I Like You, Like, A Lot (4)
Today feels strange. No, maybe it’s not just today. Lately, I’ve been acting really weird.
“Tired from all the walking? You don’t look so good.”
“No, it’s nothing. I just spaced out for a second. Probably post-meal drowsiness.”
I’m hyper-aware of every little thing Taeo does. Like right now. For a moment, I even forget we’re filming and start whining at him. The camera sitting at the corner of the table seems to glare at me, as if asking what on earth I’m doing.
Does it really think we’re dating? All he did was wipe seasoning off my mouth with a tissue… Actions that used to feel completely normal between friends suddenly don’t anymore. I didn’t say anything, but it’s been like this the whole shoot today. When he caught me in the second-year classroom, when he carried me on his back in front of the gym for that “reenactment,” and even when his hand accidentally slipped under my skirt and brushed my inner thigh.
Things that should have been brushed off like usual suddenly feel anything but usual. Embarrassing. Awkward. And my heart won’t stop racing. When his face came so close earlier, I couldn’t even meet his eyes. I was terrified he’d notice how wildly my pupils were shaking. When his hand touched my inner thigh, an involuntary, almost sensual sound escaped me, and my heart pounded so hard I thought it might burst. It felt like static electricity was crackling across his body, sending sparks through me whenever we touched.
Why? Is it because of that question he asked me that day? Because that single question made me start doubting a relationship I’d always taken for granted, and now that seed of doubt is lodged in my chest?
……This isn’t a normal friendship. Normal friends don’t think it’s okay to kiss each other. So what exactly are we?
If I can’t find an answer inside myself, does that mean I have to keep living like this?
“I need some water.”
“Warm?”
“No! Cold. No warm water at all. Just straight-up ice water.”
“That’s unexpected. Since when do you ask for cold water?”
“The tteokbokki’s a little spicy, that’s all.”
No. The tteokbokki at the neighborhood snack shop is only sweet. There’s barely any heat to it. It just looks bright red because they dump on extra chili powder for color. I only asked for cold water because I wanted to snap out of this feverish state, to clear my head.
Taeo doesn’t argue. He simply fills a cup from the water dispenser behind him and hands it to me. I feel the chill of the stainless-steel cup against my fingers and gulp the icy water down. The cold shock finally brings my overheated body back to normal temperature.
To hide my emotions, I slap on an even brighter mask than usual.
“Okay, let’s do the feeding-each-other thing, Yoon Taeo.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s feed each other tteokbokki. I’ll go first. Ah~!”
I shoot him a subtle glance toward the camera. Like he said, this is just for the shoot. We’re only pretending to be a couple to get good footage.
I spear a piece of fish cake he likes onto a toothpick and hold it out to him. Taeo swallows the fried tempura he was chewing, looking slightly awkward as he opens his mouth. I don’t know why that expression strikes me as cute. He takes the small piece of fish cake into his mouth and chews slowly.
“Tastes better when someone feeds you, right?”
“……Maybe?”
“No vague answers allowed.”
“It’s good. Tastes like it’s laced with something.”
“Your wording is weird. That’s not going on YouTube.”
“How about ‘Drug Tteokbokki in Front of Hyeondeok High’? Title?”
“We’re not even doing a couple vlog anymore. This is just a mukbang channel at this point…”
“Weren’t we always an eating channel? We film ourselves eating every single time.”
“That’s true, but… anyway, no.”
Taeo naturally picks up his own toothpick and spears a piece of tteok, bringing it to my lips.
“Your turn. Open up. Want me to make it a plane? I’m pretty good at that.”
He waves the toothpick around like a roller coaster, teasing me.
“……Do I look like a kid to you?”
“You and my little cousin probably have the same mental age.”
“How old is she?”
“Four.”
“Hey, even so, I’m beating a four-year-old!”
“So you want to win against a four-year-old in mental age. Interesting.”
“Winning is always good, isn’t it?”
“You’ve got some seriously misplaced competitiveness, Chae-ryeong. I think you need another lesson from the teacher.”
I open my mouth because he told me to, but somehow this feels embarrassing too. If I open too wide, he’ll see everything inside. Once I start overthinking, everything becomes mortifying. And there’s that toothpick, shiny with leftover sauce from his mouth. …So it’s been in Yoon Taeo’s mouth. The thought makes me hesitate.
……Stop it, Yoo Chae-ryeong. Get a grip. Are you actually an elementary schooler? Thinking about something so stupid!
Before my mind can spiral any further into delusions, I squeeze my eyes shut and open my mouth—just a little, so he won’t get too good a look inside.
“….Mm.”
His toothpick slips between my lips. I carefully use my teeth to pull only the tteok off without touching the stick, then chew slowly, pretending I’m not thinking about anything at all.
“It’s good. Because my boyfriend fed it to me. Tastes delicious.”
I mutter the line to fill the silence, even though I can barely taste anything. While I pretend to be absorbed in the tteokbokki mukbang, Taeo asks from beside me,
“Should we talk about that now?”
“That?”
“You said you wanted to tell the viewers how we started dating. The comments keep asking how we got together.”
“……Ah.”
Right. That’s why we came here. I almost forgot and turned this into a pure eating video.
“You really forgot? Seriously?”
“What are you talking about? Of course I didn’t forget. I was planning to tell the story at the very end. You just brought it up first.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Yes. That’s right. So, as far as I know, you’ve liked me since high school, correct?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“The actual getting-together part is pretty simple—we started dating after you confessed in college. That’s why I thought telling the past story would be better. How did you end up falling for me?”
