Chapter 9: Wanna Have a Drink? (3)

"Hehe, gonna go to Karaoke! Karaoke!"

Jin-wook sighed softly seeing his friend stumbling around, completely wasted.

How can someone look so precarious?

"Hey, watch where you're walking."

"Hung? I am watching perfectly fine, you know?"

"No, hey! Front! Front!"

Jin-wook hurriedly grabbed Hwang Eun-ha and pulled her toward him just as she was about to bump into a passerby.

Meanwhile, this girl was grinning like an idiot, as if everything was just funny.

"Sigh, you crazy bitch."

He wanted to flick her forehead hard. But knowing only his fist would hurt, he held back.

As expected, he should have just blocked her the moment she suggested coming out earlier.

"It's okay."

"What is."

"If I look like I'm gonna fall, you can just catch me."

But seeing her say that while smiling with her eyes at him, Jin-wook felt his irritation melting away, even though he didn't understand why himself.

Why does she have to be so uselessly good-looking?

"Sigh..."

"Anyway, I'm gonna scream my lungs out, so don't stop me. Got it?!"

"Yes, yes. Do whatever you want."

It was then.

Jin-wook flinched at the soft sensation on his arm.

Seeing his arm slightly buried in her large volume, Jin-wook stammered, slightly flushed, "W-What are you doing?"

"I feel like I'm gonna fall if I walk, so I'm leaning on you."

Watching Hwang Eun-ha act like this, Jin-wook wondered if this was appropriate between friends. But whenever he thought like that, he remembered that nothing had ever happened between them.

So it should be fine, he thought.

"Haa, it's warm."

Entering the karaoke room, a warmth that felt almost cozy greeted us. Though I wondered if it would get too hot once we started singing.

"Gonna sing first?"

"Yeah."

I answered Jin-wook, grabbed the remote, and thought for a moment about what to sing.

I said I would scream my lungs out, but when it came time to pick a song, I still hesitated.

Just as I was humming and hawing, "Umm...", the remote was snatched from my hand, and an upbeat song started playing.

"Ah-ah-ah-ah, Ah-ah-ah-ah."

An intro that reminded one of India. And a melody that suggested a song about curry confirmed my suspicion.

"Yellow, spicy, but not fragrant, Taj Mahal!"

Amidst the dizzying mix of raw vocals and the speaker's sound...

Jin-wook started singing a funny song, seemingly to lift my depressed mood on purpose.

Thanks to that, my mood lifted, and I was able to scream along excitedly.

Even while he teased me saying, "Ack! You sound like a dying pig!", I was able to sing happily.

"Haa, you're really mean."

"What."

"Teasing me saying I can't sing. Is that bad or not bad?"

"Hmm, I think it was a good deed."

"You...!"

How long did we scream like that? Maybe an hour and a half?

As if the soju wasn't enough, we cracked open a can of beer, drinking and screaming with bodies soaked in alcohol.

Eventually, the moment came when both of us, exhausted, collapsed onto the sofa, simply breathing quietly as if dead.

"Ha, that felt fucking refreshing. Kang Tae-woo, that son of a bitch."

"Were you that angry?"

"Mm, honestly, I was pissed. He's not bad deep down, so I knew he wouldn't do anything weird to me. Honestly, even filing the complaint probably wasn't to screw me over, but done with some other intention."

Hearing my words, Jin-wook remained silent for a moment.

Then, he cautiously suggested, "If that's the case, wouldn't it be better to go see him and talk it out?"

Well, it's not like I hadn't thought of that method, so I answered, "I guess," but...

"Should I just return my Hunter License?"

"Why."

"Because it's hard. If I don't have this license, I won't be S-Class Hunter Hwang Eun-ha anymore, just civilian Hwang Eun-ha."

"Giving up on finding a way to turn back into a man?"

"It wasn't going to happen anyway, right? If there was a way, I think I would have found it by now."

I took out my wallet and looked at the card labeled S-Class Hunter License, which was slotted in front of my ID card.

When I jokingly said it to Yu Ha-young before, I didn't think about it seriously. But thinking about it again after a few drinks, the massive title of S-Class Hunter didn't suit me at all.

'Ah, come to think of it, I told that taxi driver I was an S-Class Hunter.'

I guess I lied to that driver.

Legally, the moment I retire as a Hunter, my information will be wiped from the database, except for the emergency draft list.

"Do whatever you want."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

I sat up, rested my arms on the table, and stared intently at Jin-wook.

Because it was an unexpected answer coming from him—the guy who usually told me to stop spouting nonsense whenever I said, "Ah, I want to quit being a Hunter."

"You're having a fucking hard time."

"Mmm."

"I just thought, rather than suffering, maybe it's better to quit."

