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Episode 7
It seemed Dasom only remembered part of last night.
[‘Senior, do you want to sleep with me?’]
That sentence had snapped him back to reality. What was he trying to do with someone who was drunk.
Mocking himself, Han-gyeol did his best to send Dasom home safely.
Yet he couldn’t quite let go of his lingering attachment, so he didn’t stop Dasom when she bit his lip.
Her puppy-like nibbling was so cute that he let her have his lips several times, and when she nuzzled against him, he just let it be.
Eventually, he carried her into his place, laid her down on his bed.
[‘I really don’t know what to do with you, Chae Dasom.’]
She wouldn’t know at all that he’d pressed a stolen kiss onto her lips as she breathed softly, like a baby, buried in his blanket.
When he woke up today, his swollen lips weren’t Dasom’s fault—they were punishment for his own cowardly actions.
Han-gyeol rubbed his chapped lips.
It pricked his conscience a little to shamelessly blame Dasom, but surely he was allowed this bit of mischief.
After all, it was always Chae Dasom who first played tricks on him.
[‘You like Senior Han-gyeol? Why would I?’]
Words he’d once heard lingered faintly in his ears before fading away.
“Dasom-ah.”
“I’ll kneel.”
Receiving an intense warning alarm from Han-gyeol’s unusually gentle address, Dasom shot up from her seat without hesitation.
But before she could kneel, Han-gyeol spoke.
“Sit.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dasom quickly sat back down.
Han-gyeol leaned back and crossed his arms. His gaze as it swept over her from head to toe was haughty.
Dasom braced her shoulders, awaiting his judgment. She carefully restrained her gaze, which kept drifting toward his lips.
But she couldn’t help it. His already red lips were even redder now, plump and swollen, looking as if they’d burst with sweet juice if you bit them….
“What would change even if you did kneel?”
Startled by his cool remark, Dasom, who had been sneakily glancing at Han-gyeol’s lips, snapped back to reality.
Though he was being quite insufferable, his words were true.
“Then what should I do?”
“A friend I know asked me to help with a studio shoot today. You need to go there too.”
Han-gyeol spoke as if he’d been waiting. It seemed he’d already thought about it beforehand.
“He needs someone to do odd jobs.”
At the words ‘studio shoot,’ Dasom had tensed up momentarily, but she breathed a sigh of relief.
The word ‘studio’ had reflexively made her think of a broadcasting station, but thankfully, it didn’t seem to be that kind of studio.
Anyway, even if she went home, she’d just stare blankly at an empty screen and spend the day empty-handed.
Doing odd jobs was far better than killing time like that. If doing this could also appease Han-gyeol’s feelings, that was a bonus.
Dasom nodded emphatically.
“Fine. Let’s go together.”
A satisfied smile settled on Han-gyeol’s face at her obedient answer. His beautifully curved lips drew her gaze again.
As if pulled by a magnet, Da-som’s eyes were drawn there. His red tongue peeked out again, sweeping across his full lower lip before disappearing.
‘He sucked and bit those lips….’
It was frustrating. That she couldn’t remember the texture, the taste at all.
Surely it must have been sweet and delicious….
“Chae Da-som?”
Startled by Han-gyeol’s call, Dasom, who had been staring endlessly at his red lips, finally snapped out of it.
“Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing. I’ll do the dishes!”
Under Han-gyeol’s suspicious gaze, Dasom barely managed to look away and muttered inwardly to herself.
Let’s think good thoughts, Dasom….
***
After finishing the dishes and returning to her place, Dasom changed clothes and prepared to head to the studio.
The studio they arrived at, after riding in Han-gyeol’s car where he’d been waiting, was located near Seoul.
“Oh, did you get married?”
And the studio owner who ambled out, Han-gyeol’s ‘,’ was unexpectedly someone Dasom also knew.
“Huh? Professor?”
He had been a teaching assistant during her university days. Dasom’s eyes widened as she looked at Han-gyeol, who explained.
“I ran into him by chance a few years ago. I help him with work sometimes. And hyung helps me out too sometimes.”
“Ah…!”
Come to think of it, she might have seen the TA’s name in the credits of Han-gyeol’s films. Dasom looked at the TA with a delighted expression.
The TA seemed to think for a moment, trying to remember who Dasom was, then belatedly exclaimed.
