CHAPTER 4
Hye-joo sat down with an awkward expression and stared intently at Yeon-soo, who was sitting across from her.
A moment later, gopchang was set on the grill.
Everyone eagerly moved their hands as if they had been waiting for it, busy eating the gopchang, but strangely, Moo-jin was the only one who remained completely still.
‘What’s wrong? He looks upset…… Did something happen?’
Hye-joo glanced at Moo-jin quizzically for a moment before picking up a piece of lettuce.
She placed a piece of gopchang on it, spread some seasoned sauce over it, and deftly wrapped it into a large ssam.
Then Hye-joo wrapped the outside with a perilla leaf, opened her mouth, and took a bite.
“……It really is delicious.”
Hye-joo smiled as she savored the rich, savory taste of the gopchang spreading through her mouth.
“…….”
Moo-jin, who had been quietly watching her, also placed a lettuce leaf on his palm.
Gopchang, seasoned sauce, and even a perilla leaf.
Copying Hye-joo’s exact method of making a ssam, Moo-jin silently looked at her before cautiously putting the ssam into his mouth.
‘Am I imagining it? He’s definitely copying me…….’
She had a strange feeling about it, but Hye-joo soon focused solely on eating the gopchang to satisfy her hunger.
“…….”
But even afterward, Moo-jin’s peculiar behavior continued.
This time, when Hye-joo put a piece of gopchang covered generously in soybean powder into her mouth, Moo-jin dipped his own piece of gopchang into the soybean powder in exactly the same way before putting it into his mouth.
“Sun-woo seems to eat it exactly the same way as Hye-joo, doesn’t he? Even the order is exactly the same.”
Surprised by Yeon-soo’s question, Hye-joo immediately protested instead.
“That can’t be. There are only so many ways to eat gopchang, Yeon-soo.”
“No, it’s true. I’m eating it the same way.”
At Moo-jin’s answer, Yeon-soo and Ji-yoon looked back and forth between Hye-joo and Moo-jin as if wondering what was going on between them.
‘So he really was copying me? Why……?’
At Yeon-soo’s sly gaze, Hye-joo waved her hands dismissively.
Moo-jin then spoke again.
“I don’t really know how to eat it, so I’m following Senior Kwon Hye-joo’s method.”
The fact that he happened to be following her method bothered her, but if she didn’t make a big deal out of it, then it really wasn’t a big deal.
“You seem to eat it the most deliciously, and you eat a lot, too.”
Moo-jin finished speaking with a calm expression and put another ssam into his mouth.
“There’s a special way to eat gopchang? Don’t tell me this is your first time eating it, Sun-woo? You’re kind of unusual.”
Yeon-soo laughed as she spoke, and after swallowing his ssam, Moo-jin answered.
“Is that unusual? I’ve never eaten gopchang before.”
“Really? You’ve seriously never eaten gopchang even once?!”
When Yeon-soo asked in surprise, Ji-yoon, who was making a ssam beside them, answered instead.
“But I have lots of friends who don’t like offal either.”
“Surprisingly, some people have never tried it because they’re put off by it.”
“Since Sun-woo and I are around the same age, maybe it’s for a similar reason?”
“Come to think of it, Ji-yoon, how old are you?”
No way, right…….
Hye-joo’s heart sank at Ji-yoon saying that she and Moo-jin were around the same age, and she asked.
“I haven’t been out of university for very long.”
“I’m twenty-four.”
What, what did she say?
Twenty-four?
At Ji-yoon’s words, Hye-joo lowered her gaze beneath the table and opened her mouth wide in shock.
If Ji-yoon was twenty-four…… then even if he was older, was he twenty-five?
Twenty-six?
‘Crazy Kwon Hye-joo. What on earth did I do, being held by some kid who had only just graduated from university?’
She had expected him to be young, but Hye-joo sighed in disbelief at how much younger he was than she had imagined.
Just then, Moo-jin held out his hand toward Hye-joo.
More precisely, there was a glass of cider in his hand.
“Are you drunk?”
“What? No.”
“For some reason, I thought you’d like cider more than cola.”
At Moo-jin’s words, Hye-joo accepted the cider with a dubious expression.
She wasn’t particularly fond of carbonated drinks, but if she had to choose, she did prefer cider.
But how on earth did this man know that?
‘Get a grip. Don’t read too much into it.’
After being lost in thought for a moment, Hye-joo shook her head.
Not long afterward, Manager Yang, who had already emptied his third grill of gopchang, called Hye-joo over to his table.
Hye-joo, who had been drinking with Yeon-soo, got to her feet.
“Kwon Hye-joo, the grill here is burnt.”
“Ask them to change it.”
“Yes, understood!”
At Manager Yang’s words, Hye-joo answered loudly again and hurried over to the staff.