"What the. You usually stop me from quitting, but now that you're drunk, you're just saying whatever?"

"Well, thinking rationally, stopping you is the right move, but... You said it yourself. You like human Hwang Eun-ha better than Hunter Hwang Eun-ha."

At his following words, I couldn't find anything to say.

I lifted my body slightly and moved closer to Jin-wook.

Sliding over, wondering if he might fall asleep, I poked Jin-wook's cheek as his eyes were closed.

Looking down at his face as he grumbled "What," I smiled slightly.

"Just thinking, my friend is quite a commendable person."

"...I'm not the type to joke around when having a serious conversation, though."

"I know. But hearing you say that, I feel like my heart has unknotted a bit."

I looked at his face staring back at me, then glanced at the remaining time on the karaoke machine.

27 minutes.

Too tiring to sing properly.

But a bit too wasteful to just leave. A dilemma of a time.

"Shall we go now?"

Still, thinking there was no reason to stay longer, I said that to Jin-wook. Just as I was about to stand up...

I flinched at the sensation felt on my chest.

Looking down, I saw Jin-wook looking at me with a bewildered expression.

"Eun- Eun-ha. So this is..."

"What the. You told me not to spout nonsense all the time, but in the end, you're a man too?"

"No, I was just falling asleep and in a fleeting dream, it looked like bread, so I grabbed it..."

"Oochoochoo (Cooing noise), was our baby that hungry? Want mama to give you milk?"

When I teased him again, Jin-wook frowned and stood up.

Thanks to them being uselessly big, his head brushed against my chest again as he stood up, but let's pretend I didn't notice.

Jin-wook stood up and said, "If you're sober, let's go home," leaving the room first.

I followed him, thanked the owner lady, "We had fun," and walked out to stick by Jin-wook's side.

"Jin-wook-ah."

"What."

Maybe it was the alcohol.

Or maybe, since becoming a woman, living for a long time without romantic feelings for either men or women, something piled up inside finally burst.

I said something I would absolutely never say if I were sober.

"Tell me honestly. I'm pretty, right?"

"Why ask that all of a sudden."

"Just answer me. Huh?"

Grabbed by the wrist and stopped to hear such nonsense, Jin-wook, who would normally react with "Spouting bullshit again," must have been drunk too.

Instead, he showed signs of pondering, then admitted, "Well, that is true."

Looking over his shoulder at the motel named 'Hotel', I said, "Then..." and trailed off.

"Then what."

"Shall we... go over there?"

"Go where..."

Following my gaze, he couldn't finish his sentence and stopped abruptly, seemingly quite shocked.

"Let's just buy a little more alcohol..."

As I said that, Jin-wook froze as if he had lost his mind.

But he was a man after all. He held my hand and started walking first. Following his lead, we stopped by a convenience store, bought soju and beef jerky, and headed straight for the motel.

"Overnight stay, please."

Honestly, if I think about it after sobering up, it might be something I regret for the rest of my life.

But neither of us was in our right mind anymore.

We considered each other friends, and Jin-wook, especially, knew very well that I used to be a man.

He was the kid who used to be disgusted even if I made sexual jokes on purpose...

But seeing Jin-wook look at me with deep eyes, as if he wanted to devour me.

And seeing that I didn't reject that gaze of his.

"Cheers!"

We clinked glasses. After tossing it all in my mouth, I reached out to tear the beef jerky.

I felt his hand on mine.

The moment our eyes met, snacks, alcohol, and everything else ceased to matter.

As if we wanted each other.

In front of Jin-wook's eyes, there was only a woman with a flushed face who wasn't resisting him.

And I simply didn't resist his hands undressing me.

"Ugh, damn, my head..."

Around the time sunlight began to peek into the motel room through the window.

Jin-wook frowned at the splitting headache.

What time is it?

He reached out, fumbling for his phone, but couldn't grab it. Thinking he might have left it in the living room and slept in the room again, he tried to get up.

Until he felt something warm and soft in his arms.

"...Huh?"

There definitely shouldn't be anyone beside me.

No, there is something.

Knowing nothing, Jin-wook lifted the blanket slightly. The moment he saw what was inside, he turned pale with shock and recoiled backward.

Thanks to that, under the sunlight, the naked body of his closest, idiot friend was revealed without a single thread on.

"Mmm..."

Maybe because of the sudden cold air?

Hwang Eun-ha shook her head slightly and sat up. Seeing herself naked, her expression was dyed with astonishment.

On the bed, a small amount of fresh blood remained.

Waking up naked in the same bed.

Even though his memory had blacked out, Jin-wook could immediately understand the situation just by looking at the scene from the night before.

"Jin- Jin-wook?"

Was she truly panicked?

Hearing Eun-ha call his name while stammering, he couldn't easily answer.