Echo
Echo
JB/Hyejeong, JB/Jr.
10000 w (!!!), pg
a/n: This is dedicated to kisoap who broke my heart so many times in the past few months. Yes, I wrote this with revenge in mind. Actually this should have been a birthday present for you and kurdoodle but you know me. Special thanks to cleonsyk-sensei who has been supporting throughout the process, and eternal_hopes who contributed ideas which I did not really use ahahahahaha (thanks for your time and effort, though). Also Naomi challenge me to keep this at 9999 words but ambition > dare, sorry. ok anyway I hope you guys like this as much as I loved writing it bye
The sky is asphalt grey. Jaebum keeps his gaze at it, hands in the pocket and jaws clenched, until he feels a tap on his shoulder.
“Do you think it will take long?” It’s a girl, who stares at him with a frown. She looks familiar, but then again they are at the bus stop across the street from their university entrance, so it’s not impossible that he could have run into her several times before. It takes him a moment to register that she’s talking about the rain.
He turns his head to the sky again. “Probably a while,” he answers.
The girl’s scowl grows more apparent. “Ah, no choice then” is all she says before she dashes off through the downpour towards the row of shops without a smile or even another glance at him. Not that he’s expecting any.
Something stirs inside him. His eyes follow her until she disappears after turning the corner, then his bus arrives.
He meets her again when his housemate decides to throw a party without informing him. Jaebum is making his way through the people to search for Sungjin, at the same time thinking why the hell are there strangers in his living room, but then he gets pushed by someone he doesn’t recognize, which causes him to bump into a girl.
“Ah,” she grumbles under her breath. It takes him a moment to realize that he has accidentally knocked over the cup she’s holding, spilling the content onto her shirt. By the fierce look of her face when she lifts her head up, it seems like she’s going to give him a piece of her mind, or at least something equally frightening, but the moment their eyes connect, that anger instantly melts into a grin of recognition. “What is it with you and fluids? The last time I met you, it was raining.”
Jaebum is not really sure if she means it as a joke because she said it with a light laugh, so he settles with an “I’m so sorry” to be safe and offers to show her the bathroom and a shirt to change into, which she accepts, and waits until she’s done, partly out of manners, mainly because he really has no idea who half of the people in his living room are.
“I swear this wasn’t our plan,” she-Hyejeong as she introduced herself-explains later. “I mean, the idea was just for our group to get together and eat some pizza, you know since finals are over and our project was a lot of work. We thought of inviting a couple of kids from our class as well, but somehow words got out and reached Jae, and the rest is as you would imagine.”
He takes a sip of his drink as he thinks about it while staring at the strangers in his house. They both are standing in the small kitchen space rather awkwardly, as though he’s not one of the owners of the house and she’s not the one who received a direct invitation. “Okay, at least now we know whose address to give out next weekend,” he returns. Then they laugh, and that’s when Jaebum remembers he has no idea where Sungjin is.
She frowns like when they met at the bus stop. “The last time I saw him he looked extremely stressed out and mumbling something about not having enough drinks and “my housemate is going to kill me”. I think he should be at the convenience store having panic attacks.”
“So, what? He left the house unsupervised?”
“Pretty much.”
“I am going to kill him.”
Hyejeong laughs at that and pats his back. “You should go bring him back before he gets heart palpitations or something, or worse, arrested. I’ll make sure no one vomits on your couch or carpet, and if I catch somebody making out in your bed, I’ll kick them out.”
Jaebum shudders at the thought of having strangers tainting his innocent bed and spends half a minute considering his options until Hyejeong urges him to the door, as if she owns the place, repeating “don’t worry” over and over to reassure him. He obeys anyway, not knowing why, and finds Sungjin at the said place almost at a breaking point while crouching down in front of the fridge, with a concerned part-timer next to him. Jaebum fights the urge to laugh or to film his housemate, and brings him back. By the time they reach their apartment unit back, all the strangers are already gone. Jaebum blinks confusedly. If it’s not for the apparent mess, he would’ve thought he imagined the earlier incident.
Right then, Hyejeong emerges from the kitchen holding a trash bag and appears more than eager to see them. “Someone broke your vase, and someone else almost vomited into one of your shoes, but Younghyun managed to stop it and brought that dude to the toilet. I seized the opportunity and used that excuse to chase them all out,” she explains with a grin and looks at him like she’s waiting for a compliment.
Just in time, the toilet door opens and Younghyun, wearing a pair of gloves, takes them off before plopping into the couch. “It’s a Saturday night, and I’m cleaning someone else’s toilet,” he mumbles, more to himself than to any of them, before turning to direct deadly glares at Sungjin. “You owe us one, man.”
“Please, we only agreed to invite our classmates because you needed a reason to talk to Ayeon. And she didn’t even come,” Sungjin retorts. “Where’s Minho, though?”
“He bailed to go on a date with Sunyoung,” Hyejeong answers, making a face. “Don’t worry. Younghyun and I are already planning to tell Professor Hong that he didn’t contribute that much for our project so his mark would get deducted.”
“Genius,” Sungjin laughs, about to exchange a high five with her when he realizes that she’s still holding the garbage bag. He makes a face, and is making his way towards his room when Jaebum pulls his shirt.
“Not so fast, man. You stay here and take care of the remaining mess. I want to see everything in its place and clean when I wake up tomorrow,” he tells his housemate.
Sungjin scowls and mumbles something under his breath, in his dialect no less, but picks up the gloves Younghyun dropped earlier and puts them on. On the other hand, Younghyun who plopped down on the couch earlier has already started snoring out of exhaustion. Chuckling, Jaebum goes to his room and returns with a blanket which he drapes over Younghyun. Then he turns to Hyejeong who’s drying her wet hand with a towel hanging at the refrigerator’s door. She catches his gaze, and smiles.
Jaebum does not think of Hyejeong again until he finds himself standing right behind her in line at the cinema three weeks later. He’s still wondering if she would still recognize him when she suddenly turns around, as though sensing someone is burning a hole on her back.
“Glad to finally run into you some place dry,” she says.
He’s confused at first, but recalls their first two encounters and cringes. “Not a very good impression, I guess?”
“Could’ve been better, certainly,” she chuckles. The queue moves so they take a step forward almost in sync. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah. You too?”
She groans out loud then. “This should’ve been an outing with my friends but they bailed on me to go on some blind date.”
“Why didn’t you join them?” Jaebum laughs as he asks.
“Would you rather be on a blind date or watch a movie?”
He considers it for a second. “Never been on blind dates before so I’d say movie.”
“You’ve never gone on a blind date?”
“Never thought of it, never got invited, wouldn’t have had time anyway,” he replies, shrugging nonchalantly.
She reaches over and gives him a pat on the shoulder. “That’s okay. You’re not missing out on anything.”
He laughs again. “Speaking from experience?”
“My friend made me go once. God, it was really boring.” She rolls her eyes dramatically. “That guy just kept speaking with a weird accent because he apparently lived overseas - not to discriminate, but I think he did that on purpose - and kept talking about his vacations and cars and goals. Such a show off. But at least I had a nice fancy meal and he paid for it.”
“In the end you used the poor guy to fill your stomach.”
“Hey, I consider that as my reward for tolerating him, okay. You have no idea how much I wanted to punch him,” she protests.
“Please remind me to not ever go on a blind date with you.”
It’s her turn to laugh. “I’m not that bad,” she tells him, her head slightly tilted as she looks at him with a smile. By now, there’s only one group of high school girls in front of Hyejeong. He remembers to ask which movie she’s going to watch and both of them get pleasantly surprised when they find out they’re watching the same movie. “Want to sit together?” she offers.
“Is this a date? Are you going to punch me if I do something that annoys you?”
Again, she laughs. “Don’t do it, then. I’ll be nice if you are.”
Jaebum takes up her offer, and it turns out that Hyejeong is a pleasant companion to have that he doesn’t even regret spending his hard earned money on the overpriced popcorn which she threw several pieces at a couple sitting two rows in front of them who wouldn’t stop giggling loudly even during a murder scene. By the end of their one-month semester break, they’ve watched six movies together at the cinemas and three more in his living room in between his part-time job.
The second time in the living room, Sungjin walks in a quarter way through the movie and raises his brows when he finds his friend lying sideways on the couch and his housemate sitting on the floor with his back leaned against the same couch. Despite finding it weird, he says nothing and even tries to join them, but gives up not even half an hour in because really who can stand sitting through a three-hour movie about people floating around in space? (Apparently Hyejeong and Jaebum can.)
He asks Jaebum about it later at night after she left.
“Can’t friends watch movies together?” is how the latter counters. Sungjin raises his brows, but Jaebum thinks he probably sounds nonchalant enough, so Sungjin lets it go and never questions it again.
Soon the semester opens again. Jaebum is back to being busy, and so is Hyejeong, and neither of them has time for movies.
When the automatic bell rings as a customer steps in, Jaebum is staring ahead blankly. It takes him a moment and a shove by Seunghoon, another part-timer who afterwards heads to the store room, for him to notice there’s someone standing across the counter staring at him while holding two cans of coffee.
“Oh, sorry,” he mumbles, taking the cans to scan them without looking up to meet her gaze.
“Are you okay?” Hyejeong frowns at him when he gets startled by her voice. He wouldn’t admit it if asked, but that’s when he realizes it is her standing in front of him. “You look so… I don’t know, distracted? You kinda zoned out.”
“Really?” He raised his brows.
“You didn’t even notice a customer coming in.”
He flicks a quick glance at the door then around the store before realizing that she’s referring to herself. She gives him a look that says see?, so he apologizes again and attempts a nonchalant smile with a shake of head. “It’s nothing, really. Too many assignments, too little time and barely any motivation to do anything. It’s just one of those moments when you question yourself, do I really need this degree?”
She chuckles but her eyes are sympathetic. “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” she tells him as he hands her the change. “Do things one at a time so you don’t lose track? Sometimes I find that easier than multitasking because I can focus better. But maybe that’s just me.”
Jaebum attempts another smile, this time more genuine. “Thanks,” he says. “Maybe I should quit this job. It doesn’t even pay much.”
“Maybe you should,” she returns the smile, then presses one of the cans into his hand. When he gives her a quizzical look, her smile widens a little. “Buy me better coffee next time.”
That finally makes him laugh, but not too loud. The can is warm in his hand, even after Hyejeong’s left. He doesn’t drink it. Puts it on the table when he gets back to his room and stares at it, stares at his pile of books, then picks up his phone. It’s 1 in the morning, but then it’s a Friday. Or was.
wanna catch a movie?
The reply comes a minute later with a picture attached. He reads the text first. Did you read my mind? The picture is a screenshot of their conversation with a new half typed message. It reads: wanna go catc
“Why are you in Accounting really?” Hyejeong questions one day when they catch each other at the library. She’s leaning back and fiddling with her earphones, seeming to have completely given up on her textbook and a notepad on the table. “I mean, you clearly have interest in films, have profound knowledge about them and you always have these insightful and unbiased opinions. Sungjin said you have talent, too.”
He stops twirling a pen in between his index and middle finger and looks up from his own book to meet her eyes across of him. They decided to share a table even though there are other unclaimed tables but have kept quiet since. “Honestly, majoring in film studies was my dream. But that’s thing, it’s a dream. My family’s financial situation doesn’t give me the freedom to choose passion over profit. My mother wouldn’t say no I asked, but I didn’t want to. So I chose to be realistic and woke up from sleep.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “But don’t you think that you would be happier now if you chose your dream?”
“I’m not unhappy,” he retorts, insistent.
