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Look, she’s not blind. She knows that Junyeong has the cutest dimples when he smiles. And she knows that when he smiles at her, she feels nice and warm inside. And she knows that it hurts to see him hurt. But did he have to go and make things awkward by saying he liked her? Well, she doesn’t really feel awkward. To feel awkward, you have to have all these deep-seated feelings you don’t want to examine, and she doesn’t really get those—she knows all her feelings and none of them is something to be buried as shameful or scary.
There is just a tiny little worry in her head that he isn’t just waiting for her answer but expecting it. And even if she did feel inclined to… surely, he understands that in order to succeed and be the producer and editor she wants to be, she can’t afford being distracted by a boy? Her singlemindedness may contribute to her cluelessness sometimes but it was what carried her through her athletic career, and it is what keeps helping her now.
There is also another tiny little worry that even if she does go for it, office relationships are tricky. She remembers a very uneasy and uncomfortable Deputy Edi— CEO Seok sitting across his ex-girlfriend and ex-coworker. She had never seen him like that before and she hopes she never will again. In fact, thinking about it makes her so uncomfortable that she doesn’t want to think about it anymore.
So, she imagines instead Mr. Seok’s baffled face as he spins around looking for his car, and she smiles. And then she imagines Mr. Seok’s face with glasses fogged up with stream rising from a hot bowl of stew. Only that somehow leads to her imagining Mr. Seok’s long slender fingers quickly drawing on a yellow post-it with a sharpie.
And this, of course, is completely inappropriate.
So, she wonders instead what kind of comic book artist Mr. Seok would be (probably a very disciplined and dependable one, just like Mr. Baek) and what kind of comics he would create (definitely something meaningful and serious and fun and heartwarming at the same time). And then she wonders if he would want her as his producer and how great it would be to be the first person to see what he creates. It would be like getting a front row seat to his mind. Not that he’s ever been stingy sharing his thoughts with her. But this would be different. Would she be able to argue with him if/when their opinions differed? Well, if the experience with Mr. Baek has thought them anything, she should be.
...She misses the coin tucked into the belt of her doll. Mr. Seok may have been right, and she does believe in herself and her abilities enough at this point to not need the crutches of a lucky charm anymore. But it wasn’t just about luck, was it? It was a reminder that there is always someone who believes in her. She hopes she will never become as jaded and ungrateful as to not want this kind of reminder. She doesn’t need his coin. She just wants it. She shouldn’t have let him take it back.
She giggles as she imagines twisting his arm. Again. (Some first encounter that was! She can almost hear his exasperated voice: Think a little before you act, will you?). Prying it from his fingers. And then her mind just grabs those memories and runs away with them. His fingers clutching his badge. His fingers pushing his glasses up his nose. His fingers flipping a coin. And touching hers when he hands it to her. Those long slender fingers.
And then comes the absolutely uninvited memory of those fingers tying her shoelaces—and the canvas of her sneakers should be thick enough for the heat of his skin to not be a real part of that memory, and yet she huffs and rubs the spot on her bare foot, and her heart is racing for some reason.
This is so, so much worse than being distracted by a boy.
And to think that her first urge when she was shocked by Junyeong’s confession was to go to Mr. Seok and ask for his opinion on how she should act around the young man. But she thought a little and she didn’t. Because that would have been completely inappropriate. And because after she thought a little, she realized she didn’t want Mr. Seok to know.
Look, she’s not stupid. She knows he wouldn’t care. Or rather, of course, he would, he would probably be happy for them, because he is obviously very fond of them both, only there isn’t any them to be happy about, so she doesn’t want him to.
In a way, it is easier now that she and Mr. Seok don't share an office anymore.
It was a little weird, though, to see him for the first time in a while, at his new workplace. In his very nice office with a view. Wearing a suit and everything. For a couple of seconds, however, she thought he seemed a little distant and standoffish, and it hit her like a bucket of ice-cold water, because it had never been like this with them. It had always been easy and comfortable. Never tense. Except maybe that one time when their faces were suddenly so close that she could see that he had just licked his lower lip because it was glistening—she didn’t mean to look, it just happened, and they even laughed about it. And maybe except that other time just before he put her in a taxi. They were laughing but there was something there she couldn’t explain, something sweet but tugging at something inside her. So, yeah, it was a little scary to see him not as his usual charming self. But then he pushed his glasses up his nose and grinned at her just like he had always done, and she felt light as a feather and couldn’t stop smiling all the way back to her office.
She wonders sometimes how he manages to find his car on his own. Without her. Then again, he hasn’t known her that long and managed on his own just fine. Still, it makes her happy when Artist Na has yet another crisis Mr. Seok can’t handle on his own. Of course, it’s not that he can’t handle it, he is just so much busier these days, being CEO and everything. But it’s nice to be a team again, if only for a short while.
She misses that a little. Every time she walks out of his building and into the street, where Junyeong is usually waiting (she doesn’t understand why—it’s not like he’s normally that clingy after he confessed, but he always tags along whenever she comes here), she can’t help looking up, to where she knows Mr. Seok’s window is, and sometimes she thinks she can see him standing there, looking at her and smiling.
She misses eating with Mr. Seok, too. They don’t do that anymore, because he is too busy CEO-ing it away, and she wouldn’t want to impose. But oh, she misses it. No forced smiles, no vapid small talk. Sitting comfortably across each other, talking about anything and everything in the world and knowing that the other person is happy to be there, and not wanting to say good night.
It’s silly but she misses it all so much that she comes back to that restaurant where the walls and the ceiling are covered with sticky pieces of colorful paper. She sits at the same table and orders the same thing she ate that first time Mr. Seok brought her here. And she smiles when she sees that their drawings are still there.
She once got to talking with Nuri about boys and things like that. She normally hates this kind of talk, and Nuri was ecstatic that her older sister finally wanted to glean some worldly wisdom from her, as she put it. But of all the things Nuri said then, she really fixated on one. “Thing is, it’s important to know if you want the person or if you just want to be them. It’s one or the other, really.” And she wasn’t even thinking of wanting anyone, for god’s sake. And then Nuri snorted, “Of course, I don’t think this is your situation. I mean, why would you want to be Gu Junyeong?” She just swatted her baby sister’s arm, called her a crazy witch and stormed off without correcting the misunderstanding.
Thing is, she definitely doesn’t want to be Seok Jihyeong.
What does that leave her with, really? And what is she supposed to do with this knowledge?
Think a little before you act, will you?
She is a good student.
So, she sits at the table in the restaurant where the walls and the ceiling are covered with sticky pieces of colorful paper, her hand with a sharpie clasped in it hovering over a blank post-it note, and she thinks a little. She swallows the gnawing little ball of hopelessness and sadness that her little thoughts have grown with a nice little cup of water, and then she thinks a little more.
She looks at the bright yellow square with a drawing of her. She sees an easy smile on a face with glasses fogged up with stream rising from a hot bowl of stew. She sees long slender fingers moving confidently across a piece of paper. She sees a dark-haired head leaning over her feet. She sees a twinkle in kind eyes. She sees something unspoken hesitating and retreating between parted lips.
She smiles a little.
She grits her teeth.
She thinks a little more.
And then she acts.
