It was a completely unexpected request. Pick one for him? I don’t even know what I like to drink. Yeonwoo stared blankly at Kang Jihyeok. He hoped Jihyeok would laugh and say he was joking, but that didn’t happen.
“I don’t really know alcohol. Haven’t drunk much.”
It was hard to believe those words were coming from a man who looked like he could down a whole crate of liquor without getting drunk. But even if he looked that way on the outside, on the inside he might genuinely be someone who couldn’t hold his drink. There was no reason for Kang Jihyeok to lie. What did he have to gain from lying to someone like him? Yeonwoo gave a small nod. So his claim of not drinking much was probably the truth.
“…I’ll pick for you.”
This isn’t what I prepared for. Yeonwoo pressed his lips together. He’d received a basic education, so he could read the curly foreign letters — but being able to read something didn’t mean you knew what it was.
What.
He couldn’t understand a single word. On top of that, all the names were so strange that there was nothing to work from. At this point, a wave of regret crashed over him — he should have just told the truth from the start. But it was too late now. The water was already spilled.
And since it was spilled, he had to wipe it up quickly before anyone noticed. The better he managed this, the higher the chance that Jihyeok would like him. Yeonwoo buried his nose in the menu and kept reading the curly letters over and over.
Despite his desperate efforts, just looking at the names gave him absolutely no sense of what anything tasted like. He’d already lied about being a good drinker — he couldn’t recommend something that turned out to be weird. Then, a name that looked fairly reasonable caught his eye. Surely heaven was on his side. Yeonwoo’s eyes lit up.
“I’ve picked.”
“You’ve picked?”
There was no mistaking the teasing lilt in his voice, but Yeonwoo was too tightly wound to catch it. He raised his unsteady hand and pointed politely in Kang Jihyeok’s direction. He swallowed nervously.
“F-For you—”
“You can just call me mister, like before.”
“…….”
“Or you can call me Jihyeok.”
“Uh, um….”
“Would you rather call me Jihyeok or mister?”
Yeonwoo’s eyes rolled back and forth, and then he pretended he hadn’t heard a thing and turned toward the bartender.
“A Cassis Frappé¹, please.”
“…Pardon?”
Huh, what’s wrong? Why that reaction? The bartender was wearing an expression like he genuinely didn’t understand. As the uncomfortable silence stretched on a little too long, Yeonwoo instinctively knew he’d made the wrong choice. Should he change it? He shifted his eyes downward without moving his head, sneaking a look at the menu. He had to change the order as fast as possible. But Kang Jihyeok was faster.
“We’ll have that. Sounds delicious. My little one picked it, so of course it’ll be good. Right?”
“Y-Yes, that’s right.”
The bartender’s strange reaction had rattled him a little, but seeing that the one who was actually going to drink it looked completely unbothered, Yeonwoo breathed a quiet sigh of relief. If the drink were really that bad, the bartender would have stopped him.
“What will you have, little one?”
“I — I’ll….”
Another familiar-looking name caught Yeonwoo’s eye. Wasn’t there a saying — when in doubt, pick the one with a word you recognize? Yeonwoo lifted his head with confidence.
“I’ll have a Faust², please.”
Having cleared the hurdle of ordering cocktails without incident, Yeonwoo kept swallowing nervously. He was so tense he couldn’t stand it. It had been less than a minute since they’d ordered, but it felt like an hour had passed. Yeonwoo stole a glance at the bartender shaking the cocktail shaker, then shifted his gaze to Kang Jihyeok, who was watching him. The moment their eyes met, he awkwardly curved his lips upward.
I hope the cocktails come out soon.
Maybe once I have something to drink, I’ll feel less nervous….
While Yeonwoo darted his eyes back and forth trying to figure out how to steer the conversation, Kang Jihyeok’s smooth, attractive voice reached his ears.
“Do you go to school?”
