Just One Day (4)
"What are you talking about all of a sudden? You don't want to go home?"
Hearing that, Junhyuk smiled vaguely, looking confused.
"Philin, as you well know."
"Know what?"
"It's almost night."
Unlike during the day, when he would usually yield to me, at night Junhyuk grew sensitive and violent. That was why the promise never to meet after dark was an ironclad rule that absolutely had to be kept.
Junhyuk knew this just as well, so he was trying not to stay out too late.
But even as the sun sank and the streetlights flickered on one by one, for some reason I wasn't afraid.
"I don't care."
"Philin."
"You're not that bad of a person."
"Don't delude yourself. Have you forgotten how I smashed your front door and wrecked your TV that day?"
"Yeom Junhyuk."
I spat the name out in a firm voice, took another sip of beer, and pointed at him.
"Why are you so desperate to paint yourself as a terrible person?"
Junhyuk swallowed hard, looking flustered. Of course I wasn't saying it out of ignorance. He was worried. Afraid he might mess up again and drift even farther from me.
But weren't all those problems already over?
"It's only seven. You want me to go home and stare at my phone alone again?"
"Earlier you said that kind of time wasn't so bad."
His jab made me scrunch up my face with an "ugh." Junhyuk's eyes were different from before. There was none of that anxious eagerness to read my mood and somehow make the evening nice. The fear that he might lose me again outweighed any desire to spend more time together.
Send her home somehow. Keep this relationship intact and get through the day safely. That single thought seemed to fill his entire head.
But I had no intention of backing down quietly either.
"If you want me gone so badly, why did you suggest a movie? Isn't that a contradiction?"
"If we'd finished eating and gone straight to the bikes it would've been around two-thirty. The movie started at five. Runtime was about an hour and forty minutes."
"Either way the streetlights would've been on by then."
"Like I said earlier, I figured I'd have you walk ahead and keep a little distance while I saw you home."
Junhyuk, who hadn't yielded a single word, let out a heavy sigh, crossed his arms, and looked thoroughly put out.
"You throwing a tantrum and refusing to leave wasn't part of the plan, so yeah, I'm a bit thrown."
With that he dumped the remaining half of his beer onto the ground. Better to throw it away than risk drinking more in this state and making a mistake, apparently.
Watching him gather up the leftover can, I held out my hand.
"If you're not drinking it, give it to me."
"No. Don't drink any more."
"Oh please. I can just go buy another. You think I can't drink just because you stop me?"
I stood up from the bench with a snide remark—
and the world suddenly spun.
"Huh?"
I didn't fall, but my legs went soft and I staggered. Junhyuk shot up and grabbed my shoulder.
"Philin!"
"...Quit overreacting. I'm fine."
"Yeah, right. Why did you chug it so fast?"
It was going to turn into pointless bickering, so I waved him off with a crooked grin and turned back toward the convenience store. Even I could tell my steps weren't straight.
In the end Junhyuk couldn't take it anymore. He roughly seized my arm and spun me around to face him. Just that was enough to make me sway, and he flinched, then dropped his voice into a low warning.
"Philin. Last warning. Go home."
"And if I don't listen?"
Still smirking, I watched him heave another heavy sigh. With an uncomfortable expression he raised both hands toward me.
"I'll grab your horns. Both hands."
My chest plummeted. The threat itself was frightening, but what weighed on me more was the look on Junhyuk's face—he looked like he was in pain.
"Please, Philin."
"What..."
"I don't want to become an even worse person to you."
Only then did I realize the little delusion I'd been nursing could never have held up from the start.
I'd simply felt comfortable being with him and wanted to stay a little longer. Not as a lover—more like a same-sex best friend. I'd gotten a little excited at the feeling of chatting with a guy friend I could grab a meal or a beer with whenever the mood struck.
I'd forgotten the most important premise of all.
We weren't same-sex friends to begin with. I was a girl now.
And the reason Junhyuk had called me out today wasn't to pull some cheap move. It was because he wanted to get even a little closer through the chance he'd barely managed to win.
...Maybe he'd even thought I was using and tormenting the very heart that wanted to recover the favorability that had collapsed between us.
I hoped he wouldn't think that.
"Fine. I'll go home."
So I decided to listen, even if it was late.
"You head back too."
