Sencha Replica - Side Story 24

Side Story 24

***

My long-neglected studio apartment was like an ice cave. I quickly walked across the freezing floor with short steps and turned on the boiler first.

Since I was living at Cha Gweonwoo’s place almost every day, I thought about just clearing out this place, but I was glad I hadn’t because the lease contract was still ongoing and I was too lazy to actually clean it out. With my current mood, I absolutely didn’t want to go to the house where Cha Gweonwoo was.

Originally, I don’t fight much with others, but if a conflict inevitably arises, I resolve it right there through talking. Running away like this isn’t my style. But when I fight with Cha Gweonwoo, I end up running away like this without realizing it.

When I got angry, Cha Gweonwoo just shut his mouth like earlier. And without even trying to figure out what the problem was, he was just busy apologizing to me.

I want to talk about the problem that has arisen between us, but Cha Gweonwoo doesn’t seem to want to talk about that problem at all, and just wants to quickly change my mind. Then in the end, I’m the only one who looks bad, raging and demanding answers in front of him.

I took out a large pot from the cupboard. I was going to eat just a little, but I ended up boiling all five packs of ramen I had. I felt like I was getting more irritable than usual because I was hungry. I stirred the ramen that was boiling slower than usual with chopsticks and let out a long sigh.

I slowly think about why I got so angry. Whether it was something to get this angry about. I liked that Cha Gweonwoo liked me all this time, I liked that he was kind, I liked that he accommodated me endlessly, but the problem is that I suddenly realized there was a problem between us.

Is it dating if you just go along with everything I like? Isn’t dating about adjusting to each other?

I thought that the Cha Gweonwoo I’ve been meeting and loving until now was the ‘real’ Cha Gweonwoo, but the thought that the Cha Gweonwoo I know might be entirely made up, and there might be a separate real Cha Gweonwoo, made me feel deeply hurt.

Shouldn’t he show his real self to me, his lover? I showed him everything about myself without hiding anything. Even my moods that change several times a day and all the thoughts and imaginations floating in my head.

It was also shocking to find out that the junior I thought was just following Cha Gweonwoo well was actually someone Cha Gweonwoo had brought in, and a junior that Cha Gweonwoo cared for enough that his colleagues knew about it. In fact, that was the most shocking.

Just as I have a junior I care for, Cha Gweonwoo having a junior he cares for shouldn’t be a problem, but I couldn’t accept it in my mind. Because I thought the Cha Gweonwoo I knew only liked me. I thought he only cared for me. I thought he looked at everyone else as if they were stones.

Yes, come to think of it, even in the days when he wouldn’t say a word to me, he spoke comfortably with his colleagues. He exchanged messages comfortably with them too.

I’ve been deceived.

Although Cha Gweonwoo has never deceived me, I keep feeling like I’ve been deceived, and that’s why I’m upset.

While I was lost in thought for a moment, the ramen couldn’t wait and became all swollen. I hurriedly brought chopsticks and put it in my mouth. But the ramen that had stimulated my taste buds and sense of smell while boiling wasn’t as delicious as I thought. It just clogged my throat. I coughed and choked on a drop of spicy broth stuck in my throat, and finally drank some water.

What’s going to happen with Cha Gweonwoo and me?

I feel like we need to talk and resolve this before it gets too late.

Suddenly I felt stifled. In the end, I threw away the ramen that I hadn’t even eaten half of and took off my clothes. The boiler must have worked hard because warmth finally filled the house. I stretched out on the floor like taffy for a while. I should go wash up, but everything feels bothersome.

I don’t know, I’ll just sleep here tonight. I don’t want to sleep with Cha Gweonwoo.

As my body, frozen from the cold, thawed, sleepiness washed over me. I almost dozed off, but I opened my eyes wide and got up. While washing with the water running, I kept feeling vibrations on my wrist, so I checked my pager. But there was no contact from Cha Gweonwoo. Even until I finished washing and was drying my hair.

As time passed, I felt more and more uneasy. Usually, when I run away like this, Cha Gweonwoo follows right away. He would make excuses or apologize to catch me, even though he had been keeping his mouth shut until then. Then I would finally express the things that had hurt me, and that’s how we would adjust and reconcile with each other.

