When he learned that Eunha had started going out again little by little, Gu Haebin showed relief plainly on his face and looked like he had let out a sigh of relief. When he learned that the purpose was casual sex with strangers, he hesitated, but soon quietly overlooked it, saying even that was better than nothing.
Now he was viewing it unfavorably. When what he thought was just a temporary stepping stone solidified into a lifestyle, he showed signs of inwardly disapproving. He interfered and picked fights. It would all be part of his worry. He had asked a few times in passing if he wasn’t going to date, and when he showed no sign of it at all, later there were cases where he would push forward marriage meeting arrangements his mom had found somewhere and subtly urge him more. Telling him to at least pretend to do that.
The funny thing was that he himself was a person notorious for extremely promiscuous behavior.
When he pointed that out, Gu Haebin always put forth the same logic. I was always like that, and you weren’t.
“……”
Eunha briefly recalled himself from some past time when he had been very honest, clumsy, and utterly pure. Emotionlessly, as if recalling someone else.
So what about it? Where is there an “original,” and where is there a “not”? There’s originally no such thing as something that will forever be someone else’s problem. Wasn’t it because he stupidly believed such a thing existed that the overturning accident happened? That it wouldn’t be my problem. That such a thing wouldn’t happen to me.
That we would be different.
It was a day with clear weather. Eunha, who had his elbow resting on the balcony railing, idly fiddled with his phone. It certainly seemed like summer was approaching. Now and then his insides felt stuffy and his head buzzed. Complex thoughts filled his head like dense air and his temples throbbed with stress for no reason.
He scrolled down through the message app chat history. Unread messages had piled up. They were all messages asking to meet once. People he had met casually once or twice, done it, and passed by. Or partners he had broken up with long ago. Usually he would roughly ignore them, then look through them like this once in a while when a need arose.
This guy…… seemed a bit too perverted, and this guy…… seems worse than the one before.
He was in the middle of comparing who to contact while having his own worries.
The thumb scrolling across the screen gradually stopped at a certain point.
His lowered eyes became absorbed. He stretched his lips ambiguously and pressed on the chat room.
When I think about it
I thought maybe hyung doesn’t have my number
Because you need contact information to contact me……
So this isn’t me contacting you first
“Ah.”
Really, to be this transparent.
It felt like his head was clearing for an unknown reason. As if infected by simple, clear, and firm emotions.
“So hopeless too……”
Hopeless, bold, adorable…….
Eunha, who had weakly let out a laugh that was neither here nor there, soon became deeply troubled. Like a person facing a difficult dilemma where he could do neither this nor that.
Embracing the restless feeling, he pressed on the visible profile. The first thing he saw was a photo with a hand on the chin of a cat whose face was chubby like a rice cake. He observed the shape of the neat hand that gave off a strong feeling of finding the subject cute, then turned the page to the side.
A photo taken with friends on graduation day. A photo sitting in front of an easel at what appeared to be a college prep academy, covered in paint on his work clothes. A photo smiling in a school uniform under the early evening sky, with the focus heavily blurred.
Countless other moments were recorded as well. He seemed to like taking photos. He seemed to have no hesitation in recording and showing them either.
Do you really not know how strange, absurd, and odd it is for you to be doing this to ‘me’?
Eunha, who let out a deep sigh, looked at the sky beyond the railing. Clouds were flowing leisurely.
* * *
“Hey. Western painting department slut.”
He had been sitting with his back against an old building wall. Jiyu approached languidly with both hands stuck in the front pockets of his work clothes. It was a shaded spot near the outdoor workspace. He seemed to have found this side while working on an assignment and came over.
Yeonjun, who had been looking somewhere in the air dejectedly, raised his head. When he slightly stretched the corners of his mouth at the dishonorable nickname, Jiyu shot out a rebuke as if he had been waiting.
“You’re smiling? What’s so good that you’re smiling. You sucker.”
Yeonjun shrugged his shoulders while pretending to wipe around his eyes with his index finger.
“I can’t cry either. For whose benefit.”
Jiyu, who ground his teeth, crouched down in front of Yeonjun. He draped his arms over both knees like a thug. He was a friend who had consistently hung out closely since childhood noonas gave him that name. They went through college prep together and entered the same university’s art college side by side. Though their departments were different—Western painting and sculpture.
“What are you doing here alone?”
Jiyu asked with narrowed eyes.
“Aren’t you doing your assignment? Your department’s studio looked busy too.”
“I can’t get a grip on it……”
It was a voice drained of all energy. Yeonjun, who had his back of the head resting against the wall he was leaning on, tilted his head back. The shadow cast along the dense tree’s grain rippled over his white face. He looked down after taking in the rustling leaves in his eyes in a complicated way. Where his gaze was directed was the phone locked within both hands.
The phone that was quiet today as well without fail. It was the cause of all the disturbance and anguish that had continued for the past few days.
“Why. Because of those third-year bastards?”
Ah, I’m depressed. Yeonjun looked at Jiyu blankly, stopping mid-thought. Thinking it was a random topic.
“Are they still acting like assholes these days?”
“Well…… Pretty much.”
He seemed to have wrongly identified the cause of his poor complexion. When Yeonjun answered perfunctorily, Jiyu began to criticize them in earnest. Those despicable bastards anyway, bastards who don’t know where they ate their age, and so on and so forth…….
It was something that happened at the beginning of the semester. After taking care of a senior who became unconscious at a drinking party and letting him sleep at his place, he got caught up in unseemly gossip. It turned out the senior had a boyfriend from the same department, and he flew into a rage and pointed at Yeonjun.
When he opened and closed his eyes, he had somehow become trash who had an affair with someone who had a lover. It was such a baseless misunderstanding that he wasn’t even angry and just felt bewildered, but in the meantime the rumor spread far and wide, and thanks to that, Yeonjun had to attend school for a while with disgraceful labels dangling all over him. Slut, player, homewrecker, bastard.
Especially the group of male seniors centered around the senior’s boyfriend, Yeongmin, hated Yeonjun severely. Every time they ran into each other, they shot fierce glares and exchanged slander loud enough to clearly hear. When they saw that sight and passed by, they would grumble even more blatant criticism as if provoked.
Because it was a strange situation arising from a wrong he hadn’t committed, it didn’t bother him much, but it wasn’t the case for Jiyu. He was consistently indignant and felt wronged as if he were the person involved. Even now, the same.
“How can they be so desperate to torment one person like that, really.”
It really didn’t matter, but Yeonjun just gave packaged words to his friend who worried about him and got angry on his behalf.
“Yeah. Thanks. If you weren’t there too, I would have been an outcast.”
“Sorry, but you’re already an outcast.”
“Ah.”
Is that so? It’s not that bad anymore though. Now the misunderstanding had been resolved to some extent and the situation had improved a lot. The hatred from the third-year male seniors continued, but Yeonjun didn’t care. Such things didn’t bother him. Not even once.
