𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 ~𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐡𝐨

|46|

"Ah come on!" Min Su leaned over the table, skillfully dodging the cocktail glasses, to grab my hand and squeezed it. "Everyone knows now, I can't take it back! You're the talk of the town, babes." My eyebrow raised in surprise. Surely, the alcohol must have gone to her head. There was a slight flush tainting her cheeks but her eyes were nothing but determined. "The gala will be an absolute bore without you. Please do it...for me?" She gave me the most innocent look and squeezed my hand a second time.

And then came the cherry on the fucking cake when Lee piped, "Yes, babes, do it for her?" I glared at him but he seemed unfazed, sending me a full-blown grin back. Fucker.

"What do I have to do?" I reluctantly asked, already regretting this. Min Su let go of me to clap her hands very, very fast, joined with a delighted squeal. 

"Nothing! Just be your, charming, handsome self." Lee snorted, not even trying to hide it, and I gave him another death glare. I wanted to low-key murder him right now. Was this the reason he rarely indulged himself with alcohol? Because if so, I completely understood now why. His normal stoic expression crumbled under pressure the more he sipped on his sophisticated gin. 

"And it's for one day?" I repeated what I remembered she said when we were having breakfast together that day.

"Yes."

My body deflated, not loving the idea of having to spend a whole freaking day with someone's demanding wife because that was most certainly going to happen—with my luck.

I tipped the last bit of my cocktail down in one go and grunted out a "Whatever." Lee and Min Su simultaneously glanced at each other, clinked their glasses when they reached eye contact, and then laughed as they sipped their drink. My annoyance grew. "You two besties now?" 

"Jealous?" Lee asked, bemused, quirking an eyebrow up. What was with him today? Was he trying to squeeze his annoying self I'd missed the last five days into one dinner night? 

"Jealous? Are we twelve?" I scoffed, then waved at the waiter to order another round of drinks. 

♛

Full glasses came and empty glasses went as hours ticked by. There was this welcoming buzz thrumming through my veins, turning my head airy. I wasn't drunk—I did learn from my mistake—but I was cheerfully tipsy. And when I looked at Min Su, I knew I wasn't the only one. She was a very handsy drunk.

"You never told me what happened." With an obvious pout, Min Su grabbed Lee's right hand and turned his palm up. The gauze I used to attend to his wound was obviously long gone. Now, there was only a big band-aid covering the lengths of his palm. She ran a fingertip softly over the white patch as she waited for an explanation.

"Cut my hand when I was cleaning up the shards of a vase I knocked down."

Her big, brown eyes snapped up at him. "Must have been deep if you're still using a band-aid. How did you manage to eat or write?"

"I'm ambidextrous."

Of fucking course you are, I thought, rolling my eyes mentally. Lee always fit the picture of a wonder kid, ever since we were young. It was hard to compete with him, ending most of the time in a fight because I couldn't handle the pressure and his smug face whenever he won.

"I didn't know that," she mused, then turned her attention toward me. She smiled. "Tell me something I don't know about you. After that the both of you can ask me a question—if you like," she added shyly.

I wasn't digging the whole sharing thing. I already hated to share food. But the overdose of alcohol helped me to roll the first thing I could think of off my tongue. "I won a beauty pageant once, and it was a girls-only competition."