My Childhood Friend Found Out I Have a Fiancée
"No way… you're really Dohyun?"
Yoon Bom's voice wavered, thin as thread.
With a face that looked ready to burst into tears at any moment, she wasn't exactly easy to answer. But no matter how far back I searched my memory, she was a complete stranger.
"Yeah."
At my answer, her eyes went even wider.
"It really is you, Dohyun! It's been so long!"
Bright joy bloomed across her face.
She had been leaning so far forward over the counter that she looked ready to vault straight over it, but the moment our eyes met, she froze in place.
"Wh-why are you making that face? Don't tell me you don't remember me…?"
Normally I would have answered coldly, but with that expression staring back at me, I couldn't get my voice to come out. And if I lied, the moment she started asking about the old days, I'd be found out for sure. Better to be honest this time.
"I'm sorry."
Yoon Bom's face went stiff, and her lips pushed out into a pout.
"You dummy! You used to come to this village every single vacation when we were kids!"
"…I don't remember."
Her expression turned serious.
"You really don't remember anything? We were so close."
Yoon Bom was striking in a completely different way from Baek Seol-ah, and she was the type whose every emotion played out plainly across her face. If I'd truly been close with someone this expressive, this vivid, it seemed impossible I could have simply forgotten her — and yet nothing came back to me.
"That's so mean of you!"
All the hurt that had been piling up inside Yoon Bom came pouring out at once.
"I recognized you the second I saw you, even after all this time! You're an idiot, Dohyun!"
Looking at that face, one thing at least became clear: we really had been close.
"I was really young, that's all."
"Even so, that's no excuse. How could you forget me? I came over to your house every vacation. Your grandma would remember, wouldn't she?"
"Do you remember how old I was?"
"Uh… from around five, I think?"
Five years old — that would have been before the Curse was discovered. The first incident hadn't happened until I was in sixth grade, after all.
Whether she sensed my discomfort or not, Yoon Bom let out a small laugh.
"You haven't changed at all, Dohyun."
"Huh?"
"You clamp your mouth shut whenever you're flustered."
She leaned over the counter and added, "You used to do that back then, too."
It felt like having every last corner of my heart laid bare by someone I'd just met. And yet the strange thing was, it didn't feel unpleasant at all. Even without my memories, Yoon Bom's manner was so natural that being with her felt comfortable, like sitting with someone I'd known for years. I'd probably have to ask Grandma about my childhood once I got home.
"Ahem. Excuse me, Yoon Bom?"
Baek Seol-ah, who had been quietly observing our exchange until then, finally spoke up. I'd been so caught up in talking with Yoon Bom that I'd momentarily forgotten Seol-ah was sitting right beside me. I felt guilty, and not without reason.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your reunion, but may I place an order?"
Only then did Yoon Bom seem to remember we'd come to order drinks. She blinked rapidly several times.
"Oh! Sorry about that!"
"It's quite all right."
Baek Seol-ah glanced up at the menu board on the wall for a moment.
"I'll have my usual, please — the cocoa."
Then she looked over at me. "Dohyun, would the same be all right for you? The cocoa here is genuinely sweet and delicious."
Not that I was particularly picky about drinks anyway.
"Yeah, that's fine."
"Two cocoas, then, please."
"Dohyun always liked strawberry milk more than cocoa, though…"
Yoon Bom murmured under her breath as she keyed in the order. Whether she'd caught Yoon Bom's muttering or not, Baek Seol-ah's gaze drifted from the menu board back to me.
"If you'd prefer a strawberry latte, go ahead and order it."
"No, I'm fine."
Baek Seol-ah gave a small shrug. "Two cocoas, please."
"O-okay…! Go ahead and sit anywhere you like."
Just as Yoon Bom had said, I did prefer strawberry over chocolate. The fact that she knew my tastes meant we really must have been close as children. And maybe that was why, for the first time, I actually felt a twinge of regret that my childhood memories were gone.
"Let's take a seat."
Baek Seol-ah moved unhurriedly toward the window table.
She stared out the window as if she had no particular interest in anything else. To be fair, we weren't real lovers, so it was only the natural reaction.
After a short silence —
"Dohyun, have you been to this village before?"
"Yeah, I've heard I came here a few times with my parents. But I don't remember any of it."
"I see."
"Have you always lived in Haewol Village?"
"No. I moved here with my grandfather three years ago."
Come to think of it, if I'd visited Haewol Village as a kid, there was no way I could have missed meeting her grandfather. After all, even her grandfather had reacted like he was meeting me for the first time at the hospital.
"Ta-da! Your cocoas are ready!"
Yoon Bom came over carrying two cups of cocoa. She set the mugs down on the table and then, with practiced ease, settled herself right beside me.
Baek Seol-ah paid it no mind whatsoever and simply sipped her cocoa.
Then Yoon Bom, seated at my side, tugged at my arm with a wounded look on her face.
"Tell me, Dohyun. Why did you leave without a word? Don't tell me you've forgotten that, too?"
Apparently she wasn't finished talking. "Do you remember when it was?"
"Summer break, fifth grade."
The words caught in my throat.
I still had my memories from fifth grade, clearly. The things that happened at school with my friends, the summers I spent in the city — I remembered all of it. It was only the memories of Haewol Village that simply didn't exist.
