About an hour had passed when the person I’d been waiting for arrived.
Beep. Beep. Beep. I tensed up needlessly at the sound of the front door passcode being entered. Since we hadn’t met yesterday, this was perhaps the first time I was properly seeing him since we started dating.
And the moment I saw his face, my heart pounded.
At this rate, practice wasn’t the issue—I needed to adjust all over again. To think a face I’d seen hundreds of times could be this hard to get used to.
“You’re here?”
I deliberately lifted myself from my seat a beat late. When I went to the entrance, Kang Sehyun stood there without coming inside. He stared down at me quietly.
What should I do at times like this?
Before things got more awkward, I tried to go back to the living room, but a large hand approached my face. A hand that dropped onto my head with a thud ruffled my neat hair.
My heart… felt like it would burst out.
Right. Let’s start by adjusting again.
“What were you doing?”
“Reading a book.”
“Did you have something to study?”
“No. I just borrowed that for a bit.”
I lifted the book I’d brought with me, having gotten up in a hurry. Seeing the book cover, Kang Sehyun frowned.
The book I’d been reading was an essay. A book with the word “love” in the title no less than twice. I’d discovered it tucked in a corner of the study that was always only used as a workspace and picked it up without thinking.
“Did you like this kind of thing?”
“No. It’s my first time. I saw it lying around.”
“How was it?”
“I’m not sure yet. Honestly… it’s a bit hard to understand.”
Kang Sehyun looked at me and laughed out loud.
“Then why read it? Read something else.”
“It’s a completely unfamiliar field, so I was curious. Have you read it all?”
Honestly, I was surprised from the moment I saw this kind of book on the shelf. Kang Sehyun and a love essay?
“No. It’s not mine.”
“It was on the bookshelf, so whose is it then?”
“My girlfriend’s.”
A moment of silence descended. Kang Sehyun seemed surprised by his own words that slipped out. Ah. How embarrassing. It was written all over his face.
“I thought so. I was about to be surprised by an unexpected taste. I thought there was a side of you I didn’t know about.”
I said that trying to smooth things over, but it would have been better if I’d been about 2 seconds faster. Even though I tried to pass it off casually, Kang Sehyun didn’t unfurrow his crumpled brow.
Since he’d dated her for such a long time, the phrase “ex-girlfriend” wasn’t familiar to him, so he’d made this kind of mistake a few times before. Each time I’d understood roughly and moved on, and Kang Sehyun hadn’t bothered to correct himself either. But over just this slip of the tongue, Kang Sehyun seemed to be blaming himself too much.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Why worry about it at this point?”
“Still, it’s uncomfortable to keep things like this around. Give it to me, I’ll throw it away.”
“What?”
“If you want to read it, I’ll buy you a new one.”
Having said that, Kang Sehyun forcibly snatched the book from my hands before I could even answer.
Ah…
Only then did I realize. The problem wasn’t the slip of calling his ex-girlfriend his girlfriend.
Normally, I should be upset about this… right?
Usually when someone gets a lover, it’s manners to clear away traces of people they dated in the past, and even if they hadn’t managed to do so, confidently mentioning it to their current lover was a bit strange. That’s why Kang Sehyun apologized for still having his ex-girlfriend’s belongings. But I hadn’t noticed that.
Another task had appeared.
Beyond adjusting, beyond practicing, recognizing the fact that I was Kang Sehyun’s lover was the most urgent priority.
Really, dating is too difficult.
Dinner was Philly cheesesteak loaded with beef and cheese. There was a pretty famous place near Kang Sehyun’s school, so he’d get takeout from there once in a while. As I was unwrapping the packaging and transferring it to plates, Kang Sehyun, who’d changed clothes in the meantime, came out of his room.
When I opened the refrigerator to get something to drink, what immediately caught my eye was beer filling an entire shelf.
“Want to drink beer?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind?”
“Whatever you’re drinking.”
From among the various types of beer, I took out the one placed second from the left. It was beer that the hyungs had once teased as “old man beer.” When I said it was my favorite beer, the only person who agreed was Kang Sehyun.
Kang Sehyun, who’d approached behind me before I knew it, asked.
“Are you feeling unwell somewhere? You look tired.”
“Ah…”
Perhaps because Monday’s fatigue had accumulated, my body felt heavier on Tuesday. That’s why yesterday I deliberately stopped Kang Sehyun from coming over and went straight home after work to sleep immediately. But today I was even more tired. I’d never been this tired from working two days in a row, but my condition was really not good.
“Don’t you think you might be coming down with a cold?”
“Maybe.”
A cool palm suddenly pressed against my forehead. My body flinched momentarily at the chill.
“You don’t seem to have a fever.”
Kang Sehyun kept his hand there with an uncertain expression, thinking about something. For quite a while at such a close distance. I… couldn’t breathe properly.
