Behind the hotel, a walking path had been created. Seongjo, noticing that Yeongbeom had followed him out, began walking along that path instead of heading straight to the parking lot. Yeongbeom probably knew that Seongjo was deliberately not looking back, but also that he had come this way because of him.
“Let’s talk for a moment.”
The first person to speak was Yeongbeom. It was natural in a way, since Seongjo had no remaining business with him. At his heavily delivered words, Seongjo stopped walking a few steps away and turned around.
Yeongbeom had an extremely serious expression on his face. Just like someone facing a decisive battle. That stiff face was so ridiculous that Seongjo unconsciously let out a derisive laugh.
“Earlier you said you had something to talk about and took your wife away, but now it’s me? What, making the rounds for interviews?”
At the sarcastic words, Yeongbeom flinched. His eyes wavered. He didn’t know why. Surely he didn’t want to say she wasn’t officially his wife yet. He had never shown such a twisted attitude in front of him before, so it could be unfamiliar, but weren’t they now in a relationship where this was how things should be? If he had any conscience, Yeongbeom couldn’t point out that part.
Should he say “as expected” or “fortunately”? Yeongbeom only moved his lips and didn’t address that part. However, it wasn’t that he didn’t say something absurd at all.
“Seongjo-ya… No, Lee Seongjo. You don’t need to go this far.”
“What are you talking about?”
Seongjo immediately retorted to his words. In a tone that said it was absurd. Deliberately changing forms of address mid-sentence seemed like an effort to be as irritating as possible, and the words “you don’t need to go this far” sounded like picking a fight.
Seongjo swept his hair back with an expression that had quickly dried up.
“You seem to be misunderstanding something. Do you think he’s acting like that because I told him to?”
He threw out a remark as if testing the waters. Wondering if this was perhaps because of the attitude of Minwoo, his friend. Yeongbeom didn’t answer. He just looked at Seongjo with an unreadable face. At a glance it seemed expressionless, but looking more carefully, it held a more complicated air. In any case, he didn’t seem to intend to deny it.
Seongjo let out a hollow laugh.
“Is this bastard serious… You really came out here thinking I told him to do it.”
“…”
“Did you come out to say that? Worried I might have driven a wedge between you and your friends, telling them not to hang out with you?”
He was deliberately being more sarcastic, but ridiculously, it wasn’t just Yeongbeom who was hit by those words. Seongjo also felt like he was getting hit by the words he himself had spoken. After receiving a wedding invitation from an ex-lover he’d dated for 8 years about another woman, wasn’t it enough? Now he was being interrogated about whether he had deliberately blocked his relationships.
How pitiful, Lee Seongjo.
“That’s not what I meant, Seongjo-ya.”
His face showed it wasn’t “not that.” Yeongbeom couldn’t say anything more and just chewed on his lips. Only after a while did his mouth open again.
“Can you really say you didn’t do anything? Meeting the guys and really saying things that would make them feel awkward…”
“Let’s speak straight. The one who created a situation to feel awkward about wasn’t me, it was you.”
Seongjo let out a deep sigh. At times like this, he truly didn’t know what to say.
“If I really intended to do something, it wouldn’t have ended with just that, Yeongbeom-ah. Jo Yeongbeom, you really… Haha.”
You’re acting more and more like shit. Are you doing this on purpose? To make it easy to cut ties?
He barely swallowed those words. He let out another deep sigh. To avoid looking at him any longer, he naturally lowered his head while habitually running his fingers through his hair.
“What would I have done, Yeongbeom-ah. Pointlessly… It’s just that your popularity is like that. They decided to treat you like shit because you’re acting like shit. Not because I told them to.”
Yeongbeom was looking at Seongjo with a face like he’d been hit somewhere. Why was he making that expression again this time? He didn’t seem to be that lacking. No, rather, wasn’t his brain quite sharp? Wasn’t the fact that their relationship had become this mess also a result of Yeongbeom using his brilliant brain for his own benefit?
“That’s enough. Let’s stop if there’s nothing more to say.”
After a brief silence, Seongjo spoke first. The person making the relationship between them a mess until the very end wasn’t Seongjo but Yeongbeom. The person who had shown an irreversibly disgraceful appearance too.
