Feeling awkward for no reason, Eunseo kept clenching and unclenching his fingers, so Seunghu pressed a plastic fork into his hand and picked out the chicken wings into his bowl. The batter looked crispy, and the steam rising off the bowl smelled delicious.
“Eat up.”
Another student watching the scene piped up.
“Wow, Jin Seunghu, really.”
“What.”
“Are you only picking out wings for your Eunseo?”
“Look at the kid eat — he could eat a hundred wings and still want more.”
“You’ve got a mouth too, you know?”
“Go grab some from the next table.”
Eunseo watched Seunghu and the other two seniors snapping at each other, thoroughly flustered. Then he dumped everything in his bowl into the bowl of the senior across from him.
“Please have these. I don’t like wings.”
“I gave them to you to eat — why are you giving them to someone else?”
“You said to eat together, so if I eat them all…”
“You only eat the wings.”
“No. I eat everything.”
Waving his hands dismissively, Eunseo stabbed at random pieces with his fork and started picking the meat off carelessly. True, he liked wings just as Seunghu said, but he didn’t only eat those. From the start —
whenever he ate things like this, he gave it all to others and ate what was left. He had no idea how Seunghu knew that, but anyway.
“Any word from your father lately?”
Seunghu asked, feigning indifference. Grateful for the tone — not overly worried, not pitying — Eunseo answered quietly. He was one of the few people who knew about his father.
“Yes… but it should be about time he comes.”
Eunseo’s father — an alcoholic whose whereabouts and doings no one knew — showed up every month and a half to two months demanding money. Eunseo was too scared to suggest they live together, but too worried about him living on the streets to know what to do. But his father didn’t care. It was as if it didn’t matter to him if he dropped dead at any moment.
Every one of his visits left Eunseo wounded in body and heart — but he feared even more the times he didn’t come. Being left completely alone in this world was something he’d refuse even in death.
“If anything happens, tell me.”
“…Yes.”
After all, if he couldn’t be loved, then as long as he had someone connected to him by blood, he wouldn’t be entirely alone in this world. Eunseo sank quietly for a moment, then tried to ride along with the rowdy mood.
“Have all of you decided where you’re getting jobs? Surely none of you are doing a PhD, right?”
“Yes, roughly… most of the others will get jobs too.”
“Good. Don’t do a PhD. Kids these days are smart, I tell you.”
Eunseo quietly ate two pieces of chicken and drank his cola, diligently reacting to the conversations around him one by one. He wasn’t the type to lead a conversation, but he liked listening to others talk, and having lively people nearby seemed to pass their energy on to him — so he didn’t dislike gatherings like this. But the conversation didn’t seem headed in a good direction, and just as he was plotting how to slip away, the very thing he’d feared happened.
“Come to think of it, Eunseo, you’ve gotten pretty famous lately, hanging around with Han Jaeheon.”
“…Huh?”
“Right. I heard you snapped at him in the cafeteria.”
“Huh? I heard you flipped a tray.”
“I heard you dumped a tray on Han Jaeheon’s head…”
He had no idea what had gotten twisted into what. Eunseo shook his head hard, trying to set the rumor straight.
“No. Why would I flip a tray… no.”
“Right? We thought so too. You’d never do that.”
“But is it true you got mad?”
It was a question without malice, but it tore at Eunseo’s wound. His face and voice —
remembering Han Jaeheon smiling so beautifully as he said he liked him, and that moment when his hands shook because it felt like his feelings were being toyed with — the rims of his eyes grew hot.
“Hey, do you know how much that guy torments Eunseo? He comes asking for tutoring because he’s the TA, and every day it’s assignments this, assignments that.”
“Really?”
“And he’s a total wall. A wall. Nothing gets through to him.”
Thanks to Seunghu cutting in at just the right moment, the topic shifted from Eunseo-and-Han-Jaeheon to Han Jaeheon himself. Luckily, he was a person interesting enough to carry a topic. His clenched fist trembled on his thigh.
“He must be doing great. Studying abroad after graduation?”
“Or going straight into a company.”
“He comes and goes so much for general chemistry — all the natural-sciences kids only talk about him.”
“He does stand out. Seunghu, isn’t he about your height?”
At the word “similar,” Seunghu scowled hard, clearly annoyed. Eunseo couldn’t tell what was so irritating about being asked if they were similar in height. He just glared pointlessly at a piece of pickled radish and read the room. Then one senior, who’d been quiet, poured oil on the burning Seunghu.
“I thought you were handsome too, Seunghu, but Han Jaeheon’s way better. He really looks kind. Totally!”
That guy’s the real deal.
He regretted sitting among the PhD students. Eunseo figured this topic wouldn’t pass easily, rolled his eyes around, and hung his head. Then he pulled out the phone he’d slipped into his pocket to check the time. He was thinking of leaving once it got a little past seven. His body seemed to be screaming that it needed rest.
The moment the phone screen lit up, Eunseo’s pupils widened too. Dozens of missed calls and messages had come in — all from one person. Before he could even check what they’d sent, the phone flashed and another message arrived.
