#85
After eating dinner, I came out to the garden wanting to get some fresh air. Sitting alone on a long bench, swaying my feet while feeling the gentle breeze, I quietly recalled the small commotion that had happened before the meal.
The more I thought about it, the more Choi Eungi’s words struck me anew. Both the story about thinking only of each other in a relationship between two people, and the story that lingering attachment is also an emotion.
I admit it. I still had lingering attachment toward Lee Chan. The fact that it wasn’t romantic feelings wasn’t everything. What mattered was that part of my emotions were still drawn toward him as if pulled by gravity.
Jin Woohyeon said even that was okay. That it was Yoo Sanho’s pace. That he could wait.
It wasn’t that I doubted his words. Even if I were slower than this, even if I stagnated for a moment because it was difficult, Jin Woohyeon wouldn’t resent me.
That’s exactly why I wanted to try harder. Because I liked him for being that way.
I closed my eyes.
The relationship between Lee Chan and Yoo Sanho. If I set everything aside and focused only on us two people…
‘How would I want to handle you?’
What words do I want to say to you, and what words do I still need to say to you?
How long had I been sitting with my eyes closed?
A familiar scent reached me. The sharp, spicy first note mixed with bitter musk tickled my nose.
Knowing whose pheromones those were, I slowly opened my eyes and called his name.
“Chan.”
Lee Chan had approached right in front of me without me noticing, holding a blanket while looking down at me.
“Will you talk with me for a bit?”
I know why he’s looking at me. I also knew what he was curious about. I even knew why he couldn’t easily broach the subject and was circling around.
After Jin Woohyeon and Lee Chan fought like that, Jin Woohyeon and I had even used a private outdoor bath without cameras, so of course he was concerned.
‘It would be worry rather than jealousy.’
Since Jin Woohyeon knew that he and An Lei were preparing a shopping mall business, he must have assumed I had heard about that fact.
However, if I hadn’t heard about it, he thought it would be clearly disadvantageous for him to speak first, so he was hesitating. He’d also want to be careful since there were cameras everywhere.
Even in this situation where he was one step away from being caught deceiving me, he was still calculating – that was so like him that I had to laugh.
“Sit next to me.”
Lee Chan sat down next to me hesitantly. Then he handed me the blanket he’d been fidgeting with.
My body was too chilly to refuse. Wrapping myself in the large blanket, I asked in a light tone.
“Is it fun being with Lei-ssi?”
Lee Chan replied in a reluctant tone.
“I don’t want to unnecessarily hurt you.”
At those words, I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“What? Since when have you cared about that?”
“I didn’t care.”
Lee Chan’s tone seemed both sharp and stiff with tension.
“I was confident I wouldn’t care, so that’s also why I called you here.”
That’s right. To Lee Chan, Yoo Sanho was a comfortable existence. Someone who would accept everything no matter what he did as he pleased, who would smile brightly as if he owned the world with just Lee Chan alone, even after crying and making a fuss pathetically.
“That’s what I thought…”
Under my silent gaze, Lee Chan opened his mouth.
“But my heart won’t do what I want. I keep worrying about you. Whether you’re doing well with someone else or not, whether you have lingering feelings for me or feel relieved… I know in my head that I should distance myself as I said I wouldn’t give you any leeway.”
“…”
“I know nothing will change and shouldn’t change, but I wonder why my attention keeps tilting toward you.”
I ended up letting out a small laugh.
“You’re only realizing that now?”
“…”
“Chan. Hearts originally don’t do what you want. Just because you don’t want to care doesn’t mean you can make it as clear as not seeing or hearing. Deciding to act like nothing happened doesn’t make everything come true.”
“…Yoo Sanho.”
“You know what?”
I lowered my head while fidgeting with the blanket.
“I’ve been like that for 10 years straight. I’ve kept doing that to you, continuously.”
While knowing in my head that reality wouldn’t change regardless of my feelings, accepting that with my heart was harder than dying.
So I was the one who always revolved around you helplessly with you at the center.
“I…”
I wanted to stay calm, but my insides were churning again. When emotions got intense, tears welling up first was one of my weaknesses.
I struggled to swallow what was rising sharply and said.
“I hated liking you.”
When you said let’s break up, I wanted to say ‘okay’ and turn away together with you.
“I hated taking your side even more…”
No matter how I looked at it, I knew you were being mean, but I pretended not to know. How could I not know it was stupid to take sides in front of a friend who was furious?
“Clinging to you was miserable.”
It was a fight with no chance of winning, an empty echo that the other person didn’t even acknowledge.
So.
“Just be a little nice to me.”
In the end, I ended up sobbing.
“At least look after me out of pity. It wasn’t asking for leeway, it was asking you to be kind. If you couldn’t be nice, at least don’t deceive me.”
“…”
“You’re curious how much I know, aren’t you, Chan?”
I put down the things that had been painfully accumulated inside me, one by one.
“I know everything. I knew from the beginning. Even knowing…”
Even knowing there was nothing I could do about it, saying I had to watch you even like that, I followed you. I clung to you knowing it was pathetic. Even though all those things wouldn’t help me even a tiny bit in the end.
I kept blinking my eyes that were blurred with tears and made a resolution. That crying for you would really be the last time. That after spilling everything out like this, I would be reborn as someone who wouldn’t be swayed by you anymore.
It was a resolution I had always failed at, but I had a feeling this time would be different.
“I had this thought before.”
I said in a trembling voice.
“That our relationship was like a seesaw that doesn’t move.”
I, who always missed you, was at the bottom, and you were at the very top of the sky the more I acted like a fool.
Maybe you kept me by your side because you liked that. Because there was someone who would lift you up with unchanging feelings. Because Yoo Sanho was too easy, clear, and comfortable.
If you asked whether that was love, I would have nothing to say.
“That probably wasn’t love.”
Now I knew. That wasn’t love. Even if it had been love at one time, it shouldn’t have been that way. In a relationship where two people should face each other, one person being erased wasn’t helpful to either of them.
Still, there was one fortunate thing. I just had to stand up. Since I had always been sitting on the ground, I could immediately step on the ground if I stretched my feet.
The relationship between you and me was one where I just had to stand up and walk away.
“…Sanho.”
His hand suddenly entered my vision, as if he wanted to wipe away my tears. But before his fingertips could steal away what was hanging at my eyes, I was slightly faster in lifting my head and pulling my body away.
“Let’s not see each other’s faces after the broadcast ends.”
What had been blurred became clear, revealing Lee Chan’s face that I was seeing for the first time. Emotions like surprise, confusion, shock, and dismay were all mixed together.
It was the first time he was making such an expression. It wasn’t as exhilarating as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t sorry or surprising either. It was just that there would come a day when you would make such a face toward me – that was all the new feeling I had, even if briefly.
“Let’s live separately enough that we can’t even accidentally hear about each other’s situations, and meet again after a very long time.”
“So that we can remain friends?”
I smiled faintly and shook my head.
“So that you can at least become a memory to me.”
“…”
“How could we be friends?”
It was the relationship between you and me. There were your problems and my problems in the reasons why we couldn’t do well while dating. So even though we eventually broke up, even though we couldn’t return to friendship, we both provided causes.
Weighing who was more wrong and who should bear heavier responsibility was meaningless. It was already a thing of the past, and ruminating on an unchangeable past was no different from picking at wounds.
“Chan.”
Now there was finally something I could say.
“Congratulations on doing well with Lei.”
The moment I said those words, I felt like I had put down a very old burden. I had finally taken a step toward freedom.
It was a feeling of relief.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
You’re doing great sweetie! 😭👍 Sanho’s moving on era let’s goooo