After asking Jinhyeok about the location, Sunjeong pulled his baseball cap down low and headed to the shopping mall near his house.
It was a mall that was nice to hang out at comfortably, without any high-end luxury brand stores. Since some time had already passed, Sunjeong thought Taeon might not be at the cafe anymore, so rather than rushing straight there, he slowly browsed the shops.
The fact that I rushed here like this in the first place is kind of a problem.
Thinking this, he caught sight of his reflection in the glass window of a cafe with lots of cute cakes on display and ended up smiling slightly.
It was because his appearance—wearing gray sweatpants and a baseball cap—felt unfamiliar as he came outside. Sunjeong did usually pay quite a bit of attention to his outdoor outfits. He was confident in his looks, but he wanted to appear even cuter and prettier.
It was a desire that had continued since high school. The desire to look his best for Taeon.
But now that he was approaching his mid-twenties, he felt okay with showing Taeon this side of himself too. Besides, Sunjeong could look at himself objectively enough to know that he was cute and pretty even without dressing up particularly.
Perhaps because it was a shopping mall with “YOUNG” blatantly in its name, there were so many young couples walking arm-in-arm with smiles never leaving their faces.
Passing by them, Sunjeong headed very slowly toward his destination.
He even hoped that Taeon wouldn’t be at that place.
Then I can have a warm cup of tea at the cafe where Taeon isn’t, laugh at myself a little over this absurd commotion, consider it a light walk, and go home.
Whether Taeon met that omega another day, or someone else entirely, that would be a separate matter.
But contrary to Sunjeong’s hopes, he ended up witnessing Taeon still smiling and nodding intently while staring at someone by the window.
Reflexively, he looked at the omega before his eyes.
Ah, seriously, are you kidding me? Sunjeong let out a small hollow laugh. The omega was excessively pretty.
So because they’re that pretty, Yoon Taeon meets them even at a cafe. With his heart twisted in knots, Sunjeong stopped stock-still in front of the cafe. The atmosphere between the two looked too good for him to appear there as a joke.
Standing there blankly, Sunjeong tried to pull himself together. Perhaps he had been too naive not to have considered this kind of situation in the first place.
Turning around and quickening his pace, Sunjeong bit his lip slightly.
It was because a sense of grievance he hadn’t felt in a very long time filled his entire body.
Before tears could well up in his large eyes, Sunjeong soon sorted out his thoughts neatly.
How could Sunjeong stop Taeon if he genuinely had feelings for someone other than Sunjeong and wanted to seriously try meeting them? That was impossible. But he also didn’t want to cling to him demanding that Taeon acknowledge his feelings like before.
The night air felt particularly cold today. No matter how neatly he sorted out his thoughts, the lukewarm teardrops flowing down Sunjeong’s white cheeks felt like the only warmth, so Sunjeong decided to give up on forcibly holding back his tears.
I should cry as much as I want to cry.
When I get home, I’ll eat the tart that the president of Sentence gave me earlier, take a bath in warm water, and sleep soundly.
Deciding this, Sunjeong pulled his baseball cap down even lower to hide his flowing tears, and his steps had no strength.
He could go if he wanted to, but he just couldn’t bring himself to visit Sentence.
With his mind unsettled, he found he could concentrate better on studying instead. Stopping by the cafe occasionally while studying, chatting—those things took up quite a bit of time.
Sunjeong came to like how his heart became plain while he was immersed in studying. Even when he spread his wings of imagination about how Taeon might not be by his side when he finished all this studying, successfully changed majors, and reached the work he wanted to do, the mechanical pencil gripped tightly in his white hand underlined sentences. When he did that, eventually the fleeting delusions were forgotten.
Returning home, Sunjeong wrinkled his face sharply at the strange smell wafting through the house.
“Seo Yoonwoo, did you cook again? What is it this time?”
“Yeah, Sunjeong. I made seaweed soup. You didn’t eat dinner, right? Eat up quickly.”
“No, what is this smell?”
“Smell? Ah, I accidentally put in quite a lot of oyster sauce instead of soy sauce.”
Sunjeong’s gaze turned to Jinhyeok, who was forcing down his rice with an expressionless face. Yet another fresh bruise had appeared at the corner of his mouth, and Yoonwoo’s eyes were also slightly swollen.
You two really have such a loud way of loving each other.
Normally, Sunjeong would have ignored them and gone to his room, but wanting to comfort the two a little, he sat at the dining table.
That’s when Jinhyeok tapped Sunjeong’s leg with his foot. It was a signal not to eat Yoonwoo’s cooking and tell the plain truth.
“There is a ton of oyster sauce in it, but if you eat it with several bowls of rice, it’s delicious.”
