My Seat
My seat.
When the moving period ended, it was lunchtime.
Stepping out of the science lab, I started walking toward the classroom where Woo Han-gyeol was taking her class without really thinking about it.
On days with moving classes, I always waited for her outside her room and went to lunch together. I stayed close in the crowded cafeteria so she wouldn't get shoved or bumped into.
That had been the natural order of things. Until yesterday.
"Hey, where are you going? The cafeteria's that way."
Park So-yeon called from behind me.
At the sound of her voice, I stopped dead in my tracks.
…Ah.
I didn't need to do that anymore.
My head knew it, yet my feet still tried to carry me toward her on their own. The steps I had already forced to a halt several times yesterday and again this morning were heading the same direction the moment lunch arrived.
The body really was stubborn. After twenty years of moving in only one direction, changing course in a handful of days was never going to be easy.
"…Yeah. You're right."
I turned around awkwardly.
"What's with you? Where's your head at? Come on, I'm starving."
Park So-yeon grumbled as she fell into step beside me.
Side by side with Park So-yeon, I headed for the cafeteria.
We got our trays and sat down next to each other in an empty spot.
Park So-yeon launched into some pointless chatter, and I made the appropriate noises of agreement.
It looked like any ordinary lunch, but it wasn't.
Normally Woo Han-gyeol would have been sitting here. Scooping side dishes onto her plate so they were easier for her to eat, watching the clock for her medicine, checking how she was feeling—that had been my lunchtime.
Today she wasn't here. I was just sitting next to Park So-yeon, eating my own meal.
Every so often the seat beside me felt hollow. The compulsion to look after someone's medicine and condition refused to fade.
Each time it rose, I had to gently remind myself that I didn't have to do that anymore.
Everything felt strange.
Lunch without Woo Han-gyeol. Sitting side by side with Park So-yeon. Nothing about it came naturally.
It had only been two days, after all. I had spent twenty years at her side, and I had left that place for only two days.
Of course it felt foreign.
When I lifted my head without thinking, two familiar faces appeared among the people lined up for food.
Woo Han-gyeol and Kim Seol-ah.
They were standing in line together. Apparently they had the same elective and had come to the cafeteria as a pair. In the original story the two of them had shared a class too, so it wasn't particularly surprising.
Kim Seol-ah moved slowly forward with an indifferent expression.
Beside her, Woo Han-gyeol kept glancing sideways. She opened her mouth as if debating whether to say something, then closed it again, over and over.
The two of them barely spoke. They simply stood in the same line, an awkward distance stretched between them.
I watched for a moment, then lowered my eyes again.
A little later Kim Seol-ah, tray in hand, walked straight toward us.
Without hesitation she set her tray down in the seat across from mine.
"I'll sit here."
It wasn't a question. She was already seated. After the library yesterday and the rain the day before, we had run into each other enough times that it no longer felt strange.
But the atmosphere around Park So-yeon shifted the moment she sat down.
"…You two know each other?"
Park So-yeon looked back and forth between Kim Seol-ah and me. There was a faint edge in her voice that wasn't usually there.
She would have known our faces since we went to the same school, but she clearly hadn't realized Kim Seol-ah and I were on speaking terms.
"Yeah. We've gotten to know each other a bit."
"…Hmm."
Park So-yeon jabbed me lightly in the side, then lowered her voice.
"Since when do you know her? First I've heard of it."
"…Just a few days."
"A few days? You've been making friends left and right without me noticing."
Park So-yeon pouted. The words were thrown out like a joke, but a sulky undercurrent ran through them.
Kim Seol-ah, for her part, didn't so much as glance at Park So-yeon. She simply ate her meal, occasionally exchanging a few words with me.
And so the awkward lunch continued with only one side of the table quietly bristling.
But the seats weren't finished filling yet.
Woo Han-gyeol approached our table carrying her tray.
She started to come around to the seat beside me as naturally as breathing. The way she always had.
But Kim Seol-ah was already across from me, and Park So-yeon occupied the seat next to mine.
"…Ah."
Woo Han-gyeol let out a small sound.
Her face said she had only just realized there was no empty seat at my side.
She stood frozen with her tray, as if she no longer knew where she was supposed to sit. Her gaze wandered between the seats on either side of me and found nowhere to land.
That seat had always been empty. My side had always been left open for her so she could sit whenever she arrived.
Today it wasn't.
After a moment she carefully set her tray down next to Kim Seol-ah, across from Park So-yeon.
And just like that, four people sat around one table.
Me, Park So-yeon, Woo Han-gyeol, and Kim Seol-ah. A strangely awkward air drifted slowly over the table.
"What's this? You guys are all friends?"
