How to Face the Past
"Oh? You two heading out?"
"Yeah. Was there something you needed us to do?"
Around the time the four of us sitting down to meals together was starting to feel natural, that exchange came up.
Several days had already passed since we'd come down home, yet neither Seol-hwa nor I had stepped outside once. Yesterday we could fill an entire day just flipping through family photos and old disks, and she kept telling me she was fine with anything so long as she was with me—but leaning on her kindness alone wasn't right.
I had tried to avoid going out because there weren't exactly any good memories waiting for me beyond the door, yet for Seol-hwa it might have been starting to feel stifling. Locking her inside because of my past didn't sit well either, so I was the one who deliberately suggested we go somewhere.
"Nothing in particular~"
I'd half-expected my energetic mother to drag us out at least once or twice, but surprisingly she had stuck to pure observation. When she gave me that sly little smile, I just said, "Then never mind," and set down my empty rice bowl.
"I've never really gone out around here, so honestly I'm a little excited."
"Excited, huh… It's still a country town, even if it's not as bad as where we used to live. There's not that much to see."
"Th-that might be true, but…! Just being able to walk around together is ni—"
Only after the words left her mouth did she seem to realize what she was about to say. Seol-hwa ducked her head so low steam might as well have been rising from it like a chimney.
…Of course I was just as speechless, scratching at a cheek that suddenly felt warmer than it should.
"Looks like they're already more than just a couple."
The finishing blow came from Father, who was casually sipping his soybean-paste soup. After that, no one left at the table could manage a reply.
"They look so sweet right now~ Isn't it nice?"
"I don't think there's anything wrong with it."
Watching my parents talk like that, I let out a quiet sigh and turned toward Seol-hwa. Was she simply envious of a relationship like theirs? The way she looked at them mixed longing with a quiet loneliness. I reached out and firmly took her hand.
"Y-Yu-seong?!"
She flinched, face flushing, but I paid it no mind and spoke up.
"We've finished eating, so we'll be back before it gets late."
"Hm~? Coming back late is fine to—"
To that hopeless adult spouting nonsense, I deliberately repeated, word by careful word, "We'll be back before it gets late."
"You're going to kill someone with those eyes, kid."
It would have been nice if she reflected on her own fault for once. Mother just laughed it off as usual; I doubted she would ever change, no matter how much time passed.
After taking a little while to get ready, I led Seol-hwa to the door and took hold of the handle.
…And Mother's parting shot saw us off: "Have a good date~"
"…Hey."
"Uh… y-yeah?!"
Date.
Hearing that word on the way out had frozen the atmosphere more than it needed to. Walking around together had become pretty familiar, but when I thought about it, this was the first time we'd gone out like this since becoming a couple. Suddenly being conscious of it brought an unexpected wave of tension…
I glanced over and found Seol-hwa in the same boat. Every time we tried to look away, our eyes met, and we snapped right back into the same loop.
"…Want to hold hands, at least?"
We couldn't stay like this forever, so I managed to stretch out my hand. A soft "Th-thank you…" answered me, and a warm touch settled into my palm.
When I turned toward her again, our eyes met once more—same pattern. Seol-hwa looked flustered, yet she didn't turn away. After a moment she gave me a gentle smile.
"…Yu-seong?"
I must have been staring without realizing it. Only when she asked, sounding worried, did I snap back to myself.
"I-I'm fine."
"I'm fine. It's nothing… I was just thinking you've started smiling a lot more."
Seol-hwa touched her own face and answered with a puzzled "Is that so…?" but at least that was how it looked to me.
"You've been making that expression a lot more often lately."
"E-even if you say 'that expression,' I'm not sure what you mean… But if it makes you happy, Yu-seong, then I'm happy too…"
"That's enough. At least for now."
I lightly rested my hand on her head and stroked her hair. A bright, smiling face suited her far better than a gloomy one. Thinking that made me smile too.
I wanted to ask where she wanted to go, but Seol-hwa didn't know this neighborhood at all. I didn't have any particular place in mind either, so we simply wandered nearby at random.
After walking aimlessly for a while, a playground came into view.
"Ah, isn't that the place from the photos?"
"…You're right. Brings back memories."
It was the spot where little me used to run around with the neighborhood kids. Quite a bit of time had passed, yet it still stood there looking mostly intact—though the rusted iron jungle gym and the creaking slide showed the wear of years.
The kids didn't seem to mind any of that; there were still plenty of them, and people who looked like parents sat on benches a little ways off, chatting away. Watching that scene quietly filled me with a warm feeling, and the two of us smiled side by side.
"There are a lot of people."
"Well, yeah. This is pretty much the only playground around here to bring kids to."
Seol-hwa watched the children playing with sparkling eyes. Half-joking, I said, "Want to go play with them for a bit?" She seemed to take it seriously and actually looked like she was considering it.
