Ari's Romance
On the Sunday night Yuhan and Ari had met, a hiatus notice went up on streamer Lethe's fan cafe.
The break was now stretching into its fifth day. The post had been written in her characteristically stiff, earnest tone, and her viewers responded in all sorts of ways.
When it came to hiatuses, Lethe ordinarily put up a notice at least a few days in advance—or, if she couldn't, laid her circumstances out in full. A short post citing nothing but personal reasons was enough to put people on edge.
Even if her notices had always been thorough, there were those who scolded her for going dark five days running.
Others, knowing the personality she'd always shown on stream, figured that if something serious had happened they could understand, and that they ought to just wait a little longer.
And the Lethe who had written that notice was sending a text to her boyfriend, Junhyuk.
Even Lethe, who wrote nothing but stiff posts in public, didn't normally take that tone with her own boyfriend. Right now, though, the message was nothing but a firm notification to the person receiving it.
Lethe herself felt at least a twinge of unease about it. Was it really all right to go days without contact after a fight, then suddenly send a text like this? Wasn't it rude?
But Lethe, who had always been loved by everyone close to her, had never even fought with a friend, let alone with Junhyuk. She had no idea how to handle a situation like this. She'd had plenty of friction with delinquents, but those weren't relationships that called for an apology.
And in a situation like that—
"Hmm. For now, start by telling him you want to meet tomorrow, first thing."
"I have a stream tomorrow... and the hiatus has already gone on too long."
"Is that what matters right now?! You need to be flexible! You work hard enough as it is—your viewers will understand this much. Be a man about it... no, be a woman about it. Tell him you'll come pick him up at such-and-such a time and to be ready, then go buy a flower or something. Apologize first and tell him it won't happen again. That should do it, right?"
"I can't exactly say it won't happen again. It's not like I'm not going to shoot content next time."
"Hmm..."
The truth was, Yuhan didn't really know either. Whether buying flowers would even work, whether bowing your head and saying sorry was enough to put an end to it—whether the viewers would even understand a hiatus. Ari had asked him about a man's feelings as if that were the most natural thing in the world, but Yuhan was closer to a woman of this world than to a man, and even in his previous one he'd spent his days so busy he hadn't had time to see a girlfriend. He had simply assembled the best answer he could out of things he'd picked up here and there.
And then came advice that, for Lethe's fans, would have landed like a bolt from a clear sky.
"You normally take one day off a week, right? Wouldn't it be better to tack on another day or so and spend it with him? And take a separate break whenever you're shooting content."
Same as before—Yuhan had no idea whether that was actually a good thought.
And so, her head full of nothing but questions, Ari had come to see Junhyuk.
Junhyuk, for his part, had spent plenty of nights at Ari's House, since she lived on her own—but after the fight, of course, he had gone back to his own place. They had known each other since they were little, and they had never fought like this. Thinking it over afterward, he'd felt as if he'd simply been in a bad mood that day for no real reason and had overreacted, and that had been eating at him too. It was pride. An unconscious sense that more ought to be yielded to him because he was a man. That was the only reason he hadn't spoken first.
"What is it. What was so important you hauled your busy self all the way out here?"
But of course what came out of his mouth was still laced with anger. Maybe some part of him still didn't want to lose.
Only for a moment.
"...Take this first."
The bouquet in Ari's hands melted Junhyuk's heart. Her personality had always been a good one, but she was a long way from romantic, and they had been together so long that some part of her still thought of him as a friend—so she had never done many of those picture-perfect, romantic gestures. They hadn't even kissed once yet, she was still that embarrassed. Maybe that was why this clumsy little act landed on Junhyuk as something genuinely meaningful.
"I... I'm sorry. I've been so busy. I should've at least spent the weekends with you..."
Watching Ari ramble through an apology—so unfamiliar on her—was enjoyable in its own way. It was such a rare sight he wanted to keep watching, but the whole situation was starting to strike him as so ridiculous he was about to laugh, so Junhyuk cut her apology off at a reasonable point.
"Pfft! That's enough. You've apologized plenty. Just... spend a little more time on me from now on. We are a couple, after all."
"Yeah... I will."
Junhyuk knew Ari had almost never had anything to apologize to anyone for in her whole life. He knew she didn't have much experience apologizing, either. They had been together for over a decade, but this awkward side of her was a first.
Junhyuk liked that newness.
He liked the awkward apology.
And somehow, more than usual—
He liked Ari.
Yuhan had told me not to start by worrying over whether the apology would be accepted. If it was accepted, he said, I should already have thought through where we would go together.
I hadn't been sure that was right. Go together where? If he didn't accept the apology in the first place, every bit of that worrying would be wasted.
I've always believed that when you're turning something over in your mind, it's better to start from the worst-case scenario. That way, if the bad thing actually happens, you can at least keep a grip on yourself.
