“Who said to leave? I never told you to leave. Have I ever told you to leave? Just don’t leave. Just live pretending to be defeated. No one will say anything.”
“Jeonghan-ah. I didn’t come out because I was reading your mood, and I didn’t come out to be stubborn.”
“I know. I also know you came out to cut off your relationship with me. I know why you’re blaming yourself. I know, but I’m saying I’m okay. I hate that you’re suffering.”
Seeing Cha Jeonghan’s worried face, I didn’t want to add more words and worsen the situation. Worry is something to be grateful for, and I’d already given my answer to the worry, so I just needed to settle this situation. I lightly grabbed Cha Jeonghan’s hand and pulled him outside. I thought he wouldn’t move, but Cha Jeonghan moved his steps following me even with my weak strength. At the feeling of him curling his fingers to hold my hand back, a slightly stronger heat rose from my hand to my wrist, from my wrist up my arm to my ears.
“Let’s stop talking about this and go out. I’m hungry.”
“This isn’t really my place to say to you, but you really don’t listen either.”
I found myself laughing a bit at Cha Jeonghan’s words that showed self-awareness even while saying something to me. Cha Jeonghan, who’d been looking at me as if it was absurd, let out a laugh like a small breath and stroked my hair out of habit. At that familiar flow, I fluttered familiarly again. It was the first moment I could breathe properly along with laughter.
* * *
Cha Jeonghan, who came to the cafe before closing, must have been in a good mood as he gave autographs to people who recognized and approached him, and took photos together with people who requested photos. When one person took a photo, almost all the people at the tables in the cafe approached and carefully gathered around Cha Jeonghan. I was flustered by the atmosphere that suddenly turned into a fan meeting, but I also felt good seeing Cha Jeonghan being loved by people.
Cha Jeonghan, who gave autographs to all the customers right before closing and took all the photos until they left, greeted people asking them to come to the cafe often like he was an employee.
“Please come often from now on. Get home safely.”
Cha Jeonghan, who familiarly locked the door from inside and even turned off the entrance light, approached the counter, stretched his body forward and looked at me. I remembered we were supposed to go eat the dinner he’d specially reserved.
“Let’s go. I’m all scattered after having an unplanned fan meeting.”
“Okay. I’ll just change clothes and come.”
“Yeah. I’ll lower the blinds.”
“Thanks.”
I untied my apron while watching him walk toward the windows with a grin. At the sound of the blinds coming down, I went inside to change clothes and put on my outerwear. When I came out alone, Cha Jeonghan, who’d lowered all the blinds in the cafe, looked at me. I quickly approached him standing by the door.
“Let’s go.”
“Wait a moment.”
The moment I was about to raise the blind also hanging on the entrance door, Cha Jeonghan grabbed my hand and stopped me. When I raised my head wondering why, my breath stopped at the face approaching.
“Everyone was looking only at me earlier, but only you didn’t look at me.”
“…….”
“I was going crazy….”
“…….”
“I came to see you, but you weren’t looking at me.”
Cha Jeonghan, who held my face with both hands just like that, took my lips like an impatient person. I closed my eyes and moved my tongue slightly first toward his tongue digging into my mouth. Between our locked lips, breath that couldn’t be identified as whose burst and mixed. I swallowed Cha Jeonghan’s breath and kissed him.
Into the dark and quiet cafe, the sound of wet lips touching and separating, and the sound of breath bursting once each time rang out. I kept stepping backwards pushed by Cha Jeonghan’s strength. Cha Jeonghan acted like a thirsty person. Every time his hands that had been holding my face moved to my ears and caressed my earlobes, a strange sensation flowed down along my jaw and neck.
“…Ah…. Jeonghan-ah, mm, hng….”
I was pushed all the way to the bar by the window until my back touched it. Cha Jeonghan slid from my lips along my jaw down to my nape and buried his lips. The moment hot breath touched my skin and bit down, a breath like an exclamation burst out. Unlike my head that knew I should stop him, my body kept pulling Cha Jeonghan like that. The heated sensations too easily collapsed rational emotions. I stroked Cha Jeonghan’s hair while slowly soothing him. It was because I knew that if I pushed or detached him suddenly, he could rush at me even faster than that.
“Ha….”
Cha Jeonghan, who had been burying his face in the nape of my neck, lifted his head and looked at me with slightly clouded eyes. It was similar to the excited face I first saw when we had sex, so I needed to speak, but the words kept not coming out and going down the back of my throat. I barely squeezed out my voice.
