Today, I came to the cafeteria of another company’s building with Cha Jae-woo.
It happened because, last night, I’d been talking about how he’d acted unbearably picky at dinner — all that young-master fussiness of his — and when I said I’d just eat lunch alone for a while since he couldn’t handle cafeteria food, Cha Jae-woo got defensive.
He insisted he was perfectly capable of eating cafeteria food, so we ended up deciding to just go and see for ourselves.
I thought, what kind of grown person digs their heels in over something like this — but then again, twenty years old was still pretty young, so maybe he was still a kid after all.
“But are you seriously going to be okay? You don’t even like eating out much because you hate eating food other people made.”
I asked one more time, just before buying the meal tickets.
Like with the snack place last time, the cafeteria wasn’t expensive either — but we were still paying for it, and it’d be a waste if it didn’t suit his taste.
Not that I could claim I had absolutely zero intention of teasing him.
“Our precious little young master, raised so delicately — I’m half expecting him to go into shock seeing what commoners eat.”
“……Hey.”
Cha Jae-woo seemed to realize I was messing with him and let out a sigh, his brow furrowing.
“I ate school lunch all through high school, you know?”
“Oh? That’s true……”
“I ate it with you, idiot.”
Come to think of it, he really had. That made me think that unlike the snack place, this time might actually be fine. So I stopped trying to talk him out of it and paid for both our meal tickets.
After that, as we were lining up to get our food, a thought struck me and I said it out loud.
“But wait — before you started eating lunch with me, didn’t you skip the cafeteria and bring a packed lunch?”
“……”
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
I still vividly remembered the first day we ate together — Cha Jae-woo headed toward the classroom instead of the cafeteria, and when I followed him out of curiosity, he showed me a lunchbox packed by a cook his family had hired.
We shared his lunchbox a few times, but eventually I started feeling awkward about it and suggested we eat separately — and that was when Cha Jae-woo started eating the school lunch.
Thinking about it now, it was actually a mystery how Cha Jae-woo, who didn’t like eating food made by others, ever agreed to eat cafeteria food in the first place.
Well, maybe back then he just wanted to try it. Once you graduate, you never really get the chance to eat school lunch again.
I didn’t think too deeply about it. Instead, I sat down across from him and watched Cha Jae-woo’s expression stiffen the moment he sat down with his tray.
“……Do you actually find this genuinely good?”
Cha Jae-woo had barely put today’s main dish — the pork cutlet — in his mouth before grumbling that the meat was tough and the breading was way too soggy. I mixed the salad that came with it into the dressing as I answered.
“I eat here for the price. But honestly, for what it costs, I think it’s decent enough — that’s why I come often.”
To me, it was just an ordinary pork cutlet. The kind that hits a solid average no matter where you go.
I was pretty much the type who could eat just about anything without complaint.
Meanwhile, watching Cha Jae-woo agonize deeply over the food in front of him made me laugh despite myself.
“I figured you probably wouldn’t like it.”
I’d brought him along because I thought it’d be fun to tease him, but seeing him look that disgusted, I had no intention of bringing him again. Either way, Cha Jae-woo only worked mornings and left after that, so I could just send him home and eat lunch at the cafeteria by myself.
I was thinking that, about to tease him some more about his young-master tendencies, when —
“Um, excuse me……”
Someone spoke to me. I reflexively put on a friendly smile. Cha Jae-woo made a face like here we go again, but I didn’t pay it any mind. There was a chance it was a library patron I’d run into before, so there was no harm in being polite.
“You’re Yun-su, right?”
But the other person called me by name first.
“Cha Jae-woo, you haven’t changed either. You two are still hanging around together, huh?”
I looked up to see who it was, and the smile that had been a practiced social one faded into a natural expression.
“Well, it just kind of worked out that way.”
I carried the conversation forward instead of Cha Jae-woo, who was silently staring at her. I made a light offer to the girl holding her tray.
“If you’re standing there because there’s no seat, do you want to sit next to us? There’s room.”
