The World Is Too Small
It was our typical date. We’d meet after work, grab a quick bite, and then spend the rest of the time chatting away at a café. A perfectly ordinary routine.
“……”
“……”
Silence. We sat across from each other, and for a full minute, we just stared, not even bothering to pull out our smartphones. We weren’t fighting. On the contrary, we had just been laughing about something silly. I’d shared a lame joke I’d thought of while browsing the internet, and Yeoeun had teased me with a bright, refreshing, “You’re so old-fashioned, honey,” before giggling. And then, it just hit us. A heavy, suffocating silence.
‘Here we go again…’
Lately, it had been getting deeper and more frequent. Yeoeun tried to act like nothing was wrong, keeping her expression neutral, but I could tell there was something festering inside her. I’d been trying my best to wait until she was ready to open up about whatever was weighing on her mind.
Shift, shift…!
I really tried, but the tension was so thick it felt like I was sitting on a bed of nails. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Hey…!”
“Honey.”
How does she always time it so perfectly? We spoke at the exact same moment. Yeoeun pouted, looking slightly disappointed as she pulled back.
“Ah… go ahead, you first.”
“No, no! You go first, Yeoeun!”
“No… you spoke first, so—”
“It’s fine! Really, I just called out because I had a random thought.”
“……Is that so?”
Finally. She cleared her throat, as if something was about to begin. Then, she spoke with a cautious, creeping tone.
“I was thinking… maybe we should go on another trip this weekend.”
“…A trip?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, a trip sounds great! Uh… where should we go?”
“Well, somewhere we can be alone… I have something I need to tell you then.”
She pulled her lips into a faint, beaming smile and added,
“Depending on how prepared you are, there might be some… extra options involved, too.♥”
A slightly suggestive comment. That kind of racy talk was typical of Yeoeun’s usual energy. But no matter how I looked at it, the latter part felt like a half-hearted distraction. The main course was clearly the former, which seemed to be filled with complex worries.
‘…I’m starting to really empathize with Mr. Joo Young-cheol…’
Even I was getting confused. She’d have such a complicated expression on her face, yet she wouldn’t reject my touch at all. I didn’t think I’d ever fully understand what was going on inside her head, no matter how long I looked.
Regardless, since she was the one who suggested peeling back a layer, my answer was obvious.
“Well, of course—”
I was about to agree immediately, but then—
“……Wait, Saturday?”
Something felt off. I pulled out my phone to check my messages. I scanned the group chat with my friends to confirm the location and date.
“Ah…”
I had a feeling, and I was right. It was a perfect conflict. It was the date of the alumni reunion I’d accidentally agreed to attend.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, it’s just… I have something scheduled for this Saturday.”
“Oh…”
“No, it’s fine! It’s not like I have to go; I can just pay the fee and skip it.”
“Wait, hold on.”
Yeoeun pulled out her phone, as if something had just occurred to her. She tapped away at her latest-model smartphone, then let out a long, deflated sigh.
“Phew… sorry. My head is all over the place. I have a schedule on Saturday night, too.”
“Oh, really…?”
“It’s something I could cancel, but… if we both have plans, there’s no need to force it, right?”
She quietly set her phone down. She gave me a bright smile, looking as if she were perfectly fine with it.
“Let’s go on that trip next time.♡”
“………Yeah.”
Something was out of sync. The gears that had been turning so smoothly were no longer meshing. The angle of our relationship had shifted. My feelings were the same, but it felt like a miracle that we’d gotten along so well until now, and yet, things kept going wrong.
“To the reunion of Class 3-2! Cheers!”
The class president stood up and led the toast.
“Cheers!”
Hearing such a cliché phrase made me realize we were definitely getting old. Getting older was bitter in one way, but on the other hand, I downed my beer, toasting to the mortal fate that no one could avoid.
