This is a donation base per chapter no premium chapters will be released. 1 dollar – 1 chapter your name will be put on chapter if you are the one who donated. After donating please indicate the name of the novel. Thank you!
I followed the teacher with my eyes, thought of him often, and my heart would flutter when I was alone. Every single day was enjoyable. I cared about him so much that the moment I opened my eyes in the morning, I would wish for his happiness. However, my feelings that had blazed so fiercely cooled down again after just two and a half months.
It was after I had realized multiple times that to the teacher, I was just one student among many. The teacher was still cool in my eyes, incredibly cool, but the feelings I held for him were no longer love. And around that time, I came to a definite realization. I like men. After about a week of intense deliberation, I accepted that fact.
Having concluded to live according to how I was born, I went on to have one-sided crushes on various men after that. The kind college student hyung at the rice cake shop I often stopped by on my mom’s errands, the convenience store part-timer who used formal speech with a cold expression, the tall classmate from the next class over with a nice voice, the long-legged office worker I often saw on my way to school… And at the end of all that was Woogyun.
The process of falling in love was different each time, but the feelings were all the same. Constantly thinking about them and getting butterflies. And the ending was also the same. Love that cooled because it wasn’t reciprocated.
Clearly, while I liked them, I didn’t expect their love in return. Just liking them was enough, but at some point I became exhausted. By love that didn’t come back. By feelings that received no response.
It wasn’t the fault of my one-sided crush targets. It was because I was too timid, hiding my love while burning alone too hastily. My one-sided crush targets probably didn’t even know that I had loved them. In other words, the cause of love’s end was the lack of connection.
So this time will be different. At least it will last longer than before when it ended in two or three months. Because unlike the past days when I couldn’t even properly talk to those I had crushes on, I’m steadily gathering courage with Woogyun, and because of that courage, I’m building memories.
The more responses come back, the bigger the feelings will surely grow. Just look at now. With the memory of Woogyun buying me coffee and bringing me a blanket, I’ll be able to love him for at least another week.
“Later when we get close, if that happens, I’ll introduce him to you too. Our Gyun is really incredibly handsome.”
I said to Choi Seunggyeol as if bragging and gulped down my beer. The carbonation went down my throat pleasantly.
“Sure. Do well.”
As I set down my glass, Choi Seunggyeol answered in an indifferent voice again this time. His expression was the same. Used to his reaction, I smiled brightly, unhurt.
“Even if you tell me not to do well, I’ll do well. Now, let’s talk about you. Is school fun these days?”
I asked Choi Seunggyeol while stabbing the few remaining french fries with a fork. His school and the school I attended were about an hour away by bus. Before enrollment, we said it wasn’t that far so let’s meet often, but once we actually started frantically attending school, we couldn’t see each other’s faces as often as we thought. Even now, it had been a while since we’d met.
“School, well. Not bad.”
“How was the festival? I was going to go to your school’s festival…”
“Come next year.”
I should do that, I answered while picking up the menu I’d set down on the seat next to me. Singing along quietly to the music playing loudly, I recited a few menu items. Hearing my voice, Choi Seunggyeol chose chicken. I pressed the bell attached to the side of the table. To the employee shouting “Yes!” I yelled back an order for one boneless seasoned chicken!
“I got a girlfriend.”
And around the same time, Choi Seunggyeol said that. I froze in my ordering posture and looked at Choi Seunggyeol with creaking movements.
“What?”
“I got a girlfriend.”
“Boss! Two more beers please!”
After placing an additional order, I pulled my chair up close.
“Quick, quick!”
“There’s not much to tell.”
“What do you mean nothing! Quick! From beginning to end! Is she in the same department? How old is she? What’s her name? Is she nice? Does she treat you well?”
A girlfriend for Choi Seunggyeol, who has no great interest in people whether they’re women or men. I got completely excited and poured out questions. Unlike my frantic self, Choi Seunggyeol calmly downed the rest of his beer. He even diligently finished off the one remaining french fry as a drinking snack, then slowly unfolded his story. I eagerly chimed in and listened carefully to his gentle voice.
Unable to resist my nagging, Choi Seunggyeol told me everything from their first meeting to the story of the day they started dating, and he answered without refusal each and every question I threw at him. Thanks to that, the voices and alcohol on the table didn’t cease, and time flowed along nicely. The conversation was rosy. It was a good night to get drunk. Hearing the first love story of a friend as dull as a stone was enjoyable, and the drinking session continued smoothly until dawn.
