Chapter 65

“I am not being conservative; I am talking about my limits. I have not even slept at any of my boyfriends’ houses…”

“So your first time sleeping over was at my humble house. I’m honored.”

“To me it is a big deal.” Na-Yool burst out, furious at his mocking tone.

“It’s really not.”

“… It’s the first time a man made me a meal himself, and to have such a… such an odd relationship with this man, and also the first time to not be formally dating this man although we slept and had homemade breakfast together the next morning.”

“So?”

“That’s why, that thing that you keep mentioning, even the embarrassing details…”

“Sex?”

“…I’m asking you to stop toying with people with it like this.”

Na-Yool clenched her chin and turned her head to the side. She could feel his gaze on the side of her face.

“Me? Toying with you?”

His questioning voice had a somewhat hint of ridicule. Na-Yool answered bluntly without looking back at him.

“Yes.”

“A rag was not enough, now you’re treating me like trash.”

“Does it matter? All people can be trashy in some ways.”

“That’s true. But I don’t remember toying with you, you see.”

“Think again. There are so many memories of it, you may have forgotten.”

“Impossible. My brain is perfect.”

“…Such a snob…”

“I know.”

With such a boastful personality, Na-Yool wondered how there could be anything Si-Jin ‘knows shit’ about. She let out a short sigh and continued.

“It does not take much to toy with people. It is not just about messing with them, hurting them, mocking them, and blatantly acting like human trash… For example, that is, something like mentioning sex too, Mr. President, you always—”

She gave a quick glance towards Si-Jin, only to see him arms-crossed, like waiting for her to go on. Her mouth went dry.

“—you always act like there is a little something more.”

His gaze seemed to ask, “A ‘little something more’ where, to what?”. Na-Yool carefully turned her face to face him. He had a very indifferent expression.

“What are you criticizing about my attitude?”

“We already drew a line between us. You keep crossing that line little by little, but to me, it seems to be intentional. To make me misunderstand things, to throw me off guard. I am not saying that you have special feelings for me. It cannot be such a thing. But unless you are deliberately trying to make fun of me…”

“When did we draw it?”

“What?”

“That line.” He asked in a stern tone, ignoring all other words.

“… From the beginning, since I said I would hate dating you.” Na-Yool answered as she felt wronged. Had he not agreed so himself? (T/N: cf. chapter 30, if you don’t remember that dialogue)

“So you can’t even have a meal with me?”

“This might be common for you Mr. President, and you might not attach much importance to it but‒”

“You’re jealous again.”

“. . . In any case, you don’t seem to think much of it anyway, but I have no tolerance at all for such things. You might be fine with crossing over the line and going back and forth of its sides as you please, but in my case, once I cross it, I cannot come back the other way as if nothing happened.”

“You’re talking like our ‘line’ is well-established, but isn’t it just having sex?”

“…That alone is my bottom line. Even now, all my lifelong-accumulated common sense is shattered, and I am barely holding on. I can’t cope with any more than that.”

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She cannot let him toy even with her emotions. In Na-Yool’s opinion, that was several times a greater deal than sleeping with him. But was this carnal relationship easy? The more she pondered it, the more she was at loss.

But more than that burden, she feared worse suffering.

“Anyway, you can’t erase what happened.”

Si-Jin’s answer was immediate. At first glance, his face seemed grim, but as if it had been a fleeting illusion, his eyes were staring at Na-Yool without agitation.

“Whether I get brattier from this point or not,”

“…..”

“Whether I do more to you or not,”

“……”

“If you’re thinking of going back to before where nothing had happened, it’s too late.”

His words were troublesome. This facial expression of his was troublesome. How could he not know? He, who could attract people just by staying still, why was he confusing her that way?

Na-Yool bit the inside of her lip.

“Right now, I can at least pretend I know nothing. Pretend I am feeling comfortable even though I am not, and pretend that nothing happened.”

Once this brief relationship was over, Na-Yool was confident she could do so. Because he would too, even better than her. So she would catch up with him, even if out of stubbornness. If all of what was left between them now was just this, she would.

“That much I can do.”

“And can’t accept no more than just having sex?”

“Yes. You might be okay with more than that, but I am not.”

“Did I scare you?” Si-Jin suddenly asked.

For a moment Na-Yool did not know how to answer and kept looking at Si-Jin with slightly anxious eyes. He asked again.

“I’m asking you what you’re so afraid of.”

What could she possibly answer? That he was scary? That she was scared to really fall for him? That she feared that even after this relationship ends, she would come back to that time 2 years ago when just a word from him was enough to shake her naive heart? And that even though she knew it would end someday, she was still looking forward to each of his expressions, to every single glance from him… Would he understand even a slightest bit the fear that she might get stuck in a perpetual remembrance of these moments?

Sleeping around with Si-Jin like this was already too big of a gamble. If she compared her feelings to a pit, she would always want to retract her feet before she would even dip them into the depths. All she had learned as she grew older was to play it safe earlier on before she suffered.

A moderate dating relationship carried with moderate loving feelings towards her partner. A relationship without fluttering nor crazy love. As she matured, Na-Yool had always had such relationships. Because she knew that, in her childhood, even a sprouting unrequited love had made her every day suffocatingly painful.

She hated that moment which made her act different. Those days when that kid would appear in every thought all day long. It felt like her head was controlled by someone other than herself. Like a one-sided control, since her love interest did not love her back, and she just felt powerless. It might have been that helplessness that she hated.

As she had not felt this way again since then, Na-Yool ironically considered such genuine longing for someone as the emblem of her immature youth. Just thinking about it made her feel like she was caught up in a childish and inexperienced period. She shook her head.

“I am not afraid. And you did not scare me either.”

“But it looks like that.”

“Not at all. For real.”

“……”

“I just want to be careful. Of anything more.”

He did not need to know. Never.

Si-Jin stared into Na-Yool’s eyes with a strange gaze, and abruptly got up. The nerve-wracking lingering atmosphere disappeared in an instant.

“Will you have coffee?”

“…Sorry?”

“Latte?”

“Ah, yes.”

Na-Yool was a bit perplexed at Si-Jin’s natural demeanor. To wonder how and why he would remember her personal tastes was precisely a repetition of her pathetic youth ‒ in how she did not naturally conclude he probably accidently remembered hearing it somewhere, but instead expected that it held a very special meaning.

Such thoughts would soon nurture her imagination towards making her feel special in his eyes. And if she crossed the line, she would irreversibly end up thinking about it all day long.