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Seol spends an awful lot of time observing Jung.
Honestly, she should have become a scientist, not a businesswoman. She could write a thesis on this particular specimen, what with all the careful analysis she’s done on Yoo Jung. What would she title it? Studies on the lesser vaguely manipulative chaebol boyfriend; a detailed analysis of his habitats, habits...
She snorts to herself and her object of study glances curiously at her, attention diverted from the passers-by on the crowded shopping street. (As much as she watches him, he watches everyone else.) “Seol? What’s funny?”
Her mind, as helpful as it is, contrasts his face now (open, a little exasperated, the barest hint of a smile) to how it was the time he caught her snorting (at him, he thought) in the study group (guarded, hard, the barest hint of accusation in the careful slide of his eyes back to Jaewoo) a year ago.
“You are,” she tells him, and the exasperation is replaced by confusion.
“What?” He tugs at his shirt, leans over to check his reflection in the glass of a storefront they pass. “Have I got something on my face?”
He’s a little vain at times. It’s oddly endearing. “No! It’s… Well, you are funny. I mean that in a nice way. Like, you, as a person, are funny.” He still doesn’t get it. He’s always so sharp, so quick to comprehend; it’s a little satisfying to unseat him, watch the gears turn frantically behind those ink blue eyes. “I mean, you have this playful side... I didn’t expect that. I suppose I didn’t get to see that before, since you’re my sunbae, you know? All senior and stuff.” She pretends to button up her chambray shirt as a visual demonstration of Sunbae Yoo Jung.
“Playful?” He lapses into silence – unnerving, empty silence. She’s sure she’s upset him (for somebody so even-tempered, he can be… well, mercurial), until he says, smiling; “Only with you.”
“Huh?” Hong Seol, she thinks irritatedly, you are so eloquent.
“I never know how you’ll react when I tease you,” he explains. “Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you get angry, and sometimes…” He takes that opportunity to take her hand in his, and though Seol is (sort of?) tall and thus has big feet and hands out of proportion with the rest of her… her hand is tiny in his.
He tips his head to the side and grins. “You get flustered. That’s my personal favourite.”
Her cheeks are hot, so she turns her head away and grimaces at the pavement and pats madly at her cheeks with her free hand. She’s so occupied with trying to calm herself down that she doesn’t notice him pulling her closer until she’s nestled into his side.
“Don’t you wish every day could be like this?”
“Huh? In what way?” He’s so warm. Good, comfortable, warm, not sticky Seoul summer warm. “Like, the weather?” The sky is cloudless, the sun’s heat is relaxed and the breeze is just strong enough to be refreshing. “Or that we have no work right now?” That would be understandable; between the English academy, her desk job in the university’s office, working in her parent’s café and volunteering, the free hours she and Jung can spend together are rare and precious. “Or even that we’re…” Together, she wants to say. Together together.
In typical Jung fashion his answer is indirect, inviting her to contemplate him. “I just like the way things are now.” His gaze is faraway, as it sometimes is, as if he isn’t looking at the world she knows, but at a world hidden behind it which only he can perceive.
Suddenly, she understands him. The way they are now; young, happy, in… something. Something she doesn’t want to name yet. Nothing hanging over them but the sun, slowly descending. No unwanted obligations; no ugly shadows marring the brightness of their days.
No secrets. Or, at least it feels like none, which is good enough for Seol at the moment.
“Hey.” He smiles that gentle smile at her. “There’s still some sunlight left. Why don’t we go to the park?”
She nods, and smiles back.
But somewhere in the depths of her mind, in the part that wondered why no-one else could see just how despicable this man was, she knows –
This can’t last. Not with Jung.
Something will get dragged out.
Something will ruin their halcyon days.