It was around the time he lifted his completely drained arm to open a new bottle. After fumbling twice, he grasped the bottle neck when a dragging sound came from close by. Next, the table he was leaning against shook once shallowly.
He barely straightened his head that had been tilting in all directions. Someone was sitting across from him. A man wearing a black ball cap hazily came into view.
Eunha earnestly frowned his spinning eyes, struggling to regain focus. It wavered similarly without much result, but when he continued staring, he figured out who the other person was. It was thanks to the outfit he’d clearly seen that morning.
“…Baek Yeonjun-ssi?”
Yeonjun across the table answered by bringing up a light smile in his pupils. Eunha clearly grasped his senses for an instant, then immediately lost them limply again and opened his eyes wide. He wasn’t pleased to meet again someone he’d seen less than a day ago.
The person himself wasn’t pleasing, and meeting someone in this state of all times wasn’t pleasing either.
“What are you doing here?”
“Can’t you tell by looking? Just sitting.”
Like an idiot…… While Eunha swallowed his inner words, Yeonjun slightly tilted his head. An estimating gaze lightly reached him.
“Are you drunk?”
“As you can see.”
He answered roughly and.
“Then why are you there?”
At this hour…… Eunha asked, adding with slurred pronunciation.
“You drinking too?”
“Ah. I stayed at school to do assignments.”
“……”
“On my way home, I saw a familiar back.”
Eunha scrutinized with dizzy eyes the man who answered matter-of-factly. When he observed carefully, he could see his features were soaked in fatigue unlike that morning. It was a face that looked more haggard than usual.
When he thought it was the product of diligence, somehow his heart twisted. It wasn’t directed at the man, but was a way of adding weight to his self-loathing.
Because he had been having sex all day to the point of making his head stupid, then whether intentionally or not fought violently with someone, and as the terminus of that was sitting at a convenience store table blowing through bottles alone.
In contrast, an ordinary, no, a day as a university student that would have looked quite admirable was clearly drawn, making the tip of his tongue bitter.
He spat out.
“You live diligently. You too.”
Like other people. Like normal people.
Finishing assignments until this hour. While attending school so diligently, in the meantime even spending over a month trying to fuck an older man of the same sex……
It was Yeonjun who cut off the chain of twisted thoughts extending without restraint. He stretched his lips as if showing modesty.
“Not really that… I’m being punished for procrastinating.”
“Why procrastinate?”
“Um.”
“……”
“…Probably because of hyung?”
It was a tone tinged with hesitation. Eunha stared blankly at Yeonjun. The time of the past month passed through his dulled mind. The man who had stayed at the cafe every day without missing a single day.
He swallowed the chuckle trying to burst out. It seemed it was gradually reaching the limit. Seeing him make openly flirtatious remarks.
So what? I have absolutely no interest in younger guys……
Eunha turned his attention away indifferently. To continue his sarcasm as usual, he wasn’t quite in his right mind now. Only the single-minded desire to get drunk and black out was clear, and everything else was hazy. He opened a liquor bottle he’d been holding until just then and brought the opening to his mouth when a distinct gaze reached him. When he gulped down the bitter liquid without hesitation, he heard a somewhat troubled muttering voice.
“The alcohol……”
“……”
“Did something happen?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Thud, Eunha, who put down the liquor bottle on the table, wiped his moist mouth with the back of his hand. He looked at Yeonjun hazily. After a very brief reprieve, he opened his mouth without hesitation.
“I fought like a dog with my fuck buddy and broke up.”
Words he hadn’t been able to confide even to Gu Haebin flowed out easily. What is this person to me? Eunha, who had been thinking limply, soon shook his head inwardly. Rather, it was probably because they had no relationship at all that he could spit it out easily. Because it didn’t matter either way.
It could simply be because he was drunk.
Yeonjun quietly blinked his eyes. He only sent a quiet gaze. Like someone who couldn’t find a proper answer.
There was awkward bewilderment buried in those eyes, but Eunha didn’t know. Eunha, who arbitrarily interpreted the lengthening silence as meaning to keep listening, continued speaking. It was because they were words he simply wanted to spit out rather than wanting any response from the man. Because they were words he’d wanted to vomit out like a thorn stuck in his throat all along. Because words sometimes made one feel relieved just by letting them out.
Eunha always found that difficult.
“Rather than breaking up, I should say I unilaterally ran away. That bastard broke the lighting in the house because he was angry. That was something I treasured…… He threw his phone around too. And glared at people like he’d hit them.”
“……Were you hit?”
At the immediately sunken voice, Eunha shook his bobbing head side to side.
“It wasn’t like that. There’s nothing particularly unfair either. No. It’s not that I don’t feel that way at all…… but if I trace it back, it’s something I brought on myself. ……So I don’t have the right to feel wronged.”
“……”
“But because I feel that way, it’s unpleasant. I find myself, who’s feeling wronged and lamenting my circumstances despite my position, laughable and pathetic. Like an idiot. Shabby. Wondering why I live life like this…… But even having those thoughts is shabby again, which makes me hate it more…… that kind of feeling.”
“……”
“It’s not even the first or second time like this. Because every time I end badly with fuck buddies……”
For a moment, the eyes that had been fixed on Eunha took on a subtle light. It was something he likewise couldn’t perceive due to being pickled in drunkenness.
“……At this point, it clearly seems there’s a problem with me. That’s what makes it more shitty. No one wants to admit they’re utterly worthless.”
The dawn air was cool. While refreshingly spitting out words that were rather painful to let out of his mouth, he felt somewhat clear-headed. But at the same time, it was also a feeling of being buried even more. A feeling of his insides being newly and deeply stabbed by stating the facts himself.
I really need to lose consciousness…… As he lifted the liquor bottle again, he heard a dragging sound. His wrist was suddenly caught firmly. He was about to throw back his head and close his eyes but straightened his view. He saw Yeonjun, who had come close at some point. Having propped the table with one hand, he lowered his eyes as if troubled.
“Hyung, you’re already very drunk.”
“What does it matter? Whether a stranger dies drunk or not……”
He answered irritably. As he was acting drunk like that, his vision swayed greatly once. He twisted his caught wrist when suddenly a sound like exhaling wind came from above his head—a laugh.
He looked up with narrowed eyes. Yeonjun was expressionless. That is, a carefully composed expressionless face. There was a smile he couldn’t erase clinging to the corners of his eyes. Even with his limp consciousness, Eunha was dumbfounded for an instant. What’s he laughing at…?
While he was making a displeased expression, Yeonjun, who had forcibly robbed the liquor bottle from Eunha, pulled over a chair and sat beside him. He stretched out his hand. Eunha blankly watched his actions. He picked up the energy bar placed on the table.
He opened it and stuffed it right into the loosely gathered hand. It was around the time he reflexively grasped the tilting thing.
“If you’re conscious of the problem, can’t you just not do it?”
“……”
“Fuck buddies…… not making those kinds of things.”
