FBF chapter 11 part 6

“What’s with the sudden seriousness? Just today, I had a fondue party here with the unexpected guest you invited.”

Not knowing what to say, I just chuckled instead of responding. Lee Jihoon gestured toward my padded jacket.

“But until when are you going to wear that padded jacket? Aren’t you hot?”

As soon as he finished speaking, Jihoon took off the hoodie he was wearing. I followed his movement as he lifted the hoodie over his head, revealing the hem of the white T-shirt he was wearing underneath. It struck me that ever since I had come into the house, I hadn’t felt cold, but hadn’t realized it either. Starting from the kitchen floor under my feet, warmth was radiating throughout the house, indicating that he must have turned on the heating before coming to greet me. I shook my head as I hung the hoodie beside me, having forgotten to change out of the clothes I was wearing underneath the padded jacket. The sleeves of my purple shirt might still be stained with blood. There was no good in showing such a state to someone who wanted to rush me to the hospital after I’d bled from my nose a few times.

“Eh, it’s just a beer, so whatever.”

“Still, it’d be nice to be comfortable, right? Can you turn the heating up a bit more?”

Seeing how uncomfortable I looked in the padded jacket, he asked again. I told him that I was fine and pulled out some beer cans from the black bag I had brought. There were droplets of water on the surface of the cans, but they were still cold. I grabbed one that felt a bit frozen and opened it, pushing it toward Jihoon.

“Here.”

I expected him to take it immediately, but instead, he just stared at me. He continued to look at me until I set the beer can down after taking a sip myself. “Why?” I asked, and only then did he slowly reach out for the beer.

“By the way, are you sure you can handle more drinks?”

His unexpected question made his gaze scan my face. As if he was genuinely worried. I let out a hollow laugh at the rare concern I was receiving.

“Why? Do you think I should stop drinking?”

Jihoon and I had similar tolerances for alcohol. We had never dared to push ourselves to the limit, but that had only made us well aware that we wouldn’t get drunk easily with just a few drinks. Right now, the heaviness weighing on my back felt more like fatigue than intoxication. However, instead of addressing my casual jab, Jihoon simply made a confused expression and subtly frowned, his neatly trimmed nails tapping on the can opener I had already pulled out.

“Not so much that, but…”

It looked like he was struggling to find the right words while his hand hovered around the beer. After briefly taking a sip, any trace of confusion on his face seemed to disappear.

“I’m just a bit confused. Am I happy, or do I just laugh more when I’m drunk?”

He said this while suppressing a smile. I pulled my gaze away from Jihoon’s face illuminated by the yellow light. I waved my hand across my face, trying to brush off whatever was there. My skin felt neither hot nor cold, just a lukewarm sensation lingered.

Was Jihoon always this sensitive to my emotional temperature? I’d like to think that I had hoped for things to be like this. Our skins were quite fragile, and a slight fluctuation in temperature would lead to an immediate feeling of discomfort, causing us to retreat. Memories of trying my utmost to not reveal even a sliver of my heart to him rushed through my mind.

A laugh of exasperation escaped me.

“Well, I don’t know how it looks, but I have no clue. Maybe I just wanted to laugh…”

What was there to say? My throat felt dry as I spoke, even while Jihoon continued to observe me until I set the beer can down. With his arms crossed and leaning back on the chair, he regarded me as if he were analyzing a subject.

“It’s fascinating.”

“…What is?”

“Just that. With all those years we’ve spent together, I thought I knew enough about you…”

Jihoon stopped his words and turned his head. It didn’t take long for his gaze, which had swept slowly from the kitchen to the living room, to return back to the beer can.

“I feel like there’s quite a lot I’m learning now that I’ve entered this house.”

“…….”

“Like you talking in your sleep.”

As he spoke, Jihoon seemed to be pondering that fact again. It was hard to tell whether he was reminiscing about the past or coming to terms with the present.

“Back when you visited the US, you weren’t talking in your sleep. Thinking back, I don’t think you did when we were in middle school, and you definitely didn’t when we were in high school…”

His lips slowly sealed. They lingered as if he was reflecting on moments in middle school, high school, and even in flight school. I took my time to observe his face, which was lost in those memories. I wondered how much of our recollections overlapped.

