You Want Me to Roleplay with My Unrequited Love? 9

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#9. One-Sided Love Red Flag (3)

“Ah, I messed up.”

By the time I realized the problem, I had already arrived home and even sent Na Jihan a message saying I got home safely.

“I forgot the photo……”

The family photo I always kept on the desk and looked at. The one with my young self and mother smiling brightly while hugging each other – it was my treasure, my memory, and my lucky charm.

It was good that I remembered to pack it in my suitcase, but I forgot to bring it back with me. I considered going back to get it but gave up. I didn’t want to seem like a fussy person to the other members.

‘It’s only a few days, so let’s endure it a little.’

Through the small kitchen window, I could see the sun slowly setting. It was definitely winter – even though it wasn’t that late, the world was diligently getting dark.

[Eat dinner, Yoon Seowoo.]

[Don’t skip it saying you have no appetite.]

[I’ll check later.]

I had been sitting quietly at the dining table when I slowly got up at Na Jihan’s message. When I rummaged through the refrigerator, there were some raw eggs left, so I decided to boil them to use them up.

Bubble bubble. Clack clack. As the water began to boil, the white eggs bumped into each other. I had loved that sound since childhood – the sound you could only hear if you stayed quiet and listened carefully. It was a sound that made my heart peaceful.

To hear the egg sounds better, it was best to stand four eggs in a small, round pot. So they could face each other harmoniously like a close family.

However, eating all four at once would be too much for me alone, so I couldn’t boil four by myself. In those times, Na Jihan would naturally finish the remaining two I couldn’t eat. Even though he didn’t particularly like them, calling them boring and bland.

Na Jihan was always like that. He thought it was natural to do things I would like together, and he never complained or even showed off about it. Eating eggs he didn’t like together, listening to strangers’ stories on the radio he wasn’t interested in.

Then when I, lying across the dining table, would smile, he’d naturally smile along. As if that was enough, as if that’s why he was there.

“……You really.”

I buried my face down and sighed. Na Jihan. How is it that you’re never absent from any memory?

As Na Jihan said, the egg was bland. It was dry and tasteless, and as soon as I barely finished one, my appetite completely disappeared.

I should have gotten dinner at the dorm and come back. Lost in such thoughts, I habitually reached to my right side and sighed at the emptiness I felt.

‘Ah, my meal companion.’

Mundol, the small octopus doll I kept by my side so I wouldn’t feel lonely when eating alone or sleeping, wasn’t there. That was also because I had put it in my suitcase and left it at the dorm.

Somehow I felt completely deflated. Na Jihan, the family photo, and Mundol too. It felt like I had left all the good things I had at that dorm.

After melting away a few more hours listening to the radio, I lay down early. But I couldn’t fall asleep easily and was tapping on my phone, eventually opening SNS.

The human heart is truly strange and cunning. Even knowing full well that there are truths in the world where ignorance is bliss, we keep exercising curiosity. Not even expecting anything great.

Fans were still talking a lot about my joining. Since most of them didn’t know who I was, the atmosphere was mainly awkward.

People who liked Maki were openly hostile toward me. In their eyes, I seemed to play the role of a scoundrel who stole someone else’s place and eliminated any corner for them to return to.

Would doing BusGayPerf as Han Seonggyeong suggested really resolve this kind of thing? What kind of imagination were we supposed to make them have about us?

Lost in thought while clicking around, I clicked on an external link, and soon text appeared neatly before me.

“Jihan pushed Maki against the wall. It happened in an instant. When the unstably flickering streetlight went out and darkness poured over the two of them……”

Jihan asked, “Can I kiss you?” It was too dark around them to see his expression properly.

“If you don’t run away, I’ll take it as permission…… Wait, the story just started but they’re already kissing? Why? So suddenly…… Agh!”

I was reading a story that started establishing dominance with a kiss scene from the very beginning when the screen suddenly changed. I jumped up in surprise as if I had committed some secret crime and almost dropped my phone while fumbling around.

