FBF chapter 8 part 4

As soon as I saw Lee Jihoon, Kang Youngsoo jumped up from his seat. He seemed to have looked behind me with a hint of expectation, even though he thought it was impossible. He sighed heavily, and his expression became urgent as he glanced at the clock.

“Seon-uk, but the guesthouse owner said he’d pick us up at 2 o’clock. What should we do?”

“What?”

“No, it seems like it’s a bit remote there. Normally, they wouldn’t go out of their way like this, but since he knows I’m the grandson of a friend, he said he would take us while going to the market. I thanked him for that. Did I expect it would turn out like this? Ugh… What’s going on with this guy? Just in case, I called my uncle, but he didn’t even know we’re going on a trip. It seems he hasn’t been in touch with Lee Jihoon lately. He thought he was busy with training or something. I just made up some excuse to avoid worrying him and hung up.”

While we briefly stared at each other in confusion, Kang Youngsoo’s phone started ringing. The screen displayed “#Guesthouse Owner,” and he showed it to me with a look that asked what to do. I felt my brain freeze for a moment since Lee Jihoon hadn’t appeared yet. It was time to think rationally. Even though my meeting with Lee Jihoon after three months wasn’t going as I had expected, we couldn’t just sit here waiting.

“Let’s just go. If it was something serious, your uncle would have been the first to contact us, but since that didn’t happen, I don’t think it’s bad news. Let’s wait for contact and just in case send the guesthouse address to the message room.”

“He probably knows the guesthouse address. I sent him the link last time.”

“Then that’s good. Just write that we’re going ahead.”

“Okay, got it. Just a moment.”

Kang Youngsoo nodded and immediately picked up the phone.

“Yes, yes, is this us? Ah, we’re near the bus platform. Yes, yes, should we wait there? Okay, understood.”

I looked around the platform where the buses were lined up. I hoped that at least one of them would have Lee Jihoon getting off. However, I already knew that was unlikely. I had scanned through the passengers from the bus that just arrived, and none of them looked like him.

Lee Jihoon was five hours late. For someone so late, he appeared surprisingly calm and brazen. It wasn’t unwarranted confidence. He approached with heavy bags in both hands, bringing everything he could possibly need, so that we wouldn’t even need to go to the market later. He had snacks, rice, ramen, kimchi, even meat. If someone saw the amount of food and supplies he brought, they would have assumed that more than ten people were gearing up for a trip. Kang Youngsoo, who had been pacing around and complaining about Lee Jihoon not contacting us until 5 PM, froze the moment he checked the bags. Lee Jihoon smiled as if he had expected this. When our eyes met, he pulled out an ice cream and handed it to me. “Hey, eat this.” I accepted the ice cream, which was just melting enough to be easily consumed. Holding the slightly soft ice cream, I realized I was standing in the scorching summer heat. Just standing still made my breath come short like someone gasping for air.

Despite that, I found it strange that I wasn’t even thinking about moving to a cooler shaded area. Holding the ice cream that had been given to me after not seeing Lee Jihoon for three months, I stared blankly at everything he had brought.

I was curious how he had managed to arrive from Cheongju to Gangneung without being late despite oversleeping, but I couldn’t ask any of those questions. Why did Lee Jihoon, who had just passed me, smell like someone else? Why did he have items I hadn’t seen before, and why was he carrying things that seemed like he couldn’t have brought by himself?

Just then, Kang Youngsoo burst out laughing.

“Hey, Seon-uk. This guy overslept, but his girlfriend brought him.”

I turned around. From the smiling Kang Youngsoo, my gaze slowly moved to Lee Jihoon sitting next to him. If Kang Youngsoo was lying, he would have had something to deny, but seeing Lee Jihoon swatting at the flies with an indifferent expression made me feel as if all the strength had drained from my body.

Only then did I realize why I had been frozen in place since the moment I first saw Lee Jihoon today. I was scared. Scared of the fact that in just three short months, he seemed to have distanced himself from me so drastically.

I had seen Lee Jihoon dating someone before. Yet, it was at that moment that I felt he truly seemed like a stranger to me. The moment the word “girlfriend” came out of Lee Jihoon’s mouth, I realized that he was really taking a different path from me. It wasn’t something that could be resolved merely by refreshing Lee Jihoon’s social media accounts at night or by barely picking up the phone once because I couldn’t sleep, or spending a night and two days here in this mountain cabin after skipping just one essential training.

I finally understood. Lee Jihoon’s refuge and breakthrough were not me, nor anything I had known. Maybe it was someone I didn’t know. And perhaps, someone I would never know—Lee Jihoon’s very own someone.

“Isn’t that basically raising you?”

“Stop messing around. This is why I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Ah, why? Tell me. What’s it like? How old is she? Where did you meet? School? A meeting? A blind date?”

