EP 1. Han Chaea (1)
I couldn't even say when I'd started liking Hyunwoo. When we first met, he was just my mom's friend's son; a little while later, we'd somehow become close friends. Then, at some point, a strange new feeling took root — and while I was still puzzling over what it meant, Hyunwoo moved away.
The reason was a common one. His father had been transferred to another part of the country, and the whole family had to move with him. It wasn't as if the possibility had never crossed my mind. Childhood bonds rarely lasted into adulthood, after all, and I'd always known I might need to brace myself for that goodbye someday. Even so, I had wanted this one relationship — this one — to last forever.
The tears came anyway. After Hyunwoo moved away, I cried all day long — cried until I didn't think a single drop of moisture was left in my body. And somewhere in the middle of all that crying, it finally hit me. I'm in love with Hyunwoo.
So I threw myself into it like a woman possessed. I found out which high school he was aiming for and clawed my grades up to match it. Even hunched over my desk, I couldn't keep my mind off him.
How much had he grown by now? Was he taller than me? His voice over the phone had gotten so much deeper and cooler — would I even recognize him if I saw him in person? Every time thoughts like those flooded my head, it hurt like crazy, but I endured. If I was going to give up the only way I had of seeing him at all, I might as well have given up on loving him from the very start.
But following him to his school was no small feat. Without my parents' blessing, no amount of wanting would get me there. In a way, I was lucky the school Hyunwoo had his eye on weighed grades so heavily — it meant that much more studying, but it let me convince my parents beyond a doubt.
Living on my own, sadly, fell through — my parents' verdict being, "There's a perfectly good dormitory, so what kind of high schooler moves out on her own?" — but that was fine. If I missed Hyunwoo, I could always just go visit his house. It was what I'd always done when we were little.
I worked on my appearance, too. I tamed the hair that used to stick out in every direction, and for the first time in my life, I learned how to put on makeup. And honestly? The finished product was genuinely pretty — pretty enough that I caught myself marveling at the mirror every single time.
If this was how it would turn out, maybe I should have started dolling myself up ages ago. If Hyunwoo had seen me looking like this, he surely would have liked it. I regretted it, just a little.
And somewhere along the way, confessions started rolling in. From genuinely handsome boys to ones who looked like they'd strolled straight out of a back alley. Whenever I sat reading alone at school, at least one admirer a week would work up the nerve to approach me. The answer, of course, was always no. My first love belonged to the person I actually loved — that was the whole point.
As the days piled up, so did my confidence — the certainty that with looks like these, I could win Hyunwoo over without breaking a sweat. But I couldn't let my guard down yet. There was always the chance he already had a girlfriend. A guy as good as Hyunwoo? No way he was single. That was what I told myself.
But when the agonizing finally ran its course, I landed on a simple verdict: it didn't matter. As long as Hyunwoo didn't spend the rest of his life with her, I still had my chance. I could wait as long as it took. A little more waiting? Nothing — I could do that standing on my head. What I never saw coming, of course, was that Hyunwoo had been a Motae Solo — single since birth — this entire time.
The problem, though— No matter how hard I signaled, Hyunwoo never once caught on that I liked him. No, "never caught on" was putting it mildly. To him, I was still exactly what I'd always been: the neighborhood kid who'd tagged along at his side since we were little.
He'd laugh when we were together, tease me like it was nothing, and every so often lean in so close I thought my heart would burst — and then carry on as if none of it meant a thing. Which only made it more maddening. My feelings had blown clean past anything friendship was allowed to hold ages ago, but Hyunwoo showed no sign of ever wanting to step beyond that line himself.
I was positive I'd gotten prettier.
"Be honest. I'm at least kind of pretty now, right?"
"I hate admitting it, but... yeah. You are."
I'd been sure that was more than enough to catch his eye.
"Hey, Lee Hyunwoo. What do you think would happen if you and I started dating?"
"What kind of nonsense is that first thing in the morning... Did you take the wrong meds? Or no — did you skip the meds you were supposed to take?"
"Jerk."
"If I'm such a jerk, then hook me up with someone, won't you? Any of your friends. Come on, one yeo-so. I'm seriously confident I'd be good at it."
Listening to Hyunwoo grumble on and on about wanting a girlfriend, I honestly began to wonder whether he saw me as a girl at all. But quitting was never on the table. Once I set my mind on something, I saw it through to the end — that was simply who I was. And if I couldn't maneuver Hyunwoo into confessing first, then fine: I'd confess first myself.
