As he said this, he naturally made me turn around to face away from the sink and then lifted me up. Seeing that the light illuminating the living room had changed to a softer glow closer to darkness than before, I realized that his footsteps were heading toward the bedroom.
A bag of bean sprouts placed on the dining table grew increasingly distant. Tomorrow morning, instead of the fresh green bean sprouts in the transparent plastic bag, there would be a pot full of warm bean sprout soup on the induction stove.
“If you sleep without drying your hair, you’ll catch a cold.”
Placed on the corner of the large bed, I remained still, obediently submitting to Woo Tae-seon’s hair dryer. Accepting even the unfair fact that I hadn’t intended to come straight to the bedroom after washing up.
So to summarize, Woo Tae-seon didn’t like anything that took away my time from him, and I always accommodated him.
Just when I thought my hair must be dry enough by now and wanted to lie down, I heard a murmuring voice through the noisy hair dryer. When I looked up, I could see Woo Tae-seon’s face through my half-dried hair. Judging by his lips opening and closing, he seemed to be saying something to me.
“What did you say?”
“…would you like to?”
“I can’t hear what you’re saying!”
Just as my voice unconsciously grew louder, the hair dryer turned off with a click.
“I said, let’s date.”
“…What?”
While I stood frozen in shock, Woo Tae-seon, as if I didn’t matter, gently smoothed down my hair that had been disheveled by the dryer’s wind and stated firmly:
“I think I like you, Teacher.”
His shameless confession was so light it seemed it could scatter into the air at any moment. It was to the extent that I needed to think again about what I had just heard and whether I understood correctly.
He was beyond relaxed, he was calm. He acted nonchalantly, as if stating something obvious, as if it were nothing special.
Like the surface of a lake where ripples spread out from a small stone thrown in, I was the only one confused and shaken.
He likes me. How can he say such a thing to me? How can you like me? How can you do those things and me, ME!
The low voice that had made me tremble and review my mistakes with just a whisper, all this to you is…
“You, you call this love?”
So I should have been upset. I should have been angry at the emotion being forced upon me.
But what came to mind now was the night I had tossed and turned all night over the moist, entangled, soft breaths. Even though I had finally found the answer to the emotion I had been pondering, I was even more confused. This is love, he said. Everything you did to me was love, he said.
“Why? Is liking someone such a big deal?”
“…What?”
“I think about you every day, Teacher.”
A damp voice, as if sunk to the bottom of a deep lake, whispered languidly. I looked at him, blinking stupidly.
“When I think of you, my dick gets hard too.”
“…You!”
“They say if even crying looks pretty to you, it’s a serious condition.”
“W-what are you saying!”
My hand was suddenly grabbed and pulled to his hot groin.
Each time Woo Tae-seon slowly rubbed his lower body over his clothes, I also had to press down on his throbbing dick. The firm outline, visibly tense and aroused, was clearly transmitted to my fingertips as well.
“Above all, I know how to be patient, like now.”
“This, let go of this!”
I pulled my hand away in alarm, as if having a seizure. But I was also shocked that he let me go without any reluctance, as if he never intended to hold onto me. Really, what was he… I couldn’t understand what he wanted to do with me. I never could, but today I really couldn’t understand.
“It’s love.”
A voice filled with even more conviction whispered to me. Like a mermaid robbed of her voice, I couldn’t say anything.
Woo Tae-seon said it was love, and I said it wasn’t. But I didn’t think this would bring any change to us. It would probably be that way. It was just another one of his whims.