1. That Crazy Bitch
I'd expected to be devastated. I figured I'd barely be able to choke down food, that my mind might drift half out of focus — who wouldn't, after something like that?
People always said love's absence was a fleeting thing at best. They eat just fine, they don't die from it.
And that was exactly how it went. A day or two of being completely out of it, and after that I was more or less okay.
If you were going to break up with me, you could have just broken up with me.
But she had to cheat? The kind of thing you only ever saw in comic books had played out in real life.
"Hey, did you hear? Lee Siwoo and Kim Hayun broke up."
"You're only hearing that now?"
It was only natural that everyone kept gossiping about it.
"But isn't she insane? She's the one who cheated."
"Cheated? On Siwoo of all people?"
Inside that cramped school, where we were all penned in like livestock, the pointed stares coming our way were inevitable too.
"He tutored her every single day, bought her snacks at the school store, packed her lunches — she cheated on the guy who did all of that for her? Her stomach must have no bottom to it."
The friends who were close to me obviously hated her for it, and even the girls who'd merely been on okay terms with Kim Hayun turned cold toward her.
Even the girls who'd actually been her friends drifted away — cheating was apparently one thing nobody could make an excuse for.
"Siwoo. I'm sorry, man."
"You holding up? Stay strong."
"Tch. I told you, didn't I? I said that girl was bad news."
We were in the same class. During the break between periods, with her sitting right there in the room, the girls talked loudly — practically performing for her benefit — while I just told them to knock it off.
"I'm fine, guys. Really."
The truth was, I didn't care anymore. Kim Hayun had been right about one thing: love, whatever people claimed, cooled off faster than you'd think. Especially since I had no intention of letting her be the reason my grades slipped, or the reason I fell apart as a person.
So I wanted to just keep quiet and let it all slide right past me.
"You're not even mad? Seriously. Just say the word — Ko Woojin, right? I'll stomp that idiot into the ground for you."
Off in the distance, I could see Kim Hayun flinch, her whole body shuddering.
Ko Woojin. A delinquent, a street thug, tattoos crawling up his skin — but he'd never looked like much of a fighter, honestly. He wasn't even bigger than most of my friends.
"He's right, though. You'd be entitled to be angry, so why are you holding it in?"
"Tch. There's a limit to how nice a guy should be."
But my friends looked furious on my behalf, as if it had happened to them personally.
Watching them rage in my place, I felt genuinely good about something for the first time in days.
"Guess I haven't lived my life for nothing, huh. Having friends like you."
"You're only figuring that out now? Asshole."
"Let's hit the PC bang."
"Yeah, come on — it's been forever since we all hung out."
Right. I decided to erase Kim Hayun from my life completely.
Never to speak to her again, as far as I was concerned.
I should block her number. K-Talk, Byeolstar, all of it.
The third year of high school began.
I'd been a bit of a model student, with grades good enough that people kept asking which university I was headed to. Kim Hayun was a different story.
"You hear? She got a tattoo."
"A tattoo? In high school?"
"I heard she did it to keep up with her boyfriend."
At some point she'd completely given up on studying and spent every class asleep. With no friends left to sit with, she'd spend every break heading off to another class to see her boyfriend.
But her boyfriend was a delinquent too, so there were plenty of days he didn't show up at school — and on those days, she didn't come either.
And then in third year, the tattoos. This was just how school worked: you heard things whether you wanted to or not.
"Siwoo, are you really not going to college with grades like these?"
"Teacher, I just want to get out into the world as soon as I can."
Whatever happened to her life was no longer any of my business.
Right now, looking after my own life came first.
"Even with a degree these days, jobs are hard to come by anyway. So I'm planning to sit for the 9th-grade civil service exam."
My family's circumstances weren't great. There were national scholarships, merit scholarships, all kinds of aid available — but honestly, the thought of moving up to Seoul had never even crossed my mind.
"Everyone complains about how little civil servants make, but by the time a guy finishes his military service and a four-year degree, a government salary step would actually look pretty decent. And there's a pension too — retirement's covered."
This was the path I'd chosen for myself. My homeroom teacher spent weeks stubbornly trying to talk me out of it, but the moment I actually passed the written exam, he gave up on dissuading me and started rooting for me instead.
"Once you graduate and get your appointment, let's have a drink — one civil servant to another. It'll be my treat."
"Thank you, Teacher."
"Sheesh. A sharp kid like you, and I still can't figure out why your ex-girlfriend went and pulled a stunt like cheating. Maybe it worked out for the best, honestly? She cleared herself out of your way."
"......"
Was it because I wasn't dating anyone? Even now, things involving Kim Hayun kept finding their way back to me.
Granted, she was an ex-girlfriend, so none of it had anything to do with me anymore.
