Huiwon’s face crumpled even more than before.
“I don’t go.”
He shot back, clipped and sharp, then dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. Hyeonho studied Huiwon sitting across from him again.
On the occasions he’d stopped by the café, Huiwon moved faster and sharper than anyone, and that day at the precinct, curled in on himself, blinking back tears he refused to let fall — Hyeonho had taken him for a diligent student with a bit of an edge. And yet, as it turned out, Huiwon was what people called silver-spoon-born. Not that being silver-spoon-born automatically made someone lazy — but it didn’t fit the image of Huiwon he’d built in his head.
An image I put together on my own. Huiwon hadn’t lied to him, and being born into money didn’t make the humiliating things said to him that day any more justified. Hyeonho shook his head and scratched the back of his neck.
“Right……. These days it’s not like a degree matters as much, and I’ve heard a lot of parents tell their kids to use the tuition money on something they actually want to do…….”
“……And I suppose your parents paid every last won of your tuition and told you to become a police officer?”
Huiwon tilted his head and turned the question back on him.
Hyeonho had a vague sense he’d walked into the wrong topic, but he nodded at Huiwon’s question first.
“Well……. I just……. Both my parents are elementary school teachers. So naturally my older sister went to a teaching university……. I didn’t feel confident I could be a teacher, so I went back and forth on a lot of things, and then my father suggested maybe the police force — and once I actually tried it, it turned out to be exactly what I’m made for.”
“…….”
Quite a dull thing to hear if you were born with a silver spoon. In the end it amounted to saying a child of civil servants became a civil servant himself. Hyeonho laughed it off with an awkward smile and was about to change the subject when he noticed the expression on Huiwon’s face across from him — it wasn’t ordinary.
“……You’ve had such a smooth life, and yet you go on about the taste of adulthood or whatever…….”
Before Hyeonho could fully register what Huiwon had said, Huiwon reached for the shot glass he’d pushed aside, filled it to the brim with soju, knocked it back in one go, and set the glass down on the table with a sharp thud.
“This tastes like absolute shit.”
Huiwon shot up from his seat. The plastic chair scraped loudly as it dragged back. He threw one cold look down at Hyeonho, who still hadn’t caught up with what was happening, then turned away.
“I’m leaving.”
I knew this place was no good from the moment we walked in. Delicious food, my ass. Huiwon walked out of the pojangmacha in long, purposeful strides.
The weather was mild, and everyone around looked like they were having a good time. For no reason at all, he felt like he’d been dropped alone onto a deserted island.
What a mess.
Huiwon pressed his lips together and breathed out his irritation.
“God, I just can’t get this into my head.”
Donghyeok, who had been pulling out a palm-sized folded sheet of A4 paper whenever he had a free moment, scratched his head furiously. For someone who acted like dating mattered more than exams, even he apparently couldn’t afford to neglect them. On top of that, both Donghyeok and Hyoseong attended well-regarded universities nearby.
True to midterm season, most of the customers filling Tesoro had laptops or thick textbooks out and were studying.
“What did the professor do wrong — it’s your own thick skull that’s the problem.”
“You say that like you’re so confident.”
“Yeah right……. Am I confident? I’m heading to the main library after my shift — you coming?”
Huiwon watched them bicker for a moment, then slipped into the workroom. He rolled up his sleeves and baked a simple batch of biscotti with basic ingredients. He’d heard somewhere that nuts were good for brain function, so he put in more than the usual amount.
Lately, most of what the part-timers talked about was midterms — commiserating over professors’ quirks, old exam papers that had been passed around, which spots in the library were still open. Naturally, Huiwon couldn’t relate to any of it.
Once, when Huiwon had asked why they didn’t do tutoring jobs instead — given they went to decent schools — both of them had given him roughly the same answer. They had tutored in their first year, but in their last semester before military service, they’d wanted to try something they’d always been curious about: coffee and cakes, as a hobby and an experience.
Huiwon stood in front of the oven, watching the biscotti slowly bake, his mind going blank. Standing there in front of the oven radiating heat, he suddenly thought of the days he’d thrown everything he had into learning cakes under Dogyeong. How anxious he’d been, standing in front of an oven just like this, waiting for what came out. Out of habit he’d been chewing his nails — and Dogyeong had firmly put a stop to even that.
