Chapter 9. Boom
We were just drinking beer, the quiet hum of the evening settling around us, but then… something shifted. Something felt profoundly off with him.
The easy conversation snagged. He suddenly became incredibly awkward, his large frame seeming to shrink, clumsy in his own skin.
Trying desperately to stitch the silence back together, to bridge the thick, palpable awkwardness that had descended over Eun Woogyung, Eunwoo tentatively broke the quiet.
“Um, you can… You know, talk casually with me.”
A soft sound escaped him, almost like a breath catching. “…Ah.”
She took a quick, fortifying sip of her beer, the cold liquid a welcome distraction from her sudden nervousness, and continued, her voice a little softer now.
“Since I’m Hakyung’s friend, and all…”
His answer was slow, measured, almost too calm. “…Should I?”
Eunwoo blinked, her eyes wide with surprise, and nodded quickly, perhaps a little too vigorously.
“…But, actually…”
To her complete astonishment, Eun Woogyung turned his head away, just slightly, and a flush crept up his neck, blooming on his cheeks. He was actively avoiding her gaze.
“…What?” she whispered, leaning forward slightly.
His voice was barely audible. “…I can’t.”
“Wait, what??”
“…Talk casually, I mean…”
A gasp caught in her throat. She stared, stunned, her mouth falling open. He couldn’t even look at her as he spoke, the words seemingly dragged from him, as if the effort was physically painful.
Is this… is this massive man blushing right now…?
Watching him fidget, like a flustered schoolboy trapped in a man’s body, sent a jolt through her that her poor heart felt utterly unprepared for.
Thump thump thump thump thump
He lifted a hand, covering his flushed face, and looked at her with immense difficulty, his eyes darting towards her for a split second. Instinctively, Eunwoo slapped her own hands over her mouth, muffling a surprised sound.
A silence stretched between them, short but taut, crackling with unspoken things. Then, in that quiet, Eun Woogyung finally spoke, his voice low and vulnerable.
“…Is it just me?”
His honest question, so raw and unexpected, felt like a physical blow. Her heart didn’t just thump, it exploded.
Boom
No, really. It felt exactly like a boom inside her chest.
“…I…” Eunwoo stammered, feeling her face heat up, likely mirroring his. She felt like a tomato ripening too fast, on the verge of splitting. Across from her, Eun Woogyung bit his lip, his eyes fixed on her, openly anxious, waiting for her response.
This is… way too much.
The desperate way he looked at her, hanging on her every breath, felt ridiculously intense. Ridiculously… sexy. Like the air around them had just thickened, charged with the possibility of something serious, something real, happening tonight.
“…Me too…” she managed, the words tumbling out, soft and shaky. “…I feel the same…”
His eyes widened. He clapped both hands over his mouth, mirroring her earlier gesture, and took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Whew…”
The sound was so unexpected, so utterly unlike the calm, composed man she thought she knew; it was so endearingly cute that Eunwoo simply blinked at him in surprise.
Once he’d gathered himself, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction, he lowered his hands, looked directly into her eyes, and said softly, a faint smile touching his lips,
“…I think I’m drunk even though I haven’t had a single drink.”
He slowly lifted his beer mug towards her, a silent invitation. Eunwoo quickly raised her own, the glasses meeting with a gentle clink.
In that sound, something felt like it was beginning. Something new, fragile, and intensely personal between them. Her heart, which had felt hollowed out and heavy with the weight of her broken home, was now blooming, unfurling with soft pink anticipation.
As their glasses touched, it felt like their hearts collided too. That ticklish, fuzzy, breath-stealing, yet incredibly sweet sensation – that utterly strange feeling.
Now, Eunwoo and Eun Woogyung sat across from each other, a single beer between them, fumbling through conversation that was outwardly harmless but inwardly drowning in a sea of awkwardness. Even when talking about the most mundane things, meeting his eyes felt like navigating a minefield.
“…What about tomorrow?” His voice cut through the quiet.
