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Fuck, why the hell did I come?
Eunho, after getting beaten up by Jihoon because he was unable to fight back, had come running because he was worried about Jeongwon, who topped the practical exam.
“Well…”
Jeongwon’s eyes were wavering. Was she wondering why Eunho came, or was she considering how to bury Jihoon without getting caught?
Either way, as soon as Eunho saw that look in her eyes, he snapped back to his senses.
This is an embarrassing situation, isn’t it?
Would she think Eunho came for her? Just thinking about it made Eunho’s face feel hot. Absolutely not. He needed to explain that wasn’t the case.
“Um, Eunho. What should we do? If we leave him on the street, will he die?”
It seemed like Jeongwon was the worried one. Looking at Jihoon’s face buried in the garbage bag, Eunho tried to speak casually.
“What do you mean die? Sports guys always have such strict discipline.”
“Should we just leave him?”
“If we just leave him, he’ll die like you said, idiot! Don’t you know anyone who could help?”
“Oh, y—yeah… I should…”
Jeongwon pulled her phone out with trembling hands. From the bits of conversation he heard, it seemed as though she’d contacted Jihoon’s roommate. After somehow finding the phone number and making the call, Jeongwon caught her breath.
“He said he’ll come, thank goodness.”
“What’s there to be thankful for? Are you going to tell him straight up that you did a shoulder throw?”
“Oh… Should we come up with an alibi?”
“Say we were drinking together and he passed out.”
“Okay…”
Once the Jihoon situation seemed to be settled, Jeongwon carefully asked, “But why… did you come here?”
Here it comes. Eunho barely stopped himself from biting his tongue. He could never admit that he was worried about Jeongwon. No, he wasn’t really worried in the first place. What right did he have to worry about Jeongwon, a grown adult who was a highly-trained martial artist? It was just that he might feel guilty and have trouble sleeping if something happened, and it would be more of an issue for him. But he had no intention of saying this outright.
“Well, I was drinking nearby and saw it. You guys were so noisy.”
“Noisy? No way. No one was around…”
“I just—just happened to hear it while passing by. When I was coming out to smoke!”
“You don’t even smoke.”
“What do you know!”
“W—why are you getting angry all of a sudden!” Jeongwon yelled.
Eunho let out a deep sigh. “Fine, fuck. I don’t smoke. I came because I was worried you might kill him. I was worried about Jihoon.”
“Worried about Jihoon…”
Jeongwon looked puzzled. Eunho’s heart was pounding. He couldn’t tell if his heart was racing from all the running he did earlier, or from fear that Jeongwon might start questioning him.
The longer the silence lasted, the more suffocating it felt. He wanted to push everything aside and run away right now out of embarrassment and shame. Even though he knew that would look even more suspicious.
“I see,” Jeongwon finally said.
What’s with this idiot?
She gave a short laugh. “Good thing I did the shoulder throw onto the garbage bags. I really was standing here wondering if I killed him.”
“R—Right. Since you’re, well, you, I was concerned that you’d let the fight get out of hand. You’ve had plenty of victims, haven’t you?”
“Should we call the police?” Jeongwon asked hesitantly.
“Leave it. He probably has his own reasons to keep quiet.”
“True…”
Jeongwon sat down dejectedly and poked Jihoon’s head as it lay buried in the garbage bags.
“I’m leaving.” Eunho slowly turned and walked away, putting all his energy into seeming aloof. After walking for about 3 minutes, he risked looking back, figuring he must be out of sight.
“Damn it, fuck!”
Once Jeongwon was no longer visible, Eunho started running. He hadn’t realized the distance to his apartment was this long. Even though the cold evening wind brushed against Eunho’s cheeks, his face showed no signs of cooling down.
“So embarrassing…”
His face was so hot he couldn’t properly lift his head.
***
“Jeongwon, I really like you, I’m telling you. Those rumors about me are all lies. My feelings are sincere.”
Jeongwon recalled Jihoon’s voice.
“Let me hug you just once. If you’re going to reject me, at least give me one hug, okay?”
Every time she played it back in her mind, it gave her goosebumps.
“He really was a crazy bastard… The rumors were true.”
That day, Jihoon had taken her to a back alley and asked her to believe that the rumors were all lies. As Jeongwon was wondering why he would say something like that when there weren’t even any strange rumors she could think of, Jihoon confessed to her.
As soon as Jeongwon rejected him, Jihoon tried to hug her. When Jeongwon pushed him away in panic, Jihoon suddenly transformed and started blaming her, demanding to know why she couldn’t just give him one hug when she had already rejected his affection, and accusing her of leading him on.
