Chapter 46
I still believed that Kwon-oh could easily withdraw the interest he had shown me at any time, so the more I liked him, the more overwhelmed I felt, and at the same time, a bit melancholic.
It might be close to a miracle for Kwon-oh to genuinely pour affection on someone like me for a long time. Someday, both his interest and affection would cool off.
“Thanks, Kwon-oh.”
“I’ll make it for you again later. Come over to my place.”
“There you go again. You always want me to come over…”
“We need to be at home to have some private time together.”
Kwon-oh spoke boldly, not hiding his mischievous intentions.
“What are you planning to do when we’re alone?”
“Eat peaches.”
“…You’re always thinking about that.”
“Jeong-ha, you know what? When you’ve never tasted something, you can resist because you don’t know the flavor. But once you’ve had it, you can’t help but keep thinking about it. You can’t go back to how it was before.”
“You know you sound like a real pervert, right?”
How can he say such things without changing his expression when he’s the same age as me, twenty-one? Maybe there’s an old man inside him.
“Is that a vibration sound?”
While we were eating our late breakfast, sitting across from each other and talking nonsense, Kwon-oh suddenly tilted his head. After hearing his words, I perked up my ears too, and indeed, there was a buzzing vibration sound coming from somewhere.
“I think it’s a call for you.”
My phone was on the table, so if it was a call, it had to be Kwon-oh’s.
“Just a moment.”
He got up from his seat and started searching through the clothes he wore yesterday. After taking out his phone and checking the caller, Kwon-oh’s expression crumpled.
“Oh, why?”
I silently continued eating the pasta sauce with a spoon while listening to him talk on the phone.
“What board game on the weekend? Forget it, I’m not going.”
“…”
“I don’t know. Just play among yourselves.”
It seemed to be a call from a club member. Come to think of it, Kwon-oh was a member of the board game club.
The person calling must be a guy. His voice was cold, and there was no trace of sincerity in it.
“I’m busy for a while. I’m hanging up.”
Come to think of it, this was exactly the tone he used when he first dealt with me in the liberal arts class. A cold, indifferent tone, as if tossing words around.
And now…
“Are you done eating? Want more? There’s some left.”
His voice when speaking to me after hanging up the phone was enough to melt my ears. I nodded while rubbing my earlobes vigorously.
Kwon-oh took my plate as if he were the owner of the house and served more pasta from the frying pan.
“What about you?”
“I’m going to have more too.”
So we finished two plates of pasta each, side by side.
“Where does all the food go when you eat, Jeong-ha? You eat well, but why don’t you gain weight?”
“I often skip meals when I’m working on my night paintings…”
“I’ll have to feed you a lot.”
“Is the club fun?”
“Well. It’s just okay.”
Kwon-oh responded indifferently. I recalled the photos of the board game club members I had seen a few times on Instagram.
The ratio of women to men was always almost half and half.
“You seemed close with the club members. There are a lot of people, right?”
“How did you know?”
“I saw it on Instagram.”
“Ah, right. You stalk me.”
Kwon-oh put down his cup of cola and grinned.
Since it was true, I had no particular rebuttal, so I nodded.
“It was fun in the first year, so we used to hang out a lot. But these days, it’s just okay. It’s always similar when we go out anyway.”
“Are there many girls there?”
“About half?”
“Be honest. You joined the club to meet girls, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I… I thought so.”
I became gloomy at his answer without a moment’s hesitation. And I started poking at the innocent pasta with my fork.
Seeing me like this, Kwon-oh snickered.
“Of course, not anymore.”
“…”
“Why is your lip sticking out again?”
“Come to think of it, Kyung-won said last time that you were originally very interested in mixed gatherings…”
“What? When? That bastard really needs to have his mouth glued shut or something.”
When I mentioned what Choi Kyung-won had revealed, Kwon-oh’s relaxed expression completely flipped. He denied it angrily. I could clearly hear him grinding his teeth.
Although it wasn’t exact since I had overheard it at the beginning of the semester, it was true that Choi Kyung-won had said something similar. Besides, it wasn’t particularly surprising. I had seen and heard things myself.
“What else did he say? He’s always the most enthusiastic about spreading useless gossip.”
“Hmm.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not like that now. All my interest is only in peaches, why don’t you understand this?”
