The School Road Without You
By the time we finished off the last of the spicy food and stepped outside, the streets had fully given way to night.
My mouth still tingled and my stomach burned, yet somehow I felt far better than I had when I’d walked into the hospital earlier.
"……That was good."
Beside me, Lee Ji-an muttered it offhandedly.
"Yeah. It’s been a while since I properly ate something spicy."
The words slipped out before I could stop them, and I surprised myself a little.
A while. It really had been a long while. Eating something with my whole heart at ease, laughing over trivial nonsense with someone—both of those things had become rare.
Looking back, I had always lived watching other people’s faces. In front of Oppa I hid every trace of how much I liked him; in front of my friends I put up prickly thorns and played the difficult one. What I actually liked, what actually felt comfortable—those things always came last.
But in front of this blunt guy, none of that was necessary.
Even if I said I liked spicy food, even if I admitted I read romance novels, he neither mocked me nor made a big deal of it. He simply listened, wearing the quiet face of someone who might as well have said, Yeah, same.
Was it because we carried the same kind of wound, or just because he was that kind of person?
I didn’t know the reason. All I knew was that today had been fun. The heaviness that had settled over me for days felt, for once, almost light.
"……Hey."
Before we parted I kicked at the ground with the tip of my shoe for no real reason and opened my mouth.
"You said you come to the library at lunch. Every day, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then I guess I’ll see you around sometimes."
I said it in a roundabout way, but what I really meant was that I wanted to see him again. He probably knew that already.
"……Next time I’ll find a place that’s even spicier."
Lee Ji-an said it with the faintest smile.
I couldn’t help snorting a soft laugh.
"Hmph. I’ll be looking forward to it."
And just like that we parted, leaving the next meeting promised between us.
My steps turning away felt lighter than the ones that had brought me here. Whether it was the spicy food clearing my stomach or something else entirely, I didn’t need to dig for the answer. Somehow I already knew.
……Maybe I had just met a good person. The thought rose unbidden.
When I got home the empty room was waiting for me.
My parents were still overseas, and until I flipped on the lights the house stayed dark and silent.
On any ordinary day that silence would have felt familiar and lonely both. Tonight, though, the loneliness sat a little thinner than usual.
I washed up, climbed into bed, and let the day drift back in slow pieces.
Woo Han-gyeol’s bright, happy face. The ugly jealousy that had boiled up inside me while I watched her. And then Kim Seol-ah, who had appeared on the road I fled down.
It really had been a day full of things.
Especially those last hours in the snack shop—they kept circling through my head.
It was strange. I had seen the one scene I least wanted to see, yet the feeling that stayed with me at the end of the day wasn’t only sadness or misery.
For the first time in a long while, I had enjoyed myself.
Sitting across from someone, eating food I liked, laughing at pointless stories. I had almost forgotten how warm something that ordinary could feel.
For the past twenty years Woo Han-gyeol had been the only person at my side. Taking care of her had been my entire world; there had been no room and no energy left for other connections.
But once I stepped back from her, other things finally came into view.
People like Kim Seol-ah. And the small, warm stretches of time you could share with someone like that.
"……Guess I’ll see you around, huh."
Remembering Seol-ah’s blunt goodbye, I smiled a little to myself.
That had clearly meant she wanted to see me again. And I hadn’t disliked the time we’d spent either.
Maybe I hadn’t only lost something after all.
When the world that was Woo Han-gyeol closed, other doors I had never noticed began to appear one by one. Maybe I had spent far too long staring at only a single door.
Holding that thought, I slowly closed my eyes.
The next morning I woke early, the same as always.
Old habit. Han-gyeol often felt heavy in the mornings, so there had usually been something I needed to do—waking her, getting her ready.
Still half-asleep I sat up and started to change clothes.
I had to go get her. We always walked to school together, the way we always had.
……Then I stopped moving.
No.
I didn’t need to do that anymore.
Waking her, walking with her—none of it was my responsibility now.
I had told myself that several times already, yet my body still remembered the old routine. Getting the body to listen after the mind had already decided was harder than it looked.
I set the clothes back down and lay on the bed again.
