Even without looking at her face, he could tell who was calling.
There was only one person who called him ‘Ji Hyo.’ Lee Mina, one of the few school friends he was close with along with Taeseo.
“Are you preparing to join an accounting firm, or are you preparing for an idol audition? Even girl group members these days aren’t this skinny.”
Hyowoo forced a smile toward her as she approached worriedly, asking if he was eating.
“I was a bit sick during the break.”
“How sick were you to lose this much weight?”
“Just… you know I originally have a weak constitution.”
Hyowoo had been famous for having a weak body since admission. Mina seemed to believe that excuse for now.
She plopped down next to Hyowoo and grabbed his thin arm.
“You’re probably lighter than me now. Did your weight change to start with a ‘4’?”
“No way. It’s not that serious.”
Contrary to his answer, Hyowoo was currently in a seriously underweight state.
The weight he had gained while meeting Lee Seohee had already returned to where it was long ago, and he had lost another kilogram from there. Recently at the hospital, he had received a suspected eating disorder diagnosis and was even recommended hospitalization.
“More importantly, what brings you all the way to the business administration building? Your department building is on the opposite side.”
“Someone said oppa was walking around like a human skeleton model, so I came because I was worried.”
He tried to quickly change the subject before the nosy Mina could dig deeper, but the conversation eventually returned to square one.
“Oppa, you like chocolate, right? I have some I received as a gift, I’ll give it to you.”
As if she couldn’t bear to watch him looking like he would collapse any moment, she started rummaging through her large bag.
“…Isn’t that something someone who likes you gave you?”
Mina, the school’s greatest beauty, was very popular.
That chocolate was surely a gift from one of her admirers, so he declined, feeling it would be wrong to eat it. But she didn’t care and continued rummaging through her bag.
“It’s okay. I don’t like sweets, so chocolate is piling up at home. It’s better for someone to eat it deliciously than for me to hoard it without eating.”
“Hey, even so…”
“I said it’s okay. Ah, here it is.”
After rummaging through her bag for a while, Mina pulled out and handed over a luxurious chocolate box with a harmonious blend of wine and black colors. It was an all too familiar design.
“It’s apparently quite famous chocolate from Belgium. In Korea, it’s only sold at one OO department store.”
It was the very chocolate Lee Seohee had bought for him last summer when he had no appetite.
In that moment, tears began to fall from Hyowoo’s eyes.
“O… oppa? What’s wrong?”
When Hyowoo, who was usually impassive, suddenly shed tears, Mina was greatly flustered.
“Huh? R-really… why am I like this?”
He tried to hold back, but it was useless. Mina put the chocolate down on the bench and hurriedly pulled out tissues.
“Mina-ya, I’m sorry but… I need to go in now. See you later.”
“What do you mean see you later? Oppa, did something happen? Why are you crying like this?”
Mina held his hand with worried eyes, but Hyowoo shook it off. Leaving her urgent voice behind, he entered the department building as if hiding himself.
He headed straight to the restroom at the end of the first-floor hallway. Entering an empty stall, Hyowoo collapsed without even locking the door. Sitting on the dirty public restroom floor, he pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face.
The tears he had been holding back poured out.
He was embarrassed to be crying like this in the school restroom, but once the tears started, they wouldn’t stop.
‘I tried to forget everything for Seohee-ssi’s sake……’
The two months without seeing his face or hearing his voice were long and long. Yet that time wasn’t enough.
‘I miss him… I feel like I’m going crazy because I miss him so much……’
How much more time would have to pass before he could forget Lee Seohee?
If it was going to hurt this much, he’d rather get in an accident and forget all his memories—Hyowoo cried desperately, screaming inside.
* * *
After barely calming his heart, Hyowoo trudged out of the restroom.
The reflection in the mirror was disastrous. His eyes were swollen bright red, and his clothes were a mess, soaked with tears.
When he opened the door, he could feel the murmuring of students around him, but he didn’t even care.
After crying for over an hour and not eating anything, bile rose from his stomach and he vomited several times.
His head hurt so much it felt like it would split, and he felt like he would collapse any moment, but he didn’t want to go home.
‘…How much time is left until the next class?’
The moment he took out his phone to check the time, a message appeared on the screen.