For instance, if I were to recall today, it wouldn’t be about the actors or the sprawling operation that had taken a decade to bring back Choi Hyuk-jun. Instead, it would be about Jihoon sitting alone in the taxi station, and the snowflakes landing on his hair that peeked out from under his hoodie.

And no matter how much time passed, seeing the scar in my heart that never blurred would bring me moments of a release from the knots within.

The day I fought with Choi Hyuk-jun in the cafeteria, Jihoon’s face was left with multiple bruises and scratches. His split lip and bruised cheek eventually faded away, leaving no trace behind, but at the end, the scar at the tip of his brow remained, a reminder of the moment Choi Hyuk-jun had struck him with the sharp edge of a tray. It was a small scar close to his brow, and its short width meant that a first-time observer could easily miss it. At times, it seemed even Jihoon had forgotten he had such a scar.

As an onlooker, I found it hard to do the same. There were times when I even averted my gaze, fearing that my eyes might brush against that scar. The moment I saw it, I felt like I might crumble. Yet, each time that happened, I would make a promise to myself. I would never allow even a scratch on Jihoon’s life again, soothing myself with the thought that this was how I could stand a little taller in front of him.

Only now, as I stared at that scar, did I realize the moment had arrived.

“Eyebrow…”

Jihoon raised his eyes to check on me. I hesitated for a moment, picking my words carefully, before finally speaking out.

“Does it still hurt?”

The instant those words slid past my throat, which I felt would never be able to say such a thing, I sensed a little bit of the weight on my chest lift.

“…Eyebrow?”

Jihoon asked back with a look of confusion. He squinted one eyebrow in my direction, and as soon as he realized where my gaze was fixed, he seemed to understand something and let out a hollow laugh.

“You mean this?”

Jihoon looked utterly bewildered. He seemed genuinely surprised that I would remember the scar he himself had completely forgotten. He even rubbed his scar absentmindedly, as if trying to demonstrate that it didn’t hurt anymore, though he still didn’t really want to take it seriously.

“I mean, what… Hey, when did this happen? I totally forgot it was even there. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

Jihoon hadn’t changed. Even if he didn’t remember the scar, his understanding of my remembering it made him emphasize that there was nothing to it. His way of protecting the people inside his circle always had been this way.

“The fact that it’s been more than ten years since we were in high school? I can hardly even remember the faces of our homeroom teachers anymore, let alone which class I was in back then.”

The problem was, I hadn’t changed either.

Looking down, Jihoon muttered as he poked at a piece of tteokbokki with his fork, and he didn’t seem to be lying. It was as if he had genuinely forgotten about that incident regarding the scar, and I was the only one who was chewing over the past. Perhaps spurred by the impulse to speak, I opened my mouth.

“Class 7.”

“…….”

“I was in Class 5 only in our third year.”

Jihoon, who briefly paused, lifted his head. With a look I had never seen before, he regarded me oddly, as though he were unfamiliar with me. I wondered if I held a similar expression. Even so, I couldn’t look away from his eyes. For the first time, I granted my heart the forgiveness it had sought in silence. The lips I had bitten shut to give him one last chance finally slackened.

“I remember. Even your locker number.”

The moment his eyes squinted in surprise, I realized I had crossed a line. If Jihoon had asked me to turn the heating up after hearing that, if I had lied and said I had drunk enough, or if I had nodded when he mentioned not remembering the things from high school.

If I had just done those things I normally do, like agreeing to the easy conversation, then this moment wouldn’t have arrived. I stood dumbly in front of the blocked retreat, staring at the one person left in the room.

Not the scar on his eyebrow, but meeting his dark eyes visible just a glance downwards.

“Every time I walked past you…”

Without getting tired, every single time. I searched for you, followed your traces, and turned my steps away from them. So, I remember.

“Every time, I held my breath.”

Sometimes I feel like I’m still stuck in that time. Have I changed since standing in the empty hallway, peeking at you through the glass? Jihoon, sitting across from me without any barriers, still felt like someone I could never reach even after a lifetime.

Habitually sneering, I averted my gaze away from Jihoon and brushed my face with my hands. A sigh that slipped from my lips felt scalding hot. I felt like I might sink with the breath I exhaled.

