The moment I saw Cha Jae-woo, my heart dropped — then immediately started hammering. I worked hard not to let it show that seeing him had rattled me.
Whether it was fortunate or not, the Cha Jae-woo who had shown up looking like he was ready to blow everything up made no move to acknowledge me first.
He simply kept quiet and listened attentively as Deputy Ye-jin explained things. Like someone who had genuinely come to work at the library.
“Today, just stay with Yun-su, and when it’s time to clock out, you’re free to go.”
At Deputy Ye-jin’s words, Cha Jae-woo answered that he understood — and then his gaze landed on me. Bracing myself for him to detonate something right then and there, I tensed — but he asked in a calm tone.
“What should I start with?”
At that utterly unfazed attitude, I let my lips part for a moment, then quietly gestured with my eyes.
“……Follow me.”
Of all days, today was the day Deputy Ye-jin was out on a work trip for the morning.
Other librarians would come in for the afternoon, but that meant for the morning it would just be Cha Jae-woo and me.
No — actually, maybe that was a blessing. It meant there was no window for Cha Jae-woo to say anything he shouldn’t to Deputy Ye-jin or the other librarians.
“Yun-su, is this the right way to look up the reference materials?”
“……Oh, just a moment.”
Something about hearing him say my name that calmly while asking about work made my blood run cold for no reason.
My stomach felt completely knotted from being on edge all morning. Was this what people meant when they said you couldn’t live with a guilty conscience?
In the end, the moment the other librarians came in for the afternoon, I handed off the desk and made my way over to Cha Jae-woo.
“I’m heading out for lunch — want to come?”
I offered it lightly with my best practiced professional smile.
“It’s your first day, so lunch is on me, Jae-woo. Oh — and if you’d rather eat alone, that’s completely fine too.”
“I do prefer eating alone.”
Cha Jae-woo said it offhandedly as he picked up his bag.
“But it’s my first day.”
Let’s go, Yun-su. The voice that added that had a smile tucked into it. Like he believed everything was going exactly according to his plan — and my hand curled into a fist on its own.
What the hell am I going to do with this guy. I kept the smile on my face as I led the way, turning that over in my head.
I absolutely had to find out what on earth he was thinking, taking a part-time job at the library where I worked.
***
Cha Jae-woo likes Japanese food, and I prefer Chinese. We weren’t exactly well-matched in tastes, to put it generously.
“Order whatever you want, Jae-woo. I’m paying.”
The restaurant I’d chosen today was a private-room Japanese place, about a ten-minute walk from the library.
As the private-room setup might suggest, it wasn’t a cheap spot. Cha Jae-woo seemed to feel the same, and tossed out a remark.
“Are you sure? This doesn’t look like somewhere you can afford on a librarian’s salary.”
“I’ll be fine. Eat well today and survive on the cafeteria for a while after.”
“……The library has a cafeteria?”
“Not exactly — the building next door has one for another company, but it’s cheap and decent.”
“Is the food good?”
“Taste is just okay, but in times like these with everything so expensive, cheap is something to be grateful for.”
Honestly, I thought the taste was not bad at all. Not that it compared to a proper restaurant, of course.
“……We could have just gone somewhere reasonable today.”
“We couldn’t.”
I reached for one of the small dishes set out before the main course arrived and added,
“A high school classmate became a coworker — that’s worth celebrating, isn’t it?”
Cha Jae-woo was quiet for a moment. Instead, he narrowed his eyes in a measuring way and fixed his gaze on me.
“……I heard you were twenty-eight — guess the sarcasm hasn’t changed.”
“If I was actually being sarcastic, I’d have shoved a fast food burger in your face.”
Right as I said that, a staff member came in and the food began arriving in earnest.
Being a course meal, the dishes came out one after another with time in between, which made it less than ideal for personal conversation. Cha Jae-woo seemed to think the same, and instead of forcing small talk, he quietly focused on eating.
Even I, who didn’t particularly like Japanese food, had to admit the quality was impressive.
“This is genuinely good. The kind of taste that’ll stick with you.”
I murmured that as I reached for the scallop sushi in front of me — and Cha Jae-woo slid the plate of sea urchin sushi toward my side. I stared at it blankly, wondering what he meant by that, and he pointed at the scallop sushi.
“You’re not that fond of scallop, are you.”
“Me?”
I tilted my head with a puzzled look. I didn’t like scallop? The texture wasn’t really my thing, but if it was in front of me I’d just eat it — I’d never thought that deeply about it.
Still, it was true that I preferred sea urchin over scallop, so I swapped without a word.
“I can’t write.”
It was when we reached the tamago sushi near the end.
Cha Jae-woo opened his mouth without any preamble.
“No beats, nothing — it’s all blank.”
The tamago sushi that had been melting softly in my mouth suddenly felt dry and gritty, like I was chewing sand.
“The stuff I’ve already written all sounds like garbage too.”
Cha Jae-woo seemed to feel the same, because he hadn’t touched his tamago sushi at all.
Now that I looked, the skin under his eyes was dark. He’d been losing sleep and putting himself through a lot, it seemed.
It made sense. As far as I knew, Cha Jae-woo had not gone through a single slump since debuting as a composer.
So for someone who clung to his career more fiercely than his own life, there could be no greater disaster than this.
“Turns out I don’t have any friends either. At twenty-eight.”
