Distance Is the Only Thing
Tae-hoon lay sprawled across the bed, breathing out air thick with alcohol. It was not the attitude of someone who had come to apologize, and the fact that he'd turned up drunk in broad daylight—while a person was in the middle of a perfectly good sleep—irritated me all the way to the crown of my head.
"Pfft. You piece of shit. Feels good?"
"What does?"
He tapped my thigh with his fist, irritable, and when I threw the question back he couldn't answer it straight. He played dumb.
I knew what he meant. We simply weren't as involved as he'd built it up to be in his head.
"Feels good, messin' with the girl your friend likes? You dickless bastard."
"We're not even like that. I still start shaking if a woman so much as comes near me. Quit the solo delusions, you idiot."
As if my reaction amused him, Tae-hoon started laughing like a psychopath.
He laughed for a long time, then suddenly covered his face with his arm and asked.
"You're bitchin' at me 'cause of Jinseok, ain't ya. That's what this is."
"Oh, for fuck's sake. This has nothing to do with him. Don't even bring that bastard up. Didn't that piece of shit say he only did it because he was drunk? And you lunatic—how would I know you liked Yujeong when I don't even go to school?"
Tae-hoon lowered his arm and looked up at me. The rims of his eyes had gone red, and his gaze was wet.
He knew, somewhere inside. He just hated the thought of losing the person he could blame.
"So that's why you haven't been to school all week? Just drinking yourself stupid?"
"Sat all my exams already. Once the end-of-semester general meeting's done, it's break."
One thing about him, at least—he was capable. Tae-hoon was the type to finish everything he had to do and still go around working off a broken heart.
I lifted the game console and avoided his eyes.
"What'd you even say? The girl told me it was all in a day. Just gimme that part."
I wasn't even looking at him, and still his stare felt like it burned.
"I don't know. She showed up after drinking a ton and started whining at me, and it pissed me off, so I told her to quit acting like she couldn't make up her mind."
Tae-hoon lurched upright and moved to hammer me with his fist.
I meant to take it. I only kept tapping the console and squeezed my eyes shut.
"Fuck. So it really was you. Son of a bitch."
But the threat was all it was. He settled and let out an empty laugh.
"Good. Damn right."
Only then, like a man whose chest had finally cleared, he sat cross-legged, planted an arm on the bed, and leaned his weight into it.
"Why? You used to reel them in just fine. How'd you manage to fail this time?"
"Heh heh. She wrecked me herself, and now her liver's hangin' clean out her gut. Little shit. Ah, hell if I know. Sorry I hit her."
As if he still had no idea what to do with the feelings he had left, Tae-hoon lay back down on the bed.
Between the two of us, an apology neither could give honestly—sorry, and unable to say so—folded itself away, and that was the end of it.
For a moment it seemed he'd simply gone quiet. Then he started snoring, nose and all.
I listened to that snoring for a long while and focused on the game.
How much time had passed? From the entryway came the beep of someone punching in the door-lock code, tangled with the bright, chirping chatter of women.
"Sunbae, 'scuse me for a sec. Oh! Tae-hoon sunbae, the TA was looking for you. You were here? Ugh, this room reeks of alcohol!"
Fanning the smell away with one hand, Yujeong came into the room, and behind her trailed two chirping girls—baby-faced, still awkward in the clothes they wore.
Why the hell was she dragging people in again?
"Wow, unnie, is that your boyfriend?"
"No. Just a sunbae from the department I impose on during free periods."
The two of them chattered like chicks. They looked like this year's freshmen, and from the way they didn't recognize Tae-hoon on sight, they weren't even from the department.
I pulled the blanket over myself and returned an awkward greeting to the slight bows they offered.
"All right, let's head out. Got your wallet? What do you want? Should we go get mala tang?"
Watching Yujeong take the lead with the air of a proper senior felt strange.
"Unnie, it's hot out. Can't we just order in here?"
The first little chick suddenly yanked the wheel. Yujeong panicked.
"No, there's a reason. And there's a guy sleeping right over there."
"Nah, I'm fine with it!"
Tae-hoon shot up out of sleep and raked a hand through his hair.
"Hello. What department are you ladies in? Lim Tae-hoon, president of the Social Welfare student council~."
Then he glanced at me and grinned, wide. The bastard was doing this to get even.
"Yujeong, sunbae's treat. Eat here!"
Distaste crossed her face at the sight of him, the tip of his nose still red with drink. Even so, I could feel the hesitation in the hand that held her wallet.
The chirping girls, pleased with Tae-hoon's full-on energy, peeped and peeped at her.
Yujeong looked at me, uneasy. She was asking permission.
Haah. Guilt toward Tae-hoon stacked on top of everything else. I dodged her eyes and nodded.
The moment my permission landed, he put in a delivery order and sprinted for the bathroom to rinse the booze out of his mouth.
"Unnie, can we watch Transit Couple? Did you see last week's?"
"Sora, hold on—!"
The woman they'd called Sora strode over and picked up the remote on the table, and the hyperventilation I'd managed to forget for days came on all at once.
The scent was pleasant, but it was a perfume that still smelled more grown than the woman herself—the one called Sora—and it went straight up my nose.
"Hhk—! Hff—ghk—!"
I dropped my head in a hurry and tried to endure it, but my breathing was already nowhere near normal. They'd notice.
Before that strange current could thicken, Yujeong cut in.
"Sora, I'm sorry. That sunbae has a perfume allergy. Could you give him some space?"
"Oh, really? Allergies like that exist? I'm so sorry!"
I listened to the squirrel-light footsteps retreat, then slowly lifted my head—and met Tae-hoon's eyes. Only his head was sticking out of the bathroom, watching this way.
