Bom Waited for the Season to Come
"He's my fiancé."
The moment Baek Seol-ah's answer fell, Yoon Bom's expression froze solid.
"…Huh?"
Bom blinked a few times, then smiled awkwardly. "Seol-ah, what kind of joke is that?"
Seol-ah didn't answer. She simply shrugged.
So Bom turned to me, as if demanding an explanation. "Dohyun, she's joking, right?"
"…"
"Right? Hurry up and tell me…!"
Even for Bom, I couldn't exactly come clean about the fact that our relationship was a contract engagement. "It's not a joke."
At my answer, Bom's eyes wavered violently. "Really…?"
"Yeah."
Bom could neither smile nor get angry — her lips just fluttered open and shut a few times. Then, glancing back and forth between Baek Seol-ah and me, she forced the corners of her mouth upward. "Oh… is, is that so."
After that, an awkward silence settled over us.
"Ah! That's right."
Before I could say anything, Bom clapped her hands together. "What is wrong with my head? Mom asked me to do something and I completely forgot about it."
She sprang up from her seat and gathered the empty tray sitting on the table. "You two take your time finishing your drinks. I've got to go organize the storage room."
Without waiting for our answer, she turned away, slipped behind the counter with quick steps, opened the storage room door, and disappeared. A moment later, a chaotic clatter came from inside — like a mountain of boxes collapsing all at once.
"She seems startled."
"Are you worried about Bom?"
"Yeah, a little. She's on my mind."
Baek Seol-ah set down her cup of cocoa. "It's not as if we lied to her, though."
"That's true."
Seol-ah gazed toward the storage room where Bom had vanished, then murmured quietly, "And yet I can't shake the feeling that I'm the only one who ended up looking like the bad guy here."
"This isn't your fault."
"I know."
That was her answer, but her expression had hardened.
When the awkward atmosphere began to seep back in, Baek Seol-ah rose from her seat and smoothed down her clothes. "I'll head home for today."
"What about the whole 'getting to know each other' plan?"
"It's late. We'll pick it up next time."
Come to think of it, I had left the house without telling my grandparents I was going out for a walk. Lingering at the cafe any longer felt awkward at best.
More than anything, I needed to sort out the fact that a childhood friend I had no memory of had suddenly appeared before me.
"Yeah, let's do that."
Before getting up, I glanced one more time toward the storage room. I wanted to check how she was doing — but if this incident brought us close again, there was no telling whether the curse might ensnare Bom next.
I'm sorry.
For your sake, I can't let myself get any closer.
The first time Yoon Bom met Lee Dohyun, she was five years old.
She never once forgot that day. On her way back from an errand, a boy she didn't recognize was standing in front of the old stone wall. He was taller than the other kids their age, with fair skin, and dressed so neatly that he looked like a prince straight out of the fairy tales her mother read to her.
The moment the boy's eyes met hers, Bom stopped in her tracks. She wanted to say something, but when she actually tried to open her mouth, no voice came out.
She had always been shy around strangers, but standing before this boy made her feel smaller than usual. The boy stared for a moment at the girl frozen in place, and then he was the one who came closer.
"Hi. My name's Lee Dohyun. What's yours?"
Bom clutched her basket tightly with both hands. "H-hi… there."
It was only a single greeting, yet her face burned hot. "I'm Y-Yoon Bom."
"Oh, okay."
Dohyun smiled brightly and held out his hand. "Hey, Bom. Wanna play with me?"
Her eyes went wide as saucers. For a long moment she couldn't say anything at all — she just stared at the hand he'd offered. "You don't want to?"
"No… I do. I want to!"
Afraid he might change his mind, she snatched up his hand in a hurry. "Let's… let's play!"
That day, the two of them ran all over the village until the sun went down. Bom was having so much fun in that moment that she completely forgot she'd even been on an errand. They threw flat stones across the brook, raced up the hill to see who could reach the zelkova tree first, and when Bom tripped and fell while tearing across the grassy field, Dohyun knelt down and brushed the dirt off her knees himself.
Watching him do that, her heart went pit-a-pat.
The next day, and the day after that, Bom went looking for Dohyun the moment she opened her eyes. For as long as he stayed in the village, they were always together.
But his time in the village was limited. When summer vacation drew to a close, he always returned to the city.
The first day she learned that fact, Bom cried from morning to night. And that day too, Dohyun came to find her and stayed by her side until her tears finally stopped.
Bom loved him so, so much. She even had the selfish thought that she wished time would just stop like this forever — but she wasn't afraid of parting, not really.
Because Dohyun had promised, pinky swear and all, that he would come back next vacation without fail. With that promise, she believed that even a temporary goodbye meant they would meet again.
On the day Dohyun returned to the city, Bom went to his house early in the morning. "You'll come next vacation, right?"
"Yeah. I'll come back in the winter."
And just as promised, Dohyun returned to Haewol Village every single vacation. When winter ended, he promised the next summer; when summer ended, he promised the next winter again. That was why summer and winter — the seasons Dohyun came home — were Bom's favorite times of year.
She would draw a circle on the calendar the day vacation started, then count down the remaining days one by one. When the bus was due to arrive, she was always the first one sprinting to the bus stop. And the instant the doors opened and Dohyun stepped off, all those long, patient days of waiting simply melted away. Dohyun, for his part, always broke into a bright smile the moment he spotted her.
She thought it would go on like that forever.
Right up until the summer of her fifth year in elementary school.
That year, too, Dohyun came to visit Haewol Village, and they played together from morning to night, same as always. There was still plenty of vacation left. She was sure she'd see him tomorrow, and the day after that.