Cha Jae-woo looked at me with a hollow smile. Just as he said — not just twenty-year-old Cha Jae-woo, but twenty-eight-year-old Cha Jae-woo had no one he could truly call a friend except me.
Cha Jae-woo hadn’t been a particularly sociable person to begin with. On top of that, he’d spent all his time with me in the name of being my partner, so it was only natural that his already-narrow circle of people had shrunk even further.
There was no room to argue that point, so I stayed silent — and Cha Jae-woo leveled a resentful look at me.
“You’re the one who made me like this.”
“……And?”
“So it’s not fair that you’re the only one who’s fine.”
A hollow laugh escaped at his words. In the end, what he meant was — he couldn’t be the only one falling apart, so he was going to drag me down with him like a drowning man pulling someone under.
“Alright, Jae-woo.”
I nodded along obligingly. With just enough goodwill in my manner to suggest I’d hear him out, whatever he said.
It wasn’t that I’d suddenly rediscovered any lingering feelings for him. It was just that the moment Cha Jae-woo had signed on as a part-timer at my library, this had become a fight with the odds completely stacked against me.
Unlike Cha Jae-woo, who worked as a composer without ever revealing his face publicly, I was a librarian who worked in the open. If Cha Jae-woo were to expose the fact that we’d dated and then walk away, I might not be able to keep working there at all.
It felt like I was jumping to the worst-case scenario after eight years with the man — but in life, assuming the worst always softened the blow.
And when you factored in how obsessively Cha Jae-woo clung to his own career, and the fact that since debuting as a composer he’d turned down everything unrelated to his work without a second glance — my assumption wasn’t entirely extreme.
The man who used to refuse even related appearances because composing alone kept him busy enough — what would drive him to go so far as to sign up as a part-timer and show up at a library? It meant this was a matter of serious importance to Cha Jae-woo.
So I sat down at the negotiating table like he wanted and went along with it. The sensible move was to hear him out, keep things smooth, and find a clean way to settle things.
“So what do you want?”
Even though he had gone so far as to take a part-time job just to hear those words — Cha Jae-woo’s eyes were still full of wariness when I said them. He looked like a small child afraid of having the candy in his hand snatched away.
“……Three months.”
Cha Jae-woo had been hovering with his lips barely moving, unable to hide his anxiety — then quickly added,
“Just let me impose on you until then.”
Hearing that, I was hit with a sudden sense of déjà vu. It felt oddly familiar — I narrowed my eyes for a moment, and then a scene flashed through my mind out of nowhere.
This was exactly what past me had said when I planted myself in Cha Jae-woo’s place.
Before we started dating — back when I’d confessed to Cha Jae-woo once and been turned down — I had simply dumped my things at his apartment and settled in, citing how close it was to school.
Three months.
……
Just let me impose on you until the semester ends, Jae-woo.
After that, one thing led to another and we ended up living together for eight years. Cha Jae-woo probably wasn’t hoping for the same thing to happen — so this time it would genuinely end after three months.
This crazy bastard actually pulled that card.
Part of me wanted to refuse outright, of course. We’d already broken up — what sense did it make to live together again?
But I couldn’t easily get the words of refusal out. Because I couldn’t predict what Cha Jae-woo would do if I turned him down.
“……You let me stay at yours.”
Cha Jae-woo was watching me with anxious eyes as I sat in silence. Just as I was about to say something, he got there first.
“So you do the same for me, Ha Yun-su. Let me stay.”
It sounded almost like he was pleading with me, and something in me softened without meaning to.
He’d said he was going to make me regret it — and yet here he was, making it feel almost like I held all the cards in this relationship. When in reality, the moment Cha Jae-woo said even one wrong thing at the library, I was the one whose life would unravel.
In the end, I let out a sigh — and nodded.
“Fine. Okay.”
Honestly, it wasn’t an offer I could refuse. Now that Cha Jae-woo had gone so far as to show up at the library, the better option was to give him what he wanted and then quietly close things out on my own terms.
There was a set deadline of three months — so I just had to hold out that long.
Besides, Cha Jae-woo had said he had no memory of our eight years together — so as long as I didn’t let him get in my head, I’d be fine.
Thinking of it as going back to when we were just friends — it wasn’t completely undoable.
If three months from now Cha Jae-woo didn’t hold up his end, I’d have to be prepared to burn it all down — but that was a bridge to cross later.
If the deal with Cha Jae-woo collapsed and it came out publicly that I liked men, I would be the one with far more to lose.
But Cha Jae-woo wasn’t without things to lose either.
If he didn’t keep his promise three months from now — I intended to show him exactly what it looked like to have your life made miserable by someone with nothing left to lose.
“Come over with your things after your shift tomorrow. You’ve been to the place, so you know where it is, right?”
Cha Jae-woo’s part-time hours were mornings only.
I, on the other hand, had to stay until six or eight before I could leave. Just in case, I gave him the address along with the door code — then a question surfaced and I said it out loud.
“By the way, what are you going to do about your composition equipment? Space-wise, and the apartment isn’t soundproofed either.”
“I’ll do most of the work at the studio and just bring my laptop.”
I wasn’t sure if that was enough — but I knew nothing about composing, so I accepted it without comment. He was the expert — he’d figure it out.
All I needed to focus on was cooperating with Cha Jae-woo for three months, and then making a clean break.
