“Sorry. My friend has a bit of a nasty personality.”
“……”
“Yeonjun-ah. Are you upset?”
As soon as he asked, he knew it was the wrong question. His feelings would have been hurt since a long time ago. Because of him.
He had just learned from the conversation a moment ago that he had simply not shown it. If he had to put it precisely, rather than a conversation, it was closer to unilaterally pouring out words that had been held back, but that made his heart feel even worse. Though he didn’t know for sure, thinking that he must have been suffering alone all this time.
Yeonjun looked at Eunha with his head deeply bowed, only slightly raising his eyes. Looking obviously sulky, he shook his head shallowly. Then he slowly lowered his gaze back to the ground again. Silence flowed.
Eunha, who had been awkwardly worrying for a moment in the quiet, alternately looked at Gu Haebin standing over there watching this side like a spectator and Yeonjun. Then he spoke as gently as possible. Since it didn’t seem like a situation where they could continue the flow that had been cut off.
“For now, do you want to go in and rest a bit?”
“……”
“Let’s talk again later. You must be tired too. In many ways.”
“……”
“I’ll think over everything you said carefully again.”
“……”
“Don’t cry. Okay? Why are you crying?”
“……I’m not crying.”
He ignored everything else and only answered that crookedly. Eunha momentarily held back a laugh that almost came out without him knowing.
Right. He wasn’t crying. Moisture had just fully pooled in his eyes to the point where it would fall with just a touch.
Yeonjun looked down at the ground for a long time with eyes that were dully swollen, then let out a sigh barely audibly and passed by Eunha’s side.
Eunha watched the retreating figure moving away toward the shared entrance for a moment, then lightly exhaled through his nose and followed behind.
The time standing side by side in front of the elevator was short. He planned to see him off here, smoke a cigarette outside, and then go in.
He was quietly looking at the floor display changing one floor at a time when Yeonjun suddenly opened his mouth.
“Will you contact me?”
“Hm?”
“You said let’s talk again later.”
“……”
“……Then, will hyung contact me first?”
It was a tone as if “this time” had been omitted. He belatedly looked to the side, but Yeonjun himself was keeping his gaze forward. He didn’t meet his eyes even though he clearly felt the look.
He really must be quite sulky, Eunha thought.
“Yeah. I’ll contact you.”
A straightforward answer. Yeonjun slightly parted his lips as if breathing in, then after a brief silence, pulled his chin down firmly and muttered quietly.
“You promised……”
And then boarding the elevator that happened to open just then, he leaned against one corner and stood, then glanced at Eunha and slowly turned his body to the side. As if he didn’t particularly want to face him. As if he didn’t want to see his face right now.
However, because he knew the voice mentioning the promise had already softened, Eunha made the judgment that that was precisely some kind of “act.” Thinking that maybe he wanted to vomit out all the words he had accumulated inside, that he had caught him like that once, and that while he was at it, he wanted to put his hurt feelings on display ostentatiously.
Before he knew it, all that was visible to Eunha was the back view with dejection clearly evident, having completely buried his body in the corner of the elevator. A neat back of the head. A long neck. Shoulders that looked dispirited.
For a moment his lips twisted. In an ambiguous form, as if he might or might not smile.
How should he put it. That scene, contrary to the person’s intention, felt too…… adorable.
“……”
The door closed. As if savoring the afterimage that had passed, Eunha stood there blankly for a while, then soon came to his senses and turned his steps. He smiled a little belatedly.
……What an incident. Really.
When he stepped outside the building, he could see the profile standing in the smoking area. As he approached while taking out his cigarette pack, Gu Haebin noticed the presence and turned around. Eunha frowned first.
“Are you crazy? Why were you so rude?”
“What. I was just playing around.”
“To someone you don’t even know well……”
“I do know him though? He came with Hyeongjun yesterday so we exchanged names and drank together briefly. Then we know each other. Ah, do you know Park Hyeongjun?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not interested either…… anyway.”
He roughly shook his head. It was common for unfamiliar names to pop up in conversations with friends. Strictly speaking, it was probably a name he had heard at some point, but he didn’t go around memorizing all of that.
Saying that was all part of self-management too, among friends who memorized well and exchanged interactions skillfully, Eunha alone had no interest in socializing for profit. Even when friends who couldn’t stand watching set up introductions through connections, and even when his mom nagged him to manage his network of contacts.
There were countless cases where he put it in his head briefly and forgot it right away. He did well improvising at each event he attended, but that was it.
“Then you, how do you know that kid?”
“……”
“It didn’t seem like you two were meeting for the first time yesterday.”
Because it felt somehow meaningful, when he deliberately ignored it, a snickering laugh came back as if for him to hear.
“I wondered who you ran off with.”
“……”
“Are you serious, really. Twenty years old?”
“……”
“Your abilities are fucking good. Lee Eunha.”
“Don’t talk to me, just……”
“You know it’s fucking funny that you’re not denying it, right?”
“……”
“Also that you get scratched however I scratch.”
“Really. Hey.”
He was already disturbed, and at the behavior of constantly poking at him, irritation inevitably surged. Eunha glared to the side and kicked the center of Gu Haebin’s shin without hesitation. Ah fuck, that hurts. He indifferently ignored the voice that immediately grumbled roughly. Then everyday stories came up as topics as if they had never bickered. It started with Gu Haebin mentioning Park Hyeonji’s anger in detail.
The conversation continued mainly about anecdotes from yesterday’s birthday party, then Yeonjun’s name came up again as if he had suddenly remembered.
“But you, you know whose younger brother he is, right?”
And. It was a meaningless statement. As if it was natural for Eunha to know that.
“……Why would I need to know that?”
He asked ominously, then at the answer that came back, Eunha had to stop his fingers that were bringing the cigarette to his mouth.
“He’s Baek Joohee’s younger brother.”
……What?
“……Whose younger brother?”
It wasn’t that he didn’t know and was asking. Rather, it jumped out in surprise because he recognized who it was as soon as he heard.
Again, he dropped his cigarette in surprise. It was ironic that despite being so shocked, he could barely remember anything about it.
That made sense. It was a figure buried in the past of more than 10 years ago.
“Looks like you remember?”
“……It would be strange not to.”
However, Eunha answered that way. What came to mind now were only vaguely flickering impressions and some fragmentary scenes, but that name alone was clearly remembered in an almost unchanged form.
There was no way he could forget. Because she was the first girlfriend he dated after his hair grew in.
It was something that happened in the third year of middle school. Then they broke up and when he went up to high school, he established the sexual orientation he hadn’t known, so it also held the title of being the last. Though to grandly say he held it, it was all just a short and shallow meeting of about three months, but looking back now, he thought it might have been closer to just a slightly closer and shyer opposite-sex friend relationship than romance.
Still, being first always had meaning. Being last always had meaning too. That was the name that remained.