“These days it’s not like a degree matters as much, and I’ve heard a lot of parents tell their kids to use the tuition money on something they actually want to do.”
Right. Plenty of people choose not to go to university, and in this day and age when even graduates struggle with jobs and student loans, how fortunate a case am I. Huiwon tried to lift his own mood by force.
Still — there was a difference between not going to school for different reasons and wanting to go but not being able to. Huiwon had wanted to study. He’d liked going to school in high school too. Until he’d dropped out. His grades hadn’t been particularly good, but during the hours he was at school, things felt fair. Same uniform on everyone’s backs, same textbook open at the same time, same cafeteria menu to eat……
Huiwon took the biscotti out of the oven once it had baked through, set it on a cooling rack, and went to sit in a quiet corner for a short rest. He found himself projecting onto the part-timers. Going to university, starting a relationship when the cherry blossoms fell just like now, grumbling about midterms with friends, working through assignments……
Then again, being gay makes dating hard enough, and with a personality like mine I probably wouldn’t have had friends. Actually, I wouldn’t have had the money for university to begin with. Either way, where I am now suits me just fine. Huiwon laughed quietly at himself.
[Why haven’t you been eating lately?]
A brief buzz from inside his pocket — he pulled out his phone to find a message waiting. It was Kang Hyeonho. Since that night at the pojangmacha, a full week had passed, and Hyeonho had sent a message every single day.
[Did you get home safe]
[Why are you mad]
[Habit’s a scary thing. I ordered a lot without thinking and had a ton of food left over because you weren’t there]
[Aren’t you hungry?]
A string of one-sided messages from Hyeonho had piled up. Technically he hadn’t done anything wrong — but in the short time they’d known each other, he had an uncanny knack for poking right at the parts of himself Huiwon most wanted to hide. Being pried open like that every time made him raise his guard defensively each time it happened.
Huiwon ignored Hyeonho’s most recent message too. If uncomfortable situations like this were going to keep happening, it was better not to see him at all. The promise Hyeonho had made — to buy him ten meals — was one that had never really needed to be kept in the first place.
Huiwon cut the cooled biscotti into bite-sized pieces and put them back in the oven to dry out completely. Once done, he divided them into paper wrappers.
Right as the morning shift was ending, he held out a bag each to Hyoseong and Donghyeok.
“Here — eat these while you study. I heard you say you were going to the library.”
“Whoa, seriously?”
“Did you make these yourself?”
Hyoseong said she absolutely had to try one right now and already had one in her mouth. Huiwon let the corner of his mouth turn upward and added softly that they should study hard.
Huiwon set aside portions for the afternoon part-timers from the generous batch he’d baked, then handed out what remained to the customers in the shop as samples. With his best customer-service smile.
“So you’ve been looking at me like that this whole time. For two whole years!”
A face now too blurred to fully remember glared at Huiwon with cold ferocity. So much packed into that brief meeting of eyes — rage, resentment, contempt……. In front of him, Huiwon curled his shoulders inward and dropped his gaze to the floor. A pair of worn, dirty sneakers came into view. They were ragged — just like him.
The cold stare of someone you loved was truly something beyond bearing. He could have bitten through his tongue and died right there if he could.
Say something, you piece of shit.
He shoved at Huiwon’s shoulder with no response coming. At first it was slow, almost careless — but the shoving got harder. Huiwon stumbled back with each push, helpless, until there was nowhere left to go and the hard surface of a concrete wall pressed against his back.
The roughness of the wall bit into his back, but the pain of that was nothing next to the agony of facing him like this — the person he’d quietly loved for two years — and knowing this was how it ended. Why did I have to be so stupid as to get caught.
If you ever acknowledge me again, you’re dead. Understand? Fuck you.
Pteh. He spat directly onto Huiwon’s face.
Why did I have to go and fall for you. Was it because you used to slip me medicine when I came to school having been beaten by my father and just lay there with my head down? Or because you took me — barely eating properly — and dragged me to the snack place nearby to fill my empty stomach? Because you called me your friend and made me feel like I belonged somewhere?
Huiwon watched until the very end — his back as he cursed under his breath and disappeared. From second year of middle school all the way to now, the start of first year of high school — the moment ended what had been carefully packaged as a friendship.