“You were the one who led me on first, you bitch!”
He really was insane. If anything, the things people said about Jihoon had been the toned-down version. An aggressive, womanizing creep.
“…And that asshole fought with Eunho because of me?”
Seeing Jihoon’s true nature made the rumors even more puzzling. Jihoon had only cared about getting with her once. He didn’t seem like someone who would physically defend Jeongwon’s reputation.
She’d heard there were only men present, and it didn’t seem likely that he would throw away his graduate student status in the name of her image.
“What exactly happened?”
Jeongwon was stressed not only about Jihoon’s advances, but also about the possibility of there being more behind-the-scenes that she didn’t know about. She was perplexed. Why did Eunho run to the back alley? What conversation did they have that day that made Jihoon punch Eunho? And why wasn’t Eunho saying anything about it?
“Hey, Seokjun Kim!”
Seokjun was Eunho’s best friend and a classmate who was pleasant enough toward Jeongwon. She’d spotted him in a cafe and plopped herself down at his table.
“Why are you looking for me?” he asked, surprised. “Is Eunho not answering his phone?”
“No, it’s not that. I have something I’m curious about.”
He paled. “Did you find out about me talking behind Jeongah’s back?”
Jeongwon paused, thrown off. “Who’s Jeongah?”
“Phew, guess not,” Seokjun said, slumping backward with relief.
Jeongwon slammed the table. “No, that’s not it, listen. You know the rumor about Jihoon Kim beating up Eunho.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know exactly what happened with that?”
“Hasn’t Eunho told you?”
“He hasn’t said anything.”
“Hmm.” Seokjun rubbed his chin with a meaningful smile. “A true man.”
“Ah, what is it!” Jeongwon complained. “Please just tell me.How is it okay that I’m the only one who doesn’t know about my own rumor?”
“There must be a reason why Eunho hasn’t said anything…” Seokjun said evasively.
Jeongwon’s fingers tightened around her the glass. The glass made an ominous sound.
Seokjun swallowed hard.
“Hey, uh, weren’t you the top scorer in practicals?”
“Top of the department.”
“Yep, thought so, okay I’ll tell you.”
Seokjun lowered his head, expression serious.
“That night, Jihoon said really disgusting things about you. Words that crossed the line, that kind of thing.”
“…And then?”
“Then Eunho suddenly stood up and he delivered his famous line: ‘What the fuck did you just say?’ And then he wound up and punched him.”
When Jeongwon frowned suspiciously, Seokjun leaned back on the sofa with a sigh, as if he had expected this reaction.
“Hey, Jeongwon. Even though Eunho is a trash game-addicted weirdo who proves the theory that humans are innately evil—”
“Harsh.”
“Still, he’s got the guts to speak up when lines are crossed. Why does no one believe it? I’m telling you it’s true!”
Seokjun pounded his chest in frustration.
“Really?” Jeongwon asked hesitantly. “For real? You’d bet your life on it? Why? What happened to him? Was he on drugs?”
“He was fine,” Seokjun said with a shrug. “If anything, I wondered if I was the one on drugs, because he was thinking too much like a decent human.”
“No, but how…”
Jeongwon couldn’t wrap her head around the idea. She brought both hands to her cheeks with a sharp smack. No matter how she thought about it, it didn’t make sense, but it was more realistic than the rumor that Jihoon fought while trying to defend her. Although, she couldn’t imagine Eunho fighting for her either.
But Seokjun had no reason to lie. As she watched him pound his chest and whine about how unfair it was that no one believed him, it didn’t seem like a lie.
Jeongwon’s thoughts drifted to how she had simply believed the rumors at face value and got angry at Eunho without even asking him what happened. If all this was true, it meant she was the one who had acted worse than trash, not Eunho.
Ah, damn… Why would he do that… No, if something like that happened, why did he keep his mouth shut…
She felt like the guilt was robbing her of her sanity. Eunho had just silently listened to all the cruel things Jeongwon had said about him. Why did he do that? If he had just vehemently denied it, Jeongwon might have given it some thought, but because Eunho stayed silent, she’d completely believed what she’d heard.
“He could have just denied it, why did he do that?!”
Jeongwon slammed a fist on the table. Her face was burning red. She was ashamed of herself for blindly believing idle gossip without actually checking the facts, and she felt utterly humiliated and irritated at herself for getting angry at Eunho like an emotional child.
