Seon Eunhu’s cabinet had no lock on it. Finding the one without a lock would have been faster than finding it by the name sticker. Everyone else made efforts to hang thicker, sturdier locks on theirs, yet his latch alone sat bare.
What if someone steals his tools….
But the concern dissolved the instant I reminded myself that this was Seon Eunhu. His name alone was the lock. There was always a peculiar hierarchy around him, and even in the middle of warmth and easy laughter, tension would suddenly ripple through without warning. Watching everyone try to stay on his good side made me wonder if feeling small in front of him was some kind of instinctive reaction — though whether that was because he was an alpha, or simply because he was Seon Eunhu regardless of his trait, I couldn’t say.
Either way, the important thing was that no one would touch his belongings even after seeing his name on them, and since he knew that himself, he didn’t bother with a lock.
Or maybe there just isn’t much inside the cabinet?
But I was quickly proven wrong by the sight of a cabinet packed with expensive equipment and supplies, and I had no choice but to acknowledge Seon Eunhu’s nerve.
And then —
“Wow… he really is… a freak.”
I clicked my tongue without meaning to, at this unexpectedly surprising side of Seon Eunhu I’d stumbled upon.
Cabinets were usually used when people were exhausted after finishing work, so things tended to get shoved in carelessly. It wasn’t uncommon to walk past one and see coiled wire poking out from the door, or chemical solvents like thinner dripping down the side. The seniors even had a running joke that you could judge someone’s Jenga skills by opening their cabinet — which said everything about how most of them were kept.
But the inside of Seon Eunhu’s cabinet was neat and tidy. Not a single piece of foam board lying carelessly on its side, and even the welding rods were lined up in a row. I suppose having filthy taste in certain areas meant he’d swung the other way to compensate with fastidious organization elsewhere.
He’d even pulled out the things he’d need today and placed them at the front in advance — the moment I opened the door, I found everything he’d asked me to fetch right there. Anyone else and I’d have marveled at how thorough and methodical they were, but since it was Seon Eunhu, it only made him seem like more of a freak.
Please, please let this be the last time I get tangled up with him.
Fervently wishing for that, I gathered the supplies and headed back to the studio.
When I’d left, the seniors had just been straightening up — but they were already gone, and the studio had only Seon Eunhu in it now. Maybe the cleanup speed improved by third year, because the area that had been dusty with plaster powder looked as though it had never been dirty at all.
“What are you standing there for. Come here and set it down.”
I was following the traces of the seniors’ cleaning with my eyes when a low voice broke the quiet. Seon Eunhu, watching me with an indifferent look, tilted his head to signal me to come closer. He was stretching by gripping his own wrist and opening and closing his fist, and every time he did, the tendons rising along the back of his hand and the knob of his wristbone jutting out looked quite imposing.
This man is wound up.
I didn’t say it out loud, but I grumbled quietly to myself as I set down what I’d brought on his worktable. In the meantime, Seon Eunhu brought over a sack of plaster powder.
Scissors wrapped around Seon Eunhu’s fingers — fingers with straight, even knuckles that made his hands look unusually clean. He snipped the corner of the sack to open it, and pale powder billowed softly into the air. I was crouching beside him, watching it quietly, when —
“Last night —”
Seon Eunhu opened with that, tearing the hole in the sack wider with his hands.
I’d been caught staring at the way those fingers — nails trimmed short, the red at the quick vivid — worked the opening apart with practiced ease. But instinctively, I knew that whatever he was about to say next was the reason he’d called me here today.
So I waited in silence for him to continue, but Seon Eunhu didn’t follow through right away.
A small drift of plaster powder settled softly onto Seon Eunhu’s clean hands, and only then did his brown eyes, which had been trained downward all this time, turn toward me. I had the strong feeling that the pause just now hadn’t been accidental — that it had been deliberate, meant to give me a moment to call last night back to mind.
“Nothing happened, right?”
But what followed was unexpected. I’d thought he was about to tell me the real reason he’d brought me all the way here, so maybe my instincts had been off. The question was so much lighter than I’d expected that I frowned without realizing it.
“Pardon?”
“I’m asking if you slept well.”
Seon Eunhu looked at me as he repeated it.
Eyes with corners that could look gentle if you weren’t careful, but there was something in that steady, even gaze that made it impossible to take him lightly. Just being looked at by him carried a pressure to it.
Between feeling that pressure and being thrown off by how serious his manner was for what seemed like a casual bit of small talk, I couldn’t find words — and Seon Eunhu asked again.
“Last night. Did you sleep well?”
He asked it with weight in every syllable, as if it were something of great importance, and then waited for my answer.
…Did the officetel shake or something last night?
Puzzled, I finally looked back on the night before. As for sleep — I’d slept very well. I’d eaten instant rice with spicy tuna, finished the design plan for the iron welding project, and then collapsed into bed without even knowing when I’d fallen asleep. I’d slept so deeply that I couldn’t even remember dreaming, and when I woke, I felt refreshed for once — the dazzling sunlight reminding me anew that winter had fully passed.
