Worse Than Strangers (5)
Finding my way to the club room had become a habit by now.
Spending time here and then walking the quiet path home with Sebin felt better. If I packed up the moment class ended and headed straight down, my route would inevitably overlap with Seoa’s, and I was all too aware of that.
Thankfully, whenever I showed up out of habit, Sebin was always waiting in the same seat. Whether she was actually waiting for me, I couldn’t say—but I decided to believe she was.
“Oh! It’s Minjae. I’ll ask him now.”
When I stepped into the club room, Sebin was sharing a monitor with someone else. I couldn’t quite explain the flicker of jealousy that rose at the sight, but I honestly didn’t like the picture it made.
The moment she spotted me, she came straight over.
“Minjae, can you take a look at this? We’ve been stuck on it forever…”
I glanced at the screen.
“What are you trying to do?”
“I want a double jump, but it feels a little off…”
As I reached for the mouse to check the problem, the guy shifted awkwardly and edged back a little, as if he meant to watch from behind and see whether I could actually fix it.
I spotted the issue right away. Of course I did. I’d already shipped a game commercially.
“When you jump and then press jump again, the velocity value isn’t resetting, so the second jump ends up looking weird.”
Simple enough.
Sebin ran a few tests of her own, then turned to me with a satisfied smile.
“I knew it! You’re amazing, Minjae!”
She clapped both hands together in praise. Getting hyped up like that still made me a little shy. I scratched the back of my head with one hand and gave an awkward smile.
“Uh… are you a first-year computer science major?”
“Ah, yeah. That’s right.”
“Oh… you’re pretty good.”
Pretty good wasn’t the word. It was basic. And when I thought about it, I wasn’t really in a position to be receiving compliments, was I? He was just an ordinary student in the department. A developer getting praised by a regular undergrad was kind of funny.
That was what I thought, but I didn’t let it show. I had no desire to stand out this early, and no interest in showing off either.
“Minjae, how do you get cute characters or art and stuff?”
“Hmm… usually I just buy whatever I like from the asset store, but if I want to put more care into it, I’d have to commission someone.”
“Can you draw, too?”
“Ah, no! I’m completely hopeless at drawing…”
Just as I’d said, when I worked on my own projects I always hired an illustrator separately. Somehow I’d ended up sticking with the same person after one job, and I considered that a real stroke of luck. Their process was solid, and more than anything, they understood exactly what I wanted. Even though they were an illustrator, they knew enough coding that they handled inserting the finished art into the game themselves. It wasn’t hard work, but it was tedious, and thanks to them I could work comfortably.
Ah!
Thinking about it made me realize I hadn’t touched any of my own work these past few days. Well, a lot had been going on lately. It couldn’t be helped. Now that I finally had some mental space again, I could throw myself into it for a while.
Before I knew it, the sun had set.
Only Sebin and I were left in the club room, sitting and talking. No one interrupted the hour. I liked the quiet that settled over everything. Even without doing anything special… my heart simply felt at ease.
At first I’d worried that long silences between us might turn awkward. Now even the silence itself felt steady. Did that mean I’d grown closer to her?
I was starting to get hungry.
Sebin had been completely absorbed in the game she was building. Whenever she hit something she didn’t know, she came over to ask me, then went right back to work. Leaving her there alone felt wrong… but waiting any longer while my stomach growled was hard.
What should I do?
Right as I was turning it over, as if my silent plea had reached her, Sebin pushed her chair back and stretched long and hard.
“All done?”
“Yeah… wait, were you waiting for me?”
“Ah… well, we always walk back together…”
“I’m so sorry!”
She looked utterly flustered, as if she felt terribly guilty. Being able to head home now was enough. She hadn’t asked me to wait. I’d chosen to stay on my own.
“It might be a little scary being alone. It’s already pitch dark outside.”
She seemed so apologetic that I added the line without thinking.
“Hmm… I don’t really believe in ghosts or anything, but you waited because you were thinking of me, right?”
“That was the idea, but if you’re not scared I’ll just go first.”
I said it while packing my bag and pretending to leave alone.
“W-wait, let’s go together! Actually I am scared…”
Sebin hurriedly gathered her things and stuck close to my side.
Outside the building, the cool evening air brushed my nose. I liked this. The quiet atmosphere. The peaceful one.
“Minjae. You’re hungry, right?”
“Huh…?”
How did she know I was starving? Had it shown that clearly on my face? Or had my stomach growled without me noticing?
“I’m hungry too… so I wondered if maybe you were as well…”
“It’s already dinner time, so yeah, I am.”
“Th-then… want to grab something to eat together before we go?”
