By Zephyria 
He felt deeply troubled. In the sense that a crushing sense of defeat—the kind one feels upon realizing they’ve thoroughly betrayed a principle—weighed heavily on the nape of his neck.
Early morning. Eun-ha, seated in a corner of a café near the hotel, moistened his dry lips. He gazed indifferently across the room.
He had just finished explaining the whole story.
About the misunderstanding he had unilaterally harbored all this time.
“So—”
At the end of his long, arduous confession, braving the heat rising in his face, Yeon-jun, who had been quietly listening all along, slowly moved his lips.
“So in Hyung’s eyes, all this time, I was just some pathetic piece of trash who kept hovering around, wanting to knock you down once, even though you made it clear you weren’t interested—someone shamelessly and persistently clingy?”
“……”
It was an astonishingly accurate summary. Each word seemed to strike right at the core, and Eun-ha subtly averted his gaze. It was indeed a weary and painful state of mind.
As he remained silent, a faint, trailing voice reached him. Wow……
“My image must have been absolutely terrible all this time……”
At the muttering, closer to a soliloquy, Eun-ha laboriously raised his eyes again. Yeon-jun, who now occupied his field of vision, still had an excessively striking appearance. Overall delicate and pretty facial lines. Particularly eye-catching large, cool eyes. It was the kind of looks that made one unconsciously think, There must have been many people around him who suffered heartache.
He must have lived up to his face value, Eun-ha thought, accepting it pessimistically, but the face before him was now stained with bewilderment and a hollow shock. The area around his cheeks was slightly flushed, as if unsure what to do. Eun-ha no longer misinterpreted such transparently revealing expressions. He had thought it was some kind of deliberate, showy act, but that was truly his real self. It was his original personality.
With that sharp, star-like appearance……
“It’s really a misunderstanding, Hyung.”
“……”
“I don’t know how I ended up giving you that impression, but I’m not that kind of person, really……”
So he meant he was this transparent and soft-hearted……. Staring at Yeon-jun, who was so focused on explaining his innocence that he wouldn’t even have time to get angry at how unfairly he’d been judged, Eun-ha suddenly swallowed a sigh rising to his throat.
Why hadn’t he realized it until now? He let out a hollow laugh as he questioned himself. No. It wasn’t that he didn’t know. He had just assumed that what was visible wasn’t everything and never looked back.
Because he had lived tangled up with shady people all this time. After all, you only see what you’re used to seeing.
It was exhausting. So exhausting it was suffocating……. Interpreting the silence in his own way, Yeon-jun tightened the area around his eyes as if feeling wronged. His stiffened eyes took on a slightly sulky expression.
“I’m really not……”
“……”
“I’ve only been an adult for a short while, how could I be some… trash… like that?”
“……True.”
Anyway, that couldn’t be possible. Right. That was obvious. What could a freshly twenty-year-old do to be so promiscuous……
Of course, if one wanted to, one could go wild even from their teens, but Yeon-jun really didn’t seem like that kind of person. He seemed very far from it. It was a truly belated realization.
“……Not that getting a few years older means I’ll become like that, though.”
That kind of person. Trash, that sort of thing. As if emphasizing his clean values, he added that he would never willingly engage in promiscuous behavior in the future.
Eun-ha, who had been carefully listing the expressions Yeon-jun used to explain himself, showed a subtle expression for a moment. Wondering if Yeon-jun was saying this while being aware that he, Eun-ha, had been tangled up with exactly “that kind of person” just a few hours ago.
It wasn’t that he wanted to blame Yeon-jun, as if asking, Aren’t you considering how the trash listening feels? To begin with, his feelings weren’t hurt at all. Not even a scratch. There was nothing that looked more pointless than protesting against a fact stated without malice. That would only be like spitting on his own face.
Above all, Eun-ha was quite objectively aware that his own behavior wasn’t exactly righteous.
However, he just wished that Yeon-jun would also take the current situation—where he, “that kind of person,” and Yeon-jun had become somewhat disgracefully entangled—seriously.
But the face across from him was as clean as ever.
……Well, if he had judged it wrong, they wouldn’t have gotten entangled like this in the first place.
“……So, is that why you’ve been so cold to me all this time?”
When Eun-ha tilted his head slightly without answering, the pitch-black pupils rolled downward. Interlacing his lightly clasped fingers, Yeon-jun continued.
“……You were always so cold-hearted.”
“……”
“Every time I saw you, you only had a stiff expression.”
It sounded somewhat hurt and disappointed.
“So at first, I thought maybe your personality was just naturally a bit bad…… But when I saw you with the part-timers at work, it didn’t seem that way either.”
“……”
“You were so kind…… so I thought maybe I’d done something wrong without realizing it.”
Even without saying it, it seemed there had been quite a buildup, as he firmly extended his complaint. Pondering one part of it, Eun-ha let out a faint laugh.
“My personality seemed bad to you?”
As if asking what that meant, the bewildered rolling eyes soon shook rapidly.
“—That. Um. It’s not that, Hyung.”
“You just stated it clearly, and now you say it’s not?”
“……I misspoke.”
“Forget it. And yeah, my personality is bad.”
The breezy admission brought a hesitant reaction. The slightly curious gaze was a bonus. As if he hadn’t known Eun-ha could affirm his own shortcomings so nonchalantly.
What’s the big deal? Eun-ha continued casually.
“……But it’s also true that I try to be mindful not to act that way toward part-timers and kids like that.”
“Kids like that?”
“Young kids.”
Eun-ha briefly elaborated and crossed his legs.
“They’re university students, working hard to earn their own money—I can’t just act according to my personality, can I? It’s not like we’re only a year or two apart. Acting on my whims would be…… an unpleasant sight to see, too.”
He didn’t want to, and he had no desire to. He wanted to treat them as well as possible, and as an elder, he wanted to show at least minimal decency. Through that, he wanted to seem like a decent person. Like a reliable elder who seemed trustworthy and worth learning from. Like an adult who wasn’t completely disgraceful……
That way, he wanted to preserve what little dignity he had left, as if he’d given up on himself.
In short, it meant he had never even imagined in his wildest dreams something as shameless as rolling around with a kid who’d just taken off their school uniform a few months ago. Eun-ha wanted to live roughly and freely, not become less than human in someone’s eyes.
So, did he have any idea how messed up his insides were right now?
It seemed he had no idea. Seeing the sudden strange light shimmering in the pupils across from him.
Eun-ha, wearing a hollow expression, narrowed his eyes slightly.
“……Why are you looking at me like that all of a sudden?”
“I’m young too, Hyung.”
“……”
“……I’m probably the youngest, right?”
It was an unexpected self-promotion. Pondering the claim that seemed brimming with anticipation, Eun-ha let out a baffled laugh.
“So?”
“Just. That’s all.”
“……”
“……I just wish you’d acknowledge that, even now.”