His voice of excuse was full of playfulness and a sense of injustice.
I asked without changing my sullen expression.
“Do you have any close friends in the club?”
“Among the girls, just someone I contact occasionally.”
“You’ve received confessions too, right?”
“Yeah.”
“…”
“Are you jealous?”
“…Yes. But you’re handsome, so it can’t be helped.”
“Why is your reaction so bland?”
“It can’t be helped, right? It’s the truth.”
“Still, be more strongly jealous.”
I laughed awkwardly. When he honestly admitted it without hiding anything, I had nothing to say. Instead, it felt like I was the one holding him back.
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked about this…
“If you didn’t go to the appointment today because of me… you can go and hang out.”
“Do you really want me to go?”
“…No.”
“I prefer being with Jeong-ha too.”
Kwon-oh kept giving perfect answers, leaving no room for me to feel upset. He must be a gumiho.
After we finished eating, we put the dishes in the sink. I said I would do the dishes, but Kwon-oh adamantly refused.
In the end, Kwon-oh finished the dishes alone, and then we went out together to smoke.
After returning home, we played music and looked at the photos we had taken yesterday.
The following conversation topics were trivial and ordinary. Things like classes, future plans, ideal types, hobbies.
“Do you not go to your family home often?”
“I go when I feel like it. Anyway, my dad and brother are too busy to have time. What about you, Jeong-ha?”
“Me too, occasionally. Even when I go, I come back the same day.”
I wasn’t on bad terms with my parents, but I wasn’t particularly close either.
“Are you not close with your mother?”
“Yeah. It’s a bit awkward.”
“Don’t mothers usually like their sons?”
Kwon-oh tilted his chin as if finding it strange.
“Is that so? My mom gets along better with my sister.”
“I think my mom is like that too.”
“…Didn’t you say you only had a brother?”
“Ah. A daughter born with the man she remarried. Not an older sister, but a younger sister.”
I froze like a broken machine at Kwon-oh’s casually dropped personal information.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“For what? There’s no need to be sorry.”
“Um, don’t you miss your mom?”
Kwon-oh blinked indifferently and then shook his head.
“It’s been too long, so not really anymore. I don’t have any particular thoughts except for a bit of resentment.”
“I see. I don’t know how to comfort you.”
I spoke honestly. His mom divorced his dad, left home, and is now living well with a new family. What could I, a third party, add to that?
“Ah. After getting into Hanguk University, my mom contacted me first and we met once. Just once.”
“You must have been glad.”
“I couldn’t even recognize her face.”
To have been separated long enough not to recognize his mother’s face. It was a situation I could hardly imagine. But since he said his parents divorced a long time ago, I vaguely thought it could be possible.
“What did you talk about after seeing each other after so long?”
“She said we shouldn’t contact each other separately because her new family shouldn’t know she met me.”
Kwon-oh’s tone carried a hint of disappointment he couldn’t quite erase. It was understandable. Even I felt upset hearing it.
We lay side by side on the small bed, enveloped in silence for a moment.
“…That was too much of her. Are you okay?”
“I felt kind of blank when I heard that.”
Kwon-oh gave a dry laugh for a moment, his gaze falling on my drawing stuck to the bookshelf. It was a sketch containing ideas for a project at the end of last year’s semester.
“Ah, I told you I drew a picture of my mom, right?”
“Yeah.”
“My mom drew me when I was young, and the composition was similar to the back view you drew last time.”
I turned my body completely towards Kwon-oh at his words, which seemed to have suddenly occurred to him.
“Do you still have that picture?”
“No. I was too young, so I just thought ‘oh, okay’ without much thought after seeing it once. If I had known my mom would leave home, I would have kept it.”
“So that’s why you came to see the picture in the art studio.”
“Yeah. The feeling was really similar. Though my memory could be wrong.”
“…”
I was at a loss for words for a few seconds.
“I see.”
And this was all I could manage to say after a while.
If I were more sociable and eloquent, could I have made Kwon-oh feel better?
“…But you didn’t do anything wrong. You know that, right?”
I hesitated before leaning my head towards Kwon-oh.
Suddenly, I felt very sorry for Kwon-oh. I regretted the past days when I had treated him merely as an impressive subject, arbitrarily recording him as gossip material to satisfy my curiosity and desires.
I probably shouldn’t write in that notebook again.
