Share on:
Jeongwon quietly looked down at the clothes spread out on her bed: lace camisoles, dresses, fitted t-shirts, denim skirts…
She gathered the clothes she’d been staring at into her arms and stuffed them into the corner of her closet. Kneeling, she pushed them into the very back, her hands trembling.
“…I can’t wear them.”
Jeongwon sat with her head resting against the closet door, biting the inside of her lip. She couldn’t bring herself to wear pretty clothes anymore. Just as Eunho had said, it felt like all the compliments her friends had given her were nothing but empty words, spoken out of pity.
She knew she was an adult, that clothes weren’t classed by status, and that she could wear whatever she wanted. In South Korea, where individual style was valued, everyone could dress the way they want.
If someone said, “That doesn’t suit you” or “That’s not your style,” everyone would know that the person saying it was in the wrong.
I can wear the clothes I want, I can accessorize how I like, I can do whatever I want, those clothes don’t look out of place on me, I am not strange…
Even as she repeated these things to herself, Eunho’s words kept echoing in her mind.
“All those people saying you’re pretty—they’re just being polite.”
No matter how often she reassured herself, one word from Eunho had still shattered her resolve. She knew he was wrong. She knew her friends genuinely thought she looked nice. But still, she couldn’t shake off the echo of Eunho’s voice.
“That bastard…”
In the end, clutching the clothes she’d stuffed into the back of her closet, she broke down in tears.
“What if it really was all just empty words?”
What if, behind her back, people were laughing at her for dressing up, calling her a clown or an idiot? What if they were sneering, saying how stupid she looked when she tried to look pretty? How was she supposed to face her friends now?
And it made her even angrier to know that all this was because of Eunho. If she’d been able to just dress how she wanted, like everyone else, without second-guessing herself, she wouldn’t be feeling this way.
“What if that jerk, Eunho, saw me…”
Jeongwon sobbed, rubbing her eyes. When Eunho had spoken those words, it felt like her soaring heart had suddenly plummeted to her feet. If he’d said it while she was dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants, she would have been able to disregard it.
But she had been wearing those clothes, the ones she’d carefully picked out, and she felt so humiliated that she cried in front of Eunho. And that made it even more embarrassing, because her tears felt like proof of her hurt.
“…I’ll just wear these.”
She scrubbed her tears away with the back of her hand, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, grabbed a hoodie, and left the house without even looking at herself in the mirror.
“Jeongwon, didn’t you throw out that hoodie?”
“The outfits you’ve been wearing were really cute though…”
Her friends patted her hoodie, looking a bit disappointed, but Jeongwon couldn’t bring herself to interpret their comments in a positive light.
Do they think I’m finally wearing something that suits me?
When she looked closely, their disappointed faces almost looked like they could be holding back laughter. No, maybe they really were disappointed. After all, she was no longer the “funny” one for them to tease.
Forcing a smile, she replied,
“Hey, even if I kept wearing that stuff, what good would it do? It just made me look like a guy in drag.”
Sometimes, the words she said herself hurt more than anything Eunho could have said. Jeongwon wanted to cry.
***
“So, if language can be explained as a spatiotemporal concept…”
Spatiotemporal… Tuesday, 1:45 PM… Jeongwon was in the student council room…
“Hey, Ju Eunho. Wanna go to the PC café? Or did you quit gaming?”
Gaming… Jeongwon loved games…
“The cafeteria food is garbage today, isn’t it?”
Jeongwon was always happy with a belly full of just cafeteria food…
“She cried, didn’t she…”
Eunho couldn’t concentrate on his classes, hobbies, or meals. His mind was stuck on Jeongwon’s tears. He’d been teasing her for over ten years, yet he’d never once seen her cry.
“Is she really that emotional…?”
Eunho stood under the shower, like the male lead of a drama, letting the water pour over his head. The streams of water running down his face felt uncomfortably like tears.
“Maybe… it was just sweat?”
Jeongwon was in the Taekwondo Department and had a knack for sports. So maybe she was sweating a lot, and it just ran into her eyes. But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself, he couldn’t shake the image of her tears, and eventually, he slumped into the bathtub, shouting, “No, damn it. You’re the one who did something wrong, so why are you the one crying?”
Eunho had to admit it. He couldn’t get through his daily life with Jeongwon’s tears constantly flitting to the forefront of his mind. He couldn’t understand why she was crying or why her crying irritated him so much. He wanted to blame her, but he just couldn’t.
“Damn it, seriously…”
His chest ached. He wanted to believe it was because of his heartbreak over Ruby or his frustration at seeing Jeongwon suddenly act so out of character. But Eunho was an adult and not so immature that he couldn’t recognize his own feelings.
“Damn, is this… for real?”
Eunho felt a strange pang of guilt. Just like the water from the shower head, Jeongwon’s tears seemed to trickle down from his head to his heart, piercing it over and over.
He kept repeating the childish excuse, I didn’t know she would cry, in his mind but it didn’t ease the discomfort in his chest.
“Damn it… What do I do? This is so irritating.”
Eunho, who had been banging his head against the bathroom wall, finally clutched his head and stood up.
“…Maybe I went too far?”
Sometimes, jokes crossed the line. No matter how much he disliked Jeongwon, crossing a line would hurt her. Eunho decided he was an adult, a grown-up, and so he should focus only on what Jeongwon had done wrong.He shouldn’t have lashed out at her just for being happy.
