“Kento.” I took his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

His handshake was surprisingly mild.

I had expected something considerably firmer from a man his size. His right hand almost swallowed mine, but there was no unnecessary squeezing. I noticed several pale cuts across his fingers before he let go, deeper ones around his thumb and the first two fingers.

“Oh.” Geonsu looked at me again after he sat down beside Nari. “I actually wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” I looked at him confused.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think I scared you earlier… In the alley,” he added. “Before work.”

“That was you? How did you even recognize me? I couldn’t see anything back there,” I chuckled.

“Your hair.” He answered so quickly that I stopped. Geonsu looked down at the table and spoke again after he cleared his throat. “I mean… It’s long.”

Nari slowly turned toward him.

“What happened?” Romina asked.

Geonsu rested his forearms on the table. “I was walking to work and somebody was ahead of me. Then he kept looking over his shoulder and suddenly started walking faster… I wasn’t following you.” He finally looked at me properly, his brown eyes widening. “We work beside each other.”

“Oh my God, I would have cried,” Nari interjected. “Could you imagine having this thing follow you in the dark?” She pointed at him.

“What the fu… Hey!” He squeezed his brows and lifted his chin in protest, laughing.

I laughed into my glass. Without the jacket, I could see her point.

He had crossed his arms while arguing with her, which did absolutely nothing to help his case. His biceps pushed against the sleeves of his shirt and several veins disappeared beneath the fabric. Small cuts and darker spots scattered his right forearm.

Kitchen, probably. I looked toward his other arm. That one was almost completely black.

Ink covered it from around the elbow to his wrist, broken into a marble-like pattern that continued over part of his hand instead of ending in a hard line. Unlike his right hand, the fingers on that side were almost untouched.

“Yeah, you scared me good. Both times,” I added as I took a sip from my drink, waiting for his reaction.

He looked down at the table, rubbing the back of his neck again. “I was just trying to walk past you.”

“Walk past me?” I glanced at his shoulders, then back at his face. “Where?”

Geonsu looked at me. I held my hands apart, measuring the width of the alley between them. “You think you could squeeze past me in there?”

Nari snorted beside him. Geonsu opened his mouth, but nothing came out immediately. His ears were already turning pink.

“You probably have to turn sideways to get through doors,” I continued teasing him. I found his reaction too fun not to.

“I…” He glanced at Nari, as if she might help him.

She was already laughing. Romina nearly choked on her drink. He scratched his neck twice, crossed his arms, looked at them and put his head slightly down, smiling and lightly biting the right side of his lower lip with his teeth. 

The laughter settled eventually, although Geonsu was still avoiding my eyes. Something about the way his eyes glistened in the low light inside the bar felt familiar. Something clicked.

“Did you also give me the blanket?” I asked him directly. 

“Y…Yes.” His voice cracked a bit.

Nari looked between us. “What blanket?”

“Nothing,” Geonsu said immediately, closing his eyes for a second. 

“Thank you. I left the blanket to one of your coworkers.”

“Yeah, he told me…” Geonsu covered part of his face with one hand. Should I not have mentioned the blanket? He got a bit red in the face. Was he hot? “You’re welcome,” he whispered

We ordered food before Nari could interrogate him any further.

She warmed up considerably after that. The careful way she had spoken when I first arrived slowly disappeared somewhere between telling us about cartoons she loved as a child and a disastrous date she'd had in high school. Romina contributed stories whenever Nari left anything remotely embarrassing out.

Geonsu didn’t talk nearly as much. He listened, though.

Eventually the conversation wandered toward work. Nari had been a nurse for a few years now, although apparently getting there hadn't been as straightforward as she made it sound.

“I wouldn't have even been able to study without him.” She nodded toward her brother.

The three of us were now staring at him. He stopped eating his fries and slumped back into the chair, crossing his arms.

“What are you doing? It’s your birthday, stop,” he mumbled. “And you would have studied anyway. Do– Dad would have made it work… Nari, are you crying?”

Nari was indeed holding back her tears. Or at least, she tried to. She didn’t weep like a baby. She cried very softly, only a few tears rolling down her cheeks. 

Geonsu uncrossed his arms immediately.

“Oh, come on.” He reached over and patted the top of her head. “Don’t do that here. You’re embarrassing me,” he chuckled.

The words didn’t match his face at all. His brows had pulled together as he watched her, his hand lingering on her hair as if he was waiting to make sure she was actually alright. Nari laughed through the few tears that escaped.

“Stop! You’re ruining my curls,” she swatted his hand away.

“Then stop crying.” He bumped her shoulder.

Nari wiped beneath her eyes and shook her head. “Sorry…”

“You don’t have to apologize,” I said. “Unless you just told us something we weren’t supposed to know.”

“No.” She smiled. “It’s not that.”

Geonsu picked up another fry. “She feels bad because she’s the only one who went to university.”

“Because you—”

“I wouldn’t have gone anyway,” he interrupted, looking down at his plate. “I barely finished high school.”