I grin as I speak. Taeo pauses for a moment, probably recalling the script. I wonder how well he prepared it. Smiling inwardly, I decide to judge his writing like a stern reviewer.
“Honestly, this story isn’t much more special than the confession itself.”
With a bittersweet smile, as if reminiscing, Taeo begins.
“It was a day just like today. Second-year midterms. I’d bombed the test and was feeling down, so you brought me here. Remember?”
He starts recounting that day.
#
Looking back now, I think I was pretty lonely as a kid. After my dad’s business failed, our family was drowning in debt. Mom worked late at the restaurant to pay it off. Once I was old enough to stay home alone—after elementary school—there was never anyone there. When I came home from school, I was always the first one to turn on the lights in the dark house.
That’s why I liked school. At least I wasn’t lonely there. I didn’t have to boil instant noodles alone in a dark room or stare at my phone. Because Yoo Chae-ryeong was always beside me, bouncing around and raising the energy just by existing. Thanks to her, there was never any room for loneliness or gloom.
“Why do you look so rotten again? If you’ve got nothing to do, come here. Let’s play.”
“Yoon Taeo~! Let’s go to the snack shop! The snack shop! Why not? I’ll buy! New bread just came out! We have to try it!”
“Hey, studying again? Aren’t you sick of it? That drama I watched yesterday was actually really good. Let’s watch it together.”
It was her who taught me—the kid who only studied because he didn’t know how to play or what else to do—how fun it could be to be around people. Ever since kindergarten, she’d always been bright, energetic, and got along with everyone. So maybe it was only natural that I was drawn to her, a girl who shone like the sun no matter where she stood.
“Mom would’ve died without you, Taeo. Thanks to my son, I’m still alive. Really.”
I studied hard not just because I got bored without Chae-ryeong and had nothing else to do besides games. There was something more. My parents never pressured me directly, but they’d endured such a hard life, and it was like they needed proof that it had all been worth it. They always asked about school, and whenever I brought home good grades, they looked so genuinely happy. “You’re the only pillar holding up this family, Taeo.”
With Dad’s failure, everyone was struggling, so I must have been their only hope. As an adult I understand how they felt, but back then it was a pretty heavy burden. I lived like a model student just so I wouldn’t disappoint them.
That’s why bombing my second-year midterm exams was such a huge shock. …What was I supposed to tell Mom? Had I played around too much? Gotten arrogant because I’d been doing well?
While I was sitting there depressed with my failed exam results, Chae-ryeong slid up beside me like always.
“What’s wrong? Did you fail the test?”
“……Yeah. They said the difficulty was easy overall, too. Guess that’s how it goes…”
Normally she would’ve laughed and teased me, but seeing how genuinely down I was, she didn’t joke around that day. After school she simply said,
“How long are you going to sit there like that? You’re making me depressed too. Come on, big sis will buy you something tasty.”
I let her pull me along to our usual snack shop. Just like now, we ordered Tteok-Sun-Twi and shared it. When I showed a bit of my gloomy mood, she asked,
“Was it that bad? How bad?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t know how bad.”
“Even if you failed, it can’t be as bad as mine, right?”
“……Comparing myself to you doesn’t mean anything.”
“It does. Why wouldn’t it? I might not be as good as you, but I’m not exactly bad at studying either, you know?”
“…That’s true.”
If I was top-tier, she was solidly upper-tier. People just compared us because we were always together. She hesitated for a moment, then carefully let out what she’d been holding in.
“Actually… Yoon Taeo.”
“Yeah?”
“I know this might sound weird, but… when you said you bombed the test, I was kind of happy?”
“Happy? What, did you actually hate me?”
When I grumbled like I’d known it all along, she shook her head with tteokbokki still in her hand.
“No, that’s not what I meant. I just thought… if your grades dropped a bit, maybe we could go to the same college. So… I was a little happy…”
“……”
Chae-ryeong fidgeted, her eyes darting around like she was checking my reaction.
“I was a little anxious, you know? You always got good grades. I liked that you did well, but every time the gap grew, I kept thinking… maybe we won’t be able to go to the same college. Maybe not even nearby ones. They say long distance makes friends drift apart, too. Those thoughts kept popping up.”
“….I see.”
I was momentarily speechless, thinking about her worry. I’d been so focused on getting good grades that I’d never really considered how our relationship might change once we went to college. I’d just assumed Chae-ryeong would always be right beside me, like always.
“So you don’t have to be that sad even if you messed up, right? If it doesn’t work out, you can just go to the same college as me.”
Her clumsy reassurance, mixed with her true feelings, might have reached me more than I realized. Because the moment I heard it, a thought flashed through my mind.
……What would happen if I were separated from Yoo Chae-ryeong? I wasn’t exactly happy during the moments she wasn’t around. Did that mean I’d just live lonely, boring, joyless days like when I was home alone?
Imagining a life without her already felt impossibly difficult. But what came out of my mouth was still blunt.
“What, you want me to go to college with you too?”
“Why? You don’t want to go to the same college as me?”
“No… it’s not that I hate the idea, but…”
Chae-ryeong, who’d been wearing a serious expression, took a sip of water. Then, with a slightly shy, flushed face, she looked at me and said,
“I… Yoon Taeo. I want to stay with you from now on, too. I like you, you know. A lot.”
At that moment, sunlight streaming through the window lit up her face. Hearing her shyly confess while blushing like that made my breath catch in my throat.
……Cute. This girl.
It was the first time I’d ever thought Chae-ryeong was cute. So maybe it wasn’t so strange that my heart started pounding like crazy right after.