Chapter 40
“Do you want popcorn, Baek Seolgi?”
“……Huh? Oh, yeah.”
“What flavor?”
After buying two tickets, Baek Seol-ah briefly considered Han Taeyang’s question at the concession stand inside the movie theater, then pointed to a spot on the menu.
“Is this one okay?”
Cheese-rosé-macaron-flavored sweet popcorn, which had been quietly popular among female students who had recently visited movie theaters.
Baek Seol-ah secretly wanted to try the rather unusual menu item with its ridiculously long name.
‘The reviews weren’t exactly great…….’
Just how memorable could the flavor possibly be?
She had always thought that, if only out of curiosity, she ought to try it at least once someday.
However, she knew that men generally disliked foods with such strong, unusual flavors.
So if Han Taeyang said he didn’t like it, she intended to suggest ordinary sweet popcorn as her second choice.
To gauge Han Taeyang’s reaction first, Baek Seol-ah subtly turned her gaze to the side, and.
‘……Oops, I guess he doesn’t like it.’
The moment she saw the boy standing beside her with an extraordinarily peculiar expression, she inwardly clicked her tongue in disappointment.
But what could she do? Once she bought popcorn, they would have to eat it together, and she couldn’t force him to like it.
“Or we could just get this one──.”
So Baek Seol-ah let out a short, fake cough and pointed to the ordinary flavor as she had planned, but.
“Cheese-rosé-whatever……. Anyway, give us one of that weird popcorn.”
“Huh…….”
Han Taeyang quickly composed his expression, went to the counter, and handed his card to the employee.
The order went in, and while Baek Seol-ah was still standing there blankly, he returned carrying the drinks that had come out first.
“Here.”
“Y-yeah.”
Baek Seol-ah blinked in bewilderment after unexpectedly being handed a drink without even getting a word in.
Then she cautiously put the straw in her mouth, took a sip, and watched Han Taeyang’s reaction.
‘……It happened again. I didn’t mean for it to.’
She was feeling increasingly sorry for him.
She wasn’t talking only about choosing popcorn to suit her own tastes, but about everything that had happened while she spent the day with him.
It had begun with her first date with Han Taeyang at the restaurant she had said she wanted to visit early that afternoon.
Their itinerary continued through a knickknack shop, a board-game café, a cosmetics shop, and a walking trail, and Baek Seol-ah’s preferences were heavily reflected in every part of it.
The problem was that many of the places they had visited were generally unlikely to interest men.
Even setting aside the board-game café and the walk, the knickknack shop and cosmetics shop were 120 percent guilty of that.
Baek Seol-ah wasn’t unaware of the fact.
It might sound like an excuse……
But in truth, she hadn’t intended to plan a date course this heavily skewed toward her own interests.
By then, Han Taeyang had gone back to the counter and returned with the popcorn, and they moved toward the screening room.
‘……It’s because this guy, Han Taeyang, kept asking me what I wanted to do.’
Feeling inexplicably awkward, Baek Seol-ah needlessly fidgeted with her drink cup even though she had no reason to.
That was right. Wasn’t Baek Seol-ah a girl who already had a boyfriend? She had been dating him for over a year.
Because of that, she was fairly familiar with the habits of boys her age. Naturally, she had intended to accommodate Han Taeyang’s wishes to some extent today as well.
But in the end, thanks to the ironic consideration he had shown her, she had done nothing but act spoiled toward Han Taeyang.
‘Ah……. How embarrassing.’
Realizing that all over again made her face grow hot. Baek Seol-ah fanned herself with her hand and gently closed her eyes.
She wondered whether she should have planned the schedule in advance yesterday, but it was a pointless hypothetical.
What use was that now?
Ultimately, while replying with absentminded ‘yeah’s, she had told him everything she had secretly wanted to do and even made Han Taeyang accompany her.
Naturally, the fact that Han Taeyang had quietly followed along and enjoyed himself with her wouldn’t change either.
Baek Seol-ah timidly stole a glance at Han Taeyang beside her, feeling an uncomfortable pressure faintly weighing down her chest.
……Of course, her boyfriend was Lee Hyeonseong, and the fact that she was having a perfectly legal affair date with Han Taeyang now would not overturn that relationship.
If she had to prioritize one of them, Baek Seol-ah would choose Lee Hyeonseong without question, but.
‘That doesn’t mean I’m allowed to treat Han Taeyang as a substitute for Hyeonseong.’
That obvious principle did not apply even in this situation. If it did, it would be reduced to nothing more than an excuse and pretext disguised as a principle.
That was why Baek Seol-ah felt a faint sense of guilt toward Han Taeyang as he casually gave her the aisle seat inside the screening room.
Even if she hadn’t intended to, she had ended up acting excessively spoiled toward him today.
If she had asked him out on a date, she ought to have treated him just as she treated Lee Hyeonseong.
Baek Seol-ah felt genuinely upset that she had instead made him do only things she wanted to do.
Perhaps she could even say that she had been a little excited.
‘Hyeonseong……. He gets really bored whenever I suggest going somewhere like a knickknack shop.’
That had been the reaction of the people she had dated so far, so Han Taeyang’s attitude of accompanying her without a single complaint had felt extraordinarily refreshing.
And because of that, the best defense she could offer herself was that she had unconsciously grown greedy and ended up acting even more spoiled.