Nari frowned but didn’t continue.

“What did you do after?” I asked.

“Started working,” he said as he played with his food, not looking up.

“At Toscana?”

“Yeah. I got an apprenticeship there when I was twenty. Been there since. I became a sauté chef at twenty… twenty-six,” he muttered. 

I waited for him to explain some more. It was the first time he volunteered any type of information the whole evening. He seemed to not have anything to add. But I wanted to know more.

“I don’t know what that means.” I leaned slightly, trying to catch his eyes while he remained slumped over his fries. 

“Oh.” He rubbed his thumb against the side of his plate. “Mostly the stove. Sauces, vegetables, hot dishes. Timing.”

“Timing?”

“Making sure everything for a table is ready together.” He glanced at me before looking down again. “If you order fish and somebody else orders meat, one shouldn’t sit there getting cold while the other finishes.”

“So… since you were twenty-six. How old are you?”

The question slipped out before I really thought about it. I already knew we were younger than him.

He stopped playing with his food. “Thirty-two.” It came out considerably quieter than everything else he'd said, and he reached for his drink without looking at me. 

“Oh,” Romina said. “You look older.”

“Romina!” I nearly choked on my drink.

Geonsu stared at her. She calmly reached for another fry. Then he started laughing.

“What?” she asked. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way…” 

“It’s fine, Romina.” Geonsu gave her a smile.

“No, really. You just– What? He does!” Romina tried to defend herself. “I’m sorry…” She reached over and patted his shoulder twice.

Geonsu rubbed his face, still laughing. “I know. Don’t be. It’s true.” He shrugged.

I looked at him again. That was when I noticed his mouth properly. 

His upper lip curved into a deep Cupid’s bow, more obvious now that he was fighting a smile. Geonsu dropped his head, scratching the side of his neck as the smile finally broke through. His monolid eyes narrowed with it, the outer corners sharpening before he looked down at the table, the smile lines beside his mouth folding into the finer wrinkles around them. 

I didn’t think old was right.

The wrinkles around his mouth made him look older, sure. So did the slight unevenness in his jaw and whatever stress had already settled into his face. But none of it looked bad on him.

If I wanted to be cheesy and put it in kitchen terms, he looked more… Seasoned. I pressed my lips together and reached for my drink.

“The twenty-five group over here, bullying me.” Geonsu lowered his glass, shaking his head.

“Nope,” I shook my head. “Don’t put me in the same box with these old ladies. I’m twenty-three.”

Nari and Romina rolled their eyes. Geonsu’s glass stopped halfway back to the table for a second before he set it down.

“Old ladies?” Nari repeated.

“You heard me, ma’am.”

She threw a fry at me.

We stayed until midnight. The cake came out shortly before, and Nari spent most of the birthday song hiding her face behind both hands while Romina sang considerably louder than everybody else. By the time we finished eating, the two of them had started discussing whatever they were doing after this. Apparently, they already had plans.

“Sorry,” Nari said as she stood. “I didn't know if you'd want to come, and we already–”

“You’re fine.” I laughed. “I'm not following you around for the rest of your birthday.”

She smiled and held her phone out instead. “Give me your number.”

We exchanged numbers and social media before she pulled me into a quick hug. Nari was already putting her coat on when Geonsu reached for his wallet.

“And thank you for paying, brother.”

He sighed and pulled out his card. She leaned in to hug him, I thought, but then she snatched it straight from his fingers. “And thank you for your credit card!”

“Nari…” Geonsu called out to her.

She was already moving away from the table. “Bye!” Romina followed her toward the door, laughing as Geonsu stared after them.

“That’s a nice birthday present,” I said.

“I didn’t tell her I’d pay though… or gave her permission to take my card,” he said, as he was taking out cash, laughing. 

I laughed and reached for my own wallet. “I can pay for mine and Romina’s. Our part has to be around one-seventy.”

“No, no.” He shook his head immediately. “I wasn't saying that because of the money.”

“I don’t mind,” I reassured him.

He went quiet. His fingers remained inside his wallet for a moment before he pulled out the cash he needed. He folded it once, unfolded it, then looked at me.

“Maybe…” He cleared his throat. His eyes dropped to the money again. “If you want, sometime…” He rubbed his thumb over the edge of one of the bills. “You can get me a beer.”

He looked up for barely a second. “Then we’re even.”

I smiled. “Sure.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly before he nodded. He turned toward the bar with the money still folded between his fingers. I watched him walk away before grabbing my jacket and heading toward the restroom while Geonsu paid.

My hands had gotten that horrible sticky-dry feeling from the table and my drink. Once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop rubbing my fingertips together until I washed them.

I was drying my hands when the door opened behind me.

“Oh, sorry.” Someone bumped lightly against my shoulder.

I nodded and moved aside, reaching for another paper towel.

“Did I hurt you?” He asked, coming even closer to me. “I can buy you a drink. As an apology.”