Sensitive
I decided to join the library club.
It was absolutely, absolutely not because Han Areum had lured me in with the promise of special treatment. Besides, that so-called lure had amounted to nothing more than her saying she'd make things easier for me if I joined. No — the reason I was signing up for the library club was simply that I had no other club to join.
The baking club Kim Hyewon was headed to? I like eating cookies; making them is another matter entirely. The photography club Han Sohyeon was joining seemed like the least painful option, but the workload looked exhausting, so that was a pass too. Sohyeon's outgoing personality might handle it just fine, but too many activities drain the life out of me. And the board game club I'd joined last year was out of the question from the start.
Which left the library club as the only choice on the table. Besides, if I had to pick anyway, a club where I already knew someone was the smarter move.
"Bye, you guys! See you tomorrow!"
"Yeah. Bye."
Kim Hyewon saw Han Areum and Han Sohyeon off as their bus pulled away. And just like that, the two of us were walking home alone.
"Hyewon."
"Hm?"
"Why'd you join the baking club?"
We had nothing to talk about, and the silent walk was starting to feel empty, so I'd reached for the most neutral topic I could find. Honestly, though, I was curious too.
And then—
"Because there are no boys."
"...Because there are no boys?"
Now that was a refreshingly novel answer. Not that Kim Hyewon could possibly be some man-hating feminist.
"The baking club is all girls. No boys around to bother me, so it's comfortable."
"Hmm."
Bother me, she says.
Come to think of it, we'd touched on this before — back when she offered to play my fake girlfriend. She'd called her reason a secret then and never explained it, but maybe the two were connected after all.
"Do the boys, like, ambush you with confessions or something?" I asked, half in jest.
"Yeah."
She meant it. Why on earth did she mean it?
"...Seriously?"
"Ever since I was little, boys would confess to me at the drop of a hat."
"..."
"So I got frozen out by the girls, too."
"You were bullied?"
"Yeah. Rumors went around that I'd stolen boys other girls liked, or that I was stringing guys along."
It was a lot heavier than I'd expected.
"And you never actually did any of that?"
"No. I just kept to myself, and people confessed on their own and gossiped on their own."
"...That must have been rough."
"It was. So after that, I stopped getting close to boys. If I'm near them, the girls start making my life exhausting too."
So even being too beautiful came with worries like these. Well, fair enough — there's no such thing as a perfect person in this world, and even if someone were, the people around them would never leave them in peace. One way or another, they'd get swept up in something.
"So that's why you kept such a low profile in class before you got close to me."
"Right."
For the first time, her behavior actually made sense. I'd chalked it all up to personality — turns out the problem was that she was too popular for her own good.
The mood had gotten heavy, so I tossed in a little joke.
"Don't worry. I won't attack you with any confessions."
"...You'd be allowed to, though."
She murmured something under her breath.
"Hm?"
"Nothing."
What had she just said?
Meanwhile, she lifted her head and looked straight at me.
"Want me to make you something?"
"Make me what, out of nowhere?"
"Homemade cookies."
Homemade cookies?
"I'm good at baking them."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Well, of course. She'd been in the baking club since last year — it would've been stranger if her skills hadn't improved.
"Then can you make me some?"
A flicker of anticipation stirred in my chest. Getting cookies from a friend — from a girl, no less — was practically a first in my life. Maybe she read that anticipation on my face, because her eyes curved into a smile.
"Yeah. Look forward to it. I'll make them pretty."
"See you in the morning."
"Yeah. Good night, Baek Seojun."
Kim Hyewon and I parted at each other's front doors. Back in my room, I flopped onto the bed out of habit and reached for my phone.
And then.
"...?"
Chaeeun had texted me. Quite a lot, at that.
A sigh escaped me before I could stop it. It felt like something had wedged itself in my throat.
"...Hah."
Looking closer, a few missed calls sat on top of the texts. I'd been so absorbed with Hyewon and the others that I hadn't noticed any of it.
