“I wanted to be friends with you.”
“…….”
“It’s the same now. My thoughts are the same. The only person I trust is you, and you’re the only person I want to be close to. Why don’t I get angry even though you confessed to me and said you wanted to sleep with me, and just accept it?”
“…….”
“Because you loving me isn’t something that would hurt me.”
Only after listening to his words without interrupting did I understand why he couldn’t accept what I was saying. It was because I wasn’t “love” to Cha Jeonghan. He could do anything to preserve our “friendship.” For a friend, for a friend who had been with him for 13 years, Cha Jeonghan was now understanding with a broad mind, being considerate, and trying to fulfill whatever my demands were. He didn’t understand why our friendship had to end when I loved Cha Jeonghan.
“Jeonghan-ah.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you love me?”
“…….”
Cha Jeonghan’s eyes wavered. He seemed flustered and also like he didn’t understand. It was an expected reaction, so I wasn’t hurt.
“Do you like me?”
“…I like you.”
“Do you love me?”
“…….”
Cha Jeonghan didn’t answer this time either. No matter how many times I asked, Cha Jeonghan wouldn’t answer. He didn’t know love.
“I’m the one who betrayed you, who trusted and relied on me as a friend. I’m the one who lied, and I’m the one who completely shattered the word ‘friend’ by telling you I wanted to sleep with you after you heard those words… after betraying that trust.”
“…….”
“I love you. Until now, I could hide it for your sake, but from now on, I’m not confident I can hide it like that. Even if I hide it and you treat me like before as if nothing happened… we already know everything. How long would a relationship continued like that last?”
“Love…. Yeah. I don’t really know what love is that you’re talking about. I don’t really understand what’s so different between me liking you and you loving me. I don’t really know if love even exists, and even if it does, I don’t think it’ll last forever. Because I’ve never seen that kind of love.”
I wanted to hug him even in a moment like this, as he spoke in a calm voice. It wasn’t Cha Jeonghan’s fault that he didn’t know because he had never been in love or received love.
“I know it’s a negative thought too. But your love will be different.”
“…….”
“It will be different. It’ll be good, that will.”
“…….”
“So even without knowing anything, I was happy that you love me. It’s not at all a betrayal or a hurt to me. Because it’s you.”
“…I’m glad.”
“About what?”
“I worried for a long time. That if you ever found out, my feelings would hurt you. That’s why I hid them. I tried to stop too, but it never worked out… I thought it really wouldn’t work if you found out, so I had no choice but to hide them.”
I was grateful to Cha Jeonghan. I was truly grateful that he said out loud that these feelings I’d held for 13 years weren’t a hurt or betrayal to him.
“Then that’s settled, isn’t it? It’s not a hurt or a betrayal to me…. There I go saying the same thing again. Okay. Let’s be like this for now at least. I won’t tell you to come to my house. Once a day… no, even once every three days, see me like this. Just see me.”
“…….”
“Even once a week.”
The food we ordered was placed, cutting through the middle of our conversation. At Cha Jeonghan’s request to set everything at once except for dessert, saying he hoped the conversation wouldn’t be interrupted this time, all the food was placed filling the table at once.
“Eat first. I felt bad about how your birthday went. It’s late, but I wanted to feed you something delicious like this.”
I had come out with a firm resolve, but Cha Jeonghan was so sweet that my firm heart kept melting. His eyes, voice, and even the consideration and feelings toward me were so sweet, just like they’d always been.
“I like you so much because you’re sweet.”
“…….”
“And it hurts so much.”
“…….”
“…Don’t try so hard because of me.”
“Ji Yuhyeon. You’re really cruel. I’m not angry about your feelings, but I’m so angry I’m going crazy about your attitude of trying to avoid me. I think I’m going to lose it. If I could have it my way, I want to just grab you and lock you in my house so you can’t take even one step out.”
The voice tinged with anger was rather comforting to my heart. I hoped Cha Jeonghan would escape from that childhood thought that he could only do something if I was there.
“Honestly, I could do that. Don’t keep making me angry. What should I do? Should we sleep together again? I can do it. I can do whatever you want me to do.”
“How was it yesterday?”
“What?”
“How was it sleeping with me? Was it good? I’m curious about what it was like for you to say you can do it again.”
Cha Jeonghan looked at me with slightly flustered eyes as if he didn’t expect me to ask such a thing, then took a deep breath and slowly opened his mouth.
“Yeah, it was good. Honestly, I had some recklessness in rushing into it, but in the end, it felt good. Much more than I worried about.”
“Weren’t you nervous?”
“…….”
“How did you feel looking at me? I was so nervous looking at you, Jeonghan-ah.”
“…….”
“Just looking at your eyes made me so nervous, fluttering… I was so embarrassed I wanted to run away and hide.”
Cha Jeonghan slowly closed his eyes and opened them. His face looked exactly like he’d received a shock. He probably didn’t feel the emotions I held during our sex. He would have been amazed that sex with a friend was possible, and also relieved. It would have been troublesome if he couldn’t get an erection or felt no excitement at all after agreeing to sleep together.
He would have been relieved that he didn’t feel rejection seeing my naked body, and felt relief and satisfaction that he could take responsibility for his answer because he felt better than he thought, better than he worried about.
“What about you?”
“…….”
“How did you feel looking at me?”
“…….”
“You were relieved, weren’t you? That you didn’t feel rejection. You were relieved that your body responded so you could do it to the end. And you were even more relieved that it felt good on top of that.”
“…….”
“You were worried that if you couldn’t do it to the end after saying let’s sleep together in response to my words, you’d hurt me. Because clearing that quest would give you justification to say these words to me one more time.”
I really didn’t want to say these words with my own mouth. Because I knew it would hurt both Cha Jeonghan listening and me speaking. But now I had no choice but to make a frontal attack. Because I knew that even if I went around and around talking, I couldn’t break Cha Jeonghan’s stubbornness. I didn’t have the ability to break his stubbornness and could only always lose.
“I’m not resenting you. It’s natural, isn’t it?”
“Did it feel like that?”
“…….”
“Even looking at me like that, you felt nervous… and fluttering?”
“Because it’s you.”
“…….”
“Because it was you, Jeonghan, I was really happy.”
Cha Jeonghan, who had been looking as if in agony, leaned his body toward the table and covered his face with his palms. I thought he would cry, but no tears came. I watched him like that, then shifted my gaze outside the window. But what I was looking at was Cha Jeonghan’s reflection in the dark window.
“I’m hungry. Let’s eat this.”
I deliberately picked up my fork and knife and cut the steak in front of me. I had no appetite at all, but I couldn’t just be in agony too. I didn’t want to throw away this heart of Cha Jeonghan’s, who prepared this because he felt bad that my birthday just passed.
“It’s delicious.”
I tasted everything little by little so I wouldn’t get indigestion. Cha Jeonghan, who had lowered the hand covering his face, leaned his body back against the chair and bowed his head. The facts he couldn’t face yet because even he hadn’t sorted them out—hearing them from me, he must have had a lot of thoughts.
“Jeonghan-ah…. Should we go?”
Even at my question, Cha Jeonghan, who had been bowing his head a bit more, separated his back from leaning and looked at me.
“Let’s eat before we go.”
“…….”
“We came to eat dinner together.”
Knowing that Cha Jeonghan was someone who wouldn’t eat anything properly at a place where he had a lot of thoughts or felt even slightly uncomfortable, I was a bit worried, but I also knew that I worried and thought too much when it came to anything related to Cha Jeonghan, so I decided to let it go a bit now. As Cha Jeonghan said, we came to eat dinner together, and we just needed to enjoy our meal.
