Ch.7878. Absence

The owner of the song asked him.

In the room where silence had fallen.

Suhyuk slightly bowed his head, gazing at a single strand of golden hair that still had moisture on it.

He tried to imagine breaking down this brief moment into seconds.

What if I tell the truth here?

That I like you so much.

That I couldn’t hold back my feelings for you, so I wrote those lyrics.

What expression would you make?

“What’s up? Why aren’t you answering?”

Hana’s index finger poked Suhyuk’s shoulder repeatedly.

A face full of mischief.

No matter how he looked at it, it didn’t seem like the face of someone expecting a serious confession.

“…Someone I used to like.”

Just enough of an answer to get partial credit.

Suhyuk slightly twisted his approach and gave her a half-truth.

“I wrote it thinking about someone I used to like.”

“…Really?”

Though she tried not to show it, Hana was slightly disappointed.

It wasn’t that her expectations had been zero.

She had hoped that she was the protagonist of the song.

After all, the lyrics Suhyuk had brought contained the heartbreaking content of unrequited love that would make anyone who read them feel sad.

“When did you like this person?”

“…A long time ago.”

“How long ago?”

“When I was a kid.”

“Come on. What kind of kid writes such sad lyrics?”

Hana let out a laugh of disbelief.

“Even as a kid… I was overflowing with emotions…”

Suhyuk also found his own words funny and started laughing.

“So what was this person like?”

“Why?”

“I’m just curious. What on earth did they do to make little you beg and plead like that?”

Lies with long tails are bound to be caught.

Suhyuk was no smooth talker.

He tried to squeeze out a forced story on the spot, but it was beyond his abilities.

“Just… well… someone similar to you.”

“…Their personality?”

“Their personality, and… their face… seems kind of similar too…”

The content wasn’t pleasant, but the feeling itself wasn’t so bad.

After all, it meant that Lee Suhyuk’s type was someone like her.

But she had no desire to be a downgraded version of some nameless girl from Suhyuk’s memories.

That would be the most insulting sentiment one could feel as a lover.

“Hey. So are you still in touch with this person now?”

“Hana. What should we eat?”

Suhyuk, wanting to end the conversation about a past that didn’t exist, drew a line.

“I’m really hungry.”

As Suhyuk held out his phone, Hana looked up at him with a face that showed she wasn’t pleased.

‘Why are you ignoring me?’

Though it seemed like the words were floating above her face, Suhyuk, with firm resolve, ignored her signal once more.

“How about pizza?”

“I don’t like pizza when it’s raining.”

“Then what do you like when it’s raining?”

“Home-cooked food.”

Suhyuk blinked slowly.

“You want home-cooked food?”

“Yeah. When it rains, I want to eat home-cooked food made by family.”

What were the chances that a 21-year-old man living alone would have decent ingredients to serve to the girl he liked?

Unless cooking was his hobby, those chances were extremely low.

“But… I’m not good at cooking, and I don’t have much food at home…”

Hadn’t they agreed to order delivery in the first place?

“So?”

“We can only get delivery…”

“Damn it.”

Seeing him troubled after her sulking, Hana’s heart softened.

She snatched the phone from Suhyuk and scrolled down quickly.

“How about Gopdeoritang?”

“What’s Gopdeoritang?”

“What? You’ve never had it?”

“How would I know what it is?”

Suhyuk had tried Dakdoritang before, but he knew nothing about Gopdeoritang.

“Hmm… it’s like Dakdoritang but with tripe in it. It’s delicious. If you’ve never tried it, I recommend giving it a try.”

“Then let’s order that.”

Suhyuk, who had been seriously considering going to the supermarket, breathed a sigh of relief.

“So what should we do now?”

After completing the order, Suhyuk looked at Hana sitting on his bed.

A boxy T-shirt on top. Dolphin pants below.

Though she often wore outfits with this level of exposure, so it wasn’t anything special, the space was the issue.

The bed where Suhyuk always slept.

The fact that the girl he liked was sitting there with her bare legs exposed was quite stimulating to him, who had no immunity to such things.

“Do you…”

Hana grinned.

“Have something you want to do?”

It was captivating.

Like the movements of a fox.

Especially her T-shirt, which was still not completely dry, was naturally drawing Suhyuk’s eyes, though it probably wasn’t intentional.

“…Want to watch a movie?”

Suhyuk, sitting at his desk, opened his laptop.