Jaebum half expects her to point out and question his choice of words, but she doesn’t. Instead, her gaze softens, and she reaches out her hand to pat his. “Then that’s good,” she says. Her hand lingers for a moment, and he stares it while mentally counting the seconds. She doesn’t seem to notice and goes back to her books after retracting her hand. He lifts his eyes to stare at her, and soon does the same.
He lets Younghyun drag him to a dinner party his coursemates threw. Jaebum doesn’t even know the the people in Younghyun’s major well, but he thinks it’s probably a good idea to spend a Friday night without his calculator and laptop every now and then, especially after catching himself finding the idea of going for a night swim at Han river appealing. He could probably do with the change of scenery too, along with some alcohol in his system. There’s meat, as well, so that’s an excuse.
But when he’s left alone in the midst of people he doesn’t quite know, all either too drunk to form a comprehensible sentence or too drunk to even care to talk, he realizes that it’s probably not a good idea at all. He thinks about leaving, or at least waits at any convenience store nearby until Younghyun notices him missing and calls, when a girl plops down next to him laughing.
“You look like you’re either going to kill someone here or yourself,” Hyejeong prods, pretending to look disappointed. “Why did you even come in the first place?”
“I suppose I let Younghyun talk me into believing that this would be fun.”
She chuckles. “Come on, I’m sure you knew this wasn’t going to be fun.”
“I guess so.” He gives her a shrug, shaking the empty cup he’s holding for no particular reason. “Last night I looked up ‘cheap but creative ways to cook ramyun’ and apparently I’ve tried everything.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to sign up for a cooking lesson,” she replies.
“Or get a maid.”
“Or a girlfriend.”
“In this economy?” Jaebum raises his brows. Both of them start laughing, but it dies too quickly and they are left in silence. “What about you? No more blind dates?” he asks after a while.
“Nah. I think I’ll just take a break from dating,” she replies. He looks at her, confused, and she sees that so she continues. “Just broke up two weeks ago. Or three? I can’t remember.”
It dawns on him now that he never asked. Despite all those times they hung out together, this has never become the subject of their conversation, and even if she did once ask about his past relationship, it never crossed his mind to return the question. He takes a look around, returns his gaze at her for a second before casting his eyes down at his hands and remembers how they’ve been warm recently because of her.
Hyejeong pulls her knees up to her chest, wraps her arms around her legs and rests her right cheek on the left knee as she looks at him. “Jaebum,” she calls gently, so he turns to meet her eyes. “I don’t know exactly what’s on your mind right now, but stop thinking about it. It shows.”
He feels even more horrible now. He stares down at his hands again. “I’m sorry.”
“If you’re really sorry, then keep an eye on me.” When Jaebum gives her that puzzled look again, she chuckles softly. “I have this habit of drunk dialling people, so make sure I don’t drink too much, or that I don’t call my ex-boyfriend if I do get drunk. Friends don’t let friends drunk dial their exes, okay?”
Jaebum gapes, opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t. In the end, Hyejeong nudges him with her shoulder and he just laughs.
They spend the remaining four weeks left of the semester together, mostly cooped up in the library. They started sharing tables only after running into each other several times, but it soon became a part of their routine that they even saved a seat for each other when more students began to flock to the library as finals season approaches. Some days, they opt to study together with Sungjin and Younghyun instead in his living room, which Jaebum complained is unfair because he’s the odd one out as the only one from a different department.
“You were right. Do we really need this degree? Tell me again why is a piece of paper so important?” Hyejeong asks as she stares at her bowl of udon blankly like she can see her entire life in there, which makes him chuckle.
“It’s important because that piece of paper determines whether or not we are qualified to get a job,” he replies after blowing into his own, then inhales a load of it, making a loud slurping sound.
This udon restaurant is their regular stop on their way back home from the library, partly because of its strategic location being near the campus, but mainly because it’s simply cheap yet more filling compared to instant noodles. Jaebum is the one who discovered the restaurant after he decided he’s eaten enough instant noodles to feed the entire nation. He stopped looking up ramyun recipes and started searching ‘cheap restaurants broke university students can afford’ instead, and that led him here.
She stares up at him while chewing. “And why is that important?”
“So we can afford to eat better food?”
She chuckles and takes a sip of her plain water before she speaks. “I bet later after we start working, we’ll miss this place.”
Jaebum looks up from his bowl to ponder over her remark. “I doubt I would. I’ve lived a hard life long enough. I mean, I definitely don’t miss eating ramyun now.”
She laughs again. This is not their first time having a meal here, and definitely not their first time having a meal together anywhere. Over the past several months that they become acquainted and grow close from sharing a favourite pastime aside from sharing mutual friends, they have spent a lot of time with each other. Before he quit his job at the convenience store, Hyejeong would drop by every now and then around the time his shift ends and they would have a late dinner of instant noodles or a round of drinks before going home. Over those many meals and drinks, they’ve shared more stories of themselves, expectations they’re supposed to meet and disappointments they can’t avoid, dreams and worries of two university students who are still not quite ready to enter adulthood.
They continue to eat in silence until she pauses again to stare out the window pensively. “Do you think we will still meet up to have meals together after we start working?” she muses.
“If we try,” he answers with a shrug. “Don’t people usually drift apart when one of them stops trying?”
“I guess so.” Their eyes connect then, and Hyejeong reaches over to remove something from his bottom lip. But her fingers linger there hovering over it and brushing it lightly when he opens his mouth. Her eyes move back and forth from his lips to his gaze. She opens her mouth as well, but Jaebum speaks before she can.
“Hyejeong,” he murmurs her name like he’s cradling a newborn, gently and carefully, unsure and lacking confidence. He looks away for a moment, stirring the content of his bowl with his chopsticks, presses his lips together before he lifts his eyes up at the window. “Once exams are over, do you want to go watch a movie together, then grab something nice for dinner?” he asks, looking at her again, then adds: “Like a real date.”
She stares at him like she can’t believe what she just heard, so he begins to doubt himself. It would be a lie if he says over the period of time they’ve known each other and spent together, he didn’t begin to develop feelings for her, but he doesn’t know if she feels the same. Every second of this silence drags on and feels like eternity for him.
In the end, she sets down her chopsticks and rests her chin in her hand with her elbow arched on the table. “Does this mean you will not stop trying?” she asks.
Jaebum moves his hand and reaches hers on the table. It’s warm, unlike his cold fingertips. He wonders if it surprised her. When he returns his gaze at her, she’s looking down at their hands. “I won’t,” he says.
She lifts her eyes and stares into his, lips pressed together, like she’s scanning them for his sincerity. He doesn’t waver, then she looks down again and turns their hands around before moving her fingers to interlace them with his. She smiles at him. “Then I won’t, either.”
They promised to meet at 11, but now it’s 10.40 and Jaebum is already standing in front of the subway exit, sweating buckets despite the weather. Technically, this isn’t the first time they’re going out together by themselves, so he shouldn’t have been this nervous.
He doesn’t know if he’s dressed right for the day. It’s what he usually wears, except that he picked the nicest clean shirt that he could find, attempted to style his hair and sprayed some of Sungjin’s cologne, and he doesn’t know if that’s enough or too much. It’s Hyejeong, the girl he’s been hanging out with for almost a year, but it’s also Hyejeong, the first girl he ever developed feelings for and confessed to. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his (clean) jeans, he sighs, chews the inside of his cheek and kicks an invisible stone with the tip of his shoe.
“Hey.” He hears a familiar voice, so he turns around and comes face-to-face with the very girl, dressed so nicely in a long dress, denim jacket and another layer of thicker winter jacket. “You look so…” he trails off, suddenly feeling bad about his own choice of clothes. Maybe he should’ve worn a nicer jacket.
“Ah, is it too much?” Her cheeks pink, and she seems like she’s embarrassed. “I didn’t know what I should wear, really. I thought jeans would be too casual - I mean, of course I wanted to be casual, but you know this is our first real date, so I thought I should wear something a little nicer, different than what I usually wear. Is this weird?”
Hyejeong continues to drone on, but after a while he starts chuckling which makes her pause and give him a pointed look. “And here I was thinking whether I’m not dressed right,” he explains, but her brows are still knitted in worry. He smiles. “You look pretty. I mean it.”
She blinks at him, but soon a smile spreads out from her lips. “Thank you. You don’t look too bad yourself,” she offers. He laughs. It’s not even 11 yet.
They decided to forgo their usual routine and go for a stroll instead. Jaebum hasn’t come to Hongdae on a Saturday afternoon since forever, so he forgot how crowded the place can be. He notices Hyejeong struggling to make her way through, he offers his hand. She stares at it for a second too long, and it isn’t until she gets pushed by someone and she almost stumbles that he grabs hers without further waiting.
It’s warm, like the first time he held her hand that night at the udon restaurant. The crowd bustling around them blurs away, fading out into some kind of a blurry background and white noise and now it’s just the two of them standing here, smiling up at each other like one of the clichéd movie scenes he’s watched with her. This feels nice, he thinks, beaming, and holds it tighter.
Sungjin is at the kitchen when he comes home from work, stirring something in the pot and a kettle next to it. On the table, several side dishes are already waiting in containers. Sungjin didn’t bother to plate them, but it’s not an issue that Jaebum should point out because he himself regularly drinks milk straight from the carton.
“It’s 10 pm,” Jaebum says, but his housemate gives him a look as though the latter is supposed to be surprised.
“So?” is how he responds, like cooking dinner at this hour is the most natural occurrence especially in this house. “You hungry?”
Jaebum ate two triangle kimbabs earlier, but that wasn’t really a satisfying meal - can’t even be considered a meal to begin with - so he nods and watches Sungjin taking out another bowl from the cupboard. It doesn’t take long for his stew to be done. He’s already carrying the pot to the table before Jaebum can offer to do so, so instead he looks for something as a makeshift placemat and settles with a stack of leaflets originally from their mailbox. The stew looks great and smells as good, enough to make his stomach grumbles again. Sungjin has a knack for cooking, but he doesn’t do it as often as Jaebum would prefer due to time constraints. “Did these just arrive?” he asks, pointing at the side dishes.
“Yeah, this afternoon.” Sungjin nods while picking up his spoon.
Ideally, Sungjin would have already gone back to Busan. The idea of spending this semester break comfortably at home without having to worry about fixing meals or turning off the heater to save electricity is no doubt tempting, but he still needs to earn for next semester’s tuition fee and other spending, so he stays and works at the university’s administration office. He can’t rely on his parents alone to send him allowances when they barely have enough for themselves and his younger sister who is still in school. Sometimes, Jaebum envies that side of Sungjin who is so considerate he would rather suffer by himself than placing burden on someone else’s shoulder, even if it’s his own family, but mostly, Jaebum envies the fact that Sungjin has people whom he cares for and who look out for him more. Jaebum has none of that.
Growing up, he was always closer to his dad, but he passed away when Jaebum was 14. Several months before he graduated from high school, his mother remarried and moved into her new husband’s house. Jaebum never felt quite at home there, so he packed up his stuff, headed to Seoul for university and started calling this place his home. Since then, he only went back twice - one for Chuseok, and the other for his mother’s birthday, but her new husband took care of it better than Jaebum ever would. Every now and then, he would head back alone to his old home to visit and clean his father’s tomb. At least, he thinks, he’s filial to one parent.
“Speaking of which, Hyejeong came by this morning to pick up something from the office. Not sure what it was.” He shrugs, scoops a chunk of rice into his mouth and starts chewing. Without looking, he asks: “So, you and Hyejeong?”
