Tell Me You Love Me
“Huh? Jung-woo.”
“H-Ha-rin?”
Is this what they call a wrong encounter?
We’d broken up because of our clashing personalities, so it hadn’t ended badly. We could’ve run into each other on the street and greeted one another like old friends. But… this was different. How was I supposed to treat my ex-girlfriend like a friend when my current girlfriend was standing right beside me?
“Jung-woo, who is she?”
“Uh… she’s, well, someone I was close to back in middle school. A friend.”
Ha-rin tilted her head at my answer, her gaze dropping to the hand I was holding with Chae-yeon. Then a tiny smile crept across her face, like she’d just found something entertaining.
Oh god, please no. I’d done plenty of things wrong during the year and a half we dated, sure, but couldn’t she let me off the hook just this once?
I stared at her with desperate eyes. Her response was to flip me off from an angle Chae-yeon couldn’t see.
Haha. I’m dead.
“You’re only calling her a close friend? We dated for a year and a half, you know.”
“…Ex-girlfriend?”
“She is… my ex-girlfriend, yeah.”
Time had changed Ha-rin’s appearance completely. If you compared her to the photo in our middle school graduation album, you’d never think they were the same person. Come to think of it, Chae-yeon and Ha-rin actually knew each other, but neither of them recognized the other’s transformed look.
“Wait, is that you, Chae-yeon?”
Ha-rin recognized her first.
“Yeah, it’s me. Ha-rin, right?”
“You remember me?! We haven’t seen each other since elementary school.”
“I’m surprised you remember me too.”
“Are you dating Jung-woo right now?”
“Yeah, we’re together.”
“How long has it been?”
“Just passed a hundred days.”
I tried to step away so the two of them could talk, but Chae-yeon kept a death grip on my hand and wouldn’t let go. It wasn’t just holding anymore—I could feel her squeezing tighter and tighter. The longer Ha-rin stuck around, the longer I might actually live.
“What’s it like dating Jung-woo?”
“It’s fun. He’s really considerate.”
“Considerate? Him?!”
“Yeah. He adjusts to me really well. Though he does tease me sometimes.”
Ha-rin’s eyes flicked toward me, as if demanding an explanation for what she’d just heard.
People change. And since I was still a middle schooler when I dated Ha-rin, I’d been immature back then. After everything I’d been through over the years, I couldn’t help but be better at relationships now.
“What? Why?”
“Why weren’t you like that when you were dating me?”
“W-well…”
“Why? Was Jung-woo awful back then?”
“Don’t even get me started. Zero consideration, and I was always the one who had to text first.”
“Jung-woo, so you’ve had communication issues since way back?”
“B-but I’ve improved a lot, haven’t I?”
“Yeah, you have. You’ve gotten much better.”
Luckily, the murderous aura I’d been feeling from Chae-yeon had faded. Maybe because she was learning things about me she never knew, her iron grip loosened little by little.
I was just about to seize the chance to escape when—
“Still, it was nice. Dating you.”
One sentence from Ha-rin made Chae-yeon’s hand clamp down on mine again. Why was she digging up memories from nine years ago in front of my current girlfriend? What kind of picture was she trying to paint by dropping this bomb?
“It was nice?”
“Yeah. When we were alone, he only ever focused on me. Never looked anywhere else.”
“How did you two end up dating?”
“Jung-woo confessed to me about ten times, I think? We started dating on the tenth try.”
“He confessed ten times?”
It sounded like something you’d dismiss as a lie, but it was true. I’d had a crush on Ha-rin since my first year of middle school and wanted to date her. I confessed for the first time once we’d gotten pretty close, and even after she kept turning me down, I didn’t give up. In the end, we started dating on the tenth confession. Even I had to admit I was crazy. Who confesses to the same girl ten times?
“On the last confession, he gave me a bracelet. Of course, I threw it away when we broke up.”
“A bracelet? So Jung-woo tries to win over every girl he likes with a bracelet?”
“Uh… when you put it like that, I don’t really have a defense.”
Ha-rin spent a long time sharing fond memories of our time together before finally leaving. The moment she was gone, a heavy silence fell, and the air around my neck grew colder than the winter wind.
I was definitely going to die now.
“Jung-woo.”
“Y-yeah, Yeoni.”
