“You were hurt?”
“Do you think I’m some empty tin can human? As long as I’m human, I get shocked and angry too.”
Jae-min, who smirked while scrunching his lips, took another sip of coffee, then chuckled and crossed his legs.
“It must have been hard. Pretending to date an innocent guy. Was it hard being compared to me?”
Jae-min had thrown it out as a joke in his own way. But Yun-ji, who knew Jae-min’s personality, didn’t think so. Yun-ji, glaring at his arrogant face, let out a hollow laugh.
“It’s true that I thought Kang Hyun-woong was better than you.”
“Huh.”
“It’s also true that I’ve lost all affection for you now and have no lingering attachment.”
“Huuh…”
“I’m only telling the truth right now, okay? Lying is hard too. I won’t do it anymore.”
To Jae-min, who clicked his tongue as if he couldn’t believe it, Yun-ji raised both hands in surrender, showing them. Looking at Yun-ji, who really looked innocent, a memory from the past crossed Jae-min’s mind.
“Then what was it when you saw my story?”
“Sto… Ah!”
When he mentioned the post that appears on social media for only a certain time before disappearing, Yun-ji, who had been tilting her head, clapped her hands. Then she frowned and picked up her drink cup.
“You asked me that by text and you’re asking again? I even called and told you. I just happened to see it while scrolling. Why are you assigning so much meaning to it?”
“No, not that. Didn’t you show it to Kang Hyun-woong?”
“Huh?”
Jae-min remembered clearly. Yun-ji was in the list of people who viewed the post, but Hyun-woong was also below her. He’d naturally thought Yun-ji had told Hyun-woong to look at this. But Yun-ji’s expression was strange. She looked like someone hearing bizarre nonsense for the first time.
“What are you talking about now?”
“You both saw it at the same time. I was curious what kind of curses you two made.”
“Kang Hyun-woong saw that too? The video of you singing with the band kids?”
Yun-ji put the straw in her mouth and took a sip. Then she laughed “pffft” and waved her hands.
“Why would I watch that with him?”
Yun-ji shook her head as if hearing all sorts of absurd things.
“Didn’t you tell him to watch it?”
“Yeah, no. First of all, it wasn’t even a ridiculous video, so why would I curse? And with Hyun-woong at that?”
Yun-ji set down her drink and leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. Closing the distance, Yun-ji continued in a small voice.
“Honestly, even if we were really dating, I wouldn’t have shown it to him. We were fake dating. As you saw today, we’re not even that close. We don’t talk about such trivial things.”
Looking at Yun-ji’s face that had drawn close, Jae-min swallowed dry saliva. It wasn’t that he was excited seeing his ex-girlfriend’s face up close after a long time—his mind was getting complicatedly tangled by her words.
From the start, Jae-min and Hyun-woong weren’t even mutually following each other, and they weren’t really friends. He’d thought they were rivals fighting over one woman, but that wasn’t it either.
Jae-min was originally addicted to social media, so he was the type who would search for someone’s account first if he became curious about them, but Hyun-woong wasn’t that type either. His feed had stopped updating, so naturally he’d thought it was an abandoned account.
He got goosebumps feeling like he’d been going in and out of what he thought was an abandoned house calling it a ghost house, only to learn that a person was living there perfectly fine.
“Kang Hyun-woong is surprising. I thought he didn’t use Instagram, but I guess he consistently checks it? Well. I did contact him via DM after all.”
“So really, you didn’t tell him to watch it?”
“Yeah! I swear!”
“Then why did Kang Hyun-woong watch my story?”
Jae-min, asking with wide eyes, was looked at by Yun-ji with an expression of absurdity.
“How would I know that?”
Yun-ji, who yelled as if dumbfounded, grabbed her handbag and stood up abruptly. Jae-min’s gaze naturally turned upward.
“Anyway, I’m done with what I had to say. Dating Hyun-woong was bullshit, and he just cooperated with me. Feel better now?”
“More uneasy than relieved. What was that bastard even thinking? When he’s not even related to you or me.”
“Maybe he’s too nice to refuse a request.”
Unlike when she’d asked Hyun-woong himself earlier, Yun-ji showed an attitude of disinterest. As Jae-min just hmm’d and rubbed his chin, Yun-ji moved her steps as if to leave. Then Jae-min raised his arm high.
