By Zephyria 
Seeing Lee Beom flustered, Ban Pyo-ran burst out laughing, holding his stomach. His demeanor showed not a shred of romantic feeling. After laughing heartily, Ban Pyo-ran didn’t let people’s imaginations run wild.
“Ah, I don’t mean it’s like that now! I meant in the novel! I misspoke.”
Then, he turned sharply to me and pointed. Sensing immediate danger, my mind, sobered by the alcohol, snapped back.
“Hae-jun, you… you were still trying to set me and Lee Beom up!”
I vehemently denied it.
“No! That’s wrong!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! I distinctly remember denying it back then, right? It never happened in the first place, and I have a girlfriend now!”
Hearing my desperate denial, Ban Pyo-ran nodded.
“Ah. It was my misunderstanding.”
“Yes!”
“I see.”
“Yes.”
I thought Ban Pyo-ran had sobered up quite a bit, but he was nowhere near sober. I had missed that the flashing lights were making his eyes look a bit wild.
In the meantime, Jeon Jae-hyung grabbed the microphone. Ban Pyo-ran, who had calmed down and was sitting next to me listening to Jeon Jae-hyung sing, called me. His voice was low enough that others couldn’t hear.
“But Hae-jun.”
“Yeah.”
“Why were you trying to pair me and Lee Beom up?”
“Ah.”
I hesitated to answer.
I can’t possibly tell them I set them up so they’d live happily ever after, and I could sneak away to study.
I made up a plausible excuse.
“Just… well… because you were the protagonists. To make you happy…?”
It wasn’t entirely untrue.
Ban Pyo-ran and Lee Beom were the protagonists. If they fell in love, I figured that I and the others would naturally find our own paths to happiness. I thought that was the novel’s destiny.
Ban Pyo-ran smiled wryly at my answer and leaned in to whisper,
“Now that you say it was a novel, I understand why you did it.”
Ban Pyo-ran paused, as if out of breath. The colorful mirror ball cast a kaleidoscope of colors on his face.
“You don’t necessarily need a male protagonist.”
“Huh?”
“To find happiness.”
Not quickly grasping the meaning, I responded with a clumsy reaction, and Ban Pyo-ran waved his hand in the air as if wondering how to explain it, then ran his hand through his hair.
“Ah. I don’t know if I can explain it well because I’m drunk, but anyway.”
“……”
“There might be a male protagonist on the path to happiness I choose.”
“……”
“But he’s not the only path to happiness I can have.”
“……”
“So, you don’t need to feel sorry about the past, and don’t worry about it. That’s all! End!”
Ban Pyo-ran grinned and ran back to sing. I stared blankly at Ban Pyo-ran, who was energetically moving despite having poured so much alcohol into his stomach.
In the novel, I had been so fixated on the fact that it was a novel that I thought Ban Pyo-ran would inevitably fall in love with Lee Beom.
So, I agonized countless times whether I was ruining Ban Pyo-ran’s happiness…
When I understood what Ban Pyo-ran meant, I also smiled.
It was just…
Thank you.
Ban Pyo-ran had a considerate personality, always thinking ahead. Of course, that personality sometimes led him to make huge misjudgments.
Perhaps I was the one most trapped in the novel.
Seong Hae-min would act this way because he’s this kind of person, Min Si-hu would act that way because he’s that kind of person, Ban Pyo-ran would love Lee Beom…
But it wasn’t like that. They were all real people, and they had things they wanted to do. I knew less about them than I thought.
Ban Seo-yi too… it would have been nice if she were here.
With a bittersweet feeling, I watched the guys jumping around in the karaoke room.
Having thoroughly made the most of our karaoke service time, we finally dispersed, shuffling our feet.
Jeon Jae-hyung, whose direction was the same, left with Kim Yi-dam and Ban Pyo-ran to see them home, while Min Si-hu hastily hailed a taxi because his girlfriend, who was furious, called.
Seong Hae-min, Lee Beom, and I, the remaining ones, ambled towards the bus stop.
It was the dead of winter, and even though it was time for the first bus, the sky was still dark. The three of us walked side-by-side down the predawn street, where the drunks had mostly disappeared.
Seong Hae-min asked Lee Beom,
“How was it?”
“It was good. Oh, but Hae-jun Hyung…”
“Yeah?”
Lee Beom, who had been smiling faintly, hesitated for a moment before looking at me cautiously. His jet-black eyes, shiny like marbles, were fixed on me.