“Did you like dating her?”
“Uh… no?”
“Don’t lie. Tell me the truth.”
“Honestly… yeah, I did. I liked her for a long time, and we only started dating after I confessed ten times.”
“Then do you like dating me now more, or did you like dating her more?”
There was no need to think about that question. The answer was obvious. I was far happier now. My first relationship had been everything I’d wanted, but I was young and our personalities didn’t match, so we fought constantly. Every fight brought stress. I’d had to suffer without even understanding why it kept happening. Who wouldn’t call the relationship I had now—one anyone would envy—happy in comparison?
“I really, truly like now so much more. My first relationship doesn’t even cross my mind anymore.”
“It doesn’t cross your mind at all?”
“Sometimes it does… but when I’m spending time with you, Yeoni, I only think about you.”
“Then tell me you love me.”
Chae-yeon ran forward and buried her face in my chest. I stroked her hair gently and whispered into her ear.
“I love you, Yeoni.”
“Say it again.”
“I love you, Yeoni.”
“I… love you too.”
Surrounded by the bustling crowd, we simply held each other, focusing on the warmth of our bodies. Thankfully, things hadn’t escalated into a big problem. The incident was over. If it had blown up… ugh, I didn’t even want to imagine it.
Thanks to my confident answer, the icy killing intent I’d felt from Chae-yeon had completely vanished.
“Jung-woo. I have a question.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“You can’t eat vegetables, right? Do you take your supplements properly?”
“Supplements? Well… I try to remember to take them.”
“Make sure you do. You have so many things you can’t eat compared to other people.”
Why did I have to hear the exact same scolding from Chae-yeon that I got from my mom? Sometimes I thought Chae-yeon was more of a mother than my own mother. Her storm of nagging was so intense it made me sigh the entire time I listened.
“Chae-yeon, here.”
I twirled some pasta around the fork and fed it to her. Watching her cheeks puff out as she chewed was incredibly cute. I often felt vicarious satisfaction from watching people who could eat well when I couldn’t, but seeing Chae-yeon eat always filled me with even more pride.
“Jung-woo, should we start planning our trip now?”
“Yeah, let’s do that. You said you wanted to go to Japan, right?”
“Yes!! I really want to go.”
“But why Japan? There are plenty of other countries.”
“I’ve been there a lot with my friends, but never alone with you. So I want to go.”
“I’ve only been once.”
“Then I guess I know more about it?”
“I think I’d still be better at communicating, though.”
“This time the communication will actually work, so it’ll be easier than last time!!”
I’d probably need to start studying Japanese again before the trip. Even though I knew a decent amount, it had been a while since I’d used it. If I went like this, proper communication would be difficult.
“How many days should we stay?”
“What about three nights and four days?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Where in Japan?”
“Sapporo is great for a winter trip in Japan, but it might be too cold?”
“Even if it’s cold, there’s something special about seeing the snow-covered mountains. And it snows a lot. Let’s go to Sapporo!!”
“When should we set the dates?”
“How about a month from now? Even if we book right away, early or mid-January will probably be hard to get.”
As we carefully built our travel plans, the reality that I was actually going on a trip with Chae-yeon started to sink in. I’d never even traveled with friends before, and now I was going on a trip alone with her. The thought of experiencing something new with Chae-yeon made the corners of my mouth lift on their own.
“I want to visit an onsen village. Soaking in a hot spring in the middle of winter would be perfect!!”
“Then should we book a place in an onsen village?”
“Yes!! If it’s an onsen village inn, there’ll be a hot spring inside, right?”
“Yeah, there should be.”
“I should tell Mom and Dad too. That I’m going on a trip with you.”
Now that she mentioned it, I’d completely forgotten about the massive wall I still had to climb before the trip—her father. I hadn’t even explained the kiss at the baseball stadium yet, and now we were going to tell him we were traveling alone together… Just thinking about what would happen next made my vision blur.
“Jung-woo, what’s wrong? Is it because of my dad?”
“A little… yeah?”
“Don’t worry too much. And I always win against Dad anyway!!”
You win against him, not me. I had zero confidence facing her father. Since Christmas was still a ways off, it was fine to think about the trip later. Right now, Christmas was more important than the trip.
“I’m really excited for the trip, Jung-woo. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I wish the day would come sooner.”