#041
Seeing this, Jukyung let out a hollow laugh. Yewon, with her flushed face who had been watching such Jukyung, made eye contact with Jiwoon who was next to him. Yewon was still tightly gripping Yechan’s clothes.
“Yeah, hello. Hey, Seo Yechan. Don’t you remember the bet you made with me?”
Jukyung started grinning slyly while looking at Yechan.
“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s a friend.”
“Aha.”
Jukyung, who had been staring intently at Yewon’s hand, observed Jiwoon’s expression. Jiwoon seemed a bit tired.
“The bracelet is prettier than I thought. Jiwoon-jiwoon. Right?”
Jukyung smiled and grabbed Jiwoon’s arm. Only then did Jiwoon turn his head toward Jukyung.
Soon Jukyung put his arm around Jiwoon’s neck. A bracelet identical to Jiwoon’s jingled on Jukyung’s wrist.
Yechan’s gaze lingered on Jukyung’s wrist for a moment, then turned toward Jiwoon.
“Are you going to eat cotton candy? There are too many people. Jukyung is having a hard time.”
“……Let’s go in.”
Jiwoon blinked a couple of times while maintaining eye contact with Yechan. Yechan, who was looking at him with clear eyes, seemed exactly the same as usual.
“I’m going first.”
At Jiwoon’s short farewell that was eventually thrown out, Yechan had no choice but to nod his head.
“The third-year is leaving. Have a shitty time if you can.”
Jukyung, who had uttered incomprehensible words, disappeared with his arm around Jiwoon’s neck.
Yechan’s face crumpled up. It was unpleasant. Yechan suddenly thought of Choi Yeon.
That’s when it happened. Yewon hit Yechan’s back repeatedly.
“Ah!”
“Hey, hey, that…… who is that person? Yoon Jukyung?”
Having apparently figured out the name by looking at the name tag, Yewon, who had recited Jukyung’s name, continued hitting Yechan’s back.
Yechan turned around and answered while avoiding Yewon’s hands. His hands stung. He thought there might even be handprints.
“A third-year hyung.”
“Fuck…… he looks so much like my oppa……”
Yewon, who had urgently taken out her phone, turned on the screen and waved it in front of Yechan’s eyes.
Yewon’s phone wallpaper had changed to some man’s selfie. His smiling expression was fox-like, and somehow seemed to resemble Jukyung.
“Wow…… Third-years aren’t dating now, right?”
“Wake up from your dream.”
“Can’t you introduce me? I’d like it if Seo Yechan introduced me……”
“Do you like college students?”
“No? Who said anything about dating? I just want to keep in touch!”
“He has a bad personality.”
“He seemed nice though.”
Leaving behind Yewon, who was already beyond reasoning, Yechan approached the shortened line.
Yewon kept asking about Yoon Jukyung for a while. The more she did, the more Yechan’s face crumpled.
Yechan thought about Jiwoon, who had left to go study without properly talking to him or even buying cotton candy. And he bought one more cotton candy.
“Yujin says she’s coming now! She got off work!”
Yewon, who had been munching on cotton candy, looked at her phone and spoke. At the thought of finally being liberated, a sigh escaped from Yechan’s mouth.
Yewon had originally come to the festival to hang out with friends. When her friends couldn’t leave their booth yet because of work, she had wandered around the campus alone.
And guys who seemed to have bad intentions kept clinging to such Yewon. Thanks to that, Yewon had no choice but to call Yechan, and as payment for helping her, she had to be responsible for all of Yechan’s snacks until now.
“Yewon! Sorry, I’m so late.”
Yujin finally appeared next to Yewon, who had even paid for the cotton candy Yechan ordered. As soon as Yujin arrived, Yechan immediately greeted both of them and hurriedly walked away while checking his wristwatch. The 5th period was already ending.
Me: Hyung, where are you? I bought cotton candy
* * *
Jiwoon, who had been led by Jukyung back to the building, headed straight to the rooftop.
“Jiwoon-jiwoon, are you okay?”
“Why are you following me? Go.”
“I don’t want to. Jukyung will stay here.”
Jukyung, who had locked the rooftop door, pursed his lips. Despite his playful expression, Jiwoon only crouched down on the ground without a word.
Even though it was clearly a space open on all sides, he couldn’t feel autumn’s refreshing air at all. Jukyung, who sat next to Jiwoon, asked again.
“Lee Jiwoon. Are you okay?”
Jiwoon didn’t answer. He felt like the ground beneath his feet had collapsed. The dirt he had carefully piled up in the pit to escape from the tomb was about to crumble away.
Jiwoon crushed his broken heart. From the heart that was already bleeding, blood now poured out torrentially. Jiwoon poured all that blood over the dirt.
He had to harden it somehow. He had to fill it up. The dirt greedily absorbed the blood.
Jiwoon shook his head from side to side and opened his mouth.
“I can’t do it.”