It was the same when I apologized to Yuhan. What if he doesn't accept it. What if the wound I left by judging him on first impressions cut too deep. Would apologizing even more even work in a case like that?
Fortunately, Yuhan's personality was so good that he said he'd been at fault too, and we moved past it easily enough. But I knew I was the one who had given it a cause—the one who had reacted, for no reason at all, the first time a video donation came in. I knew I had gotten lucky, skating by and even ending up as his friend.
Yes. That time, I had simply been lucky.
And now he wanted me to picture the best case? Wasn't that just leaving it to luck?
Yuhan had said it like this: you'd been together that long, and couples fought sometimes. Did I really think he wouldn't accept a single apology?
Looking at it now, he had been right. The situation I had been dreading hadn't come anywhere close, and the apology I had prepared at such length was over in an instant.
After that, just as Yuhan had predicted, Junhyuk and I ended up going on a date as if it were the most natural thing in the world. A restaurant, a movie theater, a café. An ordinary date course, nothing special—and still Junhyuk looked like he was having a genuinely good time.
After several days, the reconciliation I had wanted had come this easily. Under ordinary circumstances, my mood should have been good too.
It wasn't that I felt bad, exactly... but the corners of my mouth kept freezing in place. Something sat wrong in my chest.
How to put it.
The truth was, this apology was nothing more than surrender. It wasn't something arrived at reasonably. I had simply stepped back.
I knew that. That was how being a couple worked, and a woman yielding to a man was the sort of thing that happened all the time. Feeling bothered because I couldn't even give way on one thing was petty in the extreme, and I knew that too.
And yet.
It wasn't as if I hadn't spent time on Junhyuk. We had spent plenty of it together, and I had even taken separate hiatuses for anniversaries more than once. People living their lives ended up with sudden schedules like this; that was just how it went. Honestly, I hadn't liked that this had even turned into an argument.
I had yielded, but privately I still thought Junhyuk had overreacted.
And when I had shown that I meant to apologize, his reaction had treated it as obvious that I was in the wrong—and that all he had to do was sit there and receive it.
The relationship I had thought of as ideal was one where each of us took a step back and respected the other. Instead, I was the only one who had yielded, and that was becoming the default. The whole thing sat wrong with me, for no reason I could quite name. If a relationship like this kept going, what then? Could I keep living while always giving in? The thought brushed through my mind and was gone.
...Yuhan, even in a situation where I had been the one in the wrong first, where I had overreacted and he would have had every right to feel aggrieved, had taken the blame onto himself and offered an apology he hadn't needed to offer. And then he had stepped forward and smoothed the air. He had taken the conversation and run with it so I wouldn't have to keep sitting in my guilt. He had been so careful with me.
No. No. Why is Yuhan coming up all of a sudden. Yuhan and Junhyuk were completely different people. Am I just tired today?
"Ari, are you feeling all right? You don't look so good."
"Hm? ...No, I was just thinking about something."
I answered with a faint smile.
Well. I had thought all of that, but between two people who were dating, one or two sore spots were bound to crop up, weren't they? There would be times like this. If it truly became unbearable, we could sit down and talk it through properly. So it wasn't something I needed to spend my heart on right now. For the moment, I would forget this feeling. I would focus on the date.
"You're still going around in a cardigan? Isn't that hot?"
Junhyuk said it as he picked up the cardigan I had taken off and set beside me. I didn't feel the heat much, so it was the same black cardigan I had worn out yesterday.
"Pfft. What are you doing walking around with hair stuck to you?"
"Huh? It's black, though. You can see that?"
My hair should have been darker than most people's. Was it really that noticeable?
"Huh? This is blond. Did one of your managers have blond hair—"
"Wh-why, what's wrong all of a sudden?"
"This... why is it so short? This is a guy's hair, isn't it?"
...Come to think of it, last night, when the mood had suddenly shifted, Yuhan had pressed his face very close to mine. That was probably when it had stuck.
Well, I could just say so. That I had run into a streamer I was friendly with, and that his hair must have gotten on me somehow.
It was a little rude to put it this way, but... Yuhan's looks did give off that delinquent air. Junhyuk knew perfectly well how much I couldn't stand delinquent-looking men, so it didn't seem like it would invite some pointless misunderstanding.
Or would being on friendly terms with a man who looked like that be even more suspicious?
But we weren't so short on trust that we would start doubting each other over something that small. And it wasn't as if I was never going to see Yuhan again. If we kept crossing paths, there would come a day when Junhyuk learned he existed anyway. If he was going to find out later, it wouldn't matter much if I told him now.
And yet.
"Uh... it probably just stuck to me while I was playing with the kids at The Orphanage?"
For what reason, I wondered, had a lie come spilling from my lips?