Our cohabitation — neither as lovers nor as friends — went more smoothly than expected. At first, the thought of living with Cha Jae-woo, who had once been my lover, was honestly daunting.
It wasn’t like we’d dated briefly — we’d been together for eight years. I kept wondering whether this was even the right thing to do. This wasn’t America, and I was a through-and-through Korean who had never so much as dipped a toe in foreign waters.
Even the slightest accidental touch would get to me, and I’d feel so self-conscious about him that I couldn’t even dress comfortably after getting out of the shower.
The turning point — when I finally started to feel somewhat at ease around Cha Jae-woo — came after we visited the manhwa café together.
Reliving the memories of when Cha Jae-woo and I were just friends brought back how I used to treat him, and I got a feel for it again.
Thanks to that, I adapted to living with Cha Jae-woo far faster than my early worries would have suggested.
In truth, aside from having quite the personality, Cha Jae-woo wasn’t a particularly difficult person to live with.
Whether it was because he made his living as an artist or simply because of his nature, it was true that Cha Jae-woo had his fussy and particular side.
Cha Jae-woo had a slight obsession with cleanliness, and he was extremely averse to sharing food with others. He would never touch snacks that were opened for everyone to share, or popcorn passed around at the cinema.
Cooking was the same. He rarely ate food made by someone else. For the same reason, he preferred not to eat out, and even at home, he liked to cook for himself.
Not being able to eat out often was a bit of a shame, but delivery services were so convenient these days that it wasn’t a real problem. If I wanted something, I could just order it for myself.
In fact, Cha Jae-woo’s cooking was so exceptionally good that he’d usually make just about anything at home. And since I wasn’t the type to think I absolutely have to eat this today, I generally just ate whatever Cha Jae-woo put in front of me.
“Ah, I’m exhausted. What’s for dinner tonight?”
I’d been on the go all day, and by the time I got home, I was completely drained. I sank onto the sofa and asked right away, desperate to eat something, shower, and sleep — and I got an unexpected answer.
“Jjajangmyeon.”
“Jjajangmyeon?”
“……And eggplant rice.”
“Wow, what’s the occasion?”
I forgot all about being tired and sprang to my feet, saying I’d go wash up quickly. Chinese-style dishes at home aren’t easy to pull off — they use a lot of oil, and the heat control is critical.
I’d always ordered Chinese food when I wanted it too, and one of the reasons was that Cha Jae-woo didn’t like making it. He said the heavy oil use made cleanup a pain, and it was hard to get the quality to a satisfying level.
Since Cha Jae-woo handled the cooking, dishes and cleanup were my responsibility. Even so, he never quite trusted me with it and had basically eliminated Chinese food from the dinner rotation.
As a result, in the eight years we were together, I could count on one hand the number of times we’d made Chinese food at home.
“That was genuinely so good. It was delicious.”
I patted my full stomach and insisted I’d handle the dishes and cleanup — but Cha Jae-woo told me to forget it and shoved me into the bathroom to go wash up first.
In the end, I left the dishes and cleanup to Cha Jae-woo, and the moment I stepped out of the shower, I opened the delivery app.
“Dessert’s on this hyung.”
Naturally, Cha Jae-woo wasn’t a fan of delivery food either — but when I pointed out that didn’t he feel like something cold and refreshing after eating Chinese food, he seemed to quietly agree.
In the end, we ordered a bingsu piled high with mango and shared it between us.
Cha Jae-woo didn’t care much for desserts in general, but bingsu and ice cream were things he’d actually eat. Even today, he wore a vaguely indifferent expression while diligently spooning up the bingsu, and I swallowed a quiet laugh.
After dinner and then dessert like this, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
If I hadn’t been greedy for the role of Cha Jae-woo’s lover — would we still be the closest of friends right now?
There was no way to know the answer, but at least one thing was certain. The life we had right now wasn’t so bad.
For me and for Cha Jae-woo alike.
***
Maybe because it was a Friday, the library was relatively quiet with fewer visitors than usual. Deputy Ye-jin was out on a morning work trip, which left just the two of us — Cha Jae-woo and me.
“How do I handle this one?”
“That’s a reserved book, so write the reserver’s name and date on it and sort it alphabetically with the other holds.”
Because of that, neither of us was using formal speech with the other, the same as always. With just the two of us left, speaking formally to each other would have felt oddly stiff.
We did need to keep work and personal separate, so it couldn’t always be like this — but when there was no one around watching, like now, it seemed fine.
Just then, I heard footsteps nearby and immediately turned to look in that direction. As expected, a woman approached the desk and spoke up.
“Um, excuse me.”
“Yes. Hello, how can I help you?”