But now more than two hours have passed since we fought, and there’s no contact from Cha Gweonwoo. That’s when I suddenly felt scared.

Could it be that he’s tired of me? Could it be that he’s lost his affection for me? Because I got too angry. I got heated over something that, by Cha Gweonwoo’s standards, wasn’t worth getting so angry about. What if he’s disappointed in me? What if he says let’s break up like this?

I didn’t intend to break up. I absolutely had no such intention, but could it have felt that way? I couldn’t sit still and stood up abruptly. Suddenly I felt like I had gone too far. It wasn’t something to get so angry about, I shouldn’t have pushed Cha Gweonwoo like that, I shouldn’t have turned my back and run away.

I put on the coat I had shed like a shell. I’ll go and talk. But my feet wouldn’t move easily.

What should I say first? I roughly ran my fingers through my hair. I moved my feet as if to go, then stood still like a wooden statue, then moved my feet as if to go again, then stopped again, repeating this.

I had to go and talk again. Before Cha Gweonwoo misunderstood more. Before Cha Gweonwoo was more disappointed in me. I still love him. It’s absolutely not because my love has cooled. It’s because I love him more. It’s because I want to do better.

In the end, I called Cha Gweonwoo. Where are you now? Let’s talk. As the dial tone continued, I held back the words I wanted to say immediately and roughly shoved my feet into my shoes. And when I flung open the front door.

My body, which was about to dash out energetically, froze in place. If I wasn’t mistaken, someone was standing in front of the door. I blinked, not believing what I was seeing.

It’s so cold outside, even just opening the door for a moment like this makes my face feel cold. How long had he been standing here like this, not even properly dressed?

Cha Gweonwoo, with his earlobes and both cheeks turned red, looked like he might crumble at any moment.

“How long have you…”

The words I couldn’t bring myself to ask disappeared into thin air. I reached out and grasped his reddened cheek. His cheek was ice-cold.

“No, how long, how long have you been here…! Why didn’t you ring the bell! Why couldn’t you open the door…”

His hands and face were too cold, like ice. My heart felt like it would break, wondering why he had been standing outside this cold door after coming all the way here, what he had been doing without coming inside.

You know the password, so why didn’t you just come in! Why didn’t you come in! It’s so cold outside! Why did you do that! I asked, stomping my feet in frustration, but Cha Gweonwoo, who had been silently looking at me, finally opened his mouth.

“I thought you might…”

Cha Gweonwoo, who started speaking in a pathetically trembling voice, roughly rubbed his frozen face with his hand.

“I thought you might…”

His red-rimmed eyes looking at me seemed to grow moist, and then a tear or two dropped onto his frozen cheeks.

“…tell me to break up.”

***

Cha Gweonwoo said he had followed me right away but couldn’t bring himself to knock on the door. So he had been standing outside this door for over two hours, unable to come inside.

It was a foolish thing to do on such a cold day.

If I had listened at the door even a little, would I have known Cha Gweonwoo was there? I felt so stupid for not noticing at all that someone was standing in front of the door.

Seeing his hands and feet red from the cold made my heart ache so much. As I brought Cha Gweonwoo into the house where the heater was on full blast, I blamed him out of guilt.

“You did it on purpose. You did it on purpose. To make me feel sorry. You didn’t come inside to make me feel sorry.”

That’s not it. It’s my fault. Cha Gweonwoo apologized to me before his body could even thaw. He said he would never do it again. We didn’t talk much while I washed Cha Gweonwoo with warm water, dried him completely with a hair dryer, and changed him into the largest of my clothes.

“I’d like us to talk and resolve this.”

I know it’s not Cha Gweonwoo’s way. Cha Gweonwoo didn’t want to get angry if he could help it, and always wanted to let things go smoothly.

But I don’t like that. When we encounter a problem, I want to solve it somehow. This wasn’t a fight between Cha Gweonwoo and me, but Cha Gweonwoo and I taking sides to fight against the problem that has come upon us. We, being different, met and came to love each other like this, and now it was time for us to put our heads together to consider and resolve how to adjust to this problem.

If we don’t narrow our differences and resolve this here, we’ll probably keep clashing every time we encounter the same problem.

