‘Cha Hyunwoo likes Jeong Yiyeon.’
From back when they were childhood friends, all the way to now. Always.
It was a perfectly truthful statement.
One that only Jeong Yiyeon didn’t know.
* * *
Bzzz-.
At a PC bang, where one’s attention should be wholly consumed by the game and nowhere near a phone, Cha Hyunwoo didn’t miss even the faintest vibration.
‘Is it Yiyeon?’
He stopped mid-game and immediately picked up his phone. His friends’ complaints rang out around him, but he didn’t care. The reason he’d dragged himself here in the first place was entirely because of Jeong Yiyeon.
With the new semester just around the corner, Yiyeon had made plans with friends, saying he didn’t want to waste the remaining time. That was why Cha Hyunwoo had pushed past his reluctance and planted himself in this seat.
The problem was that the reason he was even here was currently nowhere beside him.
Yiyeon had promised to come the moment his part-time shift ended, but he still hadn’t shown, and Hyunwoo had been quietly worrying about it. He wiped away his boredom in an instant and checked the messages.
[Jeong Yiyeon] Oh my god!
[Jeong Yiyeon] Me!!!
[Jeong Yiyeon] Going on a date!!!
[Jeong Yiyeon] With Suha hyung!!!!!
Just reading the messages without even being on a call made them feel deafeningly loud, and his expression crumpled all at once. Maybe the content was the problem. His hand moved quickly on its own.
[Me] What are you talking about? Did you forget we all agreed to game together since your date fell through?
There was no time to brace himself — the replies came tumbling in fast. The eyes reading down the screen gradually darkened and sank.
[Jeong Yiyeon] Hyung suddenly said he wanted to meet up!! Could this be some kind of surprise event for me??
[Jeong Yiyeon] …So about that
[Jeong Yiyeon] Cha Hyunwoo!!!
[Jeong Yiyeon] Please just let me off the hook this once ㅠ You know how long it’s been since I last saw Suha hyung ㅠㅜㅠ
The hand gripping the phone tightened.
[Jeong Yiyeon] My dear Hyunwoo ㅜㅠ Just this once ㅠ I’ll treat you to something good!!
Like a trap snapping shut, his gaze caught on the words my dear Hyunwoo.
He knew full well it was just something Yiyeon said out of habit, yet he couldn’t seem to read past that line. Not waiting for his restless heart to settle, the messages kept coming.
[Jeong Yiyeon] I’ll get you something really really good next time! And please explain things to the others for me ㅠ
[Jeong Yiyeon] I’m counting on you, my roomie ㅠㅜ Even if you’re lonely, even if you’re sad, don’t wait up tonight. Hyung’s gonna be late.
…Hyung, he says. We’re the same age, and he’s so much shorter and smaller than me.
Swallowing a quiet sigh, he typed out a reply at a sluggish pace. It’s supposed to rain this afternoon. Bring an umbrella. And don’t get so worked up that you trip again….
“Ha….”
The breath he’d been holding finally broke free. He raked a hand irritably through his hair and deleted every word he’d written.
[Me] Got it.
He sent just that one line and set the phone down. His friends immediately piped up noisily, asking what happened.
“Yiyeon says he has plans and can’t make it.”
The grumbling around him erupted, but it barely reached Cha Hyunwoo’s ears.
The game started up again. His friends quietly shut their mouths in the face of Cha Hyunwoo’s ferocious energy — his aggression notably sharper than before.
And so, time passed.
He was still wearing the same fierce expression, pressing on through the game, when the vibration sounded again.
[Jeong Yiyeon]
The name on the screen gave him pause for only a moment — Cha Hyunwoo couldn’t leave a message from Yiyeon unanswered. Helpless as he was, a small flicker of anticipation even stirred in him.
“Why did you call?”
He asked the moment he picked up, but for some reason, the other end of the line was silent.
“…Yiyeon?”
Even after calling his name carefully, there was no answer — and then it reached his ear. A small, frail, thin little breath. As if someone was crying.
— …Hh-hk.
His chest lurched in an instant. It felt constricted, as though someone had seized his heart in a firm grip.
“Are you crying right now?”
— Hk… Hyunwoo, what do I do….
Through the wet, trembling voice, the sound of heavy rain came cutting in loudly. Anxiety flooded him all at once.
“What happened?”
— Suha hyung… I think he sent the message to the wrong person….
“What do you mean.”
How could someone accidentally send a message asking to go on a date to the wrong person? That question dissolved in an instant. Because of the sound of Yiyeon’s voice — like his whole world had crumbled.
— Hyung… he’s with someone else, what do I do….
The fierce sound of rain continued to drum into his ear, and then a small cough broke through. His thoughts cut off entirely. Biting down a curse, he shoved back his chair and stood up.
“Where are you right now?”
Cha Hyunwoo’s world was about to fall apart.
* * *
They said it would rain today, didn’t they. Water dripped steadily from my soaked hair.
