Just a Friend
“Minjae! What are we gonna do about this assignment? I really don’t get it… Wanna work on it together at a café?”
“…… No. Try it on your own. I can’t keep spoon-feeding you forever.”
“Ah… Okay…”
Normally I would have jumped at Seoa’s suggestion without a second thought. But starting today, things were different.
And maybe Seoa noticed right away that I wasn’t my usual self. The Seoa I knew would have coaxed and pleaded a few more times, yet now she just stood there, mouth hanging open as if my refusal had left her momentarily speechless.
I didn’t linger on that expression. I made up some urgent errand and left on the spot.
As if someone like me—who had no real friends besides Seoa—could possibly have somewhere urgent to be. It was a transparent lie, the kind that would be exposed the moment anyone looked twice, and still I used it to escape.
A few hours later I ran into her again by pure chance. The moment I decided to avoid her, the universe seemed determined to throw us together more often than ever. It felt like the world itself was testing me—measuring exactly how long I could hold out.
This time the situation was different from before. Maybe I wouldn’t even need to dodge her; maybe she would be the one to turn away first.
Because she was walking with that guy.
“Seoa, that side of you is hilarious.”
“Oppa… that doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“It was meant as one. Probably.”
“Probably? That’s so mean!”
The two of them strolled along, trading jokes. The way Seoa looked up at someone, the polite speech, the soft, almost coquettish tone—every single detail felt foreign. This wasn’t the Seoa I knew.
Without thinking I tried to hide. There was nowhere to hide, of course, so I only ended up looking more awkward and conspicuous.
“Mi-Minjae…”
For reasons I couldn’t begin to guess, Seoa spotted me while she was walking with Woo-bin and called my name. She deliberately spoke to the guy who looked like a thief caught red-handed, frozen in the most unnatural pose imaginable.
It was cruel.
Was she deliberately showing me how she laughed and chatted with that man? I couldn’t help reading pure malice into the gesture. Even if she hadn’t meant it that way, to me it felt like a complete lack of consideration.
“Who’s that? Someone you know?”
“Just a friend.”
What? What did she just say?
I doubted my own ears. Seoa had looked straight at me and called me just a friend.
Sure, maybe it wasn’t technically wrong. But… no. That wasn’t right. We weren’t “just friends.” Ours wasn’t a relationship you could brush off so lightly.
Was it because that guy was standing there? In front of him, did even the years we’d spent together suddenly shrink into something ordinary and disposable?
She had called out to me, so I stood there staring, caught between moving and staying. Only then did my blank reaction seem to make her uncomfortable; she simply walked past.
Just a friend.
While saying something like that.
It hit hard. For a moment I felt as if I were looking at a completely different Seoa—one I had never known.
So this is how it is? I started it first, and now you’re showing me you didn’t like the way I acted earlier? Nothing else could explain what had just happened.
And I memorized those words.
Just a friend.
I would pay them back. Maybe the vow was only a sudden flare of anger, but I drove it deep into my heart all the same.
I would make the day come when I said the exact same thing to her.
It was the first time I had ever felt anger toward Seoa. Me, angry at her. Feeling something so filthy.
Until now, no matter what she did, I had always taken her side. Because Seoa was pretty. Because Seoa was my precious friend. Even when she treated me roughly, I had never once felt anger. And yet just now, for the first time, I had.
Maybe this was proof that I was changing—proof that the resolution I had made was already bearing fruit.
“Ah—hello?”
I carefully opened the door to the club room. Sebin was sitting inside, and so was someone I didn’t know. So there really were other active members besides her. The thought crossed my mind and vanished; I didn’t pay the stranger much attention. He, for his part, seemed equally uninterested in me.
“Minjae?! You actually came today?”
“Haha… You make it sound like I ran away or something.”
“Well, you didn’t show up yesterday.”
Sebin pouted a little. I dipped my head in a quick apology and sat down beside her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Somehow no other seat even occurred to me. I couldn’t exactly plop down next to a complete stranger, after all.
I pulled out my phone and held it out to her at once. That was always the first thing to do when I arrived here.
“Huh? Why the phone all of a sudden…?”
“I figured it’d be good to have each other’s numbers.”
I stated the bare fact, clean and simple. Looking back, maybe it was too clean. I hadn’t given a reason.
But it was obvious, wasn’t it? If I couldn’t make it some day like yesterday, or if something came up that I needed to ask about, having no way to contact her would be a problem. I assumed she would understand without me spelling it out.
Sebin took the phone; her face flushed a little. Her fingers fumbled over the keys as if she were flustered.
