The clothes were uncomfortable.
The fabric itself was lightweight, but it clung to my body, and the texture against my skin through the thin material felt unpleasant. The way the cloth shifted up with every breath, the tightness fitted so precisely to my frame — it was suffocating and cumbersome.
I tried tugging the shirt down with my hand, but it wouldn’t stretch or loosen at all.
“Uncomfortable, right? Anything made to look pretty always is.”
The owner watched me with a smirk, teasing.
“Go on home now.”
“I’ll work.”
“It’s paid leave, I said.”
I didn’t want to take something for nothing. It felt too much like accumulating a debt.
“I’ll do it.”
When I refused the day off and kept insisting on working, the owner nodded as if giving up on convincing me otherwise.
“Fine, shall we head up, then?”
“…….”
When I stood there without answering, the owner glanced at me and asked,
“Not coming?”
“You want me to handle a guest looking like this?”
“What’s the problem? Honestly, it looks better than you’d think.”
A cast on my arm, looking “better than I’d think.”
I’d naturally assumed I’d be put on kitchen duty until my arm healed. I’d seen it happen before — when an escort got plastic surgery or got injured, someone else filled in while they recovered. Usually cleaning, kitchen work, that kind of menial task.
But being told, with no handover at all, to just go take a client — and not even a regular client, but a VIP — made no sense to me.
I was starting to wonder if the owner was about to throw away the entire bar business, when he suddenly burst out laughing. Then, without warning, he placed a mask over my face. One that covered half of it, just the eyes and nose.
“Didn’t I tell you? There’s something about you that gets people riled up.”
What was that supposed to mean?
I had no idea what anyone could possibly find riling about some shitty-looking guy.
The owner suddenly slipped a hand into the front of my pants.
“You just stay still and…”
He grazed me, barely touching, just enough to grip the fabric of my pants and tug, continuing,
“…take it well when something gets stuck in here, and come back out.”
The owner grinned, eyes narrowing.
“Why, suddenly feel like resting after all?”
“…No.”
Only after hearing that answer did the owner let go of my pants.
Then, smiling, he said,
“Open up.”
“What?”
“Open your mouth.”
“…….”
When I opened my mouth, a piece of candy went in.
A bitter, medicinal scent mixed with sweetness. The thick taste of red ginseng slid down my throat.
“Shall we go get you fawned over, then?”
The owner turned, looking satisfied. He headed up to the VIP floor, and I followed behind him. Strange glances trailed after me from every direction. Even the guards stationed at the entrance to the VIP floor looked me over with unfamiliar, distasteful eyes. I ignored every one of those looks and kept my eyes fixed on the back of the owner’s head.
The owner knocked on one of the VIP rooms, the kind typically reserved for group bookings, and opened it.
Several escorts were already mingling inside.
“This one’s new, just started today. Brought him in for a little preview, so don’t be too rough on him, okay~?”
The owner said this simply, then pushed my back forward toward the middle of the table. I awkwardly settled into the one open seat, weaving past the people already seated, and by the time I looked up, the owner had already left.
A sharp blend of cologne and liquor stung my nose. The escorts moved with practiced ease, careful not to let my entrance disturb the mood.
They kept up easy conversation with their respective partners, but their tone stayed relaxed and composed, never loud. There was no forced laughter, and even their movements seemed natural and graceful, as if every gesture had been calculated. Even pouring a glass of liquor, they’d wipe any moisture off the glass with a clean cloth before handing it to a guest, and the table itself stayed tidy, cleared regularly.
I, on the other hand, felt out of place just sitting there.
Like a smear of black ink dropped onto a beautifully painted canvas — the overwhelming sense that this wasn’t a place I belonged in. But I made sure not to let it show. Showing discomfort here was unlikely to do me any favors.
I sat there blankly, waiting for the candy in my mouth to fully dissolve, when a man with an escort tucked beside him moved closer and struck up a conversation — perhaps my detachment and discomfort registered as something strangely intriguing.
“First time, huh?”
“Yes.”
The man who’d spoken to me had bright blond hair, which made him stand out even among the other striking-looking escorts in the room.
“Why the mask?”
“Because I look like shit.”
The man looked briefly stunned at my answer, then laughed. When he laughed, even the air around him seemed to brighten.
