By Zephyria 
A snort burst out at the softly mumbled voice. Next came a sense of absurdity.
‘Even now.’ It was beyond him why Yeon-jun was taking it for granted that their relationship would continue into the future.
Why am I sitting you down like this and dragging out this conversation…?
Is it because I want to repent and apologize for my past misdeeds?
That was part of it, but more than that.
“……”
Eun-ha, who was used to suppressing the groans that kept bubbling up, opened his mouth.
“Have you ever thought that’s the problem?”
“Problem?”
“That you’re too young.”
Even though he pointed out the main point directly, there was no particular reaction. He just blinked his long eyes calmly. A silent, expressionless face.
He had expected it, but it seemed that Yeon-jun didn’t feel any sense of problem in any way. At that, a groan that he hadn’t fully swallowed finally broke out thinly between his lips.
At the same time, a fresh realization dawned on him. He really was thinking immaturely.
Of course, that was possible. Yeon-jun could be like that. As he said, he was young. He was an adult in name only, and until a few months ago, he was a student wearing a school uniform. He was at an age where he didn’t know much yet. Even if he was indifferent to the fact that he and Eun-ha had become entangled in their current form, he couldn’t blame him for his nonchalance.
However, Eun-ha thought that he shouldn’t be like that either. He had to tell him what was wrong. He had to correct him….
Before doing so, Eun-ha hesitated for a moment about what to call him. Calling him ‘Hey’ like he had done to countless others in the past felt somehow inappropriate and didn’t roll off his tongue well.
Eun-ha, who had been stalling, soon opened his mouth with a faint sigh.
“Yeon-jun-ah.”
A dry call. At that, Yeon-jun paused, stiffened, and then looked at Eun-ha with subtly flickering eyes. Like someone who had a wave rising inside him.
Ignoring that clear emotion, he met his eyes directly.
“So, you’re saying you’ve been doing this because you liked me.”
“……”
“While I was just dismissing you as some kind of slut.”
The tip of his tongue tasted slightly bitter as he pronounced his own fault.
“Because you liked me. That’s why you came to the cafe every day, looked at me every day, kept approaching me……”
“……”
“Is that why you slept with me too?”
“……That’s.”
Yeon-jun, who had been blinking blankly at the unreserved enumeration, suddenly subsided as if holding his breath. Hmm…… He made a sound in his throat and gently covered the lower part of his face with the back of his hand. The answer came after a rather long pause.
“……Honestly, I don’t remember very well. I was really too drunk. I can’t remember how I got here at all.”
“……”
“Then, when I came to my senses a little……”
Yeon-jun’s eyes became blurred. He could see a hazy light gradually forming in them. As if he was blankly chewing over a thought that had come to his mind without him realizing it.
The meaning was clear. He was recalling last night. Eun-ha laughed absurdly. He thought that a promising seedling was different.
“……Anyway, it was also because it was Hyung that it was okay.”
That made him feel troubled and self-reproachful again.
He was also a little angry. Really.
“What’s okay about it?”
“……”
“What am I to you? I’m nobody.”
Eun-ha, who was supporting his forehead with his palm as if he had a headache, fell into thought. First experience. First time. He thought about the weight of that. An unknown territory. A problem for which he couldn’t see the answer key. An experience he hadn’t experienced. That’s why people said it was difficult.
Because it was difficult, it remained impressively in his memory for a long time. So he sincerely thought that it should be engraved in a form that was good to remember as much as possible. Not to be consumed in this way.
“No…… You’re not nobody.”
Eun-ha had no idea how he had become someone who was not nobody to Yeon-jun, but he accepted it as he corrected him for the time being.
“Okay. Someone you like.”
“……”
“Why?”
“Pardon?”
“Why do you like me? Do you know how old I am?”
What do you know about me?
The reason why he interpreted Yeon-jun’s interest as sexual curiosity rather than affection was partly because he had been living with that kind of emotion for quite a long time, so he hadn’t thought that far, but there was also a reason that he couldn’t identify. He had no idea why Yeon-jun had come to like him so much.
Was there a special occasion? Had he ever been nice to him without realizing it? He looked back, but nothing came to mind. Not that he didn’t remember, but literally ‘nothing’ was there. There was really nothing between them.
Even the few memories that came to mind as possible triggers had actually happened only recently.
The emotion, he thought, must have been there before that.
He remembered Yeon-jun sitting in the same place every day, staring blankly. When he realized that it was all purely affection, he felt a little dazed and strange, but apart from that, it didn’t really resonate with him.
“……Do you have to have a reason?”
“I’m curious. I don’t understand it very well either.”
Yeon-jun moved his lips as if to say something, then closed them tightly. It looked like he was swallowing words that were about to come out without him realizing it, so Eun-ha paid attention.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but just……”
“……”
“……Just, somehow I came to like you. Hyung. I keep thinking about you. So when I go to see you for a while, I feel really…… better. I want to keep seeing you. I don’t want to go back to school.”
But this kid…… Eun-ha twisted up the corners of his mouth hollowly.
“You have to go to school.”
“It’s been like that since I first saw you. That’s all. Ah.”
“……”
“Then, is it love at first sight?”
He was a little dumbfounded by the monotonous tone, as if he was reciting a fact that he had just realized. He thought he was saying cheesy things without a care.
“And I know how old you are.”
“You know.”
“Aren’t you twenty-eight years old?”
“……Even though you know that, you’re saying things like, ‘Do you like me even though I’m that old?'”
“Can’t I?”
“Of course not.”
“……”
“Of course, you can’t.”
He was asking something that was literally obvious. Yeon-jun closed his mouth tightly at the immediate rejection. He had an expression that seemed to say that he hadn’t expected him to say it so firmly.
In other words, his eyes looked like they had been hurt for a moment. An expression in which a feeling similar to disappointment suddenly welled up.
Eun-ha averted his gaze. He groaned.
No matter how he looked at it, what wasn’t right wasn’t right.
“Don’t do that, those things. Really……”
“……”
“It’s not right. It’s not appropriate. It’s not normal either.”
“……”
“That’s what I want to say, Yeon-jun-ah. That’s why I’m here with you.”
“……”
“……Don’t do that. In the future. Okay?”He didn’t bother to bring up things like, ‘Don’t waste your time on strange things and meet normal friends your age,’ or, ‘I’m not a particularly good person,’ because they would only sound like an old-fashioned person who was looking out for the other person and putting himself down.
“You know what kind of things I’m doing, don’t you? You said it yourself. Sex partner, and stuff.”
He felt the clinging gaze calm down, but he just continued to speak plainly.
“You shouldn’t like me even though you know that.”
“……”
“I’m sorry. For only saying these things. Everything that happened yesterday and today, and everything that happened before that.”
“……”
“I keep feeling bad because it feels like I’ve dragged you into a strange direction for no reason. As you said, you’re too young.”
He was speaking in the softest tone possible, but in the end, they were all just processes of severing the relationship. Eun-ha spoke with exactly that purpose, and Yeon-jun would not have failed to read that much of the context.