The reunion was held at a barbecue restaurant with a trendy, MZ-generation vibe. It was more stylish than your average spot, and the menu was surprisingly adventurous for a BBQ place. There were 31 students in our class back then, and 19 of us showed up. It was a surprisingly successful turnout.
‘Wow, Yeonju actually got a tattoo. Ugh, and it looks like she had work done on her face… seeing it up close, it’s just a bit scary. Whoa, Seongcheol really gained a lot of weight, didn’t he? He used to be so popular with the girls; what happened?’
I’d arrived with low energy, but the reunion was more entertaining than I’d expected. It might be rude to say, but it felt like visiting an aging zoo. I could see the present through the lens of the past. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much bragging about how well people were doing or backstabbing; people just naturally grouped up with the friends they’d been close to.
In the end, we’re creatures who live on memories. As we poured old stories into our beer glasses, the drinks went down smooth. For the record, I was part of the trio with Park Seong-hyeon and Kim Seong-ung. We were also rubbing shoulders with a few others we’d occasionally talked to back in school.
Especially, ‘Wow… you’ve really changed a lot.’
Han-byeol, who had been mentioned in passing earlier. Her surname was ‘Han’ and her given name was ‘Byeol,’ so we usually just called her ‘Hanbyeol.’ She was someone I’d talked to a few times back in school, and if my memory served me right, she had hair that was terribly long, like curtains. She also used to wear glasses and had a bit of acne, but now, she was completely different.
Her gloomy, long hair was tied back in a neat ponytail. Her skin was smooth and glowing, as if it had never known a pimple in its life. The makeup she wore was well-applied, a skill she’d clearly picked up naturally over time. Unlike Yeonju, it didn’t look like she’d had surgery; it seemed like her original, hidden potential had just been excellent, like something out of a manga. In short, she’d become very popular.
It’s a terribly boring expression, but the flower bud had bloomed, and Seong-ung was particularly interested in this fully opened flower.
“Man, you’ve really changed a lot. Hey! With how you look now, you must hear that a lot, right?”
He was holding the beer bottle and hitting on her blatantly. A friend of the same age was doing things that only a middle-aged man would do. As far as I remembered, we weren’t even that close, but he was just being reckless.
‘Our Seong-ung… you must have been lonely.’
Seeing him like that didn’t make me cringe; it made me feel sorry for him. Even that guy, who usually had such a rough mouth, must have been lonely in many ways. I felt a flicker of sympathy—
Jump!
Just then, an unexpected action occurred. While other tables were noisy, our corner suddenly became the center of attention. Hanbyeol, who had been sitting right next to Seong-ung, suddenly jumped up. She walked around the table and sat down right next to me, blatantly pushing between me and Seong-hyeon, who had been sitting there. Then, she smiled innocently and made a suggestion.
“Want a drink?”
“……Uh, what?”
“Hehe, why are you so surprised?”
She leaned in close, showing her front teeth as she smiled. She tilted her cold beer glass and added,
“I’m just returning the favor for what you did for me back then, Seungwoo.”
…I had no idea. I was completely stiff because I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she continued.
“You remember, right? When I came to art class without my carving tools? You snuck over and handed me your whole pencil case.”
“…….”
“I didn’t have any friends back then, but you knew that and helped me out… Hehe, you got in trouble because you’d borrowed it from the next class over and it was missing some stuff. How about it? Now that I’ve said it, you remember, right?”
My brain was buffering. After a long, old-computer-style loading time, I widened my eyes and replied.
“Ah! That… that’s right!”
This was a total lie. A blatant, desperate lie where I pretended to agree just to go along with it.
‘Did something like that happen…?’
I’m sorry to say, but that data didn’t exist in my head. It wasn’t that I was too heartless to remember my good deeds; it was just such a small, trivial thing that I was genuinely surprised it had even happened, let alone remembered it.
“I was really… so grateful back then.”
