It was a typical bar alley. Various restaurants and bars lined both sides of the narrow alley where two cars could barely pass. In the alley sporadically lit by old streetlights, there were many drunk people. But Seunggeon was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn it.”
Chaehun frowned as he looked both ways down the alley with a feeling of dismay. There was no way to find the guy who had disappeared so quickly.
The wind blew again. Only then feeling the cold, Chaehun put on his padded jacket. And instead of returning to the restaurant, he found a reasonably secluded spot and let out a long sigh.
“Haah.”
Chaehun pressed his dizzy head firmly with his hand. His head wasn’t working properly. It was because he’d drunk a lot. He hadn’t noticed while sitting down, but as soon as he moved a little, the alcohol hit him hard.
He felt strange. He’d had so much to say if he met Seunggeon, but he never imagined they’d part again like this without doing anything. He didn’t want to just pass it off as bad luck.
Maybe the student council president knew Seunggeon’s contact information. However, asking him for Seunggeon’s contact information… hurt his pride. After that big incident, the guy who called himself a friend hadn’t contacted him even once, and now after meeting again after ten years, he disappeared without even a greeting. What that meant was obvious.
“That bastard…”
Chaehun held back the curse that was about to come out, put a cigarette in his mouth, and lit it. Should he just go home like this, or should he brazenly ask the student council president for Seunggeon’s contact information? As he was hesitating, the phone inside his padded jacket vibrated.
A message came from an unknown number. Given the nature of his work, he had to check messages from unknown numbers even on weekends. When he pressed to check it, a flashily designed online wedding invitation appeared.
Thinking it might be a wedding for an important business contact, Chaehun scrolled down to check the groom and bride’s names and their respective parents’ names, then suddenly scrunched up his face. His ex-boyfriend’s name was written as the groom.
“Crazy.”
As soon as he confirmed the name, a curse burst out. He never thought he’d experience the story of an ex sending a wedding invitation.
Two and a half years ago, it was the guy who had been caught two-timing and still brazenly acted like it was because Chaehun had made him lonely. And then, just a few months later, he’d contacted him asking if he was still single.
He’d blocked the number and ended it, but he never expected a wedding invitation to come flying in like this. Most likely, he’d sent out invitations to all the numbers listed in his college classmate directory without even checking properly.
Chaehun sighed. Today of all days, connections from the past came rushing in. He tried to console himself that these kinds of days happen, but he still couldn’t help feeling bitter and pissed off.
If he’d had a lover he was dating because they liked each other at a time like this, he might have been able to laugh it off. But after breaking up with that damned bastard two and a half years ago, he’d been single until now.
It sounds like an excuse, but if he had to be specific, it wasn’t that he couldn’t date—he didn’t. He’d been too busy after getting a job. His picky taste was also a reason. Handsome men who didn’t talk much and had an aura weren’t common.
As Chaehun was contemplating his ex-boyfriend and his own preferences, he suddenly thought of Seunggeon. Seunggeon was also a handsome man who didn’t talk much and had an aura. He suddenly suspected that his preferences might have originated from Seunggeon. No, it wasn’t a suspicion—it definitely was.
As he thought about Seunggeon like that, Chaehun worried again about what to do. Actually, there were quite a few things he wanted to ask Seunggeon.
About ten years ago, after losing consciousness following the accident, he woke up again a day later. His head had been split open, and with mild concussion symptoms, he was hospitalized for one more day before being discharged. He was curious about Seunggeon’s condition, but he’d only barely heard from a nurse that the place where he’d been stabbed was bad and he’d had surgery.
He tried his best to find out whether the kidnapper had been caught and whether Seunggeon had woken up. But there wasn’t a single internet article. He met with the police once to explain the incident, but they said they couldn’t tell him about Seunggeon’s condition. From the day he woke up, he tried to contact Seunggeon’s number, but it was turned off. And not long after the accident, Seunggeon’s number disappeared entirely.
His father said the adults would talk about it and didn’t tell him the details. He only said that Seunggeon was the grandson of the chairman of Taehwa Group and that there were various family issues.
Taehwa Group was one of the top conglomerates in South Korea, and the fact that Seunggeon was the grandson of Taehwa Group’s chairman was surprising. It made him curious why someone who could be called a gold spoon was living alone and attending an ordinary humanities high school.
But because the college entrance exam was right around the corner, Chaehun couldn’t just focus on Seunggeon. And that was the same even after taking the exam.
