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Chapter 23
And that unfamiliar, peculiar feeling only deepened the next day on the way to Choi Byeong-su’s math academy.
Each step up the low hill past the small neighborhood market—something you could find anywhere—revealed scenes that were bewilderingly familiar. A handicrafts room cluttered with knitted items that were hard to tell whether they were for sale or student projects; a narrow bookstore that mainly sold reference books, its window plastered with faded blue posters whose color had completely evaporated—posters that looked like they’d been stuck there since the days she wore a school uniform; and in front of a snack shop, the orange and purple liquids churned inside a slush machine, while the prices of cup tteokbokki had clearly been corrected over and over again.
Jiseo knew that taste well.
Even Im Jiseo, who now ate only to survive, had once gone around trailing the smell of tteok-twigim and sundae.
She had walked this road countless times. After graduating, she’d had no particular reason to come back, so her visits had abruptly stopped—but it seemed the alley had merely been pushed to one corner of her memory, never truly forgotten.
In her memories, Choi Byeong-su’s Math Academy was a cram school for students ranging from pre–middle school to high school. Located on the third floor of a building with no elevator, it was a place Jiseo attended from the winter vacation of sixth grade until maybe the second year of middle school, before quitting. She thought the reason she quit was because she started going to a study room along with her older sister, Yeonseo.
On the first floor of the visibly old academy building, the frame shop was still in business—the same one run by an owner who, for fun, used to tell fortunes or read palms for housewives and female high school students.
Even after ten years, almost nothing had changed. Jiseo was marveling at it as she looked around when—
“Jiseo-ssi.”
It was Dohyeok. Standing between an old red-brick building streaked with whitish efflorescence and a tiny building with a worn signboard missing letters here and there, the man took off his sunglasses and waved at her.
Wearing a denim jacket, Dohyeok looked impressive again today—like a model. Too impressive, in fact, so much so that he felt out of place against the overly familiar surroundings.
“Hello.”
Though she wore a dubious expression, Jiseo bowed slightly in greeting. Dohyeok grinned and held out his hand.
Instead of taking it, Jiseo pointed alternately to either side of the road with her index finger, silently asking where they were going now.
“I told you to meet at the convenience store.”
Dohyeok naturally grabbed the sleeve of Jiseo’s coat and tugged her along. She’d assumed the GU convenience store across from Choi Byeong-su’s Math Academy was just a meeting point—she hadn’t imagined it was the actual destination. As he pushed open the door, a bell jingled, and the elderly owner greeted them with a cheerful, “Welcome!”
This used to be my regular convenience store…
Feeling dazed, Jiseo followed behind Dohyeok.
She had never seen Dohyeok smoke or noticed any signs of it—but you never really knew with people. She wondered if he’d come in to buy cigarettes.
Which was why she was having trouble accepting the sight of Baek Dohyeok deftly stacking two cups of fire-flavored stir-fried ramen, a two-pack of tuna-mayo triangular kimbap, and two cartons of apple juice in his arms before heading to the register with a small mountain of convenience-store food.
“Are we… eating lunch here?”
“Yes. You liked it, didn’t you? Eating like this.”
“I did?”
She asked reflexively, and Dohyeok’s face took on an awkward look, as though he were standing there broken, re-checking where his calculations had gone wrong. Jiseo shook her head.
“No, I mean, I did like it—no, I like it. I eat it often. But how do you know that, Vice President?”
“That’s a relief.”
Instead of answering what she’d asked, Dohyeok pulled out his wallet and slid a card—a pitch-black card—into the IC terminal. Seeing him present a black card at a convenience store and neatly grab two pairs of chopsticks felt oddly natural. It made the conversations she’d had with her teammates back at the barracks feel ridiculous.
Jiseo eyed that naturalness with deep suspicion. Thinking that the truth behind this strange man’s strange behavior would soon be revealed, her mouth felt oddly dry.
After paying, Dohyeok prepared the fire-flavored ramen first and handed it to Jiseo—then hesitated.
“Ah, I forgot the cheese.”
In the end, after buying string cheese as well and tearing it in generously, Dohyeok handed her the ramen. Jiseo couldn’t help asking,
“Vice President, do you eat food like this too?”