“She told you?” An obvious question for sure, so when Sungjin nods, his chest swells with guilt. It’s been two weeks since the first time he and Hyejeong went on a real date, five since they decided to date. He would like to blame it on their clashing work shifts, but he knows that it’s not that they didn’t run into each other at all. He had plenty of opportunities. “Sorry I didn’t tell you myself. I don’t know why I di-”
“You don’t have to apologize. I’m not even mad or upset, am I?” he shrugs, doesn’t look offended at all, but he’s not smiling either. “I’m just saying… you’re my friend, but she’s my friend too, so I hope things work out well between the two of you because I don’t want to go all awkward with either of you.”
Jaebum thinks back about their first date. Holding hands as they walked, whispering to each other’s ears because it was too loud, sharing jokes and stories of themselves and their friends. It was all too natural. For the first time, he accompanied Hyejeong back right to the entrance of her apartment building where she lives with her parents. They usually separated at the bus stop because they take different buses. He thinks about their hands lingered even after they said good nights. The kiss that was as quiet as the night.
He stares at Sungjin for a moment, hand holding the pair of chopsticks frozen mid-air. Then he laughs. “We just started out. Don’t be so negative.”
Sungjin starts laughing along, apologizing in between. “I didn’t mean that-”
“Yeah, I know,” Jaebum interrupts. He fetches two glasses to pour water in and pushes one towards Sungjin. “Thanks for the food,” he says. For the concern, he doesn’t say.
Jaebum finds Hyejeong sitting at the bus stop waiting for him, as he descends from the bus, with a smile too bright for 8 in the morning. It’s the first day of the new semester, and his body clock hasn’t adjusted well since he’s been working night shifts during the break and spent most of his mornings in his bed. She presses the tumbler that she’s been holding into his hand, then a quick kiss on his cheek after the bus and people who got off the bus with him have left. His eyes widen a little, and he feels grateful for the cold weather for giving him a reason to wear a beanie that hides his reddening ears.
“I heard you’re not very pleasant to be around in early mornings and less prone to crankiness once you have caffeine in your system,” she says.
“You didn’t have to,” he mumbles back, but his ear-to-ear grin says otherwise.
She pats him on the back as they both fall into steps together. “You can’t go to war with an empty stomach,” she comments, referring to the class registration that will begin at 9 later. No one wants to be a casualty in this war. He ended up as one in his second semester and questioned his life decisions every morning as he dragged himself out of the bed for his 8 am classes.
Thankfully, the two of them manage to get into the classes they want. They celebrate along with Younghyun whom they run into on their way to the cafeteria.
Just like how his break went, not a lot of things have changed since Jaebum and Hyejeong started going out. They don’t meet up for lunch regularly as their department buildings are quite a distance apart, but on most evenings before he heads off to his part time job, they study or work on their assignments together at the library, their common area as it is strategically located in the middle of the campus.
Today is one of those days, and Hyejeong, giving up on her slides, pushes her laptop aside, rests her head sideways on the table and sighs. “Is it too late to quit studying and instead find some good looking chaebol to marry?”
“What makes you think it is okay to ask me that question?” Jaebum asks back without lifting his eyes from his textbook.
She moves her head slightly to change the angle so she can look at him. “Is the ever composed Im Jaebum finally showing signs of jealousy?” she prods with amusement while reaching out to poke his arm with her pen.
“Nope,” he responds, still not looking up.
Grinning, she props her chin up with her elbow on the table. “Hey, tell me about your first love.”
His body immediately tenses and the colours from his eyes drain, but he recovers quickly give a shrug that he hopes seem nonchalant enough. If she noticed it, she doesn’t make any comment. “It was something very fleeting. That person moved away before anything even happened. I wasn’t expecting anything, anyway.”
“Was that person your friend?”
“My best friend,” he replies curtly, then looks at his watch. “Let’s go. I’ll be late for work.”
Sungjin insists on inviting their friends over for dinner before Seollal despite Jaebum’s strong protest. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you called your friends over?” the latter taunts.
“That was unintentional,” Sungjin defends himself, ignoring the sweat forming under his bangs. “You can invite your friends too.”
“Not gonna,” Jaebum mumbles in reply.
Right then, Sungjin finds a weak point. “Do you even have friends? I feel like you only ever hang out with me or Younghyun or both. Wait, do you remember when I asked you to come to a dinner party with me and you made a friend up just because you didn’t want to go?”
“That was one time!” Jaebum retorts, ears burning.
“You could have told me.”
“Like you would take no for an answer.”
“So you resorted to making up someone who doesn’t exist to get out of it?”
And that is how Jaebum finds himself pushing a cart filled with the ingredients for dinner around the supermarket with a list in hand, cursing his housemate all the while. He’s in the middle of deciding which colour of paprika he should get since it’s not specifically stated in the list, when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns around and his eyes widen in surprise the moment their eyes connect.
The boy looks at him with a restrained and hesitant smile. “Long time no see, Jaebum.”
Jaebum drops the paprika.
The soon he drops the groceries on the dining table, Jaebum heads straight to his room, ignoring Sungjin’s puzzled look and not even noticing Hyejeong standing there in the kitchen. His whole body is shivering, as if he’s been soaked by the rain. Without removing his jacket, he sinks into his bed and buries himself under the duvet, which makes Sungjin and Hyejeong worry when they enter his dark room soon later.
“Is anything wrong? Did something happen?” he hears Hyejeong’s concerned voice asking.
All Jaebum wants right now is to be by himself, but he knows they wouldn’t do that for him if he doesn’t say anything. So he does. “I caught a cold. Sungjin, do you mind if I just stay here? You don’t have to cancel the dinner.”
Sungjin does cancel the dinner anyway. Hyejeong stays behind and checks on him from time to time. When he wakes up much later, there is a folded face towel rested on his forehead that he thinks was once wet. He removes it as he gets up and out of the bed and realizes it’s already dark outside. Sungjin doesn’t seem to be around, but he finds Hyejeong in the living room, sleeping on the couch that’s a little too small for her with a blanket draped over her. It’s probably Sungjin who did it before he left.
Jaebum kneels down beside her, gently places a hand on her shoulder and shakes her awake. “You should go home. It’s late,” he tells her once she opens her eyes.
She reaches over to place the back of her hand on his forehead. “Your fever is gone,” she points out instead. “That’s a relief.”
He takes her hand in his and wraps her fingers around it. It’s always warm, her hand, unlike his. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
He clenches his jaw while picking out invisible dust specks off the floor. He can simply answer “it’s just a cold” and Hyejeong would drop the topic and let it die just like that, even if she knows it’s not. He doesn’t, and takes a deep breath as he settles down on the floor. At the same time, she gets up to sit facing him. He still hasn’t let go of her hand.
“This is something I have never told anyone, something that I’ve kept alone inside me all these years, so if I tell you now, you’ll be the first ever person to know about it. Hyejeong, I don’t mind if you choose to stop seeing me after I tell you this, but can you promise not to think of me as someone weird or… I don’t know, creepy?”
She stares at him intently, creases forming in her forehead. Then, she nods. “I promise.”
He closes his eyes and inhales sharply before opening them again. “When I was 12, I befriended someone from my class. We have similar personalities and similar interests, so we got along well. Sometimes, we even made up excuses so we could get away from PE class, and instead went off somewhere else to play together. We even sneaked out of school several times. We spent almost all waking moments together, that’s how inseparable we were. Then, when I was 16, something changed inside of me. I realized that I have feelings for my best friend, but I never said it out loud because I was afraid. I was afraid that it would affect our friendship badly, but most of I was afraid because… my best friend was a boy.”
Jaebum doesn’t dare to look straight at her, but out of the corner of his eyes, he sees that she’s staring at their hands. She keeps silent for what feels to him is an eternity before she finally speaks. “What happened to that friend?” she asks, voice more delicate than a glass jar.
“He moved away.”
“So you never told him how you felt?” He shakes his head in reply, and she joins him on the floor, wraps her arms around him after letting go of his hand, and cradles his head on her shoulder. Exhaling a deep sigh, she runs her fingers through his hair and pats the small of his back. He releases the breath he doesn’t realize he’s been holding until now, and hugs her back. “Is this why your hands are always so cold?” she wonders aloud, but he doesn’t answer. She doesn’t expect him to.
Jinyoung is taller now, with broader shoulders, more defined facial features , and more confidence in his voice and the way he carries himself. 12-year-old Jinyoung was small, shy and unsure of himself, always standing in the background and let someone else buy the final piece of melon bread sold in their school canteen even if his own stomach was grumbling. 22-year-old Jinyoung standing in front of him now is nothing like the boy who offered his lunch when the class bully dropped Jaebum’s.
“Long time no see, Jaebum,” he said.
Jaebum only remembered to breathe five seconds later when someone else who was passing by picked up the paprika for him. He mumbled a thank you and hoped it sounded intelligible enough, before he returned his stare at Jinyoung. “Five years,” he said. “Five years after you walked away without a single word, a warning, anything, and long time no see?”
Jinyoung’s smile didn’t falter, but remained uncertain. “I’m sorry,” he tried again. “How are you? How’ve you been?”
“How do you think I’ve been?” Jaebum spit out, sounding harsher than he originally intended, but he was too angry to care.
“I deserve this, I think,” Jinyoung noted, too positive for his own good. It made Jaebum angrier, especially the way the corners of Jinyoung’s mouth curled slightly more, less uncertain, more apologetic. “I think I know how much you hate my guts right now, but later, if you can find it within you to talk to me, will you come see me?” He went on explaining that he’s in his third year and currently doing practical at Yonsei University Medical Center, where he can be found most of the times. The hospital is big so it would be tricky to look for him, but if Jaebum asks the nurses, they might know where to find him.
Jaebum tried not to pay attention, but the whole time he kept recalling how Jinyoung always had his nose buried in books. He is technically older than Jinyoung, same birth year but older by class level. But Jinyoung was so smart that he was allowed to skip one level and join Jaebum’s class. It didn’t surprise him to hear what Jinyoung is studying now.
Something flickered in Jinyoung’s eyes as he gazed at him quietly after he finished explaining. He pressed his lips and flashed another smile, but this time, it looked sad. “I hope to see you, Jaebum.”
Jaebum said nothing, and pushed his cart away without glancing back.
He attends his classes and goes to his part time job like nothing happened, but when he goes to the library, he doesn’t find Hyejeong at their usual table.
After he told her all about Jinyoung, right from how they became friends to how he abruptly left the town, she hadn’t been mad or upset, but she told Jaebum that she needs some time for herself. No, we’re not breaking up. He lets her have her space and waits for her to appear at the library, the udon restaurant, outside the café where he works at now, but that doesn’t happen.
She does, however, show up outside his class two weeks later, a tumbler in hand and a smile that he thinks has been forced out of her. He decides to pretend not to notice it. She presses the tumbler into his hand like she did on the first day of this semester, but there’s no kiss on the cheek. Not that he expects it.
“I heard you’re less prone to crankiness with caffeine in your system,” she attempts, so he smiles gratefully as he accepts it and doesn’t tell her that he’s already had two cans of coffee today.
They head to the nearest cafeteria even though it’s 4 in the evening, too late for lunch and a little too early for dinner. For the first time since they got to know each other, Hyejeong doesn’t initiate a conversation as they make their way there, so he puts in effort and asks about her classes, if she’s finished the project she’s been working on, and are her groupmates from hell still haven’t repented? She laughs a little at his last question, so he thinks it’s worth it.
The cafeteria is deserted, unsurprisingly, and neither of them gets anything to eat. They take the spot near the floor-to-ceiling glass window and sit in silence for a while. She’s the first one to speak. “Thank you for keeping your promise.”
It takes him a moment to recall what she means by that, and when he does, Jaebum simply smiles. “You too. You didn’t stop trying either,” he reminds her.