"I heard she's going to college. Following her boyfriend into some junior college in Seoul, supposedly."
If she was moving to Seoul, our paths would probably never cross again.
That belief lasted all of three years.
"Did you hear? Someone saw her in town a while back."
"My mom's friend was saying she's moved back here for good."
"And word is, she's pregnant?"
While everyone else asked whether I was okay missing out on campus life and blind dates and all the rest, I was fairly content — I'd wanted to get into the working world fast, and I had.
I get my uniform allowance, all the extra stipends — it adds up nicely.
Come next year my salary step would rise too, a small raise, but a raise all the same.
"Siwoo, I feel like I'm always the one leaning on you. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. New hires are supposed to lean on their seniors, that's just how it works."
The slightly awkward part was that all my juniors were older than me — but so what? We got along fine, and that was all that mattered.
After lunch, the newest junior — an older sister type who'd just joined the office — offered to buy me coffee, so we'd come to a café. Since she decided to order drinks for the whole department while we were there, I was killing time chatting with her inside the shop when someone suddenly approached me.
"Siwoo?"
Someone called out to me out of nowhere. A flashy bleach-blonde head of hair, hiding less skin than it revealed — an outfit that showed far more than it covered.
Tattoos, on blatant display.
"I'm sorry, who are you?"
With the cap and the mask on, I couldn't make out her face at first, so I didn't recognize her right away.
No woman around me dressed like that. If any complainant had ever come in wearing something like that, I would have remembered it.
In a rural town like this, that outfit — especially those tattoos — would have been the talk of the whole county.
"You don't even know me?"
"Siwoo, do you know her?"
She was a complete stranger to me, so I shook my head. Right on cue, the counter announced that our drinks were ready.
"I think you have the wrong person."
Mistaken identity, probably. I was about to brush past her and move on with that thought.
"It's me! Kim Hayun!"
.... Kim Hayun? The moment her answer registered, I stopped in my tracks and looked her over again.
By then her mask had slipped down, and I could see her face. Oh. It really was her.
I remembered the stories I'd heard secondhand from friends. That she'd come back to her hometown.
"Hey. It's been a while."
"Yes, yes! Right? It really has been so long!"
Watching her relax the instant I finally recognized her, I felt my brow nearly furrow on the spot. We'd spent all of high school ignoring each other's existence — so why was she suddenly striking up a conversation?
I planned to exchange a greeting and be on my way.
"Do you have some time? I'd like to talk to you."
Talk to me? I moved to refuse. What was there to say to an ex-girlfriend who'd cheated on me?
We'd been tangled up with each other to the point of disgust back then, and I wanted nothing more to do with it — and her appearance was a problem too.
My junior was already giving her an odd look, and I had no interest in inviting some strange misunderstanding. In the countryside, rumors spread like wildfire.
"Please. I'm begging you, please. Just this once, okay? Once is all I need. Just once...!"
Had she sensed I was about to turn her down? She seized my arm desperately and clung to it.
Reflexively, I moved to shake her off — but I could already feel the eyes of everyone around us on me. I clicked my tongue inwardly and let out a sigh.
"She's a friend from high school. Mind if we have a quick chat?"
"Oh, an old classmate! Of course — I'll take the coffee and head back, then."
I'd offered to carry the drinks back myself, but she told me to take my time catching up and headed off with them first.
She was fairly tight-lipped, so I wasn't especially worried — and yet I couldn't help the niggling anxiety anyway.
In any case, I turned back to Kim Hayun.
"I have to get back soon. So let's keep this short."
"Oh — I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause you trouble, I..."
"Don't worry about it."
Swallowing a sigh, I made my way back to the table where I'd been sitting.
Truthfully, I was curious. Why on earth had she sought out the guy she'd dumped so badly?
We both knew perfectly well we weren't the kind of people who smiled and exchanged warm greetings.
"How have you been?"
"As you can see, I've been doing all right."
Most of the conversation was her asking questions. Since I had little interest in talking, I answered her questions in as few words as possible, and the exchange never lasted long.
Just as the small talk was dying out and Kim Hayun's face was going pale, she bit her lip as if steeling herself and spoke.
"I'm pregnant."
I already knew that.
"It's Ko Woojin's."
I see. So you two will be getting married soon, then. You're having his baby, after all.
The moment had arrived when I really did need to get back to the office.
All that was left was to stand up, offer a word of congratulations, and go. Or so I thought.
"But he cheated on me. ...Listen, Siwoo. I kept thinking about you, you know? All the things you did for me just kept coming back to me, and I missed you. So much."
What the hell is this nonsense? They say a person caught truly off guard loses the ability to speak — well, this was my situation.
As I sat there frozen, my expression one of pure bewilderment, Kim Hayun pressed on.
"If it's okay with you... could we... start over?"