“Ah……..
Cha Sa-yoon’s face showed a fleeting expression of discomfort as he was bitten. That look alone was already an answer. The moment I confirmed it, I realized my mistake. I quickly raised both hands to cover my mouth, but it was too late to take back the words that had already slipped out.
How did I end up blurting out my true feelings? Even I couldn’t understand it. Was I caught up in the atmosphere, or was I caught up in Sa-yoon himself?
Fireworks exploded all around us, but between the two of us, only silence remained. My heart was pounding so hard that I felt like if I opened my mouth, it would jump right out. Was this how all the people who had confessed to me before felt? What was I supposed to do now?
Overwhelmed, I darted my eyes around in a panic. A flood of memories of past confessions rushed through my mind, but I couldn’t recall how any of them had actually acted in the moment. In the end, I squeezed my eyes shut.
“No…….”
After a brief silence, Sa-yoon spoke first. But he seemed too flustered to continue.
Without thinking, I instinctively stepped back. Then something hard and cold pressed against my back. A metal door. My only escape route from this situation.
“I, uh, I should get going.”
His expression made it obvious what he was going to say, so I made my move first.
“Wait!”
I heard his voice calling from behind, but I didn’t stop.
***
“Why……. would he?”
Sa-yoon muttered blankly. It wasn’t that he was putting himself down, wondering why someone would like him. It was a simple, genuine question.
Had there ever been anything between us that could have led to this?
“What do you mean, why? The booze is right here, so you drink it! Come on, cheers, cheers!”
A glass suddenly clinked in from the side, accompanied by the voice of a classmate already riding the high of the moment.
After Shin-jae left like that, leaving Sa-yoon alone on the rooftop, he had tried calling. Of course, there was no answer. He waited a moment and tried again, but it was the same. He had confessed out of nowhere, then bolted like Cinderella, leaving nothing behind but a lone can of beer.
Even as he picked it up, Sa-yoon was still in a daze. Sa Shin-jae, confessing to him…… Why?
His mind was restless, making it impossible to stay in one place, so he wandered wherever his feet took him. Perhaps it was instinct that guided him to the media and exhibition booths. The professors had left, leaving only a few upperclassmen and returning students who were now considered seniors. Sa-yoon naturally merged into their group.
After drinking there for a while, they eventually moved to a nearby bar.
“Hey, what is this, a funeral ritual or something?!”
“Drink, drink, chug, chug, chug, chug!”
“One shot, one shot!”
With the chants urging him on, Sa-yoon obediently tilted his glass back. As the liquid slid down his throat, the sharp scent of alcohol hit him a beat too late.
“I’m going out for a smoke.”
Running his tongue over the roof of his mouth, Sa-yoon got up from his seat. As he stepped outside, the night air had turned noticeably chilly.
He considered going back inside to grab his coat but decided against it out of sheer laziness, instead crossing his arms as he wandered out. He had already drunk quite a bit, yet thanks to the shock of earlier, he barely felt any buzz.
Tssssk.
The lighter’s flint sparked, and a small flame flickered to life. Even though it was completely different, that confession immediately resurfaced in his mind.
“I like you.”
That flushed, about-to-burst face. Those eyes that looked on the verge of spilling tears. That trembling voice, thick with emotion. And the sincerity behind it all.
“Haah……..”
Since when?
He fumbled through his memories, searching for the moment it all began. And of course, what came to mind first was that time.
“You’re fucking clueless.”
Back then, Sa-yoon really had been fucking clueless. He’d jumped to conclusions, ignored what was being said, and acted like an unyielding brick wall. He’d even wanted to punch himself at times. Yeah, there was definitely a phase like that.
Sa-yoon took a deep drag from his cigarette before exhaling a plume of smoke. It hadn’t been back then. That much was certain.
“So how the hell did he go from thinking I was a piece of shit to liking me……?”
He slowly sifted through his memories again. That face, trembling as if about to faint when he got injured. The way he stubbornly insisted on taking him to the hospital. The nervous energy he carried around afterward, fidgeting every time he saw Sa-yoon, before finally blurting out that he’d join his senior project.
Sa Shin-jae had started acting kinder after that theater accident.
Honestly, at the time, when he’d thrown himself in harm’s way to save him, Sa-yoon had thought, Well, now he’ll probably stop being such a pain in the ass out of guilt. But Shin-jae had been way more shaken than he’d expected—so much so that he had softened up significantly.
That desperate face, babbling about taking me to some expensive place for a meal—now that was pretty funny.
Especially considering he was six years younger.
Watching that, Sa-yoon had let go of his lingering irritation. It made him realize that Shin-jae had never been a bad kid—he’d just been through a lot of rough shit. It was like one of those things people say about abused cats: a stray that had been mistreated by men would automatically fear and flee from anyone with a similar build.
To Sa-yoon, Shin-jae had been that wary, bristling street cat—one that, after growing comfortable, had cautiously approached him, rubbing its scent onto his shin to claim him.
“Agh, my head…….”
Even after digging through his memories, all he could really process was just how much time they had actually spent together. But as for when it all changed? That, he still couldn’t figure out.
