Chapter 6: The Wind Won

Seo-won did not withdraw the letter.

He went to work on Tuesday with his jaw set and his badge on a lanyard.

Pyo said nothing to him all day, which was worse than shouting.

By evening, his access to the tower files had been cut to read-only.

He locked his laptop, thought of Tae-min, and decided to be bad at something else.

On Sunday, he planned a picnic.

He drew it first.

He had a diagram of the blanket placement, wind direction, a shade angle for four p.m., and a column for snacks.

Tae-min looked at the diagram on the grass at Mangwon Hangang Park and said, very seriously, "Is this a site plan?"

"It's a picnic."

"There's a legend."

"There's a legend," Seo-won admitted.

The blanket was linen.

There were two folding stools, a folding table, a thermos of barley tea, and a cheese board.

A small speaker played something with a cello.

The river was wide and brown-gold in the late October light, and cyclists went past on the path with their bells.

The wind lifted the blanket at the first corner.

Seo-won weighted it with a thermos.

It lifted at the second.

He weighted it with the cheese board.

"Hold on," Tae-min said, laughing, and sat down on the third corner himself.

The wind took the fourth and flipped the whole thing over onto the cheese.

A gull walked up and stole the brie.

"Hey!"

"He's got the brie," Tae-min wheezed. "He's got your brie, Seo-won, he's walking away with it."

"It cost forty thousand won."

"It's a good brie. Respect to the bird."

Seo-won began to laugh, helplessly, again.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Rejected the Firefighter Who Died for Me, Now I Chase Him from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.