Worse Than Strangers (2)
“Hey… Minjae, is something bothering you…?”
“Huh…?”
“I don’t know, you just seem especially lonely today. Maybe I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong, but…”
“Ah, no. I think I’ve just had a lot on my mind.”
I was startled. I hadn’t realized my face had been wearing that kind of expression.
Apparently I’d looked bad enough that someone else could pick up on it at a glance.
Or maybe it was the gloomy bruise still sitting on my cheek. It had already faded quite a bit, but if you were paying attention, you’d still notice it.
Either way, I had no intention of explaining the reason to Sebin. So I tried to brush it off.
“Minjae. Even if it’s not right now—if something hard comes up later, I’ll listen. You can talk to me.”
“Huh? You’ll listen?”
“Well, I’m your noona, aren’t I? And I’ve got a few more years of life experience on you. So I’ll hear you out. You’re always the one teaching me about games, so… I want to act like a proper noona in at least one area!”
Sebin looked straight at me, and when our eyes met, she smiled softly.
She offered me a warm smile, as if she meant to soothe the battered mess of my heart.
“Ah… but you already feel enough like a noona as it is.”
“Th-that… doesn’t sound like a compliment?”
I said it out of sheer awkwardness. The smile between Sebin’s brows twitched slightly at the words.
“Th-that’s not what I meant… I meant you come across as mature.”
I hurriedly tacked on the clarification and managed to put her cracked smile back together.
And then we both laughed a little.
If you wanted to call it fresh and innocent, it was.
With Seoa, I don’t think we’d ever had this kind of light, budding feeling. Maybe because we’d been friends since we were so young?
Or maybe it was just Seoa’s personality—she’d always been full of mischief.
Trading gentle conversation back and forth, quietly smiling at some small joke—I don’t think we’d ever shared a moment like that.
But talking with Sebin always felt this way. That was why it was comfortable.
The jasmine scent rolling off her was wonderful, too. Though it was a shame how quickly my sensitive nose scrubbed the fragrance away.
“Oh, are you heading straight home today?”
“Well… yeah?”
“Then want to hit a PC bang with me?”
“A PC bang? I’d be down, but…”
Even so, Sebin still seemed a little worried about me. Maybe she was trying to help me change the mood.
Out of nowhere, she’d asked if I wanted to go game together.
“Great! Then let’s wrap it up here for today and head to the PC bang!”
“Okay…”
She sprang up from her seat and urged me along. All I could do was follow her.
We headed toward the university district near the main gate.
Since we lived in opposite directions, the most efficient route was to game near campus first and then head home separately.
“Or would you rather go to a café? Eating something sweet might cheer you up a little, right?”
“M-maybe? But… you’re not just saying that because you want dessert, are you?”
“What?! N-no! I’m just saying we could grab something while we’re there… haha…”
Sebin gave an embarrassed little laugh.
I followed her to a nearby café. She suggested a quick sugar boost at the café first, then games at the PC bang after.
She explained the plan with a look of pure satisfaction, as if she’d just mapped out the perfect itinerary.
The sight of her like that was so funny I found myself smiling without meaning to.
Being right in front of campus, the café was packed.
Students with laptops open studying, people chatting about nothing in particular, groups working on assignments together—all of it filled my field of view.
It was a two-story place, but since we were only staying long enough to eat and leave, we grabbed a seat on the first floor right by the entrance.
“I’ll go pick something out! Just tell me what you want to drink. For the record, I’m getting mint chocolate.”
“Hmm… a hot americano for me, please.”
“What? A hot americano?”
“Yeah… why?”
The moment I chose a hot americano, Sebin looked genuinely shocked, as if she couldn’t comprehend the decision.
Was a hot americano really that outrageous?
From where I was sitting… Sebin drinking mint chocolate was the far more alarming sight!
“An americano has to be an iced americano! Iced is the only correct answer.”
“…Says the person drinking mint chocolate?!”
“Excuse me—?! Mint chocolate is delicious… You’ve clearly never tried it, that’s why you don’t get it.”
Sebin shook her head in disbelief and walked toward the kiosk beside the counter.
I glanced after her for a moment, then blankly took in the café interior. Really, I was just people-watching.
There wasn’t much point in looking at my phone anyway.
But then—that was the moment.
The moment my gaze drifted toward the stairs coming down from the second floor.
It was only her legs that came into view first, but even from just those legs, I knew exactly who it was.
Seoa.
Han Seoa.
That was the kind of relationship we’d always had. The kind where you could tell who someone was from their legs alone.
So she’d been here too. Probably came with the friends I’d glimpsed earlier.
I hastily looked away.
Running into her here would be a problem. I was sitting with Sebin, after all.
So I tried to hide myself in a posture that was probably even more unnatural because of it.
And whether that backfired or not, Seoa spotted me with uncanny precision.
Truthfully, we were sitting right next to the entrance—anyone leaving the café had no choice but to look this way. Hiding my body had been meaningless from the start.
And as always, Seoa didn’t simply walk past me. Instead, she came straight toward me.