I turned to her in surprise at the sudden invitation. Was she really asking me to eat with her? For real?
“I feel bad for making you wait so late because of me…”
“Ah, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“Still… I’ll pay. Let’s eat and then go, okay?”
Sebin met my eyes without looking away, her gaze bright and earnest. I held her stare for a moment before glancing aside. I still found it amazing how some people could look straight into someone’s eyes while talking.
And when she put it like that, turning her down would just be rude.
“What do you like?”
“Hmm… I’m not picky, so you pick whatever you want.”
“Then… mint chocolate?”
“A-anything but that!”
“Ahaha! Just kidding. Then… can I be honest about what I really want?”
“Sure. What is it? As long as it’s not mint chocolate, I’m fine.”
While we were deciding on food, I suddenly found myself wondering what Seoa and I used to order when we ate out. Everything stored in my head was from times with her, so those memories kept surfacing whether I wanted them to or not. We’d eaten tteokbokki, and more tteokbokki… honestly that was all I could remember. Seoa had loved the stuff. And back when we were eating out regularly, we were still students with empty pockets, so cheap street food had always been the safest choice.
“Samgyeopsal? I really want pork belly… is that okay?”
“Oh… yeah, that sounds good.”
Samgyeopsal!
Was this what adult menus looked like? It was an answer I never saw coming. Freshly twenty, I’d never once gone out and paid for meat with my own money. And outside of Seoa, I hadn’t really had friends to eat out with anyway.
I followed Sebin to the pork-belly place right in front of campus. Maybe I was overreacting, but the way she strode in without hesitation, sat down, and ordered like it was nothing made her look incredibly mature. I could feel the age difference in that moment—and it wasn’t a bad feeling. Until now the only person always beside me had been Seoa, who somehow seemed younger than me in spirit. This was new. Someone leading me for a change.
We took a window seat. The whole wall was glass, so the outside was completely visible. Something about the atmosphere quietly appealed to me—the people walking past, the soft lighting, the car headlights. It had a certain charm.
“Ah… Minjae?”
“Yeah?”
“D-do you drink?”
“Drink…?”
After ordering the meat, Sebin had held the menu for a long time as if wrestling with something, then asked if I drank. The only alcohol I’d ever had was on the very first day I became an adult, alone at home—just a can of beer from the convenience store. Part of me had hoped Seoa might suggest drinking together once we were both legal, but apparently sitting alone with a guy friend and drinking had felt too awkward to her. So I couldn’t really claim any real drinking history.
Ugh… was every single thought I had still filtered through experiences with Seoa? The realization irritated me. I felt a little pathetic. Hurry up. Fill my head with new memories already.
“Want to?”
“Yeah… sure. But I’ve never really drunk before.”
“Really? For real? This is your first time?”
“Yeah. Other than one can of beer alone at home, this is the first.”
“Oh…”
Sebin’s eyes went round as she stared at me, like she couldn’t quite believe it. Then she let out a soft, unreadable sound of wonder and looked almost pleased.
The pork belly arrived, followed soon after by a green bottle of soju.
Sebin reached for the tongs first, ready to start grilling.
“I-I’ll do it! I’m the one freeloading anyway…”
“No. I’ll grill it for you.”
“But I’m the younger one… just sitting here and getting served feels weird.”
Sebin smiled gently, then, as if giving in, handed me the tongs. She twisted the soju cap open and poured into both our glasses herself. I hurriedly set the tongs down and lifted my glass to receive it. No matter how clueless I claimed to be, I wasn’t so clueless that I’d just sit there without holding my glass out.
“So I guess that means I’m taking Minjae’s first time?”
“Huh…?”
Wait. What did she just say?
Something about the way Sebin phrased it felt off—the tone, the implication…
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. For a second the only sound was the meat sizzling on the hot grill.
“Ah! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it in a weird way… I mean, this is your first time drinking with me, right? That’s all I was trying to say… p-please don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not a weird person…”
She’d clearly realized a beat too late what had just come out of her mouth. She started scrambling to explain, stumbling over every word. I just found her flustered reaction funny and smiled without saying anything. Everyone misspeaks sometimes. Making a big deal out of it would just be mean.
“Ah… it’s hot. Shall we just cheers already?”
Still red from her slip, she fanned herself with one hand, looking thoroughly embarrassed. I simply played along so she could settle down faster.
I lifted the glass—filled a little past halfway—and lightly clinked it against hers. When drinking with someone older, you were supposed to turn your head, right? With that in mind I angled my face toward the window and tipped the soju back.
That was the exact moment.
As if the transparent glass that showed both inside and outside had been foreshadowing this all along, my eyes met Seoa’s as she walked past on the street.