Bombshell Statement (7)
“……”
-……
After waiting silently, a stillness flowed from the other end.
What is it this time? Why did he call again?
Mo Yeon bit his lip firmly. He felt Kim Hyun-soo’s gaze looking at him again, but he thought it would be fine for a moment. After all, Kim Hyun-soo wouldn’t realize from this conversation that his call partner was Tae Young-won sunbae.
-Mo Yeon.
As expected, formal greetings like “hello” were unnecessary for both of them. The moment he heard his voice, Mo Yeon looked out the window.
Now, well past evening, it was already growing dark outside. It was quiet on the other end of the call, wherever he was, and his voice was lower and more subdued than usual.
“Why did you call?”
And the moment Mo Yeon spoke, an unexpected voice was heard.
“Hyung, where should I put this?”
Mo Yeon froze, then slowly turned his head to stare at Kim Hyun-soo.
He listened for a moment. Tae Young-won’s voice, about to say something, didn’t continue.
And Kim Hyun-soo was looking directly at Mo Yeon. After looking at his hands, Mo Yeon quietly said:
“…I’ll call you back later.”
The disconnected phone dropped onto the table.
Kim Hyun-soo wasn’t holding anything in his hands.
Mo Yeon had already put down the gift he was holding on the table when he was about to answer the phone.
Naturally, he couldn’t help but wonder what the intention behind Kim Hyun-soo’s recent action was.
“It was Tae Young-won sunbae, wasn’t it?”
Mo Yeon’s gaze wavered. There had barely been any conversation, so how had he deduced this? The thought that he might have noticed other things immediately made Mo Yeon regret letting Kim Hyun-soo into his place. Mo Yeon asked in a low voice:
“Why did you do that just now?”
“I’m sorry, it was a mistake.”
“Thanks for finding my phone, but I think you should go now.”
When Mo Yeon spoke in a cold voice, Kim Hyun-soo’s face somehow looked dejected. He appeared to already know his mistake.
Knowing how much Tae Young-won had disliked Kim Hyun-soo before, the current situation still felt uncomfortable even after hanging up the phone. But why?
Not knowing what he had noticed or to what extent, Mo Yeon couldn’t speak first carelessly.
How could a voice that seemed deliberately made to be heard be a mistake? Why did he then have such a surprised face? And before that, how did he know it was Tae Young-won? There were too many things Mo Yeon couldn’t accept about what had just happened.
“…You.”
Mo Yeon spoke quietly to Kim Hyun-soo, who was nodding his head.
Somehow, he felt he needed to address this.
“What were you going to talk about earlier? If you’ve had my phone since that day, you could have given it to me at school anytime.”
When he said he had something to talk about just before, Mo Yeon hadn’t asked right away. Perhaps he had vaguely known.
The thought he had held like a tiny seed now grew into clear certainty.
“I originally wanted to give it to you right away, but I was waiting to see if you would speak to me first. I’m always the one who offers help first, but thinking about it, you’ve only contacted or asked me for something once, at the very beginning.”
“……”
The kindness he himself had emphasized wasn’t a big deal, the face that brightened especially when meeting Mo Yeon.
Especially this current behavior that was so unlike him—this was something Mo Yeon knew very well.
“And that day, and afterwards, I had many questions, but I was hesitant to approach you at school…”
“Hyun-soo.”
In the past, Mo Yeon wouldn’t have understood at all, but he was different now. He knew what kind of feelings these were. And as someone who knew those feelings a little, there was only one thing Mo Yeon could do.
“I don’t have feelings for you.”
“……”
“If you’ve been helping me all this time hoping for something from me… I’m sorry.”
That action just now must have been motivated by jealousy and hostility toward Tae Young-won.
If that was the case, Mo Yeon had nothing more to say.
From what Mo Yeon had felt since meeting Tae Young-won, someone with unrequited love only wants one thing from the other person: if it’s not going to happen, they want a clear end, even if it’s forced.
A definite despair is better than baseless hope, and the sooner the better.
