The Offer

Rainwater running down the umbrella borrowed from the restaurant dripped to my feet, spattering onto my sneakers and the cuffs of my jeans.

It wasn't a downpour, but it was more than a drizzle you could ignore without an umbrella either. A foreign man with his windbreaker hood pulled up was heading toward us, a Golden Retriever leading the way.

"Hi."

"Hi."

When the man, his jaw thick with a golden beard, came close enough for his expression to read, the two exchanged brief greetings.

"Your dog is handsome," he said.

"He throws a fit every time it rains until I take him out — so here we are," the man said, laughing.

"Bye-bye." When he brushed past and smiled at me, I gave a faint, barely noticeable smile and stepped aside to let him and the dog through.

His SUV, which had been in the external parking lot, was approaching the restaurant entrance. Teacher's car had left first, and since she had another appointment related to work afterward, she had asked him to drive me home and had left about three minutes earlier.

"Thank you for dinner today."

He tilted his umbrella slightly to avoid the light from the car pulling up close to the curb as he said his goodbyes to Manager Han.

"I'm just going to walk for a bit to clear my head, then I can take the bus home, so please don't worry about what Manager Han said. Well then..."

His expression wasn't entirely clear because the umbrella obscured his view. It wasn't entirely unintentional that he avoided looking directly at Manager Han. He turned away from her black dress shoes — which suited her more casual Saturday evening attire — and started walking toward the incline where the foreign man had just descended.

"I was thinking of having a drink while I clear my head, too."

I stopped in my tracks and turned around at the sound of his voice, which was mimicking my exact words. Holding the umbrella with his other hand tucked into his pocket, he watched me. In the rain, every scent becomes stronger. I seemed to recall hearing somewhere that one should wear less perfume on a rainy day. Like a wave that approaches slightly only to soak my toes before retreating, his scent lingered at the tip of my nose, then vanished without penetrating deep into my sense of smell.

"Would you care to join me?"

The inertia from how I've lived up to this point urged me to refuse the offer, turn tail, and run home, but this new stimulus — sweetly paralyzing that inertia — made me want to inhale his fragrance and taste it. I don't know where this impulse and greed came from within me. Even if it had existed before, I thought it would have all died out by now. His eyes, which had seemed pale as if they would fade quickly, looked unusually blue.