She returns the smile, but it fades too quickly. Her gaze falls onto her hands on the table. “Jaebum,” she begins. “You should go see him.”
She doesn’t have to mention the name for him to understand who she is referring to. He can’t say that he didn’t see this conversation happening sooner or later, because he did. He takes a deep breath, then exhales, and nods. “Alright.”
The hospital is as big as Jinyoung has warned. Jaebum wanders around for a while, wondering whether he should just leave, pretend none of this ever happened, and try to make living bearable again somehow, but the thought of Hyejeong stops him. If he leaves now, he wouldn’t be able to face her again.
In the end, he asks one of the friendlier looking nurses if she could help him locate a third year medical student named Park Jinyoung, who then tells him to wait as she calls the desk at the fifth floor where he’s supposed to be. Jinyoung jogs his way down straight away and arrives at the lobby in five minutes, sweating like he just ran a marathon in his white coat and the stethoscope hanging around his neck with a grin like he came in first. It’s strange seeing him like this, too grown up, too mature, not at all the boy Jaebum once know.
“You came!” Jinyoung exclaims happily. He almost reaches over to pat Jaebum’s arm, but he freezes halfway and drops his hand to his side. His grin changes into a polite smile. “Let’s find a place to sit.”
The cafeteria and lounges in the hospital are occupied with families of patients and visitors waiting for the visiting time which are too noisy for them, so Jinyoung takes Jaebum to the quiet staff lounge instead, which is basically a small room filled with bunk beds. The latter worries about it, but Jinyoung tells him that people only come in here to sleep, no one takes a nap at this hour so he doesn’t have to be too concerned.
“So,” Jaebum breathes out, unsure how to begin.
“So,” Jinyoung echoes. They are sitting across of each other on the bunk bed, Jaebum more awkwardly compared to Jinyoung who isn’t a stranger to this place. The room feels too big and too small at the same time. The younger boy fiddles with the hem of his shirt. “Thanks for coming, Jaebum. Really, I mean it.”
Jaebum shrugs. “I wasn’t doubting it.”
“I know, but…” Jinyoung trails off and never completes it. He starts fidgeting, looking left and right before he gets to his feet. “Would you like to drink something? I’ll go get-”
“Jinyoung,” Jaebum cuts in. It’s his first time addressing Jinyoung since they met at the supermarket weeks ago. He decides to get straight to the point. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Biting his lower lip, Jinyoung sits down again and avoids Jaebum’s eyes. “I- I just wanted to… talk to you,” he replies. After seemingly regained his composure again, he finally meets the latter’s gaze and smiles a small, sad smile. “How have you been?”
Jaebum raises his brow. If this is Jinyoung’s attempt at making a small talk, he thinks he can try to stop being angry for a while and tolerate it this once. “Good.” He gives another shrug. “Could’ve been better, but good.”
It seems to sting Jinyoung a bit, but he keeps his smile intact. “How’s your mother? Are you studying or?”
“She’s doing fine, I guess. I haven’t gone home a lot since she - she got married again. I’m at Kyunghee now. Third year, like you. I’m doing Accounting,” Jaebum answers while staring at the other empty beds, suddenly curious if Jinyoung spends the night here often. Jinyoung’s parents were always too busy to pay attention on their bright child, so he would come to Jaebum’s house regularly and sleep there, even though it’s smaller and shabbier than Jinyoung’s own and his single bed is way too cramped for two growing youths. “You’re Yonsei?”
“Yeah.”
“Wouldn’t expect any less from you.” The corners of his mouth slightly curl as images of Jinyoung in class trying to get over his sleepiness by blinking too many times per second, and hunched over his books even when school was over flashes through his mind. “So what happened to you?”
Jinyoung looks at him like he knew the question was coming. As if he’s been expecting it all along. Maybe he spent the past years practicing the answer. He rubs the back of his head with his palm, and Jaebum recognizes the gesture instantly, something he does when he gets nervous. Funny how some habits still remain. “Incheon. My dad got promoted to the headquarters in Seoul, and my mum received a new job offer there, so it worked out well,” explains him.
“You couldn’t have told me all along? Did you think I wouldn’t be able to understand?” Jaebum frowns, brows furrowing.
“It’s not that-”
“Jinyoung,” the tone of his voice is heavier now. “Do you even know how it feels to one day go to your best friend’s house like you would do on any other days, only to find that it’s suddenly empty and your best friend is nowhere to be found, and you only find out from his neighbours - practically strangers - that he’s left the town? And you know nothing about it because he didn’t tell you shit?”
He notices Jinyoung clenching and unclenching his fist, and feels somewhat annoyed by that. Jaebum is the one who was left behind, so who is he to get mad? Jinyoung is about to open his mouth again, but his phone inside the white coat starts buzzing. He takes it out to check the caller ID, and glances at Jaebum guiltily.
Knowing that he can’t reject the call, Jaebum gets to his feet. “I’d better go,” he says, all too exhausted.
Jinyoung grabs his wrist when he turns to walk away. “Hey,” he tries, but his phone doesn’t stop buzzing in his other hand.
“This isn’t going to work out” is all Jaebum says before he shrugs his hand off of Jinyoung’s grip, heads to the door and disappears behind it.
“It’s not easy” is what Jaebum tells Hyejeong later when they have dinner at the udon restaurant for the first time in a long while.
“I understand. But I think you need to understand him too. I mean, he must have his own reason?” she offers. “Did you try to listen to him?”
He didn’t. It’s hard for him to admit it, but he really didn’t try to listen to Jinyoung when the latter tried to offer an explanation. Jaebum was too impatient, too angry, he kept cutting him off mid-sentence, never even bothered to until the end. “No,” he murmurs as he hangs his head low, ashamed.
“More than anything else, before anything else, he was your best friend, wasn’t he? So the two of you must have had so many good memories together,” she goes on. “Don’t turn those happy memories into bad memories that would haunt your life.”
He dares himself to look at her, the girl he met in a downpour. How long has it been since then? Thinking back, it’s a funny occurrence. Neither of them would’ve thought how far fate would take them back then standing at the bus stop together. Their only concern was the rain. Jaebum reaches for her hand. The gesture reminds him of when he was going to confess to her, and now here they are at the same place, discussing a boy he liked before her with her. How does he even deserve her?
“Isn’t this nice? Your hands are cold, but mine are warm. Fate has a clever way of bringing people together,” she says, squeezing his hand. Hyejeong meets his eyes and smiles. “It’s been winter in your heart for so long. Now it’s time for spring.”
He stares at her, and her lips stretch wider for him.
“You need to sort out your feelings, Jaebum. Or else you wouldn’t be able feel happy from the bottom of your heart for the rest of your life.”
Jinyoung is there outside the café when he comes out carrying two bags of trash. He smiles the same hesitant smile, with a scarf around his neck, while Jaebum blinks at him blankly.
“I was told that I can find you here,” says Jinyoung. It’s Hyejeong, no doubt. He rubs his palm over the back of his head. “Don’t worry, take your time. I’ll wait at that park over there.”
Jaebum blinks several times more, then nods dumbly and heads back inside after putting the trash bags at the garbage disposal spot at the alleyway. As told, he takes his time wiping clean the tables and counter, washing the dirty cloths, hanging them dry and making sure the coffee beans have been refilled before he greets his colleagues and manager good night. He drops by at the convenience store two doors away on his way to the park.
Jinyoung is waiting for him at one of the benches, mists of cold air escaping his nose and mouth as he breathes. He looks somewhat younger under the dim street lights, more like the boy Jaebum used to know. “Hey,” Jaebum calls in a low voice, but the younger boy hears him anyway. He offers Jinyoung a can of beer, which the latter accepts.
Plopping down on the same bench next to Jinyoung, he suddenly recalls the summer when they were 15, the first time they had a taste of alcohol in the form of soju stolen from the cupboard where Jaebum’s mother hid her alcohols because they were too curious. It burned their throat, and they swore to never have another drop of it. He scoffs at the memory as he takes a sip of his drink.
“I know I should’ve gone to see you before I left,” Jinyoung begins quietly. “It’s fair for you to be angry at me. I don’t blame you for that. Instead, I owe you an apology.”
Jaebum kicks the tiny pebbles under his shoes while he stares off the distance. Their surrounding is mostly quiet except when people who probably use this path as a shortcut from their workplace, with ties hanging loose around their neck and shirts less crisp than they had been in the morning pass them by. He takes another sip, longer.
“We were together like every day, practically from the moment we wake up in the morning right until we fall asleep again at night. And since we were always together, we knew each other too well, didn’t we? I think it was to the point where I could tell what you were trying to say by just looking at you,” Jinyoung pauses, trying to keep his voice level. “That’s why… I knew.”
“Knew about what?” Jaebum frowns, forehead creased. But when he meets Jinyoung’s stare at last, he understands right away what the latter means. His eyes widen in surprise, breath halted. “You…?”
“Yes, I did.” Jinyoung breathes out. “I’m sorry. I guess I should have talked to you. Honestly, I could have said no to moving up to Incheon, my parents wouldn’t mind, but I was really scared - not of you, of course, but of what could happen if I did. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like if I stayed, I wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that I knew. I didn’t want you to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable, and I didn’t want things to change either.”
“So in the end you chose to run away.”
“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been saying that too many already, that it’s already redundant by now, but there’s nothing else for me to say.” Jinyoung hangs his head low. His eyes might even be red and damp, but it’s night time and the dim street lights are not helping, so Jaebum isn’t sure. He doesn’t make a comment either.
He exhales a heavy sigh, shoving his cold hands into his pockets, and smiles bitterly. “You were 17. You couldn’t possibly know better.”
Jinyoung looks at him again and returns the smile. “You were 17 too, and you probably were even more afraid than I was.”
“I guess.” Jaebum shrugs.
The night grows deeper and quieter. Jinyoung finally opens his can and takes large chugs of his drink. When they’ve both emptied their cans, they sit in silence without another word to each other for a moment that feels impossibly long. Finally, Jinyoung stands up. “I should go,” he tells Jaebum, flashing another smile. This time, it appears less sad and more sanguine, more like the smile Jaebum is familiar with.
“See you around?” Jaebum raises his brows.
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll run into each other again?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Jinyoung reaches for Jaebum’s arm to give it a pat, just like what he wanted to do the last time they saw each other, but this time with more confidence. He looks more relaxed now, and his shoulders aren’t tensed up anymore like he’s carrying all the weight in the world. For five years, he carried his guilt alone. Now he can finally be free. He gives Jaebum one last smile before he turns to leave.
Jaebum watches his friend walk away until he disappears from his sight. When the figure vanishes completely, he takes out his phone from his pocket and dials a number he knows by heart.
The sky is asphalt grey, with a hint of imminent rain in the air. Jaebum keeps his gaze at it, hands in the pocket of his jeans and jaws clenched, until he feels a tap on his shoulder.
“Do you think it will take long?” It’s a girl, who stares at him with a frown. She looks familiar, maybe because they are at the bus stop across the street from their university entrance, or that he has run into her more than just several times before. Maybe even because this has happened before. It doesn’t take him long to register that she’s talking about the rain.
He turns his head to the sky again. “Probably a while,” he answers, smiling.
The girl smiles back. “In that case, do you want to get something to eat while we wait for the rain to let up? I know a good udon restaurant nearby. It’s cheap, too. My boyfriend likes it.”
Jaebum laughs. “Great, then. I have an umbrella, so in case it rains while we make our way there, we can share. And how about a movie after? I heard they’re doing reruns of this movie about people trapped in the space. My girlfriend likes it.”
Hyejeong chuckles. “Sounds perfect.”
