What state of mind did I come to school in? I couldn’t remember clearly. Now, as if Cha Jungwoo weren’t enough, I was calling around to people close to him, including Yoo In-ho.
“Ah, I don’t know. Stop calling. You bastard.”
“He’s probably busy. Are you insane? I’ll kill you. Seriously!”
“For fuck’s sake, why are you looking for him through me? Give me my weekend back, you jerk.”
The problem was that no matter what I did, it felt like I kept returning to square one—as if there were no right answer.
Did I make some kind of mistake?
It had been a night of sleeplessness, anxiety keeping me awake.
I lifted my stiff eyelids and glared at the lecture hall where Cha Jungwoo should’ve been.
“…You skipped your morning class too?”
The growing list of outgoing calls, the unanswered messages, and now his absence from a place he was supposed to be. My anxiety soon hardened into certainty. Cha Jungwoo, could it be—
“Are you avoiding me?”
The single sentence that slipped out pressed against my solar plexus. A pain like a blow to the back of my head echoed through my skull.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe and tugged open the top button of my shirt collar. As I walked, my face pale—almost tinged blue—people around me stared.
What are you looking at? I wanted to shout it. But I didn’t even have the energy for that.
“Yoo In-ho?”
That was when I ran into a somewhat familiar face while wandering. Yoo In-ho, looking disheveled as if he were on his way to class, turned toward me.
He’d said he didn’t know anything—but what if that had been a lie?
If that were the case, I couldn’t let him go. My vision swam as I lengthened my stride toward him.
“In-ho.”
“Y-you’re crazy…. What’s wrong with your eyes? Hey, you look like you’ve got soju running through an IV drip. You’re fucking terrifying.”
I cut off his escape route and tilted my head slightly. His face went pale with shock. I’d tried to compose myself before coming out, but it seemed the strain was showing.
But that wasn’t what mattered right now. I had to find out where Cha Jungwoo was.
Using a gentle tone I would never have used if Jungwoo were around, I tried coaxing Yoo In-ho. I even forced the corners of my lips up into a smile that wouldn’t rise naturally.
“Do you know where Jungwoo is?”
“…What? Cha Jungwoo? What now with that bastard? Did he skip out on the bill while drinking? Is that it? Is that why you’ve been going crazy on the phone since the weekend?”
“In-ho, can you answer the question first?”
“…I don’t know, you lunatic. I’m busy as hell trying to get to class and you’re going on about Cha Jungwoo, Cha Jungwoo. If you want to find him, call him yourself! …Where are you going? Hey? Min Siheon?!”
I turned on my heel the moment his temper flared. If he didn’t have the answer, there was no reason to waste time.
***
I walked and walked around campus searching for Cha Jungwoo. Even while moving restlessly, I tried to think rationally.
He’d been perfectly fine until Friday morning. It was Friday afternoon when he started lying to me. That was where it began. Why was he avoiding me?
There’s no reason. No matter how much I thought about it, nothing stood out as a problem. The only thing that bothered me was the place where I’d last seen him.
“…Kang Taeyoon.”
For a moment, I suspected that Jungwoo might have heard something from him. I hadn’t intervened directly, but I had interfered indirectly before.
But something about that felt strange.
Go Heemin—the one Kang Taeyoon was obsessed with—had been absent since Thursday. There was no way that bastard Kang Taeyoon would’ve acted alone.
He’d certainly behaved irritatingly, but he wasn’t the type to provoke me by dragging Cha Jungwoo into it.
If he struck here, he’d know I’d go after Go Heemin. He wouldn’t have made such a reckless choice.
We had that much in common—we both had something to protect. Which made this whole situation even stranger. Despite my spiraling thoughts, it seemed my reason hadn’t completely left me.
With dry eyes, I stared at the ground. I couldn’t afford to make a rash decision and ruin everything.
What if Cha Jungwoo wasn’t avoiding me, but was unable to contact me because of some unspoken circumstance?
If I touched Kang Taeyoon or Go Heemin in that situation, the worst could happen.
I was trapped in a position where I could do neither this nor that, forced only to agonize. For now, I told myself to find him first and coax him gently, suppressing my true feelings.
I would ask what had happened and why he hadn’t been reachable. With the warm and gentle face that Cha Jungwoo liked, I’d whine a little, lure him softly.
I headed behind the building to find the lecture hall Jungwoo attended. Even though notification after notification said the phone was off, I couldn’t stop calling.
—The phone you have dialed is turned off. You will be connected to voice mail….
After hearing that mechanical voice for what felt like the hundredth time, I learned what it meant for your vision to go red.
A white hand slipped past the arm holding my phone.
…Cha Jungwoo? I turned quickly—but the person standing there wasn’t the one I was looking for.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
As I shook off the hand that had hooked around my arm, a sulky voice followed.