Then—
Bzzt—
I flinched. "...?"
...What the—? It wasn't as if I'd been glued to our chat window this whole time, so how did she know the second I read her messages? It lasted only an instant, but it sent a chill down my spine.
Whether I answered or not, the texts just kept coming.
Like a parrot, she kept repeating the same line — face to face, face to face. Which made a suspicion flicker to life.
...She really is.
Hold on, though. ...It had been hours by then — and she was still standing out in front of my old place?
She was being completely unreasonable.
"..."
In the end, there was nothing for it but to tie this off properly, once and for all.
"Kim Chaeeun."
"Seojun."
She really had been waiting at the park near my old apartment. The moment I saw her, I barely managed to swallow a sigh — she was still in her school uniform, having apparently never gone home at all.
"So, hah... how long have you been standing outside my place?"
"...Since you ran off with those girls, Seojun."
"So you've been there this whole time. Practically from the very start."
"...Yeah."
Was I supposed to call this lingering attachment — or outright madness?
"Why would you wait like that? This could've waited for another day."
"...Actually, I'm the one who wants to ask you something."
Kim Chaeeun's eyes locked onto me.
"Why didn't you tell me in advance?"
"Tell you what?"
"That you were moving. You could've given me a heads-up. When did you even move?"
There was a distinct edge to Chaeeun's voice now.
"...Hah."
I'd honestly lost count of how many times I'd sighed today. Part of me thought I should never have brought up the move in the first place — but then, I'd have had to tell her eventually. She was going to find out one way or another. I'd told her today because it seemed like the bare minimum of courtesy, person to person.
But.
"Chaeeun."
"Yeah."
"Are you my girlfriend?"
"...Huh?"
Bare minimum courtesy. That was all this was.
"I get that you're upset. We're close 'friends,' so finding out I moved with no warning must sting."
Right. Sensitive people — people who pour more feeling into their friends than they realize — might well be hurt by a friend suddenly moving without a word. All the more so when it was a childhood friend. From where she stood, my old apartment had practically been our hideout.
However.
"But that's not the kind of thing you drag a friend out into the middle of the night for."
Her attitude had crossed straight into obsession.
"Why not? That's how close we are."
For one absurd moment, her words almost had me wondering whether I was the twisted one.
That single phrase — how close we are — cracked open everything I'd been holding back.
"...And what exactly are we?"
Childhood friends? The boy who confessed and got shot down? Every bitter answer clawed at the back of my throat — but I kept my voice level.
"Chaeeun. Friends don't have conversations like this. Nobody reacts this sharply to a friend simply moving apartments."
"...I'm being sensitive?"
"Yeah. Chaeeun, you're being incredibly sensitive right now."
Granted, so was I.
"That's because we're childhood friends—"
"Even if we are."
...Phew.
"Even if we're childhood friends, this isn't okay."
All your friend did was move apartments. A move is a move — making this wounded a show over not being told in advance was strange.
"You're not my girlfriend. Why are you making such a scene over this?"
"That's..."
"It's strange. You know it is."
I was angry. I couldn't have named exactly what had set me off, but just looking at Kim Chaeeun made my blood rise. That look on her face — unable to even read her own heart. She was the one who'd rejected me, and she was the one who kept leaving the door open for me to get the wrong idea.
"We're not anything, you and I. What reason could I possibly have to report every little thing in my life to you?"
"..."
"There isn't one."
Right. In the end, she and I were nothing to each other. Childhood friends, technically — but that was the whole of it. The only thread still connecting us was that single, frayed bond called childhood.
"Dragging a friend all the way out here in the dead of night over something this trivial — does that make any sense?"
"..."
Head bowed, she said nothing at all. Deciding she'd given up, I turned to leave.
"We're done here, so go on home. If you still want to talk, we can do it next time — when you've calmed down."
But then—
"...So that's what this is about?"
"...?"
The faint murmur from behind me stopped me cold.
"...Are you saying you're acting like this because I turned down your confession back then?"