Their Valentine
"Hey there, groom-to-be!"
"None of your business."
February 14th had arrived — the day every guy in school went into a frenzy over.
With the semester winding down, the whole place had been dragging its feet, but today the classrooms were buzzing with noise and restless energy. These days most schools confiscated anything resembling chocolate on sight, but out here in this backwater town, either no one cared or no one bothered to enforce it. There were no real restrictions at all.
Some guys were laughing and carrying on, already flushed with success. Others sat in the corners, reduced to pale, ashen wrecks after receiving nothing at all.
I was propping my chin in my hand, watching the whole circus with idle detachment, when Eun-ha smacked me hard across the back and bounced over.
"Hehe. Still not denying it, though?"
"…Shut up."
I snapped my head away and told her to quit talking nonsense. She just grinned that infuriating grin of hers and poked me in the cheek.
"So, Mr. Han Yu-seong — newly inducted member of the receiving group. How does it feel?"
"I haven't gotten anything yet."
She was holding a pencil case up to my face like a microphone, treating the whole thing like some kind of interview. I let out a sigh.
Eun-ha didn't care in the slightest. "Well, can't be helped~," she said, beaming, and pulled out a carefully wrapped box of chocolate.
"Ah, maybe I should've let Seol-hwa go first?"
"Then don't take it out in the first place."
I shot back without missing a beat. She made a show of thinking it over, then decided, "Eh, this much is fine!" and held it out to me.
"I'll take it gratefully."
"Huh? Huh~? A cute little beauty like me hands you chocolate and that's all the reaction I get~?"
"I am beside myself with joy. I shall eat it with deepest gratitude."
Normally I would've smacked her one, but you can't exactly do that after accepting a gift. I played along just enough, and Eun-ha puffed up with pride, grinning from ear to ear.
"That's more like it!"
"Oh, right — you should be careful eating that, okay?"
"…Careful?"
It was a word that had no business being anywhere near chocolate. Before I could even ask what she meant, she gave me a suspicious little smile, chirped "You'll see later!" and bolted.
…Should I just throw it out?
I was staring at the hazardous material sitting on my desk, seriously weighing the option, when Tae-yang waved and wandered over.
"What are you doing?"
"Your girlfriend. What the hell did she do to this chocolate?"
Knowing how unhinged she could be, there was no telling what she'd put in there. I complained about it, but Tae-yang just went, "Ah, that," and chuckled like it was the most familiar thing in the world.
"Mm. Russian roulette, chocolate edition?"
"I'm throwing this in the food waste bin."
I started to get up. Tae-yang stopped me with a firm "Ah-ah. That would be a foul."
"Just give up. I go through this every year. Think of it as an annual tradition and it gets a little easier."
"…You've got it rough."
They say you get punished for playing with food. If that was true, that slippery escape artist who'd already fled deserved life without parole at minimum.
I was turning that thought over when a chorus of squealing erupted from the other side of the room.
"They're going all out over there, too."
I looked. It was Yu-bin's desk. Girls had been clustering around him every break, and now that school was letting out, the line looked like a celebrity fan meet. The ashen-faced guys who'd gotten nothing were watching like they were staring down a personal enemy, some of them literally gnawing on handkerchiefs.
"Yu-bin's got it rough, too."
"You say that like it's someone else's problem. You must've gotten a decent haul yourself."
In the popularity department, this guy was no slouch either. When I pointed that out, Tae-yang sighed.
"Yeah, well. If I don't bring extra bags every year, I can't even carry it all home."
"That's insane."
Yu-hyeon and his girlfriend kept their relationship under wraps, so that was one thing — but this guy was openly lovey-dovey with Eun-ha in front of everyone, and girls still lined up to hand him chocolate. Was that just how determined girls could be? I had to admit, I was impressed in spite of myself.
"Anyway. What's actually in this thing?"
I set the other world's drama aside and poked the confirmed hazardous material with a finger.
"A little of this, a little of that? Last year it was lemon juice, chili powder, vinegar… the rest were just normal chocolates with love in them."
Maybe throwing it out really was the right call.
The urge kept bubbling up, but I couldn't exactly dump something someone had gone out of their way to give me. Judging by Tae-yang's reaction, it probably wasn't completely inedible — but that didn't mean I was going to enjoy it.
