Confession and Desire
I fidgeted with my soup bowl for a moment before opening my mouth.
"…We've been next-door neighbors since we were little."
"Woo Han-gyul?"
"Yeah."
For as long as I could remember, she had always been at my side. Or rather — I had always been at hers.
"She was a frail kid. One cold would turn into pneumonia, and every winter she ended up in the hospital. Her mother had to work, so the one who stayed by her bedside was always me."
"And you started doing that from how old?"
"From before I can even remember."
Kim Seol-ah furrowed her brow. I pretended not to notice and kept going.
"Keeping track of her medicine times. Taking her temperature. Feeding her. Once we started school, carrying her bag, checking her homework. Matching her pace whenever she got winded on the stairs."
"…"
"If rain was in the forecast, packing two umbrellas. If the cafeteria served something spicy, getting her water ahead of time. On field trips, claiming a spot in the shade first thing."
Once I started talking, there was no end to it.
I hadn't even been trying to dredge up each detail — they just spilled out. Twenty years of doing the same things every single day will do that.
"So it just became a habit?"
"More than a habit…"
I searched for the right words, then simply told the truth.
"It was my role."
Kim Seol-ah said nothing. She just looked at me.
"Then one day she told me she'd found someone she liked."
"…Ha Yujin."
"Yeah."
"So you backed off?"
"Yeah."
"Why."
"…Because that's the right thing to do."
Kim Seol-ah frowned again. I toyed with my water glass, choosing my words carefully.
"She's only just found someone she likes. It'll be her first relationship. Having me stuck to her side through all of that wouldn't do her any good."
"…"
"If there's a guy who picks her up every morning and hangs around her all day, the other person would get the wrong idea. She wouldn't even be able to like someone freely."
Even as I said it, my voice came out calm and even.
"So stepping aside is the right call."
"Is that all?"
"…No."
I paused for a moment.
"I needed time to sort myself out, too."
"…"
"You can't put your feelings away while looking at someone's face every day. To do that, you need distance."
Kim Seol-ah said nothing.
"I thought all I had to do was stop. Stop picking her up in the morning. Stop carrying her bag. Stop making sure she ate. I thought if I just quit those things one by one, it'd be fine."
Hearing myself say it out loud, it sounded almost simple.
"I figured if we drifted apart little by little, she'd get used to it, and so would I."
"And that worked?"
"…It didn't."
Kim Seol-ah let out a short laugh. She was smiling, but her eyes weren't.
"I saw you in the cafeteria today. Your mind was somewhere else entirely, but your hands were still clearing her tray. Like it was hardwired into your body."
"…Yeah."
"And you call that stepping back."
I had nothing to say to that.
Kim Seol-ah took a sip of water and set the glass down. She glanced toward the television for a moment, then looked back at me.
"I'm the same."
"Huh?"
"I've been doing the same thing for ten years."
Kim Seol-ah leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
"You know Yujin-oppa. He and I were next-door neighbors. Since kindergarten."
I set down my chopsticks.
"There's no big dramatic story. I just liked him because he was there, and then ten years went by. That's it."
Kim Seol-ah picked up a side dish and ate it.
"When he catches a cold, his throat always goes first. And then he looks for candy. So I always kept candy in my bag. For about three years."
"…"
"One day he got candy from some other girl. Right in front of me. I had some in my bag and still couldn't take it out."
Her tone was so matter-of-fact that I didn't know how to respond.
"I went home that day and ate every last one of those candies myself. There were about ten of them."
Kim Seol-ah gave a short laugh.
"People say sweet things make you feel better. Didn't help at all."
"…"
"That's how it goes. Ten years of liking someone, and all you're left with is candy wrappers."
She shrugged.
"To him, I'm just the girl who's always been around. Someone who'll still be there tomorrow. Someone he doesn't have to think about."
"…"
"So I never said a word for ten years. If I had, even that place next to him would've disappeared."
Kim Seol-ah took another sip of water.
"At this point, I've just accepted it. I know he doesn't like me — what am I supposed to do? I can't spend ten years crying over it."
She said it lightly, but the very end of her voice cracked, just slightly.
"But once you let go of that… there's really nothing left."
The diner fell quiet.
From the kitchen came only the sound of the grandmother boiling something. The television was still murmuring the news.
I kept turning her words over in my mind.
Once you let go of that… there's really nothing left.
Somehow, that sentence scraped against something inside me.
"…I'm the same."
The words came out of my mouth on their own.
"What?"
"If I let go of that, I've got nothing either."
"What are you talking about? You've got other people besides—"
"I don't."
The words came out by themselves.
Kim Seol-ah closed her mouth.
I looked down at my water glass. Condensation beaded on the surface and ran down onto the table, leaving a small dark mark.
"This morning, Mother told me something. My real mother is coming back to Korea next month."
"Your mother?"
"Yeah. I call her Mother. I've been raised in that house since I was little."
Kim Seol-ah's eyebrows twitched slightly. But she didn't ask anything.
"My parents are almost never in Korea because of work. A few days a year, at most."
"…Then you—"
"There's only the household staff at my place."
Saying it out loud felt strangely calm.
