“Did you learn how to cook? Maybe running a restaurant would suit you better than a club.”
“Food always tastes best when someone else makes it for you.”
Liam, looking indifferent, tore a piece of baguette apart with his hands. Maybe he had no appetite, because he was only picking at it.
“Then should I make you something?”
“Forget it. Do you even know how to make anything?”
“French fry macaroni chicken roasted onion mash.”
“Slapping random names together doesn’t make it a dish.”
“The name sucks, but it tastes good.”
That was a lie. I’d cooked it myself exactly once and tried eating it, and it tasted awful. Blech.
“Forget it. Make that french fry macaroni chicken roasted onion mash by yourself. Not at my place. At yours.”
It was an undeniable fact that I’d come here because it was close to the exhibition hall, and because I wanted to give my stalker a hard time. But my desire to comfort my listless friend was also real, so I carefully thought about what might have caused Liam to become like this and came up with my own theory.
“Do you maybe have a stalker?”
“What?”
“I’m asking if you’ve gotten some stalker who follows you around. Is that why you don’t go out to have fun anymore? I could ignore it if that were the only thing that changed, but you even bought books. That’s a pretty extreme change of pace. Is it because a stalker who’s interested in reading is following you around?”
“What kind of nonsense is that? Go home if you’re just going to run your mouth.”
“No, I just…”
“If you’re still in this house at ten, I’m kicking you out.”
I had given it serious thought in my own way, but since my guess was wrong, I only ended up getting scolded for nothing. Suitably cowed, I stuffed my mouth with baguette soaked in stew and smiled only with my eyes.
“Do that kind of thing with someone your pretty face actually works on. It absolutely won’t work on me.”
While Liam coldly put up an iron wall, he also served me another bowl of stew. His intention was probably to get rid of the massive amount of stew quickly, but I decided to take it as kindness. That would be better for my mental health. And since I had received something, I ought to give something back, so I offered my goodwill.
“It’s okay. I haven’t been going to parties or clubs lately either. There are times like that in life. Life doesn’t flow according to plan. Rules you worked hard to make are bound to break, and even if you run while looking straight ahead, you lose your way. I belong to myself, but I can’t control myself however I want.”
Twenty-three. It was a young age to discuss life, but if it was being used to comfort someone, even a little pretension should be allowed. This time, maybe my encouragement worked, because instead of sharply snapping back or acting annoyed, Liam readily nodded. Still, he didn’t take back his order to leave this house before the night fully deepened.
After dinner, I spent some time rolling around on the sofa. Liam picked up his book and started up to the duplex level, then came back down. Apparently deciding that if he didn’t keep watch, I’d settle in here for good, he placed a stool beside the sofa and sat down.
“When you make it that obvious, most people would reluctantly get up and leave. But I’m not ordinary. I’m special.”
“I really don’t understand this not wanting to be alone thing. A human being like you doesn’t look like you’d ever have time to be bored alone.”
Liam clicked his tongue and opened his book. I considered blurting out how the protagonist ended up, but it was a classic whose plot even people who hadn’t read it generally knew, so that spiteful little move wouldn’t have much effect. Liam probably already knew the story too and had started reading to savor the sentences and flow.
I read the phrases printed on the book cover and lifted my gaze. Liam’s blond hair reminded me of my stalker.
During the summer when I was close with Eden Reed, countless impulses had risen inside me, and one of them had been wanting to stroke his beautiful hair all day long.
I had imagined making him lie with his head on my thighs and touching his hair. I wanted to feel the shape of his skull with my fingertips, engrave the texture of his hair into my fingerprints, and touch the warmth held by his scalp.
When I actually got to touch his hair, when I combed through it with my fingers, it had been more thrilling than I’d imagined. Saying the greenery was lush was a cliché, but it truly had been a summer when the greenery was lush.
I had reached out, saying I would remove a leaf, and Eden had lowered his head slightly toward me. It was true that a leaf had really landed in his hair, but before I touched him, it had already blown away. Why did the wind have to blow on such a sweltering day?
Back then, I think I’d been possessed by something. Or maybe I’d been overcome by the heat. That must have been why I didn’t stop. Even though the leaf I meant to remove was gone, I placed my hand on Eden’s hair. While looking at the pale, almost white skin revealed inside the collar of his sky-blue shirt, the long line of his nape, and the beginning of his collarbone.
“Did it fall?”
“Huh?”
“The leaf.”
“Oh, not yet.”
Back then, I had stammered like an idiot. It was because the stimulation I felt through my eyes and hand was too intense to handle. Eden was excessively beautiful, and his hair was terribly soft. Did he know that my heels had lifted like some fantasy of a first kiss from a movie or a book?
“Somerset.”
Only after I had swept through and fiddled with his hair at least three or four times did Eden raise his head. He had merely called my name. Without saying anything else, with a subtle smile on his lips. My face reflected in his emerald eyes must have looked handsome as usual, but probably a little stupid too.
I don’t know what Eden thought while watching me run away without even saying goodbye. The ending to that day was me losing sleep all night thinking about him.
Chewing over that strange experience, vivid as if it had happened yesterday, I suddenly looked at the curtained window.
Should I go to Eden’s car parked outside and ask him? Whether he still remembered that day too, and what kind of ending he had reached that day. What kind of night had he spent that made him call the next day and say he had called just to hear my voice? Unless Eden told me himself, the answer might remain blank forever.
After roughly sorting out my thoughts, I grabbed my outerwear and stood. I dragged Liam to the front door by force, insisting he see me off, then grabbed the doorknob, let go, and asked.
“Liam. What would you do if you had a stalker?”
“I told you earlier. I’d kick them out.”
