#suntaek

A Bottle of Water

Part 1

Part 2

Deok Sun passed the bottle of water to Taek.

The taxi cruised along the empty streets of the city as they made their way home. They looked away from one another, eyes fixed on the window. Tension sat thick between them, curling its ugly head at each turn and each bump.

They sat quietly, a single bottle of water between them to ward off the next day’s hangover. She tried not to think about how he had sipped from it too as she took a large gulp.

The news segment on the taxi radio switched from entertainment to sports. Deok Sun drew her breath in anticipation.

“In the Baduk segment, Choi Taek 9-Dan shocked us all with his withdraw-“

She felt Taek stiffen across the backseat. “Deok Sun-ah I-“ He stumbled across his words, trying to explain the unexplainable.

“You caused a huge fuss today,” she said, staring at the lights go by.

There was something comforting about the grandness of the city at night. The loneliness. It reassured her that her own desperations were not as foolish as they seemed.

“Deok Sun-ah.” A knife sharp edge entered his voice. A question. An understanding.

“They played it earlier too. In the bar.” She drank some water, eager to get rid of the ringing drunkenness settling in on her. She sighed. “You forfeited a match.”

“You knew.”

“I knew.”

The mood shifted. The pangs of a love gone wrong left the car. The terrifying prospect of commitment shifted in. She wasn’t a fool. This was as good as him declaring where she stood in his life on blazing letters. No. It was more.

“You didn’t say anything.”

His voice was hollow. She finally turned to him. His dark eyes betrayed nothing as they searched her face. It was like he could read her like a book. No. Not a book. A board.

Like she was a game he had lost. Like he was trying to understand why.

She shrugged. “I wasn’t sure what to say. I wanted to process.”

What could you say to someone when they put you above their purpose?

Taek put Baduk above sleep and hunger and thirst. Above himself. And today, with seemingly no qualms at all he had pushed Deok Sun above it. And for what? A concert. A jacket. Pride.

What could you say?

“Deok Sun-ah.”

The enormity of the situation crashed into her again and again in waves of choking shock. She was drowning in the significance of what he had done. Where he had placed her.

“Am I-“ her voice choked as she tried to find the right words. “Am I that important?”

Second daughter. Younger sister. Older sister. Ugly child. Unloved teenager. College repeater. Failure. Ordinary.

How could he have done this? How could she be that important?

“Of course you are.”

Like it was the simplest thing.

She looked away, trying to keep down the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. She shouldn’t have drank that last glass of soju.

“You’re absolutely insane,” she muttered.

“I don’t regret it.”

Something defiant had snuck into his voice.

“I know,” she said, blinking away tears, “I know.”

She turned to him. He was looking away, eyes fixed on the passing streets. She shifted closer. If he realised then he didn’t react.

Frayed nerves crackled with electricity as she looked at his profile, studying the valleys and the peaks. She knew this face. She knew it.

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered, lingering at the smell of clean skin and fresh laundry. “Thank you for coming.”

He turned to her as pulled away. She could see the quiet surprise on his face. He was close. So close. She thought he might kiss her then. She thought that she might kiss him.

Not like this, she thought. Not in a taxi half drunk. Not when there was still something raw between them. Not when she wasn’t sure of how to tell him that their constant friendship was not enough for her. Not when he didn’t know about their first kiss.

She pulled back and smacked his head. “I will murder you if you forfeit a match again.” She smacked him again. “I swear it.”

“I won’t,” he said, catching her wrist. “I won’t.” His thumb pressed into her pulse.

“Good,” she said, withdrawing her hands. “That’s good.”

Something was shifting. Soon. Things would change soon.

Or what happened the night of the concert in Ep 18.

Coffee

Deok Sun pressed the button for the coffee Taek had asked for.

Taek’s jacket drowned her in warmth. Even after years had passed since one day she had looked up at him and not down, it surprised her. It surprised her how he was taller than her. It surprised her how his shoulders were broad. It surprised her how strong his grip could be.

She looked around at the emptying concert hall. Streamers were strewn across the floor and the deafening sound of the speakers inside had given way to dwindling chatter.

She stared at her wrist as she pressed again for milk.