“Spicy food? Yes. I eat it often. When I’m stressed, I tend to crave spicy things.”
That wasn’t what she meant, but…
Jiseo dropped the subject and quietly waited for the noodles to finish cooking. This was a menu she’d often eaten at convenience stores when she had an awkward gap in time before part-time work, even through college—but she’d never imagined she’d be sitting face-to-face with a man eating it. At a convenience store. With someone who paid using a black card.
Of course, she’d also eaten this exact combination here many times after school and before cram-school classes.
Thinking of that suddenly made her feel hungry. Jiseo lifted the firm noodles, blew on them, and put them in her mouth.
“Delicious.”
The sharp spiciness softened just a little by the richness of the cheese—she knew this feeling. It was exactly that taste that made you crave more.
As she murmured “delicious” again and took another big bite, Dohyeok smiled warmly.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I was worried your tastes might have changed.”
Her mouth tingled as if it were on fire, so Jiseo bit into a triangular kimbap as well. Seeing that, Dohyeok stuck a straw into the apple juice and handed it to her.
When Jiseo accepted the juice and motioned with her eyes for him to eat too, Dohyeok finally picked up his chopsticks.
But instead of eating, he just kept watching her.
He didn’t drag me here just to feed me cheap food and be done with it—so why isn’t he eating? If he doesn’t eat, it’s his loss.
Ignoring whether Dohyeok was performing a ritual over his cup ramen or not, Jiseo slurped down the apple juice. The sweet-and-tart flavor was excellent.
And all of it matched exactly what Jiseo ate whenever she was stressed or needed something stimulating—fire-flavored ramen, tuna-mayo kimbap, even the brand of apple juice.
At this point, she couldn’t help but think of a word that reeked of illegality.
Is he… stalking me?
Dohyeok had once said in an interview that he was her fan, but Jiseo wasn’t a famous actor or athlete, and there was no way her detailed preferences and daily habits would be publicly known. Sure, S- to A-class Espers appeared in ads and pictorials and lived semi-celebrity lives, but for Jiseo, even being called a “delicacy” because of the nickname Elsa was a black history she wanted to forget.
Staring intently at the crumpled apple-juice carton, Jiseo asked,
“Did you investigate me?”
Dohyeok, who had been smiling happily while watching her eat as if it were entertainment, furrowed his brow.
“Have you never considered that we might have known each other for longer than you think, Jiseo-ssi?”
“Huh?”
Blatantly ignoring the implication of a two-way connection rather than a one-sided one, Jiseo pointed her reddened chopsticks at him. Faced with chopstick-pointing instead of a finger, Dohyeok just kept smiling, as if greatly amused.
“You’re not saying you didn’t investigate me?”
“I didn’t investigate you. I simply watched.”
Gotcha. Certain now of the Baek Dohyeok-is-a-stalker theory, Jiseo glared.
“What do you mean ‘simply’? You must’ve had a reason to watch me. When, where, how, and why did you watch me?”
Feeling as if she’d found the answer, Jiseo’s barrage of questions even had a rhythm to it. Dohyeok, listening with a smile as though enjoying a favorite song, suddenly let out a soft laugh.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Well, it’s just that this is the first time you’ve asked me so many questions, Jiseo-ssi. It makes me happy.”
Everything made him happy. Seeing him pleased even by being interrogated, Jiseo felt uneasy—like this was the mindset of stalkers who took a victim’s contempt or fear as interest.
Not that Jiseo was actually afraid of or contemptuous toward Dohyeok.
She could subdue him with one hand, and after two rounds of guiding, her wariness toward Baek Dohyeok had already lessened. Above all else, Jiseo was an Esper, and Dohyeok was a Guide.
That didn’t mean she’d be swept along and end up liking him just because he wanted it, or that she’d let herself be “nibbled on and doted over”—but still, her curiosity needed answers.
“So answer me already.”
“Hmm. As for when we first met… that goes quite far back. Let me start with when I was thirteen.”
If Dohyeok was thirteen, then Jiseo would have been eleven. That would be before she transferred schools in the second semester of fourth grade—maybe they’d both attended Hayul Elementary School.
“You can probably tell just by looking at me, but I was a sickly pretty boy from a young age—so much so that I even had to delay starting elementary school by a year.”
“Sickly… what?”
