Falling for Her (7)
Even after Choi Su-yeon returned from the bathroom, Gong Yeong-bae still hadn't come back to the table. He hadn't even read her messages.
"Where did he go...? Did he accidentally go to the restroom in another building? He hasn't even looked at my texts..."
After sending several more messages that Gong Yeong-bae never read, Choi Su-yeon decided to go look for him herself.
"Hmm... It's the men's restroom. I can't exactly go in there..."
She paced back and forth in front of the restroom before grabbing a passing male student.
"Excuse me! I'm really sorry, but could you please check if there's anyone inside the men's restroom?"
"Ah... sure, sure!"
The guy caught sight of Choi Su-yeon's enormous chest and his lips curled up involuntarily as he hurried into the restroom. But the place was completely empty. He came back out shaking his head.
"There's no one in there."
"Really? Then where could he have gone...?"
"Oh, um, if you're free maybe we could exchange num—"
"Thank you for checking!"
Choi Su-yeon left the flustered guy behind and returned to the café.
"Ugh... I guess I have to go search for him! Seriously, he needs so much hand-holding."
She opened her umbrella and stepped out into the rain. Less than thirty seconds later, she had already found Gong Yeong-bae.
"Yay~ Yeong-bae Seon—"
She was about to greet him cheerfully when she suddenly froze.
Gong Yeong-bae was standing under his umbrella in the pouring rain, talking to someone. The person facing him was...
Lee, Lee Yu-ri?!
A figure that didn't lose out at all to her own in terms of body, with long, silky black hair and that charming mole under her eye. It was none other than the student council president Lee Yu-ri—the rival she had always found so irritating and toward whom she secretly felt a bit of inferiority.
She was only a second-year, so the time she could spend with him was already limited. Having someone like that in the same grade, even the same class, made this an incredibly unfair fight.
Didn't she leave with Seong-jin sunbae earlier? Why is she still here talking to him? No, more importantly, why are the two of them even talking? How dare she approach my Yeong-bae sunbae...!
Choi Su-yeon gritted her teeth and quietly moved to a spot close enough to overhear their conversation. Thanks to the rain, hiding her face with the umbrella was easy.
"I got a confession from Han Seong-jin."
"Wh... what... did you say...?"
The moment she heard that Lee Yu-ri had received a confession from Han Seong-jin, Choi Su-yeon was overjoyed. She covered her mouth with her hand to hide her smile even though no one was watching.
Nice one, Seong-jin sunbae! You finally did it! If the two of them start dating, then the spot next to Yeong-bae sunbae will be mine—
But her joy didn't even last ten seconds.
"You're lying... Yeah! You're lying, right?! You're just saying that to make me jealous, aren't you?! After what I did last week, you deliberately started hanging around Su-yeon more, so now you're doing the same thing to me, right?!"
One sentence from Gong Yeong-bae. That single sentence shattered Choi Su-yeon's world into a million pieces and tore it apart.
To make me jealous... on... purpose...?
Choi Su-yeon felt like she was about to have a panic attack. The dreamlike week she'd just spent. That one week where she could fully enjoy time with Gong Yeong-bae without that annoying, obstructive Lee Yu-ri around—it was crumbling away like a sandcastle before a wave.
It had all been fake. An illusion.
He didn't meet me because he liked me...?
She had assumed that since she liked Gong Yeong-bae, he must feel the same way about her. But now she realized that wasn't true. Gong Yeong-bae only had eyes for Lee Yu-ri. He had only pretended to be interested in her to win back Yu-ri's attention.
Of course, Gong Yeong-bae did have some interest in Choi Su-yeon. But she had no way of knowing that he had been carefully managing all three girls' affections because he didn't want to lose any of them by fully committing to just one. As a result, she came to the conclusion that he had zero interest in her at all.
Choi Su-yeon's heart shattered like glass hitting a rock.
She was so devastated that she wanted to collapse right there and cry, but that would have been too obvious. So she clutched her charred-black heart and returned to the café.
The moment she saw the empty seats with her bag and Gong Yeong-bae's bag still sitting there, Choi Su-yeon finally couldn't hold it in anymore. She burst into tears.
"Hic... ugh... khh..."
He never cared about me at all. He was just using me to get Yu-ri's attention back. I liked sunbae so much... how could he...
All kinds of thoughts swirled chaotically inside her head.
"Hic... ugh... huuuu..."
Once the dam of her emotions broke, the sorrow, the sadness, and finally the despair of not being loved along with the crushing self-loathing all came crashing down at once. Choi Su-yeon cried without caring that the other customers in the café were staring at her.
With trembling fingers, she sent a message full of typos.
After grabbing her bag and leaving the café, Choi Su-yeon walked—almost ran—through the rain while sobbing bitterly.
"Ughhh... hic... ack!"
She was crying so hard she couldn't see in front of her, and she was in such a hurry to get away from that place that she only focused on walking faster. She slipped on the wet ground and fell.
The umbrella she dropped rolled across the pavement, leaving her completely exposed to the rain. But with her heart burned completely black, she didn't even think about picking it up. She just sat there, endlessly shedding tears.
"Hic... sob... haha... ahaha... ahahahaha!"
Then, like someone who had completely lost their mind, she suddenly started laughing. The despair was so overwhelming that Choi Su-yeon had half-lost her sanity. She laughed while getting drenched by the rain. People who approached to help her took one look at her and backed away, continuing on their way.