“I’m just tired.”
Feeling awkward on my own, I hurriedly took the beer and went to the dining table. Kang Sehyun followed and sat down in a chair, immediately gulping down his beer as if his throat was dry.
“How was the meeting?”
“Everyone was fine except one.”
“What’s wrong with that one?”
I heard a short sigh.
“That guy.”
Just one syllable, but it contained so much meaning. Loud kid, annoying kid, persistent kid, etc.
Among Koreans where rumors spread fast, Kang Sehyun was already famous. There was no way looks like his wouldn’t stand out, so according to the hyungs, he became a topic of conversation the moment he came to Chicago.
But naturally, Kang Sehyun didn’t want to get involved, so he refused to have any conversation with Korean people, though there were still many people who knew of Kang Sehyun one-sidedly.
The school Kang Sehyun attended now also had quite a few Korean people. And among them, occasionally someone would openly approach him to be friends. Each time, Kang Sehyun consistently ignored them, but this time he was tied to someone through an assignment, so it was an awkward situation where he couldn’t pretend not to know them.
“I think just being acquaintances would be okay.”
“…What?”
His smooth forehead instantly crumpled.
“I don’t want to.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Yeah.”
His voice was firm.
“Do you dislike their personality that much?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with their personality.”
“Don’t tell me it’s their appearance?”
“Why would that matter for being acquaintances?”
“If it’s not that either, then what? Their way of speaking?”
“Their way of speaking is actually fine. Don’t misunderstand. It’s not that they’re bad, I just don’t like getting involved.”
I had no intention of forcing him from the start. However, Kang Sehyun, who was more particular about people than I was, expressing someone as “not bad” meant that person was truly decent, yet despite that, I was curious why he refused even being acquaintances.
“No matter how I think about it, it’s amazing that you became friends with me at first.”
“We’re not even friends now, so why are you curious about that reason at this point?”
Now that we’d become more than friends, the fact that we weren’t friends was strictly true, but for some reason I felt hurt by those words. Perhaps it showed on my face, because seeing my expression, Kang Sehyun mistakenly thought I was hurt that he wouldn’t tell me the reason and asked.
“You really want me to tell you?”
“Yeah.”
It was a misunderstanding, but I was also curious about the reason, so I quickly nodded.
“You’re a type that wasn’t around me, so I was curious.”
A type that was around Kang Sehyun… Kihyun hyung came to mind first, and the other hyungs came to mind in order. It was a sufficiently understandable reason.
“Before that, weren’t there any people you thought were decent or were curious about?”
“Yeah. You were the first.”
The first.
Is this how it feels to be told you’re someone’s first in some way?
It wasn’t even that I was the first person he’d liked, but I was happy to hear that I was the first person he’d wanted to be friends with. I pretended otherwise, trying to calm down my constantly swelling heart.
“Then if someone like that appeared now, would you be friends with them?”
“Hmm… I’d probably be acquaintances first.”
Hearing those words, I suddenly felt displeased.
Come to think of it, before Kang Sehyun called me a friend, even while we were just acquaintances, he’d treated me better than most friends. Like easily inviting me to his home or suddenly coming to find me when he was alone.
Imagining him doing to someone else what he’d done to me made me hate the idea of Kang Sehyun having such a person. Even though just a few minutes ago I’d said being acquaintances would probably be okay.
“Ah. But now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t do that.”
“Suddenly?”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t quite understand, so I immediately asked what he meant. Then Kang Sehyun smiled slightly while grimacing.
“Because friends have never stayed just friends.”
I felt embarrassed somehow. Newly realizing that we were lovers.
Since my condition wasn’t great, I ended the drinks at two beers. My face normally turns red easily when alcohol enters my system, but today red marks also appeared all over my body. My mind also continued in a slightly dazed state.
Perhaps because of that, even with the movie I’d been looking forward to playing, I couldn’t concentrate. Of course, there was also the fact that I was strangely conscious of Kang Sehyun sitting next to me, but either way, I couldn’t remember the story for about the first hour.
Eventually, with 20 minutes left until the ending, my eyelids became unbearably heavy. The clock on the wall had just passed 10 o’clock. Kang Sehyun, noticing my condition, said.
“Let’s watch the rest later.”
With really so little left until the end, I would normally have said let’s just watch it, but today I absolutely couldn’t. I nodded slowly and got up from my seat. I left the room first and was moving sluggishly when I heard a displeased voice from behind.
“Where are you going?”
Kang Sehyun was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“To sleep.”
Why ask something so obvious, I thought, but then a long finger pointed at the guest room.
“That’s not your room anymore.”
“Huh?”
“You’re not a guest, so there’s no need to go to that room. From now on, here.”
The place he pointed to next was the bedroom I’d never once been to.