Even as I shivered from Kang Youngsoo bombarding me with questions, Lee Jihoon casually dropped bits and pieces of information as if to say ‘just finish your food.’ His girlfriend was six years older than him, she was the one who got his phone number first at a café in Seoul, a capable person who got a job immediately after graduating from university, and she had a car that could take her younger boyfriend all the way to Gangwon-do without a complaint. While I didn’t want to know all this, it continually echoed in my ears as I gazed vacantly at Lee Jihoon.

Seeing the smiling face of someone who kept listing such information made me think of the insurmountable gap between us. For the first time, Lee Jihoon felt so distant. It felt as if I could never reach him again, like we could never look towards the same horizon side by side.

I had always regarded Lee Jihoon’s enclosure as my defensive line. Even if we couldn’t see each other every day like before, I subconsciously believed that the number of people inside that enclosure would never change. My greatest achievement in my one-sided love for Lee Jihoon was that I was within that enclosure. I knew he wouldn’t just let anyone inside, and I was content with the fact that I was there.

“……”

That last defensive line I had while secretly loving Lee Jihoon was ripped apart. The compass of my unrequited love lost its direction and spun around chaotically. The needle of the compass expanded to the point of bursting, only to explode. The sharp end quickly turned as black as it could to the point of losing any color. Like how mixing colors results in black, the swirling mix of emotions in my heart burned black. My stomach twisted, and the world began to spin in front of my eyes. I felt lost in a place I could never return from.

It might sound silly, but I was someone who was not immune to such things. I was bound to be battered by the sudden onslaught of various emotions in unexpected moments. I slowly closed my eyes and opened them again. I couldn’t find the boundary between reason and emotion as if I were not entirely in my right mind. As if I would die if I didn’t say something, I blurted out everything that filled up in my mouth.

“Is that all?”

The playful gazes of Lee Jihoon and Kang Youngsoo turned towards me. Kang Youngsoo widened his eyes, while Lee Jihoon froze, wiping the smile off his face. Knowing that my sudden outburst was because of what I had interrupted, I couldn’t stop myself.

“Aren’t you going to apologize?”

That was a means of venting anger. It was something that escaped from me because I didn’t know how to control the surge of emotions. Even in my childhood, I never threw a tantrum, and here I was throwing a fit at twenty years old over something that lacked substance.

Challenging something like someone else’s heart, that cannot be forced. I was hell-bent on pushing the limits of something I could never change.

“You were over five hours late without any contact.”

“…Hey. Seon-uk, but he did bring food.”

“No matter what, it was a plan set a month ago among the three of us, and you have no sense of responsibility. Damn it. Just oversleeping and not receiving calls, and now you think it’s enough just to show up like this?”

“……”

“Are we your sidekicks? Do we need to applaud just because you brought this stuff?”

The ice cream I had been hesitating to consume felt cumbersome in my hand. Without hesitation, I tossed it to the ground. The short noise it made was no more than a thud. Feeling ridiculous that I could consider a mere object like that heavy, I realized there must have been too many feelings I threw into it.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

Kang Youngsoo jumped up in shock, rushing towards me to grab my arm and pull me back.

“Hey, Seon-uk! What’s wrong? Is it because it’s hot? Come here and cool off by the fan. Right? Ah, it feels nice, doesn’t it? You’re just hot. You’re angry because it’s hot. I’ll calm you down.”

Among us, it was always Kang Youngsoo and Lee Jihoon who argued. I rarely fought with Lee Jihoon. There hadn’t been anything worth fighting about, and I’d been living my life hiding my feelings for him to avoid conflict. But it seemed that, instead, it had caused a problem. Since I had never fought properly with Lee Jihoon, I had no idea how to express the anger rising from deep within me towards him. So, I had to vent my anger in a way I had never done before.

“Let go. Just stop.”

I felt bad that Kang Youngsoo had to bear the brunt of my sudden outburst without rhyme or reason. Pushing away the hand trying to pull me back, I locked eyes with Lee Jihoon. Lee Jihoon, who had been looking at the ice cream on the ground, lifted his gaze. He stared at me for a while, seemingly deep in thought. Once he seemed to make a decision, his lips moved after some time.

“What’s the sidekick doing here, you punk?”

He looked incredulous. His expression conveyed a sense of bewilderment, as if he couldn’t understand why I was blowing this up over something so trivial. If it had been the usual Lee Jihoon, and if I weren’t the one pouring out my feelings, he would have surely said something worse. Yet I could see him holding back. It was one of those rare exceptions Lee Jihoon occasionally showed me. In that moment, it only fueled my desire to break through.

When Lee Jihoon looked into my eyes, he swept his hand across his face. He looked utterly exhausted. Upon closer inspection, there was a bandage on the side of his eye. He sounded like he was gritting his teeth as he delivered his next several lines in a calm yet gentle tone.

“I messed up by being late. I was receiving punishment yesterday and got back to my room at dawn. I fainted right away and when I woke up, it was too late. I promised to come immediately after asking my sister, but I still ended up late. I couldn’t charge my phone, so it died midway without me being able to contact anyone. I wanted to use my sister’s phone to reach you and Kang Youngsoo, but I blanked on your numbers for a moment.”