Eunwoo took a deep breath. A nervous flutter started in her stomach. She had a feeling she knew exactly what he was going to ask.
“What should we do?”
The simple question landed like a shockwave. Just that. But it made her feel utterly insane.
Eunwoo puffed out her cheeks, took another sip of beer, trying to use the mundane action to calm her ridiculously pounding heart. She almost wanted to excuse herself, find a private corner, and just scream and flail like a toddler.
“Tomorrow, maybe we can just—”
“Let’s hang out again.”
He cut her off, leaning forward slightly over the table, his gaze intent on hers. He looked worried she might suggest they retreat to separate corners to process whatever this was.
His sweetness was so direct, so overwhelming, that Eunwoo froze, her jaw slack. She knew she must look completely ridiculous, sitting there with her mouth agape, but she simply couldn’t force it shut.
The way he stretched an arm across the table, resting his cheek on his hand as he looked at her, made her feel like her blood sugar was spiking dangerously.
“…Of course..! Of course we should hang out…!” The words spilled out, a little too loud, a little too emphatic. It wasn’t exactly “of course,” but her brain seemed to have short-circuited.
“What should we do?” He blushed slightly, a hopeful, tentative smile on his face.
Unable to withstand another face-to-face bombardment of his sudden charm, Eunwoo quickly looked away, fixing her gaze somewhere distant, over his shoulder.
“Stay in… maybe?”
“Stay in?” He sounded surprised.
Was that a weird answer? Was it too forward? Too much?
Eunwoo kept her head turned but rolled her eyes sideways, peeking at him from the corner of her vision. Their eyes met for a fleeting second, and Eun Woogyung immediately buried his face back into his arm, a soft sound escaping him.
“Uhh… how about a food trip instead!” she blurted, trying to recover.
“Okay…”
Silence.
Still silence.
Oh my god. I’m dying here.
“Should we head back?” Eun Woogyung finally suggested. He had emptied his glass. Eunwoo had only managed half of hers, but she nodded frantically, bobbing her head like she was already tipsy. She simply couldn’t sit across from him for another second. It was too much.
“What’s your favorite food?” he asked as they walked home, the question breaking the new, shared quiet between them.
Eunwoo paused, thinking. “Beef. That beef you treated me to before… that was so good…”
“Then let’s go often.” The easy, immediate reply.
Hearing his ideal response, the perfect answer she hadn’t even known she was hoping for, Eunwoo felt a blush creep up her neck again. She glanced up at him, and he blinked in surprise when their eyes met, caught off guard by her upward gaze.
Looking up at him like that, eyes wide and earnest, she must have looked incredibly cute. Tiny… and completely adorable.
“What about you, oppa? What do you like?” she asked in return, trying to deflect her embarrassment.
Eun Woogyung paused, genuinely considering. “I don’t have a favorite.”
“Ah…” Eunwoo nodded, surprised by his answer.
“Maybe… beef too?” The quiet, tentative suggestion hung in the air.
Eunwoo’s mouth fell open. She stopped walking, staring at him. He quickly looked away, avoiding her gaze again.
He definitely just said that because I like it. Oh god…
Usually, after spending a day together like this, you’d say goodbye and head off to your separate homes. But not us. No, we were going to the same place. Her place was his place tonight. Which meant… she had to keep enduring this endless, delightful awkwardness.
It was awkward, yes… but why did it feel so incredibly nice?
Feeling a giddy lightness bubble up inside her just thinking about the potential of tomorrow, Eunwoo took a deep, fortifying breath and stole another glance at him.
He probably doesn’t have a girlfriend. The thought popped unbidden into her head, solidifying her strangely good mood.
Eunwoo walked with a definite spring in her step now. Eun Woogyung, watching her bounce along beside him, slowed his pace slightly to match hers.
He suddenly wanted to hug her. Right there, on the street. This woman, with her surprising honesty and a kind of lovable charm he hadn’t encountered in his entire life, he wanted to pull her close and just hold her.
They couldn’t go home yet. Not like this.