JB/Hyejeong, JB/Jr.
10000 w (!!!), pg
a/n: This is dedicated to kisoap who broke my heart so many times in the past few months. Yes, I wrote this with revenge in mind. Actually this should have been a birthday present for you and kurdoodle but you know me. Special thanks to cleonsyk-sensei who has been supporting throughout the process, and eternal_hopes who contributed ideas which I did not really use ahahahahaha (thanks for your time and effort, though). Also Naomi challenge me to keep this at 9999 words but ambition > dare, sorry. ok anyway I hope you guys like this as much as I loved writing it bye
The sky is asphalt grey. Jaebum keeps his gaze at it, hands in the pocket and jaws clenched, until he feels a tap on his shoulder.
“Do you think it will take long?” It’s a girl, who stares at him with a frown. She looks familiar, but then again they are at the bus stop across the street from their university entrance, so it’s not impossible that he could have run into her several times before. It takes him a moment to register that she’s talking about the rain.
He turns his head to the sky again. “Probably a while,” he answers.
The girl’s scowl grows more apparent. “Ah, no choice then” is all she says before she dashes off through the downpour towards the row of shops without a smile or even another glance at him. Not that he’s expecting any.
Something stirs inside him. His eyes follow her until she disappears after turning the corner, then his bus arrives.
He meets her again when his housemate decides to throw a party without informing him. Jaebum is making his way through the people to search for Sungjin, at the same time thinking why the hell are there strangers in his living room, but then he gets pushed by someone he doesn’t recognize, which causes him to bump into a girl.
“Ah,” she grumbles under her breath. It takes him a moment to realize that he has accidentally knocked over the cup she’s holding, spilling the content onto her shirt. By the fierce look of her face when she lifts her head up, it seems like she’s going to give him a piece of her mind, or at least something equally frightening, but the moment their eyes connect, that anger instantly melts into a grin of recognition. “What is it with you and fluids? The last time I met you, it was raining.”
Jaebum is not really sure if she means it as a joke because she said it with a light laugh, so he settles with an “I’m so sorry” to be safe and offers to show her the bathroom and a shirt to change into, which she accepts, and waits until she’s done, partly out of manners, mainly because he really has no idea who half of the people in his living room are.
“I swear this wasn’t our plan,” she-Hyejeong as she introduced herself-explains later. “I mean, the idea was just for our group to get together and eat some pizza, you know since finals are over and our project was a lot of work. We thought of inviting a couple of kids from our class as well, but somehow words got out and reached Jae, and the rest is as you would imagine.”
He takes a sip of his drink as he thinks about it while staring at the strangers in his house. They both are standing in the small kitchen space rather awkwardly, as though he’s not one of the owners of the house and she’s not the one who received a direct invitation. “Okay, at least now we know whose address to give out next weekend,” he returns. Then they laugh, and that’s when Jaebum remembers he has no idea where Sungjin is.
She frowns like when they met at the bus stop. “The last time I saw him he looked extremely stressed out and mumbling something about not having enough drinks and “my housemate is going to kill me”. I think he should be at the convenience store having panic attacks.”
“So, what? He left the house unsupervised?”
“Pretty much.”
“I am going to kill him.”
Hyejeong laughs at that and pats his back. “You should go bring him back before he gets heart palpitations or something, or worse, arrested. I’ll make sure no one vomits on your couch or carpet, and if I catch somebody making out in your bed, I’ll kick them out.”
Jaebum shudders at the thought of having strangers tainting his innocent bed and spends half a minute considering his options until Hyejeong urges him to the door, as if she owns the place, repeating “don’t worry” over and over to reassure him. He obeys anyway, not knowing why, and finds Sungjin at the said place almost at a breaking point while crouching down in front of the fridge, with a concerned part-timer next to him. Jaebum fights the urge to laugh or to film his housemate, and brings him back. By the time they reach their apartment unit back, all the strangers are already gone. Jaebum blinks confusedly. If it’s not for the apparent mess, he would’ve thought he imagined the earlier incident.
Right then, Hyejeong emerges from the kitchen holding a trash bag and appears more than eager to see them. “Someone broke your vase, and someone else almost vomited into one of your shoes, but Younghyun managed to stop it and brought that dude to the toilet. I seized the opportunity and used that excuse to chase them all out,” she explains with a grin and looks at him like she’s waiting for a compliment.
Just in time, the toilet door opens and Younghyun, wearing a pair of gloves, takes them off before plopping into the couch. “It’s a Saturday night, and I’m cleaning someone else’s toilet,” he mumbles, more to himself than to any of them, before turning to direct deadly glares at Sungjin. “You owe us one, man.”
“Please, we only agreed to invite our classmates because you needed a reason to talk to Ayeon. And she didn’t even come,” Sungjin retorts. “Where’s Minho, though?”
“He bailed to go on a date with Sunyoung,” Hyejeong answers, making a face. “Don’t worry. Younghyun and I are already planning to tell Professor Hong that he didn’t contribute that much for our project so his mark would get deducted.”
“Genius,” Sungjin laughs, about to exchange a high five with her when he realizes that she’s still holding the garbage bag. He makes a face, and is making his way towards his room when Jaebum pulls his shirt.
“Not so fast, man. You stay here and take care of the remaining mess. I want to see everything in its place and clean when I wake up tomorrow,” he tells his housemate.
Sungjin scowls and mumbles something under his breath, in his dialect no less, but picks up the gloves Younghyun dropped earlier and puts them on. On the other hand, Younghyun who plopped down on the couch earlier has already started snoring out of exhaustion. Chuckling, Jaebum goes to his room and returns with a blanket which he drapes over Younghyun. Then he turns to Hyejeong who’s drying her wet hand with a towel hanging at the refrigerator’s door. She catches his gaze, and smiles.
Jaebum does not think of Hyejeong again until he finds himself standing right behind her in line at the cinema three weeks later. He’s still wondering if she would still recognize him when she suddenly turns around, as though sensing someone is burning a hole on her back.
“Glad to finally run into you some place dry,” she says.
He’s confused at first, but recalls their first two encounters and cringes. “Not a very good impression, I guess?”
“Could’ve been better, certainly,” she chuckles. The queue moves so they take a step forward almost in sync. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah. You too?”
She groans out loud then. “This should’ve been an outing with my friends but they bailed on me to go on some blind date.”
“Why didn’t you join them?” Jaebum laughs as he asks.
“Would you rather be on a blind date or watch a movie?”
He considers it for a second. “Never been on blind dates before so I’d say movie.”
“You’ve never gone on a blind date?”
“Never thought of it, never got invited, wouldn’t have had time anyway,” he replies, shrugging nonchalantly.
She reaches over and gives him a pat on the shoulder. “That’s okay. You’re not missing out on anything.”
He laughs again. “Speaking from experience?”
“My friend made me go once. God, it was really boring.” She rolls her eyes dramatically. “That guy just kept speaking with a weird accent because he apparently lived overseas - not to discriminate, but I think he did that on purpose - and kept talking about his vacations and cars and goals. Such a show off. But at least I had a nice fancy meal and he paid for it.”
“In the end you used the poor guy to fill your stomach.”
“Hey, I consider that as my reward for tolerating him, okay. You have no idea how much I wanted to punch him,” she protests.
“Please remind me to not ever go on a blind date with you.”
It’s her turn to laugh. “I’m not that bad,” she tells him, her head slightly tilted as she looks at him with a smile. By now, there’s only one group of high school girls in front of Hyejeong. He remembers to ask which movie she’s going to watch and both of them get pleasantly surprised when they find out they’re watching the same movie. “Want to sit together?” she offers.
“Is this a date? Are you going to punch me if I do something that annoys you?”
Again, she laughs. “Don’t do it, then. I’ll be nice if you are.”
Jaebum takes up her offer, and it turns out that Hyejeong is a pleasant companion to have that he doesn’t even regret spending his hard earned money on the overpriced popcorn which she threw several pieces at a couple sitting two rows in front of them who wouldn’t stop giggling loudly even during a murder scene. By the end of their one-month semester break, they’ve watched six movies together at the cinemas and three more in his living room in between his part-time job.
The second time in the living room, Sungjin walks in a quarter way through the movie and raises his brows when he finds his friend lying sideways on the couch and his housemate sitting on the floor with his back leaned against the same couch. Despite finding it weird, he says nothing and even tries to join them, but gives up not even half an hour in because really who can stand sitting through a three-hour movie about people floating around in space? (Apparently Hyejeong and Jaebum can.)
He asks Jaebum about it later at night after she left.
“Can’t friends watch movies together?” is how the latter counters. Sungjin raises his brows, but Jaebum thinks he probably sounds nonchalant enough, so Sungjin lets it go and never questions it again.
Soon the semester opens again. Jaebum is back to being busy, and so is Hyejeong, and neither of them has time for movies.
When the automatic bell rings as a customer steps in, Jaebum is staring ahead blankly. It takes him a moment and a shove by Seunghoon, another part-timer who afterwards heads to the store room, for him to notice there’s someone standing across the counter staring at him while holding two cans of coffee.
“Oh, sorry,” he mumbles, taking the cans to scan them without looking up to meet her gaze.
“Are you okay?” Hyejeong frowns at him when he gets startled by her voice. He wouldn’t admit it if asked, but that’s when he realizes it is her standing in front of him. “You look so… I don’t know, distracted? You kinda zoned out.”
“Really?” He raised his brows.
“You didn’t even notice a customer coming in.”
He flicks a quick glance at the door then around the store before realizing that she’s referring to herself. She gives him a look that says see?, so he apologizes again and attempts a nonchalant smile with a shake of head. “It’s nothing, really. Too many assignments, too little time and barely any motivation to do anything. It’s just one of those moments when you question yourself, do I really need this degree?”
She chuckles but her eyes are sympathetic. “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” she tells him as he hands her the change. “Do things one at a time so you don’t lose track? Sometimes I find that easier than multitasking because I can focus better. But maybe that’s just me.”
Jaebum attempts another smile, this time more genuine. “Thanks,” he says. “Maybe I should quit this job. It doesn’t even pay much.”
“Maybe you should,” she returns the smile, then presses one of the cans into his hand. When he gives her a quizzical look, her smile widens a little. “Buy me better coffee next time.”
That finally makes him laugh, but not too loud. The can is warm in his hand, even after Hyejeong’s left. He doesn’t drink it. Puts it on the table when he gets back to his room and stares at it, stares at his pile of books, then picks up his phone. It’s 1 in the morning, but then it’s a Friday. Or was.
wanna catch a movie?
The reply comes a minute later with a picture attached. He reads the text first. Did you read my mind? The picture is a screenshot of their conversation with a new half typed message. It reads: wanna go catc
“Why are you in Accounting really?” Hyejeong questions one day when they catch each other at the library. She’s leaning back and fiddling with her earphones, seeming to have completely given up on her textbook and a notepad on the table. “I mean, you clearly have interest in films, have profound knowledge about them and you always have these insightful and unbiased opinions. Sungjin said you have talent, too.”
He stops twirling a pen in between his index and middle finger and looks up from his own book to meet her eyes across of him. They decided to share a table even though there are other unclaimed tables but have kept quiet since. “Honestly, majoring in film studies was my dream. But that’s thing, it’s a dream. My family’s financial situation doesn’t give me the freedom to choose passion over profit. My mother wouldn’t say no I asked, but I didn’t want to. So I chose to be realistic and woke up from sleep.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “But don’t you think that you would be happier now if you chose your dream?”
“I’m not unhappy,” he retorts, insistent.