So what if a rejection made things a little awkward? If we started drifting apart, I'd just close the distance again. For Hyunwoo's sake, holding out and waiting was something I could do without end. And for that, this summer was my window. Once the break was over and we hit the stretch where studying had to come first, there'd be no clean opening left to bare my heart — that much was certain. And then, at last—
"So, hey. Wanna go out with me?"
Hyunwoo confessed to me.
Chaea's cheeks had flushed a deep red. The words I'd thrown out there hadn't come from any real feeling — they were, quite literally, a prank. In my head, I'd already scripted out my responses to every answer she could possibly give. Her answer was obvious, after all.
"Sure."
"Right. You're always saying you can't stand me — like I could ever have a love life anyway."
"I never said I can't stand you."
Had I misheard that? By every expectation, the answer should have been a flat "no way."
"I didn't just hear that wrong, did I? Because I'm pretty sure you said yes..."
Chaea didn't look away. If anything, she leaned in a little closer. Maybe she'd seen through me. I did pull pranks on her all the time. Maybe she'd caught on to everything and was now turning the tables, having her fun at my expense. That was what I told myself.
"I'm saying let's do it. What did I tell you? What girl alive would turn down your confession? I'm in."
"...You like me?"
"You're only figuring that out now, dummy? I made it so obvious."
"Since when?"
"If you're asking since when, I honestly couldn't say. I just snapped out of it one day and my head was already stuffed to the brim with three syllables: Lee. Hyun. Woo."
So this was that feeling people only ever described in words — the heart plunging straight through the floor. My mind went blank. Even now, I had to tell her it was a joke, that none of it had been sincere. Confessing to someone you didn't even like was obviously, unforgivably wrong.
But now that I'd heard those words, could we really go back to what we'd been before? The answer was already written. No — there was no way we could. My throat had gone bone-dry. I couldn't bear to wipe that happy smile off Chaea's face. Whatever else she was, she was still my best friend.
"Hey, Lee Hyunwoo. Well? How does it feel, dating your noona? Give me one honest impression. You've officially escaped Motae Solo status — isn't today a landmark day for you? It is for me, that's for sure."
"What noona... All you've got on me is fifteen days."
"Doesn't matter — a noona's a noona. Wow, though. I always figured that in the end, I'd be the one to confess. Never in a million years did I picture it happening like this."
"Uh, y-yeah... I guess?"
"Are you really going to keep answering while looking everywhere but at me? Keep that up and I'll start feeling lonely from day one of this relationship."
If I leapt out the second-floor window, how badly would it hurt? Total memory loss, though — that was probably asking too much.
"So hold on, Chaea. You told me it was a coincidence, you ending up at my school. But it wasn't, was it? You followed me there because you liked me?"
"Hehe, busted. I studied my absolute hardest, you know. How much do you figure a person has to like someone to chase them to another school?"
"Then why didn't you ever say anything?"
"Because I was scared. I didn't know how you'd see me after. Worst case, I wanted to keep you as a friend."
This was Han Chaea, through and through. The kind of person who put others before herself, every time — the textbook definition of a genuinely good soul. Watching her beam and toy with my hair even now, I felt my chest tighten for no reason I could name.
"You really did love me all along, huh..."
"Obviously. Every time I saw you, I could barely stop myself from running straight over and throwing my arms around you."
The rims of my eyes went hot. How on earth had I never noticed? Chaea hadn't changed one bit — not from the very first day to this one.
"I must be trash."
Before I knew it, tears were running down my face.
"Hey, what's wrong? Is it because I made you call me noona?"
"No, it's not that..."
"Then is it because you thought I'd turn you down, and I said yes instead?"
Come to think of it, Chaea had always been exactly this way. I could picture her giggling, insisting that "I like you" was a perfectly normal thing to say between friends. Why hadn't I seen it? If I'd thought about it for even one more second, I'd have realized that, at the very least, "I like you" wasn't something said so lightly between a boy and a girl.
Chaea rose from the bed and came quietly around behind me. Then, without a word, she wrapped her arms around me and whispered.
"It's okay. You can cry more."
"Hng... hic... hah..."
"I'm sorry I carry around feelings this overwhelming. I'll hold you like this until you tell me you're okay. We're a couple now, so this much is allowed, right?"
"...I don't get why you'd love someone like me."
"Because you're you. From the very start, you were the only person I could love — so there was never any helping it. And here I thought our Hyunwoo was always so prickly with me. Turns out he's secretly a softie who cries."
I couldn't bring myself to pull free of Chaea's arms — not when she was cradling me like that. I didn't want to let go. If this was where it would end up, I never should have made it a joke in the first place. If only I'd been able to face those feelings of hers with the seriousness they deserved. I was sorry — sorry through and through, about all of it.