I stood dazed in the middle of the street, staring at the hotel building. More precisely — at my own pathetic reflection in the floor-to-ceiling glass.
I couldn’t tell if what was running down my cheeks was tears or rainwater.
The phone screen clutched tight in my hand showed a single message, starkly clear.
[Suha hyung ♥] Meet today. 5 PM. R Hotel, Room 207.
That one message from Lim Suha was the beginning of my misfortune.
When I finished my shift and checked it, there was so little time left that I rushed into a taxi without a second thought. There was no room to find it strange that the meeting place was so obviously different from usual.
I could see my part-time pay shrinking in real time from the taxi fare, but I didn’t care. I’d started the job to buy him a gift, anyway. When I let myself imagine actually giving it to him someday, my mood lifted.
Unable to contain that giddy feeling, I tried calling Lim Suha several times, but he didn’t pick up. So I’d thought maybe he was setting up some kind of event for me. Foolishly.
We hadn’t been able to see each other much because Suha had been so busy lately. The thought of finally seeing his face after so long made my heart flutter the entire way there.
I arrived just in the nick of time and ran straight into the hotel. Being late and having him resent me for it was the last thing I wanted.
Only once I stepped into the hotel lobby did I breathe easy. Should I head straight up to the room, or try calling again? My heart was pounding hard from running in such a rush.
Let me check how I look first. As if to soothe the restless urgency welling up inside me, I opened the camera app to check my face. It wasn’t in selfie mode, so instead of my face, the hotel lobby’s interior filled the screen.
And that’s when I saw him. A very familiar face.
The person I had loved unrequitedly for so long — the person I still love deeply, even now that we’re together.
It was Lim Suha.
‘But why… why is he with someone else, and not me.’
My trembling hand moved on its own. My shaking fingers, as if possessed, pressed the record button.
[00:00:01]
One second, two seconds, three seconds…. Time stacked up slowly. My heart beat painfully in time with it.
I bit down hard on my lip, squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them — and two people pressed together like one body filled the screen.
Lim Suha’s arm was wrapped around the other person’s waist, and it didn’t look the least bit out of place. It looked natural, familiar — like a long-established couple. Even more so than me, his actual partner.
The two of them, every bit like lovers, walked up to the elevator. Suha’s gaze poured entirely, unceasingly onto the person at his side.
The doors opened and they stepped in together. At the same moment, as if he couldn’t hold back any longer, Lim Suha pressed his lips to theirs. The elevator doors weren’t even fully closed yet. The kiss persisted tenaciously until the doors finally shut.
Thud.
My hand dropped, limp.
‘That person is probably an omega. Unlike me….’
The gaze that had been fixed on the elevator fell to my feet.
‘He’s never once done that for me….’
Far from any deep physical affection — he’d hardly ever even held my hand the way a tender lover would. Lim Suha was a busy person.
From when I first entered university until now. Through the year-plus we’d been together, Lim Suha had been buried under schoolwork and his father’s company business. We were clearly in a relationship, but even seeing each other’s faces was a rare thing. Still, I could understand it all.
Because he was someone I had loved unrequitedly all through my school years. We’d crossed paths again when I entered university, and when I became his partner, I was truly happy — like I had the whole world in my hands.
…It was only today that I finally understood.
Lim Suha had only been busy for me.
And so I fled from the hotel as if running away. But I stood in front of the building like a person who had nowhere to go, unable to move a single step.
Not knowing at all what I was supposed to do, I must have called Cha Hyunwoo on impulse. Or maybe not. Everything that had just happened was all tangled up and jumbled in my head.
My head feels cold. I must have gotten too soaked from the rain. I needed to move, but my legs wouldn’t listen to me at all.
On the phone screen still clutched in my hand, Suha’s message remained.
[Suha hyung ♥] Meet today. 5 PM. R Hotel, Room 207.
Raindrops spattered across the screen and the words blurred. Or maybe it was my vision, blurred with tears.
How frantic must he have been for him to still not even realize he’d sent it to the wrong person. And yet the two of them had met just fine anyway. Which meant after that, they must have kept contacting each other.
‘While ignoring every call from me….’
Had my messages always been something Lim Suha could afford to leave on read?
[Me] You sent that to the wrong person, hyung.
The reply I’d sent him a little while ago still showed as unread. With trembling hands I tried calling again, but he didn’t pick up.
He was probably in that room upstairs right now, the two of them….
I pressed my lips tightly together. Drops of water slid down from my rain-soaked hair and wet my face.
“…Hh-euk.”
A hot, sob-laced breath slipped out through my teeth. Standing in the rain, I moved my hands slowly. I don’t know why it’s this hard to finish a sentence that’s only a few words long.
Drenched endlessly in the rain, I left what would forever be my last reply.
[Me] (Video)
[Me] Hyung, let’s break up.
At the same moment, every message I’d sent changed to read.
But somehow, it no longer felt like it mattered much, so I turned my phone off just like that.
Today, my world had completely fallen apart.
