BHB 101

“What?”

“You were drunk, so you probably don’t remember, but you were the one who saved me that day.”

“…”

“But I knew you even before that. Because you were famous. For being handsome. Everyone must have known about you.”

“…”

“After saving me like that, you said to me.”

At that moment, a phrase flashed in his mind like lightning.

‘Be careful because you’re pretty.’

Ah. Right. Not long after starting college, he had saved someone who was almost assaulted in a bathroom. But he had definitely thought that person was a woman. And for good reason – it was a shabby bathroom with dim lighting, and all he had seen were deer-like sorrowful eyes in a porcelain-white skin that he couldn’t have thought belonged to a man. He naturally didn’t think it was a man because the person was so pretty. All the males around him were like monkeys crawling on all fours.

“I don’t really like being called pretty.”

“……”

“It’s not something a man should hear… But, I liked it. That I looked pretty to you.”

Jeon Chaemin hung his head low in embarrassment. With tears still in his eyes, he let out a faint smile as if recalling that moment. In contrast, Yeowon was bewildered by Jeon Chaemin’s treasuring of an event he couldn’t even remember until just now.

“It’s not like I had any hope though. You had a girlfriend then, and… you wouldn’t like men anyway. So of course I gave up. I thought I had given up, too.”

In a way, it was Jeon Chaemin’s long history of one-sided love. Feeling his heart grow heavier the more he listened, Yeowon kept letting out deep sighs.

“Then I heard you finished your military service and came back to school. I thought I had given up, but as soon as I heard that, my body moved on its own.”

“……”

“I found myself going to where you were without even realizing it.”

“……”

“Without knowing… I had wanted to see you.”

“Sunbae.” Yeowon suddenly cut him off, finding it too heavy to listen further. Looking back at Jeon Chaemin now, he was still crying.

“That’s when I met Taegang.”

“……”

“Your friend. The friend you cherish so much.”

“……”

“I… knew it all. That you cared for Lee Taegang more than any classmate, more than any lover.”

But Jeon Chaemin, making it impossible to interrupt further, brought up Lee Taegang as if he had been waiting to.

“I wanted to give up my hopeless one-sided love, even if it meant self-destruction.”

“……”

“I was envious. Of Taegang who never left your side. And on the other hand, I found you in Taegang. I used him. By sticking to Taegang like that, I could at least exchange words with you.”

Jeon Chaemin’s hands trembled as if in convulsion. He trembled like a person shivering in fear, as if confessing a shameful secret he had kept deeply hidden. Yeowon felt the same, as if he had heard something he shouldn’t have. It was absurd, ridiculous, and preposterous, making him involuntarily let out a scoffing laugh.

“But you were so nice to me…” Jeon Chaemin’s voice was covered with crying. As if that fact was so sorrowful and overwhelming. “You were nice to me without any impure intentions.”

“……”

“You were so kind, so nice… I became greedy.”

The tears falling drop by drop soaked the gray zip-up. Yeowon’s face gradually hardened and grew cold.

“I won’t ask for anything else. Just like before…”

“Did Lee Taegang know?”

“…Huh?”

The voice of Yeowon, who had been just listening without saying anything, became extremely cold, making the other person hesitate.

“Did Lee Taegang know that you liked me?”

Yeowon’s eyes, which had only been troubled by the heavy confession, were not just cold but sharp. He hesitated for a moment and then slowly nodded.

“…Yes.”

“And he still hung out with you.”

“…He caught on from the beginning.”

“……”

“So I… I asked him for help.”

“……”

“We slept together without any thought. Both me and Taegang. Really. Not a single emotion…”

“Fuck. Seriously.”

Yeowon let out a cold, scoffing laugh, threw his cap again, and roughly ran his hand through his hair. It was a habit that automatically emerged whenever he was angry.

Feeling a sudden tension from Yeowon’s icy demeanor, which he had never seen before, Jeon Chaemin stopped his tearful explanation.

“Seriously… you’re all insane.”

Besides, everything they said was just sophistry. To give up? What nonsense. They just did it because they were horny, and continued the relationship because it wasn’t bad. This is why people’s hearts are ridiculous. Because even if you love someone deeply, you can sleep with someone else, and while sleeping with that person, you can think of another.

To Yeowon, it was all nonsense. But the most ridiculous thing was Lee Taegang’s actions. In the end, this was in line with what he had done to Baek Seungha. Once again, he had been going around managing the people around him without Yeowon knowing. Even going so far as to sleep with a man for that reason. That Lee Taegang seemed seriously abnormal. No, it was chilling. Lee Taegang, willing to endure even such acts, had truly exceeded what he considered normal. Would Lee Taegang say the same? That he did it because he liked him.

