ACM | Chapter 3.8

“If I was going to only look at you, I wouldn’t have started in the first place.”

It was a kind of confirmation blow to wake up my foolish self. The offer hyung made, that he liked me so much but already had a girlfriend, so he would take me as a second anyway, had meant exactly that from the beginning.

Of course, if I had been enough for him, he would already have dealt with his girlfriend and only seen me. Jinhoo hyung had broken up with lovers without hesitation before, so what was so hard about dumping Chorong nuna…

A person who was fine with being loved only as an extra, someone easy to meet and convenient to keep around as a bonus. That was what I was to hyung.

I ran straight out to the front of the officetel building. The tears that had been heating up so fiercely spilled even more uncontrollably once I got away from hyung. Even in this state, I was thinking that I should move aside before Chorong nuna arrived in front of the building. That was my role.

Even so, I was so angry that I wanted to stay out of sheer spite. I thought that if Chorong nuna found me crying while I was only halfway into the officetel, she would, with her usual nosiness, try to comfort me and maybe not go up to Jinhoo hyung’s place at all…

Just then, I heard someone’s footsteps coming toward me. It had to be nuna…

Tap, tap, tap.

“Is it good, living like that?”

Startled by the unexpectedly low voice of a man, I looked up. It was Gyuseok hyung, standing there. Seeing my face all smeared with tears and snot, hyung lifted one eyebrow as if annoyed. Come to think of it, Gyuseok hyung commuted from his family home, so there was a physical distance of about an hour between here and where he lived. Why was he here when he had said he was going home earlier…

“Su… sunbae… I thought you were going home earlier.”

“You were the one who stuck your nose into it, so get out before you regret it even more.”

“……”

As expected, Gyuseok hyung definitely knew something. He did not seem to have any intention of hiding it, and because of that, I lost even the energy to pretend otherwise in response to what he said.

“You really like that Hyeon Jinhoo bastard that much?”

“…Yes…”

“Who can you blame for being a loser?”

Tap, tap, tap.

Hyung turned around and walked off somewhere. Watching his back disappear into the distance made my already tangled heart even more complicated. Why were the hyungs all stabbing me in the chest today, and what exactly was going on? I could not understand any of it.

* * *

I had no appetite, so I ate lunch more or less, and even by the time I finished my early afternoon class, my food still had not really digested. To soothe my stuffy insides, I sat on a bench and stared blankly at the sky, when suddenly something cold touched my right cheek and I jumped.

“Ah!”

‘So cold!’

I was so startled by the sudden attack, as if ice had stuck to my cheek, that I quickly turned my head to the right. Sungmin hyung was standing there with a beautiful face, smiling and holding an iced Americano. It seemed he had just brought that to my right cheek as a prank.

“Here. Drink this.”

“Oh, thank you. Sungmin hyung.”

“Now you’re not calling me sunbae anymore?”

“You told me to call you hyung, yesterday.”

“Yeah, good job.”

With long, almond-shaped eyes that stretched wide both horizontally and vertically, Sungmin hyung stared at me intently. In a different way from Jinhoo hyung, who had the sexy look of a model, or Gyuseok hyung, who had a cool image dripping with coldness, Sungmin hyung was really handsome.

He was tall, had broad shoulders, and a good build, but his face had the elegant look of a pretty male actor. When he smiled, it was as if a flower-covered background appeared like a halo, like he had stepped straight out of a romance comic.

‘But why is he looking at me like that again?’

Unlike Gyuseok hyung, who had no intention of closing the distance with me because I was just a friend’s hoobae, Sungmin hyung not only took good care of me but also showed the effort to get close to me first, which I was sincerely grateful for.

So he was always a warm, appreciated sunbae to me, but during conversation there were times when he would suddenly stop talking and just look at me quietly, and the air would strangely turn awkward. It felt like that right now.

If Sungmin hyung’s eyes were heading toward the red marks on my collarbone from rolling around messily with Jinhoo hyung yesterday, then I was probably overreacting… At a glance it did not look like a kiss mark, and since it was mostly hidden by my clothes, I had come to school without really planning to hide it. It was starting to bother me now.

“Yesterday was really good… I was thinking you spent a lot of money, so I was going to buy you a lot of beer too, but you left first yesterday…”

“Forget it~. I don’t mind spending money on feeding you at all.”

Well, I had heard that Sungmin hyung’s family was also obscenely rich. It probably would not have been a big amount for him at all, nor something he would feel reluctant or stingy about, but still, I thought I should show some sincerity. And yet here I was getting treated to coffee too…

Hyung kept asking if there was anything else I wanted to eat, but he stopped me, saying that the other two guys he had treated were keeping quiet about it too, so why was the youngest one making such a fuss. The hyung I liked the most was Jinhoo hyung, but if I had to pick the most genuinely warm person among people I knew, it would be Sungmin hyung.