It wasn’t like he couldn’t speak, and he wasn’t someone with a quiet or timid personality. It was frustrating that such a person had kept his mouth uncharacteristically shut when he, for once, was actually in the right.
“What am I supposed to do…”
Why are you making me the bad person?
She wanted to confront Eunho about it. Jeongwon was crushed under such heavy guilt that she wondered if Eunho had done it on purpose.
“Why are you making me the bad person...”
Jeongwon’s hand grew red as she banged it into the table again and again. If only she had just asked Eunho the day he heard the rumors, then this wouldn’t have happened. No, if only Eunho had been transparent about that night when Jeongwon misunderstood, then she wouldn’t have built up this guilt, even after being cursed at.
“You crazy bastard Eunho… Why are you making me the bad person?!”
Jeongwon screamed, overwhelmed with shame, anger, remorse, guilt, and regret. Seokjun watched Jeongwon throw her tantrum while sipping his americano.
“A gathering of idiots,” he said sagely.
As Jeongwon raised her head at the sound of Seokjun’s straw scraping the bottom of his cup, she suddenly screamed.
Seokjun lurched forward, nearly choking on his straw. “What is it?”
Through the cafe window, they could see Eunho trudging along.
“Oh,” Seokjun said, reclining again. “Looks like that dickhead is going to make do with convenience store food and play games again.”
Eunho lived near the school and always seemed to subsist on convenience store meals and focus on gaming. Jeongwon jumped up from her seat and ran out without so much as a goodbye.
“Eun–Eunho!”
Jeongwon’s lips trembled as she stopped Eunho in his tracks. A convenience store bag dangled from his hand.
“What?”
“Um...”
“Talk,” he said irritably.
“S—s…”
She needed to say it. She needed to apologize, but Jeongwon’s mouth wouldn’t obey.
“You stop me but don’t say anything,” he muttered.
As Eunho turned to leave, Jeongwon shouted, “Y—You idiot. Don’t you know WithU convenience store’s triangle kimbap tastes better?!”
Eunho turned back around, stared at Jeongwon blankly, then raised his middle finger.
“Suddenly picking a fight and you’re not even right, fuck. Just go away if you don’t have something useful to say.”
Jeongwon let herself drop down, right there on the asphalt road.
***
“No, he’s the type who would definitely brag about something like this, why on earth did he do that?”
Jeongwon kept muttering to herself as her fingers perused the selection before her. She looked over the clerk’s recommendations, only half paying attention.
“Should I apologize? Why should I? Did I ask him to fight?”
It was definitely something to be grateful for. But when she thought about apologizing for all of this, she felt as though she were shriveling up like squid on a grill from head to toe. She just couldn’t bring herself to say sorry.
Whenever she tried to apologize, all of Eunho’s past misdeeds would come to mind. She couldn’t understand why Eunho acted like a villain in the open, but performed good deeds like a hero behind the scenes.
“Is he a masochist?”
Could he be enjoying being openly criticized? The more Jeongwon thought about it, the more confused she became. She raised a hand to her throbbing head.
“Would you like a bag?”
“Ah, yes, yes.”
Jeongwon sighed as she took the bag from the clerk. Then she headed to the lecture hall.
***
“…What is this?” Eunho said, looking dispassionately at the bag she held out.
“I—I found it on my way here.”
The bag contained several meal kits from a store famous for its high-quality kits. She thought it would be the perfect gift for someone who only ate convenience store food.
“Take it to the lost and found then.” Eunho pushed the bag away. Jeongwon was beyond frustrated. Why did she have to speak so indirectly when a simple apology would do? Why couldn’t she find the courage to say it?
So she held out the bag again.
“No, I bought it, I bought it. Okay? Take it.”
“…Have you tried this one?” Eunho asked, pointing at a meal kit.
“I—I have tried it. It’s really good. They say it’s their most famous meal.”
“Then I won’t eat it. What’s with the sudden gift? Did you lose your mind after eating this?”
Eunho gathered his things and moved to the next seat as if simply being near her was a bother. Jeongwon weakly put the bag down on the desk.
“Fuck, really…”
Since he wouldn’t accept her subtle apology anyway, she wanted to ignore everything and pretend nothing happened. Yet after days of guilt-ridden, sleepless nights, Jeongwon knew it wasn’t an option. If that’s how it was going to be, she wanted to convey her good intentions through money and gifts, but that idiot Eunho was too busy feeling awkward to even notice.
“What am I supposed to do, seriously…”
Jeongwon pounded her chest with a frustrated fist.

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