Chapter Text
They’re both a little drunk. This particular binge is unplanned, the result of trying to get Henry away from Hee Jin, a scheme that backfires when she bows out at the last minute, almost certainly on purpose.
“So, what’s the deal with Sophie?” Henry swirls the liquid in his glass, keeping his tone casual, easy.
“Sophie?” He’s thrown as much by the sudden stab of guilt as he is by the question itself.
Henry raises an eyebrow. “You know. From that time in Jeju. The baker.”
Jin Heon bristles, annoyed that Henry knows anything about Sam Soon at all. “I know who she is. Just wondering why you keep calling her ‘Sophie.’”
“That’s what she called herself.”
Oh. Of course she’d call herself Sophie. Or Hee Jin. Anything to not be Sam Soon. He can’t help smiling at that. Fine, Sophie it is then.
“She must have been hurt when you broke up with her.”
The words hang in the air for an eternity before crashing down around Jin Heon, demanding his attention.
“No, she’s fine. She…” What? She understood? She knew it wasn’t real? He thinks of Sam Soon at his door, staring up at him from under her bangs, nervous but hopeful, bringing him juk and mille-feuille and her heart. Sam Soon in the elevator, tears streaming down her face, disappointed and betrayed. Sam Soon lying in a hospital bed, angry red scars on her arms and face, lost in a fever dream where she begs him not to leave her.
He swallows hard. “No, she’s fine. It was…not serious.”
When he knocks back his drink, it burns like all the lies he keeps telling himself.