“If I didn’t, I thought I’d be found out.”

“…….”

“I thought I wouldn’t even be able to remain your friend.”

From the very start, there are loves that long for an end. No one teaches you how to maintain a heart in such a twisted shape. You learn it through self-study. In order to nurture the hope of ending things alone without you even realizing this heart exists, you had to first accept that this heart would never touch you.

I had trampled down the seedling trying to sprout. Still, seeing the heart squirming to come out, I begrudgingly buried it deep down. If I didn’t purposely dig out the earth covering it, it would never be found. Covering the time we spent together with soil would be enough to fool onlookers into thinking it was merely a friendship.

Whenever Jihoon poured his affection into that pot because he stepped into the fencing, I repeated the mantra like brainwashing. This is friendship. You shouldn’t bud a single hope for anything he has no dreams of.

Affection is of a different composition than water, so time would neither drain it out through the hole at the bottom of the pot nor absorb it straight, resulting only in a heavy pot that weighed me down. When I came to my senses, I found that pot had become unbearably heavy. I could neither transport nor ignore it. I was faced with the red heart breaking through the soil. I told myself not to hope, that it could never rise to the surface.

No matter how hard I tried, some things are beyond my control. From the start, it was foolish to think such things could grow in the same plant pot. So, I smashed the pot. I had hoped that perhaps breaking it would end the enduring love as well as the roots of the friendship I had planted to deceive myself.

‘What kind of weaker person just leaves their loved one and runs away?’

I couldn’t forget the gaze Jihoon held while burdened by the heavy pot of friendship. Whenever he bent to pick up the shards of the broken pot, I feared he might cut himself on the sharp edges. I wanted to stop him and tell him.

But it would be futile. Even if he painstakingly picked up the pieces again, they could never be reassembled into the shape he desired.

Because I had tried. I had tried and failed spectacularly.

“That… was the only way I could like you.”

Amid the broken pieces of the pot lay the years we shared scattered like dirt. There were things we both knew, and things that only Jihoon did not know that I was aware of. Right now, I sat beside Jihoon, who was trying to pick up the pieces. I had to explain it to someone who still couldn’t leave that place.

“Jihoon.”

As I stood there, no matter what I said, he wouldn’t even pretend to listen. I saw him turn his head to look at me, a smile lighting his face as if he finally recognized me. Each time I formed my words, seeing his eyes waver made me realize I should have opened up to him long ago. I couldn’t muster the courage to decipher my emotions, I had just smashed the pot and stood there, feeling as if I had burdened him with the weight of that truth. To someone who felt that under the same sky they had grown alongside me in the same soil and sunlight, smashing it in front of him must have been a shock.

“I’m sorry for making you feel rejected.”

I understood Jihoon’s heart when he tried to pick up the fragments. I wanted to tell him it was okay. Perhaps no one wished to listen to Jihoon more desperately than I did.

But the shattered pot didn’t allow me to do that. Even now, with today’s release of that weight I had stacked on for years, the roots still alive mocked me for pretending to be unbothered.

“Blame me as much as you want. Go ahead and curse at me. But… can’t you please not think of it like that?”

“…….”

“If you say you’re throwing me away, it feels like I did something wrong and you’re leaving.”

There was a time I wanted to believe that this sense of guilt was the foundation for loving Jihoon. I waited for a moment when I could hold Choi Hyuk-jun in my own hands. I hoped, perhaps if that moment came, my heart would lighten, allowing me to stay beside Jihoon. I thought maybe I could eventually disclose to Jihoon, “Hey, do you remember Choi Hyuk-jun? I returned to you the scar he left on your face. I bit by bit paid back the enormous friendship you showed me back then.”

The moment I saw Jihoon walking through the snow, I realized I wouldn’t be able to do that for a lifetime. Because Jihoon had never been a friend to me. This reason could never be labeled as friendship either. Friendship could never justify that confusion. If I was going to insist on such a thing, I shouldn’t have wished to hear Jihoon’s voice the moment the snow fell, nor should my heart have dropped at the thought that he waited for me in the darkened streets.

In the place where all hope had been crushed, I focused solely on the complete love that still remained with me. Standing there holding the roots that simply could no longer be concealed beneath the dirt, I spoke in a hoarse voice. For the first time, I exposed myself, shedding the shield and armor I had covered myself with, just to be beside Jihoon.