“Huh?”
“I want to stop.”
Jiwoon decided to end his unrequited love a little earlier, more decisively. He didn’t want to be destroyed anymore.
He was tired of the endless powerlessness and shabbiness he had been drinking down. If he went a little further, he might end up revealing his completely burst and festering heart in front of Yechan.
“If it’s an ending that Jiwoon-jiwoon makes, I’ll support it all.”
Ending. At Jukyung’s words, Jiwoon thought of the ending he had been considering. It was an end very different from the ending Yechan had talked about.
Jiwoon thought that Yechan might be upset for a moment, then immediately shook his head.
He’ll be fine soon. Whatever kind of period he put to it, Yechan would probably smile brightly as always and steadily walk his own path.
Jiwoon pressed his fingers firmly against his solar plexus, which was becoming bitter. Even though physically having chest pain was something he had already experienced several times since meeting Yechan, today that sensation seemed to approach him particularly strangely.
The autumn wind that suddenly blew scattered his bangs. Jiwoon slowly got up. Jukyung, who had gotten up following him, stood next to him and blocked the sunlight.
Jiwoon’s eyes turned to the empty playground beyond the rooftop railing. It was also from this rooftop that he had first discovered Yechan.
Seo Yechan playing soccer, Seo Yechan studying, Seo Yechan eating, Seo Yechan fevered with heat, Seo Yechan laughing, Seo Yechan calling him hyung while looking up at him…….
As his vision gradually became blurry, Jiwoon blinked his eyes. The tears that fell with a patter left marks on the rooftop floor.
“Cheer up, Jiwoon-jiwoon. Jukyung is here.”
Jukyung patted Jiwoon’s arm. Jiwoon soon wiped away his tears.
Jiwoon’s phone rang as he let out one more sigh. Jiwoon, who had been staring at the screen, answered the call. It was Yechan.
—Hyung, I’ll give you cotton candy. Where are you?
“Rooftop.”
—I’ll come now. Wait just five minutes.
“Okay.”
Jiwoon wiped away his tears with the handkerchief Jukyung handed him.
Fucking embarrassing. When he bluntly spat out those words, Jukyung grinned slyly. Jiwoon’s heart felt a little relieved by the autumn wind that suddenly swept by.
Hearing that Yechan was coming, Jukyung patted Jiwoon’s back and headed to the classroom first.
“It’s really big, right? I don’t know if there’ll be time to eat it all.”
Standing face to face with Jiwoon in the rooftop stairwell where people don’t come and go, Yechan smiled brightly and held out the cotton candy. Yechan’s portion was already reduced by half.
Jiwoon tore off the cotton candy with his hand and put it in his mouth. The cotton candy was excessively sweet.
“Is it delicious?”
“It’s sweet.”
“Right? It’s a bit too sweet.”
Jiwoon stared quietly at Yechan, who was expressing a similar sentiment to his own. Jiwoon and Yechan’s gazes intertwined.
Seeing his slightly moist-looking eyes, Yechan blinked and asked.
“Hyung, is there something going on lately?”
“No.”
Yechan silently watched Jiwoon eating cotton candy. Jiwoon put the cotton candy he had torn off with his hand in his mouth, let it melt smoothly, and opened his mouth.
“Yechan. Want to kiss?”
Yechan’s eyes widened. Looking at such Yechan, Jiwoon closed the distance. Jiwoon, who had given a quick peck on Yechan’s lips, immediately pulled away.
Yechan, who had blinked several more times, soon grabbed Jiwoon’s wrist. It was the wrist with the bracelet Jukyung had put on. At the bracelet caught together with his hand, Yechan momentarily applied force like a vise, then immediately released it.
Tilting his head like that, Yechan gently swallowed Jiwoon’s lips. Inside the mouth he had parted and entered, there was the taste of cotton candy. Even his breath was as sweet as sugar.
It was a kiss like melting and eating cotton candy. At the soft and sweet, dizzying kiss, Yechan pulled away his lips while panting.
“Hyung, I don’t think we should do more.”
Jiwoon chuckled softly with his wet lips. After lightly kissing Yechan’s lips with a peck and pulling away, Jiwoon tore off cotton candy and brought it to Yechan’s mouth.
Yechan ate the cotton candy like a bird. Jiwoon also put cotton candy in his own mouth and melted it.
“Let’s meet after the Suneung ends now.”
At Jiwoon’s sudden words, Yechan, who had been eating cotton candy, stopped breathing for a moment. Yechan, who recalled last weekend, spoke.
“……Was it hard?”
At Yechan’s question, Jiwoon bit his tongue. His inner feelings kept trying to burst out.
Jiwoon, who had tightly closed his mouth, quietly swallowed his breath. Then Yechan, who had been reading the atmosphere, suddenly pulled Jiwoon into his arms.
“I’m sorry. Hyung has to study. I was a distraction, wasn’t I?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