“Right, it’s delicious, isn’t it, Hyeok?”
Seeing Yoonwoo smile happily was absurd.
At the same time, wanting to eat proper food even if it was just one meal, Sunjeong stopped Yoonwoo with a rough voice as he took out a white bowl from the cupboard.
“Ah, Yoonwoo. I’m still full from eating cafeteria food at lunch earlier. For dinner, I’ll just have soy milk and a boiled egg to keep it light.”
“Will that be enough for a meal?”
Yoonwoo asked in a worried voice, but Sunjeong quickly nodded his head. It was much better than eating seaweed soup drenched in oyster sauce.
Jinhyeok, who had been eating without saying much for a while, finally opened his mouth when he was almost done with his bowl of seaweed soup.
“We’ve been seeing Yoon Taeon often lately. Saw him today too with Yoonwoo.”
“……”
Since Jinhyeok wouldn’t bring this up for no reason, Sunjeong tensed up for a moment.
“Right, we saw him today. He was… together with that person.”
Even Yoonwoo’s voice saying this was tinged with worry for Sunjeong.
He was already in the position of an audience member constantly witnessing Jinhyeok and Yoonwoo’s excessive love, and he didn’t want to receive even a bit of sympathy on top of that.
“He must be meeting someone, I guess.”
Jinhyeok and Yoonwoo immediately exchanged glances and gave awkward smiles.
“Sunjeong, I think he’s waiting for your contact.”
“My contact?”
“This time too, we saw them from afar, so we were just going to pass by roughly. But he came out of the cafe and asked. Asked if you were doing well. Asked if you were healthy too.”
Even though Yoonwoo was speaking very carefully, Sunjeong felt uncomfortable.
“Hey, Go Sunjeong.”
Jinhyeok’s rough voice, completely different from Yoonwoo’s, rang loudly through the living room.
“You have his phone number, don’t you? What are you doing?”
Sunjeong’s emotions surged at Jinhyeok’s voice, which sounded frustrated.
“Stop going around in circles awkwardly with each other and contact him. You’ve got a mouth, you’ve got fingers—what the hell is this?”
“Honey, that’s enough.”
Yoonwoo stopped Jinhyeok with a gentle voice as he seemed determined to say something. Sunjeong didn’t care either way. The fact that he even came outside to ask about him… Isn’t this significant progress? he thought.
No, rather, it was strange to see that even the messages they’d been exchanging recently with no real content had completely stopped, and now he was only asking Jinhyeok and Yoonwoo about him.
“I’ll handle it myself. Jinhyeok, you take care of your own business.”
At Sunjeong’s words, which seemed to subtly hint at the loud commotion at home that probably wouldn’t end for a while, Yoonwoo already made a drained expression.
“If you two are awkward, invite him to our place or something.”
“Oh, Hyeok, that’s a good idea.”
Even though Sunjeong hadn’t responded, Yoonwoo smiled brightly and chimed in with Jinhyeok’s suggestion.
“Won’t Yoon Taeon be even more awkward being with you guys?”
Sunjeong answered as if it was an absurd suggestion, but his mind raced quickly for a moment.
If he came outside and asked about him to that extent, inviting him over and feeding him a meal wouldn’t be a big deal. Of course, Sunjeong would absolutely have to be the one cooking that time, not Yoonwoo.
I should try contacting him tomorrow during the day…
Thinking this, a smile that couldn’t be hidden eventually bloomed on Sunjeong’s lips as he tried to maintain an indifferent expression.
A phone call would be better than contacting him ambiguously through messages.
It didn’t take long for the call to connect.
—Go Sunjeong.
As soon as he answered the phone, before even saying “Hello,” did Sunjeong imagine the excessive richness of delight dwelling in Taeon’s voice as he urgently called Sunjeong’s name?
The voice he heard after so long felt inexplicably tender. Taking a breath for a moment, Sunjeong opened his mouth and conveyed his business.
The content was to come over this weekend since it was also Yoonwoo’s birthday.
Nothing could be more awkward than inviting Taeon to Yoonwoo’s birthday party, but this was the only excuse he had. From the way he said, “Yoonwoo? Ah, that Jinhyeok’s boyfriend…” it was clear he couldn’t even properly match the name with the face.
—I have something I need to do this weekend.
“What do you need to do?”
—Ah, there’s just something, just…
A voice hiding something, as expected. In that moment, Sunjeong wore a crooked smile.
“You’re taking your suppressants well, so you must really be dating someone.”
He knew that taking suppressants wasn’t really because he was meeting someone like Taeon had once told him, but hearing it after already witnessing something made his heart ache.