“I haven’t had a proper relationship before, but I don’t want to do it like this. I don’t think it’s good for you to accommodate me in everything. I’d like it if you would just say when you want to do something, say when you like something, and say when you dislike something.”

If it takes time, you can tell me later. I whispered, kissing the cheek of the person who was still looking at me with anxious eyes.

“My blood type is B.”

I tilted my head, wondering what this random statement was about, and Cha Gweonwoo’s earlobes turned red as he closed his mouth again.

That’s when I realized that Cha Gweonwoo had finally taken off one layer of clothing and revealed the Cha Gweonwoo inside. I urged him on, patting his arm as he acted like he would never speak again.

Ah, okay. Okay. I’m sorry. Tell me quickly. Tell me more.

“My birthday is August 5th.”

“…”

“And I don’t like meat that’s been in water. I also don’t really like fruits or sweet things.”

“Then what on earth do you eat to live?”

“…”

“…No. I’ll listen quietly. Please tell me more.”

I almost blurted out more questions, but since this was the first time Cha Gweonwoo had opened up about what was inside him, I patiently held back. Why is talking about disliked foods such an embarrassing thing that this person’s face is turning redder than a tomato right now?

“But I don’t really have many foods I want to eat. I don’t have many foods I like either. So I just like eating what you want to eat.”

“…”

“And what I dislike is…”

Cha Gweonwoo, frowning deeply, was lost in thought for quite a long time before shrugging and saying he would think about that gradually. Then, counting off on my fingers, he suddenly gave a hundred answers to a hundred questions.

“I’m not afraid of bugs.”

“Wow. I really hate bugs. No, it’s not that I’m afraid. I just don’t like them.”

“I’m good at catching bugs.”

“Well, it would be funny if you couldn’t catch bugs when you can take down those huge monsters. Right?”

Later on, for every one thing Cha Gweonwoo said, I chimed in with a hundred more.

“And what I like is… I like bungee jumping too.”

“Oh, I like bungee jumping too. Shall we go together sometime?”

“And I’ve decided to like something else too.”

“What?”

“The friend who likes dolphins.”

“The friend who likes dolphins?”

“…I don’t know who it is though.”

…Huh?

That’s when I realized that Cha Gweonwoo was answering one by one the questions I had asked before in Busan. Once upon a time in Busan, I had rattled off things he hadn’t even asked, saying:

‘Aren’t you curious about these things about me, Cha Gweonwoo? I’m so curious about you, and I want to know more about you.’

“My, you’re answering so quickly.”

When I spoke impertinently, leaning back in my seat, Cha Gweonwoo smiled for the first time since coming here. He was smiling so much that his dimples showed, but his eyes were still red and swollen from crying earlier, which was somehow stimulating.

I watched silently as he smiled with his eyes narrowed, then suddenly threw myself at him. And I asked what I had wanted to ask for a while but had held back, thinking it might be childish.

I can’t help it. I have to ask this.

“Is he really a junior you care about?”

This was actually what I was most curious about! Cha Gweonwoo, who held me without nodding despite the weight that had fallen on him, answered.

“He’s just a junior.”

“Are you sure he’s just a junior?”

Cha Gweonwoo frowned, seeming uncomfortable even receiving such suspicion. But I didn’t back down.

“Is it true you brought him?”

“Yes.”

Something bitter burst in my mouth, like a pill that should be swallowed with water.

“Why! Did you like him?”

When I asked, grabbing his collar like a thug because I felt wronged, Cha Gweonwoo gently stroked my cheek with his palm.

“Every year when new espers come out of the training center, part of my job is to bring in the good ones and form a team. That’s what ‘liking’ means in this context. It’s different from how I like you.”

Even with his soothing voice as he kept stroking my head with his large hand, my heart, once sharpened, didn’t easily become round again. I hid my face in his large embrace for a long time while hugging Cha Gweonwoo’s waist, then mumbled in a barely audible voice:

“I think I love too much…”

It was a voice so small that only Cha Gweonwoo’s right heart, which my lips were directly touching, could barely hear it, but Cha Gweonwoo, who heard it like a ghost, asked me with a smile:

“Why?”

Unable to shake off my sulky feelings, I buried my eyes in his body.

“I get jealous. When you’re nice to other people…”