To the man who asked as if completely unaware of an obvious fact, Eunha replied calmly. While finding it a bit ridiculous inside.
“I do. You’re a cafe customer.”
Normally, how could someone not remember something like that? Because he’s consumed by pretense, that’s why these jarring contradictions arise.
“Ah……”
The man, who had nodded and slightly lowered his head, looked straight ahead again. He subtly touched the nape of his neck. That area was faintly reddish.
Eunha was dumbfounded. Of course, he didn’t show it.
“I thought you didn’t know. Because you always say the same thing.”
“The same thing?”
“About whether I have a stamp card…… You ask every time I go. As if it’s the first time you’re seeing me. I’ve already filled out three of those.”
Had it exceeded three? He hadn’t counted separately.
“I don’t make a show of recognizing regular customers.”
“Since when have you been remembering?”
“It’s been quite a while.”
He answered without thinking. It wasn’t particularly a meaningful answer. That’s how it was within Eunha’s common sense.
However, the man made an “ah” sound and seemed to hold back a smile in his eyes. Then the scene of him lightly biting his lower lip and releasing it was dramatically soft, like a male protagonist from some romance manga.
What does he really do? Eunha, with empty eyes, added dryly as if trampling sprouts.
“I can’t not know a customer who comes every day. I become familiar with someone after seeing them just three times.”
“…Ah… three times….”
“……”
“…Yes… that’s right….”
A dejected voice.
A silence that settled as if carefully choosing words.
“……This is also a connection.”
“……”
“May I ask your name?”
Good grief. Eunha answered halfheartedly.
“It’s Lee Eunha.”
Lee Eunha…… the man who muttered quietly said.
“It’s pretty. Your name.”
“……”
“My name is Baek Yeonjun.”
“Yes. Your name is pretty too.”
So it was Baek. While thinking that and giving a bland answer, the man who had been keeping his gaze straight ahead finally slowly looked at Eunha. Somehow he seemed a bit disappointed. What did he do?
When Eunha showed a puzzled expression as if asking what the problem was, he spoke quietly.
“I just told you my name……”
It was hard to understand immediately, so he narrowed his eyes. After thinking hard for a while, he could barely understand. He was pointing out that Eunha had referred to him as “you.”
Eunha moved his lips slightly. The sensation of words running away on his tongue was also something he hadn’t felt in a while.
While gaping and truly looking at the man in front of him absurdly, his thoughts suddenly jumped somewhere.
“Baek-ssi….”
“Yes?”
“We have the same surname.”
He waved the pamphlet in his hand. It was quite a reasonable deduction. It wasn’t a common surname.
As if he hadn’t thought of that, the man opened his eyes slightly wider, made a briefly contemplative face, then soon nodded shallowly.
“He’s my grandfather.”
“Ah.”
Eunha recalled the information he had heard from Jeongho. What art school department was it?
If it was about Artist Baek Euntaek, there were several things he knew. Born as the eldest son of an entrepreneur. A person who pursued a single-minded life of fulfilling dreams while turning his back on his family’s expectations and obligations. He had several children, and he had read in interviews that most of them were extending their reach into various fields of art and exercising positive influence.
Throughout that article, the love and pride toward the family seemed tremendous, so it wasn’t baseless confidence. It seemed the grandson had also inherited the talent well.
“You have a great person as your grandfather.”
“……Yes. He is a great person.”
Leaving behind that somehow reluctant tone, Eunha checked his wristwatch. It was an intentional check. He was gradually wanting to escape from this uncomfortable conversation. A suitable excuse to leave had just happened to arise.
“You must be very busy. If you’re the grandson of today’s main figure.”
“-No. I’m really free right now….”
“Then have a pleasant time. I’ll be going now. My companion is waiting.”
Eunha, who cut off the man’s words cleanly, quickly turned around before he could say anything to hold him back. He immediately started walking. He was curious how the man would react to that rude attitude. Whether he would continue his docile mask, or point out the discourtesy.
Whether he’d show signs of being offended……
The man did nothing. There was only the sense of him reflexively taking one step then hesitating. As if he was about to grab him but put the brakes on himself.
He thought he would snatch his wrist.
At that considerate ending, Eunha finally let out a cynical sneer. Putting on airs until the very end.
* * *
Eunha was sexually promiscuous, but he didn’t pick up just anything. First of all, he tended to limit himself to one partner at a time, and he chose that person through his own standards of thought and judgment.
The most central criterion was mutual interests. How well their desires matched. How similar their values were. To grasp that, when explaining themselves to each other, they had to be unembellished. They had to be honest. Unless it was extreme, Eunha could easily discern the truth. Whether that person was doing something shallow and sleazy, deliberately disguising themselves to leave a good impression, or not.
It was discernment he could have because he’d been burned by humans countless times. From what he’d experienced so far, those who advocated the most benevolent human image possible and displayed it to others as if to show off were, when laid bare, more sinister, filthy, and dirty inside than anyone else. In the first place, isn’t it because they have something they feel guilty about, because there are rotten habits they themselves are aware of, that they hide themselves so forcefully?
For instance, Eunha had once almost entered a partner relationship with an STD collector. He had values that matched his own to a surprising degree, and throughout their conversation he lifted the mood pleasantly and gave only answers people want to hear, but there was something strangely artificial about it that bothered him, when he discovered that the guy was famous trash, a man-slut among sluts.
Through Gu Haebin’s network of information, who practically lived in clubs and bars.
If you say that he, Gu Haebin, and that man-slut are all the same, honestly there’s nothing to say. It was true they pursued unconventional relationships.
To make an excuse, Eunha’s conduct, which was somewhat undesirable by social norms, stemmed only from lonely feelings.
Because he was lonely but didn’t want to date.
Because he never wanted to do it again.
In any case, blinded by that loneliness, he had once almost crossed a river of no return.
After that, he became even more wary of people who seemed endlessly good and full of only virtues. Rather than someone perfect as if drawn, with no faults in appearance, someone who said they wanted to have sex with you was better, even if a bit vulgar, at least clearly conveying their intention. Your appearance is my type, I like your wealthy background…… it was better to speak honestly like that.
In that sense, the man, Baek Yeonjun, was indeed a person who couldn’t help but be grating.
While being led by Yeojin’s hand to greet people here and there, Eunha detected a gaze steadily clinging to the back of his head.
When he didn’t know he existed here, he hadn’t thought anyone would follow his trajectory like that, so he didn’t know. It seemed he’d been looking like that the whole time.
Once he became aware of it, it was a gaze he couldn’t help but notice. The so-called metaphorical sensation of having a hole drilled through the back of his head had been chasing Eunha for almost an entire hour.
Despite the fact that staring like that would obviously make a person feel uncomfortable.
As if he was someone who didn’t know that fact. As if he believed that as long as they didn’t make direct eye contact, he wouldn’t know.
Pretending to be someone so immature in sexual relationships was utterly absurd.
To repeat, people lived up to their face value. They came to. Regardless of their own will. They tend to learn arrogance from those around them.
Eunha resolutely ignored the persistently clinging gaze and followed beside Yeojin.