Jaebum half expects her to point out and question his choice of words, but she doesn’t. Instead, her gaze softens, and she reaches out her hand to pat his. “Then that’s good,” she says. Her hand lingers for a moment, and he stares it while mentally counting the seconds. She doesn’t seem to notice and goes back to her books after retracting her hand. He lifts his eyes to stare at her, and soon does the same.
He lets Younghyun drag him to a dinner party his coursemates threw. Jaebum doesn’t even know the the people in Younghyun’s major well, but he thinks it’s probably a good idea to spend a Friday night without his calculator and laptop every now and then, especially after catching himself finding the idea of going for a night swim at Han river appealing. He could probably do with the change of scenery too, along with some alcohol in his system. There’s meat, as well, so that’s an excuse.
But when he’s left alone in the midst of people he doesn’t quite know, all either too drunk to form a comprehensible sentence or too drunk to even care to talk, he realizes that it’s probably not a good idea at all. He thinks about leaving, or at least waits at any convenience store nearby until Younghyun notices him missing and calls, when a girl plops down next to him laughing.
“You look like you’re either going to kill someone here or yourself,” Hyejeong prods, pretending to look disappointed. “Why did you even come in the first place?”
“I suppose I let Younghyun talk me into believing that this would be fun.”
She chuckles. “Come on, I’m sure you knew this wasn’t going to be fun.”
“I guess so.” He gives her a shrug, shaking the empty cup he’s holding for no particular reason. “Last night I looked up ‘cheap but creative ways to cook ramyun’ and apparently I’ve tried everything.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to sign up for a cooking lesson,” she replies.
“Or get a maid.”
“Or a girlfriend.”
“In this economy?” Jaebum raises his brows. Both of them start laughing, but it dies too quickly and they are left in silence. “What about you? No more blind dates?” he asks after a while.
“Nah. I think I’ll just take a break from dating,” she replies. He looks at her, confused, and she sees that so she continues. “Just broke up two weeks ago. Or three? I can’t remember.”
It dawns on him now that he never asked. Despite all those times they hung out together, this has never become the subject of their conversation, and even if she did once ask about his past relationship, it never crossed his mind to return the question. He takes a look around, returns his gaze at her for a second before casting his eyes down at his hands and remembers how they’ve been warm recently because of her.
Hyejeong pulls her knees up to her chest, wraps her arms around her legs and rests her right cheek on the left knee as she looks at him. “Jaebum,” she calls gently, so he turns to meet her eyes. “I don’t know exactly what’s on your mind right now, but stop thinking about it. It shows.”
He feels even more horrible now. He stares down at his hands again. “I’m sorry.”
“If you’re really sorry, then keep an eye on me.” When Jaebum gives her that puzzled look again, she chuckles softly. “I have this habit of drunk dialling people, so make sure I don’t drink too much, or that I don’t call my ex-boyfriend if I do get drunk. Friends don’t let friends drunk dial their exes, okay?”
Jaebum gapes, opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t. In the end, Hyejeong nudges him with her shoulder and he just laughs.
They spend the remaining four weeks left of the semester together, mostly cooped up in the library. They started sharing tables only after running into each other several times, but it soon became a part of their routine that they even saved a seat for each other when more students began to flock to the library as finals season approaches. Some days, they opt to study together with Sungjin and Younghyun instead in his living room, which Jaebum complained is unfair because he’s the odd one out as the only one from a different department.
“You were right. Do we really need this degree? Tell me again why is a piece of paper so important?” Hyejeong asks as she stares at her bowl of udon blankly like she can see her entire life in there, which makes him chuckle.
“It’s important because that piece of paper determines whether or not we are qualified to get a job,” he replies after blowing into his own, then inhales a load of it, making a loud slurping sound.
This udon restaurant is their regular stop on their way back home from the library, partly because of its strategic location being near the campus, but mainly because it’s simply cheap yet more filling compared to instant noodles. Jaebum is the one who discovered the restaurant after he decided he’s eaten enough instant noodles to feed the entire nation. He stopped looking up ramyun recipes and started searching ‘cheap restaurants broke university students can afford’ instead, and that led him here.
She stares up at him while chewing. “And why is that important?”
“So we can afford to eat better food?”
She chuckles and takes a sip of her plain water before she speaks. “I bet later after we start working, we’ll miss this place.”
Jaebum looks up from his bowl to ponder over her remark. “I doubt I would. I’ve lived a hard life long enough. I mean, I definitely don’t miss eating ramyun now.”
She laughs again. This is not their first time having a meal here, and definitely not their first time having a meal together anywhere. Over the past several months that they become acquainted and grow close from sharing a favourite pastime aside from sharing mutual friends, they have spent a lot of time with each other. Before he quit his job at the convenience store, Hyejeong would drop by every now and then around the time his shift ends and they would have a late dinner of instant noodles or a round of drinks before going home. Over those many meals and drinks, they’ve shared more stories of themselves, expectations they’re supposed to meet and disappointments they can’t avoid, dreams and worries of two university students who are still not quite ready to enter adulthood.
They continue to eat in silence until she pauses again to stare out the window pensively. “Do you think we will still meet up to have meals together after we start working?” she muses.
“If we try,” he answers with a shrug. “Don’t people usually drift apart when one of them stops trying?”
“I guess so.” Their eyes connect then, and Hyejeong reaches over to remove something from his bottom lip. But her fingers linger there hovering over it and brushing it lightly when he opens his mouth. Her eyes move back and forth from his lips to his gaze. She opens her mouth as well, but Jaebum speaks before she can.
“Hyejeong,” he murmurs her name like he’s cradling a newborn, gently and carefully, unsure and lacking confidence. He looks away for a moment, stirring the content of his bowl with his chopsticks, presses his lips together before he lifts his eyes up at the window. “Once exams are over, do you want to go watch a movie together, then grab something nice for dinner?” he asks, looking at her again, then adds: “Like a real date.”
She stares at him like she can’t believe what she just heard, so he begins to doubt himself. It would be a lie if he says over the period of time they’ve known each other and spent together, he didn’t begin to develop feelings for her, but he doesn’t know if she feels the same. Every second of this silence drags on and feels like eternity for him.
In the end, she sets down her chopsticks and rests her chin in her hand with her elbow arched on the table. “Does this mean you will not stop trying?” she asks.
Jaebum moves his hand and reaches hers on the table. It’s warm, unlike his cold fingertips. He wonders if it surprised her. When he returns his gaze at her, she’s looking down at their hands. “I won’t,” he says.
She lifts her eyes and stares into his, lips pressed together, like she’s scanning them for his sincerity. He doesn’t waver, then she looks down again and turns their hands around before moving her fingers to interlace them with his. She smiles at him. “Then I won’t, either.”
They promised to meet at 11, but now it’s 10.40 and Jaebum is already standing in front of the subway exit, sweating buckets despite the weather. Technically, this isn’t the first time they’re going out together by themselves, so he shouldn’t have been this nervous.
He doesn’t know if he’s dressed right for the day. It’s what he usually wears, except that he picked the nicest clean shirt that he could find, attempted to style his hair and sprayed some of Sungjin’s cologne, and he doesn’t know if that’s enough or too much. It’s Hyejeong, the girl he’s been hanging out with for almost a year, but it’s also Hyejeong, the first girl he ever developed feelings for and confessed to. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his (clean) jeans, he sighs, chews the inside of his cheek and kicks an invisible stone with the tip of his shoe.
“Hey.” He hears a familiar voice, so he turns around and comes face-to-face with the very girl, dressed so nicely in a long dress, denim jacket and another layer of thicker winter jacket. “You look so…” he trails off, suddenly feeling bad about his own choice of clothes. Maybe he should’ve worn a nicer jacket.
“Ah, is it too much?” Her cheeks pink, and she seems like she’s embarrassed. “I didn’t know what I should wear, really. I thought jeans would be too casual - I mean, of course I wanted to be casual, but you know this is our first real date, so I thought I should wear something a little nicer, different than what I usually wear. Is this weird?”
Hyejeong continues to drone on, but after a while he starts chuckling which makes her pause and give him a pointed look. “And here I was thinking whether I’m not dressed right,” he explains, but her brows are still knitted in worry. He smiles. “You look pretty. I mean it.”
She blinks at him, but soon a smile spreads out from her lips. “Thank you. You don’t look too bad yourself,” she offers. He laughs. It’s not even 11 yet.
They decided to forgo their usual routine and go for a stroll instead. Jaebum hasn’t come to Hongdae on a Saturday afternoon since forever, so he forgot how crowded the place can be. He notices Hyejeong struggling to make her way through, he offers his hand. She stares at it for a second too long, and it isn’t until she gets pushed by someone and she almost stumbles that he grabs hers without further waiting.
It’s warm, like the first time he held her hand that night at the udon restaurant. The crowd bustling around them blurs away, fading out into some kind of a blurry background and white noise and now it’s just the two of them standing here, smiling up at each other like one of the clichéd movie scenes he’s watched with her. This feels nice, he thinks, beaming, and holds it tighter.
Sungjin is at the kitchen when he comes home from work, stirring something in the pot and a kettle next to it. On the table, several side dishes are already waiting in containers. Sungjin didn’t bother to plate them, but it’s not an issue that Jaebum should point out because he himself regularly drinks milk straight from the carton.
“It’s 10 pm,” Jaebum says, but his housemate gives him a look as though the latter is supposed to be surprised.
“So?” is how he responds, like cooking dinner at this hour is the most natural occurrence especially in this house. “You hungry?”
Jaebum ate two triangle kimbabs earlier, but that wasn’t really a satisfying meal - can’t even be considered a meal to begin with - so he nods and watches Sungjin taking out another bowl from the cupboard. It doesn’t take long for his stew to be done. He’s already carrying the pot to the table before Jaebum can offer to do so, so instead he looks for something as a makeshift placemat and settles with a stack of leaflets originally from their mailbox. The stew looks great and smells as good, enough to make his stomach grumbles again. Sungjin has a knack for cooking, but he doesn’t do it as often as Jaebum would prefer due to time constraints. “Did these just arrive?” he asks, pointing at the side dishes.
“Yeah, this afternoon.” Sungjin nods while picking up his spoon.
Ideally, Sungjin would have already gone back to Busan. The idea of spending this semester break comfortably at home without having to worry about fixing meals or turning off the heater to save electricity is no doubt tempting, but he still needs to earn for next semester’s tuition fee and other spending, so he stays and works at the university’s administration office. He can’t rely on his parents alone to send him allowances when they barely have enough for themselves and his younger sister who is still in school. Sometimes, Jaebum envies that side of Sungjin who is so considerate he would rather suffer by himself than placing burden on someone else’s shoulder, even if it’s his own family, but mostly, Jaebum envies the fact that Sungjin has people whom he cares for and who look out for him more. Jaebum has none of that.
Growing up, he was always closer to his dad, but he passed away when Jaebum was 14. Several months before he graduated from high school, his mother remarried and moved into her new husband’s house. Jaebum never felt quite at home there, so he packed up his stuff, headed to Seoul for university and started calling this place his home. Since then, he only went back twice - one for Chuseok, and the other for his mother’s birthday, but her new husband took care of it better than Jaebum ever would. Every now and then, he would head back alone to his old home to visit and clean his father’s tomb. At least, he thinks, he’s filial to one parent.
“Speaking of which, Hyejeong came by this morning to pick up something from the office. Not sure what it was.” He shrugs, scoops a chunk of rice into his mouth and starts chewing. Without looking, he asks: “So, you and Hyejeong?”