“Looks like fun.”
Eunseo jerked his head up and looked around. And his eyes met Han Jaeheon’s, sitting by the window, dead-on. Smiling, he waved his phone once and seemed to type another message.
“We didn’t exactly have plans”
“So I’m not that mad”
“But not answering at all stings a little.”
And then Han Jaeheon stood up from his seat. A few students around him —
seemed to ask where he was going, but he didn’t care. And he started walking toward the table where Eunseo was sitting.
Eunseo had no idea how to get out of this situation and floundered. Should he just avoid him? But avoiding him here might land him alone with Han Jaeheon. Hating that even more, Eunseo chose to greet Han Jaeheon as a group instead.
And he felt a little sad. He was someone Eunseo liked — someone he couldn’t even deny liking anymore — so why did looking at him hurt this much, why did he have to try so hard not to look? Far from planting good impressions and thoughts in him, he had to wish for him to hate and despise him.
“Hello.”
At the bright greeting from above his head, every student’s gaze turned to one spot. With a face more radiant than ever — but to Eunseo not looking happy at all — Han Jaeheon smiled with his eyes.
“Han Jae—!”
A senior who’d probably been about to shout “Han Jaeheon” had his mouth covered by another senior’s hand, and Han Jaeheon only glanced at the two of them, showing no other reaction.
“I was drinking over there, but it looked fun so I came over for a bit. Shin Eunseo, the TA I’m indebted to, is here too.”
In an extremely gentle, kind voice, Han Jaeheon asked to join the table. The people who’d been chatting away about Han Jaeheon — good things and bad — acted as if they’d never done any such thing and
made room, and Han Jaeheon slid in with his long legs and sat across from Eunseo.
“We were just saying Han Jaeheon is the talk of the natural-sciences college lately.”
“Haha, really?”
“Omegas, betas — everyone went wild. Handsome and good manners!”
“I’m grateful for the kind words.”
As he spoke, Han Jaeheon gazed steadily at Eunseo. Eunseo desperately ignored the hot gaze he felt on the top of his head and just kept counting the white beer bottles on the table, over and over.
“How did you two get so close?”
“Ah, I can’t keep up with the lectures, so I can’t do the assignments… so I asked him to teach me. The TA acts tough but he’s kind, so I’ve been bothering him a bit.”
“Eunseo’s good at that kind of thing.”
“Yes, he’s incredibly strict.”
In a soft voice, Han Jaeheon praised Eunseo. There was no lie in those words, and yet they were truth infinitely close to a lie. Seunghu, watching the scene, could never stay quiet.
“You’re really good with words, forcing him to do things he says he doesn’t want to?”
“Oh, TA, did you not like it? You never gave me a separate reason, so I didn’t know.”
Eunseo had said it dozens of times. Busy, busy, busy, busy. And… he’d given other reasons too, but those had been completely ignored, erased as if they’d never happened. And Han Jaeheon’s words now were no different from a confirmation kill — a declaration that he would truly make it as if that thing had never happened.
“Does he look like a kid who could say no to anything?”
“Haha, senior — you’re not Shin Eunseo’s dad or anything, so why are you being so overprotective? How old do you think he is — you really think he can’t even say what he likes and doesn’t like?”
Jin Seunghu was about to get another word in, but Eunseo barely managed to wedge himself between them and stop it. Seunghu was hot-blooded — if Han Jaeheon provoked him even a little more here, it would easily turn into a collar-grabbing brawl, and on that point, Jaeheon was right.
“Senior, I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling well, so I’ll head out first.”
“Ah, then me too. I have something I want to say to him.”
Eunseo flinched as he was packing his bag, but let it go with a sigh and brushed himself off as he stood. Han Jaeheon — who’d left dozens of messages on his phone — wasn’t about to back down just like this.
“Eunseo, leaving already?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well.”
“Alright, go home and rest.”
“I’m sorry.”
Only after greeting everyone in the lab could Eunseo leave the chicken shop. As he climbed the creaking stairs, a shadow that blocked out the streetlamps and the shop lights fell over his head.
“Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk?”
“…Yes, sure.”
Eunseo had reached the point of giving up, just a little. Only hours ago he’d meant to beg him — to keep his distance, to never meet again — but he’d given up even on that. The moment he saw Han Jaeheon’s face, fear at not knowing why that man was here warred with gladness and joy at seeing him; he’d reached a point where he truly couldn’t understand himself anymore.
***
Eunseo’s place was a rented room near campus, not far from the busy streets by the subway station. The whole way there, as he trudged along with his bag stuffed full of books and papers, Han Jaeheon followed behind him without a word.
“Why—”
About to ask if he was following him, Eunseo clamped his mouth shut. He was too exhausted to even talk.
“You really don’t look well.”
“…Yes.”
“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m following you?”
“You must have your reasons for following me.”
“That’s what I’m asking — why won’t you ask me what they are?”
“………”
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