# Chapter 89
Tae Igyeol, who had left empty-handed, returned with his hands full.
“What did you buy so much of?”
Mo Eunje followed Tae Igyeol to the kitchen, examining the ingredients he had brought. Without even changing his clothes, Tae Igyeol took out the groceries one by one—cabbage, ground meat, onions, and more—and placed them on the sink.
“You said you wanted cabbage rolls.”
“Huh? I did? Ah…”
After a long session of Gye Minho bragging about his girlfriend yesterday, they had discussed taking a trip abroad together, the four of them, this year. Mo Eunje wasn’t sure who brought it up first, but it was probably Ban Hajun, who had been complaining that his days were long, boring, and tedious.
The last time the four of them had traveled abroad together was during the summer when they were twenty, backpacking through Europe for a month. After that, whenever Mo Eunje won local literary awards and went to receive them, they would coordinate their schedules and travel domestically together. Anyway, while reminiscing about those memories, Mo Eunje had mentioned that the cabbage rolls he ate during their European trip were delicious, but it was too difficult to find restaurants that sold them in Korea, and he wanted to eat them again.
That didn’t mean he wanted to eat them right away today, and it certainly didn’t mean he wanted Tae Igyeol to make them. When Tae Igyeol had made gumbo yesterday, Mo Eunje had been so touched and thought Tae Igyeol looked adorable, but now, in the same situation, his feelings had completely changed.
The cabbage rolls weren’t the issue. This was a symbolic event foreshadowing what was to come.
“By the way, Eunje. It seems like my unrequited love isn’t entirely hopeless.”
Apparently planning to cook right away, Tae Igyeol casually rolled up the sleeves of his seersucker shirt a couple of times and washed his hands. Compared to when he had left, Tae Igyeol’s mood seemed considerably better. Mo Eunje could only guess that it was because he had met with Cha Hyunwoo.
“How do you know there’s hope? Has there been any progress?”
As a friend, Mo Eunje should congratulate Tae Igyeol if there was hope for his long-held unrequited love, but surprisingly, his feelings were chaotic and unsettled. Before questioning whether the friendship he had thought was so great and special was actually shallow, he pushed away the confusion he had momentarily felt. There was no way he wouldn’t sincerely congratulate Tae Igyeol on his romance. He would celebrate more exuberantly than anyone else.
“How much should I tell you? Actually, it turns out,”
“Stop! No, I’m not curious. Don’t say it. I won’t listen. Tell me later, when things work out well.”
“…Even if I don’t tell you, you can’t not know.”
Tae Igyeol chuckled. Lost in his own thoughts, Mo Eunje barely heard what Tae Igyeol said afterward. He just wondered why Tae Igyeol was emphasizing it so much, as if he was going to show off when things worked out. With his heart in turmoil, Mo Eunje left the kitchen and sat at the dining table, watching as Tae Igyeol chopped onions and vegetables.
“Eunje.”
“Yeah?”
“What if… just what if.”
“Why are you building up suspense like this? It’s making me nervous.”
A strange anxiety gripped his ankles. Though Tae Igyeol was chopping, Mo Eunje strongly felt that he was deliberately avoiding eye contact as he spoke. Tae Igyeol seemed to be in a very good mood, but Mo Eunje couldn’t understand why he himself felt tense.
“I just had a plausible thought.”
“What kind of thought?”
“What if it had been you?”
Though it wasn’t a complete sentence, Mo Eunje immediately understood. Tae Igyeol’s unrequited love should be Cha Hyunwoo, but since yesterday—or more precisely, since Mo Eunje had fallen ill—he had begun to suspect otherwise. Though he tried to ignore it, once the doubt crept in, that thought had consumed his mind constantly—while eating, showering, and even before falling asleep.
“You said it wasn’t me.”
His tone and voice stiffened. It was practically the same as getting serious, but Tae Igyeol continued chopping, focusing on the knife as if nothing was wrong.
“That’s why I said it was just a thought.”
“You must have too much time on your hands. Why are you having such useless thoughts?”
“I suddenly became curious.”
“…Did Cha Hyunwoo say something nonsensical?”
Memories of the past made Mo Eunje deeply anxious. Though they weren’t as close as with Tae Igyeol, he had hung out with Cha Hyunwoo quite closely during their school days. Mo Eunje had never told anyone about his first love, but he recalled how Cha Hyunwoo had seemed to almost figure out who Mo Eunje’s unrequited love was. At that time, Mo Eunje hadn’t realized that Cha Hyunwoo was particularly perceptive and intuitive when it came to romance, so when Cha Hyunwoo had asked him to introduce a girlfriend, Mo Eunje had answered all his questions without thinking.
‘Hey, could it be that your first love was…’
‘Huh? Why?’
‘Never mind. Are you free this weekend? I’ll ask my girlfriend to bring a friend.’
At that moment, Cha Hyunwoo had briefly glanced at Tae Igyeol, who was entering through the back door of the classroom.
As if asking if Tae Igyeol was indeed Mo Eunje’s first love.
Of course, since he hadn’t said it explicitly, it could have been a misunderstanding, but the direction and timing of the glance had been too perfect to be a coincidence. Mo Eunje had worried for a while, thinking his secret had been discovered, and had consciously bragged a lot about his girlfriend.
But just as people have both strengths and weaknesses, while Cha Hyunwoo had the strengths of being persistent and diligent, he also had the weakness of being loose-lipped. It didn’t seem likely that he would have said something to Tae Igyeol based only on his guesswork without confirming it with Mo Eunje first, but as the saying goes, “You can know what’s ten fathoms underwater but not what’s in a person’s heart,” so Mo Eunje couldn’t be sure.