“Yes. I slept fine. Why? Did something happen in the building?”
“Glad you slept well.”
Seon Eunhu brushed past my question without a second glance and finally looked away. He’d only stopped staring, yet I felt a rush of liberation, as if I’d been released from shackles that had been pressing down on me.
What was strange was that Seon Eunhu looked the same way too.
For some reason, relief crossed his face as he let out a long breath, and at the tail end of that exhale, he spoke.
“Fill this plaster bowl with just under half full of water. You can use the sink over there.”
Seon Eunhu pointed to the other end of the studio and stood up. The way he began spritzing his sculpture with a spray bottle looked just as leisurely and unhurried as always.
Is this really all he wanted…?
I couldn’t shake the feeling that his business with me had wrapped up with that small exchange just now. The urgency he’d shown yesterday by the elevator, arranging this meeting so insistently — none of that was visible anymore. If he’d shown all that obsessive, spam-call-level persistence since this morning just for a casual check-in, then Seon Eunhu should probably be at Hanguk University Hospital, not Hanguk University.
“This is water mixed with soap. If you keep sitting there like that, you’ll get soapy water all over your face.”
Seon Eunhu said it idly, still spritzing his sculpture with the spray bottle, indifferent to whether I was lost in thought or not. I lifted my head and saw fine droplets of water raining down on me like countless stars in the sky.
No wonder I could smell soap.
I finally jumped to my feet and went to the sink. By the time I came back with the plaster bowl filled with water as instructed, Seon Eunhu happened to be setting down the now-empty spray bottle.
“Now, while the soapy water dries, we’re going to insert the split balls. See the line drawn here? You’re going to insert the split balls vertically along this line. Be careful to make sure they don’t lift up.”
Handing me the small box of split balls, Seon Eunhu spoke only about the work, no idle chat — as if to say my role was simply to be a good assistant.
I held what he’d given me and looked at the lump of clay dotted all over with soap bubbles. As I looked, I found that whatever reason Seon Eunhu had for calling me here or whatever else — something had caught my curiosity.
“By the way, why did you spray the soapy water on it?”
“What?”
“Is it to clean the clay before casting the plaster? Like disinfecting it…?”
I’d figured it might be to remove any foreign matter so it wouldn’t transfer to the plaster — my own somewhat reasonable guess — but Seon Eunhu’s expression as he stared at me was becoming increasingly strange. He furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes, as if I’d just announced I was walking on all fours.
“…You said you cast plaster and poly last year. Did you not use soapy water then?”
“We didn’t. The clay was clean at that point.”
“No, this isn’t for cleaning, it’s….”
Seon Eunhu’s mouth moved like someone at a loss for words. Then he clicked his tongue and laughed in disbelief. Even without him saying so outright, I could tell he was laughing at my lack of knowledge.
“Who did you say taught you to cast plaster? That guy — I mean, that senior. What’s his name?”
“I never actually learned directly from a senior. I just watched what my classmates had been taught and copied them. But the result came out fine.”
“Oh, it’d come out alright. You probably took five hours to do what should take one, and came out with something magnificent. Didn’t you?”
“Oh—! Five hours is exactly right. How did you know? Can you calculate that?”
“You’re impressed by that?”
Seon Eunhu shook his head slowly and clicked his tongue. The strange thing was, even as he was scolding me for my ignorance, I didn’t feel bad about it — because there was a clear playfulness in the way he narrowed his eyes into thin slits and tutted at me.
He’d always looked at me with such obvious displeasure, so having him act almost familiar now made me suddenly, sharply uncomfortable. Reflexively I avoided his eyes and put some distance between us, and Seon Eunhu didn’t push the teasing any further.
Instead, my outfit seemed to catch his attention.
“By the way, that’s not a work uniform, is it?”
“No. My work clothes are in my cabinet — should I go get them?”
The work clothes from last year had gotten so soaked in chemicals that I’d thrown them out, and I’d just gotten a secondhand pair in the meantime. The color was a bit loud, but they were clean for something from a secondhand site, and I’d been waiting for a day to actually wear them.
“Don’t bother going all the way there.”
But instead of saying go ahead, Seon Eunhu lifted the maple-colored apron hanging on his chair and draped it around my neck. It happened so fast that rather than recoiling like a turtle pulling into its shell, I naturally dipped my head and accepted it. The moment I registered that this was the apron he’d been wearing on the first day of the semester, a scent drifted up in full force. It was the same appealing scent I’d inevitably noticed every time I crossed paths with Seon Eunhu.
“Alright. Shall we start the crash course from a senior who, the moment he came back from leave, got completely wrapped around some weird junior’s finger?”
“…….”
“Right. They say the sneaky ones don’t smile much either. Now then. Listen carefully.”