A bright, cheerful voice cut through the awkwardness.
When I lifted my head a little, I saw the yellow name tag that marked a second-year student. The three characters written on it read Ha Yu-jin.
I raised my head fully.
Tall frame, healthy skin tanned by the sun. Even the cast on one arm somehow looked like part of a lively adventure story on him.
Tray in hand, he looked down at us with an easy, friendly smile.
The kind of person I could never become was standing right there.
Bright, healthy, someone who made the people around him smile just by existing. Everything I had spent so many years trying and failing to hold, he had possessed from the start.
The moment he appeared, the air at the table changed.
Woo Han-gyeol's head snapped up. Her face lit up at once, color rising in her cheeks. Even the chopsticks she was holding froze in midair, unsure what to do.
It was a face I had never once seen in twenty years at her side.
The same expression I had seen a few days ago outside that hospital room door at the center.
Just like then, a cold ache bloomed deep in my chest. Simply watching the same scene again prodded the wound I had left behind on the rooftop.
Only this time I wasn't watching alone from hiding. I was sitting right in the middle of a table full of people.
So I couldn't let the pain show. All I could do was keep eating with a blank face.
Kim Seol-ah was the opposite.
The chopsticks that had been moving so casually a moment ago went still. She kept her head slightly bowed, staring only at her tray as if determined not to look that way.
Anyone could see how uncomfortable she was.
Park So-yeon glanced between the two of them, then closed her mouth with the look of someone who had put the pieces together.
Right in the middle of those three completely different reactions, he simply stood there smiling as if he had no idea about any of it.
"So Han-gyeol and Seol-ah already know each other. That's funny."
Then his gaze suddenly landed on me.
"Oh? Wait—you're Ji-an, right?"
His eyes lit up as if he were genuinely glad.
"I'm Ha Yu-jin. Second year. You can call me hyung if you want. If you're friends with Han-gyeol, you're basically my little brother too."
There wasn't a shred of reserve in his tone.
"Han-gyeol talks about you all the time. Says she's got this reliable friend who always looks after her."
I gave a short nod.
"…Hello."
That was all the answer I could manage.
"Mind if I sit here too?"
Without waiting for a reply he pulled over an empty chair and settled in next to Woo Han-gyeol.
The moment he sat down, Woo Han-gyeol grew even more flustered. She poked at her food without really eating, sneaking glances his way, only to whip her eyes away the second it seemed their gazes might meet.
"Han-gyeol, you still going to the center okay? I'm almost ready to get this cast off."
When the senior asked, Woo Han-gyeol nodded so hard she almost jumped.
"Y-yeah. I'm… going fine."
Her voice was small and stumbling.
Watching that, Kim Seol-ah set her spoon down on her tray with a soft clack and stood up.
"I'm going first."
Leaving only those few words, Kim Seol-ah picked up her tray and walked away without looking back.
Woo Han-gyeol's eyes quietly followed the retreating figure. She parted her lips as if to call out, then closed them again without saying a word.
The senior watched her leave with a puzzled look.
"Huh? What's with her? She didn't even finish eating."
Park So-yeon glanced at him and let out a small sigh meant to be heard. Fortunately the meaning behind it didn't seem to reach him.
I looked for a moment at the empty seat Kim Seol-ah had left behind.
The space she had vacated was quickly covered over by the senior's cheerful voice, as if nothing had happened.
At one of his jokes, Woo Han-gyeol flushed and let out a small laugh. It was the perfect, dazzling scene she must have wanted so badly. At that noisy, warm table, no one paid any attention to the absence of the girl who had just left.
Only I kept finding my gaze drawn to that empty chair.
The rigid face as she set down her spoon. The tray that was still more than half full. The back that had walked away so coldly without a single glance over her shoulder—those images lingered like afterimages.
Where was she planning to spend the time alone?
That unfamiliar sensation suddenly woke me up. There was no longer any place for me to stay in this gap.
I quietly picked up my tray and stood.
"Huh? Ji-an, where are you going?"
Woo Han-gyeol looked up at me, startled. I left a short reply and turned away.
"…I'll go first."
As if following the trail Kim Seol-ah had taken, I started walking toward the cafeteria exit.
After watching me for a moment, Park So-yeon quietly picked up her tray and fell in behind me.
"I'm coming with you. I'm done anyway."
And so only Woo Han-gyeol and the senior remained at the table.
Behind me, growing more distant, sat Woo Han-gyeol face-to-face with the person she liked and the senior who still had no idea what was going on. It was the seat she had wanted so desperately.
I didn't look back.
The midday clamor filled the cafeteria. As I slipped out of that noise, I found myself searching for the back of the girl who must have walked ahead of me without a second thought.