“Hey, Yun-ji.”
“What?”
Yun-ji, who was about to leave, whirled around. Jae-min took in Yun-ji’s large eyes, small round nose and lips, and finally her voluptuous chest, then opened his mouth.
“Meet a good person.”
It was well-wishing with sincerity in Jae-min’s own way. But Yun-ji was horrified.
“Huh, suddenly? What?”
“Just, I wanted to say it.”
“Ha… I’m also sorry for scamming and hurting you. But you know you’re really annoying, right?”
Since being called obnoxious was a description he heard more often than any other, Jae-min nodded with an expression that said ‘you’re completely right.’ Even though he agreed with her, Yun-ji looked even more worked up. Yun-ji, who had been stamping her feet, pointed at Jae-min with her finger.
“You won’t meet a woman as good as me. And I’ll meet someone better than you no matter who I date!”
“That’s going to be difficult though…”
“Fuck off.”
Yun-ji, who showed him her middle finger, roughly slung on her handbag and left the café as is. The door swung back and forth like a swing from being opened and closed hard.
Jae-min quietly drank the remaining coffee. He’d learned that his ex-girlfriend had pulled a scam on him, and he’d just gotten cursed at plenty, but strangely he didn’t feel bad.
‘What the hell is Kang Hyun-woong doing?’
Hyun-woong came to mind—the one who had dodged the issue every time he’d questioned him about his relationship with Yun-ji and asked what he thought of her. Jae-min slapped his knee. Hyun-woong hadn’t been unwilling to answer. He’d had nothing to say from the start. Because it was all a scam.
Now only the question remained of why he participated in this pointless scam.
To say he was a nice person who granted all of Yun-ji’s requests—when the two were together earlier, they weren’t particularly affectionate, and even just chewing over his usual behavior, Hyun-woong wasn’t the warm and friendly type at all.
‘Should I ask him directly? I don’t think he’ll answer easily…’
Jae-min pondered while crossing his legs and tapping his foot. Since he wasn’t the type to talk much about everything in detail to begin with, even if he answered, it didn’t seem like he’d explain satisfyingly.
Jae-min, who was considering in what situations he talked a lot, widened his eyes.
‘Should I probe during the chest massage?’
Compared to his blunt appearance at university, Hyun-woong was much more submissive at the clinic and talked quite a bit more. It was a brilliant idea even to himself. Jae-min grinned and took out his phone.
“When was our customer’s appointment again?”
Jae-min, who checked the schedule on his calendar, brightened his eyes.
“Two days later? Nice.”
Just contemplating how to gently manipulate and knead him to find out Hyun-woong’s true feelings spread a smile across Jae-min’s lips.
⁕⁕⁕
The next day, Jae-min came to school as usual. But something unexpected happened.
[Hello. Today’s Management Information Systems lecture has been cancelled due to the professor’s personal circumstances. We apologize for not being able to notify you in advance.]
“Cancelled?”
It was a text message sent from the department office to all students taking that lecture. To send it only 15 minutes before class started—Jae-min, who had just passed through the main gate, stared at the message in dismay. With nothing to do suddenly, Jae-min just walked around campus aimlessly.
“They should have let us know earlier. So I could rest at home.”
The class that disappeared was the only one he had to attend today, and it was also a day without a part-time job. Jae-min recalled what Cheol-hui had said. The date Hyun-woong originally wanted to book was today, but since it was already full, they’d set it for tomorrow.
When he first heard it, he’d passed over it carelessly, but recalling it again, it suddenly felt serious.
‘Is that okay, that thing?’
He must have inquired about a reservation because it was time to be milked, but he couldn’t do it today. Jae-min recalled Hyun-woong before receiving a massage. Him suffering from milk congestion, unable to even properly lean over the desk and groaning.
Jae-min wiped his forehead. Even though it was still spring, it was hot from walking continuously. He grabbed the neck area of his t-shirt and flapped it when he entered a nearby building.
“Hello, sunbae!”
“Oh, hello.”
Turning his head at a voice that wasn’t unfamiliar, there were two female juniors from the Business Administration department. They were freshmen who entered this year. The two with a lively atmosphere hurried over to Jae-min. Receiving their sparkling gazes familiarly, Jae-min smiled brightly.