“She told you?” An obvious question for sure, so when Sungjin nods, his chest swells with guilt. It’s been two weeks since the first time he and Hyejeong went on a real date, five since they decided to date. He would like to blame it on their clashing work shifts, but he knows that it’s not that they didn’t run into each other at all. He had plenty of opportunities. “Sorry I didn’t tell you myself. I don’t know why I di-”
“You don’t have to apologize. I’m not even mad or upset, am I?” he shrugs, doesn’t look offended at all, but he’s not smiling either. “I’m just saying… you’re my friend, but she’s my friend too, so I hope things work out well between the two of you because I don’t want to go all awkward with either of you.”
Jaebum thinks back about their first date. Holding hands as they walked, whispering to each other’s ears because it was too loud, sharing jokes and stories of themselves and their friends. It was all too natural. For the first time, he accompanied Hyejeong back right to the entrance of her apartment building where she lives with her parents. They usually separated at the bus stop because they take different buses. He thinks about their hands lingered even after they said good nights. The kiss that was as quiet as the night.
He stares at Sungjin for a moment, hand holding the pair of chopsticks frozen mid-air. Then he laughs. “We just started out. Don’t be so negative.”
Sungjin starts laughing along, apologizing in between. “I didn’t mean that-”
“Yeah, I know,” Jaebum interrupts. He fetches two glasses to pour water in and pushes one towards Sungjin. “Thanks for the food,” he says. For the concern, he doesn’t say.
Jaebum finds Hyejeong sitting at the bus stop waiting for him, as he descends from the bus, with a smile too bright for 8 in the morning. It’s the first day of the new semester, and his body clock hasn’t adjusted well since he’s been working night shifts during the break and spent most of his mornings in his bed. She presses the tumbler that she’s been holding into his hand, then a quick kiss on his cheek after the bus and people who got off the bus with him have left. His eyes widen a little, and he feels grateful for the cold weather for giving him a reason to wear a beanie that hides his reddening ears.
“I heard you’re not very pleasant to be around in early mornings and less prone to crankiness once you have caffeine in your system,” she says.
“You didn’t have to,” he mumbles back, but his ear-to-ear grin says otherwise.
She pats him on the back as they both fall into steps together. “You can’t go to war with an empty stomach,” she comments, referring to the class registration that will begin at 9 later. No one wants to be a casualty in this war. He ended up as one in his second semester and questioned his life decisions every morning as he dragged himself out of the bed for his 8 am classes.
Thankfully, the two of them manage to get into the classes they want. They celebrate along with Younghyun whom they run into on their way to the cafeteria.
Just like how his break went, not a lot of things have changed since Jaebum and Hyejeong started going out. They don’t meet up for lunch regularly as their department buildings are quite a distance apart, but on most evenings before he heads off to his part time job, they study or work on their assignments together at the library, their common area as it is strategically located in the middle of the campus.
Today is one of those days, and Hyejeong, giving up on her slides, pushes her laptop aside, rests her head sideways on the table and sighs. “Is it too late to quit studying and instead find some good looking chaebol to marry?”
“What makes you think it is okay to ask me that question?” Jaebum asks back without lifting his eyes from his textbook.
She moves her head slightly to change the angle so she can look at him. “Is the ever composed Im Jaebum finally showing signs of jealousy?” she prods with amusement while reaching out to poke his arm with her pen.
“Nope,” he responds, still not looking up.
Grinning, she props her chin up with her elbow on the table. “Hey, tell me about your first love.”
His body immediately tenses and the colours from his eyes drain, but he recovers quickly give a shrug that he hopes seem nonchalant enough. If she noticed it, she doesn’t make any comment. “It was something very fleeting. That person moved away before anything even happened. I wasn’t expecting anything, anyway.”
“Was that person your friend?”
“My best friend,” he replies curtly, then looks at his watch. “Let’s go. I’ll be late for work.”
Sungjin insists on inviting their friends over for dinner before Seollal despite Jaebum’s strong protest. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you called your friends over?” the latter taunts.
“That was unintentional,” Sungjin defends himself, ignoring the sweat forming under his bangs. “You can invite your friends too.”
“Not gonna,” Jaebum mumbles in reply.
Right then, Sungjin finds a weak point. “Do you even have friends? I feel like you only ever hang out with me or Younghyun or both. Wait, do you remember when I asked you to come to a dinner party with me and you made a friend up just because you didn’t want to go?”
“That was one time!” Jaebum retorts, ears burning.
“You could have told me.”
“Like you would take no for an answer.”
“So you resorted to making up someone who doesn’t exist to get out of it?”
And that is how Jaebum finds himself pushing a cart filled with the ingredients for dinner around the supermarket with a list in hand, cursing his housemate all the while. He’s in the middle of deciding which colour of paprika he should get since it’s not specifically stated in the list, when he feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns around and his eyes widen in surprise the moment their eyes connect.
The boy looks at him with a restrained and hesitant smile. “Long time no see, Jaebum.”
Jaebum drops the paprika.
The soon he drops the groceries on the dining table, Jaebum heads straight to his room, ignoring Sungjin’s puzzled look and not even noticing Hyejeong standing there in the kitchen. His whole body is shivering, as if he’s been soaked by the rain. Without removing his jacket, he sinks into his bed and buries himself under the duvet, which makes Sungjin and Hyejeong worry when they enter his dark room soon later.
“Is anything wrong? Did something happen?” he hears Hyejeong’s concerned voice asking.
All Jaebum wants right now is to be by himself, but he knows they wouldn’t do that for him if he doesn’t say anything. So he does. “I caught a cold. Sungjin, do you mind if I just stay here? You don’t have to cancel the dinner.”
Sungjin does cancel the dinner anyway. Hyejeong stays behind and checks on him from time to time. When he wakes up much later, there is a folded face towel rested on his forehead that he thinks was once wet. He removes it as he gets up and out of the bed and realizes it’s already dark outside. Sungjin doesn’t seem to be around, but he finds Hyejeong in the living room, sleeping on the couch that’s a little too small for her with a blanket draped over her. It’s probably Sungjin who did it before he left.
Jaebum kneels down beside her, gently places a hand on her shoulder and shakes her awake. “You should go home. It’s late,” he tells her once she opens her eyes.
She reaches over to place the back of her hand on his forehead. “Your fever is gone,” she points out instead. “That’s a relief.”
He takes her hand in his and wraps her fingers around it. It’s always warm, her hand, unlike his. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
He clenches his jaw while picking out invisible dust specks off the floor. He can simply answer “it’s just a cold” and Hyejeong would drop the topic and let it die just like that, even if she knows it’s not. He doesn’t, and takes a deep breath as he settles down on the floor. At the same time, she gets up to sit facing him. He still hasn’t let go of her hand.
“This is something I have never told anyone, something that I’ve kept alone inside me all these years, so if I tell you now, you’ll be the first ever person to know about it. Hyejeong, I don’t mind if you choose to stop seeing me after I tell you this, but can you promise not to think of me as someone weird or… I don’t know, creepy?”
She stares at him intently, creases forming in her forehead. Then, she nods. “I promise.”
He closes his eyes and inhales sharply before opening them again. “When I was 12, I befriended someone from my class. We have similar personalities and similar interests, so we got along well. Sometimes, we even made up excuses so we could get away from PE class, and instead went off somewhere else to play together. We even sneaked out of school several times. We spent almost all waking moments together, that’s how inseparable we were. Then, when I was 16, something changed inside of me. I realized that I have feelings for my best friend, but I never said it out loud because I was afraid. I was afraid that it would affect our friendship badly, but most of I was afraid because… my best friend was a boy.”
Jaebum doesn’t dare to look straight at her, but out of the corner of his eyes, he sees that she’s staring at their hands. She keeps silent for what feels to him is an eternity before she finally speaks. “What happened to that friend?” she asks, voice more delicate than a glass jar.
“He moved away.”
“So you never told him how you felt?” He shakes his head in reply, and she joins him on the floor, wraps her arms around him after letting go of his hand, and cradles his head on her shoulder. Exhaling a deep sigh, she runs her fingers through his hair and pats the small of his back. He releases the breath he doesn’t realize he’s been holding until now, and hugs her back. “Is this why your hands are always so cold?” she wonders aloud, but he doesn’t answer. She doesn’t expect him to.
Jinyoung is taller now, with broader shoulders, more defined facial features , and more confidence in his voice and the way he carries himself. 12-year-old Jinyoung was small, shy and unsure of himself, always standing in the background and let someone else buy the final piece of melon bread sold in their school canteen even if his own stomach was grumbling. 22-year-old Jinyoung standing in front of him now is nothing like the boy who offered his lunch when the class bully dropped Jaebum’s.
“Long time no see, Jaebum,” he said.
Jaebum only remembered to breathe five seconds later when someone else who was passing by picked up the paprika for him. He mumbled a thank you and hoped it sounded intelligible enough, before he returned his stare at Jinyoung. “Five years,” he said. “Five years after you walked away without a single word, a warning, anything, and long time no see?”
Jinyoung’s smile didn’t falter, but remained uncertain. “I’m sorry,” he tried again. “How are you? How’ve you been?”
“How do you think I’ve been?” Jaebum spit out, sounding harsher than he originally intended, but he was too angry to care.
“I deserve this, I think,” Jinyoung noted, too positive for his own good. It made Jaebum angrier, especially the way the corners of Jinyoung’s mouth curled slightly more, less uncertain, more apologetic. “I think I know how much you hate my guts right now, but later, if you can find it within you to talk to me, will you come see me?” He went on explaining that he’s in his third year and currently doing practical at Yonsei University Medical Center, where he can be found most of the times. The hospital is big so it would be tricky to look for him, but if Jaebum asks the nurses, they might know where to find him.
Jaebum tried not to pay attention, but the whole time he kept recalling how Jinyoung always had his nose buried in books. He is technically older than Jinyoung, same birth year but older by class level. But Jinyoung was so smart that he was allowed to skip one level and join Jaebum’s class. It didn’t surprise him to hear what Jinyoung is studying now.
Something flickered in Jinyoung’s eyes as he gazed at him quietly after he finished explaining. He pressed his lips and flashed another smile, but this time, it looked sad. “I hope to see you, Jaebum.”
Jaebum said nothing, and pushed his cart away without glancing back.
He attends his classes and goes to his part time job like nothing happened, but when he goes to the library, he doesn’t find Hyejeong at their usual table.
After he told her all about Jinyoung, right from how they became friends to how he abruptly left the town, she hadn’t been mad or upset, but she told Jaebum that she needs some time for herself. No, we’re not breaking up. He lets her have her space and waits for her to appear at the library, the udon restaurant, outside the café where he works at now, but that doesn’t happen.
She does, however, show up outside his class two weeks later, a tumbler in hand and a smile that he thinks has been forced out of her. He decides to pretend not to notice it. She presses the tumbler into his hand like she did on the first day of this semester, but there’s no kiss on the cheek. Not that he expects it.
“I heard you’re less prone to crankiness with caffeine in your system,” she attempts, so he smiles gratefully as he accepts it and doesn’t tell her that he’s already had two cans of coffee today.
They head to the nearest cafeteria even though it’s 4 in the evening, too late for lunch and a little too early for dinner. For the first time since they got to know each other, Hyejeong doesn’t initiate a conversation as they make their way there, so he puts in effort and asks about her classes, if she’s finished the project she’s been working on, and are her groupmates from hell still haven’t repented? She laughs a little at his last question, so he thinks it’s worth it.
The cafeteria is deserted, unsurprisingly, and neither of them gets anything to eat. They take the spot near the floor-to-ceiling glass window and sit in silence for a while. She’s the first one to speak. “Thank you for keeping your promise.”
It takes him a moment to recall what she means by that, and when he does, Jaebum simply smiles. “You too. You didn’t stop trying either,” he reminds her.