A girl with a pretty face and a high, clear voice. …Where had I seen her before? In my hazy memory, I pulled up the name of the person who had once irritated me.
Ah, Kim Yu-joo. The girl I’d once been rumored to have a vague romantic scandal with before I took a leave of absence.
She’d clung to me so persistently that I’d entertained her a few times, only for her to try crossing the line, forcing me to draw a boundary.
She was still at school? After returning, I’d been too focused on Cha Jungwoo to even think about her.
The last time we’d crossed paths, she’d asked for my contact information, and I’d simply smiled politely and walked past.
I looked at Kim Yu-joo with a stiff, hardened gaze. I don’t have time for you right now—leave while I’m being nice. That was the meaning.
I wasn’t sure if she understood, but I turned toward my destination, thinking I’d given her enough courtesy.
If only the clicking sound of her heels hadn’t followed me. I had intended to let it slide.
“Can’t you at least answer me? I’m asking where you’re going.”
It seemed Kim Yu-joo had decided to snap the last thread of sanity I had left.
“Min Siheon, give me your number. We’ve known each other for three years—don’t you think it’s about time? I waited for you to tell me first when I heard you were back from your leave, but you didn’t even acknowledge me. So I came myself. I’m throwing away all my pride saying this.”
Her voice echoed painfully in my skull. My head already felt like it was splitting, and now this nuisance was picking at my nerves.
It was just after the automated message announced that the other person’s phone was turned off again.
Still talking without pause, Kim Yu-joo reached out and placed her hand on my shoulder.
At the same moment, I grabbed her hand and removed it. I stopped and turned to face her.
“I told you not to talk to me.”
Because she was a woman—and because I thought Cha Jungwoo would be frightened if he knew—I’d clenched my teeth and tried to endure it.
“Then answer me. And I’m your senior—don’t you think you’re speaking too casually?”
But Kim Yu-joo wasn’t someone who deserved that consideration. I gripped my phone hard enough for my hand to ache and stared at her with a dark look.
“…There’s a limit to my patience.”
I exhaled the breath filling my lungs. Failing to take the warning, she tried to touch me again. …I can’t hold back anymore.
“What’s your problem? Was I asking for something huge? Was it that awful just to ask for your number? Do you hate being linked with my name that much?”
“…I told you to leave while I was being nice.”
“W-what?”
If you’d left when I said it nicely, you wouldn’t be treated like this. I let out a scornful laugh along with the cold words, and her face crumpled.
She must’ve never been treated like this in her life. Not that it had anything to do with me.
“I won’t go easy on you just because you’re a woman.”
“…Ha, haha. Why am I even dealing with this?”
“You seem to know better than anyone how pathetic this is. …Get lost. Now.”
“…You’re the worst.”
Then stop clinging and disappear. That was the meaning—I had no intention of sparing her flimsy pride any further.
It seemed she caught the deep disdain and contempt hidden beneath my measured words. Unlike how she’d pretended not to notice before, she was quick to understand now.
Her pale face flushed red, then drained blue. Teetering on her heels, she barely kept her balance, pressing a hand to her chest as if to calm her racing heart.
Was she that outraged at being treated this way? She glared at me with tears pooling in her eyes, as if all the irritating things she’d done had vanished from her memory.
Fine. My feelings had already hit rock bottom—there was nothing left between us but hostility.
If she hadn’t come looking for me when Cha Jungwoo was nowhere to be found, if she hadn’t used my number as an excuse to try and touch me—I wouldn’t have cornered her this far.
It was your choice. So endure it. I looked at her trembling cheeks with numb eyes and tilted my chin toward the exit. That meant: if you’re done, leave.
She let out a hollow laugh, as if in disbelief. I felt nothing. I didn’t even have the spare emotion to give her annoyance.
I glanced down at my phone, which had ended the call automatically, and tried again. At the same time, I sensed her turning away—the obstacle finally gone.
Trururu— At some point, instead of the message saying the phone was off, I heard the tone indicating the call was connecting. …Which meant he’d seen all my missed calls.
I thought I had to accept it now. The fact that Cha Jungwoo was avoiding me.
My fallen bangs brushed against my eyes, but I didn’t bother pushing them aside. I only clenched my fist, listening to the long ringing tone.
Cha Jungwoo, pick up. Before I spiral into something worse.
Despite my clenched jaw and hardened exterior, my heart had already sunk into fear.
…If I never get to see him again like this.
I knew it was an absurd assumption, yet it felt like a hole had been punched straight through my chest.
It’s horrible. So horrible. If this emotion, too, is considered part of love, then it’s a horror I never want to experience again.
What’s even more miserable than that is this:
I won’t be able to let him go.
Cha Jungwoo… he’s really gonna make you makeup for all of this lollll