The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 175

It is usually me who assists him, my superior, in the office, but here at our vacation spot, our roles had been completely reversed. I quite liked that fact.

I replied with a laugh.

“Please, just trust what people say. I told you, I’m good at swimming.”

He lifted the corners of his mouth slightly, ruffled my hair—which must have been a mess from the sea breeze—even further, and said.

“You’re the type who subtly requires a lot of care, so I can’t trust you.”

The evaluation I get back, despite working busily and diligently for him at the prosecutor’s office, was extremely harsh. Of course, knowing he was at least half-joking, I just laughed and shook my body again.

The horizon spread out wide before me was breathlessly beautiful. The sensation of the sand crumbling beneath my feet and the feeling of seawater stinging my skin were strange, but I overcame the cold sensation and continued to step forward. I went into the water up to my waist with Prosecutor Joo. It was just a slow walk to a place where it wasn’t deep, but his large hands kept reaching out as if he wanted to protect me. There was no need for it, but he would hold my arm or support my waist. His touch was exactly like someone worrying about a youngest sibling.

I boldly attempted to swim, but as he said, the ocean with its crashing waves was completely different in difficulty from a pool. I had only learned survival swimming, and since I wasn’t particularly athletic, I was helplessly swept away even when the waves were just a little high.

I submerged my head in the cold water as much as I could and moved my arms and legs. However, because it was hard to find a moment to breathe due to the waves, I eventually stood up coughing, having swallowed a mouthful of saltwater.

“Give up.”

At Prosecutor Joo’s encouraging voice, which he said with a laugh, my stubbornness was unnecessarily triggered. I stubbornly tried to swim. Unlike Prosecutor Joo, who swam quite skillfully even for long distances, I didn’t like the look of only me, the one who had been so confident, failing.

But even my last challenge ended in failure.

“Salty.”

Prosecutor Joo reached out and supported me as I scrambled to stand up after being submerged in the seawater again. He rubbed his wet face with his large hands and then pulled at the corners of his mouth, smiling brightly. His appearance, which had shone even under the dreary fluorescent lights of the office, looked indescribably cool receiving natural light with the blue sea in the background. Prosecutor Joo lightly pinched the tip of my nose as I looked up at him, slightly dazed, and then let go.

“I told you we should rent a tube.”

“I should have listened to you, Prosecutor. I drank so much seawater that my stomach doesn’t feel good.”

“Do you want to go out and rest? You seem exhausted from falling in so often.”

“Yes.”

I barely managed to give up on ocean swimming and nodded. It seems I have some useless stubbornness, too. With Prosecutor Joo holding both my hands, I just pretended to swim by kicking my legs until I reached the shallows, and then I stepped down and stood up.

Seawater dripped down my body. My clothes, saturated with water, clung heavily to my skin. His large hand gripped the area around my wet nape and then let go.

“It’s turned red.”

“Did I get burned already?”

I pulled down the collar of my shirt slightly and bowed my head as much as possible to check if there was a line of demarcation on my skin. Amidst the transparent, glittering salt droplets clinging to me, my skin, which had turned red, came into view. His thick fingertips moved softly along the boundary of the sun-scorched skin before he pushed my hand away and returned my shirt to its original position.

“Don’t pull your clothes down just anywhere.”

“I was just checking if I got burned.”

“Still. Be mindful of who might be watching, even at times like this.”

“I don’t think anyone is watching me but you, Prosecutor.”

After replying leisurely, I squeezed my heavy shirt tightly to wring out the water and walked toward the beach umbrella. As I stepped onto the sand that hadn’t been wetted, grains of dry sand infiltrated hotly between my damp sandals.

Prosecutor Joo grabbed the large towel he had brought out from the hotel. And instead of wrapping it around himself, he wrapped it around me, who was wet, first. Since I had just entered the shade of the umbrella and was slightly cold, I pulled the towel he had draped over me tightly and blotted the moisture to cool my skin. He seemed concerned about my reddened skin.

“I’ll apply some moisturizing cream for you later. If you’re not careful, it’s going to hurt.”

“Did you bring all those things, too?”

“I even made snacks. I came perfectly prepared to take care of you, Mr. Lee Chaeha.”