A woman sitting in the rain on a wet street, laughing maniacally while crying at the same time. To anyone watching, she looked like a completely insane lunatic. But no one knew about the burned-out pain inside her.
No one should have...
"Hey. What the hell are you doing?"
A low, deep male voice came from behind the crying, laughing girl. At the same time, the rain stopped falling on her head.
"I saw someone throwing away their umbrella and laughing while crying in the rain, so I thought it was some crazy person. Turns out it's a face I know."
"Khk... sob... S, Seong-jin sunbae...?"
The person holding an umbrella over Choi Su-yeon from behind was Han Seong-jin.
Back in the café, I had definitely made eye contact with Gong Yeong-bae and Choi Su-yeon. I quickly turned my head away as if I hadn't seen them at all. Then I deliberately intertwined my fingers with Yu-ri's so Gong Yeong-bae could see clearly, walked out like a happy couple, and parted ways with her.
Once I was far enough that Yu-ri could no longer see me, I covered my face completely with my umbrella and returned to the café from earlier.
And just as I expected, I saw Gong Yeong-bae and Yu-ri arguing in front of the café. I couldn't hear them clearly because of the rain, but I could roughly guess what it was about. Honestly, whether I knew or not didn't really matter.
What mattered was... the one who came out after them. Choi Su-yeon.
From the moment the blonde girl stepped out of the café, I kept my eyes fixed on her. She stood there for a moment, went back inside the café, and then a little later came bursting out with her bag.
Gong Yeong-bae and Yu-ri were still arguing even then. I followed right after Choi Su-yeon. After running for a while, she slipped and fell, getting soaked in rainwater. Yet she didn't even pick up her umbrella. She just sat there, crying and laughing at the same time.
When Choi Su-yeon recognized me, both her crying and laughing stopped. She spoke quietly.
"...Why are you here, sunbae."
"I was just passing by."
"You should go date Yu-ri sunbae. Don't worry about me and just go on your way."
"Can't do that."
"Just go."
"What if I don't want to?"
"I said go! Go! Go away! Stop paying attention to me and just leave!!!"
Choi Su-yeon suddenly started yelling at me using casual speech. I grabbed her hand, forcefully pulled her up, turned her to face me, and held her by both shoulders.
"I don't know why you're doing this here, but it's still cold. If you stay in the rain you'll catch a cold."
"Khheuk... ugh... kkhk..."
"Your clothes are ruined too. Come with me. I'll lend you some."
"Huuu... Aaaaaah! Uwaaaaaah!"
Choi Su-yeon's eyes were glistening with tears. She finally couldn't hold it back anymore and buried her face in my chest, sobbing bitterly. I gently patted her back.
......
......
We came back to my place together. The entire walk there, Choi Su-yeon didn't say a single word, her eyes completely dead. Even after entering my room, she didn't look around the house at all. She just stared blankly into space.
"Use these clothes. Go wash up. I won't do anything weird, so don't worry."
"......"
Choi Su-yeon gave a slight nod and went into the bathroom to shower. Even though we knew each other, she showed absolutely no hesitation about showering in the home of a guy who lived alone. Even though she was part of the delinquent group on the surface, to me—who knew her real personality—this behavior felt incredibly off.
It meant her heart was that badly broken.
After a little over thirty minutes, Choi Su-yeon finished showering and drying her hair. She came out wearing my shirt and pants, both of which were quite large on her.
"Thank you. And I'm sorry for yelling earlier."
There was no emotion in her voice, and her eyes were still completely dead. Then she slowly started unbuttoning the shirt in front of me.
"What are you doing?"
"Isn't that why you brought me here? You've stared at my chest several times while we were working."
She noticed, huh.
"Other guys, my friends' boyfriends, even the convenience store manager and store owner were all the same. You're no different, right sunbae? It doesn't matter anymore, so just use me however you want."
Choi Su-yeon, pushed to the brink of total despair, had begun engaging in self-destructive behavior. Her heart was so broken that she had decided to throw away everything—her virginity, her dignity, whatever. If I hadn't brought her here, she probably would have done the same thing with anyone else.
Just before she could undo the last button, I grabbed the collar that was about to slip off her shoulders, pulled it back up, and held both of her shoulders.
"Hey. Put your clothes back on. I'm not going to say it twice."
"You want my body too, sunbae. You think I'm some easy, convenient girl who comes running whenever you call, right?"
"To be honest, if you asked whether I don't want to do it with you, that would be a lie. But I've never thought of you as that kind of girl."
"Stop lying!!"
Choi Su-yeon yelled again in casual speech, tears glistening in her eyes. She was clearly not in her right mind.
Instead of answering, I pulled her toward me and hugged her tightly. The sensation of her soft, elastic, massive breasts—without even a bra under the shirt—pressed against me. I desperately held back my rising erection as I spoke.
"I don't know what exactly broke your mentality like this, but doing this won't change anything. It won't make you feel any better either. I'm not going to have sex with you right now. Instead..."
I gently wiped away the tears that had started falling from Choi Su-yeon's eyes with my hand.
"I want to hear your story. Why you're like this right now, and what kind of wound is making you try to throw yourself away like this."
"I, I... I am..."
The tears that I had just wiped away began flowing down again.
"Huaaaaaang! Uwaaaaa!"
And then Choi Su-yeon completely broke down. She buried her face in my chest and wailed.
