***
Starting to run away from home wasn’t as difficult as I thought. What comes after is the problem.
After leaving home, I caught a random bus.
Not knowing where I was going, I thought I’d get off when the scenery outside the window became unfamiliar. When you think of running away from home, you picture a pounding heart and hiding in darkness, but since it was actually Monday afternoon, the streets were bright and quiet.
While people were busy going to work, I felt strangely excited to be wandering the empty streets.
Should I say it felt like playing hooky? I have memories of playing hooky when I was young, but following Jeongyeon was the first and last time.
Back then, I got scolded really harshly for opening my eyes looking wronged. I was just scared, but my big eyes often caused unwanted misunderstandings like that.
Still, in the end, maybe because of my model student image, Jeongyeon got scolded a lot and I didn’t get scolded much, but just getting caught was scary enough that I never attempted to play hooky again.
Today I have a free period, and mom and dad who went to work don’t know yet that I’ve left home. Even so, my heart was already pounding as if I’d started some tremendous rebellion.
My walking steps stopped in front of a large building. I entered the bookstore in the basement and settled in at an interesting-looking corner.
<Before Death Comes, Just One Love>
The moment I saw the novel’s title, my heart sank. Strangely, my gaze wouldn’t leave that book.
Death, which came to mind once in a while even when I had no particular thoughts, was always like a shadow attached to my side. And the one love I wished for…
Would be impossible to achieve.
I’d thought about whether I could love someone else. But I gradually realized it was impossible. Even at the moment facing death, I didn’t want to do that. Asking Choi Jihwan to kiss me was purely out of curiosity.
Choi Jihwan and I weren’t interested in each other, and my heart didn’t pound even right before our lips touched. I still didn’t think I’d done anything wrong enough for hyung-nim to be angry.
Now that my curiosity had been resolved in a much better direction, I didn’t think I’d make a similar request to Choi Jihwan again. Of course, the price I’m paying for it isn’t small.
“…I won’t be able to see hyung-nim like before ever again.”
If I succeed in living alone, could I meet him once a year like a distant relative? And then we’d just greet each other awkwardly when we run into each other.
Jeongwoo hyung-nim’s face came to mind again. I eventually picked up <Before Death Comes, Just One Love> and headed to the checkout counter.
Perhaps because I’d spent quite a bit of time at the bookstore, my stomach growled.
An advertisement for a donut shop spread wide on the wall caught my eye. It was a dessert shop on the 4th floor of the same building. A chocolate glaze sparkled on the screen. There was no reason not to go.
I sat down with one chocolate donut and a milkshake. Looking at the sparkling chocolate and the water droplets formed on the edge of the cold cup, my heart, which had been quiet since kissing Jeongwoo hyung-nim, started pounding again.
I’ve always really loved sweet things. The taste was naturally ecstatic. The moment I bit into the soft donut with chocolate coating, satisfaction spread through me. It was a taste worthy of my first meal commemorating running away from home.
I want to eat just one more, but I need to save money now.
After devouring all the donuts, I took out my notebook from my bag and wrote ‘Bucket List of Things I Must Do Before I Die.’ I’d been planning to finish the bucket list I’d started writing before today anyway.
- Go to an amusement park.
- Travel alone.
- Go to MT.
As I wrote, it became fun so I wrote more. ‘Eat at a PC cafe.’ ‘Sing ten songs straight at karaoke.’
My pen was moving smoothly when it suddenly stopped. One face came to mind. After unnecessarily looking around, I carefully wrote.
If that day comes… Tell J I love him.
As soon as I wrote it, my heart sank. ‘That day’ literally meant my last day. My nose tingled and just thinking about it made me feel like tears would well up.
“What am I even doing…”
When it’ll be hard to even see hyung-nim’s face anymore, what’s with this self-pity?
After pushing the notebook far away, I grabbed the smoothie again. Even as the cold liquid went down my throat, the heat didn’t subside.
I wish I could confide in someone instead. Someone who would listen to these situations happening to me and sharply tell me what to do. I was too much of a coward to face such a big thing alone.
I’d once seen in a documentary how hard it was to live a long life with illness.
While watching the documentary, I thought it would be fine to die around age 30 after enjoying myself to the fullest rather than putting effort into health management while holding back from eating and doing what I wanted.
I had such immature thoughts even though I didn’t have the courage to boldly commit to what I wanted to do.
Couldn’t I just accept it like I did when I was an immature high school student?
That the moment I wanted just came a little early. So from now on, I just need to live freely doing what I want.