I let out a vague sigh. Tae-yang gave me a bracing pat on the back.
Before long the tide of girls receded from the classroom like the ebb of the sea. Tae-yang had already slipped off somewhere too — Valentine's date, apparently.
"Hey, popular guy."
Yu-hyeon's desk had a fortress of chocolate stacked on it. Other people might have been jealous. Knowing the full story, I just felt complicated about it.
Jiwu's got her work cut out for her. I walked over and said hello with that thought still lingering.
Yu-hyeon only then seemed to notice me. "Oh, Yu-seong," he said, turning to return the greeting.
"That's quite the haul."
"Tell me about it. Happens every year. I never know what to do with it all."
"The guys who got nothing are probably seething with resentment right about now."
"Yeah, probably."
We were talking when something that might be sitting in my bag suddenly occurred to me.
"Hold on a second."
I dug around and, sure enough, pulled out a few plastic bags from the convenience store. These days I was living large on the meals Seol-hwa cooked, but before that I'd been completely dependent on convenience-store food. I'd shoved a few bags in there out of laziness and just-in-case thinking, and only now remembered they were still there.
"Think of it as returning the favor from last time. Take them."
I hadn't expected to repay that debt with plastic bags, of all things. I supposed anything could be useful if you put it to the right purpose.
Repaying someone with grocery bags felt a little off, but Yu-hyeon just said, "I'll put them to good use," accepted them, and gave a small bow of his head.
Back home, I sat at the table and entered a full-scale crisis of decision over what to do with the aforementioned chocolate.
Seol-hwa was still hard at work practicing with Jimin, apparently — she'd left the second school ended and still hadn't come back.
So I was alone in the house…
"Meow—"
"…Or not."
The cry of a cat — Sia, emerging from Seol-hwa's room. There was only ever one reason that little beast came near me.
"Never miss a meal, do you, you little glutton."
Normally she wouldn't come within ten feet of me. Only at times like this did she deign to show her face. Seol-hwa usually handled the feeding, but whenever she was out for a shift — or simply not home, like now — the responsibility fell to me by default.
Even after living here this long, she was still ice-cold toward me. Would it kill her to give me even a quarter of the affection she poured on Seol-hwa?
She adored Seol-hwa, so maybe she was jealous of me for getting along with her… No. Even for a cat, that was probably overthinking it.
"You're something else."
The one real improvement was that she no longer reacted much when I pet her during feeding time. That counted as major progress.
I carefully stroked her back while she munched, making sure she wouldn't bolt — and then I heard the front door open.
"I'm ho— wah, that tickles."
The second the door opened, Sia abandoned her food, shook off my hand, and leapt straight into Seol-hwa's arms the moment she appeared.
"You're back?"
"Yeah. I'm home."
The difference in treatment was so blatant it honestly put me in a bit of a sulk… but I didn't let it show. I just welcomed Seol-hwa home.
"Huh? What's that?"
Seol-hwa had changed into something comfortable, and her gaze landed on the aforementioned chocolate — or, more accurately, the Russian-roulette hazard material.
She'd gone straight to Jimin's place after school, so of course she wouldn't know.
"Poison."
I answered without a second's hesitation. Most of them were supposedly normal, but there were landmines mixed in, so the label fit.
"P-poison…? Isn't that just chocolate?"
"Eun-ha gave it to me. Said there are some… extraordinary flavors mixed in."
"Ugh. That does sound like Eun-ha…"
Even so, you couldn't snack before dinner. The showdown with the chocolate would have to wait until after the evening meal.
…Was it just my imagination that I felt like a condemned man waiting for the gallows? I couldn't stop fretting about it through the entire meal.
When I opened the box, there were a bunch of chocolates about the size of hard candies. She'd said all but one or two were normal.
I'd thought about throwing them out more times than I could count, but a gift was a gift — no matter how much mischief was packed into it. I steeled myself, tossed one into my mouth, and—
"A-are you okay?"
I slammed my forehead into the table with a solid thunk.
"How much wasabi did she cram into this thing…"
My tongue wasn't just stinging from the heat — it had gone completely numb. Out of this many pieces, and I hit the jackpot on the first try. My luck had to be cursed.
