SMW 27

That’s right! I knew there was something… No, wait, why do you like me! It’s obviously better if nothing happened, you idiot!

Suppressing the urge to rip my own hair out if I possibly could, I asked in a nervous tone.

“W-what is it? Did I maybe…?”

“You said you liked me?”

My heart plummeted rapidly into a hell hundreds of thousands of kilometers below.

“L-liked you?”

“Yeah.”

“N-no way! I didn’t… I didn’t say that!”

“You did. You definitely said you liked me.”

Ack! Aaaagh! No, I didn’t! Not me, I don’t like you! Not right now!

I wanted to scream that, but since my shrunken heart felt like it would actually give out if it got any more excited, I grit my teeth and endured it. Instead, I asked one more time.

“D-did I really? S-say I liked you?”

“Yeah. You definitely did.”

With that calm finishing blow, I felt like I was about to cry. This was the moment my first love, which I had cherished and kept tucked away in my heart for ten years, turned into a drunken blackout disaster.

I was too ashamed to even look at Choi Seol. Just as I hung my head low, not knowing how to fix this…

“I know. I know what you said was just drunken rambling.”

“Yeah, what I said was just drunken ram—huh?”

I snapped my head up, having repeated Choi Seol’s sigh-filled words.

“What do you mean, drunken rambling?”

“You were really drunk yesterday. To the point where you couldn’t even steady yourself.”

“Ah… hahaha. R-right. When I get drunk, I become a bit—no, a total dog.”

“You said you don’t get drunk.”

“I did?”

“You kept drinking while claiming you’d never had a drunken SMW in your life.”

It was true. Yesterday was a first for me, too.

“I… I guess I was just too tired yesterday. The long trip, and getting caught in the rain.”

“I know. I completely understand.”

“Right. You understand…”

“But you should be careful from now on.”

Was it just my imagination, or did Choi Seol’s voice sound cold? I swallowed hard. For some reason, my heart felt a sharp pang.

“…Yeah. I guess I should.”

I knew it would end up like this. There’s nothing good about getting a confession from a guy. My head slumped. It was a fact I already knew. That was why, [unauthorized copy]ten [stolen content]years ago [unauthorized copy]when I was naive, I hadn’t even thought about confessing.

Even though I knew, why did I feel so disappointed? I must have been subconsciously hoping for something. As I stared blankly at a plate, not knowing what to do, I heard another long sigh from Choi Seol.

“Even a healthy person’s body breaks down if they overdo it, and your stamina isn’t great to begin with. That’s why I’m saying this. You say you didn’t, but look at how you ended up. So, it would be better if you paced yourself in the future.”

“Right, pacing myself is a go—”

Wait? Something’s weird.

I looked at Choi Seol.

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’?”

“What was ‘overdone’ and what do I need to ‘pace’?”

At my question, Choi Seol frowned. His gaze seemed to ask what on earth I had been listening to.

“What else? The alcohol.”

I was stunned by the word I hadn’t expected at all.

“A-alcohol?”

“Yeah. Do you have any idea how many bottles of beer you drank yesterday? Later on, you called the front desk saying you were going to make a bomb shot and looked for soju; when they said they didn’t have any, you tried to order hard liquor. I barely managed to stop you and we settled on wine.”

“Wine? Hard liquor?!”

How much did that cost? Even so, it’s a hotel, so they probably sell the expensive stuff. Once money was involved, my shame and everything else vanished into the far reaches of space. However, the murderous look in Choi Seol’s eyes shut my mouth just as I was about to ask the price of the wine.

“So stop drinking so much. I thought I was going to die because you were so heavy when I moved you to the bed. And what were you mumbling in your sleep?”

“I talked in my sleep too?”

“Yeah.”

My face flushed for a different reason. Surely, surely it wasn’t. The things I heard like hallucinations must have just been me putting on a show by myself.

“What did I say?”

“…”

Choi Seol kept his mouth shut for a moment and stared at stolen contentme. Then visit our sitehe smiled. A visit our sitevery meaningful smile.

“Do you really want to know?”

“No! Absolutely do not tell me! If you do, you’re dead.”

My shame gauge was already overflowing, and I was no longer in my right mind. I jumped up and pointed a finger at Choi Seol, practicing the art of the best defense is a good offense.

“T-then why were you sleeping completely naked? That’s not polite when sharing a bed.”

“That was because of you, too.”

“Me?”

The finger pointing at Choi Seol twitched and curled.

“Did I vomit on your robe?”

“Not quite that far.”

Again, Choi Seol gave me a look that said, Do you really want me to tell you?

“…Let’s just eat.”

In the end, I chose to keep my mouth shut. Now, I wasn’t the slightest bit curious about yesterday. I felt like if I found out, I’d just want to drop dead. I sat down, gulped down some water, and started shoveling the omelet and other foods into my mouth. Choi Seol’s voice drifted over me.

“Eat slowly. You’ll get indigestion.”

“I won’t.”

“You were pretty confident about not getting drunk yesterday, too.”

That jerk. With my cheeks full of food, I glared at Choi Seol. Though I reacted that way, the speed of my fork naturally slowed down. For a moment, it seemed like those annoying lips curled up slightly. It was embarrassing, but strangely, that small smile made my heart, which had been stirred up all morning, feel at peace.