He was enjoying himself right on the border between a joke and malice.
"Oh, right. Forgot about that for a second. Sorry, Woojin!"
He covered his mouth, laughed meanly, and passed a towel out of the bathroom to Yujeong.
She took it, came toward me, and stopped at the limit—three steps—before holding the towel out.
In that brief span I'd broken into a heavy cold sweat. That seemed to be why she was handing it over.
"Thank you. And I'm sorry. Because of the allergy."
I thanked her, took the towel, and apologized to Sora and the other woman.
The scent of the shampoo and body wash Yujeong used came up my nose along with the towel.
Was the hyperventilation really reacting to scent?
While I wiped the sweat away, she watched me with round eyes and a bright, lifted face.
"Sora, Jin-kyung—should we just go eat downtown instead? Sunbae, want to cancel and eat out? Did you bring your car?"
In the space while I got myself under control, Yujeong tried to seize the situation and turn it.
Tae-hoon still wanted to twist the knife a little more, and he really was drunk, so he refused.
"Nah. Drank clear through the morning and came without the car."
Why was he looking at me while he said it?
The girl named Jin-kyung spoke up.
"Then what about that sunbae? Wouldn't it be nice if he ate with us?"
As she said it, she kept flicking glances past Yujeong, at me.
Tae-hoon's eyes lit. Yujeong confirmed where Jin-kyung's gaze landed, and looked at me as if she wanted something.
"Ah, uh, I'm fine, so—how about a taxi downtown? Mala tang's better if you eat it there. You can get it the way you actually want. Haha."
I didn't know why I was breaking into a nervous sweat, but I carried out what she was asking.
Watching the two of us, Tae-hoon's expression turned a little sharp.
Fortunately, Sora and Jin-kyung seemed persuaded. They gathered back up the bags they'd been about to set down, bobbed a bow at me, and headed for the entryway.
Yujeong followed them and pressed her palms together at me—sorry.
On the way out, I heard Jin-kyung.
"But seriously, he's not unnie's boyfriend? The looks you two were trading were not normal."
"No! What are you talking about! Tae-hoon sunbae, we'll head out first. Wash your face and follow. You still smell like alcohol."
The front door shut. The three women disappeared, and only then did Tae-hoon—his face gone sharp—come out of the bathroom.
He looked at me and asked.
"The hell. Why's her sense of distance different?"
The aftershock of the hyperventilation hadn't fully cleared, so I answered lying flat on the bed.
"I don't know. She's been looking after me for a few days, so maybe I got a little used to her. I still dry-heave if she gets close, though, so don't get the wrong idea."
Unconvinced, a sour look on his face, Tae-hoon picked up the coat hanging in a corner of the room.
"Not like I got any right to say a damn thing. But if you start gettin' ideas, don't hesitate this time. Else I might wreck you all over again."
"What are you even saying? That bastard was a full-blown alpha. You think you rubbing up against that makes any sense? And it's not like that, so go try for real again."
I threw one more line at the back of his head as he headed for the door.
"Yeah, I ended up in this shit state because of how things went, and that sucks. But I don't think what that bastard and that woman chose was wrong. I do think maybe it got twisted because none of them could be honest about what was actually in their hearts. Plenty of people don't even know their own insides."
At some point he'd put on those lensless glasses. He spoke while he neatened his clothes in the mirror beside the entryway.
"The hell you on about, ya moron. I'm gone. Mala tang's yours when it gets here."
The front door opened, and squirrel footsteps ran down the hall.
I'd eaten a bowl of mala tang and was stealing some sleep when the sound woke me. I looked at Yujeong.
"What? Why are you running?"
"Oh, you're awake, sunbae? Sorry. I wanted to catch it live."
There wasn't a trace of apology on her face as she pressed the remote and turned the TV on.
On the screen, between the commercials, the title Transit Couple sat in small letters.
I had no interest. I yawned again, turned my back, and lay down.
"Ah, those two are first-years from another department. We took a gen-ed together. Cute, right? The semester's ending and they were sad about it, so we ate and said we'd see each other again over break. Oh—but Tae-hoon sunbae tried to sweet-talk me into drinking, and I was uncomfortable, so I ran."
"Yeah?"
"After the general meeting tomorrow I'm going home. Can I still come by during break? If I want to hang out with them like we planned, I might have to come stay the night once in a while."
"Do what you want. Since when have you stayed away just because I told you not to come?"
"Really? Then can I drop by sometimes to check on what you're doing? It'd be sad if you collapsed again, didn't come to, and just rotted there."
"Why are you so excited? Was it fun?"
"I think so. It's been forever since I hung out with girls like that. And Tae-hoon sunbae seemed to understand what I told him—he didn't act weird like before. He was easy to be around. I liked that."
"Then you should've stayed out longer."
"I'm still uncomfortable, though. I said it to his face, the two of us sitting in a café. Sunbae, please don't like me. I told him flat out I couldn't accept it. He said he understood, and right then I felt a little sorry for him. And also... it was kind of cool, how cleanly he took it."
"You're not falling for him the other way around, are you?"
"Oh, come on. No way."
With that firm answer, the conversation cut off for a while.
She seemed completely absorbed in the TV.
I turned my attention off her again, closed my tired eyes, and sank into the feel of the bed. But she broke that pleasant silence to ask.
"Sunbae. Right now... am I someone who's allowed to come close to you?"
"I don't know either. If it were actually a guy, it wouldn't matter."
She groaned, then asked again.
"That's not what I meant. At this point, I might even be able to help you from here on. So I'm asking if I can be at your place whenever. Without it being a burden."
I pictured the dry, empty stretch of my days and answered her.
"Yeah. Go ahead."