Facing Each Other (8)
And so we arrived at Seoa’s house.
This was already the third time I had set foot inside. I was still just as careful as ever, yet it struck me as a little strange how different my feelings were each time I walked through the door.
And why, of all places, were we drinking at Seoa’s? The thought came to me belatedly, but since almost no bars were open at this hour, I decided it was reason enough and left it at that.
Besides… we had just finished a full meal. I wasn’t particularly hungry. If we had gone somewhere, I probably would have ordered side dishes and barely touched them.
In Seoa’s room we unfolded a small table and set out a drinking spread.
Calling it a drinking spread felt generous—it was modest at best. A few bags of snacks and a cold bottle of soju went onto the table.
“Do you hold your liquor well, Minjae?”
“I don’t know… not really sure.”
Even as she spoke, soju bottles kept emerging one after another from the plastic bag and landing on the table with no end in sight.
Just how many bottles did she buy?
“I’ll leave one out for now and stick the rest in the fridge.”
“Okay. But… isn’t that way too many?”
“If there’s any left, I’ll just drink it alone.”
Drink it alone… I had once done the same thing at home myself, so the words didn’t sit well with me.
People had their own ways of enjoying alcohol, of course, but at least in my case it had never been a healthy habit.
Seoa walked over to the fridge, put the bottles away, and came back. She started to sit, then stood up again and looked down at me.
Wondering what was wrong, I looked up at her.
“C-can you wait outside the door for a second?”
“Why? Something wrong?”
“I want to change clothes.”
“Ah… yeah. Okay.”
That was all. Compared to my relatively comfortable clothes, what she was wearing might have felt a little restrictive. And it was her own place—of course she would want to be comfortable.
I got up without protest and stepped out of the room, waiting for her to call me back.
Through the wooden door I could hear the soft sounds of clothes dropping to the floor.
I hadn’t meant to listen, yet my ears seemed determined to catch every little noise.
“Come in.”
“Okay.”
A short while later the closed door opened and Seoa called me back. Feeling oddly awkward about the whole situation, I shuffled back into the room.
I glanced at her.
A sleeveless top and short shorts. Honestly, it was so casual I wondered if she had gone too far. There was nowhere safe to rest my eyes.
It was that look the internet always raved about. Even seeing the photos online had felt pretty stimulating, but seeing it with my own two eyes in person—the intensity was beyond anything I had imagined.
I no longer felt that way about Seoa, yet the outfit still registered. It was pure male instinct, completely separate from whatever was left of my heart.
“Thanks. For drinking with me like this.”
“Yeah… but I’m not going to drink a lot, okay?”
“Minjae. We came all the way here to drink. Can’t you be a little nicer?”
“I’m already trying.”
Judging by the atmosphere so far, everything had been fairly ordinary. Seoa was treating me calmly, almost casually.
Maybe it was simply because enough time had passed since our fight.
Just as my own resentment toward her had faded, perhaps hers had too. That was why we could sit across from each other like this, drinking without the old emotional charge.
Seoa poured soju into a small white paper cup.
There had been a time when I waited for the day the two of us would drink alone together. Now that it was actually happening, it didn’t feel like the thrilling moment I had once imagined.
It was proof that the person I was then and the person I was now carried completely different hearts. The gathering held no real excitement.
If anything, meeting the moment in such a plain, modest way left me a little disappointed.
“So what was it you wanted to talk about?”
“…….”
We had already gone through several cups, yet Seoa still showed no sign of bringing up whatever she had claimed she needed to say. I finally asked first. Our conversation kept circling the edges without ever heading toward the center.
Even so, Seoa simply refilled her own cup in silence and drank. I tried to match her pace as best I could, but I kept myself in check, remembering I still needed to take Nari’s call later that night.
“Aren’t you drinking a little too fast?”
“Minjae. How many people is this for me? How many people have you drunk with before me?”
“……. Why do you want to know that?”
“Because I’m jealous. I always wanted to be your first…”
I had always wanted to be Seoa’s first too, and I never could. Did that mean the Seoa sitting here now was feeling something close to what I had felt back then?
I hadn’t known she thought of me that way—wanting to be my first.
But for someone who claimed to feel that way, she had never once acted like it.
I had no good answer, so I simply tipped the soju in my cup down my throat in place of one.
When I came back to myself, a fair number of empty bottles had already piled up on the floor.
We had opened the snacks but barely touched them. Right now we were doing nothing but knocking back soju.
Maybe that was why the buzz hit so fast. The small room seemed to heat up easily from our shared drunkenness; a muggy warmth filled the air.
“Minjae… is there no way I can be your first again?”
“……No.”
“Why… how can you answer that fast…? You can’t just say it without even thinking.”
“Just like I never got to be your first, you don’t get to be mine either. It’s that simple. That’s why I can answer right away.”
After I said it, a quiet stillness settled over the room.
And somehow I could feel on my skin that the silence was not ordinary. Every fine hair on my arms stood on end. It felt exactly like the calm before a storm.
Seoa poured soju into her empty cup again and drained it immediately. Watching her, I did the same.
I needed something—anything—to ease the weight of that silence.
It was bitter. Soju with not a single trace of sweetness.
I didn’t think I could drink any more. The limit was approaching. I had been fine until a moment ago, then the thought hit me all at once. Suddenly I was completely drunk. If I just laid my head down, I felt like I could fall asleep right there.