“Hyung~ hello!”

Probably because of Sungmin hyung’s eye-catching looks, the time we spent talking alone on the quiet bench was interrupted in no time, as always. A group of female students who seemed to like hyung had gathered up before I knew it, their eyes sparkling as they talked to him. Watching their somewhat noisy but honest, transparent expressions, I suddenly realized I was no different in front of Jinhoo hyung. It was an unexpected mirroring effect.

“I’m heading out. Hyung…”

Feeling like an uninvited guest in an instant, I stood up from my seat and said goodbye to hyung. He seemed to want to keep talking with me, and his gaze was a little disappointed, but he quickly returned to his usual bright expression. Well, if he pushed away the female hoobae who had just started clinging to him and held me back, then Sungmin hyung was the kind of considerate person who needed to take care of all the people around him as they came.

“Doyun.”

“Yes?”

“Think of a food you like! I’ll buy it for you again!”

Even as I slowly started walking away, hyung called out to me, promising the next time we’d meet. How kind of him. “Oppa~ it’s fine if you just get us school cafeteria food too~.”

The female students’ laughter followed after that. Unlike a stiff male hoobae like me who had no charm, it would make sense for his attention to be drawn to female hoobaes who responded with cheerful reactions…

I stopped walking and looked back over my shoulder at the place where Sungmin hyung had been standing. Surprisingly, his gaze was still fixed on me like it had been pinned there.

“……”

It was embarrassing that I had turned around to check, so I bowed my head and gave a formal nod. Hyung kindly waved back and answered my goodbye warmly.

Sungmin hyung is a good person. He would never dream that I was his friend’s cheating partner, getting up to all kinds of dirty things with Jinhoo hyung… If he found out the truth, maybe he would despise me even more than he despised Jinhoo hyung for cheating on his girlfriend, and instead think I was a disgusting, full-blown gay guy, Ryu Doyun, who shamelessly confessed to a man and clung to him.

‘Jinhoo hyung has an afternoon class near the engineering college today, so…’

I decided to stop dwelling on gloomy thoughts. Our relationship with Jinhoo hyung had not even been discovered yet, and I was already digging myself into the ground too much. Since I had nothing to do because I had no afternoon class today, I wandered around the engineering college area around the time Jinhoo hyung’s general education class would end. I wanted to pretend it was a chance meeting and catch his eye in front of the building.

After that hot sex yesterday, I had exploded with even hotter anger and stormed out of hyung’s officetel. Neither hyung nor I had contacted each other at all for the next fourteen hours, but I wanted to apologize first for being careless. More than a call, I thought it would be better to at least meet face to face and exchange a greeting before sending a message.

It was a little past 3 o’clock. The class seemed to be over, because people began coming out through the building door one by one. And then Jinhoo hyung’s silhouette started to appear. Even from the moment he came out through the revolving door, he was already radiating a handsome aura from a hundred meters away.

As I moved closer to the building, my heart fluttered with the thought of greeting him like it was a chance encounter. I quickened my pace and got to about thirty meters in front of him.

Ah… this is no good. I should retreat.

When he fully came out through the revolving door, he was not alone, nor was he with friends. Once his full figure came into view, he was wrapping his arm around Chorong nuna’s shoulders and strolling away in the opposite direction from where I was standing.

“……”

On impulse, I pressed the phone screen. Without having to search or scroll around, just touching anywhere in the recent call list would connect me to Jinhoo hyung’s phone so easily. Eighty percent of the calls in my phone’s history were from Jinhoo hyung…

Riiiiiiing-

I could see hyung taking his phone out of his pocket after sensing the call coming in. I swear I had no intention of interrupting their date right now. I had only planned to answer naturally, quickly apologize first, and end the call shortly. Hyung, after checking the screen, pressed something right away.

“Hyu…”

– The customer you are trying to reach cannot be connected. Please try again later….

Thinking the call had connected, I was about to get into my apology right away when I went blank. The button hyung had just pressed was not answer, but reject.

After being rejected, my head turned blank, as if I had suddenly lost any purpose for what I should do today. In that dazed state, I wandered through the engineering college building hyung had just come out of and walked down the hallway.

I had no classes or anything else to do around the engineering college. Other than the few general education classes the university required everyone to complete, I had no aptitude for engineering lectures and did not even glance at them. If I rashly signed up, I would only end up having to drag the average down in relative grading, so why would I take them?