And as a result of that, the next day I had to go to school carrying a hangover I’d never experienced before.
* * *
I suffered from the hangover for quite a while. Cha Geonhyeok, whom I met in the lecture hall, called me an idiot, and Kim Hoseong also said, “Oh boy, you fool.” I was also pointed out by classmates with sensitive noses that I smelled of alcohol. It would have been fine if I’d just kept going with beer, but I switched to soju in the middle so my stomach felt even worse. So I suffered until the next morning to the point where I couldn’t even drink water properly, and I ended up declaring abstinence from alcohol.
That resolve had been continuing well for several days without problems. When I firmly turned down all drinking invitations that came in, my classmates and sunbaes, having confirmed my resolve, no longer called me out to drinking sessions. My evenings became boring, but thanks to that I was spending my days with a clear mind and no rough edges.
“You arrange a gathering. Somewhere with good snacks and good music.”
To such a me, Gong Minyeong ordered me to arrange a drinking session. It might have been a suggestion, but it sounded like an order. Cornered in the stairwell, I scratched my neck while avoiding Gong Minyeong’s gaze.
“Just because I arrange a gathering, will Cha Geonhyeok come?”
“You have to make him come.”
“Who?”
“You.”
It seemed it was definitely an order after all. I pressed my back firmly against the wall where there was nowhere left to retreat.
Gong Minyeong had caught me on my way to a major class. Telling me to follow her, she took me to the stairs at the end of a building where students didn’t walk much, and went down half a floor to the basement. When I came to my senses, I was standing in a corner.
What she was demanding was one thing. Cha Geonhyeok won’t hang out with me, so you try arranging a gathering. Easier said than done, bringing Cha Geonhyeok out to a drinking session wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
“Even if I tell him to come, I don’t think he’ll come out.”
“Still, you have the highest possibility. Since you’re the closest to him in our department.”
So why does she think Cha Geonhyeok and I are close? I glanced at Gong Minyeong, who had confidently placed her hands on her hips. She, who had been looking at me without hesitation, raised her eyebrows. Her well-applied eye makeup sparkled. I thought that if I liked the opposite sex, I might have been charmed, and opened my mouth.
“I’m not that close with him.”
“You’re not close, but he goes on a group blind date at your request? That guy who had been refusing all that stuff?”
Ah… If it’s about that, the story changes a bit. To make that request, I wagered my wish. Cha Geonhyeok seemed to have forgotten, so I’d been keeping quiet, but if I brought up something similar this time, his memory might be revived. I didn’t want to get involved in this matter. And I didn’t want to make Cha Geonhyeok, a fellow gay man, uncomfortable either.
“That was really a special situation. Anyway, I don’t want to arrange gatherings and stuff.”
Tsk, Gong Minyeong clicked her tongue and opened the bag on her shoulder. What is she trying to take out? Should I run away? I was biting my lower lip hard when she took out something like a neatly folded letter. She waves it in front of my eyes.
“Do you know what this is?”
“No.”
“The part-time job location starting next week.”
Not understanding, I narrowed my brow and tilted my head. Why is she waving a note with a part-time job location written on it at me like bait?
“Whose part-time job location do you think this is?”
…What?
“Jang Woogyun.”
What?
My mouth fell open without me realizing it. Gong Minyeong smiled, grinning. What is this about? Did she find out? Did she find out I’m gay? Is the only thing left for my life now to fall into ruin? My head became noisy. I couldn’t say anything.
“You want to get close to Jang Woogyun, don’t you?”
Gong Minyeong, who spoke instead of me, said something unexpected. Not that I like him, but asking if I want to get close to him?
“You want to join Jang Woogyun’s group, don’t you?”
“Ah…”
“Right? You want to get in there, right?”
Jang Woogyun’s group. Woogyun got along well with people from the department all around, but there was a group you could call his inner circle, which included sunbaes as well. All of them studied well and regularly met to share high-level information about academics and employment. They also communicated with similar groups from other departments, and it was a useful gathering for expanding connections and obtaining information. To put it simply, it was a place for networking among the elite.
Students who were somewhat good at studying would hover around that group for their future. I didn’t know what the conditions were to enter that group, but I had no interest in it.