But human memory isn’t absolute; it’s relative. *Slide, slide…♥* After that comment, Hanbyeol moved her floor cushion a little closer. She wiggled her way right up against me. Because of that, Seong-ung was making an ‘o0o’ face, and Seong-hyeon, who’d had his seat stolen, was just sipping his beer with a ‘-_-’ expression.
“Want another beer?”
“No, that’s…”
A chill ran down my spine. If my intuition was right, this was clearly heading in that direction. A blatant expression of romantic interest from the opposite sex. It was something that had never happened in my entire life, and it had to happen now that I was old.
“I’m going to the bathroom for a second…”
Honestly, I felt uncomfortable rather than happy. I tried to escape the situation because I needed time to process her blatant advances, but—
“Oh, me too! Bathroom♡”
Hanbyeol got up from her seat as well.
Slide!
Since it was a room with floor seating, we opened the door and stepped out. It was a large restaurant, so as I walked down the long hallway, Hanbyeol followed behind me, pattering along. Feeling the pressure, I spoke up.
“Hey… I’m really just going to the bathroom.”
“Yeah, me too. The hallway is straight, so we have no choice but to walk together until the entrance, right?”
“Phew… Hanbyeol, I’m saying this just in case.”
“What?”
“…….”
When I turned around, her face was, just like her name, full of ‘starry’ expectations. She was swaying her ponytail to look even cuter and prettier than before, waiting for my answer.
‘Ah… it’s 100% true.’
Even if I tried to deny it, the answer was written all over her face. Just like with my former team leader, it was a coincidence that these things kept happening one after another. And so, the answer was already decided. Just like when I pushed the team leader away, the answer I had to give was obvious.
However, ‘Am I really… dating Yeoeun?’
I see Yeoeun. We date, and we sleep together. But have I completely opened my heart to her? Looking at the conversation we’d had at the café earlier, I felt that wasn’t the case yet. We were stuck in an ambiguous position, hesitating, and I was finding it harder and harder to know what she was thinking. At first, I felt good because I thought we were on the same page, but now I didn’t even know my own feelings.
This was the limit of being ‘sex friends.’ You might think it’s a sweet deal because I get to share a bed with an out-of-my-league beauty, but from my perspective, this ambiguous relationship where I couldn’t even comfortably call her my girlfriend was incredibly uncomfortable. I couldn’t just come out and say I had a girlfriend to cut off situations like this. I had no choice but to vaguely refer to her as ‘someone I’m seeing,’ just like before.
“Son Seungwoo,”
“……Huh?”
“Are you… shy right now?”
She had a cute hamster-like face, but she was trying to give off a strangely mature vibe. She giggled and leaned in slowly. With a bit of alcohol in her system, she had the boldness to rest her hand on my chest and press against me.
“No, wait, just a second…!”
“It’s fine… there’s no one watching now, right?”
She wasn’t like this before. I still didn’t have many memories of Hanbyeol, but she definitely wasn’t this kind of aggressive type. Which meant she’d either changed over time, or she was pushing herself—
Slide!
“Phew, okay, I’m just going to the bathroom for a second—”
Just then, the room next to us suddenly opened. The sliding door opened, and for a moment, the noisy chatter from inside grew louder before fading as the door closed. No, more than that, it was a voice that was slightly lower in tension but far too familiar.
I turned around, wondering if it could really be her, and—
“……Honey?”
“…………………………………Yeoeun?”
The world is small. It was so small it was almost frustrating. The person who had just stepped out of the room next to the long hallway was Yeoeun. She was wearing black slacks and a white blouse, looking a bit more formal than usual, brushing her hair back as she stepped out.
And from Yeoeun’s perspective, what she saw was—
“No, no, this is!”
“……♥”
“…….”
While I was standing there stunned, Hanbyeol was pressed right up against me. She’d even rubbed her face against my chest on her own, creating a composition that was perfect for a misunderstanding. It was a setup.
I’d been caught in a scene straight out of a trashy soap opera.
‘Why is the world turning so extreme?!’
I know the world is small. I know that, but damn, isn’t this a bit much?