WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Malfoid
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◈ The Dynamics of Pure Love and Overprotection ◈
Chapter 26
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Chaewon's lips pulled into an incongruous crooked smile. After one last sarcastic remark, she turned her back on him. She had hurriedly tossed aside their conversation with him, yet she was dutifully heading toward Han Jio.
As he watched her retreating figure, sparks flew deep inside his stomach. His throat burned and stung. He could not even swallow, but something surged up from within as if his stomach were refluxing.
Uihyeon followed Chaewon. His mind was still stranded in front of the College of Natural Sciences building, while only his body moved. He deliberately emptied his mind so he would not dwell on the unfamiliar side of Chaewon he had just witnessed. If he kept chewing over that scene, he felt as though all the blood would drain from his body.
Students were scattered throughout Lecture Room 108 at the College of Natural Sciences. Chaewon sat in the very front row beside Han Jio. Under Han Jio's startled gaze, Uihyeon crossed the classroom and set his bag down directly behind Chaewon's seat.
Han Jio glanced at Uihyeon, then seemed to decide this was not the mood for greetings. He straightened up without saying anything. Chaewon kept her eyes fixed on her major textbook without looking up once, and Uihyeon did not look toward the front either.
Everything inside him was noisy. All kinds of feelings writhed deep in his chest, to the point that maintaining a calm expression was difficult. First, there was the feeling that still could not understand why Chaewon was angry. Second, the urge to grab the back of Chaewon's neck and make her look directly at him. Third, the urge to shout somewhere. Fourth, the urge to drive Han Jio away from Chaewon's side right now. Tangled together like mating snakes, they strangled Uihyeon by the throat.
His gaze settled on the words written in the book.
“Solve the problem.”
Problems, problems, problems. Lately, there were problems everywhere he went. His head throbbed.
Yu Chaewon had never once been a difficult problem for him. If anything, she was merely an example problem with the answer written right beside it. Chaewon was so transparent that he could see straight through her, so there was no need to rack his brain around her. Give her interest and kindness, those two things, and Chaewon was happy as if she had everything.
He sometimes felt strange when he looked at Chaewon, but it was not a problem that needed solving in a hurry. Chaewon would always stay in the same place, and her feelings would always remain at the same temperature. All he had to do was use girls like Jeong Sujin as samples, tap away at his calculator, and leisurely find the answer.
But Chaewon was trying to break their formula of exchange. Telling him not to take care of her, not to pay attention to her, she rejected his touch as though she was tired of everything now.
If she had been a few years younger, he could have comfortably dismissed it as puberty. But the girl who had been kind even to him during puberty suddenly yelled at him to leave her alone. It was surprising, bewildering, and left his mind blank.
Yes. He should define this feeling as bewilderment. His heart was in turmoil because this was the first time he had experienced such a thing, and the shock was greater because she had always been gentle only with him.
Yesterday was the death anniversary of Chaewon's parents. Showing an already struggling girl that he was celebrating another woman's birthday was no different from provoking her first. So he should understand if she was angry. She must have been miserable since yesterday, so he should generously accept her acting unlike herself.
Once he thought that way, the violently churning feeling inside him gradually settled. When he caught his breath, took a step back, and looked carefully, every problem became simple. There was no need to think so hard. Yu Chaewon would remain Yu Chaewon, and the time they had shared since childhood would continue to build, solid and secure.
Therefore, there was nothing to worry about. Everything related to Yu Chaewon was perfectly where it belonged.
* * *
Uihyeon had studied in another department's classroom for barely thirty minutes. He had wasted precious time going all the way to the College of Natural Sciences while he still had classes left. All so he could watch Yu Chaewon and Han Jio studying together.
Did I like handling things efficiently? Uihyeon let out a faint sigh. If he truly pursued efficiency alone, he would never have considered such a foolish route in the first place.
When he came out after his final class, there was a message from Sujin. She said she had come to campus, so he told her to meet him in the parking lot below the business building. He wanted to avoid the disaster of meeting in front of the crowded classrooms and being seen by Chaewon. After she had acted so sharply today, he did not want to give her another reason to pull further away.
“How did you end up all the way here?”
As Uihyeon approached the waiting Sujin, he put on his habitual smile. If Chaewon saw him like this, she would probably grind her teeth again.