I'd never felt particularly hurt by it. That was just how our family was.
I had never been the kind of child who threw tantrums. More accurately, I had never been allowed to be a child at all. I never clung and begged them not to leave. I never whined asking when they'd come back. Even as a little kid, I already knew that grabbing onto people like that never worked.
So my parents must have found me convenient. A child who didn't need any attention.
Looking back now, maybe that was the problem. If I'd been the kind of kid who cried and clung, maybe things would have been a little different.
No one bothers to approach a child who expects nothing.
"So I always ate at Mother's house. I had a place there. My spoon and chopsticks were set out, and Mother would put side dishes on my plate."
"…"
"But this morning, when Han-gyul's mother was telling me the news about my own mother—"
My throat closed up for a second. I took a sip of water.
"It felt strange. Why was I hearing about my own parents from someone else's dinner table?"
Kim Seol-ah said nothing.
"Han-gyul's mother calls my mother by her name. They're friends. But she says it so much more warmly than I ever could."
The fingertips gripping my spoon trembled slightly.
"Listening to that voice, every grain of rice felt like sand in my mouth."
"In that moment, I understood. I'm not part of that family. I've eaten meals in that house my whole life, and I'm still not their son."
My voice cracked a little.
"And my own house isn't home either. There's no one there waiting for me."
My grip on the spoon tightened.
"So I don't belong on either side. There's no place for me in this world."
Only after saying it did I realize what I'd just confessed.
I'd never said any of this to anyone. Not to Mother, not to Park So-yeon, not even to her. And yet here, in this little diner I'd walked into for the first time today, it had all poured out in front of this girl.
"…Sorry. I didn't mean to dump all of that on you."
"Sorry for what."
Kim Seol-ah pushed the soup bowl back toward me.
"Eat. It gets worse when it's cold."
I looked down at the bowl.
"And."
She chose her words carefully for a moment.
"Earlier you said taking care of Woo Han-gyul was your role."
"Yeah."
"You're scared that if you stop, you'll become nothing. That's why you can't let go."
The hand holding my spoon went still.
Kim Seol-ah wasn't looking at me. She poked at the side dishes with her chopsticks, speaking as if it were nothing.
"I know, because I'm the same."
The diner went quiet again.
I couldn't answer.
Not because I had no rebuttal — because her words were too precise to argue with.
I was the one who'd decided to step back. And I was also the one who couldn't let go. I'd never once properly looked at the reason why.
If I stop taking care of her… what am I?
I'd always closed my eyes in front of that question.
"…Yeah. Maybe so."
When I finally managed that much, Kim Seol-ah gave a short laugh.
"Finally being honest."
"It's not honesty. I just can't argue."
"Same thing."
She scooped up a spoonful of rice.
"Eat. We can talk after. It's not going anywhere."
I took a spoonful of soup.
It had gone cold.
And yet, somehow, it went down more easily than any meal I'd had in a long time.
I snuck a glance at Lee Ji-an as he ate.
His face looked a little better than before. Still pale, but better than the hollowed-out stare he'd had in the cafeteria.
Good. Not that I was worried or anything.
A person should at least get their money's worth after buying someone a meal.
…Woo Han-gyul sure has it good.
That thought kept circling through my head the whole time we ate.
This guy knows she's left-handed. He knows she gets winded on the stairs. He knows she can't handle spicy food. He's the kind of person who packs two umbrellas over a single rain forecast. The kind who claims a shady spot first thing on a field trip.
For over ten years. Every single day.
I carried candy for Yujin-oppa for three years and never once managed to take it out. Meanwhile Woo Han-gyul just sat there and got all of that handed to her every day.
And now even Yujin-oppa is looking at her.
The person who never once looked my way in ten years of standing right next to him smiles so easily for a girl he's known a few months.
…Whatever. Forget it.
The twisting in my gut is purely because the world is unfair — not because I hate Woo Han-gyul.
What would she even know? She just sits there with that clueless smile, taking everything people give her.
So this isn't jealousy. It's just spite. Yeah. Spite.
But earlier, when he said he didn't belong on either side—
My heart dropped like a stone.
Watching a guy who fills everyone else's bowl while leaving his own empty — what are you supposed to call that feeling? Frustration, I guess.
And then, suddenly—
…What if I were the one who got into his heart.
My chopsticks stopped.
What if I sat in the seat Woo Han-gyul occupies. What if he did for me all the things he does for her.
Picking me up every morning. Carrying my bag. Staying up all night by my side when I'm sick.
Everything I've never received in ten years.
…Ha.
I've lost it. Kim Seol-ah, you've lost it.
Just eat your damn food.
I chewed that thought up along with a side dish and swallowed it. Not that swallowing made it go away.
He's still looking at Woo Han-gyul, after all.
So not now. It shouldn't be now.
Then why won't that image leave me alone.
"Hey."
"Yeah."
"Eat more. Rice is unlimited here."
"…I'm full."
"Full, my ass. You barely ate half."
I called the grandmother over and ordered him another bowl of rice.
…Just because I hate wasting money on food.
I paid for it, so leaving any behind is a loss.
Absolutely no other reason.