“Right, Eunho. You’re an adult. You’re a grown-up.”
So for this one incident, he would swallow his pride, apologize, and then just get mad at her for killing Ruby. Proud of himself for taking the high road, he thought about Jeongwon.
He ran a towel over his wet hair, thinking.
“What does Jeongwon like, anyway?”
He thought back on the more than ten years he’d spent as her friend. Jeongwon secretly liked cute things, and surprisingly, she had a sweet tooth for things like macarons and chocolates.
She especially liked those chubby, cutely decorated macarons. Eunho remembered that whenever he teased her about it, Jeongwon would retort, “They’re tastier because they’re thick! That’s why I chose them. Who cares about design?”
“A big, fat macaron should do the trick.”
Eunho went to a popular bakery near campus, where girls often lined up. He bought several fist-sized, adorably thick “chubcarons” and slowly made his way to the lecture hall.
“There she is.”
In the middle of the lecture hall, he spotted the back of a head that was unmistakably Jeongwon’s. Round head, with a hoodie that seemed to engulf it. With a slightly nervous stutter in his heart, Eunho walked toward her.
“Hey, Jeongwon Yoo. I picked these up…”
But his words trailed off. Sitting next to Jeongwon was a famously handsome senior classman.
“Jeongwon, wearing a hoodie today?” the senior asked conversationally.
“Yes.”
“You still look good, even in this. You don’t need to dress up to look nice.”
“Ah, thanks.”
Eunho suddenly felt a rush of clarity, as if cold water had been dumped over him. What was he thinking, trying to make peace with Jeongwon? Bringing her macarons—big, thick, expensive ones that cost two or three thousand won each?
Without hesitation, he walked out of the lecture hall and tossed the box of macarons into the trash. Due to a discarded cup of orange drink, the box turned soggy and orange-stained.
***
<Steam Game Recommendations>
<Multiplayer Game Recommendations>
<Review of N’s New Game>
Eunho scoffed. “Has the Korean gaming scene totally died?”
He’d decided to skip his liberal arts lecture. In his view, skipping a class was practically the same as it being canceled. So, he sprawled on the department room sofa, scrolling through game recommendation forums on his phone.
His emotions were all over the place as a result of spending too much time living “real life.” If he found a game that provided straightforward dopamine and solved everything with money, he wouldn’t have to deal with annoying things like emotions and could just focus on having fun.
“Should I just make a new Gun Tales account?”
He wondered if he even could start Gun Tales fresh, and forget everything that had happened with Ruby. No game had kept him as engaged as Gun Tales, with its familiar systems and regular updates. But even that felt tedious and irritating.
“Forget it. Why go back to a game where someone died?”
Gun Tales was a deadly game, after all. Determined to leave it behind, Eunho searched for a new paradise. Scanning through post after post—multiplayer recommendations, solo games, Steam games, mobile games—he suddenly saw a message pop up.
Jeongwon Yoo: You’re in the department room, right?
What did that mean? Eunho sat up abruptly on the sofa, then collapsed back down. It made sense she’d be able to guess; he was always in either the PC café or the department room.
But why? Why was Jeongwon asking where he was? After a moment of hesitation, he swiped her message away.
Turning his attention back to the game recommendation forums, he thought maybe it was time to get into a solo game. Just him, no people to deal with. That would be best. Still, he couldn’t get Jeongwon out of his head.
Why did she want to know if he was in the department room? As soon as the question reentered his head, the department room door swung open.
“There you are.”
It was Jeongwon. Startled, Eunho’s eyes widened as she hesitantly stepped inside.
“…Taekwondo majors aren’t allowed in here,” he said after a moment.
“No one else is here,” Jeongwon muttered, looking around. Then she pulled something from her pocket. Gaming gift cards.
“Did you get scammed?”
“No.” Jeongwon pressed them into Eunho’s hand. “Sorry.”
Sorry for what? Eunho couldn’t understand what she meant. When he frowned, Jeongwon gripped his hand tightly, closing his fingers around the gift cards.
“You, uh… only get gift cards as birthday presents since you’re always gaming, right? …Even though you’re probably not going to play Gun Tales anymore…” Jeongwon muttered. “I’m sorry. Really.”
Even though it was the apology he’d wanted to hear, Eunho felt strange. Why was Jeongwon apologizing? Did she even know what she was apologizing for? Did she even do anything wrong…?
Since Eunho still hadn’t responded, Jeongwon offered him something else.
“So… about this…” In her hand, she held a pair of drop earrings. “Um… here.”
As Eunho stared, perplexed, at the earrings, Jeongwon bit her lip and hesitated for a long while before speaking. “…I don’t have anyone else to ask about this…”
The hand holding the earrings was trembling slightly. Seeming embarrassed, she clenched and unclenched her fist, the cubic zirconia sparkling between her fingers.
“Do these… really not suit me?”
Eunho looked back and forth between Jeongwon and the earrings in her hand. Was Jeongwon feeling… self-conscious?

An error occurred. Please log in again.
Comments
Small Title
No comment yet. Add the first one!
New Stories You May Like
I Fell in Love With My Tomboy Friend’s Avatar
Between Earth and Elsewhere