By Zephyria 
Eun-ha had dated for a considerable amount of time, and he had met and parted with countless people in his loneliness, but he had never experienced a relationship like this. It was an unfamiliar sensation. The feeling of pouring out emotions he wanted to keep hidden in his heart, laid bare and detailed.
And the feeling of facing someone who listened to it all quietly and patiently, right before his eyes.
He wanted to run away anywhere. Yeon-jun fixed his gaze on Eun-ha, a strange light flickering in his eyes. His posture was one of complete focus.
“Yes. Please keep talking.”
“……Haa.”
“For starters, I’m actually feeling a bit better now.”
“Why would you feel better……?”
Eun-ha muttered, completely bewildered by the statement. It didn’t seem like a lie; he could glimpse a sense of joy on the boy’s face. It was truly an incomprehensible utterance. Shouldn’t it be normal to look petty or pathetic? He should have been displeased, at the very least…….
Slovenly brushing back his hair, Eun-ha hesitated, then opened his mouth again without confidence under the lingering gaze. With both his forearms still held, he rambled on for a while longer. Not even knowing what he was saying.
Or perhaps he was pretending not to know because he wanted to ignore the words he was speaking.
“……So.”
“…….”
“I looked at your phone once. While you were sleeping.”
It was already mid-September. Eun-ha, who was pouring out the hardships he had endured alone for the past three weeks like a resignation, looked down particularly helplessly when he said those words. He really didn’t want to say it, but separately, he felt it was something he had to say. For the sake of atonement.
Eun-ha wasn’t looking at him, but he could easily feel the other flinch slightly. The grip of the fist holding him tightened. His mind was colored with a familiar pessimism.
I’d rather just break up…….
Eun-ha, who had thought this unconsciously, soon realized it and flinched inwardly. It was just as he was tentatively curling the corners of his mouth.
“I understood what you meant.”
A calm voice reached his eardrums. A voice so truly calm that it made his own heart settle along with it.
“First of all…… I really didn’t know.”
“…….”
“If you hadn’t told me, I would have continued not knowing.”
Hearing the voice continue consistently without fluctuation, Eun-ha felt his insides settle and hesitantly lifted his gaze. Curly hair. Pitch-black eyes. A black piercing in the earlobe. A face that looked like a delinquent from any angle.
That youthful, handsome face looked back at Eun-ha with eyes that were smiling softly. As if saying, ‘But thank you for telling me.’
Eun-ha pulled his head back slightly. Thinking that it was a bit unfair to smile so meekly with a face like that.
“But honestly, I’m not sure what the problem is.”
“…….”
“I get jealous too, Hyung.”
“……Right. I know…….”
Yeon-jun was someone who consistently, though subtly, paid attention to Eun-ha’s close circle of friends. He had often asked things like when they had known each other, how close they were, and what they usually did for fun.
Also, he occasionally reacted with concern regarding past connections. To the many people who had been Eun-ha’s sex partners.
At the withered, sunken answer, Yeon-jun met his eyes again and flashed a smile. That eye-smile felt as if he were affirming, ‘I told you so.’
“You know how much I do it.”
“I’m not sure how much.”
To the blunt response that slipped out, the answer was a sudden change of subject. With a thoughtful “Um,” he suddenly spoke.
“Why do you think I’m working a part-time job?”
At the question that was nearly a diversion, Eun-ha only wore a bewildered expression. Why suddenly that……. After a moment’s thought, he answered.
“That’s because…… it’ll be a good experience for you?”
“That’s secondary.”
Yeon-jun, who had been maintaining eye contact the whole time, let his gaze slide slightly to the side. Looking somewhere in the air as if contemplating, he eventually lightly toyed with the nape of his neck.
“I was planning to keep this a secret, but…….”
“…….”
“Hyeon-ji Noona is close with you, Hyung.”
“……What does that have to do with anything?”
“I mean, I thought it would be better if I were on speaking terms with her.”
“……?”
It was a feast of incomprehensible explanations. What on earth is he talking about……? With a stunned Eun-ha before him, Yeon-jun continued his explanation.
“I thought it would be better to get close rather than watching the relationship between you and your friends from afar.”
“…….”
“It seemed like the only way I could do it. I couldn’t exactly interfere between friends. That’s why I make sure to answer well when Gu Hae-bin Hyung contacts me.”
“……What. Wait a minute. So you’re working a part-time job for that?”
A bewildered voice escaped him instinctively. After slowly processing the information, Eun-ha opened his eyes wide and took in Yeon-jun clearly. Having said it, Yeon-jun blushed slightly as if he were embarrassed. He toyed with the area near his chin with his index finger, averting his gaze as if pretending to be preoccupied.
“That was the intention at first. But as I did it, it turned out to be more fun than I expected, so I came to think it was a good choice.”
“…….”
Blinking in bewilderment, Eun-ha slowly opened his mouth. Glancing at that stunned face, Yeon-jun blushed again as if he were indeed shy, then lowered his head and pulled Eun-ha’s arms toward himself. He rested his forehead against Eun-ha’s shoulder.
“This is unfamiliar to me too.”
“…….”
“Like I said last time. I’ve never been jealous of anything in my life…….”
So at first, it felt a bit strange and odd, but…….
“I think it’s only natural to be jealous if you really like someone.”
It seemed he had reached that conclusion on his own. That perhaps it wasn’t a particularly strange phenomenon.
Listening to the calm confession, Eun-ha lowered his eyelids. Well. He agreed, and while Eun-ha had never felt any particular discomfort regarding the fact that Yeon-jun was jealous, he thought his own case was a bit different.
To be precise, this was a feeling closer to obsession than jealousy. More than that, it was anxiety. To be even more precise, it was an anxiety without any logical basis.
And Eun-ha utterly hated himself for it. He loathed it with all his heart. Because the image of someone who had looked at him with eyes full of disgust, saying they were sick of him, exhausted by him…… suddenly filled his mind like a raid.
Then, without exaggeration, he felt like vomiting. A learned self-loathing, mixed with misery, would rise to the top of his head.
“I told you I peeked at your phone……. While you were sleeping, secretly…….”
Slumping his body against Yeon-jun, who was leaning on him, Eun-ha muttered. So that he wouldn’t just brush it off, but would properly acknowledge it.
“You told me a moment ago.”
“Then why is your reaction like that?”
“What did you see?”
“……Who you were contacting.”
“There probably wasn’t much.”
“There wasn’t.”
“I told you there wasn’t.”
“…….”
“So, how did it feel after seeing it?”
“I think it was okay.”
“Was it?”
“……Yeah. But I think I was bothered because there were too many people you were contacting.”
“Ah.”
“I figured there would be many people who like you, but experiencing it firsthand, I don’t think I felt very good…….”
“Hyung. But honestly, that’s not something you should be saying.”
“…What did I do.”
“You’re not asking because you don’t know, are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Liar. You always play innocent whenever this topic comes up.”
“I really don’t know.”
“What do you think is the reason your shop is doing so well, Hyung?”
“Because the coffee is delicious.”
“…….”
“Because it’s big and spacious. Because the space is well-divided with partitions. Because it’s the largest large-scale cafe in the neighborhood.”
“Really?”
“……‘Really’ is in banmal.”
He grumbled for no reason. In truth, he roughly knew what Yeon-jun was trying to say.
And Eun-ha, due to his values, was reluctant to easily admit such a fact.