“You said you’d do that to me. Don’t worry, I’m leaving now so I don’t get kicked.”
“Right now, there’s no one more like my stalker than you.”
“Not me. A real stalker. Someone who follows you wherever you go. At first, they seem to do it quietly like a shadow, but then they gradually start talking to you shamelessly, asking what you’re having for dinner, smiling at you prettily, smiling so, so prettily that it puts you in a difficult position.”
Liam, who had seemed to be letting my words pass through him with the soulless eyes he usually wore at parties, suddenly pulled his body close and thrust his face in front of my eyes.
“How pretty? This much?”
He smiled, showing his neat teeth. He was handsome, but he looked like a mischievous villain.
“I’ve never thought of you as pretty, so I can’t relate.”
I considered planting a kiss on his cheek to make him recoil in disgust, but I only puckered my lips and pretended to do it without actually going any further. Because I had an uneasy feeling that Eden Reed was watching me. Without realizing it, and without even Eden himself realizing it, I had ended up letting him interfere.
“Of course. I don’t want to look pretty to you either. Anyway, whether they’re pretty or whatever, that’s not a situation where you should be swayed by that. If they’re a stalker, report them to the police and have them dealt with.”
Report them to the police. Have them dealt with. That extremely realistic advice shook me. A sensible person would have handled it the way Liam said long ago, and that would have been right too.
But Eden isn’t threatening me or doing anything perverted to me. He’s just being a little annoying. Irritating and annoying, but that’s all.
“Somerset. Are you really being harassed by a stalker? If that’s why you don’t want to be home alone…”
If I admitted it, Liam would let me stay the night. Maybe he would even be generous enough to let me stay until the matter was resolved. But then I would have to report Eden Reed to the police. Since he was following right behind me all the time, getting evidence and catching him would be easy.
But would that be the desirable solution? If I ended this situation that way, would I be able to sleep comfortably with my legs stretched out?
“No. I was just bored and said some nonsense.”
Liam clicked his tongue and roughly mussed up my hair.
“Go home, wash your feet, and sleep.”
“My hair! I’ll get revenge. I’ll come over again. I’ll pick the lock to your place. I know someone with that kind of skill.”
After declaring war, I left Liam’s house. While taking the elevator down, I fixed my bangs and decided the order of the questions I would ask Eden.
I’d made a fairly systematic plan, but when I actually saw his face, the questions were swallowed down in one gulp.
Because it might be better not to know the truth about that day. If Eden gave me an answer and then vanished without a trace again, I would end up pounding my own chest in frustration. Being angry for a while wouldn’t be enough; I’d curse him for a long, long time.
Trust was a luxury when it came to someone who had already left once.
Eden stood there with his hands shoved into his jumper pockets, looking at me. Even with the dark night scenery behind him, his blond hair and emerald eyes shone. How had someone who looked like he’d stand out anywhere in the world managed to stay hidden all this time?
I strode toward him, then changed direction and passed him by, and Eden followed me. The fact that he made almost no sound when he walked could be considered a quality of a stalker. He caught up with me with quick steps and spoke.
“Did you eat? If you’re hungry, we can go eat something. Or I can buy you something.”
At his friendly attitude, which felt affectionate, I snorted.
“Don’t act like that. No stalker in the world would.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘like that.’ Will you tell me?”
“As if you don’t know. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
Familiarity that softened wariness. Kindness offered to melt a cold, frozen heart. Deliberate attention. Things like that had no place between us. Our relationship was so messed up that a stalker-and-victim relationship would almost be better.
Eden was a cruel traitor to me, and I was the idiot who had fallen for him. The me from that night when I first touched his hair and tossed and turned restlessly suddenly felt unbearably foolish. Damn it.
I stopped in front of the green car and turned my head. The shamelessness of Eden standing beside me left me dumbfounded.
“What about your car? Why are you following me?”
“I lent it to a friend. Give me a ride.”
Most of the things Eden did to me were absurd, but I’d never heard of taking your stalker home in your car. He even used that brazen technique he’d shown me during the day to open the driver’s-side door and got in first.
I considered ignoring him, catching a taxi, and going home, but when I thought about why I should be the one to lose my car, I felt wronged and got into the passenger seat. Since it had come to this, I might as well use him as a driver.
“What friend? I can’t believe a stalker even has friends.”
I leaned back against the seat and asked as though pressing him. Since we’d been forced into riding together, surely I could ask this much.
“A colleague.”
“Don’t tell me that friend is a stalker too. Is there some kind of stalker community?”
“If there were, we’d have to find it and wipe it out.”
“So you do know you’re doing something worth being wiped out for.”
Eden placed his hands on the steering wheel and looked at me silently. The eye contact felt uncomfortable, so I pointlessly scratched my chin and turned my head the other way. The night street beyond the car window overlapped with my face reflected in the glass. The streetlight glow on the bridge of my nose wasn’t actually touching me, but for some reason it felt itchy, so I scratched there too.
The inside of the car was silent, as though sound had never existed there since the beginning of time. I froze in place, bothered by the tiny noises any movement might create.
Eden was the one who broke the stillness.
“Give me the key.”
His demand was so confident, as though he were asking me to return something that belonged to him, that I almost obediently complied. I stopped the hand that had been searching my pocket and shrugged.
“Now that I think about it, you’re sitting in the driver’s seat, but you can’t actually drive. Move. Get out. Take a taxi and follow me or don’t, do whatever you—”
“I can start it without the key. Though I’ll have to break the car a little.”
“Are you insane? Just try it. I won’t let you get away with it.”
The choices I was given—hand over the key obediently or let my car be damaged—were as coercive as any threat. Reluctantly, I took out the car key and threw it to Eden.