It wasn't completely inedible. That didn't mean it was easy to endure, either. The sour punch of vinegar and a generous load of wasabi had chemically fused into something designed to drive a person insane. I could pound my head all I wanted — there was nothing I could do about the assault on my taste buds.
"Just you wait, Yu Eun-ha…"
It was almost impressive that a single piece of chocolate could wreck a person this thoroughly.
I was writhing in misery when Seol-hwa came back from the kitchen with coffee.
"I don't know if this will help, but… drink it. Quick."
"…Thanks."
Come to think of it, people said milk helped with spicy heat. Coffee must have worked on a similar principle, because the twisting in my gut gradually settled.
I was sighing and wondering how I was ever going to repay this ocean of kindness when Seol-hwa suddenly spoke up.
"Um… hey…"
"What is it?"
I knew what she was getting at. I asked anyway.
Her cheeks were blazing red. She went to her room, came back with a bag, and fumbled the contents out.
"I… I'm always indebted to you… no. Thank you. For everything."
"…You really are something."
Even the wrapping showed how much care she'd put in. A black box tied neatly with a yellow ribbon — you could feel the affection aimed at me without even opening it.
This was the main event I'd been waiting for. I'd known it was coming, but actually receiving it still made me feel shy… maybe it was contagious, catching it from the girl in front of me.
I opened the box carefully. Inside, instead of ordinary chocolates, sat a rich, dark chocolate cake that looked almost too good to eat.
"…You went all out."
"You like coffee, so I talked to Jimin about it. She said a chocolate cake that pairs with coffee would be better than just plain chocolate."
I pressed a finger lightly against the cake. It gave like a sponge, soft and springy. The top was coated in a glossy layer of chocolate that practically begged to be eaten. Just looking at it made me swallow hard.
The fact that she'd thought through even those small details made me newly, deeply grateful — though maybe the hell I'd just survived made the contrast hit even harder. I wanted to force-feed Eun-ha, that food-prank idiot, a decoction of Seol-hwa's fingernail clippings.
"Thanks for the food."
I carefully cut a piece with a knife from the kitchen, put it in my mouth, and followed it with a sip of coffee.
"It's delicious…!"
The soft texture of the cake, the bitter richness of the dark chocolate, and the gentle sweetness of the coffee — the three of them together were pure perfection. I wasn't usually someone who paid much attention to food, but living with Seol-hwa and being treated to good meals every day had raised my standards more than I'd realized. Even so, this was beyond anything I'd imagined.
I let the honest praise slip out, and Seol-hwa let out a long, relieved breath, pressing a hand to her chest.
"This is incredible. At this level, the return gift is going to be a real struggle."
"R-return gift…?"
She'd only thought about giving, never about receiving. That was so perfectly Seol-hwa.
I smoothed her hair, trying to calm her down from the full-blown fluster she'd fallen into — and whether the tension finally drained out of her or she simply ran out of strength, she sank straight down onto the floor.
"Honestly, I was shaking the whole time… Jimin kept saying it would be fine, but still…"
"That's exactly your problem, you know that?"
I kept stroking her hair as I looked carefully at her fingers. There were bandages stuck here and there, and a scattering of small cuts she hadn't managed to cover — nicks and burns from the work.
It hurt to see those pretty hands in that state, and at the same time my chest ached with how hard she'd worked, all for me.
"It's really, really good. You worked so hard, didn't you?"
I meant to give credit where it was due and thank her properly — but that must have been the finishing blow. Steam practically rose from the top of her head, and she dropped her face and sank completely.
"Having a girlfriend like this… I really hit the jackpot."
I said it half as a tease, half in earnest, watching her squirm with embarrassment. She started trembling, then wordlessly thumped at my chest over and over.
"I'm the one who should be saying thank you. Always."
Seol-hwa was always talking about how much she owed me, but if anyone was in debt, it was me. In the practical day-to-day, and in every way that mattered inside my head… by now, I couldn't even picture a life without her in it.
So even if she died of embarrassment, on a day like this I was going to praise her until she couldn't take it anymore.
Next month I was definitely going to have to wring my brain dry figuring out how to repay her properly.
But that was a problem for later. For now, I reached for the rest of the dessert, determined to savor every last bit of this sweetness — and this loveliness — while I could.