“No, it’s okay.”
She shook her head. She followed it up with a polite excuse — her coworkers were behind her, so she had to eat with them, but let’s grab a meal together next time.
“More importantly — you know our homeroom teacher from first year is getting married, right?”
I thought she’d leave right away, but when she brought up a new topic, I was mildly surprised. Still, I nodded along and played into the conversation.
“I know. I was actually thinking it’d be nice to see everyone again there after so long.”
“I knew it — you’re coming too, Yun-su?”
Her face lit up with a bright smile at that. I smiled back at her vaguely, not quite sure why she was so pleased, when I suddenly realized that Cha Jae-woo had been completely left out of this conversation.
Cha Jae-woo had been in a different class from me in first year, so he’d have no idea about the homeroom teacher’s wedding either.
I glanced over, and sure enough, just as I’d expected, Cha Jae-woo was doing nothing but aimlessly poking at his salad.
“Alright, Yun-su, I’ll head back. Enjoy your lunch.”
“Yeah, see you at the wedding.”
Fortunately, she didn’t drag the conversation out — she headed back to her coworkers quickly.
I was about to open my mouth to give Cha Jae-woo a brief introduction of the friend I’d just spoken to, but he beat me to it.
“That’s Choi So-yoon, isn’t it?”
“Huh?”
“The one who was in the same class as you in first year.”
“……Yeah.”
I nodded, caught off guard. I couldn’t figure out how Cha Jae-woo — who never paid much attention to other people — even knew So-yoon’s name. So-yoon was quiet and calm by nature, not exactly the type who stood out to others.
“How do you know So-yoon?”
“The hell, do you think I have the memory of a goldfish?”
Cha Jae-woo muttered an open curse and scowled. He set his chopsticks down on top of it all, as if his appetite had completely disappeared.
“She was your ex-girlfriend.”
The answer came out cold somehow, and I blinked at him without a word. It had been so long ago that even I had forgotten.
“……Yeah. That’s right. She was.”
I nodded. I’d dated So-yoon after the university entrance exams ended — right after I’d confessed to Cha Jae-woo and got rejected.
Back then, I was confused about whether I liked men, or whether I only liked men — and So-yoon happened to confess to me right around that time, so we started dating.
At first, it seemed like we got along fine enough, like any other ordinary couple. But as time went on, the somewhat vague scale of my feelings began to prick at my conscience.
It wasn’t that I had no feelings for So-yoon at all. If I had, I wouldn’t have dated her in the first place.
It’s just that — if what I felt for So-yoon was comfortable ease and mild fondness, then what I felt for Cha Jae-woo was an overwhelming presence so undeniable it was impossible to mistake for anything else.
In the end, I was the one who ended it, and So-yoon said she’d already known I didn’t really like her that much — and that was how we parted.
I was such an asshole back then.
But I never expected Cha Jae-woo, who fundamentally had no interest in other people, to actually remember that.
As if to prove it, Cha Jae-woo — who had been doing nothing but drinking water this whole time — fixed his gaze on me and said bluntly:
“How did you go from dating someone as small and pretty as her to thinking about getting with a dark, rough bastard like me?”
“You seem to have quite the crooked mouth for someone who’s been eating just fine, don’t you, Jae-woo?”
Cha Jae-woo kept his eyes fixed on me and was quiet for a moment. I held his gaze — those large, dark eyes that gave nothing away — and kept my smiling silence.
Then eventually, he dropped his eyes back to his tray and finished eating. I was sure he’d already been done, but apparently not.
Did the cafeteria food actually suit his taste more than he let on?
Watching Cha Jae-woo move his chopsticks with what looked like quiet satisfaction, I resumed eating too.
What I’d said to Cha Jae-woo just now — I meant every word.
There’s nothing more foolish than trying again at a relationship that’s already failed. And that applied to me and Cha Jae-woo as well.
I had no intention of getting back together with Cha Jae-woo. I wasn’t naive enough to walk the same road again when I already knew it would fail.
