Facing Each Other
I had been planning to go to Seoa’s place.
The reason I was seeking her out today was to put my own heart in order.
How long… was I going to keep dragging this out?
I had nothing more I wanted to reveal about what had happened, nothing left I particularly needed to say. Yet unlike me, Seoa still seemed to be waiting for some kind of resolution.
I couldn’t keep her waiting forever, and I had finally decided it was time for me to act with certainty.
Until now that resolve had lived only in my head. I had never actually done anything about it. Because first I had needed to find my own footing again. First I had needed to be ready to stand back up. I had been too busy just trying to take care of myself to take any real initiative.
But today.
Today, at last, I felt ready to put an end to it.
The thought had come to me while I was drinking with Nari.
No more dragging this out.
It was for both of us. For Seoa, who had been waiting all this time for my answer, and for me, who wanted a new beginning.
The truth was… I had given Seoa my answer more than once. She had simply ignored those answers and kept waiting for the one she wanted to hear. But I couldn’t lay all the blame on her. I had been just as ambiguous myself.
Even at the drinking table with Nari just now, I had still been fretting over whether to reconcile with Seoa or not.
I hadn’t been sure either. That was why she had kept fishing for a different answer.
But today I would say it clearly. And I was already moving my feet to do it.
Seoa had no idea what I was coming to tell her. I could tell from the way she acted. She was practically glowing, as if today would finally be the day she heard the words she wanted.
Well… was I really going over there to give her the answer she wanted?
Of course not.
It left a bitter taste. My heart felt heavy. These were not light footsteps.
More immediately, where the hell even was this?
I had climbed into a taxi with Nari without thinking, just to see her home, and now I had no idea what neighborhood we were in.
Guess I needed another taxi…
I arrived in front of Seoa’s building.
A place I had come to countless times. A view I had seen countless times. Yet today the atmosphere felt different somehow.
Maybe I was only imagining it…
I remembered the night I had carried a completely drunk Seoa up these stairs, grunting under her weight. Back then I had been in so much pain, lost in my own thoughts. At the same time I had been excited just to finally step inside her apartment, a place I had never entered before.
Remembering that version of myself left me feeling faintly wistful.
I had loved her so much, and still it could end like this.
I pressed the doorbell and waited.
Hurried footsteps sounded beyond the door. A moment later it swung outward.
“Minjae!! You’re here?”
Seoa’s hair still held the damp sheen of someone who had just washed it. The voice she threw at me sounded almost like the old days, clean and bright.
How long had it been since I last heard her sound like that?
I had planned to talk right there in the doorway. Stepping into her apartment in the middle of the night felt strange, and there was no real need to go inside.
“W-want to come in for a second……?”
But when she gave my sleeve a little tug and asked me in, I couldn’t refuse.
So I stepped inside.
The place looked very different from the last time I had been here.
Stuffed animals scattered across the floor. Papers torn to shreds. I found myself wondering how she could even think of letting me in when the apartment looked like this.
Had it always been this messy? She should have cleaned her own room before she ever offered to tidy mine.
“Minjae, you smell like booze. Did you drink?”
“Yeah…”
“With who? That… Nari unnie?”
How had she guessed so quickly that I’d been drinking with Nari? Well… the only real options were Sebin noona or Nari. Fifty-fifty, and she had nailed it.
“That’s mean. You still haven’t drunk with me.”
“Seoa.”
“Wait! Just wait a second. Let’s stay like this a little longer.”
“Okay…”
I steeled myself and tried to start the speech I had prepared, but she cut me off in a rush, begging for just a little more time as we were.
Stay like this… what was she trying to say?
“Sit here. Should I cut up some fruit for you?”
She roughly shoved the dolls and scraps of paper aside, sat me down, and offered to bring fruit.
I had to refuse. Fruit, all of a sudden? I wasn’t planning to stay long, and this wasn’t the kind of conversation you had while sharing fruit. Besides, if she cut fruit she would probably just leave the mess, so I tried to spare her that small extra chore.
She ignored me completely and started rummaging through the fridge on her own.
“Huh… I could’ve sworn there was fruit. Minjae, you snuck some, didn’t you?”
“……No. Just come sit down.”
Was she trying to do some lame comedy bit with me?
I couldn’t figure out why she was acting this way. There was no way I had eaten her fruit.
Eventually even she gave up the strange performance and sat down on the floor across from me. She hugged her knees with both arms and wriggled her toes, eyes fixed on them.
“It’s weird… being here in my place with you like this.”
