Chapter 18

At first, I thought I saw it wrong. How did Ji Geon-hyung know when I didn’t tell him anything about where I was?

“What are you doing? Hurry up and drink.”

A friend with droopy eyes put his arm around my shoulder, putting a glass still full of soju in my hand. I sobered up when I saw Ji Geon-hyung, so I tried to put it down again to stop drinking, but this friend grabbed my entire hand holding the cup and forcibly brought it to my mouth.

“Ya, I already drank a lot…”

“You drank a lot yet your tongue is still sober.1 That’s far from enough. Drink more!”

“That’s right! Drink ‘til you’re drunk!”

Other friends also put on the pressure. As soon as I reluctantly emptied the glass of soju all at once, I felt a dryness in my throat that made it tingle. My head throbbed and I felt dizzy from the haze that followed.

“Where are you trying to run away, bastard? One more drink for your offense.”

As soon as the glass emptied, it was refilled with soju. While eating snacks, I tried to ask them to drink slowly, but they didn’t know how to stop.

After drinking three shots in a row, I was very drunk and my face was burning like it was going to explode. My head was pounding to the sound of my heart, and I felt like I was floating as if my feet were on a floor full of balloons.

“Yaaa–, one more drink!”

“Professor Yoo-oo, you shet-ty bash-ard! If you’re a professor, it’s okaay…?!”2

The sound of twisted tongues was heard from all sides and my glass was filled with alcohol again. Now, there was no thought of refusing or drinking on cue, but only the thought that when the glass was filled with something, I should drink it. If I didn’t drink it, they would forcefully pour it into my mouth anyway.

Naturally, I held a glass of soju, but another hand intervened from the side and snatched it away.

“Woo Seo-ya, heub, you’re drinking, heuh, too much.”

It was none other than Kang Ji Seok, hiccupping while holding my soju glass. When other friends saw him try to rob me of my drink, tried to take it back, and ask me to drink, Kang Ji Seok smiled faintly and drank it in one shot. Then, holding a glass in both hands, showing his enthusiasm, he asked for more. They were not ones to refuse, so his friends poured alcohol into his two soju glasses again.

I looked at Kang Ji Seok half-drooping in the chair. I could see that Kang Ji Seok was also very drunk, and in the midst of all that, my heart fluttered again at how he cared about me. Then, it sank in immediately.

“I still like Minah-noona, I do.”

Why did those words come to mind now?

Kang Ji Seoks’s confession repeated like crazy in my hazy mind, plunging the excitement from alcohol into the abyss.

With arms on the table, I held my chin and looked at Kang Ji Seok sternly. My drinking glass, still held by him, was filled with clear alcohol that quickly entered his mouth and disappeared without a trace. Then the empty glass soon left Kang Ji Seok’s hand and was placed on the table, thrown away without its owner.

I felt empathy for something that was nothing. Although I thought it must be the power of alcohol and its side effects, I couldn’t help but get emotional inside. Moreover, the feeling of sadness actually affected my heart, so I had to leave my seat in a hurry.

I felt a rush of queasiness so I headed to the bathroom. Contrary to my concerns, it was quiet inside, perhaps because I was out of the space filled with the smell of alcohol outside. While soothing down my chest, I felt dizzy in front of my eyes and grabbed the sink, touching my forehead. My hands were quite warm and I didn’t know how hot my face was because of how warm they were. I lifted my head and looked in the mirror on the wall, I looked as if I was on fire.

At that time, the door opened with a rattling sound and Kang Ji Seok entered. Although his face was much redder than mine, at least his eyes looked a bit less blurred.

“What, you’re in the bathroom, too?”

Approaching with a silly smile, Ji Seok then gathered his brows worriedly.

“Are you okay? Feel like throwing up? Dizzy? Want to go home?”

For some reason, it was uncomfortable as he approached me with excessive worry. He was no different from usual, and was the same even when he was drunk, but why did it all feel so detestable?

Kang Ji Seok would have treated other friends the same way, not just me. He would have asked the same questions and worried the same way.

If this had been before, I would have just been grateful and thrilled for his kindness. I seemed to be treated as special by Kang Ji Seok, and I might have felt proud of being a friend who was as close as a lover. But now, because of my complicated thoughts and churning emotions, it was simply impossible to accept it.