Honestly, Sa-yoon felt a little wronged. He could admit that he had treated Shin-jae particularly well. But wasn’t that just something you did when you were close with someone?
Besides, despite how he looked, Sa Shin-jae had a surprisingly cute side. Just earlier, despite being twenty already, he had buried his head against Sa-yoon’s back and trembled like a leaf because he was scared of ghosts.
Come to think of it, he’s terrified of ghosts, isn’t he?
Did he make it home safely? That scaredy-cat would probably be terrified staying alone in that big house. Was he curled up under the blankets with all the lights on, staying up all night? Or worse—was he too scared to go home and wandering around the streets instead?
“Ah.”
Sa-yoon clamped a hand over his mouth. He was worrying about him way too much.
At some point, without realizing it, he had started to truly care about the guy.
That said, did he see Shin-jae as a romantic prospect…?
“Hey, Cha Sa-yoon! You coming back in or what?”
The bell on the bar’s entrance jingled loudly as a group of his classmates spilled outside. Judging by their flushed faces, they had downed a ridiculous amount of alcohol. It hadn’t even been that long since they graduated, but they were already thoroughly beaten down by the workforce.
And compared to their exhausted, overworked faces… Shin-jae’s twenty-year-old baby face stood out even more.
“He’s just a kid.”
“What? A kid? Who are you talking about?”
“Never mind.”
Sa-yoon waved it off and stepped back inside.
“Hyuuung~ Have a drink with me!”
The moment he sat down, someone shoved a bottle toward him. A typical scene at any drinking gathering. Sa-yoon glanced at the younger guy pouring his drink and suddenly asked,
“Min-hyeon, how old are you this year? Twenty-two? Twenty-one?”
“Aaah, hyung! I’m twenty-three this year! Took a break and came back to school!”
“Ah, right.”
Sa-yoon responded casually, but the realization left a strange taste in his mouth. Even Lee Min-hyeon, his clear junior, was three school years ahead of Shin-jae.
Three years…
He wasn’t the type to obsess over age when it came to relationships. But still, someone whose freshly printed student ID probably hadn’t even cooled yet was a little…
“Hyuuuung~ You know how much I loooove you, right~?”
“I like you.”
Sa-yoon instinctively flinched at the drunken idiot’s sudden outburst, knocking his glass over in the process. The spilled alcohol seeped into his pants.
“Oh—oh no, hyung!”
“Hey.”
“Hyung, are you drunk?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Huh?”
Ignoring his confused junior, Sa-yoon downed the rest of his drink in one go.
“I like you.”
It was strange. It wasn’t some cursed song that got stuck in your head after hearing it once, and yet that simple, straightforward confession kept replaying in his mind.
“I need another drink.”
“On it!”
Maybe he just got carried away by the mood?
Festivals had a way of stirring up emotions, even in people who were normally composed. And for a freshman? They were even more susceptible to getting swept up in the moment.
Another drink.
But who confesses to another guy just because they got caught up in the atmosphere?
And another.
It must be a misunderstanding.
Surrounded by trash, he’d mistaken someone normal like Sa-yoon for something more. He had confused admiration with love, that was all.
And another.
But can a straight guy really “mistakenly” think he likes another man?
If it wasn’t a misunderstanding, if he had actually meant it—then… Could he date Sa Shin-jae?
No, what the hell was he even thinking?
Startled by his own train of thought, he downed another glass.
At some point, he stopped keeping track of how much he was drinking. The junior who had been pouring for him had disappeared, leaving him alone to keep refilling his own glass.
“Something’s up with him.”
He heard someone mutter beside him, but he didn’t have the mental energy to care.
“Ugh…”
At some point, the bottle in his hand was empty. He lifted his head to look for a new one, but the moment he moved, his vision spun.
“I like you.”
A crooked smile escaped him. Why the hell was that confession still ringing in his ears?
“Maybe I just haven’t been in a relationship for too long…”
“What, Cha Sa-yoon, are you seeing someone?”
“Is the eternal relationship failure finally in love?”
“Damn, I really want to know who that poor soul is.”
It wasn’t even summer, but the mosquitoes were buzzing in his ears. Or maybe it was just the voices around him, prodding him to spill everything. He wasn’t sure.
He lazily waved a hand at them and reached for a bottle on the table. It was already open, with about half left inside. Without hesitation, he poured himself another drink.
***
When he finally regained consciousness, the first thing he saw was a familiar ceiling.
“Ah, fuck…”
The moment awareness returned, a splitting headache crashed down on him.
Rubbing his temples, bits and pieces of last night’s events began to surface.
The drunken idiots, screaming for a third round like they had no fear of the workweek. There wasn’t a single office worker among them—only reckless drunks who had abandoned all thoughts of tomorrow.
By that point, Sa-yoon’s rationality had long since evaporated. His last clear memory was grumbling about how the karaoke bar for the third round was in a basement, making it a pain to go down the stairs.
Unsurprisingly, when he opened his messages, the group chat with his classmates was flooded from the night before. As he scrolled through the conversation, his thumb suddenly froze, and his brows furrowed.
Every embarrassing moment he had lived through since turning twenty and graduating was laid out in full detail.
