A Drink at the Pojangmacha
"……"
Tae-kyung simply looked at Seo-ah and said nothing.
As his silence stretched on, Seo-ah found herself tangled in her own thoughts. Had her offer to treat him come across as presumptuous? No matter how they'd met, he was now the head of a division — practically heaven itself to someone like her. Perhaps an intern offering to buy him dinner had sounded downright rude.
"I'm sorry. I know you're busy, and I shouldn't have——"
Just then.
"Do you have time right now?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Right now. Today, if at all possible."
"Aren't you busy? You said you'd be working late——"
"I am busy. Insanely so."
Seo-ah hesitated, trying to figure out how to respond.
"Oh, then maybe next time……"
"Today. Let's do it today."
Tae-kyung rose from his seat and grabbed his jacket.
"Do you like udon? I know a place with real atmosphere."
His bright expression looked positively delighted.
Is udon really that exciting?
That was how absurd the thought that crossed Seo-ah's mind was.
At a quiet pojangmacha with barely any customers, the two of them settled at an outdoor table no one had yet claimed.
"I wish I could've treated you to something nicer, Director."
Seo-ah murmured awkwardly, glancing around. Shabby as it looked, the stall did have a certain charm, just as Tae-kyung had promised, and the atmosphere was better than she'd expected.
Still, udon wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind when she'd wanted to show her gratitude.
But whether he knew what was in her heart or not, Tae-kyung simply ordered two bowls of udon the moment they stepped under the tent.
"You don't like udon?"
"It's not that. It's just, I wasn't planning to treat you to street food, that's all."
She hadn't intended anything grand. It wasn't as if her circumstances justified it. And yet she couldn't help feeling naggingly self-conscious about it anyway.
Then Tae-kyung gave her an unexpected answer.
"This is a place I like. I've been dropping by now and then since before I left for India."
Don't tell me — is this someplace tied to old memories?
Feeling she'd said the wrong thing, Seo-ah was seized by an inexplicable guilt and apologized.
"I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry, Director."
"About what? Did you think I was hiding some heartbreaking memory here? A wistful first love, something like that?"
Seo-ah couldn't quite bring herself to deny it — because that was, in fact, exactly what she'd been thinking.
"If I had something like that here, I wouldn't have brought you."
With a smile carrying just a hint of laughter, Tae-kyung began setting utensils on the table. In a way, it was surprising. Wasn't he a prince? Had he ever done something like this in his life?
Flustered, Seo-ah reached for the utensil holder in his hands, but Tae-kyung waved her off.
"Is it that obvious I'm out of my element?"
"Oh, no, it's not that. I just feel bad——"
"Feel bad about what? You don't do this at home, but you do it outside. You saw that at the office, didn't you? Everyone around me is one of 'the exalted ones.'"
It was his term for the executives he'd greeted that morning.
Come to think of it, the way he'd bowed politely to those executives looked remarkably different from how his own brother, CEO Kang Han-kyung, carried himself.
By the time Tae-kyung finished setting the table, the udon they'd ordered arrived right on cue. Thin noodles steamed in a white plastic bowl, topped evenly with mugwort, green onion, and fried tofu.
It had truly been ages since she'd seen machine-pressed udon — the old street-stall kind.
"It really has been so long. Udon like this."
"See? I told you it had atmosphere."
At Tae-kyung's evidently pleased smile, Seo-ah let out a small laugh.
"Actually, this place is Jung Hee-joon's regular spot. What do you think? Apparently pojangmacha like this are rare even in Pyeonghan City."
Seo-ah had heard about Hee-joon before — that the Director had an executive secretary from Pyeonghan. He wasn't at the table now because Tae-kyung had assigned him some task, but knowing he was from the same hometown, she found herself curious what kind of person he was.
Seo-ah nodded and said,
"Yes, they're almost gone. The stall I used to visit with my father got torn down, too. So honestly, when you brought me here, Director, I was really happy. It's been so long since I've been somewhere with this kind of atmosphere."
"I'm glad."
Seo-ah's expression grew wistful, as if reaching for old memories. Like every pojangmacha, it had been so ordinary, and yet so full of warmth. Just like the place she'd shared with her father.
"Want a drink?"
Tae-kyung, who had been watching her intently as if reading her very thoughts, spoke up. "How about the drink we couldn't have that night?"
His suggestion struck Seo-ah as strangely significant. Hadn't someone once told her that drinks poured by another person weren't to their taste?
After a brief hesitation, she nodded.
"I'd like that."
Tae-kyung grinned, sprang to his feet, and ducked inside the stall's tent. He returned with beer and soju in one hand, a beer glass and a shot glass in the other.
"Which one will you have?"
"Hmm. Both."