That is because he liked him, he had sex with a man he didn’t even like. Would he make such a pathetic and ridiculous claim? If so, he… would be more disappointed in Lee Taegang than ever before. He might dislike Lee Taegang for the first time.

“Fuck it, just say you slept together because you liked each other, rather…” Yeowon opened his mouth coldly with a face devoid of any humor. It was a cold voice without any mercy or kindness left.

“…Yeowon.”

“That would have made more sense.”

Unable to stay there any longer, Yeowon blindly opened the car door and jumped out. A wave of disgust came over him, making it impossible for any pleasant words to come out.

After leaving the parking lot and returning to where he had been, he saw Lee Taegang talking with Do Youngjae under the booth. As soon as he saw him, his fists clenched and his hands began to tremble. 

How could he explain this feeling? 

Lee Taegang no longer looked like Lee Taegang. The person standing there wasn’t the Lee Taegang he had known for nearly 20 years, but someone else. He appeared as nothing more than an unpleasant human being.

Extreme stress pressed down on his neck. He wanted to quit everything, all of it.

Not in the mood to enjoy the festival at all, Yeowon headed to the department office to avoid Lee Taegang and Jeon Chaemin. Then he took out his laptop, went to the school website, clicked on the withdrawal application page, and sat still, contemplating. With his arms crossed, swaying his body back and forth, he had been pondering for a full 30 minutes.

In the morning, or rather at dawn, he had intended to meet Lee Taegang face to face and talk slowly. All day he had been thinking hundreds of times about how to contact him, but it was all in vain. What he had heard from Jeon Chaemin was enough to make him abandon all those resolutions.

Strangely, he felt humiliated. The feeling of being toyed with wouldn’t go away. Jeon Chaemin’s tearful claim that he did everything because he liked him appeared ridiculously repulsive, and when that image overlapped with Lee Taegang having sex with him in the department office, all those negative emotions stuck to him like his head was about to explode. Even the confession in the car, which had seemed somewhat pitiful, now felt disgusting, leading to self-loathing.

Yeowon roughly wiped his face as if irritated and moved the mouse again.

They might call it impulsive, thinking he was doing it out of anger, but it was something he had been contemplating for a while. As graduation semester approached, he realized it more keenly. That he had come here solely for Lee Taegang. He wanted to cut off that fact first. Through a series of events, Yeowon realized that this relationship, which everyone said was unusual, was the problem. Baek Seungha had known it all along, and even Kim Myungjoo vaguely knew how distorted Lee Taegang’s feelings were, and now Yeowon fully understood it.

Because of that, he was acutely feeling how much distance from Lee Taegang was needed right now. Moreover, he was realizing that this university, which he had attended solely for Lee Taegang, could never be his future. In that case, cutting it off quickly was the answer.

“…Maybe I should get a part-time job.”

Distancing himself from Lee Taegang was similar to having a different life. Even though it didn’t mean that without Lee Taegang, money would disappear and everything else would vanish, it felt like it might. Without Lee Taegang, he had nothing in particular. Unconsciously, he had always felt that way. As if he were unable to do anything alone, like a cripple.

“Found you after looking for a while.”

Just as he was sprawled on the cheap sofa with his neck stretched back, someone quietly entered the department office. As the festival was in full swing, the inside of the school building was actually quiet. The voice and presence contrasted starkly with the noisy sounds and lights outside the window. Lee Taegang, appearing from a place without a single light, slowly approached him.

Yeowon closed his laptop first. He didn’t want to let Lee Taegang know. He might rage again, and it was just his wish. He wanted to proceed with all of this without Lee Taegang knowing. Perhaps he wanted to take revenge on Lee Taegang. He wanted to give him his own sense of betrayal for all the impossible things he had been doing without his knowledge.

“What are you doing here? Do Youngjae is looking for you.”

Lee Taegang was similar to Jeon Chaemin. He pretended as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing had happened. 

Is this trending these days? Confessing first, making everyone uncomfortable, and then just acting like they’re fine.

Yeowon quietly looked at that brazen face and calmly, slowly surveyed the cheap sofa.

“Do you remember?” At the abrupt question, his face flinched slightly. “You slept with that sunbae here, didn’t you?”

He recalled that first day. The most shocking event in his life. Lee Taegang’s mouth remained tightly closed without an answer.