By Zephyria 
He also had his own reasons. Around that time, there were a couple of instances where someone he was interested in and contacting happened to show interest in Eun-ha. But Eun-ha himself wasn’t interested in them. There was a time when Hae-bin, feeling resentful, strongly criticized Eun-ha.
Anyway, the twins, who had been going back and forth all year, were separated into different classes as the year changed. The girl naturally gave up and started a romantic relationship with a boy who was in the same class, but the boy… continued to like Eun-ha for some time even after becoming a third-year student.
He was also the first person to make Eun-ha aware of homosexuality. He only thought of him as a friend, and he never developed feelings of attraction, but he was somewhat shaken by the fact that he was of the same gender. It was when he was immature.
He and Eun-ha, who brought both curiosity and confusion, impulsively kissed one day. They closed their eyes tightly, overlapped their lips, and intertwined their tongues. He felt a strange sensation, and his heart pounded as if it would burst. It was definitely a feeling he had never experienced before.
Honestly, it felt good, but from about halfway through, he felt more uncomfortable and embarrassed than good. That’s because he felt like he was just a friend… a very close friend. He felt guilty, as if he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing with someone who was just a friend.
He came to his senses and pushed him away, apologized, and the boy silently shed tears. After that incident, he gradually stopped contacting him and sorted out his feelings alone. Then, from the second semester, they started hanging out again little by little. After graduating, they naturally drifted apart, and it’s already been several years since they completely lost contact.
That was already 10 years ago. While he was suddenly recalling the past, the conversation between the two was flowing smoothly, with Eun-ha’s school days as the topic.
“You were popular.”
“He was the idol of his school. There were so many kids who came to me asking me to introduce them to him.”
Back then, he used Facebook, and he had almost 10,000 followers. He was tagged on the school’s bamboo forest page all the time, and his photos were stolen several times by attention-seeking page accounts as a handsome ordinary person.
Gu Hae-bin, who was dredging up the distant past and listing it like a war story, was beyond absurd. He hadn’t said anything. For some reason, he felt like he had become someone who was bragging and exaggerating, and his ears became slightly hot with embarrassment.
“Well… I guess it’s natural. Hyung is a perfect person…”
“The most presents I ever got on Pepero Day was about 80.”
“What do you mean 80? Don’t exaggerate… No, why are we even talking about this in the first place?”
“He had so many people who liked him when he was in college too. Lee Eun-ha turned them all down.”
“…Suddenly, I feel like I might be nothing to Hyung.”
“The two of you aren’t even dating, so it’s not entirely wrong, is it?”
“Ah… I’m getting a little depressed…”
“That’s why I told you. Listen to me from now on, and come out when I tell you to. Okay?”
“No, what are you two even talking about?”
They continued their conversation, completely excluding Eun-ha, who was right next to them. Eun-ha, who was alternately looking at the two who seemed to be quite compatible, discovered customers loitering nearby and left to do the cleaning he had been putting off.
While cleaning the cluttered tables, he faintly heard voices behind him.
“I’m rooting for you. Okay? Hyung will push you.”
“Why is he like that, really…”
He was dumbfounded. Eun-ha, with anger in his touch, scrubbed the table and disappeared into the counter.
That’s how a few strange days passed. Days when the two of them spent time exchanging schemes or whatever. Days that constantly dumbfounded Eun-ha.
At the end of it, Friday arrived. It was a day when Gu Hae-bin didn’t come, a day when Yeon-jun had a free period, and also the day they were supposed to go on their fourth date.
Around noon. After finishing his preparations for leaving work and stepping out of the cafe, he saw Yeon-jun, who had left earlier, standing on one side of the parking lot. Eun-ha sometimes walked to and from work, and sometimes drove, but today he had brought his car. As he approached Yeon-jun, who was standing next to it waiting, he thought he would sense his presence and turn around… but he didn’t. He was just staring blankly at his phone.
Eun-ha, raising his eyebrows, peeked over his shoulder. Together, they looked at Yeon-jun’s phone. When he looked to see what it was, the store information screen within the map app was displayed. In other words, the review window of Eun-ha’s cafe.
The menu is friendly and the CEO’s face is really delicious
★★★★★ ｜ 336 recommends
You can see the CEO if you go between 9 AM and 1 PM every day lol
★★★★★ ｜ 198 recommends
This is the best cafe in my life for real…
★★★★★ ｜ 145 recommends
…Why are you looking at this?”
When he asked awkwardly, Yeon-jun finally turned his shoulder slightly and looked down at Eun-ha. He stared at him for a while with dark eyes, then awkwardly averted his gaze.
“…It’s nothing.”
He said let’s go now that he’s here, trying to speak as usual, but his voice was filled with a handful of anxiety that he couldn’t hide. His back, approaching the passenger seat, was gloomy as if covered in dark clouds. If Yeon-jun had animal ears and a tail, they would surely be drooping to the point of breaking the floor right now.
He had been like that for days since hearing a series of episodes from Gu Hae-bin. A subtly subdued atmosphere. He seemed to have a lot of noise going on inside.
He once said that he would accept the unchangeable past as it is… Then he let out a snort. He knew at what point Yeon-jun was feeling anxious. It seemed that the fact that there were quite a few people in the past who really liked Eun-ha and tried various approaches had come to him as a sense of crisis.
Perhaps, he had arrived at the proposition that he might not be much different from those ardent people.
Eun-ha thought of Gu Hae-bin. He wondered why he was unnecessarily mentioning the past and making people feel embarrassed, but it seemed that it was to push him with shock therapy. Yeon-jun, of course, didn’t show the dramatic sanctification that Gu Hae-bin had expected, but it was certain that an uneasy motive had been planted.
Thanks to that, the atmosphere was not very pleasant even while driving to the restaurant. He didn’t openly complain about this or that, but rather, he was more conscious and concerned because of it. Eun-ha, unable to bear it any longer, opened his mouth.
“You must have been popular in school too.”
He didn’t think he wouldn’t have been. He wondered if anyone wouldn’t have liked him. He meant, since they were both in similar situations, why was he suddenly worrying about such things.
“You too… So Hyung really had a lot.”
“That was years ago…”
Eun-ha, muttering in vain, returned to the main point.
“Anyway, didn’t you have a lot too?”
“I did.”
He answers surprisingly quickly. It was the point when he had just stopped at a traffic light. Yeon-jun, reaching out to Eun-ha who was glancing sideways at him, naturally grabbed his hand. Entangling his wrist and rubbing the back of his hand with his thumb was quite routine.
“I was really popular, Hyung.”