“I came here with my friends today, and I thought of you, oppa. Thank you for celebrating my birthday yesterday, too.”
Sujin carried a paper bag with a bakery name printed on it. It was from the bakery in front of Sangheon University that was famous for its salt bread.
“You didn't need to buy something like this. I should be the one buying for you.”
“You have exams now too, oppa. I bought it so you can eat it and study hard.”
Sujin held out the paper bag and smiled shyly.
“...And since I was here, I wanted to see your face too.”
Uihyeon looked up from the bag. Perhaps because the low afternoon sunlight was hot, the woman's face reddened easily. Her rapidly fluttering eyelashes and quivering lips plainly revealed feelings she had not managed to hide.
Wouldn't an ordinary man have felt this was the moment to kiss her? But Uihyeon thought of another woman instead. Yu Chaewon, who would shyly yet naturally raise her arms and ask him to hold her. He pictured her lifting her head, resting her chin against his chest, and showing him that silly grin.
He needed to get a grip. This was when he needed to remember why he had gone on blind dates. Hadn't he decided to meet other women to find out where these strange desires came from?
Uihyeon placed the back of his hand against Sujin's forehead. Her warm body heat reached him. He could even feel Sujin's shoulders stiffen.
“Your face is red.”
Uihyeon delivered the line quite deliberately. As though responding to it, Sujin's face grew even hotter than before. They had been in the flirting stage for two months without even holding hands once, so this touch would carry great meaning for her.
He could feel how fast her heart was beating through her warmth, but it stirred nothing in him. It was neither fascinating nor satisfying, and it did not make his stomach churn.
After examining his feelings closely, Uihyeon withdrew his hand. Just as he was about to decide that he could not calculate anything from this, Sujin lightly rested her forehead against his chest.
“My face gets red because you look at me like that, oppa.”
Sujin's answer did not hold Uihyeon's attention. Instead, he noticed the nape beneath her hair, tied up in a single ponytail, where loose strands had fallen. He became curious whether it would make him feel the same way.
Uihyeon raised his hand again and gently wrapped it around Sujin's nape. At the posture that seemed to draw her into an embrace, Sujin stiffened from her head to her back with tension. Even without seeing it, he could tell her eyes had gone wide.
Sujin's forehead and nape were similar in temperature. The sensation of loose strands brushing softly against him and the slender circumference that seemed light enough to hold in one hand resembled Chaewon's. They were both human necks. There was nothing special about them.
But he did not feel the heat that should have tightened around his throat. Even with the faint scent of shampoo drifting from the hair beneath his chin, no restless commotion rose in his chest. A perverse fantasy of putting a collar around her neck did not suit the neat and proper Sujin at all, so it could not even begin.
What was different? What made it impossible for him to stop thinking about Yu Chaewon? He had thought it was a simple problem only moments ago, but the answer had fallen back into a maze.
Had he been foolish to rush into uncovering the nature of these strange feelings? Should he have simply buried them while pretending he knew nothing? If he had not met Sujin in the first place and had merely accepted Chaewon's unwavering affection, their relationship would have maintained a stable balance. Was it not Chaewon, but him, who had broken that center?
While he was lost in thought, the time he spent pressed close to Sujin grew longer. Uihyeon removed his hand from Sujin's nape and looked up. He felt someone watching from afar.
A familiar doll-like figure stood at the entrance to the parking lot. She was far enough away that he could not tell what expression she wore. All he could guess was that she was looking exactly this way, and that surprise had made her stop walking.
After quietly watching them, Yu Chaewon turned her back. Her steps were neither fast nor slow. She simply walked away without wavering, as if she had not seen anything here.
“Oppa...?”
Even as Sujin called to him in confusion beside him, Uihyeon continued to follow Chaewon's back after it had already vanished from sight.
He could picture what Chaewon's face would look like by now. Eyes swimming with tears, lips she bit again and again, trembling shoulders, and a waist held rigid as she tried to keep walking straight despite it all.
Was this image a reasonable deduction born from knowing Chaewon for so long, or arrogance grown from one-sidedly feeding on her unchanging devotion?
Everything was speculation, but one thing was certain: the anxiety that left his mouth completely dry.
That day, Chaewon did not respond to him at all.
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