On the day of the exam, his condition hit rock bottom and he completely messed up the third and fourth periods. For Chaehun, who had been preparing to enter the National Police University, it was like a bolt from the blue. His father’s disappointment was particularly severe.
Chaehun’s father didn’t particularly get angry or curse at him. But with one click of his tongue, he showed that he had no more expectations. His father said he wouldn’t let him retake the exam, and to just enter any university. In the end, he set his course toward health administration, where his father’s friend was a professor. The reason was that it had good job prospects.
While he was failing the entrance exam and feeling frustrated, he occasionally thought of Seunggeon. Contact didn’t work, but he believed he’d be able to meet him at graduation.
Contrary to his expectations, Seunggeon didn’t show up at graduation, and that’s how his first love and one-sided crush ended.
Chaehun had thought he and Seunggeon were close. He’d expected that there might be contact asking if he was okay since there had been such a big accident. Chaehun held onto a thread of hope and didn’t change his phone number for several years.
Then when he heard through the grapevine that the guy was in America, he resented him for a while. He was disappointed on his own, wondering if it was so hard to say one word that he was safe, then let go of his lingering feelings and forgot about it.
Life was busy, so whenever he saw news about the college entrance exam, he thought of him once in a while, but that was all. Now he just thought of it as a first love that ended strangely. Still, now that he’d actually seen him once, he felt unsettled.
“Ugh.”
Chaehun let out another big sigh. He was aware that he was drunk. He didn’t have much of a drinking habit, but like most people, he gained courage from the power of alcohol.
Even now, he wanted to find the student council president and tell him to hand over Seunggeon’s contact information. And he seriously considered contacting Seunggeon to tell him that wasn’t cool of him, humanly speaking, then repeatedly held himself back.
It seemed better to just go home before he caused trouble.
Chaehun checked the time and stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray that happened to be there. It was the perfect time to slip away.
“You smoke?”
At the unexpected voice, Chaehun slowly turned to the side. The small alley between buildings wasn’t too dark thanks to the sign lights across the way and the streetlights. So it was easy to recognize who had spoken.
Seunggeon was standing there. Chaehun briefly drew in his breath. He was so surprised by his appearance that his heart felt like it would leap out, but he still tried to act calm.
“Yeah. You?”
“I don’t smoke.”
Instead of saying hello or long time no see, an odd comment came out. A matter-of-fact answer came back to his meaningless question.
Chaehun was slightly tense. Just a moment ago, he’d definitely thought Seunggeon was similar to his high school days. But now that he was facing him up close, something was different. It seemed to be because his slicked-back hair and the flawlessly worn suit and coat were unfamiliar.
It felt like he was facing a stranger he was meeting for the first time, not an old friend he was seeing after a long time.
“I thought you’d left.”
“I got a call, so I came out for a bit.”
He asked in a dazed state, but Seunggeon answered so easily that it became embarrassing. He’d gone out to take a phone call.
To hide the awkwardness, Chaehun started with a greeting.
“It’s really been a long time. Are you okay from the injury? It’s old news, but I only knew you had surgery. Oh, I heard you were in America. You look healthy now, so I was curious. Ah… My words are getting tangled. Anyway, I was worried. I’m glad.”
Alcohol really was the problem. His tipsy head made him speak without thinking. Chaehun held back the urge to bite his tongue and hurriedly tried to recover.
Still, the words saying he was glad were sincere. He could still vividly see the school uniform shirt covered in blood after being stabbed.
Chaehun thought he’d given a decent greeting. But Seunggeon’s reaction was unexpected. He closed his mouth and didn’t say anything. His already rigid face looked even more hardened in the darkness. Burdened by the silence, Chaehun lightly cleared his throat.
“Ahem. I’ll get going first.”
If there was no response, it was right to part ways quickly. Before making a mistake.
“You liked me, didn’t you?”
At the completely unexpected question, Chaehun, who had just been about to take a step, froze in place and looked at Seunggeon. It was the same question as ten years ago.
“You asked that back then too.”
“Did I?”
“Don’t you remember? I said I liked you. If I didn’t like you, we couldn’t have been friends. Right?”
Chaehun gave the same answer as back then. Having aged, he could act more composed. Asking for agreement about whether that wasn’t right was indeed the leisure that came with experience.
“Not that.”
“…?”
