It was a lie. I gripped the steering wheel hard.

We put together a simple dinner.

"Ah, I actually prefer Western food."

"Just shut up and eat."

Pretty talkative for someone eating for free.

Min Chae-yoon cooked as well as she ate. She'd even bragged about getting a Korean cuisine chef's certification as a hobby. But cooking required a real commitment, and it took far too long. We didn't have the patience to wait that out, and we were hungry.

The fridge held a few side dishes the housekeeper had made and left. I almost never ate at home, but I kept them ready just in case. "Just in case" meant days like today, when Min Chae-yoon came crashing in.

Because I had never once eaten a meal in this house alone.

"Ah, I'm stuffed. I can't eat another bite."

"You put away two heaping bowls of rice. I'd say you've earned that."

"Are you calling out a lady's appetite?"

"What lady?"

"This one."

"I'll give you this—that shamelessness of yours is a strength..."

I snorted a laugh and brewed coffee. Min Chae-yoon, shameless as ever, accepted it without even getting up and drank it sitting there.

Then she walked over to the sofa and sprawled across it like she owned the place. Was she out of her mind? That was the same spot from barely twenty-four hours ago.

"Hey, don't lie down."

"Why not. Do you know how happy it is to lie down right after eating?"

"I said don't lie down. Hey. Your hair's still wet!"

"You're so petty! Do you have any idea how hard it is to dry long hair?"

"Then cut it!"

I shoved her shoulder to keep her from sitting. Min Chae-yoon sprawled out like a child throwing a tantrum and staged a sit-in. She knew how to act like a grown-up—so why did she do this in front of me? I found it absurd that my father described Min Chae-yoon as "someone who takes a hint" and "well-mannered."

How was this a partner who listened well? This woman who'd barged into someone else's house without a second thought, patting her stomach and parking her ass down—where, exactly?

"Hey, come on!"

"The sofa's huge, so what's the problem! You lie down too, then!"

A long leg shoved me clean off. In a single sweep I took in the pale thigh visible through her wide-legged pants, the slender calf drawn in a long line of bone and muscle, the ankle.

"Hey, you crazy woman..."

"What, never seen a crazy woman before? Want me to act like a real one?"

Even more than this?

While I was speechless, the small sole of her foot shoved my shoulder. I sank down beside the sofa, and my hand caught Min Chae-yoon's slender ankle. It was so ridiculous a hollow laugh burst out of me.

Seeing me like that, Min Chae-yoon burst out cackling, and I, who'd been snickering, ended up laughing hard right along with her. We laughed for a long time. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd laughed until my stomach hurt.

"We're thirty-three years old. What is this."

"Ugh, so childish."

It was childish. The Min Chae-yoon I knew had always been childish.

She'd pop up out of nowhere and call.

Where are you. Come out. Let's meet.

Don't have time? I'll wait. Just let me see your face for a second.

Then she'd eat a hamburger or some fries with me and vanish the moment an hour was up. She'd call out of the blue and launch into complaints about her boss or some friend whose name I didn't even know. That never went past an hour either.

Min Chae-yoon, wearing a T-shirt she'd stolen from me, was lying on my sofa. We'd fought like children over the space, and I'd been shoved aside like a loser because I couldn't bring myself to touch her long, slender legs.

Hair that still wasn't fully dry, smelling of the same shampoo as mine, lay scattered across my sofa, and I sat on the floor, my gaze caught on Min Chae-yoon's wrist, limp from laughing herself exhausted.

The still air particular to a closed room. A person's breathing, mixed with the scent of skin. The awkward silence of the instant our eyes met.

My only family was my father, but he and I had barely ever lived under the same roof. Plenty of people stayed at the house in Seongbuk-dong where he lived. But it was quiet. Still. No sound of laughter ever rose there.

Those unsightly, wrecked, childish hours were something I shared only with Min Chae-yoon.

"Usually."

Min Chae-yoon's voice sounded a little hoarse. I hoped I was imagining it. I steadied my breath and leaned my back against the sofa.

"I saw it somewhere. People surprisingly don't lose to someone who's vicious and wicked. I'm like that too—I end up fighting back."

"That's why you kicked me off?"

"We were born competitive. You'd never lose either."

"Obviously. You think I'd submit to someone trying to pin me down?"

But this sofa was my sofa. When I declared that, Min Chae-yoon looked disgusted.

"Hey, just put up with it for six months—no, just a few months!"

"Don't wanna."

"You are seriously vicious, wicked, and a genuinely rotten human being, I swear."

"Hey."

"So rotten it makes me frustrated just watching you, and so vicious..."

We both knew. Min Chae-yoon was saying something she'd wanted to say to me for a long time. Her eyes, lit with something serious, were a pale color.

"I never thought you'd lose. I believed you'd win, you know? Kang Sa-eon, lose to anyone? Not a chance. He'd never lose."

"Even if it was Jeong-i Halmae, who you loved and who loved you."

"Yeah."

And yet she'd never once brought up that name in front of me. I knew that was her idea of consideration. It was useless consideration. But even useless consideration was still consideration, so I let it be. If she didn't bring it up because it made her uncomfortable, there was no reason to push her to talk about that old hag I didn't even want to hear about.

Min Chae-yoon laughed, a sound like wind scattering. I couldn't believe this hour. It was unreal. The situation, the time, the person.

A low, hoarse voice spoke.