What…? Did having a guy like me ask for her number somehow bruise her pride?
Well, there was another person in the room. Maybe it was a bit embarrassing. Maybe I had been thoughtless. Not that I had asked for any romantic reason in the first place.
Just in case, I decided to clear up any possible misunderstanding. Assuming everyone thinks the same way you do is pure foolishness.
“If there’s a day I can’t come, like yesterday, I want to be able to let you know ahead of time.”
I added the explanation a beat late. Whether I said it or not didn’t seem to matter much; she had already finished typing her number and was holding the phone back out to me.
When she stretched out her arm, the air stirred by the motion carried her perfume toward me. A soft floral scent tickled my nose—jasmine, I was pretty sure.
“Feel free to message me anytime, Minjae.”
How could anyone smile so harmlessly? The smile she gave me as she returned the phone carried a quiet warmth. Looking at her, I felt something inside me loosen and settle.
It was as if someone somewhere were wrapping me in a gentle embrace.
Of course she hadn’t meant it that way; I was the one who decided to read kindness into it. Maybe I was already starting to lean on her tenderness without permission.
After that I turned on a computer and looked through the game Sebin had made, the same way I had last time.
Calling it a game was generous. It wasn’t a matter of programming skill—if anything, she had poured so much effort into the code that the actual game had disappeared. It was a program stuffed with flashy features just so she could show off everything she had learned.
There was no game here. No sense of fun, no clear goal, no reward for reaching it. The fundamental essence of a game was simply gone.
“So… what kind of game do you actually want to make?”
“Ah… I haven’t really thought about that yet.”
I had expected as much. Honestly it annoyed me a little, but I couldn’t blame her. She had started this purely as a hobby.
Then again—if it was a hobby, shouldn’t she be spending her time figuring out what makes a game fun instead of grinding programming skills?
What even drew her to game development in the first place?
“Then why do you want to develop games?”
“Um… it’s a little embarrassing to say…”
She rested her chin on one hand, looking as if she were fishing for the reason and finding it hard to voice.
“I wanted to make the kind of game I myself would want to play.”
After a brief hesitation, that was what she said.
What a beautiful reason. Not the rotten mindset of someone who just wanted to slap a few changes onto existing titles and make a quick buck. I had never taken her for that kind of person anyway.
Hearing her pure purpose spoken aloud made something in my chest resonate.
Still… the thing currently running on the screen gave absolutely no hint of what that desired game might be.
“And what kind of game is that…?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Maybe that question was what shattered the image I had of her.
“I want to make an RPG where cute, pretty girl characters grow by slaughtering adorable little animals.”
“Excuse me?”
Hold on. What did I just hear?
The pure, demure image I had locked into my brain suddenly produced that sentence, and I couldn’t hide my shock. The “Excuse me?” wasn’t a request for her to repeat herself; it was pure disbelief—more of an involuntary exclamation than a question.
She, however, assumed I simply hadn’t caught the words and repeated them, syllable for syllable, without changing a single one.
That was the moment the horror peaked.
“I mean… there just aren’t many games with that vibe out there. I love games so much I’ve played pretty much everything, but…”
“Ah… right, right.”
Once she got going she didn’t stop; she chattered on with bright enthusiasm. It felt like she might never run out of steam unless someone physically gagged her—until she suddenly froze mid-sentence and checked my expression.
She looked a little worried.
Had she finally realized how strange the things she was saying sounded?
“Do you think… it might not be popular?”
Hey, hey… that was what she was worried about?!
She had zero self-awareness about the words coming out of her own mouth. Don’t sit there looking all pure and innocent while casually declaring you’re going to make an anti-humanitarian game!
“Sorry, but I’m working right now. Could you keep it down a little?”
We had gotten so absorbed in conversation that we’d grown pretty loud. I had completely forgotten there was a third person in the room; I had simply filtered him out the way you ignore background noise.
When I finally looked at him again, he had the classic face of someone who looked like he could code. No insult intended—just an observation.
So there were people here doing actual serious work. I had assumed the Game Development Club was little more than a name on paper, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
Sebin and I exchanged a glance and silently agreed to quiet down.
We stayed another hour or so before I headed home.
On the way back I checked my phone out of habit.
The message was already thirty minutes old, yet my heart didn’t drop the way it used to. Seoa’s earlier words must have hit harder than I realized; they still echoed vividly in my head.
I decided not to answer. Replying now would just be ridiculous. The time when we could have left together had long since passed; telling her to go ahead without me at this point would only sound absurd.
But Seoa must have been watching to see whether I had read the message. The moment the screen lit up with her text still open, another one arrived almost instantly.