"No… right now it's… a date, so… Yu-seong?"
"I never know when you're going to hit me with something like that…"
"I-I've never hit you!"
She started to bow in apology; I caught her head and told her she didn't need to, then let out a sigh.
"Next time, when we can play properly, let's play a whole lot."
She probably didn't understand what I meant. When she simply answered, "Okay," I felt a small twinge of regret, but it didn't really matter. Someday, I murmured to myself. When the time came to say it properly, I would.
"Oh my, is that Yu-seong?"
Just as we were about to leave, a few of the neighborhood aunties noticed us late and came over from a distance.
"My, and is that a girlfriend next to him?!"
Most of the faces looked familiar—they were Mother's friends. Mother's personality meant she had a wide circle, so I had gotten my fair share of doting by association over the years.
"Um, well…"
Seol-hwa looked clearly flustered at a glance. I gently pulled her a little closer to my side and answered.
"That's right. She's my girlfriend."
The moment I said it so openly, it was like a switch flipped—the aunties' eyes lit up all at once.
"Oh my, oh my!"
"He went off somewhere far and came back with a bride!"
"B-bri… bride?!"
"Oh, stop being so shy! What's your name, dear?"
"Y-Yun Seol-hwa… ma'am."
"Yu-seong's got good taste, reeling in a girl like this."
"She is a catch, so I won't deny it."
"Yu-seong?!"
How long were we held captive by the aunties' chatter? By the time we left the park, Seol-hwa somehow had a bag full of snack gifts cradled in her arms.
"You okay?"
"Y-yeah…"
Was that over-the-top energy some kind of shared skill among all the aunties? Seol-hwa looked a little worn out, yet she still hugged the bag tightly with an expression that seemed somehow happy.
"You're getting spoiled rotten."
"Am I…?"
"It's obvious just looking at you."
I poked her cheek as I said it, and Seol-hwa smiled. "I see…"
I was watching her fondly when a familiar voice called my name.
"Han Yu-seong?"
"…Do-ha."
Seo Do-ha. A childhood friend I had known when we were little.
He came toward me waving weakly; I did the same.
"You've changed a little… no, a lot. I almost didn't recognize you."
"Yeah… I guess I might look different. Fair enough."
Right now I wasn't in my usual state—I was using the "look fresh" secret technique Tae-yang had taught me. No wonder he reacted that way. I had put a little extra effort into it, thinking of this as a date.
"Have you… been well?"
Do-ha said it without quite meeting my eyes.
Because of what happened back then, probably.
After we lost Sae-bom, after the injury that knocked me out of the tournament and left me ostracized by the team—Do-ha hadn't joined in with the others, but he hadn't helped me either. After that I transferred schools, and he must still be carrying something like guilt over it.
"Lately, yeah."
"Lately… huh. Thanks to the person next to you?"
"That's right," I answered evenly.
When her name came up, Seol-hwa carefully bowed her head. "…I'm Yun Seol-hwa."
"Um…"
"It's old news. You don't need to worry about it."
I cut him off cleanly. There was no way I resented him for what happened back then—everything had been my own doing. If anything, the me of those days would have told him not to offer any half-baked pity and would have answered with rough words or a harsh attitude. Looking back, ending up distant from each other might even have been for the best.
"Is that so…"
"It is."
Bringing up old stories now would only drag the darkness of the past into the open… and I didn't want to do that in front of Seol-hwa.
When I kept holding to that calm tone, Do-ha gave a faint smile. "You've already moved past it, huh."
"You've changed a lot."
"I don't really know if I've changed. I do want to, though."
"Isn't that exactly what changing a lot means?"
"Senior—!!!!"
While we were talking, a voice of absolute volume slammed into my eardrums from a distance.
"How can you just leave me behind like that!!"
A boy came sprinting over so fast the word "whoosh" fit perfectly, and even after that speed he showed no sign of being out of breath as he bellowed at full volume.
"…Who's that?"
"Jeon Do-jeon. First-year underclassman at school. Current ace of the basketball team."
"…There's a lot to pick apart there. The name, and being the ace as a first-year…"
"Ah, my grandmother gave me the name, sir! 'Challenge everything! Charge headfirst into anything and nothing is impossible!' She put that spirit into it, isn't it cool?!"
"…It's a cool name."
His build looked a bit too slight to call him a basketball player. You could almost believe he was still in middle school rather than high school. But that booming voice, and the sparkling black eyes peeking out from under light-brown hair…
This kid is definitely the troublesome type.
That conviction hit me hard. Between Eun-ha and Mother and everything else lately, my instincts were sharp.
"Woooaah—!!!"
Why did bad premonitions never miss even once?
The boy—called Do-jeon, not some male version of Eun-ha—spotted me, let out an enormous shout, and charged.