“Ha, that’s funny. Isn’t it, Jinseung?”
His low laughter tangled through the room, and as it did, my view of the space opened up. That’s when I finally saw the other man seated in the place of honor. A man who could deliberately make his presence vanish.
Jet-black hair, striking features, beautiful eyes, and… black leather gloves.
I knew exactly who that man was. The decisive cause of the cast on my arm sat there, expression utterly indifferent.
…Fuck.
I swallowed the curse down inside myself.
While I was still reeling, our eyes met through the gap in my mask. I missed the moment to look away and simply froze.
“…….”
A cold sweat seemed to run down my spine. My fingertips, still in the cast, trembled at the chill of that unsettling sensation.
“How’d you hurt your arm?”
The blond man beside me kept the conversation going, asking. At that question, my heart dropped like a stone. I couldn’t answer right away, my eyes drawn helplessly toward the other man, like a magnet pulling. I tracked his every reaction, ready to bolt at the faintest hint of recognition, like some skittish herbivore.
The man in the seat of honor showed no reaction at all.
He didn’t even seem interested in anyone in the room, lifting a clear glass instead. An unusual glass, narrow at the rim and rounded out toward the bottom. Had our eyes meeting earlier just been my imagination?
The rim of the clear glass touched his lips, and a golden liquid trailed down past his parted mouth. The gold rim embedded in the glass caught the room’s light, glinting with even the slightest movement. I sat rigid, taking in every single detail of his motions.
“Why’re you so frozen up. Nervous?”
At the blond man’s question, I finally snapped back to attention and spoke up quickly.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, everyone’s like that their first time.”
With that, he suddenly opened his wallet and stuffed a wad of fifty-thousand-won bills into my pants.
“This should help loosen you up a little, right?”
The sudden wad of cash shoved at me did, in fact, snap me fully back to my senses.
He smiled and gently brushed a hand over my cast.
“So. How’d this happen, exactly?”
“Got hurt by accident at work.”
More precisely, I’d taken a one-sided hit because of some lunatic in canvas sneakers, but there was no need to get into that much detail.
Even as I answered, I glanced over at the man.
Still no reaction whatsoever.
Doesn’t he remember?
That expressionless, beautiful face showed no sign of stirring at all.
The blond man asked again.
“What do you even do to get hurt this dramatically? Day labor or something?”
“Yes.”
“Huh?”
“I got hurt doing day labor, yes.”
“Aw, man…”
The blond man’s face crumpled with genuine sympathy for me. Unlike the man in the seat of honor, the blond’s expressions were rich and varied.
He fell briefly silent, then pulled out a check from his wallet this time, and said with a light laugh,
“This one’s consolation money.”
He tucked the check into the gap of my cast, and within just a few minutes, the money I’d received already exceeded a full month’s salary.
The man in the seat of honor still showed no interest in any of it.
Did he really not remember, or was he just pretending not to? My suspicion hadn’t fully cleared, but I let my guard down little by little. Staying visibly on edge the whole time would only look suspicious.
“You drink?”
The blond man asked abruptly. I nodded.
“I drink.”
“What kind? Macallan? Or Dalmore?”
What was that?
“Soju and beer, mixed.”
“Ha. Cute.”
The blond man let out a small burst of laughter, then slowly picked up a bottle sitting on the table. A thick glass bottle holding an orange-tinted liquid, poured heavily into a small glass. He held the meager pour of liquor out toward me.
A foul smell stung my nose.
Something like wet, rotting wood, mixed with a harsh chemical scent, almost like bleach. The musty, dirty odor was strong enough that it seemed almost spoiled, and my expression twisted in displeasure without meaning to.
The man paid no mind to my reaction and pressed the drink on me regardless.
“Have a drink. This one’s actually pretty good.”
As he held the drink out to me, the flow of the air around us, which had already felt subtly off, shifted further. Aside from the two men seated in the places of honor, every escort quietly attending to their own guests had their attention drawn this way. Even someone half-dead could have picked up on a change that obvious, and it finally dawned on me — I was the one who was supposed to be pouring the drinks.
…Damn it.
A mistake, right on my first day. But there was no way I could refuse the glass here.