There was still plenty of time before school. The stretch of morning that used to be filled with looking after her now sat completely empty.
I could have slept a little longer. Sleep, for some reason, refused to come back.
I stared blankly at the ceiling and simply endured the strangeness of that emptied morning.
In the end I left the house a little earlier than usual.
The walk to school alone was quiet enough to feel awkward.
This road had always held Woo Han-gyeol. Matching her slow pace, carrying her bag for her, trading meaningless talk—that had been how my days began.
Walking it alone, the road felt too fast.
No one to match steps with, no bag to carry. It seemed the whole distance would finish in half the time it used to take.
Even though the path itself was familiar, I felt like I was walking somewhere strange.
The habit of slowing my feet to match hers still lingered; without thinking I kept wanting to ease my pace.
Same scenery, same alleys. Only one person missing from my side, and yet the world could look this different. The thought struck me as oddly new.
It felt lonely, and at the same time light. Not knowing how to hold both feelings at once, I simply kept walking in silence.
I was still lost in that when—
Thump!
Someone smacked me hard between the shoulder blades from behind.
"Hey! Lee Ji-an!"
A familiar voice. I turned and found Park So-yeon standing there with a broad grin.
Park So-yeon had been a friend since elementary school. Not as long as Han-gyeol, but long enough that she had watched me from close by for years.
Bright and straightforward, she was the type who always charged in first without hesitation.
"Whoa, what’s this? You’re alone?"
She fell into step beside me and said it teasingly.
"Where’d you leave the main body? Just sending the clone today? You without Woo Han-gyeol is seriously weird."
It was a joke without any real edge.
To her, Han-gyeol and I had always been a matched set. Seeing me alone was simply novel.
"……Just felt like coming separately today."
I answered the same offhand way I had answered my mother and the nurse the day before.
This time the other person was different.
Park So-yeon, who had been about to let it slide, suddenly stopped walking and peered straight into my face.
"……Hold up. What’s with that expression."
"What expression."
"That’s not a ‘just felt like it’ face."
Her eyes narrowed. Then she went straight for the heart of it.
"You! Something happened with Woo Han-gyeol."
"……How’d you know."
"How’d I know? It’s written all over your face."
She gave a short, incredulous laugh.
"A guy who’s stuck to her like gum for ten years suddenly shows up alone, and his face looks like somebody died. Anyone with eyes would put it together. I’m not that dense, you know?"
Park So-yeon always looked bright and light, but she was faster than anyone at reading people. A few vague excuses weren’t going to get past her.
"……Yeah, well. Something like that."
In the end that was as much as I could mumble.
That a twenty-year unrequited love had ended, that I had decided to step back from her side—saying all of that out loud still felt like too much when so much of it remained unsorted inside me.
Park So-yeon looked at my face for a moment.
Something complicated flickered across her expression—surprise, worry, or something else I couldn’t quite name.
But only for a second. She slipped back into her usual face and didn’t push any further.
"Okay, I won’t dig. You look like you really don’t want to talk about it."
Then she suddenly grinned and slung an arm around my shoulders.
"But depending how you look at it, isn’t this a total opportunity?"
"……Opportunity?"
"Yeah. You used to skip every single hangout because you had to look after Han-gyeol. Now you’re free, right?"
She tugged me closer with shameless confidence.
"Great. Starting today I’m monopolizing you. Don’t even think about looking anywhere else."
Even while making that bold declaration, she glanced away from my eyes at the very end.
The sheer shamelessness of it pulled a short laugh out of me despite myself.
She didn’t pry for reasons and she didn’t pile on heavy words of comfort. She just lightly, like a joke, filled a little of the empty space at my side.
Because of that, the weight in my chest eased a little.
Thinking about it, both Kim Seol-ah yesterday and Park So-yeon today had been approaching me in their own ways like this.
"……Thanks."
I muttered it quietly.
"Hm? What?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
"What the—say it properly or don’t say it at all. That’s just annoying."
I started walking toward school again with Park So-yeon grumbling at my side.
Even her pointless complaining didn’t feel bad today.
The school road that had been empty a moment ago was suddenly two people again.
Woo Han-gyeol was still not beside me. But that empty place felt a little less cold now.