Kim Hyun-soo was already acting out of character because of feelings he had nurtured on his own. The dark expression like now, not hesitating to act in somewhat rude ways—these behaviors didn’t suit the normally healthy and energetic person he was.
He might be a little hurt, but he would soon forget cleanly. That was something Mo Yeon deeply wished for himself too.
And as if he had anticipated Mo Yeon’s words, Kim Hyun-soo smiled bitterly.
“I knew from the beginning. That it was hopeless.”
“……”
“Honestly, that day in front of the store, I thought I was going to be killed by Young-won sunbae. His eyes were more than enough to tell.”
Is that why? Before getting to know Mo Yeon, he had called Tae Young-won “hyung,” but now that term had completely disappeared.
“We weren’t that close to begin with, but after that day, I couldn’t pretend to be friendly like before, and I was terrified just going near him. But honestly… I haven’t done anything to you yet. We haven’t even had a meal together.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“I didn’t know if I should make a move, it seemed like he was always looking for a first love or ex at the store, and I wasn’t sure if it was okay, so all I did was observe from the side.”
“……”
“After that day, every time we met, he would look at me like he wanted to kill me…”
From Kim Hyun-soo’s expression, it seemed he had more than a few grievances. What exactly was Tae Young-won’s look like for him to be saying this?
“Honestly, since entering college, he was always a sunbae I wanted to get close to, but he probably really dislikes me now.”
“……”
“So just now, I honestly felt a kind of rebelliousness.”
So is the form of address proportional to the emotional distance in Kim Hyun-soo’s mind? Mo Yeon chuckled at his seemingly transparent nature. Perhaps because he had anticipated it, Kim Hyun-soo didn’t seem too hurt by the rejection. Mo Yeon didn’t know how fortunate that was.
“Still… he must have felt some crisis hearing my voice, that sunbae.”
“…Crisis?”
Mo Yeon burst into laughter. He seemed to understand what misunderstanding Kim Hyun-soo had.
He was saying that Tae Young-won would feel a “crisis” upon hearing his voice. What does he know to say such things?
“You seem to be misunderstanding something. Why would that sunbae feel a crisis? He doesn’t like men.”
“Hyung, can I ask you one thing?”
Mo Yeon didn’t care if rumors spread about him being gay, but it shouldn’t happen to Tae Young-won. And above all, Tae Young-won didn’t like him. Whatever Tae Young-won felt towards him now, this was a problem Mo Yeon had to resolve himself.
“…What is it?”
“You haven’t sorted out your feelings either, right?”
Mo Yeon blinked blankly.
“At school, I wasn’t sure what kind of relationship you had, but later I thought you were just one-sidedly liking Young-won sunbae. So frequenting gay bars and such, honestly, that’s a common repertoire. But watching more, it didn’t seem like that, but rather like Tae Young-won sunbae was rejected and being clingy. It was confusing in many ways to say it was just one-sided.”
“……”
“Then I realized that day in front of the store. Ah, I got caught in a couple’s fight…”
To think he would see it that way. Mo Yeon slowly blinked and shook his head. Kim Hyun-soo was mistaken about something.
“We’re not in any kind of relationship. It’s true that I liked him on my own, but we’re just sunbae and hoobae. What do you mean he rejected me…”
It was a complete misunderstanding.
Of course, they had dated… but that was officially fake, and they had agreed not to count it. Mo Yeon spoke calmly.
“We were never anything special to each other.”
If pressed, he was special to Mo Yeon. Since everything was a first for him. But he didn’t think he was special to Tae Young-won.
He didn’t know what Tae Young-won, who had heard Kim Hyun-soo’s voice earlier, was doing now. He had made it obvious that he was with Kim Hyun-soo, whom Tae Young-won had been so wary of, indoors at this hour.
He might have gotten tired of it all, telling him to deal with seeing ghosts or not on his own. He might have accepted their breakup for real, completely disappointed.
By now, quite some time had passed since the call ended.
Tae Young-won had shown no contact or reaction afterwards. Mo Yeon smiled bitterly.
Although he clearly had no expectations, there was no helping the inner bitterness of that fact.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