I looked at Seoa, brow faintly furrowed.
I was already in rough shape; I wanted to check whether she was holding up any better.
The Seoa I saw carefully parted her lips, as if she were about to say something.
“I like you. Minjae… I like you.”
“…….”
That was what she said. That she liked me.
It felt strange. Maybe it had been the words I once wanted to hear from her more than anything… yet hearing them now left me with an odd, hollow feeling.
Why only now? Why only after I had already emptied the place she used to occupy in my heart?
That was why the confession didn’t make my chest pound or send any thrill through me, and that absence itself felt wrong.
I had wanted those words so badly… yet the fact that I could sit there completely unmoved felt wrong.
Instead I found myself wondering why she was saying them to me now. Whether she was trying to use my heart again. Whether some scheme was waiting behind them. Ugly suspicions rose up in me.
I couldn’t simply accept those beautiful words; all I could do was doubt. That version of myself felt wrong too.
But what could I do? That was who I was now. The kind of person who could only receive Seoa’s confession this way.
“So… I want to be your first again too.”
As she spoke she drew closer and closer until she wrapped her arms around me. Heat radiated from her skin where we touched—she was clearly feeling the alcohol as well.
“If we can’t go back to being friends… then let’s just start as lovers. I’m sorry I realized it so late. I’ve liked you for a long time too. Whenever I looked at you beside me I kept feeling something strange, and I only figured out too late that it was love. I’m sorry… for making you go through all that pain alone. I’ll take care of every hurt and every wound I caused you. So… please love me again. I’m asking you…”
“W-wait, can you just back off a little first?”
“No… if I let you go now you’ll just run away.”
“…Is this what you wanted to say?”
“Yeah… from the moment I was eating with my mom earlier, I decided I had to tell you today. I really… I don’t think I can lose you. You’re the one who cared for me more than anyone, who looked after me, who loved me. I felt it all over again—how precious and good a person you are.”
“Are you saying this for real? Not just some drunk mistake?”
I gave her one last chance. I wanted her to call it a mistake. Because if it wasn’t—if the confession she had just made was genuine—I was going to get angry at her.
I was going to be furious at the malicious heart that would stir me up with words like that at this late hour. The way she was throwing it at me like some trump card made me sick just thinking about it.
But…
“Yeah. It’s real. I used the alcohol for courage, but I’m not saying it because I’m drunk.”
“…….”
So that was it. She meant it. In the end… she wanted to make me the villain again. If I rejected the confession, she would get to think of me as the bad one.
Anger surged up at the thought. My voice came out sharper than I intended.
“Someone like that… is that right? Someone like that treated me so cruelly? You’ve liked me for a long time… don’t lie to me. You expect me to believe that? Someone like that chased after another guy, someone like that believed another guy’s words over mine? Are you kidding? Or are you just trying to play with my heart again?”
“No… no. Of course I was wrong back then, but… I never loved Woo-bin. That’s the truth, please believe me… okay?”
“You still think I’m a joke, don’t you…? You figured if you confessed like this I’d just accept it on the spot… sorry. I don’t like you anymore. I like someone else, so I can’t take a confession like this from you.”
“…….”
“Don’t come at me with ‘I like you’ now just to hurt me again.”
With that I pulled her off me, stood up, and started to leave. But Seoa was not someone who would let go so easily. She looked like someone who had come prepared to settle everything tonight.
“It’s not true… it’s not!! You won’t believe a single word I say either. You’re all I have left now… every day I’m falling apart because I know I pushed you away with my own hands… and you never once looked at me. All I needed was for you to listen just once… and you wouldn’t even give me that. I’m hurting too. I know I was wrong, but… I’m struggling too. My heart hurts so much I feel like I could die…”
“That’s… none of my business. Did you ever notice when I was the one hurting? No, you didn’t. You’re the same. You messed up and now you keep blaming me for no reason.”
“I love you… I love you. This heart I realized too late is making my chest ache so bad I could go crazy. Seeing you and Nari acting the way we used to—it feels like my heart is being torn to shreds. Do you even know? Why do I have to watch that… you bastard… please look at me again. I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Let’s date properly and get married someday… we even promised. I won’t let go a second time, so please… Minjae.”
Seoa was sobbing the words out now, a tangled flood of every emotion at once. Looking at her, I wished she wouldn’t go that far. No matter how hard she tried, I had already turned away. I wished she wouldn’t pour that much effort into someone who had already left.
That was my last bit of consideration.
So I stopped answering and simply started walking. If I kept responding she would only keep screaming the same empty things.
If I thought of it as revenge… this felt like the end of it. Yet it wasn’t clean at all. There was no satisfaction in it.
Just a foul aftertaste.
“Don’t you dare take another step from where you are. Do you really want to see me lose my mind…? If not, sit back down. Please just comfort me… please wrap me up warm again…”
Haa… I was dizzy.
Was it the alcohol… or had her behavior short-circuited my brain? I didn’t know.
All I wanted was to close my eyes right then and forget everything. To get out of this situation.
That was the only thought filling my head.
Looking into Seoa’s eyes… those words didn’t sound like empty threats. The look she gave me said that if I walked out of here, something would actually happen.
So what the hell was I supposed to do?
Fuck… what the hell did she want from me?