He then shut his mouth for the whole walk. Even you thought it was painfully awkward and what a relief when you reached your apartment. You opened the door and sighed. Your body felt tired, but your mind was wide awake. You threw your bag on the dining room table and returned to Seung Ho.

« Give me your coat. »

You took it with yours and put in it your lobby’s closet. You removed your heels and found yourself even smaller next to Seung Ho. You placed your shoes next to your guest’s and pointed to the right: your living room.

« Sit and wait on the couch please. I’ll get you blankets. »

He walked normally to the white couch and sat comfortably on it. He grabbed a cushion and wrapped his arms around it. He looked around as any good stranger would do. You went to the kitchen and started to boil water and went to your blanket closet. You took a few fresh ones and a pillow. You carried the whole heavy thing to the living room. You dropped the blankets on the second couch.

« You should’ve let me help you with that. » Seung Ho regretfully said.

You looked at him a second then went to the kitchen again. You took two mugs and two sachet of green tea. You poured one for Seung Ho and one for you. You brought them to the entertainment room on a plate with sugar, honey, lemon juice, anything someone would want to flavour his tea with. You put the plate in the middle of the table and took a mug. You lightly blew on it and pass it to him.

« You need to sober up. » you said.

« …You didn’t have to. »

He took a sip of it and burned himself. You didn’t look at him, took your mug and flavoured it to your taste and absentmindedly said.

« Careful, it’s hot. »

« Thanks, I noticed. »

You sat next to him. Both of you were sitting at the extremities of the couch. You didn’t look at each other and just stared in front of you in pure silence. It went on for a few minutes until he reached for the sugar. He poured it in his tea and mixed with one of the spoons. Then he added more sugar.

« What’s the point of having more sugar than tea? »

You chuckled. So did Seung Ho after taking a look at your smiling face.

« You shouldn’t have. I’m not drunk. »

« Sure. And you expect me to believe you? I saw how many drinks you had… »

You took a sip of your tea and decided to add a little more lemon to it. You moved more next to Seung Ho as he looked at you. He thought you were cute, taking good care of him. Behind your cold real life personality, there was a little bit of the barmaid feeling too. You reached to take the TV remote which was far on your left, next to him.

« Aren’t you tired? » Seung Ho asked.

« Me? No… I live at night. I could return you the question. »

You opened the TV and lowered the volume since it was early in the morning and you didn’t want to wake up the whole apartment building. You then leaned forward to put the remote back to its original far left position, moving yourself each time.

« I’m not tired. » answered Seung Ho looking straight to the TV.

You turned your head in the middle of your movement to look at him. He was going to drink but stopped his movement to look at you too from the corner of his eye.

« Would you please stop lying to me? »

You dragged yourself back to your place.

« Wh- I’m not lying! »

« You have obvious dark circles! It looks like you haven’t slept for six months! »

Seung Ho’s eyes widened.

« Thanks, I was born with that. »

You obviously hurt his feelings, but didn’t notice because you kept annoying him.

« So you were born with deep dark circles like that? »

« Yeah! » he insisted.

« I doubt it. »

Seung Ho grunted as you sighed. He looked at you, but you didn’t twitch and kept looking at the TV. He leaned forward and moved himself a little to the right, where the lemon juice was and added a few spoonfuls to his drink. You initially started sitting apart from each other and now his knee brushed with yours but you were so mad you didn’t notice. Seung Ho sat back and drank his tea.

« How old are you? » he asked as a formality.

« 22. » you answered.

« You should show me more respect, I’m older than you. »

You silently gasped and turned to him. Suddenly his face was a couple centimetre away, you never seen his face from so close. He was being insolent and somewhat abusive of his imaginary superiority. But somewhere inside of you, his arrogance madly attracted you. Restraining your primary needs, you said.

« I shouldn’t have let your drunken into my house. »

« Do I look like a drunken man? »

You looked at him in the eyes. He looked pretty serious. You now doubted if he was drunk.

« Plus, I have money in my pocket. »

He pulled out his wallet and showed you the money that was in it. He put it back in his pocket and grabbed his mug back to drink from it as if he never said or showed anything.

« I told you, I sweat alcohol. »

All you could do what laugh awkwardly to hide the fact that you were shocked and pissed off. You put your half empty mug on the table and turned to him. He was peacefully drinking.

« So… you lied to me? »

He turned his head towards you.

« All that… was just an act? » you laughed awkwardly. « First you tease me in the club, then you lie to me and now you bug the out of me. Why? Tell me why the hell would you do that? »

« To get closer to you? » he said softly.

You were so mad you didn’t care if what he said was sweet or not.

« You could’ve just talked to me! »

« You wouldn’t have opened up! » he said.

He put his mug next to yours on the table.

« I opened you my door and it’s bad enough. »

As you were screaming at each other you got really close, inch by inch. You looked at each other in the eyes. Suddenly, you weren’t mad anymore, but shy from being so close to him. You tried not to let it show, but he noticed your sour expression changed. Seung Ho’s face was stone cold, but his eyes screamed he was sorry. You swallowed and bit your lip, grunted and stepped back, putting back an awkward distance between you two.