Eunseo blurted the words out and hurriedly began handing out the exam papers. The lecture had already started. Scanning the students taking the papers, Eunseo’s eyes caught those pale, slightly damp hands that had played the piano — those pretty hands.
“…The exam ends at 11:15. Anyone who wants to submit early may do so and leave. On your way out, I’ll return your last graded assignment and lab report, so please take them.”
Barely finishing, Eunseo sat down in the chair at the desk on the podium. The seniors retaking the course before graduation seemed to be working the hardest, but Han Jaeheon wasn’t among them.
With a leisurely air, he solved a few problems, then raised his hand. Eunseo thought he was coming down about another graded problem — but it was the opposite. Students came down one or two at a time, submitted their papers, took their graded assignments and reports, and left; he stayed seated until the pile of papers dwindled to a single sheet and vanished. And in the end, only Han Jaeheon and Eunseo remained in the huge lecture hall.
“The exam… is over.”
Eunseo’s voice echoed hollowly in the empty space. The moment he finished speaking, Han Jaeheon stood up and came down the stairs with heavy steps. Then he climbed up to the podium where Eunseo was and held out the exam paper with a few problems scribbled across it.
“…Thank you for your hard work this semester.”
After the perfunctory greeting he’d given every student, Eunseo held out the assignment and report marked with an ‘A’. Han Jaeheon stared at it for a long moment, smiled once, and took it.
“Thanks to you, TA, I think I’ll be able to graduate.”
“…Yes.”
“You really went and gave the condolence money back, huh?”
“The bar tab….”
“That was always going to be mine to pay.”
Han Jaeheon really seemed to remember nothing. Feeling relief and disappointment at once, Eunseo kept gripping and releasing the back of the desk chair for no reason.
“That day….”
“…Yes?”
Han Jaeheon looked at Eunseo with puzzled eyes as he started, even stepping back.
“Why are you so startled.”
“No….”
Eunseo wanted to bite his nails. He was so tense that a habit he’d never had was forming — his back was soaked with sweat even in this winter.
“I remember going into the bar with you, TA… but I don’t remember coming out.”
“Ah….”
Han Jaeheon was asking what had happened after that. He really didn’t remember. Eunseo floundered in a pit of despair and hope, clearing his sinking throat. It seemed that night was really going to be his memory alone.
“We… parted ways at the bar.”
“…Is that so?”
“Yes, you seemed fine up until then….”
“I usually don’t show it when I’m drunk. Not even when I black out.”
“…I see.”
Han Jaeheon repeated the words he’d said before, smiling brightly. “So you paid the bar tab with the condolence money I gave you, and brought the rest back to me?”
“…Yes, that’s right.”
From the whirlpool of that tangled feeling — fear and a thrill — Eunseo barely managed to arrange his expression. He was glad he’d worn his glasses — truly glad. Without even that, Han Jaeheon would have read every inch of his face.
“Abandoning a drunk guy and just leaving, huh.”
“…I didn’t know you were drunk.”
“Hmm…. well, true.”
Han Jaeheon tilted his head as if something felt off, but seemed to let it go. Then he held out those pale, pretty hands in front of Eunseo. Eunseo stared at them for a moment, then lifted his eyes to Han Jaeheon’s face.
“Thank you for the semester, TA.”
Ah.
“…Thank you for your hard work.”
It’s really over. It still feels like he’s inside me — the feeling of his kisses still lingers, the feeling of holding him is still vivid… and it’s really ending like this.
Han Jaeheon clasped his hand once, firmly, then let go, climbed the stairs, opened the lecture hall door, and left; Eunseo stayed behind alone in the vast lecture hall. Alone — as if he were the only one left in the world. Dark veins spread across his vision, and countless scenes flowed past like a black-and-white film.
The beautiful eyes that smiled through his stubbornness, the hot body heat that pressed close through the summer clothes, the eyes that watched with amusement as he forced down a romance he didn’t even like, the cruel words he’d spat at the confession I’d been cornered into — that I liked him — the pretty sound of the piano he used to play, the tender scolding he’d fired at me when I brought up the liver transplant — the one who’d come to me that dawn and made me cry — the lips that kissed me like someone in love with me, and the arms that held me tight….
As Eunseo stood there gathering the students’ exam papers into his arms, his knees buckled and he collapsed forward as if crumpling. The feeling he hadn’t recognized even through Han Jaeheon’s rejection, and the rejection that came after, flooded in. He really had suffered a broken heart.
A stifled sob.
Drop by drop, tears soaked the wooden podium floor. It wasn’t this perfect heartbreak that was sad. It was the memory that would remain that was bitter. The near-certain future in which this memory would torment him endlessly.
If it was going to end like this… if it was a relationship that would vanish this emptily, he should have just said he liked him a little more. Should have at least shown a little more that he liked him; even if his rejection and blame hurt,
he should have talked to him a little more. Belated regret sent him hurrying out of the lecture hall and looking around, but the hallway was already empty. His hips aching, Eunseo bent over and could only gasp out breaths laced with sobs.
After gasping out harsh breaths like that for a long while, Eunseo barely straightened up. Then, rubbing his heated eyes dry, he went back into the lecture hall, gathered the exam papers neatly, and slowly climbed the stairs. He paused for a moment beside the spot where Han Jaeheon’s seat had been, then moved on.
And so, that was the last of it.
***
— End of Volume 1 —
Leave a Reply