“I’ll show you to your room.”
The staff member walked ahead toward the private room.
They walked down the corridor leading away from the main hall toward the private rooms, and the staff member knocked on the closed door at the end, then swung it open and announced:
“Shin Haehyeon has arrived.”
WAAAAAH!
The words had barely left their mouth before a roar of noise exploded from inside.
The staff member gave Haehyeon a light push inside, leaving him completely exposed among the gathered classmates with no time to prepare — and before he could even register his surroundings, someone leapt up and launched themselves at him.
They were so fast he was sure they’d crash into him hard, and for a moment he squeezed his eyes shut — but all they did was throw their arms around him and pull him in tight.
Long hair tickling his chest. The scent of perfume.
Clearly a woman — but her grip was so strong he was practically suffocating.
Who are you?
She had buried herself in his arms and refused to let go, so he couldn’t even see her face. Too stunned to hug her back, he stood there with both arms hanging awkwardly in the air — and then Kim Minji came over and grabbed his right hand, shaking it like a handshake.
“Haehyeon, hey!”
Kim Minji tilted her head cutely to the right and greeted him with a little pout.
“Oh, hey Minji…?”
“You know what? I really missed you.”
Me too.
Me too, me too.
Minji, move aside. Let me get my hands on him too.
I need to touch him before it feels real.
Park Seryeong, wait your turn!
Someone was thumping him on the back, ruffling his hair, shaking his shoulders, pulling his cheeks…… it was absolute chaos. Was this what a soccer player felt like after being the hero of an incredibly difficult match? With everyone so fervently welcoming his very existence, Haehyeon felt himself floating as if he were actually someone important.
He exchanged greetings with the people on the attendance list one by one. Choi Seonho had somehow gathered people so efficiently that even with the short notice, twenty people had shown up. It was mostly classmates from his first and second year, or fellow ballet majors.
But…… who’s this?
The back of the head of whoever was still clinging to him had a faintly familiar look, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly who it was. He caught Choi Seonho’s eye — Seonho was standing back watching — and mouthed the question: Who is it?
“Hey, whoever is monopolizing Shin Haehyeon. He says he doesn’t know who you are.”
Seonho, the traitor, didn’t quietly tell him — he ratted him out to the person directly.
At that, the mystery classmate snapped their head up from his chest.
“You… idiot……”
Their eyes met — and in an instant, huge eyes brimmed over with tears.
“Hwang Hyunseo?”
She had clearly matured a great deal, but it was unmistakably Hyunseo. His ballet partner.
The girl who had been fairy-thin and cute had grown taller, stretching out into something like a swan queen.
But her eyes looked different……
“Did you get double eyelid surgery?”
“Hey… is that seriously all you have to say when you see me?”
The words had slipped out before he could stop them, and Hyunseo’s eyes went sharp — then the arms still wrapped around him started smacking him repeatedly.
“Ow, hey! That hurts!”
“You little jerk!”
Hyunseo burst into tears.
Haehyeon patted her shoulder telling her not to cry, but the sounds of her crying only grew louder. Choi Seonho clicked his tongue and stepped in.
“Hey, Hyunseo, she crossed the Pacific just to see you. Didn’t I mention she’s been working in the States?”
He had heard when they last met that she had joined an American ballet company. With the big time difference and everything, he’d assumed the people overseas naturally wouldn’t come. She hadn’t been on the attendance list either.
“She came secretly to surprise you.”
“I— thank you?”
She had made the round trip across a distance that took over ten hours even on a direct flight, just to see his face.
Hwang Hyunseo was fiercely competitive and fussy, a perfectionist — yet underneath it all, she was surprisingly warm. She’d be the one to pick fights and size up the other ballet girls, but then you’d turn around and find her the first one to step up and help them. Still, he had never seen her cry this hard — not even when she won a major award — so he felt both embarrassed and sorry.
“Hyunseo, let Haehyeon go. He looks practically traumatized.”
Hyunseo released the arms wrapped around his waist — but grabbed onto his right arm instead and refused to let that go. There was a clear determination in her grip that said she would not be letting go under any circumstances. Minji shook her head slightly as if to say there was no helping it, then pressed a large bouquet into his arms. It was so big it was a struggle to hold with just one arm.
“Congratulations on your recovery!”
“Thank you.”
He let himself be pulled along and sat down in the center seat, and only then did he take in the room properly. A banner reading “CONGRATULATIONS SHIN HAEHYEON’S RESURRECTION CONGRATULATIONS” was hung on the wall, and photos of him smiling — sourced from who knows where — were stuck up all over the place alongside a riot of decorations. Now he understood how the staff member had recognized him and smiled.
……Who’s the one that photoshopped a halo behind my head.
He didn’t even need to ask who the culprit was behind that needlessly artistic touch.
He slid his gaze over, and Choi Seonho grinned and flashed a V sign.
The ones who had calmed down a little were sitting in their seats too, not touching the food that had been set out, just staring at him.
“But why does Shin Haehyeon look even more handsome?”
Park Seryeong, sitting across from him, tilted her head as she looked at him.