Taek had grabbed it suddenly, pulling her closer as someone stumbled past them reeking of cheap soju. She hadn’t expected the concert to be so loud, so boisterous, so crowded. Even as he had steadied her with his hands, guilt coursed through her for making him come to such a noisy place.

She poured the milk into the coffee and the coffee into the milk until they had dissolved into one another. Bitter and sweet. Just as he had asked.

She turned to the steps where he sat.

It was almost funny, the way his formal clothes stood out against her home clothes in the concert hall. She had forgotten entirely the situation that had brought them together, happy to be there with him.

“Here,” she said, handing him the cup with just a little more of the milky coffee, “As asked.”

He smiled one of his quiet smiles, the ones that felt like a blanket on a cold morning. “Thank you. I missed this coffee.”

“You can come home for it any time,” she said, settling down next to him, closer than she would have that morning. “You know that, right?”

A secret crept to his lips. “But someone here sleeps at her friend’s house instead of coming home.” He sipped at the coffee, eyes fixed at the poster.

For the first time, Deok Sun began to wonder. She had changed from the chit of a girl she had been. She was earning for her family, enough that they could now afford expensive medicines and more than two eggs at the table. She was flying across the world, stepping onto strange lands in uncomfortable shoes. She was almost a different person.

Taek wasn’t.

Taek had Baduk and he would always have Baduk, his life an endless series of black and white games. He would leave and come back and repeat but he had been for years. Almost a decade of coming home.

But they weren’t there anymore.

“I’ll come home more often then,” she said, sipping at the coffee in hand. “Then you can.”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “How’s work? I heard your team got shifted to China from Northern Europe.”

She blinked. They had only gotten the news the day before yesterday. No one at home knew. Her face must have shown her surprise.

His ears turned red. “Ah. I keep meeting your manager as I leave the club.”

“Ah.” Somehow, their lives still remained entangled. Even as beer replaced milk and their meetings grew shorter, he was always right there. She glanced at her emptying cup. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll be on one of my flights.”

“Should I take a picture then?” Mischief lit his face. “Of you all pretty and hard at work?”

The idea of him watching her in her uniform sent an unfamiliar thrill down her spine. She was suddenly struck by wanting him to admire her, follow her with his eyes.

She snorted to cover up her growing nervousness. “Drink your coffee.”

“Alright, alright.” He turned to a peeling poster on the wall.

She looked at him, admiring the way his shirt fit over his lithe frame. He had always been good looking, even when he was a delicate and awkward teenager. Now though, Deok Sun was glad he had his eyes turned away, flushing at the well fitted lines of his clothes.

Something nagged at her. She looked at the jacket on her shoulders. Formal. Tailored. Frowning, she looked at him again. His trousers too. A matching set.

“Since when do you wear suits to go practice at the club?” Her words slipped out unknowingly.

He flushed. “Just a while. I thought I would have some work.”

He was lying.

She didn’t prod.

“You know, sometimes I have days off abroad.” He met her eyes as she spoke. “Maybe I could come to a match?”

His face lit up.

How had she ever thought he was expressionless when he could outshine the sun?

“That would be nice.”

They lapsed into silence, sipping on coffee at the abandoned steps.

She should have been more upset. She should have been furious. She should have cursed out her date. Here she was, under dressed and barefaced on a cold day. Stood up, she admitted to herself , even as she clung into the last bits of pride. She should have.

Instead, she silently blessed him.

Like a miracle, Taek was before her.

Feelings she had struggled to contain burst from their box and multiplied. That half-crush she had nursed for years, not quite ready to cut off the tiny buds was now in full bloom.

“I always forget,” she said, testing out the waters that had begun to stir, “I always forget how good it is to be with you.”

His voice was low. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?” He swirled the last dregs of his coffee. “With just us?”

“It has.” She downed the last of her cup and paused. She wasn’t ready to go home. Not yet. Not when sleeping butterflies had begun dancing in her stomach.

“Choi Taek,” she said, forcing her eyes to fix on to his. “Shall we for something a little stronger than coffee?”

Part 2

Soju

Part 1

Deok Sun poured soju into Taek’s glass for the third time that night.

The tent bar they had stumbled upon was filled with the warm glow of old light bulbs in the purpling evening. Even as the dark sky brought a chill to the air, Deok Sun felt warm.