I tightened the scarf Do Yun-hyeok had bought me and raised my eyebrows.
“Are you acquainted with Do Yun-hyeok? In real life?”
“Huh? Uh?”
How did he know? My pupils, unable to hide the truth from the surprise question, darted around. Lee Beom, his cheeks red from the cold, added as if to make an excuse,
“I happened to see a call come in on your mobile phone earlier. Sorry. But the name sounded familiar.”
“Ah…”
I didn’t want to lie to them. And I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen it…
After a moment’s thought, I gathered my courage and said,
“I’ll introduce you next time. I didn’t call him today because he’s not someone I usually hang out with.”
Perhaps the day would come when I would introduce him…
Seong Hae-min’s eyes met mine. Seong Hae-min smiled casually.
I didn’t know if I would be ready to tell them everything then, but I hoped I would be.
“It’ll be fun, even with Do Yun-hyeok.”
White puffs of breath escaped Seong Hae-min’s lips. I smiled back at him.
A cheerful announcement chimed that the bus would arrive in one minute.
The new year had just begun.
One Day, My Heart Broke
One day, Lee Beom woke up as usual and found tears welling up in his eyes.
‘That’s strange. Did I have a sad dream?’
He had never cried in his sleep before, or rather, he had rarely cried at all, so for Lee Beom, it was simply a curious event. A strange and rare occurrence. That was all.
And precisely from that day on, though the exact reason was unknown, the thought of needing to study hard began to dominate his mind. It was almost an obsession. An obsession to reach a world he didn’t know.
Lee Beom himself didn’t know the reason. His friends asked him why he had suddenly changed, but Lee Beom didn’t know the reason either, so he couldn’t give a proper answer. He just thought it was because he was a senior in high school.
His teachers and parents, seeing Lee Beom studying so diligently as if he had become a different person, were delighted, thinking he had reformed and matured.
That’s why he applied for and participated in the intensive mentor-mentee program run by Seoul National University students. There, Lee Beom met a Sunbae named Min Si-hu. And through Min Si-hu’s introduction, he met other university student mentors.
At their first meeting at the cafe… Lee Beom felt an inexplicable pain in his chest in front of the table where three people were sitting. A tingling, like an electric current, flowed from the pit of his stomach to the palms of his hands. As the connected nerves ached delicately, he clenched and unclenched his fists, shaking his hands several times. Was his heart broken from so much tension?
Even then, Lee Beom didn’t know why he was acting that way. He only vaguely speculated that it was due to admiration and envy for those who had succeeded in college entrance exams.
And so he studied with all his might, as if he were an astronaut aiming for the stars. When his friends, who used to hang out with him, asked why he was studying so hard, he replied, “Because I want to live in the same world as those Sunbaes.”
Driven by an intense obsession he couldn’t explain, he pushed himself, and as a result, he succeeded in his university entrance exams. A university he couldn’t have imagined in his second year of high school. But even after being accepted into university, the thirst remained.
Then one day, he had a dream. Familiar faces appeared in the dream. The kind Hyungs who had helped him with his college entrance. But strangely, he was their friend, they spent time together, had fun, forged friendships, and then…
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“It’s important to me. Studying, grades, things like that… you wouldn’t understand.”
“Still, we live in the same world.”
Waking up, Lee Beom was only confused.
A flood of memories rushed in like the tide…
Only then did Lee Beom realize the origin of his emotions. Why he had studied like a madman. Why his heart ached so terribly whenever he saw Seong Hae-jun.
He was desperately regretful and disappointed that he had only just remembered this crucial fact. He should have remembered sooner.
He was also ashamed of his actions in the dream. His cheesy lines, his confessions that were close to declarations of love, and the implicit rejection he received.
He even felt resentful that everyone else already knew each other and shared their pasts, excluding him. But perhaps it was fortunate that he remembered now. He was so grateful and cherished the people who had helped him in every way. He wanted to be with them forever.
But then…
“I’ll introduce you next time. I didn’t call him today because he’s not someone I usually hang out with.”
Lee Beom wasn’t slow-witted. He paid attention to his crush’s every move, enjoying reading their expressions and tone of voice.
So, suppressing the tears that threatened to spill, he lifted his head towards the sky. The January dawn, before the sun had risen, was too dark. And to remain their friend, he repeated to himself several times in his heart.
In the next life, may I recognize you first…
One Day, My Heart Broke, End….