His tongue tip stings for no reason. Every time it was this mess even with people Kim Taeyoung looked into and connected him with, so he felt particularly awkward toward him. Eunha resolved to just roughly tell him the conclusion when Kim Taeyoung returned from Europe and scrolled through the conversation records. Then suddenly, records of exchanging talk about Yeonjun came scrolling out. He had mentioned to him several times that a customer these days was very grating and bothersome.
Kim Taeyoung
If it bothers you that much, just eat and dump him once and be done with it
The cheap word choice was something that made his brow furrow even seeing it again.
You know
I don’t meet younger guys
There wasn’t any great circumstance, he just wasn’t attracted. Perhaps because he’d had a long relationship with someone older, people younger than him didn’t come across as very appealing.
Younger people are cute…… They are cute, but.
They’re only cute. As a sexual object, not particularly.
He liked above all the sense of stability felt when with someone older and the feeling of somehow being able to rely on them.
Kim Taeyoung
Who said to date? Fuck once and throw away
I’m telling you something really good…
Kim Taeyoung
What’s it matter lol
It’s not like you’re a reserved personality
For a clingy bastard that’s perfect
Once they get eaten and dumped
Their pride is fucking hurt and they’re pissed so
They might harbor murderous intent but they won’t chase after you more
And you think I don’t know you only meet older people lol
Ugh
Ugh?
Kim Taeyoung
Because you still can’t forget your ex-boyfriend
?
What are you saying…?
It’s not like that
The next message was content sent as if attacking because Kim Taeyoung was hateful for stirring up painful past.
So
You’re saying hyung got eaten and dumped?
That’s too specific
Kim Taeyoung
lol
Fuck
It was an answer that was sufficient explanation. Eunha, who smiled crookedly while reading it again, lowered his eyelids contemplatively. Eat and dump.
……Did it become something similar?
Thinking dismissively, he straightened his body to attend to a customer just approaching the counter.
That day he stayed at the cafe all day. Similar days had been continuing for several days. A routine daily life of staying at the shop all day, then only sleeping at the officetel and coming to work early again.
Normally Eunha tended to spend his days fairly busily. It wasn’t that he had great plans or anything, but he was busy rolling around doing his best alone. After early closing, sprawled on the officetel living room sofa watching movies, sleeping deep naps, immersing in reading, dabbling in studies of fields that interested him at the time, playing games too……
After eating dinner every day, he went out for walks to the park in front of his house. Then when it occurred to him, he would stop by the cafe again to look around at the plants.
In the gaps of repetitive life, when he felt dopamine was lacking, he went around raiding department stores with his mom’s card, and sometimes indulged in various cultural activities and got drunk on the feeling of having become a plausible intellectual. All those many contents had suddenly all become boring. Precisely, he had no motivation. Because it had already been ten days of falling asleep alone in clear sobriety.
Life was all bothersome and uninteresting. His chest felt hollow as if punctured. It was a familiar hollowness. After breaking up with a partner, a state like this would always continue for some time.
Trying to endure the long nights with the languid sense of exhaustion that sexual relations gave was Eunha’s bad habit that had taken hold at some point.
After being fucked until losing his mind, that night was good because no other thoughts came anymore. It was good because he could fall asleep limply with his head emptied. The warm warmth transmitted from his partner was also good.
Once that habit completely hardened in his body, now the longer nights spent alone became, the more it became an anxious state. The purpose had been displaced. Once another’s body heat was gone, hunger assaulted him every night. His thoughts increased and he couldn’t fall asleep easily. It was an inertia that had seeped under his skin that he couldn’t fix by his own power.
A really fucking inertia.
[Because you still can’t forget your ex-boyfriend]
……In that sense, Kim Taeyoung’s words might not be completely wrong.
‘I’m tired, Eunha-ya.’
‘……’
‘I’m so tired of you being like this.’
Eunha furrowed his brow at the voice that suddenly came to mind. Making an expression as if fed up, he closed his eyes tightly. His head crackled as if with noise.
In any case, for this and that reason, he didn’t want to do anything, but then sprawling at home would just make him think more and felt like it would make him shudder, so he was just idling at the shop.
Still, today at least had a schedule. One evening time part-timer had requested a substitute. Eunha told him he would directly take on the role himself. The feeling of shoulders subtly rising when facing the part-timer looking at him smiling gratefully then. It made him look back on how insignificantly his life had been flowing.
‘For your threshold of feeling rewarded to be that low……’
Eunha sneered at himself. While stuck in a corner of the cafe spending time like a idle person, the sun had set. Eunha, who had skipped handover and sent the part-timers away, looked at the counter idly. When there was nothing to do, he fiddled with his phone.
Again looking thoughtlessly at the seat that had been Yeonjun’s designated seat…… casually observing some unfamiliar man sitting there tapping a laptop.
Their eyes suddenly met. Eunha didn’t avoid it. Thinking indifferently that since it was a gaze that touched in passing, it would cross as is.
However, the other person also didn’t avoid his eyes. Until discomfort grew.
At the lengthening stare, Eunha, who raised one eyebrow as if visible or not, ultimately turned his head first.
He looked around Instagram feed and stories. New photos Im Sujin had taken with her fiancé were uploaded. His friend’s brightly smiling face looked happy. It was around the time he was pressing the heart. There was a presence.
When he lifted his head, the man whose eyes had met earlier was standing there.
“Do you need something?”
He asked while getting up from the stool he’d been leaning against. The man politely declined help by showing a brief smile.
“This music playing now, I was curious about the title.”
“Ah. Just a moment.”
Regular customers being curious about the music flowing in the cafe was a common thing. Eunha checked the laptop spread out beside the counter. Though it was his taste so he’d put it in the playlist, since it was music without lyrics, he hadn’t separately memorized the title.
When he checked and informed him, the man who confirmed the title by saying it aloud conveyed his thanks.
“Does the boss select the music directly?”
“When I’m here.”
“I’ve been listening since earlier, and I like it all.”
An extremely favorable tone. An affectionate voice. Eunha now looked at the other person carefully. Neat suit. Hair neatly combed back with pomade. The eyes visible beyond round silver-framed glasses were genial. His gaze was falling straight enough to be burdensome.
Eunha subtly moved his lips that had been slightly open. Lowering his gaze slightly, he sank into thought for an instant, then lifted it again and matched it with the man.
He slowly opened his mouth.
“Our tastes must match well. If you’re curious about others too, I’ll let you know.”
“Would you do that? There are quite a few.”
“Should I write them on a memo pad? There are many titles in English too.”
“Then I’d really be grateful.”
Eunha wrote down the titles of the music the man was curious about neatly with a ballpoint pen. He handed over the memo pad.
The fingertips of the receiving man and his touched firmly then separated.