“Why? Did Cha Hyunwoo say something that he might?”
“No? Just… Since you met with Cha Hyunwoo, I was just asking.”
“…That’s strange.”
Tae Igyeol, having finished chopping, lifted his head and tilted it curiously. The gaze that met Mo Eunje’s was persistent, as if trying to penetrate something. Mo Eunje rested his elbows on the table and unconsciously fiddled with the circle pendant around his neck.
“What’s strange?”
“It sounds like Cha Hyunwoo knows something that I shouldn’t know.”
“Hey, there’s no such thing. How would Cha Hyunwoo know something you don’t know?”
Mo Eunje, feeling preemptively guilty, reacted strongly like a thief giving himself away, causing Tae Igyeol to narrow his eyes and smile. That suspicious smile, as if he knew something, made Mo Eunje’s heart sink momentarily.
Soon after, Tae Igyeol turned his gaze away and calmly placed a frying pan on the gas stove. He heated some oil, sautéed the ground meat, and then added the finely chopped vegetables and drained tofu to cook together. Each time he moved his arms, the muscles on his back and shoulder blades cast shadows. As Mo Eunje stupidly stared at his back, Tae Igyeol’s voice was heard again.
“So, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“If the person I liked was you.”
“Why do you keep bringing this up? Come on, just think about it sensibly. It doesn’t make sense. We’re not just the two of us—our parents are friends too. If we were to date and break up, it would be one thing. But affecting our parents’ relationship because of us would be the height of filial impiety, wouldn’t it?”
Though it was just an unnecessary hypothetical, his heart was pounding, making his response longer than needed. Mo Eunje’s intuition told him that this conversation had nothing to do with Cha Hyunwoo. He generally had good intuition, and based on experience, his hunches were rarely wrong. But this time, he hoped that his uneasy intuition was incorrect.
“Parents… So you’re saying that the fact that I’m a man doesn’t matter.”
“No, that’s not what I meant…”
“You.”
“Huh? What about me?”
“If you only think of yourself.”
Tae Igyeol turned his head and met Mo Eunje’s eyes. The threatening yet sensual gaze was unfamiliar. It was startling to realize that Tae Igyeol could look at him that way. Mo Eunje’s breathing became uncomfortable, as if something invisible was choking him.
“That doesn’t make sense either. In the worst case, it means losing everything.”
He firmly and resolutely drew the line. Mo Eunje couldn’t help but understand why Tae Igyeol kept bringing up this topic. The conversation had started with “what if” and continued as if it were just a “plausible thought,” but Mo Eunje wasn’t foolish enough to miss the purpose of this dialogue.
“I don’t know about that. I don’t think my mom and dad would be particularly opposed. They’re the ones who told me to make your family my in-laws.”
Only when Tae Igyeol turned his gaze back to the stove and returned to his normal tone did Mo Eunje silently exhale the breath he’d been holding without realizing it.
“That’s obviously a joke. But why are we having this completely useless conversation?”
“When have we ever had useful conversations?”
“Anyway, it doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t happen. From the start, we’re second-generation friends, and both families are practically like one family—an unusual, special relationship. What right do we have to break that?”
It was an indirect way of drawing a line. If Tae Igyeol was carefully and indirectly testing Mo Eunje’s feelings, then Mo Eunje had no choice but to carefully and indirectly draw a line. Until now, he had stubbornly refused to acknowledge it, forcibly inserting Cha Hyunwoo between them and making constant efforts, but it had all turned to bubbles.
He had come to know Tae Igyeol’s heart too clearly, but until Tae Igyeol said it outright, Mo Eunje would pretend not to know. No, Tae Igyeol shouldn’t say it. But inexplicable anger kept welling up, and suppressing it was becoming difficult.
You bastard.
After all the effort I put into letting go of my feelings, all the work to preserve our friendship…
“Sigh… Honestly, I don’t see what our parents have to do with it. It’s my life and my love.”
Tae Igyeol turned off the stove and turned to meet Mo Eunje’s eyes. The affectionate gaze, filled with desperate longing, looked painful. Mo Eunje didn’t avoid the direct stare.
“Even so, we can’t ignore it. They say no parent loses to their child, but no child who brandishes a knife at their parents is happy either. I can’t handle that guilt. I don’t have the confidence to bear it. I won’t bear it.”
“That’s why I don’t understand why there should be any guilt.”
“…I’m sorry, but let’s stop this conversation. I’m not feeling well, so I’ll just step out for a moment.”
He couldn’t sit there any longer. It wasn’t a lie—he really felt nauseous. Mo Eunje got up and went to the alpha room to get his wallet and phone. Then, before leaving through the front door, he stopped and looked at Tae Igyeol. He was still standing rigid, staring at Mo Eunje.
“Igyeol.”
“…”
“You know, I think if you have an unrequited love for too long, you might confuse it with habit.”
The pain clouding Tae Igyeol’s eyes proved that everything revealed under the pretense of “what if” was true. Mo Eunje’s heart raced urgently as if his breath was completely blocked, and he felt dizzy. After their conversation on the rooftop terrace under the half-moon, he had finally received an answer that it wasn’t him, which had allowed him to look away from it. But now he could no longer pretend not to know.
Perhaps, from the moment he had become aware of his first love, it was inevitable that they would end up like this someday.