She returns the smile, but it fades too quickly. Her gaze falls onto her hands on the table. “Jaebum,” she begins. “You should go see him.”
She doesn’t have to mention the name for him to understand who she is referring to. He can’t say that he didn’t see this conversation happening sooner or later, because he did. He takes a deep breath, then exhales, and nods. “Alright.”
The hospital is as big as Jinyoung has warned. Jaebum wanders around for a while, wondering whether he should just leave, pretend none of this ever happened, and try to make living bearable again somehow, but the thought of Hyejeong stops him. If he leaves now, he wouldn’t be able to face her again.
In the end, he asks one of the friendlier looking nurses if she could help him locate a third year medical student named Park Jinyoung, who then tells him to wait as she calls the desk at the fifth floor where he’s supposed to be. Jinyoung jogs his way down straight away and arrives at the lobby in five minutes, sweating like he just ran a marathon in his white coat and the stethoscope hanging around his neck with a grin like he came in first. It’s strange seeing him like this, too grown up, too mature, not at all the boy Jaebum once know.
“You came!” Jinyoung exclaims happily. He almost reaches over to pat Jaebum’s arm, but he freezes halfway and drops his hand to his side. His grin changes into a polite smile. “Let’s find a place to sit.”
The cafeteria and lounges in the hospital are occupied with families of patients and visitors waiting for the visiting time which are too noisy for them, so Jinyoung takes Jaebum to the quiet staff lounge instead, which is basically a small room filled with bunk beds. The latter worries about it, but Jinyoung tells him that people only come in here to sleep, no one takes a nap at this hour so he doesn’t have to be too concerned.
“So,” Jaebum breathes out, unsure how to begin.
“So,” Jinyoung echoes. They are sitting across of each other on the bunk bed, Jaebum more awkwardly compared to Jinyoung who isn’t a stranger to this place. The room feels too big and too small at the same time. The younger boy fiddles with the hem of his shirt. “Thanks for coming, Jaebum. Really, I mean it.”
Jaebum shrugs. “I wasn’t doubting it.”
“I know, but…” Jinyoung trails off and never completes it. He starts fidgeting, looking left and right before he gets to his feet. “Would you like to drink something? I’ll go get-”
“Jinyoung,” Jaebum cuts in. It’s his first time addressing Jinyoung since they met at the supermarket weeks ago. He decides to get straight to the point. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Biting his lower lip, Jinyoung sits down again and avoids Jaebum’s eyes. “I- I just wanted to… talk to you,” he replies. After seemingly regained his composure again, he finally meets the latter’s gaze and smiles a small, sad smile. “How have you been?”
Jaebum raises his brow. If this is Jinyoung’s attempt at making a small talk, he thinks he can try to stop being angry for a while and tolerate it this once. “Good.” He gives another shrug. “Could’ve been better, but good.”
It seems to sting Jinyoung a bit, but he keeps his smile intact. “How’s your mother? Are you studying or?”
“She’s doing fine, I guess. I haven’t gone home a lot since she - she got married again. I’m at Kyunghee now. Third year, like you. I’m doing Accounting,” Jaebum answers while staring at the other empty beds, suddenly curious if Jinyoung spends the night here often. Jinyoung’s parents were always too busy to pay attention on their bright child, so he would come to Jaebum’s house regularly and sleep there, even though it’s smaller and shabbier than Jinyoung’s own and his single bed is way too cramped for two growing youths. “You’re Yonsei?”
“Yeah.”
“Wouldn’t expect any less from you.” The corners of his mouth slightly curl as images of Jinyoung in class trying to get over his sleepiness by blinking too many times per second, and hunched over his books even when school was over flashes through his mind. “So what happened to you?”
Jinyoung looks at him like he knew the question was coming. As if he’s been expecting it all along. Maybe he spent the past years practicing the answer. He rubs the back of his head with his palm, and Jaebum recognizes the gesture instantly, something he does when he gets nervous. Funny how some habits still remain. “Incheon. My dad got promoted to the headquarters in Seoul, and my mum received a new job offer there, so it worked out well,” explains him.
“You couldn’t have told me all along? Did you think I wouldn’t be able to understand?” Jaebum frowns, brows furrowing.
“It’s not that-”
“Jinyoung,” the tone of his voice is heavier now. “Do you even know how it feels to one day go to your best friend’s house like you would do on any other days, only to find that it’s suddenly empty and your best friend is nowhere to be found, and you only find out from his neighbours - practically strangers - that he’s left the town? And you know nothing about it because he didn’t tell you shit?”
He notices Jinyoung clenching and unclenching his fist, and feels somewhat annoyed by that. Jaebum is the one who was left behind, so who is he to get mad? Jinyoung is about to open his mouth again, but his phone inside the white coat starts buzzing. He takes it out to check the caller ID, and glances at Jaebum guiltily.
Knowing that he can’t reject the call, Jaebum gets to his feet. “I’d better go,” he says, all too exhausted.
Jinyoung grabs his wrist when he turns to walk away. “Hey,” he tries, but his phone doesn’t stop buzzing in his other hand.
“This isn’t going to work out” is all Jaebum says before he shrugs his hand off of Jinyoung’s grip, heads to the door and disappears behind it.
“It’s not easy” is what Jaebum tells Hyejeong later when they have dinner at the udon restaurant for the first time in a long while.
“I understand. But I think you need to understand him too. I mean, he must have his own reason?” she offers. “Did you try to listen to him?”
He didn’t. It’s hard for him to admit it, but he really didn’t try to listen to Jinyoung when the latter tried to offer an explanation. Jaebum was too impatient, too angry, he kept cutting him off mid-sentence, never even bothered to until the end. “No,” he murmurs as he hangs his head low, ashamed.
“More than anything else, before anything else, he was your best friend, wasn’t he? So the two of you must have had so many good memories together,” she goes on. “Don’t turn those happy memories into bad memories that would haunt your life.”
He dares himself to look at her, the girl he met in a downpour. How long has it been since then? Thinking back, it’s a funny occurrence. Neither of them would’ve thought how far fate would take them back then standing at the bus stop together. Their only concern was the rain. Jaebum reaches for her hand. The gesture reminds him of when he was going to confess to her, and now here they are at the same place, discussing a boy he liked before her with her. How does he even deserve her?
“Isn’t this nice? Your hands are cold, but mine are warm. Fate has a clever way of bringing people together,” she says, squeezing his hand. Hyejeong meets his eyes and smiles. “It’s been winter in your heart for so long. Now it’s time for spring.”
He stares at her, and her lips stretch wider for him.
“You need to sort out your feelings, Jaebum. Or else you wouldn’t be able feel happy from the bottom of your heart for the rest of your life.”
Jinyoung is there outside the café when he comes out carrying two bags of trash. He smiles the same hesitant smile, with a scarf around his neck, while Jaebum blinks at him blankly.
“I was told that I can find you here,” says Jinyoung. It’s Hyejeong, no doubt. He rubs his palm over the back of his head. “Don’t worry, take your time. I’ll wait at that park over there.”
Jaebum blinks several times more, then nods dumbly and heads back inside after putting the trash bags at the garbage disposal spot at the alleyway. As told, he takes his time wiping clean the tables and counter, washing the dirty cloths, hanging them dry and making sure the coffee beans have been refilled before he greets his colleagues and manager good night. He drops by at the convenience store two doors away on his way to the park.
Jinyoung is waiting for him at one of the benches, mists of cold air escaping his nose and mouth as he breathes. He looks somewhat younger under the dim street lights, more like the boy Jaebum used to know. “Hey,” Jaebum calls in a low voice, but the younger boy hears him anyway. He offers Jinyoung a can of beer, which the latter accepts.
Plopping down on the same bench next to Jinyoung, he suddenly recalls the summer when they were 15, the first time they had a taste of alcohol in the form of soju stolen from the cupboard where Jaebum’s mother hid her alcohols because they were too curious. It burned their throat, and they swore to never have another drop of it. He scoffs at the memory as he takes a sip of his drink.
“I know I should’ve gone to see you before I left,” Jinyoung begins quietly. “It’s fair for you to be angry at me. I don’t blame you for that. Instead, I owe you an apology.”
Jaebum kicks the tiny pebbles under his shoes while he stares off the distance. Their surrounding is mostly quiet except when people who probably use this path as a shortcut from their workplace, with ties hanging loose around their neck and shirts less crisp than they had been in the morning pass them by. He takes another sip, longer.
“We were together like every day, practically from the moment we wake up in the morning right until we fall asleep again at night. And since we were always together, we knew each other too well, didn’t we? I think it was to the point where I could tell what you were trying to say by just looking at you,” Jinyoung pauses, trying to keep his voice level. “That’s why… I knew.”
“Knew about what?” Jaebum frowns, forehead creased. But when he meets Jinyoung’s stare at last, he understands right away what the latter means. His eyes widen in surprise, breath halted. “You…?”
“Yes, I did.” Jinyoung breathes out. “I’m sorry. I guess I should have talked to you. Honestly, I could have said no to moving up to Incheon, my parents wouldn’t mind, but I was really scared - not of you, of course, but of what could happen if I did. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like if I stayed, I wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that I knew. I didn’t want you to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable, and I didn’t want things to change either.”
“So in the end you chose to run away.”
“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been saying that too many already, that it’s already redundant by now, but there’s nothing else for me to say.” Jinyoung hangs his head low. His eyes might even be red and damp, but it’s night time and the dim street lights are not helping, so Jaebum isn’t sure. He doesn’t make a comment either.
He exhales a heavy sigh, shoving his cold hands into his pockets, and smiles bitterly. “You were 17. You couldn’t possibly know better.”
Jinyoung looks at him again and returns the smile. “You were 17 too, and you probably were even more afraid than I was.”
“I guess.” Jaebum shrugs.
The night grows deeper and quieter. Jinyoung finally opens his can and takes large chugs of his drink. When they’ve both emptied their cans, they sit in silence without another word to each other for a moment that feels impossibly long. Finally, Jinyoung stands up. “I should go,” he tells Jaebum, flashing another smile. This time, it appears less sad and more sanguine, more like the smile Jaebum is familiar with.
“See you around?” Jaebum raises his brows.
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll run into each other again?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Jinyoung reaches for Jaebum’s arm to give it a pat, just like what he wanted to do the last time they saw each other, but this time with more confidence. He looks more relaxed now, and his shoulders aren’t tensed up anymore like he’s carrying all the weight in the world. For five years, he carried his guilt alone. Now he can finally be free. He gives Jaebum one last smile before he turns to leave.
Jaebum watches his friend walk away until he disappears from his sight. When the figure vanishes completely, he takes out his phone from his pocket and dials a number he knows by heart.
The sky is asphalt grey, with a hint of imminent rain in the air. Jaebum keeps his gaze at it, hands in the pocket of his jeans and jaws clenched, until he feels a tap on his shoulder.
“Do you think it will take long?” It’s a girl, who stares at him with a frown. She looks familiar, maybe because they are at the bus stop across the street from their university entrance, or that he has run into her more than just several times before. Maybe even because this has happened before. It doesn’t take him long to register that she’s talking about the rain.
He turns his head to the sky again. “Probably a while,” he answers, smiling.
The girl smiles back. “In that case, do you want to get something to eat while we wait for the rain to let up? I know a good udon restaurant nearby. It’s cheap, too. My boyfriend likes it.”
Jaebum laughs. “Great, then. I have an umbrella, so in case it rains while we make our way there, we can share. And how about a movie after? I heard they’re doing reruns of this movie about people trapped in the space. My girlfriend likes it.”
Hyejeong chuckles. “Sounds perfect.”