But the next morning, word came that Dohyun had left for the city. No goodbye. Not a word of warning.
His grandmother said something urgent had come up and they'd had to head back.
Bom was so hurt. She hated Dohyun for vanishing out of nowhere, without a single word. And yet she was worried, too — what if something terrible had happened to him?
It had never happened before, so she decided to forgive him. Just this once. Because Dohyun would come back when winter came.
When they met again, she planned to give him a proper scolding — why did you leave without saying anything? As punishment for making her worry, she'd make him play every single game she wanted. They'd go to the festival together, take walks until late at night.
But winter came, and Dohyun didn't return.
Not the next summer, either. Nor the winter after that.
Every time vacation began, Bom went to the bus stop. Every time a bus rolled to a halt and the doors hissed open, she rose from her seat. Maybe this time Dohyun would step off. Maybe he was just late, keeping his promise at last.
But no matter how many people got off that bus, Dohyun was never among them. The longer the waiting stretched on, the more her hurt curdled into resentment. And still, Bom could not bring herself to stop waiting.
Her friends told her it was time to give up and forget him. But she couldn't forget. To Bom, Dohyun was the prince on a white horse — the boy who had been the first to reach out his hand to her.
Time flowed swiftly by. Just when she was starting to wonder if it was truly time to resign herself—
Dohyun came back to Haewol Village.
Wearing the face of someone who didn't remember her at all.
At first, it felt like her chest was caving in. The moment the person she'd waited for all those years looked at her like a stranger, it was as if every single one of those waiting days had been denied, erased.
But she decided it was okay. Because Dohyun had come back.
Just as five-year-old Dohyun had reached out his hand to her first, this time she would be the one to reach out first, she told herself. This time there were smartphones, too — she was confident she wouldn't let him disappear without a word again.
But before she could properly savor the joy of their reunion, she was hit with those shocking words.
Dohyun had a fiancée. And it was Baek Seol-ah — the very girl she knew.
"This has to be a lie…"
Late that night, after the cafe had closed, Bom lay face-down on her bed, staring at her phone. In her contacts, a new name had appeared that day.
Just looking at the name should have made her happy, but the words she'd heard earlier that day kept creeping back into her mind.
If it were up to her heart alone, she wanted to hang out at Dohyun's house like old times. To hear everything — what he'd been doing in the city, what had happened to him, who he'd met while she wasn't there, what new things he'd come to love. Even if it meant staying up all night, she wanted to hear it all.
But every time Bom tried to reach toward Dohyun, one voice snagged at her ankles like a hand around her heel.
He's my fiancé.
Baek Seol-ah's calm, matter-of-fact voice played on repeat in her head.
Bom buried her face in her pillow, as if to hide the tears sliding down her cheeks. "A fiancé…? But I liked him first."
She knew it, too. She knew she hadn't grown all that much compared to the little girl she'd been. She was still timid, still unable to speak freely in front of the person she liked.
But she didn't want to just watch from a distance anymore.
Bom scrolled through her contacts and found Baek Seol-ah's name. Seol-ah was a regular at the cafe and lived in the same village, so of course she had her number — though they'd hardly ever exchanged anything personal.
Bom opened the chat window and typed out a message.
Her thumb hovered over the send button — then stopped. Is that too blunt…?
In the end, she deleted the whole thing and typed again.
That was weird too. She never asked after her, and now suddenly she was?
After typing and deleting who knows how many drafts, Bom finally sent one message.
Regret came flooding in the instant the message went out. She hoped there would be no reply — and at the same time, she hoped Seol-ah would answer right away.
Before long, the little number beside the message vanished. Baek Seol-ah had read it. But no reply came.
Bom stared holes into the chat window. The "typing…" indicator appeared, then disappeared. A moment later it appeared again — then vanished once more. What kind of reply could take that much deliberation?
It would be so much better if she'd just say it was all a joke.
At last, her phone chimed softly.
Bom's shoulders sagged. The little flicker of hope she'd been nursing collapsed under the weight of that one short sentence.
She hugged her phone tightly to her chest. Her heart was a tangled mess — too much for her to carry alone.
And in that moment, one person's face came to mind before anyone else.
The friend who had comforted her endlessly, right by her side, when Dohyun suddenly disappeared all those years ago. That girl surely didn't know yet that Dohyun had come back.
She pressed the call button, and the ringtone droned on. A moment later, a voice as bright as summer itself answered.
"Hello? Bom?"
"Yeoreum."
"Yeah. What's up?"
Bom couldn't bring herself to speak right away. So much had happened in a single day — far too much to shoulder by herself.
"Bom? Did those boys bother you again? I'll go over there right now and teach them a lesson!"
"No. Dohyun came back."
Silence. Complete, dead silence. Bom thought the call had dropped and checked her screen — but the call was still connected. After a long pause, a voice came through, lower than usual.
"What did you just say?"
"Dohyun came back to Haewol Village."
Silence fell again. Faintly, she heard something drop. Bom drew in a deep breath before forcing out her last words. "And apparently… he has a fiancée now."
This time, the answer came back instantly. "Who?"
The voice was calm. Too calm — calm to the point of being terrifying.
"Baek Seol-ah."
"Seol-ah…? Our Seol-ah? The Seol-ah?"
"Yeah."
After a brief silence came the sound of fabric swishing — and then a door swinging open.
"Yeoreum?"
"Where is Dohyun right now?"
"He's probably at home. Why, are you going over there?"
"No. I just suddenly feel like running."
But Bom already knew. She knew that every time Yeoreum's heart got tangled up in a mess, she ran — without thinking, without stopping.