The two of them sat side by side on the old, cramped sofa, their shoulders nearly touching. The child-sized sofa had long since become too narrow for two fully grown people, but the chairs by the tea table were even smaller, leaving them no other choice.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
It was a familiar, cozy place. Perhaps because they had always come here together, even Hunter seemed like an inseparable part of the tree house itself.
Heavy rain drummed noisily against the wooden roof. Droplets slipped through the gaps at regular intervals, pooling briefly on the round tea table before spilling over its edges.
“Kissing my wrist doesn’t seem to work anymore.”
Hunter broke the silence with the abrupt declaration.
Caught off guard, Jiyu opened and closed her mouth before stammering,
“Huh? Why? Last time, you definitely… you won…”
After Jiyu had given him a first-edition copy of a Douglas Adams novel as a peace offering, Hunter had made it only as far as the quarterfinals in the next tournament he entered. He had then insisted that kissing his palm no longer had any effect.
“Nothing in this world lasts forever. We’ve relied on it too much over the years, so all the winning-jinx energy has been used up. It’s obviously exhausted.”
He had followed that with his ridiculous analysis, then pestered her relentlessly, asking whether the famous psychologist whose book she claimed to have read had recommended any other methods.
Whenever Hunter wanted something, he was so persistent that it became exhausting. Every time they crossed paths, he whined, threatened, and begged. He followed her around shamelessly, hounding her as though he had every right to demand her help, until she finally gave in.
“Ju Parker, avoiding me won’t do you any good. Hurry up and think of something else. Then I’ll stop bothering you. Was there really no other method in that famous psychologist’s book? By the way, what was the title of that New York Times bestseller? Let me read it too.”
Terrified that he might discover the book was actually a picture book for toddlers with separation anxiety, Jiyu panicked and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
She regretted it immediately.
“Um… what about kissing somewhere other than the palm?”
“…Somewhere else? Where?”
The moment she saw shock and curiosity flash across Hunter’s face, the color drained from her own. Her heart began to pound.
‘I’ve lost my mind. Somewhere else? Where exactly?’
Avoiding his gaze, she rolled her eyes frantically and racked her brain, squeezing it like the last bit of toothpaste from an empty tube.
“Uh… the wrist?”
“The wrist?”
Hunter stared at her, raising one eyebrow.
“Yeah…”
“Hmm. The wrist, huh… Fine. But if that doesn’t work, you have to promise to come to the next tournament with me.”
Jiyu nodded reluctantly.
At once, he thrust his arm out in front of her face. Kissing his wrist instead of his palm felt unbearably strange. Her face grew so hot that she could not lift her head for quite some time.
That was why she failed to notice that Hunter’s face had turned bright red as well.
In any case, after receiving that kiss on the wrist, he had gone on a winning streak for quite a while. But now even that had apparently stopped working, and he was demanding something new.
Jiyu narrowed her eyes at him.
Hunter tilted his head slightly, wearing a shameless expression as he met her gaze without flinching.
What ridiculous thing was he planning to say this time to turn her stomach inside out?
“Maybe you’re not my winning jinx anymore, Ju Parker.”
He said it in a surprisingly solemn voice.
Jiyu froze. She blinked rapidly, unable to think of a response.
A storm of complicated emotions, impossible to put into words, swirled inside her.
‘He’s only realizing that now? Then does that mean I don’t have to play this annoying jinx role anymore? Is it really over?’
So many feelings tangled together that even she could not tell whether what she felt was relief or disappointment.
Tap, tap, patter.
As the rain beating against the roof softened slightly, the droplets falling onto the table seemed unusually loud.
Hunter had been sitting with his elbows braced on his knees, his hands clasped together as he stared blankly at the tabletop. At last, he slowly straightened.
“No. Now that I think about it, statistically speaking, you’re definitely still my jinx. It’s just that for higher-level tournaments, something on the hand or wrist might not be enough anymore.”
Jiyu’s shoulders sagged.
Of course.
In the darkness, Hunter suddenly turned his head toward her.
“This time, try somewhere else.”
“Wh-what…?”
In the faint light filtering in from outside, she saw him frown.
“Why are you asking as though you don’t understand? I said kiss somewhere else.”
Jiyu’s heart began to race.
“Wh-where?”
Her voice came out thin and unsteady.
“…I don’t know that either.”