Just as Hakyung had warned her, Eun Woogyung realized with a jolt. He was the one she should have been careful about.
He stopped abruptly in front of the apartment building.
“Should we call Hakyung?”
Eunwoo tilted her head, confused by the sudden question. “Hakyung? She’s on a date, remember?”
“Well… yeah, but…” He fumbled for a reason.
“If we go home and shower, maybe she’ll be back. It’s already 10.”
“…Should we ask her to join us?” he suggested, almost desperately.
“Together? Wouldn’t we be bothering her…?”
They would be bothering her… but honestly, bothering Hakyung felt like a far better option than going inside alone with him, not after everything that had just happened.
She watched him for a second, the conflict visible on his face, then a bright smile broke across hers. She approached him, a decision made.
“Let’s go in and shower first, then.”
His face fell slightly, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes.
…Forget it. They were going in alone.
She had only said it because the apartment had two bathrooms, a practical consideration, but to the desperate man standing beside her, a man overflowing with confusing, intense new feelings—it was the perfect thing to misinterpret.
Waiting for the elevator felt weirdly tense. Maybe it was because they had just, in their own fumbling way, admitted to feeling something for each other. He no longer felt like just her friend’s older brother; he felt like a man.
Is he feeling the same way?
Eunwoo slowly, cautiously, turned her head to look at his face. He was staring straight ahead, fixated on the glowing numbers of the elevator display.
…Maybe he’s not thinking about anything at all.
She sighed quietly, a tiny puff of air, and turned her gaze away.
If we lock eyes, I might just hug her right here. His internal battle raged. But… why does she keep looking at me like that?
– Ding
The elevator arrived, the doors sliding open with a soft hiss. They stepped in, reaching simultaneously for the floor button. Their hands brushed, and somehow, in the clumsy contact, they managed to turn the elevator light off.
“Ah…” Eunwoo gasped softly, flustered, and glanced at him.
He met her eyes.
– Gulp
Their eyes met, and the silence that followed was thick, heavy, and suffocating. They had just pressed a button. They could just press it again. So why did the small, enclosed space suddenly feel like the air had been sucked out of it?
Finally, Eun Woogyung reached out and pressed the button again, plunging the space back into light. Eunwoo puffed out her cheeks, her eyes darting nervously around the small cabin, anywhere but at him.
Why did I buy a place on such a high floor? He thought, the ascent feeling endless. Why is this so unbearable…?
With ten floors still to go, he couldn’t take it anymore. Her gaze, the sheer weight of her unspoken feelings, pushed him over the edge.
So he looked.
Their eyes met, and Eun Woogyung’s expression was… stark. Raw. Wildly desperate.
He gently reached out, his fingers trembling slightly, and just barely touched her hand where it hung by her side. It was barely a graze, the lightest brush of skin against skin, but it jolted through her like an electric current.
“…!!”
His voice was low, rough, barely a whisper in the quiet elevator. “You said we should call Hakyung.”
“..!!!” Her eyes were wide, question marks.
“I thought I might cross a line.”
Gasp… The implication hung heavy between them.
– Ding
The elevator arrived. As the doors opened, Eun Woogyung gripped her hand tightly, his earlier hesitation vanished, and he practically rushed out, pulling her along with him.
Eunwoo nearly stumbled trying to keep up with his sudden, long strides. He didn’t stop until they reached the front door of his apartment, yanking it open and pulling her right inside.
“!!!!!”
And the moment the door clicked shut behind them, plunging the apartment into the dim light of the hallway, he pressed her against the cool wall.
Suddenly caught between his strong body and the unyielding wall, Eunwoo looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise and a rapidly building apprehension. He leaned in closer, his hot breath brushing her skin, his gaze intense, burning into hers.
His eyes were… wild. Untamed.
“…Please hug me.”
“!!!!!!!!”
He had dragged her in here like he was about to devour her, like a predator finally cornering his prey, and then he says—“Please hug me”…?
This man… he must have been holding back so much.
To be Continued
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