Chapter 1131 – Is It Trendy to Contact Me After a Year? (4)
Seven o’clock in the evening.
Han Ye-seul arrived in front of her station at a time when the streets of Hongdae were starting to get crowded and checked her condition for the last time.
‘. Not bad.’
It wasn’t something she consciously chose, but the clothes she wore were almost similar to the ones she wore to the club last year: slim jeans that accentuated her pelvic line, and a black long-sleeved T-shirt with a slight cut in her chest.
In the first place, she didn’t like to wear flowy skirts, and it was her preference to emphasize her face and body more with her simple clothes than to dress up in various things.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a skirt in her wardrobe, but after thinking about it for quite some time, she decided to just wear it as usual without being too conscious of it.
Of course, she was confident that it would suit her better to dress simply as before, rather than to dress up in various ways.
‘I’m not here for a date.’
So, if it’s not a date, what is it?
She muttered an excuse in her mind to calm her pounding heart, but she was unable to come up with a suitable excuse for the questions that followed her as if she had been waiting.
1 year ago. A reunion with someone I met at a club and spent just one night with. It was because she herself didn’t know what to call her current encounter.
Anyway, her clothes were neatly dressed, and although it wasn’t because she was conscious of Choi Min-seok, she washed every inch of her body cleanly and lightly sprayed the perfume she had received as a gift from her friend on her last birthday.
I received this item and haven’t even opened the packaging yet, but I just wanted to try it out today. There was no other reason at all.
[〉Where is it?]
[〈Almost there. I’m going up the stairs now.]
Coming up the stairs? As soon as she got the reply, Han Ye-seul, who had just finished climbing the stairs, turned around and checked under her stairs.
And, the moment she made eye contact with Choi Min-seok, who was halfway up the stairs and was looking up as if he had spotted her, she flinched without realizing it.
Even though it was a weekday, it was the peak time, so even though the crowd was quite large, our eyes met at once.
Unlike himself, who reflexively flinched and trembled, Choi Min-seok was not embarrassed and naturally smiled and waved his hand.
My pride was secretly hurt because I felt like I was the only one who was nervous and conscious of the other person.
‘. Let’s calm down.’
I know that I am quite proud and have a prickly personality, but it seems to become even more so when I get involved with Choi Min-seok.
It was like that at the club last year, and it’s also true that they didn’t contact us for over a year out of pride.
However, I had suffered a great loss because of my pride, so now I needed to act as calmly and rationally as possible.
Let’s calm down. I took a short deep breath and mumbled to myself to calm down my irritated emotions. Meanwhile, Minseok Choi, who had climbed the stairs, came right in front of me.
“I was planning to come first and wait for you. You came quickly?”
“. I just arrived too.”
Although I felt a little repulsed by the thought of this conversation being like an ordinary couple, I didn’t want it to be thought that I had been waiting for them for a long time, so I answered briefly as if making an excuse.
It was a hard voice that even he couldn’t understand, but Choi Min-seok looked at her face with an unwavering expression as if nothing was wrong.
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s been a year since we last met. Still, I vaguely remembered that she was pretty. She was much prettier than I thought. I was impressed.”
“…”
Wasn’t the sudden meeting awkward? I was momentarily speechless and kept my mouth shut due to the compliments that came straight from the beginning.
I’ve already been told that I’m pretty so many times it’s boring.
Now, strangely enough, I couldn’t accept it as calmly as usual, so the only thing I could do was pretend like nothing happened.
In the first place, I couldn’t tell whether I wanted to laugh because I was happy about the compliment or if I wanted to be embarrassed by the sudden compliment.
“Yesul, have you been to Hongdae often?”
“She doesn’t come often, but a few times she came with her friend. Why?”
“This is my first time here. I don’t know anything about this road, so Yeseul, please guide me.”
“. Okay. Let’s go.”
Even if it is a guide, it tells you where there is something to see and where there is a performance. I have no intention of telling you that.
As she said directly from the beginning, Han Ye-seul had only been there a few times with her friend, so she didn’t know her well enough to guide anyone.
Since she decided to meet and have a meal, she goes to eat first.
She’s not a couple on a date, so there’s no need for her to hang out here and there.
I never wanted to be misunderstood as saying that I was giving guidance to get in the mood for a date or to create a good atmosphere with Choi Min-seok.
Still, she couldn’t just leave after eating, so she had no choice but to naturally head to the bar, as she had planned in advance.
But she hadn’t decided exactly where she wanted to drink, so she walked around and found a nice-looking izakaya and went in.