Jiyu bit her lower lip and desperately searched her mind for parts of the body associated with tennis.
‘Fingers? Forearm? Elbow? Shoulder? They’re all weird. Ugh… this is driving me crazy.’
Then she raised her head and asked with a faint glimmer of hope,
“Um… what about the palm again? We haven’t done that in a while.”
“Are you joking? Don’t you remember that the palm lost all its effect last year?”
Hunter rejected the suggestion coldly and without hesitation.
“What about the back of the hand?”
He snorted and shook his head.
“Anything on the hand is useless now.”
“Then where exactly am I supposed to—”
Jiyu turned away with an aggrieved look, only for her shoulders to jerk.
Hunter’s face was far too close.
She froze and stared at him.
Hunter blinked silently, then swallowed hard. He moistened his dry lips and opened his mouth.
“That’s…”
The faint light entering through the two openings and the single window illuminated half his face. In the colorless darkness, only his eyes seemed to give off a bluish glow.
That deep blue gaze slowly traveled down her face before stopping on her lips.
Jiyu drew in a sharp breath and instinctively covered her mouth with the back of her hand.
All at once, she remembered the rainy-day PE class from the year before. Even without touching her wrist, she could feel her pulse hammering wildly beneath the skin.
Probably around 125 beats per minute.
She lowered her eyes awkwardly and let her hand fall.
‘There’s no way Hunter would mean that.’
Jiyu looked up again.
Hunter’s eyes, fixed on her with an expression she had never seen before, wavered uncertainly.
The charged silence between them was louder than the rain.
For some reason, fear surged through her. Her heart thudded with the dreadful sense that something uncontrollable was about to happen.
“…I’ll go!”
Jiyu squeezed her eyes shut to escape his gaze, then cautiously opened them again.
Hunter nodded without looking away. When he spoke, his voice was slightly hoarse.
“Yeah. Then, there…”
He stopped in the middle of the sentence, tilted his head, and frowned.
“…What did you just say?”
“I said I’ll go.”
“Go where?”
Hunter forced the words out through clenched teeth, his patience apparently at its limit.
“To your tournament!”
Jiyu raised her voice as well.
“…My tournament.”
She gave a small nod.
At once, the tension in Hunter’s raised shoulders eased.
He slowly straightened from where he had been leaning toward her, sank back against the sofa, pressed the back of his head to the tree-house wall, and released a long breath.
Jiyu turned her head in the opposite direction. She felt as though she had escaped something she could not name and let out a breath of relief.
Her heart was still pounding violently, as if trying to break through her ribs.
The rain intensified again, hammering mercilessly against the roof. The droplets striking the table kept up their sharp, staccato rhythm.
Hunter abruptly rose to his feet.
“Sunday. Nine in the morning. Come to the lobby.”
Then he crossed to the entrance with the slide, caught hold of the pole with one hand, and jumped lightly to the ground.
The moment the tension left her body, Jiyu collapsed against the sofa.
The roar of the rain swallowed the sound of Hunter’s retreating footsteps. Its relentless pounding against the roof of the tree house beat in time with her heart.
***
It was three minutes before nine in the morning.
Jiyu stood by the front door with a canvas bag slung over one shoulder, packed with books and homework.
“I’m heading out.”
“Okay, have a good time. Study hard. If it looks like you’ll be late, call me. I’ll tell Daddy to come and pick you up.”
Aejeong was sprawled across the sofa, watching a Korean drama on Netflix. She nudged her husband, Alan, in the ribs as he read The Wall Street Journal beside her.
Alan nodded.
“Have a good time, Livvydivvy. If you’re late, Daddy will come get you.”
Alan could not speak a word of Korean, yet somehow he always seemed to understand the general flow of conversations between Aejeong and Jiyu.
“It’s okay, Daddy. When it’s over, um… a friend said he’d drive me home.”
Only then did Aejeong tear her curious gaze away from the television.
“Really? Who is it? Some rich kid?”
“Huh? Yeah, sort of.”
Jiyu muttered evasively, feeling a faint pang of guilt.
Well, Hunter certainly did come from a rich family.
Aejeong broke into a broad grin and waved her off.
“All right. Hurry up and go. You’ll be late.”
Alan lowered his newspaper as well, pursed his lips, and smiled until the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“Have a good time, Livvy!”