"Yu-seong, Han Yu-seong, senior?!"
"Your voice is loud… wait, never mind that… You know me?"
I covered my ears, sighed, and glanced at Do-ha, who just shook his head as if to say get used to it.
"After you transferred, I quit the basketball club too. Then this guy came in as a freshman…"
"If it's Han Yu-seong, of course he's famous, sir! The rising star! The dark horse of middle-school basketball!! I respect you so much! I barely managed to get into the middle school you were at, thinking 'he's here~'—and then you transferred somewhere else! Do you know how sad that made me?!"
"And thanks to that, I got tormented because of my connection to you."
"Maybe don't say that in front of the person himself…?"
What kind of reaction was I even supposed to give to a speech like that?
Before I could finish sighing, the kid who clearly hadn't heard a word of what I said thrust a basketball at me. "If it's not too much trouble! Please have one match with me!!"
I was about to swat it away, but Seol-hwa beside me was sending me a look that said I want to see Yu-seong play basketball~…
"…Just a little."
"Yes!! I get to play basketball with Yu-seong, senior~!"
"…Sorry. He's like that."
Do-ha said it with the eyes of an old man who had seen everything life had to offer. I could only sigh and answer, "You've had it rough too."
We couldn't exactly go to the school, so we had no choice but to head back to the playground from earlier.
"I'll be the ref. First to three baskets wins."
"Whatever…"
"Yes, sir!!"
"Then… start!"
"Jeon Do-jeon, coming through!!"
…Tch!
Separate from how noisy he was, his charging speed was definitely fast. Fast, and at the same time his defensive stance left no openings; he mixed in fakes here and there while watching for a chance to steal the ball—sharp movement all around.
"This is…"
"You noticed right away, didn't you, senior? Watching your games never gets old, no matter how many times I see them!"
It was my own movement from back then. For a moment it almost looked like the old me overlapping with him. And he hadn't just copied it—he'd improved on it in his own way, throwing in unexpected moves in the middle.
"He stole it…!"
"Yes! First point!!"
I watched the ball get taken from me helplessly and then slam into the hoop like a cannonball. I sighed, thinking of course.
How am I supposed to win against something like this?
I had given up on my own, quit, and never touched a basketball again. Meanwhile this kid had been desperately working hard, saying even someone like him wanted to follow that example.
I had quit basketball, but I could still tell. The boy standing in front of me right now was a lump of talent. Movements close to instinct, yet he kept his cool. I could tell how much effort was packed into every single one of those moves.
A kid with both talent and hard work, going this far—there's no way I can win.
Even when we switched offense and defense, nothing really changed. The next bullet that flew into the hoop took even less time than before.
See? It's meaningless…
The ball in my hands would just get stolen again, and the same thing would repeat.
Just… like this…
"Yu-seong, hang in there!!"
The shout snapped me out of the resignation that had settled over me. When I looked toward the bench, Do-ha must have been egging her on. Next to the guy giving a thumbs-up, I saw Seol-hwa looking my way with tears mixed in her eyes.
"…Senior?!"
I slapped my own cheek with everything I had. Do-jeon put the ball down and started running over as if to ask if I was okay; I stopped him with a gesture that said stay back.
"…Underclassman. Putting the ball down mid-game—you do that?"
"…Ugh!"
I didn't need to say more. A player of his level would understand the intent on his own.
"I'm sorry, sir!" he said, and started dribbling again, charging in like a predator after prey.
Idiot, I thought. You said you wanted to change. It wasn't just words. If not now, when else was I going to show it?
Not yet…!
At the very least, I shouldn't be the kind of pathetic sight that made my girlfriend cry from worry. I scolded myself. I didn't want to lose—as a boyfriend, or as a player.
I had thought I'd thrown it all away. Did some of that fire still remain in me after all…?
Seol-hwa had fanned that tiny spark into a flame.
What I had to do against the charging beast was simple. Right now I was the weak one. But even the weak had things they could do.
The order of his steps, the rhythm of his dribble—I watched every single one of them—
"He stole it?!"
At least when it came to experience, I still couldn't lose.
I put strength into my legs to throw the stolen ball toward the hoop…
"…Ugh!"
A stabbing pain shot through my knee.
Even after treatment, my knee had been declared finished for basketball. Light running was fine, but the moment I put real force into my legs to jump, this was what happened.
"You should've said something if it was this bad…"
In the end, this was all it amounted to.
I iced my knee with the cold pack Seol-hwa had hurriedly bought from a convenience store, sighing as I apologized.
"Sorry…"
"I'm the one who should apologize, sir. If you'd told me, I would have held back…"
"What's there to apologize for? You said it yourself."
I was the one who had nodded. If I had truly hated the idea, I could have just kept walking.
"Wanting to answer an underclassman's passion at least a little is fine, right?"