Warm from the soju she had drunk. Warm from the weight of Taek’s jacket on her shoulders. Warm from where their legs touched under the table.

He downed it in one go.

Deok Sun raised her eyebrows, “What’s with the haste?” She muttered and went to pour some for herself only to find the bottle was nearly empty. “Go get us some more.”

“What happened to the herbal medicine?” His teasing smile was back. With a nod to the empty bottle beside them, he said “Is this allowed?”

“Does it matter at this point? Go.”

He jerked his head loosely and walked to the counter.

Deok Sun turned to the bowl of noodles before her, relishing in the spicy broth only street vendors could make. The evening news played on the radio beside her, the perfect pronunciation of the reporter at odds with the bustling atmosphere.

A familiar name caught her ear.

“-Choi Taek 9-Dan forfeited his match today, effectively withdrawing from the tournament. An explanation for his decision was not provided as the reason was personal. This is the first time-“

Deok Sun reached out and lowered the volume as Taek came back.

She needed to process this first.

She did not need to hear the reporter to know that Taek had never forfeited a match before. It was Baduk, as simple as that. His world revolved around the black and white stones. Sleep. Hunger. Thirst. All were secondary.

Nothing came before it, nothing. And yet.

And yet he sat before her, silently slurping noodles too spicy for him.

Her heart clenched.

What had he done?

Deok Sun wasn’t a fool.

Whatever restless feelings called her to him were reciprocated. Something. There was something there that she couldn’t quite ignore. Something that made her yearn in lonely nights, the memory of her first kiss fresh in her sleeplessness. Something she had hesitated to grab before. Something she ached to grab now.

“Do you have any matches coming up?” She struggled to keep her voice steady. She needed a hint. A sign.

His jaw tensed. “No,” he said, swirling the noodles. “Not for some time.”

He didn’t want to tell her.

Idiot.

It was going to spread like wildfire, the news of his withdrawal. She could almost imagine the headlines.

Idiot.

“I thought there was a tournament around now.” She shrugged and grabbed a large mouthful. “Must have been wrong.”

His smile was drawn in. She patted her mouth dry with some tissue paper. “Are you free then?”

“For?”

She smiled. “Coffee at my house,” she said, leaning towards him. “I’ll make it from scratch this time.”

Warmth returned to his grinning face. “Deal.” He turned to the unopened bottle of Soju. “Ah. Right. Do you want some?”

She nodded, holding out the glass with one hand. He poured it in, hand steady and eyes sharp. Giving a short nod of thanks, she downed it in one go.

The alcohol burned her throat unpleasantly. Warmth flushed her cheeks as she watched Taek trace her neck as she swallowed her drink. She was glad for the alcohol covering it up. She was just in the right side of tipsy, her eyes slower than the world around her.

“That’s it. I’m done,” she said, nodding to Taek. “This is the perfect state.” She pointed to the bottle. “We’ll take this home or something.”

“As you say.” He screwed on the cap, gaze fixed on her. Something intense filled his eyes just then.

A half forgotten memory rushed to her mind.

“Did you ever end up confessing?” She asked, circling the glass with her fingers. “To the person you liked?”

He paused.

“What?” His gaze burned her harder than the alcohol in her throat. She wanted more.

“You told me once that you were going to confess to someone you liked.” A pit had formed in her stomach that day at the thought of another girl taking her place. Of him belonging to someone else. She leaned forward and crossed her arms. “Did you?”

He bit his cheek, eyes roving her face. Unravelling. She felt unravelled by him. Rattled.

He shook his head slight, refusing to break contact with her eyes.

“I didn’t.”

Her world collapsed.

It was her. It was her. It was her. It was her. It was her.

She knew it in the solemn set of his jaw. She knew it in the depth of his voice. She knew it in the apology in his words. She knew it.

She simply frowned and looked away. “I’m sorry about that.” She traced the rim of her glass. His eyes still burned into her.

“Did you like her a lot,” she asked.

Did you like me a lot, she wondered.

She forced herself to look at him. Something broken crossed his face. Desperate. Hurt.

“A lot,” he said, something wistful creeping into his voice. “So much.” He looked sad right then. “You can’t imagine.”

She couldn’t.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want to ruin it.”