“Do you have another chair?”

Come to think of it, that was true.

Suhyuk’s home was basically set up on the premise that no guests would visit.

As for chairs, there was only the one Suhyuk used.

There was no chair for entertaining guests.

“Hmm…”

Should she watch from the floor?

But making a guest sit on the floor to watch a movie didn’t seem right either…

“Don’t have one? If not, just bring that over here.”

Hana patted the bed as if wondering why he was even hesitating.

“Watch from there?”

“Do you not like me sitting here? Sorry. I should have asked first.”

“No, that’s not it…”

The truth was, there was nowhere else to sit.

“Then… just a moment…”

Suhyuk unplugged the laptop and brought it to the bed.

Since it was a single bed, if they didn’t sit right next to each other, one person would inevitably hang off the edge.

“What, what do you want to watch?”

Hana was pressed right against Suhyuk’s left forearm.

“You have Enflix, right?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Turn it on.”

When Suhyuk opened the page, Hana scrolled down quickly.

“I want to watch this.”

“…Seriously?”

“Why? Can’t you handle scary movies?”

Among all the movies, Hana had picked a horror film.

Her suggestion felt quite burdensome to Suhyuk, who was terrified of ghosts.

“…Yeah.”

This was no time to worry about pride or looking cool.

Suhyuk didn’t want to run around his own home screaming.

“Geez. And you call yourself a man.”

“…Being a man doesn’t mean I have to like ghosts.”

“Okay, okay. Then let’s watch this.”

The genre Hana chose was romance.

Hana, who had been thinking of cuddling up to Suhyuk a bit since it was raining and they were going to watch a horror movie, changed her plan.

“This is okay, right?”

“…Yeah.”

Suhyuk placed the laptop on his thigh.

Because he had plugged in the charger, the heat from the heated bottom was transmitted directly through his shorts.

“Um… won’t that be uncomfortable for you?”

“Is there any other way to do this?”

“We could lie down and watch.”

Hana placed a pillow on its side and put the laptop on it.

Hana and Suhyuk ended up lying side by side to watch the movie.

The screen time was passing, but Suhyuk’s time seemed to have stopped.

He remembered the first time he went to the theater with Hana.

To be precise, it was the day the Spirit group went to see a movie together.

He had been conscious of their hands touching whenever they reached for popcorn, and now he was watching a movie with her at home.

The distance between them had narrowed faster than he had imagined.

The thought crossed his mind that even this much might be too good to be true.

He hadn’t made a single proper friend in the past year.

Perhaps wanting more from here would be like expecting a child who had just learned to walk to sprint at full speed.

“Oh my god… hey… what should we do…”

Hana was the type to make a fuss while watching movies when not in a theater.

She hit Suhyuk’s forearm repeatedly while overreacting.

“Wow… isn’t he going to confess? He’s not confessing? No way… seriously?”

[Like many third-rate novels, love begins from a moment of ‘absence’.]

Absence.

Not being there.

Suhyuk silently mulled over the male protagonist’s monologue.

The male protagonist who couldn’t appear at the most crucial moment.

The female protagonist who waited endlessly, not knowing the circumstances.

Hana was biting her nails, trying to predict what would happen next.

“No way. This can’t end like this, right?”

“I know.”

“Damn… I… Ah. How can he do that at exactly that timing? Even for a movie, this is too much.”

-Knock knock knock

The sound of someone knocking on the door.

It seemed the delivery had arrived.

Suhyuk pressed the space bar to pause the movie and went to receive the bag from inside.

As expected, it seemed the delivery person couldn’t avoid the rain, as there were traces of moisture on the bag.

“Ugh! Should we finish watching and then eat?”

“But won’t the food get cold?”

“Haa… that’s true too!”

I want to eat!

But I’m also curious about the movie!

Remembering that Suhyuk had said he was hungry, Hana eventually set out the food and sat on the floor.

“Damn… it got cut off at such an important part.”

Hana complained as she chewed on the tripe soaked in seasoning sauce.

“There’s about 30 minutes left.”

It was a relatively short movie, only 1 hour and 20 minutes long.

“They’ll end up together in the end, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. Of course they should end up together!”

Not all love stories end happily.

There was no need to look far for examples.

Even Suhyuk himself didn’t know what awaited at the end of the path he was currently on.

“But since it’s a movie, I guess it probably won’t end that way?”

Unlike Suhyuk’s own life, that is.