By Zephyria 
As he left the room, he saw the familiar shape of the living room and kitchen. He had a hunch, and it was indeed the same Officetel. What were the odds? It was an unfortunate coincidence.
Separately, the fact that they hadn’t run into each other until now was strange. Eun-ha had lived here for about three years. Although it was more of a hotel-like stay than actually living, anyway.
Even in the days when they had no inner familiarity, if they had run into each other even once, he felt like he would have noticed him impressively.
Well, he might not have moved in that long ago. It wasn’t a big deal. However, he hoped that they wouldn’t run into each other in the future. He didn’t want to give the man any more excuses.
There was one reason why he had overlooked the man orbiting around him like a satellite. It was because he didn’t have a good enough reason to shake him off. While being annoying, the man hadn’t actually sent any clear signals. He couldn’t just react in an exaggerated way, like playing the drum and gong all by himself. He had even given him his number in the first place, wanting to see if he would do anything, because he was annoyed by that measly game of reading each other’s minds.
He was planning to cut him off as soon as he mentioned any sexual nuances. He didn’t know it would turn out like this in just one day.
He thought it was a good thing, rather. He thought it would be good to sort things out neatly this time.
That was why he readily nodded when asked if he would like to have a meal. Yeon-jun simply set the table. With bread, jam, cereal, and the like. It was a menu that accommodated Eun-ha’s order that a full meal would only make his stomach feel more bloated on a day with a hangover.
Eun-ha sat quietly at the table, eating bread nonchalantly with the milk that Yeon-jun had prepared.
In the quiet silence, he waited for the right timing and cautiously opened his mouth.
“Baek Yeon-jun.”
“Yes.”
“Shall we just have this for the meal?”
He glanced at him. It was a calm gaze without any significant change. Eun-ha continued calmly.
“I hope you won’t contact me separately with the number I gave you before.”
At the words that drew a line in the sand, the man was silent for a while. He just sent a thoughtful look, as if he was thinking. Just a calm face without any particular expression.
Then he replied.
“Why?”
“It’s not because I have any bad feelings. It’s just that I showed you such an ugly side of myself yesterday. And there were so many things that happened.”
“Hmm.”
“I feel a little uncomfortable thinking about facing someone I caused trouble to with my Drunken behavior…”
“……”
“You know what I mean, right?”
It wasn’t just an excuse. It was also true that he felt uncomfortable. He didn’t know exactly what he had said, but he vaguely remembered that he had taken out some of the emotions deep inside him. Dirty emotions that he hated to face himself, so he buried them as if trying to ignore them.
It was only natural that he wouldn’t enjoy facing someone who had been shown his bottom.
“I told you it was okay.”
“It’s because I’m not okay.”
Yeon-jun didn’t answer the words that dismissed him indifferently.
He didn’t say anything until the end.
But his actions became the answer. That was why he couldn’t be found at the cafe after that. The same morning as usual. Eun-ha took a sip of his coffee, looking around the unusually crowded cafe.
Perhaps because it was exam season, there were three times as many customers as usual. Most of them were people who came alone or in small groups to study.
Yeon-jun wasn’t among those many students. Eun-ha sat in the first-floor seat, watching the people studying, and lightly clicked his tongue.
How boring…
He thought he wanted him to fall out, but he didn’t know he would really disappear so quickly. If he had known that his departure would be so smooth, he should have brought it up sooner.
Or maybe he had lost interest because he had accomplished his goal.
Well. It didn’t matter anyway. It was a relationship that would pass by, no matter what. It was just one of the countless, meaningless strangers, hardly worthy of being called a relationship.
It’s just that when the person he used to see every day disappeared, he felt a slight sense of emptiness.
He was habitually looking at the seat that was almost like the man’s reserved seat. Suddenly, a series of vibrations rang out. Eun-ha checked his phone.
(Photo)
(Photo)
(Photo), (Photo), (Photo)
Only photos arrived without any further explanation. Eun-ha, who knew that it was meant to be a boast, immediately narrowed his eyes and checked the attached files one by one. A picture of a magnificent European cathedral. A picture of the interior of a luxurious resort accommodation. A picture of the private pool of the accommodation. Pictures of exotic food.
It was a message from Kim Tae-yeong, who was enjoying a two-month trip to Europe. He was one of the few people that Eun-ha periodically contacted and maintained a relationship with. Apart from friends who he had known for a long time and were now as natural as family, Kim Tae-yeong was the only close acquaintance with whom he had a normal relationship.
It wasn’t normal from the beginning. He also met him as a sex partner. He was the first partner Eun-ha had ever made in his life, about three years ago.
Two years older. After maintaining the relationship for three months, Kim Tae-yeong was the first to say that he wanted to stop.
What did he say? He said that if he got more involved with him, he would be ruining his own life… He said something similar to that. He said that as he spent time with him, he honestly had feelings for him, but he didn’t want to deepen them because the emotion at the center of it was rooted in pity.
It was a wise decision. Eun-ha three years ago was somewhat out of his mind. It was not long after he had ended a near-destructive fight with his lover, whom he had been dating for the entire 20s. Unlike now, when he was pursuing a dry partner relationship, Eun-ha was in a state of emotional collapse to the point where he had difficulty distinguishing between right and wrong, and he had shown Kim Tae-yeong a lot of unsightly things, as they had spent a lot of time together.
He could have been completely disgusted, but Kim Tae-yeong only ended the partner relationship and didn’t cut off the relationship itself. He didn’t back down from Eun-ha, who had belatedly come to his senses and was pushing him away, but rather interfered and continued to contact him. The reason was that he was worried about leaving him alone.
After that, Kim Tae-yeong remained as Eun-ha’s acquaintance. After being caught by trash twice and suffering terrible hardships because his eye for people wasn’t very good, he pitied Eun-ha and even directly connected him with partners. Jeong Tae-geon was also someone he had met through Kim Tae-yeong’s connections.
Eun-ha went back through the messages he had exchanged with Kim Tae-yeong. Most of them were about boasting about his trip to Europe, and there were occasional mentions of Jeong Tae-geon. He used to talk about partners with him from time to time. When he expressed his annoyance because he had a bad feeling, Kim Tae-yeong would respond. He didn’t know he was that kind of person, I guess my eye for people is just messed up at this point, something like that.
And it turned out like this again.