“I still like Minah-noona, I do.”

It was driving me crazy.

Kang Ji Seok’s words came to mind once again and messed around in my head. It was like a wedge in my mind that I would never fall within the scope of Kang Ji Seok’s scope of acceptance, like Minah-noona, even if I died and woke up again.

Tak!

Unknowingly, I slapped his hand that was reaching out toward my face. Kang Ji Seok stared at me in surprise, then bit his lower lip tightly. With a slight staggering step, he patted me on the shoulder and passed by.

When I returned to my seat, I saw two of my friends had already collapsed as I picked up my bag. When a sober friend caught me and asked where I was going, I handed him tens of thousands of won3 out of my wallet for the drinks and left without saying a word.

When I came out, it was windy. There was less than a month left until summer, but my spine felt a chill. Maybe it was because I was in a heated state.

Uungh–

Standing outside the store to get some fresh air, I belatedly remembered the cell phone that I shoved into my pants pocket. Considering that the vibrations continued, it seemed that someone was calling, but at the moment I didn’t want to answer it nor did I care.

I walked away, ignoring the vibrations. My vision was a little blurry and I felt a bit chilly, but if I walked home like this, the shaken feeling would subside and my drunkenness would go away.

I walked about three steps away.

My vision shook and my body was quickly turned back around, all of all sudden. My face crumpled at the sight of the familiar face in front of me.

“Why did you come out here? Are you done drinking?”

What I saw in my slightly blurred vision was Kang Ji Seok, his eyebrows gathered between his worried eyes like before.

“Let go of me. Go away.”

I was already upset and needed to organize my mind alone, but the culprit intervened without noticing.

Swinging the arm that was caught, I tried to push him away, but my other arm was also caught.

“You get violent when you’re drunk.”

As I was about to shoot a word back at the annoying Kang Ji Seok, I noticed that his voice was quite low, unlike [when we were] in the bathroom. Upon closer inspection, he was wearing a neat suit and a rather mature smile.

“…hyung?”

Only then did I realize what was in front of me was Ji Geon-hyung, not Kang Ji Seok. Come to think of it, he had been here since I was in the midst of it, but because I was so preoccupied with alcohol and Kang Ji Seok that I had forgotten that hyung was here.

“All my friends are still here, is it alright for you to come out?”

“Yes, just…you should stop drinking.”

As I turned my head with my eyes down, hyung gently grabbed my face and turned it to meet my eyes.

“Did you know that you have a habit of lowering your eyes when you have a lot on your mind?”

Smiling warmly, hyung gently pressed his thumb and swiped under my eye. It’s a habit I wasn’t aware of, but it was amazing that he noticed it, and it was amazing that he was here, and that he resembled Kang Ji Seok, like this…it was all just fascinating.

“Hyung, how did you know to come here?”

Without a word, he took out his cell phone and showed me a message.

[I’ll be drinking with my friends so don’t wait up.]

It was a message Kang Ji Seok sent to him. When I sent him a questionable look at how he knew the location with just that, hyung smiled.

“He used to say there was a place he’d go to whenever he went drinking with his friends. I roughly knew the location.”

Only after hearing that did I realize that whenever I went drinking with my friends as a group, we would come to this bar. It was a place frequented by students because it was near the school, had cheap snacks, and the owner’s generous hospitality.

“Since it’s the weekend tomorrow, I was worried that you wouldn’t come back after drinking until late into the morning so I came to get you. I have to go out tomorrow, too.”

I thought I knew what hyung was worried about. Without me, he won’t be able to sleep, and tomorrow’s work would be a big problem, so he had no choice but to worry. It was already past eleven p.m.

“I’m sorry.4 Then, let’s go home…”

I opened my mouth but swallowed my words. Thinking about going home in this mood and immediately sleeping, I felt unwilling. I didn’t like the frustration that still lingered in my stuffy mind.

‘If only there was a place to vent…’

After deliberating, I grabbed hyung’s arm.

“Hey, maybe a drink…is that okay?”

‘What are you talking about, holding onto a person who has to go to work tomorrow?’

I was going to tell him to just go home, and ask him not to listen to me, but with a nice smile on his face, he took me in the direction of the car.

“Two drinks are fine, too.”

As if he had been waiting for me to say those words, hyung immediately agreed.