He shifts, moving to sit sideways across my thighs, and drapes his arm around my neck. “I want that, too. Want toshare everything with you, always.”
I think it’s theeverythingand thealwaysthat tip me over the edge I had been pushed to back at the house. I know what this is, and I need to tell him.
Skimming my fingertips along his jawline, I gently turn his face toward me. His eyes meet mine immediately, and I swear I can see the future in them. Mine.Ours.Together.
He leans in to give me a kiss, sweet and teasing, and he makes a soft noise of displeasure when I pull back.
But I have to say it.
“I love you,” I blurt out, with absolutely no finesse. I’ve never said it to anyone before, not like this, and that’s not really how I thought it would go, but I said it. Finally. I should have told him long before now.
Sun looks startled for about a second, then replies, “I’ve been in love with you since I was seventeen. Thanks for finally catching up.”
I should have expected something like that from him, but somehow I didn’t. It makes the whole moment even better as I collapse laughing and he follows me down.
Straddling my hips as he hovers over me, smiling, he requests, “Say it again.”
I have to take a breath, and I use that moment to pull him to me for a kiss, slow and deep. When he finally breaks away, his expression a little bit dazed, I repeat what he wants to hear. “I love you, sachi.”
He beams, his whole person seeming to glow. “That sounds even better than it did in my head.”
“Thought about that a lot?” I ask, reaching up to slip my fingers through his hair as it gets tousled by the breeze.
“So many times. For so long,” he admits. “I kept hoping I would hear it soon.”
Trailing my hand down his back as he settles on my chest,I’m grateful he waited for me. That he was so sure we’d make it here eventually. After a while, I confess, “I’ve never been in love before.”
“Never?” he asks, shifting just enough to gaze up at me.
“No. There were girls I really liked, or at least I thought so at the time.” I shrug a little, careful not to jostle him. “But I never stayed around, never tried to make it work. My heart just wasn’t in it.”
“And now?” Sun touches my chest, palm down, at the center. “Where’s your heart now?”
Tilting my head just enough to kiss his forehead, I tell him the truth. “With you.”
?? // ??
“I think I might need some help,” Chaeji giggles, pretending to struggle with the pile of perilla leaves on the plate between us as a group of young women walk by our table entirely too slowly, clearly trying to witness some kind of moment between us.
“Would you like me to call someone over here to assist you?” I ask, knowing exactly the type of fit-for-a-drama moment she’s trying to stage. “I think that gesture only works with a third party involved.”
“Oh, so you do spend some time online every now and then,” she says, picking up some sticky rice for her ssam.
I’m not going to admit I am only aware of this particular debate about social appropriateness from having listened to Jase and most of the members of RYSING have a spirited discussion about it after it had gone some kind of viral a while back. “I would be fine if one of my friends helped my significant other at the dinner table.”
Chaeji clicks her chopsticks at me. “Even with their ownchopsticks?”
“Yes, even then. I’m not the jealous type, but I also can’t imagine some epic romance starting with a perilla leaf and ending with a wedding,” I scoff. Although, now, I am starting to be able to see why it might be crossing a line for some people. I don’t know that I’d want anyone else helping Sun in a way that felt a little too intimate or familiar. Maybe I am the jealous type now that I have someone I want to be possessive of.
“People have gotten married for more ridiculous reasons, I’m sure,” she argues, popping a bite of shrimp into her mouth. “Is your stance the same on shrimp peeling?”
I give a one-shoulder shrug of indifference. “If you can’t work with the food, don’t order the dish.”
The conversation flows better than I expect during dinner, given our circumstances. We have made jokes where we can and covered the mundane details of my work week, the last round of auditions she went on, and another award she just received, essentially for existing as an extremely physically attractive human.
Having realized that for the time being it may actually be in my best interest to play along to protect Sun and our relationship, I am giving some effort to appear cordial. I will never forgive her for what she’s done, but if she’s willing to exploit me for her own benefit, it seems like I should be able to do the same.
It doesn’t stop me from asking some snarky questions over dessert, though. “Do you think your plan is working? Is this going the way you hoped it would?”