“……”

“I’m sorry for being late without any contact. I apologize.”

Honestly, if Lee Jihoon had just snapped in anger or joked about making such a fuss over this, it might have been easier to digest. His calm and rational response only made me feel more bizarre for losing my temper in such a situation. It was as if the will to fight left me in an instant.

Lee Jihoon had tried his best. The problem was that my feelings didn’t dissipate. I stepped into the room, leaving both of them behind. At the moment I heard Lee Jihoon’s apology, Kang Youngsoo, who had been relieved, turned pale as a ghost and rushed in after me. His footsteps echoed loudly as he hurried to catch up with me.

“Hey, Seon-uk! Even though this guy apologized like this… Hey! Why are you taking your stuff? Are you leaving?”

“… Let go.”

“I can understand you shouting at Lee Jihoon, but this is really too much. Completely over the line. Where are you going? It’s been almost three months since the three of us gathered like this! Hey, there’s no taxi to take you home from here! How will you get back to the dorm?!”

Kang Youngsoo rushed in, nervously grabbing my bag before I could react. I didn’t back down and instead reached out to take it back.

“Kang Youngsoo, I’m not joking.”

“…No… Seon-uk.”

“Give it to me, quickly.”

Seeing the stubborn resolve in my eyes, Kang Youngsoo’s mouth opened in surprise. Seizing the opportunity, I snatched the bag from his hands and stepped out onto the porch. Lee Jihoon was still seated just where I had left him. The moment I emerged onto the porch, Lee Jihoon raised his head, glancing at the bag in my hand, and let out a small chuckle.

“What are you doing, really?”

As I grew serious, Lee Jihoon matched my seriousness. The moment I caught a glimpse of the fierce intensity in his eyes devoid of laughter, a shiver of fear ran through me. I realized I was truly fighting with him. No matter how much boys roughhouse and have fights and make up well, we were different in some way. Aside from that incident in the third year of middle school, we had never once sharpened our claws at each other, so fighting now felt awkward on both our parts. Neither of us had the immunity necessary to navigate this situation successfully.

Glaring into Lee Jihoon’s dry, hardened gaze, I wiped away the heat rising from my eyes with my fist. I got the feeling that the fire rising in my heart would not easily be extinguished. Even if I pretended to relent to Kang Youngsoo’s attempts to restrain me and spent the time that was originally planned, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to look Lee Jihoon directly the entire time.

“You know you’re acting weird right now.”

It seemed as though he was trying to search for the reason behind my behavior as he scrutinized me from top to bottom. His subdued voice sounded like a final warning. ‘I’m apologizing this much, why are you being like this? Just settle down.’ It felt as though he was saying that.

I hesitated for a moment, just barely managing to ignore Lee Jihoon and went down the porch to put on my shoes. I turned my back to both of them and hastily slipped out of the yard. I didn’t even know where to go, yet my feet guided me toward the forest road that Lee Jihoon had taken to arrive. The dense forest was dark enough that I couldn’t see where it ended as the sun was setting. There were no cars, and not even a single person was visible.

“Hey, Ji Seon-uk! Crazy bastard! Are you really leaving? Hey!”

Kang Youngsoo rushed after me, torn between wanting to check on Lee Jihoon and me. He eventually gave up trying to catch up with my pace and shouted loudly at the entrance of the forest road.

“Seon-uk! Let’s not do this, okay? Right?!”

His pleading voice grew distant, and eventually, I could no longer hear it.

The forest road was long. After walking swiftly for an hour and a half without rest, I finally spotted a taxi that had just dropped off a passenger. While traveling in the taxi toward the bus terminal, I took out my phone, which had been intermittently ringing from within my bag. The name on the screen was Kang Youngsoo. I hung up on the tenth call and sent him a message that I was on my way to the terminal. After buying a bus ticket to Asan, I received another message from Kang Youngsoo. A curse-filled text. But three minutes later came another message, suggesting we talk later.

I put my phone back in my pocket and lowered my head. Unlike Kang Youngsoo, who was bombarding me with messages, Lee Jihoon hadn’t sent a single word since I left. There were many couples at the bus terminal in Gangneung, a place I visited for the first time. I made my way through the couples parting ways with somber expressions as I boarded the bus. I threw my bag down at my feet and curled up like a shrimp. My chest hurt as if someone was poking me.

Only when the bus set off did I finally lift my head. I gazed at the fading “Gangneung Bus Terminal” sign, realizing that before I could perhaps even finish my one-sided love for Lee Jihoon this summer, it might completely come to an end.

It wasn’t just the tearing of my defensive line that was an issue. I had jumped out of Lee Jihoon’s enclosure. I had stepped out of that firm yet stifling fortress that may never let me back in again. While I limped out, determined to at least exhale, the problem was even outside the enclosure, I still found it hard to breathe. It was nothing but endless darkness. With each step I took, the forest path only grew darker, just like the night sea of Gangneung that we ultimately failed to see.