Taeseo
Today
If you have time, could we meet briefly?
* * *
Gyeonwoo’s studio apartment, which didn’t get much sunlight even during the day, was quite chilly.
Hyowoo, who had barely finished showering with breaks in between, hunched his shoulders.
With his whole body wrapped in a towel, he carefully came out toward where the bed was and sat down on the floor. He took out a hairdryer from the nightstand drawer, plugged it into the outlet, and glanced at the clock on the wall.
3:26 PM. He had spent 1 hour and 12 minutes on a shower that would normally take less than 20 minutes.
While blankly drying his hair, he listed one by one in his head the things he had to do from now on and calculated the time.
‘Drying my hair, changing clothes, and getting ready to go out will take about 40 minutes… so if I go straight to Dad’s hospital and get an IV, I’ll have plenty of time until the appointment……’
The message that arrived right after he came out from crying in the restroom was from Taeseo.
After parting with Lee Seohee like that, Hyowoo hadn’t been able to contact her either. It was because the guilt toward him had spread to feeling sorry toward his friend as well.
‘How much does Taeseo know about what happened that day?’
He couldn’t even guess how much Lee Seohee had told his younger cousin.
He felt sorry about meeting Taeseo, but the anxiety that if he avoided her once, his connection with his best friend might be cut off in the future was greater. In the end, Hyowoo decided to meet her.
When she suggested having dinner together, Hyowoo said they should just have tea.
When he couldn’t even swallow water well, if he forced himself to eat solid food, he would obviously get sick.
He absolutely didn’t want to show himself vomiting in front of a friend he was meeting after a long time.
He made an appointment to meet at a café that had recently opened near school, where they wouldn’t be pressured even if they sat for a long time.
It was good that he had the courage to meet, but his face was a mess from crying, and his clothes were dirty from sitting on the restroom floor. He couldn’t go out looking like this.
But there wasn’t nearly enough time to go home and come back. After agonizing, he decided to stop by Gyeonwoo’s studio apartment, which wasn’t that far from school, on the way.
Hyowoo frequented his younger brother’s place enough to have clothes to change into. Gyeonwoo didn’t mind his hyung coming when he wasn’t there either, so he often visited this place to take naps during free periods or to study alone.
Fortunately, their father’s hospital was also close to the studio apartment. If he got an IV at the hospital instead of going home, he could arrive at the meeting place on time.
When he sent Gyeonwoo a message asking if it was okay to come shower, a reply came quickly.
Gyeonwoo
I’m not home today
Where are you going?
Gyeonwoo
Planning to drink with Woosung after class
I won’t be in until early tomorrow morning, so just unlock the door yourself and shower comfortably
You don’t need to bother asking me every time about things like this from now on
Seeing the message with the added comment ‘Wash yourself squeaky clean with warm water~,’ Hyowoo felt a little relieved.
Even though he had been severely scolded by their father because of his hyung, Gyeonwoo was still the same good younger brother, full of affection and friendliness.
‘He seems to be getting along well with Woosung like before. That’s a relief……’
He roughly dried his hair with the hairdryer and took out clothes to change into from the drawer.
As Hyowoo slowly threaded his arms through the shirt, he suddenly stopped and stared blankly at himself reflected in the full-length mirror. Then he carefully touched the area around the left side of his neck.
‘It’s completely disappeared now……’
The red lotus leaf he had left that night had already disappeared without a trace.
‘It would be nice if my memories of him could disappear like this……’
The sweet and gentle kiss they had shared. The soft touch that pleasantly caressed his body.
The sensations and emotions of that time, even the small and trivial moments, remained vividly in his head.
He gently pressed the spot where the mark had been with his fingertips.
‘If only I could forget everything… if only I could do that, wouldn’t it be a little less painful than now……?’
He had tried so hard not to think about it, but he couldn’t do it anymore.
His image kept appearing before his eyes. Recalling the affectionate smile that had beamed toward him made his heart ache.
He thought he had shed all the tears he would cry in his lifetime, but apparently there were still some left, as his eyes became moist again.
‘I can’t cry… If I go with puffy eyes, Dad will worry……’
Hyowoo pulled out a tissue and pressed it firmly against his eyes.
He barely suppressed the emotions that were about to intensify again and calmed his heart.