***
Yoo Jeongwoo, 31 years old, unmarried, designation is alpha.
He took the bar exam at an early age and built his career at a large law firm that ranked in the top five in the country. Although he digested the murderous workload every day as if it were his constitution, at some point he realized it was time to quit.
It was because he wanted to be close to his family.
Even if he couldn’t eat with them every day, he wanted a life where he could participate in family events.
He should have at least attended his much younger late-born real brother’s and the neighbor kid’s graduation ceremonies. Being too busy to attend not only their middle school graduation but also their high school graduation didn’t fit his conservative, family-oriented tendencies at all.
When he entered the FA market, he was flooded with scouting offers, but he chose to establish a new law firm instead. He joined hands with Kang Doyun, a law school classmate and former prosecutor, obtained an office, and was about to open soon.
With various matters piling up, staying up all night was routine. The house where he lived alone couldn’t be managed at all, so that’s also why he ended up staying at the main house.
True to his family-oriented tendencies, his new office was located close to the main house.
His real brother ran away as soon as he became an adult, but he still saw his parents and the kid next door often.
And looking at that kid next door’s movements lately, he thought he’d returned to the main house at just the right timing.
When Jeongwoo put down his pad and was skimming through a chart, Kang Doyun threw a cup noodle lid on the floor and flung it through the air.
“Don’t throw it, put it in the trash.”
Yoo Jeongwoo’s voice was cold. He spoke without taking his eyes off the documents, but the short remark contained an intimidating force that would make Kang Doyun immediately bend down to pick up the trash.
Kang Doyun, who had almost obediently picked up the trash without realizing it, flinched for a moment and immediately rebelled.
“Hey! I think your face has gotten more brutal while we’re preparing to open. It’s like we’re setting up a military base instead of a law firm, what the hell.”
Kang Doyun grumbled. The Yoo Jeongwoo he’d seen was a persistent and meticulous person. Once he bit into something, he absolutely wouldn’t let go. To the point of being obsessive, and sometimes that aspect looked so blindly devoted it seemed childish.
During law school, there was a time when a difficult case problem became a topic among classmates. Because the intention of the question was ambiguous, everyone just wrote approximate answers and moved on, but Yoo Jeongwoo didn’t.
After digging through case books for days, he found a flaw in the problem itself and boldly pointed it out in front of the professor during the objection period. That’s when he realized—this bastard chews things down to the bone once he bites into them.
“It’s my fate, why did I agree to make a new start with a troublesome guy like you?”
In short, he wasn’t a guy with a particularly good personality, and rather, he was a very troublesome guy to have close by. Back then, Kang Doyun clicked his tongue just like now.
“If you’re planning to use the office like a mess, shake hands and leave even now. This isn’t some cramped prosecutor’s office run on taxpayer money.”
Whether others clicked their tongues or not, Yoo Jeongwoo spoke without taking his eyes off the documents.
Those words were basically the same as saying ‘fix the habits you had at the prosecutor’s office.’
“Damn it, I’m so disgusted, really.”
Why did I partner with a guy like this, Kang Doyun muttered while picking up the cup noodle lid from the floor and throwing it away, when he suddenly noticed a profile photo printed out for review on the table.
‘He is handsome though. Enough to benefit tremendously from partnering with him.’
Even now, Yoo Jeongwoo was examining documents. The way his long fingers spun the pen was both elegant and sharp. Perhaps because of his hair swept back to reveal his forehead, today especially his characteristically cold expression when concentrating shone. At times like this, his perfectly sculpted features stood out even more.
As if well aware of this advantage of his, Yoo Jeongwoo tended to actively utilize his appearance when necessary. That’s why he prepared the photo to hang in the office so that his photo would be seen first no matter what. Saying you have to catch attention with something good-looking… Honestly, he couldn’t refute that.
Looking like not a drop of blood would come out even if pricked, he was a perfectionist when it came to work.
Kang Doyun at least knew Yoo Jeongwoo’s human side after spending a long time together, but he was definitely not an easy person. It was also the reason why Kang Doyun, who was 3 years older than him, maintained a close friendship with him, and the biggest reason why he immediately decided to resign from being a prosecutor when he received the partnership offer.
While slurping noodles, Kang Doyun discovered a photo on top of a box full of stuff on one side of the table.
“What’s this, a kid’s photo?”
When he picked it up, it was a photo of some young child.
A photo of a boy around seven or eight years old holding a large pastel pink bouquet in his arms.
