Jihoon reaches out as if to touch it but then blinks and ducks away. “What’s first?” he asks.
I’m staring at those long fingers, wondering what they’d feel like tangled in my hair. “What?”
“Our day. What’s first?”
I snap out of it. Now is not the time to be fantasizing about Jihoon, although given his breakup, living in Korea, and being my current roommate, I’m not sure when the right time is.
Back to business.
I check over our itinerary for today. I had Yuko help me with some of the details, and she was effusive in her praise of my plan. “Damn, you’re good at this. Can I use these?” she asked, flipping through some of my discarded ideas. “It would totally suit some of our clients when they need to keep people entertained.”
“Go ahead,” I told her. It was only a silly thing for fun anyway.
Five minutes later, we’re ready to go. Jihoon watches me pull on my shoes with an air of polite disapproval, and I check his feet. He’s wearing a pair of spotless sneakers.
“Another pair of Pradas?”
He looks appalled. “These are Balenciaga. Balenciaga!”
Teasing him is too easy, so I lay off and turn away so he can’t hear me laugh.
“Ah, Ari.” He rolls his eyes. “One day I’ll buy you a pair of shoes so cute, you can’t help but adore them.”
I never felt any particular way about my name, but when Jihoon says it, it’s like a caress. I stuff my wallet in my bag. “I don’t need shoes.”
“You can have wants as well as needs.” As I’m about to dissolve into a puddle at the low purr of his voice, he straightens. “Let’s go.”
We get on the subway, and Jihoon watches people from under the low brim of his hat as if he’s been stranded in space and starved for human interaction. Meanwhile I watch him. Jihoon’s face—well, his eyes, which are all I can see over his mask—is so expressive, I can read almost every thought that passes through.
I’m 100 percent confident if there were ever a man unable to outright lie, it’s Jihoon. It’s nice to be with someone like that.
I sit back, the rattle of the subway around me, and relax.
The first stop is a bookstore, and Jihoon peers curiously through the window. “Used books?” he asks.
“Not just any used books,” I correct. “This place has the most random selection I’ve seen.” In front of us is an assortment of books that are visually unified and topically chaotic. A hand-drawn guide to mushrooms of North America is beside an explanation of fencing strategies. A treatise on how to be a competent secretary sits above them.
I usher Jihoon in and let him look around for a few minutes, picking books up curiously, before walking over. “We’re going to play a game today. At each place, the winner gets a point.”
He perks up. “I’m competitive,” he warns me.
“I once refused to talk to Hana for hours because she got a package in the mail before I did.”
Jihoon nods, understanding how serious this is. “I’m ready.”
I take out my notepad from my bag with a flourish. It’s more for the drama, because the game’s pretty simple. “Round one. The perfect book.” I look up. The cashier is staring at her phone, totally uninterested in us, so I continue, “We have two minutes to find the most inspirational book.”
He looks around, hands on his hips. “In cover design or topic?”
“Entire package, and inspirational is broadly defined. Winner decided by mutual consent.”
“The most inspirational book.” He looks down at me. “Why that?”
“You seem frustrated with whatever you’re working on.” I flip through the pages of my notebook, not wanting to meet his eyes because, as usual, what seemed like a good idea at first now seems laced with potential drama. “I didn’t read any of your notes,” I add.
“You can’t,” he points out. “They’re in Korean. You don’t know Korean.”
“There was that, too.” I put the notebook in my bag. “I thought it would be good to find a book to motivate you.”