“…We have to go. We’ll be late.”
“……”
“You even made a special reservation…. Right?”
“…I’m regretting it.”
“……”
Cha Jeonghan, who had closed his arousal-filled eyes and taken a deep breath, pulled me into an embrace. These days, whenever Cha Jeonghan came to find me, he always pulled me into an embrace and kissed me. It was so natural and unrestrained, as if we had always been like this. Only I still felt unfamiliar with this situation, still trembling, and every time I saw him acting so nonchalant, I felt more anxiety than joy.
“Let’s go. You must be hungry.”
Returning to the Cha Jeonghan I originally knew, he grinned and took my hand, leading me to the door. He stopped me from raising the blinds that had come down over the door, opened the door himself after raising them, and wrapped his arm around my waist to let me go out first. As I took a step forward at this unfamiliar feeling I couldn’t quite identify, he opened the passenger door and waited until I got in.
“Get in. It’s cold.”
As I climbed into the passenger seat, his body leaned in and fastened my seatbelt for me. I didn’t know whether I should say thank you or say I could do it myself, so I said nothing. I watched him climb into the driver’s seat.
“When’s the first shoot?”
“Next Thursday. Tomorrow is the script reading.”
“You’ll be busy starting next week.”
“Probably so. But that director films on a humanly possible schedule, so I’m not too worried.”
“I want to see it soon. I think it’ll be fun.”
“Don’t wait for that Cha Jeonghan, look at me right now. Do you like me when I’m acting, or do you like me now?”
“…You really ask weird things sometimes.”
Cha Jeonghan, who had stopped at a light, turned his head toward me. He reached out his hand to stroke my cheek and asked again as if he would definitely get an answer.
“You like me when I’m acting more, right? Because I only play cool roles in those.”
“You’re talking like the you when acting and the you driving now are different people.”
“The person is the same… but, well, the attributes inside are a bit different. It’s not like I actually become that character. It’s literally acting. I’m pretending to be like that.”
“I like you, so I like all the characters you act too. You really need to hear it in words to understand….”
Instead of answering, Cha Jeonghan reached out and held my hand, grinning. Every time I saw him wanting to have obvious things confirmed in words, and being happy like a child when he got that confirmation, I found it cute but also my heart ached a little. It was because I could guess at Cha Jeonghan’s childhood that I didn’t know, when he had to always live guessing at other people’s feelings.
“I really need to work hard. So you’ll like me more.”
What would it mean to like Cha Jeonghan more? I couldn’t grasp it at all. When he already filled my entire heart, when just looking at him made the whole world dye itself in Cha Jeonghan… how could I like him any more than this? When just the feeling of our hands touching made my heart pound like this. Cha Jeonghan probably didn’t know. Just how much my feelings were.
“There’s no traffic, so we got here quickly.”
A distance that would take about 30 minutes during the day, we were able to arrive in 15 minutes, perhaps because it was night. Since they were still open, we left the car with the valet and Cha Jeonghan and I went inside. Like at the cafe earlier, Cha Jeonghan opened the door first to let me in, and when we were guided to a room, he was considerate to let me take off my shoes and enter first.
It wasn’t that this had never happened before, but Cha Jeonghan’s consideration right now seemed to carry the feeling that he absolutely had to do this. So it wasn’t quite natural and felt somewhat awkward.
“It’s been a while since we came here.”
“Right. We were supposed to come before but couldn’t because I was sick.”
“Ah, right. We were going to come then.”
Perhaps because Cha Jeonghan had ordered ahead, not long after we sat down, the table was filled with food. Seeing the things that filled a large table—warm pot rice with clear soup and stew, grilled ribs and grilled fish, seasoned vegetables and japchae, even pancakes—my appetite, which hadn’t been there until we came in, returned a little.
“Eat a lot. You say you take care of yourself and eat well, but you’ve lost weight in your face.”
“Does it show that much? I couldn’t really tell.”
“It shows more when you touch than when you look.”
“……”
“I know that better than you do.”
The feeling of his hand stroking my face came alive, making my cheeks and ears hot. Not wanting to show my embarrassment, I quickly scooped some rice into a bowl and stirred it around.
“It’s hot, so be careful.”
“…Yeah.”
It felt like I hadn’t eaten rice in a very long time. Since I’d been eating things to roughly fill my stomach, I hadn’t had a chance to eat a properly set meal like this. Maybe that’s why the warm rice I was eating after so long was very delicious. Seeing Cha Jeonghan eating well made it even better.