"Why did you go back? I was really hurt, you know…!"
Pressed by Yoon Bom, I had no choice but to stop spiraling. "Wasn't it just because summer break ended?"
"No, I remember it clearly. There was still break left. You suddenly left without saying a word to us."
Why would the memories of Haewol Village, and only those, have vanished entirely?
"Still… I just knew you'd come back the next winter break. And the summer after that… but you never came."
Yoon Bom fidgeted uselessly with the handkerchief in her hand. "I asked your grandma, and she said you were busy with school… but she didn't really seem to know the details either."
Just as she said, it was true that I'd been busy during the breaks. Thanks to that damned Curse, I'd spent plenty of time laid up in the hospital. In the end, the only thing I could offer was an apology.
"I'm sorry."
"Hmph! Thinking about it again, I'm still hurt, you know? How do you not call even once?"
"I didn't have your number."
"What kind of excuse is that? You had our home phone number memorized."
My arguments were gone. She'd waited all that time, and no doubt it was me — who never once reached out — that she resented.
"So I… I thought you were never coming back here."
Her voice grew quiet. Somehow, that one sentence landed with a weight that felt almost unnatural.
And in that instant, the dream from this morning came back to me.
The little hill overlooking the village. The fireworks filling the night sky. The warmth of a shoulder pressed against mine, and a small hand. And a girl whose face I couldn't see.
"When Dohyun comes back, you know—"
The girl in the dream had been waiting for me to come back, too. Could that girl from back then have been Yoon Bom? Her hair and face had both been hidden, so there was no way to tell. It might have been nothing more than me hearing Yoon Bom's story and forcibly stitching the dream to reality.
"Dohyun, why are you looking at me like that?"
Yoon Bom asked, her eyes shining with hope. "Did something come back to you?"
Faced with that hopeful expression, telling her about the dream became impossible. If I said something I wasn't sure of, I might hand her false hope for nothing.
"No."
"……Oh. I see."
Yoon Bom's shoulders visibly sank.
Then, muttering something too low to make out, she gave her own cheeks a light smack with both hands — and took a long, deep breath, as if to swallow down every tangled feeling inside her.
"Well, nothing to be done about it, then."
Yoon Bom raised her head again. The face that had looked ready to cry only moments ago was somehow already wearing her usual bright smile.
"But don't think one apology settles this."
The words settled heavy on my chest.
It wasn't that I didn't want to get close to Yoon Bom again. There was no way I'd push away someone who had waited so long for me — someone who'd waited even for a person who didn't remember her. But a childhood friend couldn't be an exception. If anything, the more precious someone had been to my past self, the further I had to keep them. Which meant there was really only one way to protect this childhood friend I'd met again: keep her at a distance before we could grow any closer.
"Yoon Bom."
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry, but—"
"Oh, then we can just become friends again!"
Yoon Bom cut right in without even hearing me out. "What?"
"Well, you can't remember me, can you?"
She nodded as if it were the most obvious conclusion in the world. "So we start over and become friends again from scratch."
"That's not what I was trying to say—"
"Give me your phone."
"Right now?"
"Contacts first. Gotta save my number."
Just then, from across the table, Baek Seol-ah set her cocoa cup down with a bit more force than necessary. Her expression stayed as impassive as ever, but the fingers wrapped around the cup had tightened, faintly. With Yoon Bom firing off questions nonstop, there was no room to spare her a glance.
"Here we go~!"
Yoon Bom tugged at my arm once more, then snatched the phone right out of my hand. "Hey—!"
With a deft, familiar touch, she pulled up the contacts screen and punched in her own number. A moment later, a buzz sounded from behind the counter.
"Done."
"Is it really okay to go rummaging through someone else's phone like that?"
"Well, it's your fault for not handing it over yourself."
Yoon Bom shamelessly grinned and handed the phone back. A new contact was saved on the screen.
A heart?
I mean, sure, we were childhood friends, but who puts a heart on their contact name? Don't tell me she actually has feelings for me? And if she did… the Curse should have triggered, shouldn't it?
The thought had barely formed before I was scanning the room. But the ceiling was perfectly intact, nothing on the table so much as trembled, and not the slightest sign of an accident appeared anywhere. So I supposed this heart carried no special meaning after all… and yet I couldn't stop it from gnawing at me anyway.
"What's with the heart?"
"Penalty for making me wait. Don't you dare delete it! I'll be checking, you know."
Yoon Bom gave me a playful wink. Seriously, was this village just full of weird people? Baek Seol-ah, and now Yoon Bom, too. No, wait — given that I'm the one harboring a bizarre Curse, I suppose I don't get to talk.
While Yoon Bon was still beaming over the saved contact, she turned her gaze on Baek Seol-ah, who had been sitting quietly. "Oh…! Right, meeting you threw me so much I forgot to even ask. How do you two know each other?"
How on earth was I supposed to answer that? Should we just come out and say that Baek Seol-ah was my fiancée? While I hesitated, Baek Seol-ah spoke up, perfectly matter-of-fact.
"He's my fiancé."
The teaspoon slipped from Yoon Bom's hand and clattered onto the table.
"………Huh?"
Baek Seol-ah took a sip of her cocoa without a care in the world. Though just barely, the corner of her mouth — hidden behind the rim of the cup — had curled upward.