It was the last question he would have expected from him. The perverted fucking creep in Yeonwoo’s imagination didn’t ask gentle questions like this. He’d only ever pictured him grinning like a villain and asking things like Do you have hair down there? or Have you ever touched yourself? — not something that made his chest flutter like this.
Do you go to school? He didn’t. It was closer to the truth that he hadn’t been able to. He’d wanted to, but Assemblyman Cha had been against it, saying there was no point in learning things at school if he was going to be sold off anyway. The homeschooling too had only covered the bare basics needed to get by in life — nothing more than what was necessary so he wouldn’t embarrass them in public. As a result, he hadn’t even been allowed to take the qualification exam that would have been the natural next step after finishing his homeschooling. He had cautiously brought it up with Cha Baeju once — shouldn’t he at least take the exam? — only to be met with violence and shouting. He’d been pointed at and called an ungrateful wretch who didn’t know how to appreciate the money spent on his education. At the memory of it, a wave of gloom washed over Yeonwoo and he dropped his gaze.
“N-No.”
“Why not? You seem like you’d be good at it.”
He didn’t know whether he was good at studying or not. He’d never been given enough of a chance to find out. Yeonwoo didn’t want to unload his bleak past on someone he’d just met. If he did and Jihyeok decided it was too much trouble and sent him home, that would be a disaster. He gave a vague, noncommittal answer. He figured he’d open up when the time was right and circumstances allowed.
“Just because.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Another silence. Yeonwoo wanted to keep the conversation going somehow. He shouldn’t have just fantasized about this — he should have actually studied how to carry a conversation in a situation like this. The regret was hitting him too late.
“U-Um, mister—”
His heart kicked into a rapid beat the moment he saw the corner of Kang Jihyeok’s mouth tilt upward. He couldn’t keep saying you to refer to him, but he also couldn’t bring himself to say Jihyeok outright, so mister had been his reluctant compromise — and the more he said it, the more awkward and unnatural it felt coming out of his mouth.
“Um, uh….”
“Yeah? What do you want to know, mister’s here, ask away. I’ll tell you everything.”
There was actually something he’d wanted to ask him. Why he’d bought him. What his reason was for agreeing to pay off Assemblyman Cha’s debt. Why he kept calling him little one so gently. He wanted to ask all of that.
And….
Does he like me?
That was the most important thing of all.
Whether Jihyeok liked him or not. It had been less than ten minutes since he’d laid eyes on Kang Jihyeok, but he could already tell that he was an incredibly warm person. Someone with a personality like his might, even if he didn’t like Yeonwoo at all, simply shrug it off and send him home after buying him a drink.
That can’t happen.
How could he ask it without being too obvious? He was steeling himself to open his mouth when the cocktails arrived. They never come when you want them to — and they show up now, of all times. Yeonwoo’s eyes drooped at the corners.
“Shall we drink and talk?”
“Yes, yes.”
Two cocktails. One in a color so vivid and sweet-looking your tongue would tingle just at the sight of it, and another that looked bitter just to look at.
Yeonwoo naturally reached for the brightly colored one. It clearly didn’t suit Kang Jihyeok at all. He assumed, of course, that it was the one he’d ordered for himself.
But.
“Hm?”
“Little one, are you moving my cocktail for me?”
Yeonwoo bit down hard on his lips. He watched his cocktail slip helplessly out of his hands, and from the corner of his eye he stared at the one he’d actually ordered for himself. Uh, uh…. That — that’s mine? One sip of that and I feel like I’d keel over and die. But showing any sign of being flustered right now would be the same as admitting that everything he’d said about liking and being good with alcohol was a lie. He had no choice. He nodded, picked up his glass with a heart full of quiet dread, and answered.
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Respecting your elders?”
“Yes.”
¹ Cassis Frappé — a sweet, blended cocktail made with blackcurrant liqueur.
²Faust — a cocktail likely named after the German literary legend; typically a bitter or complex spirit-forward drink.