I immediately arranged my face into a smooth smile. Cha Jae-woo, watching from nearby, muttered something about me being a total fake — but I ignored it. Fake or not, this was my job.
“I’d like to return this, and borrow this one.”
“Could I see your library card?”
The woman had been hesitating, but once I took the books she was holding and placed them on the scanner pad, she seemed to relax a little.
Most people these days used the self-checkout machines, so visitors coming to the desk to borrow or return books weren’t very common.
Though lately it seemed like more and more people were skipping the self-checkout and coming to the desk instead — or maybe that was just my imagination?
“Um, and also……”
The woman, who had just tucked the book she’d borrowed into her bag, handed me a small slip of paper. Thinking she might want help finding a book, I looked at it carefully — and found a phone number written on it.
I looked up with a puzzled expression, and the woman, cheeks faintly flushed, continued in a careful tone.
“I’ve noticed you for a while now……. If you don’t have a girlfriend, please reach out.”
And before I could say a word, she gave a quick bow and darted away.
You’re not supposed to run in a library. But I wasn’t so lacking in social awareness that I’d say that to someone who had just given me her number, so I kept my mouth shut.
After some deliberation, I tucked the slip of paper into my pocket. Throwing it away on the spot wouldn’t be the most courteous thing to do.
After that, I sorted the book the woman had returned — dividing it between books from other libraries and books from ours.
“Oh right, this one needs to be processed and sent too. It’s not from our library, so——”
“Why are people flirting in a library?”
I was in the middle of explaining the newly returned book when Cha Jae-woo cut me off.
“If you’re at a library, you should be reading books.”
Cha Jae-woo’s tone was oddly sharp. The words came out sounding like criticism directed at the visitor who’d just given me her number, and I responded with a nonchalant air.
“Hmm, well — if you’ve come to the library, why not read a book and catch feelings while you’re at it? Two birds, one stone.”
“……What?”
I caught Cha Jae-woo’s eyes wavering and gave him a light nudge with my elbow.
“Hey, are you jealous that your hyung seems to be more popular than you?”
Before Cha Jae-woo and I had started dating, he hadn’t liked it whenever someone got my number or gave me theirs. He seemed to think that if I got a significant other, he’d naturally get pushed down my priority list.
He probably felt something similar now. Knowing that, I deliberately put on a playful air and made a flower-cupping gesture with both hands framing my face.
“I’ve been overshadowed by Kwon Tae-gyeong and you this whole time — but I’m actually not so bad looking, you know?”
“……What are you on about, you ugly thing.”
Cha Jae-woo said it and then immediately flinched. I hadn’t thought much of it, but Cha Jae-woo bit his lip for no reason and started glancing at me sideways. I shrugged and pointed to the box of books.
“Yeah, yeah. Mr. Handsome Cha Jae-woo, please go sort the inter-library books.”
If I had been twenty years old, I would have gotten genuinely riled up by that comment and we’d have had a proper fight. But maybe because I was eight years older than that now — I didn’t feel like going down that road anymore.
Cha Jae-woo also seemed to have no desire to escalate things, and he quietly turned his focus back to work. Even accounting for that, he was notably quieter than usual — but I didn’t bother prodding him.
Looking back on what kind of person twenty-year-old Cha Jae-woo had been might give me some answers — but honestly, I had no idea what he was thinking, then or now.
If I couldn’t even read Cha Jae-woo after eight years of dating, there was no way I’d understand him before we started going out. All I wanted was to maintain a relationship like this — comfortable, manageable — and eventually go our separate ways.
Yeah. That was all.
***
That evening, it was Japanese food. It was mostly a menu Cha Jae-woo was particularly confident in, but today he seemed to be off his game — the seasoning was slightly off across the board.
Of course, I ate it happily, but Cha Jae-woo had dinner with a dissatisfied expression and then announced he was too tired to deal with cleanup today. He left the dishes and tidying to me and retreated to his room.
Since it had always weighed on me that Cha Jae-woo handled not just the cooking but the dishes and cleanup as well, this was a welcome turn of events.
I cleaned the kitchen as if doing a deep clean, scrubbing and tidying everything down to the last corner.
Then, just as I was about to go wash up — in the middle of taking off my clothes to toss into the washing machine, I was rifling through my pockets when I stopped.
“I could’ve sworn I put it in here.”
The slip of paper with the phone number the visitor had given me earlier was gone.
“Did I drop it on the way home?”
Just in case, I dug through every pocket of my outerwear and rummaged through my bag — but the note was nowhere to be found.
It was unsettling to have lost something containing another person’s personal information, but there was nothing I could do about it now. All I could hope for was that it hadn’t fallen into the wrong hands and been misused.