I wondered whether to ask if we were going together, but even that felt like it might hurt him, so I left it unsaid.
Junhyuk didn't seem to have taken offense, though.
"You can barely walk straight. Just lead the way. I'll follow behind."
His tone was blunt, but there was no irritation in it. Without another word I started walking, my heavy steps dragging.
Every so often I glanced back while walking, and Junhyuk would stop too. When I started again he kept the distance and quietly followed.
It was close enough that we could have talked easily. Yet neither of us spoke. Only thirteen or fourteen paces apart, and somehow it felt impossibly far.
The exact distance that sat between Junhyuk—who wanted to come closer but held back for fear of burdening me—and me, who could never allow anything more than friendship.
We walked the whole way in the same direction.
Even when we reached my house we were still thirteen or fourteen steps apart. I was about to go inside when I turned to Junhyuk, who was faithfully waiting to confirm I'd entered, and apologized in a low voice.
"...I'm sorry."
Junhyuk twisted his lips for a moment, then shoved his hands into his pockets, clicked his tongue once, and muttered,
"Forget it. I'm the one who should be more sorry."
This wasn't how he'd wanted the meeting to go.
Standing there looking at me with a listless expression, he seemed somehow angry—but I knew now that the anger was directed at himself for letting his emotions show at night.
And since my stubbornness had been the cause,
"I'm sorry. Get home safe. I'll text you."
All I could do was apologize again.
The moment I kicked off my shoes I went straight to the window and looked out. Junhyuk lingered in place for a while, then finally turned his back and slowly walked away.
I wondered what time he'd get home, then ended up buying four more cans of beer from the convenience store near my place.
I figured only the alcohol would push me into sleep.
Watching videos on my phone instead of the TV, I finished two of the four cans and finally sprawled out on the sofa. I didn't even have the energy to crawl to the bed.
This used to be my weekend routine. Until last week it had been the most natural thing in the world. It really had been.
"...I'm lonely."
Right now I was so lonely that even the alcohol couldn't soothe it.
I had been the middle of three sons born to a prosecutor father and a lawyer mother. From middle school on, people called me "the inadequate one" more often than they used my name.
The year my older brother—only a year my senior—entered a prestigious exam-prep high school, I failed. The year after that my younger brother got in.
The year after my brother entered law school, I failed university entrance. The year after that, when I took the exam again alongside my younger brother, he received an acceptance letter to law school and I received the label of three-time retaker.
The inadequate one....
Father refused to acknowledge the inadequate one as his son. Mother sighed every time she looked at me. My older brother treated me like I didn't exist, and my younger brother sneered.
"At least become a civil servant."
"Who on earth did you take after...."
"Hyung. If you're still human, at least try like your life depends on it this time."
So I was half-forced into a studio apartment and spent years seeing no one, doing nothing but study. The landlord—supposedly a junior of my father's, or at least someone close to him—meticulously reported every time I came home after meeting someone for no particular reason. After having every card frozen the very next day a couple of times for going out for anything other than the convenience store, I finally understood.
I sometimes wondered what would happen if I reported this treatment to the media or online, but I didn't want to watch the family fall apart because of the inadequate one, so I never did.
I wanted to meet people. At first I tried games, but the internet was terrible, and even in the games I played for escape, any clumsy performance earned me curses.
I wanted comfort.
That was how I discovered otome games. They didn't need high-speed internet, and every character not only met me but clamored that they couldn't live without me.
Receiving that overflowing love, even if only inside a game, made me happy.
And then, by some coincidence, I fell into that very otome game. Being a heroine instead of the protagonist was a bit of a problem, but still.
Anyway.
I never wanted to go back to that world. To that time.
"I'm lonely..."
I'd thought that after so many years alone I'd grown numb to loneliness.
It was all because of that bastard Yeom Junhyuk. Why did he have to keep being so stubbornly kind to me....
"Damn it..."
I hated being alone so much.
This was exactly why I hadn't wanted to come home early....
I greeted the next day muttering pathetic, self-pitying nonsense.
Today was an Academy day. The hangover still lingered and my head throbbed. I was looking for water in the fridge when my phone chimed. A message.
Thinking it might be Junhyuk, I picked it up—
It was a message I really didn't welcome.
Did I have to see that damn blue-haired senior again?