“I came once before. You were so drunk you probably don’t remember.”
“Yeah. I don’t remember much from that night. I only know you left the earrings and that cute little note.”
“At least you found them. I shoved them pretty far back. I kept worrying you’d never find them at all.”
Empty conversation. We sat facing each other in that small room and traded empty conversation.
That was all it was for us now. Completely empty.
“I want to give you a present too. Now that I think about it, I’ve never given you anything.”
“It’s fine. I never gave you those things expecting anything back.”
As I spoke I glanced at her neck. The silver necklace I had given her years ago was hanging there. The earrings I had left were in her ears as well.
The necklace didn’t stir much in me, but seeing the earrings on her made me feel a small, quiet relief.
At least she hadn’t hated them.
When the short exchange ended, a cold silence settled over the room again. It felt like the signal that it was finally my turn to speak.
All right. Time to say it.
“I’ll go first. I didn’t come here today to fight with you… and I’m not here to have some emotional argument either.”
“Okay.”
“Just for today, let’s talk without fighting. Today we talk honestly. I’ve been too harsh and cold with you for too long. I won’t be like that today. So I hope you won’t get too emotional either.”
“Okay…”
Seoa answered in a flat, empty voice, her eyes unfocused. She looked so dazed I wondered whether she had even heard me properly.
“Thank you for being my friend all this time.”
“……”
“Unlike you, I was always the one who fell short. Looking after me probably kept you from making other friends… and maybe it even kept you from meeting other guys.”
“W-wait, Minjae. Listen to me for a second.”
She tried to cut in and speak first, but I didn’t give her the opening. I kept going.
“It’s true I made it this far because of you. And it’s true I liked you in secret the whole time. This is the first time I’ve said it out loud, so it might feel weird. I’m sorry.
You thought of me as a precious friend… but I saw you as more than that. That’s why when you started getting close to Woo-bin, I started avoiding you a little. The love I wanted from you was going to him instead, and it hurt so much. I got jealous. And that jealousy is what caused everything that happened.
Maybe the reason we ended up like this is exactly what you said—because I messed up first. So I don’t hate you anymore. I don’t resent you. I don’t want to blame you. All of it happened because I decided to like you on my own.
You broke up with someone you were doing fine with because of me, and you must have hated me for it. I get it. I know how childish I was. If it had been the Seoa I know, she would have been thinking, ‘Why is he the one getting angry when he’s the one who screwed up?’ And she would have been right.
So you don’t have to force yourself to take me back. You’re only trying to accept me again because we were such close friends, even though you know what I did. You’re only trying to hold on to me because, as much as you hate and resent me, I was still someone precious to you. I’m telling you that you don’t have to do that anymore.
You don’t have to keep enduring your own feelings just because of that precious friendship. You don’t have to keep bowing your head and apologizing to someone who wouldn’t even accept the apology.
You have your faults, and I have mine. Let’s just leave it at that—we both messed up, and it’s over. Let’s stop hurting ourselves by clinging to this relationship.”
I poured out everything I had been carrying for so long.
Seoa simply listened in silence as I spoke, eyes still fixed on her fidgeting toes.
The moment I finished, tears began to fall. She didn’t move at all; the tears simply welled up and slid down both cheeks.
I understood the tears. My own heart ached just as much. Of course it did. Our long relationship was ending tonight.
Still, there was a small sense of relief. At least I had finally been able to say it. A belated confession, maybe… but at least I had managed to hand over that dark, secret feeling I had been nursing alone.
Of course, I no longer loved Seoa. Maybe that was exactly why I could finally confess it now.
Coward that I was, I had waited until the moment her rejection would no longer hurt before I told her how I felt.
What a cheap, spineless bastard. But there was nothing I could do about it.
That was the kind of guy I was. Or maybe, for that kind of guy, I had still managed to avoid the absolute worst.
At least I had closed it properly. Instead of leaving everything vague and pretending not to know, I had finally faced it head-on and ended it.
“I hate this. I hate it. I said I hate it. I hate it!!”
Seoa, who had been crying quietly, suddenly sobbed the words out loud. Then she stood and came toward me.
I rose to meet her. Looking up at her from the floor felt wrong.
But instead of matching me, she lowered herself. I had stood so we could look each other in the eye, and now she was going down again.
……What? I stared down at her, confused.
Seoa dropped to her knees in front of me. Then she wrapped both arms around my legs and held on.
“You can’t go. I can’t let you leave like this… Please don’t go. I haven’t said anything yet. You still haven’t heard what I have to say…”