A light smile flashed on Si-Jin’s face, who looked back at Na-Yool.
“I kind of like it obvious though. Slightly noticeable.”
“……”
“You don’t, so good for you.”
“……”
“He said it’s not noticeable, Na-Yool.”
The voice calling her by her first name was as sweet as spring. And Na-Yool, who was called so sweetly, had a lot to say to Si-Jin, so much that she simply could not say anything but look at him meaningfully.
Seung-Jae knew that facial expression. Cursing, that is the face she makes when she wants to curse at someone. Si-Jin’s handsome face smiled brightly in response, and casually turned back to Seung-Jae.
Like someone with a split personality, his nonchalant look from a second ago was gone.
“As you can see, Mr. Lee Seung-Jae, your senior does not want her relationship to be known within the company.”
“……”
“And the only one to know about ‘us’ is you.”
“……”
“If this fact were to become known within the company regardless of our will, the source would therefore be you.”
Seung-Jae painfully nodded his stiff head.
“Then, since everything seems to be understood, now what should we eat? Weren’t you on your way for lunch?”
“……”
“Was that Japanese restaurant last time not that good?”
Leaving Seung-Jae speechless with a few words, Si-Jin chattered as he grabbed Na-Yool by her shoulders and turned her towards the exit with a gentle push of her back. Seung-Jae stood there alone, looking stupidly as they walked away.
*******************************************
“You really are something!”
“You will be taking the set right? You always eat a ton of sushi. Set A? B?”
“How could you be so reckless! I can’t believe it…”
“No worries, I think Seung-Jae will keep his mouth shut.”
“We didn’t even get caught, he was merely baiting. He probably even expected us not to bite the bait anyway, but why did you go ahead and expose the truth…!!”
“He likes you.”
“……”
“And is incredibly kind.” Si-Jin shrugged, as if not seeing where the problem was. Na-Yool resisted the urge to slap those annoying shoulders. “Don’t you trust him?”
“Whether I do or not is not the point here. I—”
“That guy, he can’t betray your trust. Because he knows how lame he would look if he stabs you in the back simply for rejecting him.”
“……”
“Come on, pick a menu.”
Na-Yool pressed her forehead with a long face, and pointed to set B on the menu after a while. Even as Si-Jin followed suit and called the staff outside her room to order, she kept holding her head while muttering that it was nut. Then, when the staff was done taking the order and left the room, she shook her head and muttered gloomily.
“…What the heck, really. We are not even an engaged couple or anything…”
“Why can’t we be?”
“……?”
“How can you predict the future?”
“Who was the first to clearly advocate for celibacy? Not me—”
“But I have you now.”
“……”
Na-Yool could not keep up with this sudden development. Such a surreal and unprecedented development…
“… It has only been a month since we started properly dating… No, it’s not even a month yet, do you know?”
Surprisingly, it was. This relationship was so strangely familiar, and strangely so good, that it seemed like time kept rushing forward, but it was still close to its starting point.
Even combined with the time spent in their previous carnal relationship, it was only a few months…
Na-Yool’s head was in a mess. So much so, that she hoped Si-Jin would just say any nonsense.
However, betraying her expectations, Si-Jin stared right into her eyes.
“You entered my eyes far way before that.”
His eyes were filled with a clear, straightforward emotion, firm and of confidence. They held a depth different from what he usually displayed in front of her.
“Honestly, I still don’t know what words like like or love mean. Because I always thought they were the biggest waste of time. So I’m not sure if they are suitable.”
“……”
“But with you, it was the first time I couldn’t help it. It really is so. if I’m looking at you…”
“……”
“It couldn’t be help.”
“…What couldn’t?”
“It just kept standing up.”
“……?”
A huge question mark appeared on Na-Yool’s face as she solemnly listened to Si-Jin’s serious confession.
I must have heard it wrong.
As her internal defensive system coped with the information, Si-Jin earnestly elaborated.
“It started 2 years ago.”
What.
“I’ve been masturbating since then.”
“……?”
“What else could I do. If I leave it like this, I can’t focus on anything.”
“…I’m sorry, what did you say could not be help?”
“That I keep getting hard because of you.”
“……”
“Even when I was in middle school, I never had such dirty habits. Same for high school and college. Of course, I felt desire. Occasionally, a few times a year. With no one specific in mind. There was no woman I wanted to have sex with. But I was born with a dick, and the fact that it erected by itself just like that deeply disgusted me.”
Na-Yool felt a new sense of embarrassment at hearing such an earnest confession on masturbation in a Japanese restaurant crowded with office workers at lunch hour.
That handsome face sure could mention the world’s most dirty things with the most romantic expression…
“But after meeting you, I got hard several times a day.”
“……”
Na-Yool wanted to refuse to acknowledge it as a confession of love from the guy she likes, but it somehow sounded closer and closer to it. How to deny his expression, overflowing with incongruous warmth, even his loving gaze…
“I was so ashamed I wanted to cut it off. It just couldn’t behave. Some days, just hearing you say good morning—”
“—Don’t tell me it stood…”
“It sure did.”
“……”
“I guess that’s probably what it means to fall in love at first sight.”
As in late realization, Si-Jin smiled brightly. Across him, Na-Yool sighed deeply and buried her face in her palms again.
What kind of crazy person would define their love in such a literal bawdy way, only adding a few romantic words at the end?!
The words rose up in Na-Yool’s throat, but he just happened to be a pervert anyway. As such, he ultimately could not be blamed…
“Yeah, I think this miserable feeling is what people call love.”
As though feeling that talking about love at first sight was not enough, Si-Jin kept witlessly mumbling with a newly convinced tone.
Na-Yool looked at him in a daze.
“…You’re cra—”
“Yeah, I’m sick in the head.” He interrupted.
“……”
“That’s how much I love you. Masturbating for 2 years—”
“Enough.”
Na-Yool stopped him at once, determined not to hear that word in public anymore. Okay. Such outlandish logic was not surprising. She even had no doubt that it was sincere.
Si-Jin spoke again, obediently choosing proper words.
“All my firsts are with you.”
“……”
“Being so horny, being interested in a woman…”
Of course, Na-Yool could sum up in just one word.
“……Isn’t it just desire?”
Hearing no answer, she raised her eyes, only to meet a greatly insulted expression on Si-Jin’s face. It seemed to say, Yes I’m a pervert, and yes I’m easily turned on, but I don’t get in heat anywhere!
“Towards you. You are the only one.”
“……”
“For the first time in my life, it’s you.”
“I don’t believe that. In those two years, you must have dated and more. How could I suddenly—”
“This is my first time wasting time like this, with you.”
The man, who defined their relationship as a ‘waste of time’ without any hesitation, still had a warm smile.
What, really, Kwon Si-Jin’s first romantic partner is me?
“I’ve self-denied it enough over the past 2 years. I don’t want to be defeated by you in a game I already lost.”
“…Shouldn’t you give me a chance to deny it too?”
You say you had two years to deny it, two years of jerking it off, but what about me? Na-Yool discontently glared at him.
“Because you are the first. And maybe I won’t have another chance.”
“……”
“To be fair, shouldn’t you be responsible for me?”
“……”
“You ate me up, after all.”
It only took a second for the innocent smile to suddenly turned into a wicked one.
Like the very beginning of their relationship, when he swept Na-Yool, who only knew how to step backward, towards him.