Of course, when Baek Seol-ah whined, Lee Hyeonseong would reluctantly go along with her hobbies as well……
But he was different from Han Taeyang in that he would openly yawn during the process.
Since Lee Hyeonseong’s unconscious actions often stirred up Baek Seol-ah’s sense of guilt, perhaps that was why Han Taeyang’s generosity had felt even more dependable today.
That was when Baek Seol-ah’s thoughts reached that point. It was the moment she nearly felt an unusual and equally unfamiliar ‘emotion’ toward Lee Hyeonseong.
“Why are you making such a serious face?”
“……”
Suddenly, something cold and faintly stinging touched Baek Seol-ah’s cheek with a soft ‘tap.’
Baek Seol-ah was unable to shake off her stray thoughts at once, so she blinked stupidly for a moment, then.
“……?!!”
The moment she realized that the thing touching her cheek for roughly three seconds was Han Taeyang’s drink cup, packed with ice, she let out a startled ‘Hik!’
Fortunately, she remembered in time that she was inside a screening room and covered her mouth.
Otherwise, even though it was still only the advertisement period, she might have broken theater etiquette and shouted loudly.
Baek Seol-ah hurriedly raised a hand to rub the chill from her left cheek and moved her lips.
“What are you doing, idiot……!”
Her volume was low enough that no one else could hear, yet loud enough to reach Han Taeyang’s ears clearly.
Baek Seol-ah narrowed her eyes sharply, while Han Taeyang snickered and held out his hand.
Baek Seol-ah’s upper body reflexively flinched, wondering if he was about to pull something again, but.
“Open your mouth. I’ll put it in.”
“……?”
What he was holding wasn’t a drink cup, but fried kernels of corn commonly seen in movie theaters.
In other words, it was ordinary popcorn, sprinkled with reddish-orange sauce and cheese powder.
Baek Seol-ah drew her fine eyebrows together.
‘……So the name was…….’
Cheese rosé……. What was it again? It seemed like several similar-sounding words had been mixed together.
In any case, it looked more fiery than she had expected.
Baek Seol-ah examined it with half-lidded eyes for a moment, while Han Taeyang continued smiling mischievously and pressed a single popcorn kernel against her lips.
“Try one. Judging by your reaction, you’ve never bought it before today, right?”
“……”
“Come on, say ‘ah.’”
Aah…….
Baek Seol-ah cautiously opened her mouth. Without hesitation, Han Taeyang popped the popcorn he was holding into it.
Her cheeks moved adorably for a moment as she tried to savor the special popcorn’s flavor, and then.
“……”
“Heh. You can’t keep a straight face, can you?”
Han Taeyang’s taunting remark, which seemed to suggest that he had tasted it first, was undeniably true.
The popcorn had such an unusually inventive flavor that it made Baek Seol-ah grimace the moment she ate it, yet she forced herself to swallow it with a ‘gulp.’
For someone like Baek Seol-ah, who loved snacks, it was an experience she had encountered only a handful of times.
‘……It tastes fishy.’
That was how appalling the flavor was. How could combining cheese and rosé produce such a culinary monstrosity?
She even found herself thinking that swallowing Han Taeyang’s semen would be much easier than eating this.
Of course, she didn’t mean that literally.
Slurp-
In any case, Baek Seol-ah hurriedly put the straw in her mouth to rinse it out, then looked at Han Taeyang.
And just like that, where had the guilt and remorse she had felt inside moments ago gone?
“……”
“Well, well.”
She subtly pushed the popcorn tub between their seats toward him, as though passing it off.
Han Taeyang let out a disbelieving laugh at her shameless maneuver, while Baek Seol-ah feigned a coquettish protest.
“……P-please.”
“Oh, really?”
“Han Taeyang, you eat it all for meee. Okay?”
Strictly speaking, it was an embarrassing thing she did occasionally—very occasionally—only to Lee Hyeonseong.
Since she hadn’t quite managed to abandon all her pride, a little awkwardness colored her actions, but.
Even so, this was Baek Seol-ah’s aegyo. Han Taeyang let out an incredulous laugh, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
For a moment, he looked over her bright-red face as though admiring and appraising it, then.
Crunch-
“!”
As though he would indulge her obvious ploy just this once, he picked up some popcorn and tossed it into his mouth.
Baek Seol-ah’s eyes flew wide. Apparently, she hadn’t been certain that he would really comply.
Just as the advertisements ended and the movie was about to begin, Han Taeyang chewed the culinary monstrosity without much change in expression and spoke.
“Next time, order the regular kind. If you show off that pointless spirit of adventure again, I’ll hit you.”
“A-ahaha…….”
In a way, it was a sly remark that casually hinted at their next date without making a fuss.
Baek Seol-ah had also unconsciously realized that fact, but in truth, she didn’t care about it in the slightest.
She merely grinned foolishly, feeling herself soothed once again by Han Taeyang’s consideration disguised as violence.
She answered in a bright, cheerful voice.
“Yeah, next time let’s order what you want. I’ll buy it then.”
“You sure know how to talk.”
“I mean it, I mean it. Shall we hook fingers and promise?”
Both of them quickly noticed that a slight childish lisp had begun to creep into her words as well.
But neither of them deliberately brought it up and ruined the mood.
As though they had made a silent promise to each other.
[An empire does not collapse in a single day. There is only a first crack that no one hears.]
Before long, the lights in the screening room dimmed, and the movie began with a brief narration.