At that, Tae-kyung looked surprised.
Feeling his curious gaze on her, Seo-ah mixed the soju and beer in her glass with triumphant confidence, following the proper proportions. Then she dropped one chopstick into the glass, laid the other crosswise over the rim, and gave it a firm tunk.
Instantly, white foam surged up and filled the remaining half of the glass.
"Whoa — what was that? You know tricks like this?"
"There are plenty of other ways, but I learned this one from my dad."
"Ah. You learned to drink from your father?"
"Yes. On a winter night when I turned twenty, at a pojangmacha just like this one."
Seo-ah felt an unexpected sting at the tip of her nose.
Before starting university, he'd insisted, you simply had to learn how to drink. But even as he said it, he'd looked so happy just to share a drink with his daughter — that image of her father rose unbidden in her mind.
Before long, Seo-ah puffed out her cheeks and let out a long, deep breath. Then she filled her own glass, held it out to Tae-kyung, and said,
"I know drinks poured by someone else aren't to your taste — but will you accept mine tonight, Director Kang Tae-kyung?"
With playful mischief, Seo-ah tilted her head, her eyes curving like crescent moons. A few loose strands of hair slid softly down over her lovely face.
For a long moment Tae-kyung said nothing, simply watching her. Then, with fingers held perfectly straight, he slowly brushed the fallen hair aside — and the instant his fingertips grazed her forehead, touched her earlobe, and trailed down toward her chin, a tingling sensation rippled from the nape of her neck down her spine.
Her eyes never left him the whole time.
"Couldn't take my eyes off your pretty face."
Ba-dump, ba-dump.
The man's low voice, arriving so suddenly, murmured in some unknowable language against her defenseless heart.
"And who said it wasn't to my taste?"
He tilted his glass against hers with a bright clink, then drained it in one go.
Had my words — 'not to your taste' — been weighing on him?
"Erase all the nonsense I spouted that night from your head. It was all garbage, every word."
As if drunk on liquor she hadn't even touched yet, her mind throbbed dully.
There were scenes she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried. Even if she wrote off everything he'd said that night as bravado, the things she had done couldn't simply be erased from existence.
Seo-ah drained her glass as well, soon enough. But far from washing her thoughts away, the drink only sank her deeper — because the way the man was looking at her was far too hot.
"Why…… are you looking at me like that?"
She asked with all the courage she could muster, but where on earth was she supposed to put eyes that trembled of their own accord?
Just as Seo-ah was clutching her hapless glass in a tight, white-knuckled grip —
"Just because."
Just because?
She couldn't fathom what he meant by that answer.
"Oh…… I see."
The moment she lowered her head to avoid his eyes, Tae-kyung tapped lightly on her glass.
"Uncomfortable?"
"A little."
Tae-kyung downed another shot.
"I said we'd forget it all, but there's one thing I want to ask."
When she realized from his opening words that he intended to probe something about that night, Seo-ah couldn't help but tense up.
"That night — were you really planning to sleep with me?"
"……?!"
She'd never imagined he would ask that. So casually, after being the one to say they should forget everything.
What would he even do with the answer, at this point? That night had been nothing but embarrassment from start to finish — it wasn't as if it could be rewound and undone.
How was she supposed to explain what had happened that night — the very thing she wanted to hide, even now? Hesitating, Seo-ah opened her mouth slowly.
"That — please forget it."
She truly hoped he would. Of course she intended to tell the truth and apologize properly — but not now. Not today.
"I won't."
But his answer, so far beyond anything she'd expected, was more than enough to shatter her composure entirely.
"What — what is that supposed to mean? You're the one who said we should forget it, so why……"
For a moment, Seo-ah had no choice but to ask him, cradling the disappointment that had seeped into her chest.
"You're disappointed?"
"……Yes. Shameful as it is to admit, very much so. Because I trusted you, Direct——"
The words slipped out before she knew it, and Seo-ah swallowed them back mid-sentence.
Because I trusted you.
She'd had no idea that was what lived in her heart.
Don't tell me — did I want to believe I still doubted him? With so much still unresolved? Even knowing how sharp Kang Tae-kyung is — knowing he might be deceiving me? Did I simply fall head over heels for the comfortable openings he offered and the sweet apologies?
The sting of betrayal turned not on Tae-kyung but on Seo-ah herself. And that feeling spilled out of her in a barbed reaction aimed at him.
"Don't tell me you're only now regretting having thrown me out like that?"
Once the words were out, she couldn't even tell whether that sense of betrayal was aimed at herself or at the man across from her.
But that night, when her heart had moved without her permission —
the wounded woman's sharp words came first, and the man's hollow snort of laughter broke off short, scattering into the air.