North - South

Hulk, Saranghae

"Ah! You're wearing that shirt! Looks good!"

Eun-dong exultant face confused him more than what he'd just said. "Oh?"

"Se-ri noona was fixing the buttons of this shirt last week. She strengthened them so they won't fall."

Standing up in front of his desk – his personal, peculiar and not particularly kind way to affirm he was famished and Jeong Hyeok should have hurried to close the computer – Chi-su started snorting before the phrase was concluded. "Fixing the buttons. Never heard something like that. Ishhh, the things the women can invent to impress... who knows how many have fallen in this trap. I remember her boyfriend at school, his shirts were dandy-ish, indeed, maybe she did it for him t..."

"AH! IT WASN'T HER BOYFRIEND! They were friends. Just friends. They got engaged. But not married. They broke up. Broke up. When two break up, one is on a way, the other is..." Damn, all he needed was to get a reminder of that Seung-jun, as if Se-ri's words on the day before weren't taunting him enough. Living together... engaged... still living together... damn.

"I don't know why screaming, what's the big deal?"

"AH! I'M NOT!" But it came obvious even to his own ears that he was. "It's just... I don't like when you badmouth... I don't like it, you should stop." 

The fact that he and Dan had been engaged for years without it changing his feelings for her - nor eliciting new ones -, so that he should have known better than anybody else how Se-ri's situation meant nothing, was doing very little to ease his mood, even if he was keeping repeating it all the morning. No way, the idea of Se-ri sharing her personal space with someone else was like a hitch he couldn't scratch off, ishhh! "They broke up," he repeated, much to himself than for Chi-su to remember it.

"Broke up. So..." Ju-meok tentatively tried, well knowing that he was putting his life in danger, and nevertheless too curious to not ask, "they've been together..."

To this, and predictably, Jeong Hyeok's eyes turned into laser beams, but someone came to rescue before he could scream again. "The buttons really needed to be strengthened. Se-ri noona says that it's because you're like Hulk, you wreck all your shirts," Eun-dong intervened. As childish and innocent as he was, the boy-ish soldier had his own opinion about Jeong Hyeok and about how and why Se-ri was a good thing. A very good thing.

"Oh?" He understood just half of what the friend had said, "Ju-meok, translate, please."

"Ehm. Hulk is a superhero with big muscles, he wrecks all his shirts because he's too bulky."

There was a moment, or maybe it was more than one. Jeong Hyeok replayed the words inside his head again and again. So, she considered him a superhero? And he had too muscl... oooh, nonsense.

"Ya, is he smiling?" A suspicious Chi-su whispered to the closest ear at his left. Not low enough, unfortunately.

"Who? Me? Who says I'm smiling! No! Go! I have too much work, no time for lunch today. Out!"

"He was smiling," Jeong Hyeok heard him repeating right out of the door, "has he hit his head, maybe?"

The buttons were all well fixed. Even those on the collar, and the cuffs, as if the shirt was new.

Superhero. Mpffff. Such silly idea. 

Such silly coziness that idea was giving him. Like when she tried to cook – his lunch was a terroristic act more than food, though he could say it was edible -. Like when he came back home and she was there.