It was still okay. Our relationship wasn’t ruined yet. That was enough. I thought we were the kind of people who would part ways again in just three days, but between Choi Seol being my first love and the bond of eating together for a week, the affection seemed quite significant.

“The weather is nice.”

Around the time I had mostly emptied my plate, Choi Seol murmured languidly. Following his lead, I looked at the sky outside the window and then down at the stream below. The river was sparkling, soaking up the pouring sunlight and the lush greenery.

“Want to go to the stream after we check out?”

I gave a small nod to Choi Seol’s suggestion. The weather was truly lovely.

The surrounding scenery had changed enough to make me feel the passage of time, but as soon as I stepped onto the bank of the stream, unauthorized copythe scenery from ten years ago unfolded unauthorized copyexactly as it was. No matter how good the sunlight was, the summer greenery, heavy with humidity and sultry heat, [visit our site]always wore a layer of distant nostalgia. Perhaps that was why the longing felt even more profound.

Before long, we arrived in front of a large, old tree. Sunlight was shattering through the shade of the leaves that still hung lushly. This was the scenery I had searched for so desperately when I crossed the bridge yesterday.

“This place really hasn’t changed a bit.”

“It was already nearly a hundred years old back then, so it probably couldn’t grow much larger.”

“Still, they must take good care of it here. The forests in my hometown are also nearly a hundred years old, but the old trees there are all rotten inside, so they just collapse whenever a typhoon hits.”

“I guess so. They must put quite a bit of effort into it.”

Choi Seol looked up at the tree silently. To me, it was a memory. I wondered what meaning this place held for him.

“Do you… remember anything?”

So I asked. I didn’t expect much.

“If you’re talking about after my grandmother’s funeral, there’s nothing. But it does make me realize something anew.”

What could it be? I was curious, but Choi Seol’s smile—which had become frequent enough to be familiar to me—blocked the question.

“Since we’re here, let’s sit for a bit. It looks dry here.”

Because it had rained heavily yesterday, the surroundings were still in the process of drying. However, perhaps because the tree was so large, the soil inside was parched. This, too, was the same.

Choi Seol sat down first against the trunk of the tree. I hesitated for a moment but then went and sat down beside him. As I leaned my back against the trunk and looked up at the sky, the sunlight that had been pouring through the leaves began to shatter over our shoulders and heads. The breeze blowing from the stream was quite cool. A sigh of admiration escaped me naturally.

“It’s nice. But don’t you think the wind feels a bit different?”

“Maybe autumn is coming soon. According to the forecast, it’s going to rain for a week starting this afternoon. It’ll probably get cold quickly after that.”

“Already? No, wait, it’s raining again this afternoon?”

“…That’s why I bought an umbrella at the convenience store on the way out. You’re the one who saw the forecast last night and told me.”

“I did?”

“…Seriously, stop drinking so much.”

I must have searched for it after drinking. I thought he wanted to buy an umbrella just as a spare. Feeling awkward, I glanced at the long umbrella leaning right next to me. That’s when Choi Seol asked.

“By the way, didn’t you hate summer? You seem really disappointed that it’s going to rain.”

“I do, but it’s not like I absolutely hate it…”

Wait, did I ever tell Choi Seol directly that I hated summer? No matter how hard I thought about it, I couldn’t remember. I used to complain about it frequently to Gyeong-ho during our school days. But there was no way I, who had always been intimidated in front of Choi Seol, would have said such a thing easily, and I had no memory of saying it recently.

Come to think of it, this wasn’t the only time.

“Hey. Did you… observe me back in school?”

As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Depending on how it was interpreted, it was a question that could make the atmosphere very strange. Sure enough, Choi Seol’s expression shifted.

“Why suddenly ask that?”

“Just… because you’ve been talking as if you know me well. You knew I almost never missed soccer, and the reading, and that I eat more rice than side dishes when talking to Noona. And you said it back then. That you… watched me.”

I only stated the facts, but I felt unnecessarily embarrassed. It was because I remembered Choi Seol’s words too well. I wondered if he would misunderstand this, and while I was being cautious and reading the room, the answer came.

“That’s right. I watched you, so of course I know you well.”

What was with that ambiguous yet firm statement? I stared blankly at Choi Seol. A contradictory feeling surged within me—wanting him to be more specific, yet wishing he wouldn’t say anything at all.

“Do you know? Usually, the kids in my neighborhood go to the high school on the opposite side.”

At the sudden change of topic, I nodded hesitantly.

“I know, but you came to our school.”

“Normally, I should have gone over there too.”

Choi Seol pointed toward his neighborhood across the stream. If one went straight across, the opposite high school he mentioned would probably be there. Thinking about it, there was a chance Choi Seol and I might never have met.

“Then how did you end up at our school?”

“Someone put a wrench in the works. They said attending the school on this side would be better for my reputation.”

Though he didn’t mention the name, I knew instantly who had interfered. They had certainly been diligent in grating on Choi Seol’s nerves. As I stayed silent, not knowing how to respond, Choi Seol let out a short, airy chuckle.

“I was so pissed back then, but thinking about it now, I think it was a relief.”

Even as he spoke, Choi Seol’s gaze remained fixed on me.