I had also wanted to touch a ball again after so long, and I had wanted to look cool in front of someone who said they admired even someone like me. When I brushed it off like that, Do-jeon suddenly started streaming tears.
"Th-that's…! I'm so moved, sir!"
"…You're overdoing it."
While we were talking, Seol-hwa came over without a word, and I swallowed hard without meaning to. After putting on airs and ending up like this, she was probably going to get mad after all.
"…It was cool."
I had been searching for some excuse, something to say. Hearing those words instead, my thoughts simply stopped.
"…Huh?"
"I… also wanted to see you playing basketball, Yu-seong… so you went this far for me, right?"
"That's…"
"O-of course, if you hide something like this again, next time I will get mad! Being in pain… you said you're not supposed to hide it, right?"
"…Thank you."
"Whoa, it's so hot— is this what peak-form couples are like, sir?"
"You're gonna get burned if you're not careful."
""…Ah.""
I had briefly forgotten we weren't alone. Feeling awkward, I scratched my cheek—then Do-jeon suddenly shouted "Ah!" and held out his hand to Seol-hwa.
"Come to think of it, I haven't even properly talked to you yet, ma'am! Sorry about that! I'm Jeon Do-jeon! So, uh…"
"Ah, Yun Seol-hwa… no, I'm Yun Seol-hwa."
"Ah, if it's okay, can I call you Hyeongsu-nim?!"
The sudden mega-bomb made me spew the drink Do-ha had handed me all over the ground. I choked and coughed while Seol-hwa completely froze solid, thoughts apparently short-circuited. The culprit himself just looked around at us in confusion. "Huh? Did I do something wrong?"
"Yu-seong, senior is like a Hyung-nim to me, and if she's that person's girlfriend, then she's Hyeongsu-nim! Isn't that right?!"
"…There is more than one thing wrong with that. How did I become Hyung-nim, and how did it jump all the way there?"
"Because you gave a first-year underclassman a match with that much sincerity! I respect you endlessly, Hyung-nim! A passionate match with the Hyung-nim I respect so much! I was totally fired up! And seeing how close you two are, I figured it was only a matter of time until—"
"Stop it, you hopeless idiot."
A saving hand arrived just in time to stop the fool who was about to run wild again, brakes long since thrown away.
"The kid has no middle ground. Well, I'm just an old acquaintance, but he's not, right? Don't scold him too hard."
"…I've said it any number of times—I don't care that much."
Of course it couldn't be like before. But making him chew on guilt with that bitter look on his face didn't sit well with me either.
"…Then that's good, I guess."
Even after I said that much he still looked like he was turning the apology over in his mind, so I sighed and said, "If you're sorry, then get rid of this guy first. He's driving me crazy," and waved Do-jeon off.
"I'd better. …See you next time."
"…Yeah. See you next time."
I gave the same words back to the guy who said them to me. Becoming friends again the way we used to be was probably impossible. I didn't come back to my hometown that often, and there was a limit to how many people I could hold precious. Still, this much was fine.
"Aah!! I still want to talk more with Hyung-nim!!"
"You already got a match, so be satisfied with that."
"The way he's thrashing around while being held back… he really looks like some wild animal…"
That storm of a scene finally passed. I had thought I would never meet anyone more intense than Eun-ha or Mother, but life really never let you know what was coming.
"…Yun Seol-hwa?"
I tapped Seol-hwa, who had been frozen solid for a while. She yelped "Kyaa?!" and nearly toppled backward; by now I was used to it and caught her as a matter of course.
"S-sorry…"
"Don't worry about it. You're not hurt?"
Whenever she got embarrassed her reaction was always like this. I was already used to it, so I just sighed and told her it was fine.
"Except for my heart…"
"…That one's beyond treatment."
I just didn't show it; I was in the same boat, so I couldn't really say anything.
"Hyeongsu-nim…"
"Was it that much of a shock?"
"I-I never even thought of it…!"
"Well, same here…"
I sat down beside her and rubbed my knee, which was finally starting to ease up. Seol-hwa spoke up. "Hey."
"Someday… do you think I could really be called that?"
"…I don't know."
It might have sounded half-hearted, but something like this had to be answered after thinking it through properly. I didn't want to give a firm answer just on a feeling. I wanted to think carefully and treasure it.
"…I'll try so that it can happen."
"You're always the same, you know."
"I learned by watching. From the person who's always with me."
Hearing her say that filled me with a joy that left nothing more to ask for. The fact that I was Seol-hwa's boyfriend and she was my girlfriend felt natural. The fact that I had grown used to the way she smiled so gently made my heart tickle. It was a happiness so complete it almost felt like a dream.
I wanted to face that happiness, hold onto it, and make her happy. I carefully took the hand of Seol-hwa, who was smiling softly, and laced my fingers with hers.