“It’s just that I’m lacking for you.”

I can’t do this anymore. Pretending that I don’t love you.

“Ending our relationship is something I can do only in this way.”

“…….”

“That’s all it is… go ahead and laugh it off.”

Perhaps due to pouring out all my emotions, I felt drained. I held onto the empty beer can, as if trying to fill this hunger for the first time. Hearing the hollow sound it made, I realized that the last confession the night had given me had come to an end. I ignored the beer can beside me and stood up.

“…Ji Seon-uk.”

Jihoon, appearing to still view me strangely, reached for me. When our eyes met, I could see him shut his mouth, realizing only then he had to grasp me. It was I who broke the gaze first. Though it was under the pretext of the alcohol and the night that I spilled everything I had wanted to say, it must have been sudden and unexpected for Jihoon who now found himself drenched in it. Regardless, there was nothing left to say. I quickly wrapped things up, acting like I was providing an escape route.

“I am drunk, aren’t I? I think I shouldn’t drink anymore.”

“Hey.”

“Let’s clean up tomorrow and just sleep. It’s late.”

The sound of chair legs screeching echoed in succession. I deliberately turned away from Jihoon, who had abruptly stood up, and entered the room. The room was dark without the lights on. Standing before the closed door, I took a deep breath. This was the first time I had so openly laid bare my feelings in front of him. I felt a sense of relief, but at the same time, I felt emptiness.

“…Crazy bastard.”

After muttering that in a self-deprecating manner with a sigh, I finally turned on the lamp on my bedside table. The scenery in my room was the same as before I left in the morning. The clock showed it was 4 AM. My body, having been awake for nearly twenty hours, felt heavy. A wave of muscle aches, combined with the fatigue I had put off, swept over me, blurring my vision. I struggled to focus but ultimately gave up, half-closing my eyes as I peeled off the padded jacket first. I needed to change out of my clothes before going to sleep.

“Ah….”

I let out a groan as I took my arm out of the padded jacket. Did the wound brush against something? It hurt enough to make my head feel dizzy for a moment. As I regained my focus, I glanced down. After blinking a few times, I finally noticed the long ink stain running from my shoulder to my elbow. The bandage hastily wrapped around the evident injury had almost entirely unraveled and hung loosely.

Had I really gotten that drunk? The pain felt too mild compared to the injuries I experienced. This was all I felt regarding my condition. If it’s pain I can tolerate while I’m distracted elsewhere, it can somehow be resolved. I had been injured more severely before, and though the healing process was slow, it did heal, so I believed this would as well. With that thought in mind, I resolved to take off my shirt and hastily unwrapped the bandage.

As I fumbled with the third button of my shirt, I suddenly paused when I heard a sound of footsteps. My head snapped toward the door just as it swung open.

“Hey, sorry but can we talk a bit more…?”

Jihoon, who stepped inside with a careful but decisive expression, halted in his place when he grasped the situation. At that moment, I had already let my arms drop down. Still, I couldn’t hide a look of having been caught doing something. I caught sight of Jihoon’s gaze landing on my arms, which I had been trying to conceal.

His expression, which had been staring at me with his mouth gaped, shifted unnervingly fast.

“Lee Jihoon.”

I called out hurriedly, but it was already too late for him. In the blink of an eye, he had turned away from me. In that moment of distraction, a pained sigh escaped my lips.

“Ugh….”

I quickly bit my lips shut. Jihoon had positioned himself before me, his grip tightening around my uninjured forearm. He squeezed so hard that it felt like my arm might break.

“Hey, let go of this….”

I winced, continuing to speak, but I halted. I noticed that the captured wrist was trembling. It hurt, but it wasn’t to the point of shaking. I looked up.

“What… what’s going on?”

I faced Jihoon, whose expression was devoid of color. It wasn’t just his hand that trembled. His eyes, like a flickering candle in the wind, were unsettled, scanning back and forth between my face and his forearm. Even amid the tumult, the anxiety traveling back and forth between his right arm and my face was palpable. I was left speechless, frozen in confusion. Suddenly, he exploded with a shout.

“Why do you ask me what’s wrong, you bastard!”