“Are you Chae Da-som? Wow, it’s been a while. Have you been well?”
“Yes. It’s my first time seeing you since graduating university.”
“Oh my, you’re doing as well as Gyeol these days, I hear. What, a star writer?”
At the TA’s words, Da-som’s smiling face crumpled slightly.
Noticing the faint tremor at the corner of her eyes, Han-gyeol stepped between her and the TA, as if blocking him.
“Enough. She’s here as a helper today.”
“I don’t know if I dare use two of Korea National University of Arts’ finest outputs as mere helpers.”
“Just do your work.”
“You brat, still so prickly.”
Scratching his head sheepishly at Han-gyeol’s blunt dismissal, the TA guided them both inside the studio.
Dasom looked curiously at the filming equipment scattered around.
Even though some equipment was familiar, seeing it in a different place made it feel somehow novel. Of course, shooting video and shooting photos were completely different things.
Dasom, touching a lighting device, called out loudly.
“What should I do?”
“Oh, hold on. The rest of the staff will be here soon.”
“The rest of the staff?”
It seemed Han-gyeol and Dasom weren’t the only ones working today. Following the TA’s suggestion, Dasom waited for the people while looking around the studio.
Meanwhile, Han-gyeol was having a serious discussion with the TA about a camera.
‘It’s been a while.’
This was the first time she’d seen Han-gyeol holding a camera since university.
Of course, he wasn’t officially here to work today, but the moment Han-gyeol held a camera, his entire aura shifted dramatically.
Dasom watched him as if observing, then extended both hands forward. She raised her thumbs and index fingers, bringing them together.
She framed his figure holding the camera within the rectangular space she created.
“They say men are sexiest when they’re working, after all.”
His large hand gripping the camera, long fingers. His slightly narrowed brow and furrowed eyes from concentration. The subtle tension in his neck. His forearm, veins prominent beneath the rolled-up sleeve from the slightly warm studio.
Tilting her head, Dasom examined his figure within her frame and muttered, slightly dazed.
“He’s sexy….”
At that moment, as if he’d heard her muttering, Han-gyeol turned his head precisely toward her.
Startled, Dasom lowered her hands and feigned innocence.
But Han-gyeol called her nonetheless.
“Chae Da-som.”
“Yes, yes?”
“Go buy coffee.”
…So that’s why.
But what could a helper, here to do odd jobs, say?
Dasom pouted and took the card he handed her. The TA shouted from the side, “I’ll have an American!”
Receiving the TA’s order, Dasom looked at Han-gyeol sullenly and asked.
“Senior, you’ll have an Abara? You only ever drank that coffee.”
“…You remember that?”
“Of course I remember. When I bought you an American by mistake, you really laid into me, senior.”
He looked like someone who’d down espresso by the bowl, but he absolutely hated bitter coffee.
So he drank things like smooth, sweet vanilla lattes.
Dasom shook her head, recalling the past.
Actually, buying the wrong coffee could be considered a minor thing, but Han-gyeol, true to his nature as the demon king of prickliness, had bombarded Dasom with nagging over even that trivial matter.
How deeply traumatic that incident must have been for her to remember his coffee preference even now.
She was sighing, ‘Eww,’ when she heard Han-gyeol refute her.
“That’s because you forgot my order and bought weird coffee for everyone else too.”
“…I did that?”
“Yeah. And that guy who used to bully you was there too.”
So, was he saying he stepped in first before that person could say something worse to Dasom? Since if someone else scolded her first, it would create an atmosphere where others wouldn’t easily pile on.
‘Then… was he not scolding me back then, but actually protecting me?’
Suddenly realizing this, Dasom looked up at him with a strange expression. For someone revealing the truth after five years, Han-gyeol’s face remained merely stoic.
“Six Americans, one Abara, and one for you to drink. Buy that.”
“Yes. I’m going, going.”
Feeling vaguely unsettled, Dasom glanced at Han-gyeol again, but he was no longer looking at her.
Clicking her tongue quietly, Dasom took his card and dawdled her way out of the studio.
And by the time she returned, all the staff had already arrived.
A woman holding a makeup kit was checking cosmetics; another woman was busily moving a clothing rack.
On the rack hung the outfits to be used in today’s shoot.
Those outfits were….
“A wedding dress?”
That was it. This place was a wedding photography specialty studio.