Na Jihan. Of all times, it was a call from the very protagonist who was making a brilliant appearance in that story.

“H, hello.”

– Were you sleeping? Why are you answering so startled?

“No……”

I cleared my throat and answered calmly.

“I was lying down but wasn’t sleeping. Why?”

A low, soft voice replied.

– If you’re not sleeping, look out the window.

“Why the window all of a sudden? Wait a moment.”

I reluctantly got up and pulled back the curtains of the window from my second-floor room that looked directly down at the front gate.

And then.

“Na Jihan?”

Na Jihan was standing in front of the gate. In a simple outfit with a padding jacket over training clothes and a cap pulled down low.

Noticing my gaze, he took off his hat and waved his hand back and forth.

– If you’re not sleeping, come down for a moment. Don’t rush though.

As soon as I hung up the phone, I almost ran downstairs.

“Are you crazy, really!”

If you’re coming, you should contact me first. What if you just show up like this? If I had been asleep and didn’t answer the phone, were you planning to wait outside in this cold weather? It was really such a thoughtless thing to do.

As soon as I burst out the door, Na Jihan burst into laughter. It was an attitude of ‘I knew it.’

“I told you to come out slowly.”

Before I could ask what was going on, he suddenly held something out to me.

“Oh, my photo!”

“Yeah. Your photo.”

It was my family photo that I had left in the suitcase.

“I thought you’d be restless anyway with so much going on, so you should at least have your photo.”

I never thought he would bring it to me. I held the photo in a daze and asked.

“You brought it yourself?”

Then he made a “pft” sound like air leaking and laughed again.

“What kind of question is that. Of course I did, who else would. I can’t let someone else open your suitcase.”

“Yeah……”

“I just took this out for now, so keep it. Oh, and about your room. Since we’re doing construction anyway, let’s change a few things. Change the bookshelf to a bigger one, and move the bed closer to the window, right? Remove the blackout blinds and use thin curtains.”

The words that came out smoothly were all exactly what I had been thinking. When I stared at him with wide eyes, he smiled.

“Correct?”

“Yeah, correct.”

I stared at Na Jihan endlessly and asked.

“Were you thinking about all of that?”

“It would be stranger not to. I’m not like a certain someone who acts distant.”

“It’s not being distant……”

“It’s not? Someone who hates being alone in winter but scurried back home.”

The voice adding that I should bear with it for just a few days sounded somewhat sulky. It felt exactly like complaints about not being able to be with me, making a corner of my heart tickle.

Yoon Seowoo is always like this. Even Na Jihan’s ordinary kindness that he had shown me my whole life kept making my heart flutter anew. Because it seemed like I was the only one like me to him. Even if it wasn’t love, it seemed special somehow.

Sometimes I seemed satisfied with that, sometimes it seemed insufficient. Even though it was happening inside me, even I couldn’t make sense of it.

“Come early tomorrow morning. Hyeonjun hyung will come to pick you up, so answer when he calls.”

“I’m fine……”

“Should I come pick you up myself?”

“I’ll take the van.”

“Tomorrow you’ll meet the trainer teachers and do basic evaluations. The evaluation process here is pretty tough. It might be difficult, so don’t stay up late looking for useless things on your phone and go to sleep early.”

Na Jihan, who had been nagging naturally, rummaged in his pocket and then took out what was inside and tossed it to me.

I reflexively reached out and caught it with a thump sound, and something warm was in my hand. It was a hot pack.

“It’s a substitute for Mundol. I’m going.”

I fidgeted with the hot pack that was warm to the point of being hot and watched his retreating figure.

“Even though you hate hot things.”

How much time had passed after sending Na Jihan off?

The streetlight illuminating the alley where he had disappeared flickered. The crimson light blinked several times and then.

A voice that was all too familiar settled softly in my ears.

“Seowoo.”

“……”

“Can I kiss you?”

……Huh?