The friends who’d come down the stairs with her hung back at a distance, watching her.
“Minjae… can we talk for a second?”
“…I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“Th-then just listen to what I have to say…”
That was the moment.
The moment Sebin came back from the kiosk.
The moment the dirty secret I’d been carefully hiding from her was laid bare.
“Minjae?”
“Ah…”
Seoa looked back and forth between me and Sebin. A flicker of fear showed in her eyes.
The panic on her face was obvious. Of course, I was just as flustered—and so was Sebin.
All three of us standing here looked equally thrown.
Sebin’s eyes seemed to ask who the woman in front of me was.
And I remembered.
That vow I’d made back then.
I decided this was the perfect moment to make good on it.
“Don’t worry about it. She’s just a friend. A classmate from the same major.”
I gave Seoa back the exact words she’d once said to me.
I’d sworn that someday I’d return that humiliation—and that day was today.
Honestly, I’d wondered if a day like this would ever come, or if it would stay nothing more than a fantasy.
I’d worried about that. But fortunately, the opportunity had found me.
It felt good. Thrilling. A rush of pure satisfaction.
Look at Seoa’s face right now.
Look at those lowered eyes, those trembling lips.
And I’d still been generous. She wasn’t even “just a friend” anymore. We were less than friends. We were worse than strangers.
I’d been considerate enough.
Hearing those words, Seoa clenched both fists tight and hurriedly left.
Sebin sat down still wearing a bewildered expression.
“A-are you okay? Letting her go like that?”
“Huh? She just went back to the friends she came with, that’s all…”
“Well… if you say so, it’s fine, but… she looked pretty hurt…”
Hurt?
Don’t make me laugh.
Seoa was the one who’d spent all this time hurting me. Even if she was the one getting hurt now, I hadn’t done anything wrong.
No—Seoa didn’t even have the right to ache over wounds I gave her. What face could she possibly wear to feel pain because of me?
My whole body was already in tatters from the wounds she’d left. Scars that would never fade, covering me everywhere.
So I wanted to carve just as many wounds into her—deep ones—right now.
And even if I did, Seoa had neither the right nor the privilege to suffer over them.
She simply had to accept, in silence, every mark carved into her body.
That’s what I believed. That was how you paid someone back for the rotten things they’d done to you.
“She looked like she was crying, didn’t she? I caught a glimpse—there were tears in her eyes…”
“Let’s drop it! Hahaha… look, our number’s up.”
I held up the buzzing table buzzer and cut off Sebin’s talk about her.
Part of it was that the subject soured my mood—but more than that, I didn’t want Sebin trying to learn about her.
If we kept talking about Seoa, I was afraid I’d end up spilling my own filthy secrets out loud.
I wanted Sebin to stay clean beside me, just the way she was now.
After that, Sebin and I got up together and brought our orders back from the counter.
“Is it good?”
I asked her with the expression of someone staring at a genuine curiosity.
She was drinking a beverage of an utterly bizarre color. You could have dropped that drink straight into a gallery of appetite-killing photos and it wouldn’t have looked out of place.
It was roughly the color of alien blood mixed with milk.
On top of it sat whipped cream and tiny chocolate chips, as if someone had frantically tried to salvage the image.
Even so… it still didn’t look remotely appetizing.
“…Just try it. Come on! I guarantee you’ll say it’s good.”
At my question, Sebin kept sucking through her straw for a moment longer, then pulled her mouth away and shoved the cup of grotesque liquid toward me.
There was even a hint of indignation in her voice.
I waved both hands and refused the offer.
And it wasn’t simply because I didn’t want to drink that bizarre concoction. I couldn’t bring myself to drink from something Sebin had already been drinking.
It was… a little embarrassing, somehow. Even if she wasn’t thinking about it at all, I was.
We were opposite genders, so there was that extra caution—and the hygiene concern, too.
I was worried I wouldn’t be able to drink from it cleanly… If she’d poured some into a separate cup, I would have tried it gladly.
“I’m fine. I think I get the idea without tasting it…”
“Hmph! Your hot americano isn’t any good either, you know?! I don’t even understand how anyone drinks that.”
“Yes… I’m sorry. Hahaha…”
We didn’t understand each other’s tastes—but we could still smile at each other anyway.
I liked that. I liked this relationship where we could share harmless laughter.
If someone like Sebin stayed by my side, I felt like I could do it.
Make a new start of my life.
Maybe Sebin was the one who would make that beginning possible.
Suddenly, I felt good.
Really, all at once—my heart lifted, light enough that a little tune almost slipped out.
Was “refreshing” the right word? Or “clear-headed”?
This pure feeling, after so long, actually made me awkward. Had my mind ever felt this clean before?
Like a human body dumping a flood of endorphins right before death.
Like the last desperate flare of vitality—a terminal lucidity—right before the end.
Even I found this buoyant mood so unfamiliar it felt strange.
I needed to get used to it. This was the pure happiness I’d forgotten how to feel.
Was this change a turning point in a life that had been steeped in anxiety and impatience?
Yes—could today really be the turning point of my life?