Moo-jin, who had been staring fixedly at Hye-joo, visibly scrunched up his face in displeasure.
Moo-jin’s displeased gaze soon landed on Manager Yang.
Perhaps sensing that crooked stare, Hye-joo gave an awkward smile and busied herself even more.
“Come on, Hye-joo, have a drink too.”
“It’s been a while, so we should really drink together, shouldn’t we?”
Moo-jin turned his gaze toward Manager Yang, who was already pouring Hye-joo another drink.
Although he looked displeased, he said nothing.
“……Thank you.”
“You should have some too, Manager.”
“I’ll drink if Hye-joo pours it for me~ Right? Hahaha!”
Moo-jin’s gaze fixed on Hye-joo’s features.
Hye-joo could feel his intense stare, but she deliberately ignored it and smiled at Manager Yang.
‘I think I know why, but I absolutely must not look at him.’
With that, she fixed her gaze completely on Manager Yang, who was laughing as he repeatedly slapped the table.
Meanwhile, Hye-joo had no idea that Moo-jin was still watching her as she made her rounds from table to table.
Before she knew it, Hye-joo was busily walking around with a glass in hand, and whenever someone stopped her, she accepted a drink from that table and downed it.
Someone watching her take another drink at yet another table let out a long sigh.
“……Haa.”
Just as Hye-joo was about to be stopped by another table, Moo-jin’s hand moved faster.
“……!”
Moo-jin pulled Hye-joo toward his side.
Before she knew it, Hye-joo had been caught by Moo-jin and plopped down beside him, blinking in confusion.
“Why don’t you eat some food while you drink?”
What the hell?
Had he been watching her this whole time?
As he said that, Moo-jin clumsily made a ssam in the same way Hye-joo had earlier.
Then he put the ssam into Hye-joo’s mouth.
“……!”
Hye-joo’s eyes widened in surprise, and she rapidly blinked as she stared at Moo-jin.
It was a good thing no one was looking, but what on earth was he thinking, doing something like this?
When Hye-joo recoiled in alarm, Moo-jin shook his head and whispered into her ear.
“I’m not going to eat you.”
“Stop running away from me, will you?”
At that moment, Hye-joo’s face instantly flushed red.
‘W-what is this? I’m not imagining it…… This attitude is almost like…….’
‘I have to see you when I want to see you.’
‘I want to see you one more time.’
‘So we’re going to meet again.’
At that moment, the man’s voice from that night overlapped in Hye-joo’s mind.
She had thought he didn’t remember her, but was that not actually the case?
Her mind was thrown into confusion.
‘Ah, I don’t know, I don’t know.’
‘I just want to get completely drunk.’
‘So drunk that I won’t remember anything.’
Driven by the urge to get as far away from Moo-jin as possible and focus entirely on food and alcohol, Hye-joo forgot her earlier resolve to drink moderately and was already downing bottle after bottle.
Before she knew it, Hye-joo was struggling against the drunkenness that had suddenly hit her all at once.
She got to her feet and staggered outside, crouching down in a corner of the parking alley beside the gopchang restaurant, perhaps hoping to sober up.
‘If only he had remained that handsome, anonymous man I’d slept with just once.’
Every time she exhaled, the strong scent of alcohol seemed to spread through the air, making Hye-joo furrow her brows.
She nodded off drowsily, and just as she was about to lose her balance without realizing it, someone wrapped an arm around her waist.
“……Oh.”
“I told you to drink in moderation.”
When Hye-joo lifted her head, Moo-jin was looking down at her with a displeased expression.
“……What does it matter to you, Sun-woo, whether I drink too much or not?”
“You can’t even control yourself when you drink.”
At his lecturing tone, Hye-joo let out an incredulous laugh.
‘What kind of new employee is this?’
‘And he’s even speaking informally to me.’
‘No matter how much this company encourages people to use casual forms of address, this is a Confucian country…….’
Hye-joo was just about to say something when Moo-jin’s hand moved toward her chest.
Startled, Hye-joo tried to lean backward, but he wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her firmly toward him.
Fortunately, Moo-jin’s hand passed over the sensitive area and stopped on the name tag that she had not yet managed to remove.
Pulled so close that her body was completely pressed against Moo-jin’s, Hye-joo could only blink.
“You said your name was Kwon Hyo-joo.”
“……Huh?”
“But you’re Hye-joo.”
“I like Hye-joo better.”
With a sly grin on his face, Moo-jin made all the drunkenness that had risen in Hye-joo disappear in an instant.
“……W-what do you mean?”
Could it be that he remembered everything from beginning to end?
As Hye-joo swallowed nervously, Moo-jin slowly took hold of her chin.
“How long were you planning to pretend you didn’t know?”
Moo-jin whispered in a low voice beside Hye-joo’s ear.
Then, Moo-jin’s face gradually began to draw closer to hers.
