Can Coffee
The morning after the rain cleared was deceptively bright. The sunlight streaming through the window was transparent and light, as if to erase every trace of the downpour that had raged the night before—as if the world itself were pretending that nothing yesterday had been real.
But I knew better. The heart I had left behind on the rooftop, the wet face of the girl I had met in the rain—none of it had been a dream.
The emotions I thought had settled overnight sank heavily beneath my chest again the moment morning arrived.
I had expected yesterday from the very moment I grew close to that girl. And yet the fact that I still ended up like this when the moment actually came only proved that reason and feeling were separate things after all.
Or maybe I simply still hadn’t become an adult.
When I stepped into the classroom, the familiar scene met my eyes.
The window seat, and the desk beside it. Mine had always been next to Woo Han-gyeol’s.
It was the homeroom teacher’s consideration for her frail health. If she collapsed during class or needed her medicine, I would be the one who could reach her fastest.
So even at school I had naturally taken the seat of her guardian.
That place, which had felt perfectly ordinary until yesterday, felt a little distant today.
Woo Han-gyeol was already sitting there, gazing out the window. Spotting me, she offered the same light nod of greeting as always. Her face was no different from yesterday’s.
Nothing would have changed for her. The collapse on the rooftop, the wandering through the rain—all of that had been mine alone.
I returned the greeting with a short nod.
I set my bag down and was about to sit when someone approached with quick steps.
Before I could even lift my head, something landed on my desk with a soft thud.
A cold can of coffee.
“……Drink it or don’t.”
Kim Seol-ah tossed the words out without properly meeting my eyes, then spun on her heel.
There was no chance to stop her. I could only watch her back as she fled to her seat after leaving only what she had to say.
It was so very like her. Unable to bring up yesterday’s events head-on, she had shoved a cold can at me in place of thanks and run away.
Somehow I almost laughed. That the girl who had fallen apart so completely in the rain yesterday and the stiff back I was looking at now belonged to the same person felt oddly mismatched—and yet perfectly like her.
I looked quietly down at the can on the desk. The surface against my palm was still cool.
“Ji-an, are you close with Seol-ah?”
A voice suddenly cut in from the side.
I turned. Woo Han-gyeol was still in her seat, staring straight at me.
“No. Not really.”
“Then why is Seol-ah giving you a drink?”
She propped her chin on her desk and rounded her eyes.
“I’ve never once seen you talking with Seol-ah. Actually, I’ve barely ever seen you talking with anyone but me. Right?”
There was no malice in the words.
Which might have been exactly why they hurt more.
To her, I had always been the person who naturally hovered at her side. She had never once imagined me forming a connection with anyone else.
Well, that made sense. For the past twenty years my world had truly been filled with only her.
My time, my footsteps, my gaze—all of it had been directed toward her.
There had never been room for anyone else to begin with.
So it was no wonder she asked like that. Only today that innocent question somehow sliced a small cut across a corner of my heart as it passed.
“……I ran into her by chance yesterday.”
I answered as if it were nothing.
“It was raining and she didn’t have an umbrella, so I just walked her home.”
It wasn’t a lie. I simply didn’t mention that she had been crying in the dark, or that she had gripped my sleeve and poured everything out.
As I spoke, yesterday’s scenes flickered through my mind.
Only after the rain had eased did she and I finally stand. After long hesitation she told me the direction of her house in a small voice.
There was only one umbrella. Inevitably we walked pressed awkwardly together beneath it, and every time our clothes brushed in that almost-touching distance she flinched and went rigid.
Even on that road we barely spoke. Only the sound of rain filled the silence between us.
Yet that silence was strangely not uncomfortable. There was a peculiar ease there that only people who had been soaked by the same rain could share.
When we reached the alley entrance she left only the short “This is it” and quickly stepped out from under the umbrella. In the end there was no thank-you.
I stood there until her back disappeared, then walked home alone through the rain again.
“……Oh. Really?”
Han-gyeol’s voice came back a little late.
She was pouting her lips slightly.
“If something like that happened, you should’ve told me too.”
It was a complaint without much meaning. She simply seemed somehow displeased that there had been a day of mine somewhere that she didn’t know about.
As if vaguely sensing something different from usual, she seemed to search for more words for a moment.
Then her gaze suddenly shifted to the can of coffee on the desk.
“But Ji-an, you can’t drink coffee.”
She promptly reached for the can.
“You hate bitter stuff so much. When you need caffeine you always drink energy drinks. You’re not gonna drink this anyway, right? Then I’ll have it.”
The gesture was completely natural.
She knew what I liked and disliked better than I did. Having watched from the side for twenty years, of course she did.
And if it had been the me of up until yesterday, I probably would have handed the can over without a second thought. I wasn’t going to drink it anyway, and if she wanted it, that was enough.
But today, for some reason, I didn’t want to.
“……No.”
I picked up the can before her hand could reach it.
“I’ll drink it. She gave it to me.”
I was a little surprised myself at the words that left my mouth.
It was only one can of coffee. Yet I didn’t want to hand even that over to her.
It was the can she had shoved at me in place of the gratitude she couldn’t put into words. If I yielded even that to Woo Han-gyeol the way I always did, it felt as if that time yesterday would become as if it had never happened.
That had been something of my own—something unrelated to Woo Han-gyeol—that had formed for the first time yesterday.
Han-gyeol awkwardly withdrew the hand she had extended.
“……R-right.”
She looked a little flustered.
It must have been unexpected that I, who always followed her words without protest, had drawn a line over mere can coffee.
I cracked open the tab. A bitter aroma touched the tip of my nose.
When I swallowed a mouthful, an unfamiliar bitterness spread through my mouth. A taste that would have made me frown on any other day.
Yet in the aftertaste, mixed into what I had thought was only bitter, there was a faint sweetness.
And today that bitterness didn’t seem all that bad.
Today Ji-an’s a little weird.
I tilted my head, glancing at him as he pulled the can of coffee firmly over to his side.
On the outside he looked the same as always. The blunt expression, the short clipped way of talking—everything I knew. But something still felt like it had shifted just a little out of its usual place.
What changed?
No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn’t figure it out.
Ji-an had always been by my side from the earliest I could remember.
On feverish nights he would stay up watching over me; on days I missed school he would bring the notes too. He knew what I liked and disliked better than I did. That was just as natural as breathing.
Because my body was weak, I had never really made friends.
Even when other kids gathered during breaks and chattered noisily, I was always outside that circle. Not many people readily approached a kid who might collapse at any moment, and I didn’t know how to speak to someone first either.
To someone like me, Ji-an was the one and only person who always stayed by my side.
So when I got someone I liked, I told Ji-an first. Because it was obvious he would congratulate me before anyone else. Of course he would.
But…… when I said that, what kind of face did Ji-an make?
I feel like he smiled and said good for you, and also like he didn’t. Strangely, just that part I can’t remember.
I tilted my head briefly, then went “eh, whatever” and dropped the thought.
Well. Maybe he’s just a bit tired today. Or not feeling well somewhere.
Ji-an’s always been by my side, so even if he acts a little weird today or drinks a whole can of coffee by himself, what difference does it make? Ji-an isn’t going anywhere.
Yeah. Because he’ll be by my side for life.
Unlike Dad.
Thinking that, my heart floated light again.
But it was still a little strange. That look in his eyes when he drew a firm line over one can of coffee kept sticking in my mind.
Normally I could just say one word. Since Ji-an always spoke to me first and took care of everything first, I just had to take that hand.
But when I actually tried to approach first, I had no idea what to say or how to start.
This is a first.
I just moved my lips a little, then eventually gave up.
Well, it’ll go back to normal soon.