“How do I put it… sickly, delicate……?”
Kim Daehee said it himself and gave a shudder.
“……That’s so accurate it’s upsetting.”
Choi Seonho chimed in.
“He was always pretty… well. The problem was his personality.”
Even Lee Dogyeong, whom he’d trusted.
“Wow, there’s nothing you can’t say to someone’s face, is there. At this point isn’t this defamation?”
It wasn’t like he’d asked them to evaluate him — so why were they appraising his looks among themselves and getting upset about it among themselves?
It was on par with the blunt appearance assessments his great-aunt, who he only saw on long holidays, would give while pressing a fistful of dollar bills into his hand.
“Hey, you’re the one who asked Hyunseo if she got double eyelid surgery.”
“That’s different……”
Hyunseo, still sniffling quietly on his right, shook her head and said, “It’s incision double eyelids.”
“It turned out well. Your eyes were already pretty, but you used to worry they wouldn’t take stage makeup well.”
“You actually remember that kind of thing?”
Hyunseo replied gruffly, tears streaming freely down her face as she went through tissue after tissue.
Seeing that, the others quietly started tearing up too, which put Haehyeon in a very awkward position.
“Stop crying, okay? You’ll lose the double eyelids you paid good money for.”
“Ugh, you’re so annoying!”
Hyunseo burst out laughing despite herself, her expression twisting as she complained.
“I’d practically forgotten I even had the surgery, it was so long ago. It’s not like I’m the only one here with work done — why are you only picking on me!”
A burst of laughter erupted.
Hwang Hyunseo let out an exasperated laugh too, then dabbed at her swollen red eyes. Thankfully, the teasing had done the trick — it looked like she’d finally stopped crying.
“For a second his face almost fooled me, but Haehyeon is still Haehyeon. That unhinged energy……”
Haehyeon ignored Park Seryeong’s muttering and called out:
“Alright, enough — everyone eat. Today, all the food and drinks are on Haehyeon!”
Well, technically they were on dad’s card.
Everyone cheered and clinked glasses at his words.
Choi Seonho declared it “a chance to eat premium Korean beef like it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet” and carefully picked out only the expensive cuts to put on the grill. Lee Dogyeong was taking everyone’s drink orders when Hwang Hyunseo murmured, “Soju. Lots.”
Soon the table was covered in a chaotic spread of meat and side dishes, green bottles and brown bottles, and the delicious smell of sizzling meat filled the air.
Hwang Hyunseo spooned some of the cooked meat onto Haehyeon’s plate.
“Eat a lot.”
“Look who’s talking — who’s the skinny one here? I could lift you now.”
Hwang Hyunseo, who looked slender but was all muscle, fired back with surprising toughness.
I used to be able to lift her with one hand.
“I can’t eat this kind of thing yet.”
Most foods were fine by now, but Korean beef on the grill was still too much.
“Geez. Who picked a Korean BBQ place?”
Hyunseo’s expression flickered with brief emotion, then she put the meat in her own mouth, muttered “well it tastes good,” and piled a generous helping of the other side dishes onto his plate instead.
As he ate small bites of the side dishes, Kim Minji on his left started to pour him a drink, then stopped.
“Can you drink?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Aww.”
Kim Minji stuck out her lip and set the bottle aside, then seemed to think of something and her eyes lit up.
“Wait, doesn’t that mean you’ve never had a drink as an adult?”
“……”
The remark caught him off guard and he couldn’t find anything to say, and the smile at the corner of Kim Minji’s lips deepened. She placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned in to whisper.
“This, this — I’m going to have to teach you how to drink soon. Everything, by category. Starting with the soju-beer mix, then wine by region and variety, and then whiskey……”
She chattered on without pause and it felt like his ears were about to bleed.
Kim Minji on his left, Hwang Hyunseo on his right. Wedged tightly between the two of them, he was running out of oxygen.
“God…… I can’t handle Kim Minji. Someone please switch seats with me.”
Choi Seonho caught his desperate plea and fired back.
“Who’s going to rescue someone sandwiched between two ex-girlfriends?”
“Excuse me? I never dated him?”
Hwang Hyunseo flared up as if insulted, and Kim Minji clapped her hands and murmured, “Oh right, I did date Shin Haehyeon.”
“Either way, not a chance, right?”
Kim Minji just grabbed his cheek and stretched it out to tease him. It actually hurt, and he was just about to yank free —
“Huh? What? Kwon Wookyung?”
Kim Daehee, who had been sitting closest to the door, said it — and everyone’s eyes snapped toward the entrance.
Sure enough, Kwon Wookyung was standing in the doorway, a black cap pulled low over his face.
Kwon Wookyung’s gaze landed squarely on Haehyeon, wedged tight between two women.
He looks expressionless at a glance, but I know how to read his subtle expressions. The look he was shooting was — something wasn’t sitting right with him.
What are you looking at.
Haehyeon shot back roughly the same kind of look at Kwon Wookyung.
Ignoring every message like he wasn’t going to come, and yet here he is. If he was going to come, he could’ve just come — why he showed up wearing that expression of all things was a mystery.