“You should have let me run errands. Since I came to play for the first time in a while, I couldn’t even think to prepare anything in advance. You prepared everything, Prosecutor, so I feel like I came here without a single thought.”

“Forget it. I do plenty of ordering people around at the company, so it’s better for my hands to do one more thing at times like this.”

Sitting on the soft sand, I opened the snack box Prosecutor Joo had packed. It contained toast, rice balls, and fruit—and there was even watermelon. I was happy to see the appearance of the bright red flesh I hadn’t expected.

I pushed a piece of cool watermelon into my mouth first. I had only been in the water for a short while, but I was so hungry that the watermelon, which I liked anyway, tasted much sweeter.

Before I knew it, I pulled up my knees—which were covered in dry, gritty sand—and hugged them, lifting my chin. Every time I bit into and chewed the toast, the tip of my chin pressed against my knees at a constant rhythm. It was peaceful. After sitting still for a while so that my eyes were full of the blue sea, I turned only my face to look at him sitting right next to me. As our eyes met, his affectionate touch found me, and he tidied up my hair, which was soaked in seawater and clumpy in places.

“Is it nice coming here with your lover?”

“Why ask something like that… Of course, it’s nice. Since I came with you, Prosecutor.”

“Since you are so blunt, Mr. Lee Chaeha, you should beg me to feed you.”

“It’s so nice that it makes me wonder, how can it be this good?”

I hesitated a little, then asked as an addition.

“…What about you, Taeson?”

His fingers, which had been caressing my hair, flinched and came to a stop for a moment.

“You were so stubborn about not calling me by my name the whole time, so what’s this all of a sudden? I was wondering when I’d ever see that stubbornness broken.”

“Actually, I called you by your name once when you disappeared at the rest area. It felt weird to shout ‘Prosecutor’ at the top of my lungs. The first time is the hardest, but the second time is naturally easy, isn’t it?”

“You didn’t put that first time into my ears and just let it fly into the air?”

His voice as he asked back contained a hint of despondency.

“That’s because you disappeared without a word and surprised me.”

Prosecutor Joo looked at me with a gaze that had softened to the fullest, perhaps because he liked that I had called his name after all. It was an affectionate look that made me feel shy, so I straightened my waist for no reason and placed the straw hat I had brought all the way to the beach on top of his head. I knew it would be this way, but, as expected, it suited him well.

“You look cool, Prosecutor. Even wearing a hat like that.”

Having expressed affection, which I wasn’t even used to, I felt shy and became conscious of my surroundings. Fortunately, everyone was busy playing in the water, so there was no one giving a second glance to the two men under the umbrella. So, I extended my arm, which was now dry, and lightly touched my knuckles to Prosecutor Joo’s cheek before pulling them away.

I couldn’t remain a blunt lover to him forever, so effort was needed. I wanted to be the first to touch, to initiate conversation, and to express affection. More often than I do now. Because it felt unfair for only me to feel like I was the one being loved.

With his gaze softened even more like cream, he asked in an affectionate tone.

“What do you want to eat for dinner? Shall we go eat snow crab?”

“Let’s do that. I’ve never had it before, so I’m curious.”

“You’ve never eaten snow crab?”

The corners of his eyes, which stretched out long to the sides, widened slightly under the straw hat.

“It’s expensive food, isn’t it? And it’s awkward to go eat it alone.”

Actually, more than it being expensive, the problem was that it was food difficult for one person to eat. Until I met him, I was a loner both inside and outside the company, and until I cut ties with my uncle’s family, I had to regularly contribute my money to them, so my living situation was tight, making it difficult to buy expensive food. Since I was running my life entirely on my own, I didn’t have any peace of mind, either.

Prosecutor Joo also seemed to have noticed my situation; he propped his chin on his hand, fell into thought, and asked back.

“What else have you never eaten?”

“Well. What could it be?”

“Think about it. We’ll try one each time we go on a date from now on.”

“That would be great.”

“You also said you’ve never been on an overseas trip. It seems like there’s a lot we can do together.”

“Prosecutor, is there anything you haven’t done?”

“Well. I’ve lived life having done everything other people do, subtly. I traveled often, too. And I’m not a picky eater, either.”

“I’m envious. It feels like I was just busy living my life day by day.”