“They asked me to buy food, so I thought I was going to go to an expensive restaurant somewhere. It wasn’t food, it was alcohol, right?”
“Why, I don’t like it?”
“It’s not like that.”
I’m trying to talk in a friendly, light tone. This person’s answer comes out in a sharp voice, as if he’s shooting for no reason.
And, the sight of him lightly brushing off that answer as if it was nothing, without any sign of offense, hurt my pride even more.
“Anyway, I’m buying it today, so feel free to order whatever you want to eat. It’s okay if it’s expensive.”
It seems like they plan to leave the menu selection entirely up to them. Although I felt a little displeased as I casually flipped through the open menu, I accepted it calmly.
Is it because I was conscious of it and paid attention to it for a year? Even though there wasn’t a particularly unpleasant conversation going on, strangely my mood didn’t calm down.
To be precise, it may be because he does not like the attitude of Choi Min-seok, who looks calm and as if nothing has happened, unlike himself, who is very conscious of the other person.
‘. Calm down, let’s calm down.’
To be honest, I wanted to find something to blame and start a fight, but I knew that nothing good would come of that, so I let out a short sigh again and calmed my excitement. However,
“Ah, but please order just a little drink.”
“Huh? Why.”
“Mr. Yeseul, you are very weak when it comes to alcohol. You shouldn’t get too drunk, so I thought it would be better to just order a little from the beginning.”
Although she seemed to be considerate of this person, she even used the word ‘extremely’ and became irritated when she said that she was weak in alcohol.
‘Who says alcohol is weak?’
Needless to say, for a woman, Han Ye-seul is strong at drinking.
If it’s beer, you can just drink it like water, and even if you can’t drink soju, you have to drink about two bottles to feel a little refreshed.
Last year, she drank a lot of high-alcohol liquor at the club, and even after going to the second round, she emptied several bottles of soju because she didn’t want to lose.
‘. It’s about sake.’
It’s not as strong as beer, but since it has a lower alcohol content than soju, you can drink it without worrying too much.
Until now, I had been thinking of ordering only a little alcohol to be as careful as possible, but I felt like I was losing something by ordering only a little alcohol as Choi Min-seok ordered.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s okay.”
In the end, I ordered five bottles of sake along with various snacks, and Minseok Choi asked as if he was worried, but I answered casually in a calm voice.
Even if we drink half each, it’s two and a half bottles. At this level, even if I drink a little more because my condition is bad, it will end up being just a little spicy like soju.
Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I no longer get that strange feeling when urinating. It was a calculation that did not take their circumstances into consideration at all.
Anyway, after ordering, the conversation started naturally.
“Honestly, I was a little confused. I suddenly got a call from an unknown number and asked if I knew who I was, but I couldn’t remember anything.”
“…”
I wanted to ask him why he deleted my number when I had planned to contact him later, but my pride held me back.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you. After that, I got so busy preparing for the café opening that I completely forgot.”
“. It’s okay. If you’re busy, you can do that.”
‘Busy means busy, why did you delete my number?’ This time too, a barrage of questions rose up in my throat, but I held back.
“Still, Yeseul must have continued to wait for contact.”
“I just thought of it while sorting through numbers, so I contacted them. I didn’t wait.”
Did you keep waiting for a call and then get impatient and contact me first? Since I felt like this question would come up at least once, I was able to quickly come up with an excuse that I had thought of in advance.
“If that’s the case, I’m glad.”
I was strangely irritated by Choi Min-seok’s attitude of casually ignoring the excuses I had prepared.
“Well, thanks to you, I can drink with a pretty person like Yeseul. I’m lucky.”
Once again, I flinched internally at the flowing compliment that I was pretty, but on the outside I acted calm, pretending like nothing had happened.
“How have you been?”
“Nothing much. I just went to college and did assignments and studied. That’s how I spent my time. What about that?”
“I’m similar. I opened a café, got a part-time job, and stayed busy until the store stabilized. But now it’s running well without me, so I’m free.”
It didn’t matter what the other person was up to, but for now, we exchanged light conversation as if exploring.
In reality, I have no idea what to say, so I’m just accepting what the other side says, but I still have a lot of time, so it’ll be okay.
Anyway, I ordered five bottles of alcohol, so it was a little deeper before I emptied it all. Because a plausible story will come out.
Although I was pretending like nothing had happened on the outside, I reassured myself by thinking that as the nervousness was already starting to creep in.
Still, he was not considering his own urine situation at all.