But even though it was Yeongbeom who was dragging himself down to the bottom, he didn’t know why he, Seongjo, also felt like he was being buried in the ground along with him.
It really was a complicated feeling… Seongjo didn’t want Yeongbeom, who had betrayed him, to be happy beside Seyeong, but it seemed he didn’t wish for him to be ruined either.
That’s why he couldn’t continue speaking any further. Yeongbeom was also looking at Seongjo in silence. Seongjo didn’t wait any longer for his answer and was about to say he would be leaving now.
“You look cold… Why are you dressed so lightly when it’s still chilly?”
What is this supposed to be now?
He might have blurted out exactly that thought that immediately came to mind. Ha… a hollow laugh flowed out completely through his teeth. Just moments ago he was interrogating him about driving wedges, and now he was worrying about his light clothing—what exactly was the intention? It wasn’t even like he was mocking him.
But memories are truly frightening. Just recalling one fragment calmed his anger and made his heart settle.
Seongjo was very strong against heat but tended to be sensitive to cold. And Yeongbeom, who knew Seongjo well, had shown various considerations whenever the weather got cold.
He always carried hot packs in his pockets, and more often than handing them over, he held his hand. In winter, he frequently appeared with warm bungeoppang or egg bread bought before meeting Seongjo. So often that he thought he’d eaten all the egg bread he’d ever eat in his life while dating him.
It wasn’t that he missed that. It was too nauseating, a negative emotion strong enough to turn his stomach inside out, to simply call it longing. However, it was clear that he had even lost the energy to speak.
“Stop with the bullshit.”
Yeongbeom didn’t answer. It seemed he didn’t even intend to package himself by saying it wasn’t like that. He was just looking at Seongjo as if to say think whatever you want.
“From now on, let’s just… pretend we don’t know each other even if we run into each other. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Seongjo muttered. It was a tone completely drained of energy. For the first time, Seongjo felt like he wanted to run away from this place. Facing Yeongbeom was too much for him. However, it was already after a sense of powerlessness strong enough to make it hard to even move his feet had covered Seongjo. Suddenly it felt like he was short of breath.
Bzzzzzz…
At that moment, a weak vibrating sound was heard from his pocket. Seongjo, who had been unable to respond to this feeling he was experiencing for the first time, finally came to his senses a little at that faint vibrating sound. When he took out his phone, a name that appeared vividly greeted Seongjo.
Jeon Yujeong.
That name seemed to have pulled Seongjo back to reality. A different light flashed in Seongjo’s eyes for a moment. Memories of the past two weeks flooded into his mind, which had been complicated with memories he didn’t want to recall, and instantly covered them up.
“Have you eaten?”, “Come down.” Words dry enough to sound mechanical but calm and clear. The sensation of taking the elevator to visit him and waiting for his apartment door to open…
“Haha…”
Realizing that Jeon Yujeong gave him more stability than he thought, Seongjo answered the phone.
“Hello?”
– …
Yujeong on the other end of the line was silent for a moment. Seongjo asked as if urging him.
“Is something wrong?”
– It seems to be dinner time.
After a not-so-short silence, Yujeong said. It was content that could confuse Seongjo for a moment. He had clearly told him in advance that there was a high possibility he couldn’t come today. When Seongjo couldn’t answer for a moment, Yujeong continued on his own.
– Didn’t you say it might end early?
“Ah…”
– Just checking…
His words trailed off. Seongjo ruffled his hair and just rambled whatever came out of his mouth.
“The thing is, today, I’m still outside. I’m about to head back but it’ll probably take a while. You can eat first…”
– I’m also outside. Where are you?
Seongjo paused for a moment. It was a question he didn’t necessarily need to answer. He could just generalize by saying he was outside, and even if not that, he could just tell him how long it would take. But Seongjo’s mouth was already spitting out an answer as if possessed.
“I’m at XX Hotel. So…”
– Wait a moment.
With those words, Yujeong really was silent for a moment. Through the noise on the other end of the line, something like a small mechanical voice could be heard. Navigation, perhaps?
– It won’t take long.
“…”
– Stay there. I’ll come.
