WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Malfoid
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Dynamics of Pure Love and Overprotection ◈
Chapter 8
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Whenever I sat around like that, there came a point when I simply couldn't stand it anymore. I quietly left the apartment and took the elevator down. It was already late, so I didn't go far. I just sat on a random bench and looked at the lit windows throughout the apartment complex.
I was having a pathetic little pity party when my phone gave a short buzz. I was disappointed to see it was a message from Han Jio, not Kang Uihyeon. He had sent me a voucher for a delivery app, saying I could use it if I got hungry while studying at night.
Han Jio kept wanting to give me things. He seemed to think that was the only way to make an impression on a woman. I typed out Thank you, then erased it. The cursor blinked, urging me on.
What I desperately needed right now was Kang Uihyeon, but Yu Dogyeom's earlier accusation was lodged deep in my chest. That I was using my dead mother to win sympathy. It was a truth I had acknowledged to myself for the past three years, but I had never grown used to hearing someone else point it out.
So instead of calling Kang Uihyeon to whine, I texted Han Jio.
[Would you like to eat together?]
Without waiting for his reply, I sent him my apartment address. It was the first time I had met Han Jio so far from campus. I had broken my promise to myself that I would only call him out on weekdays, while I was at school. I tucked the finger that wanted to tap Kang Uihyeon's contact into my pocket.
My rendezvous point with Han Jio was the pavilion in front of Building 201. Our place was in Building 207, so I had put some thought into it. No matter how lonely I was, I wasn't stupid enough to invite a man I had only recently met straight into my home.
Even as I reassured myself, I remembered all those news stories about men who turned into stalkers after breaking up with their girlfriends. Kang Uihyeon might give me a serious scolding if he found out. Well, it would be good for me if I got his attention somehow.
Han Jio arrived carrying pizza. Even though I had suddenly called him out at eleven at night, he beamed without showing a hint of annoyance. Then again, if Kang Uihyeon called, I would jump out of bed even if I were asleep. Maybe that was why every time I looked at Han Jio, it felt like I was seeing my own face when I looked at Kang Uihyeon.
“Isn't it chilly?”
“I'm fine.”
Even so, Han Jio spread a blanket over my knees. He seemed to think of this impulsive rendezvous as a midnight picnic. I was happy to have a reason not to go home, and Han Jio was happy to eat pizza with me, so I didn't feel sorry.
“When do your exams end?”
“I have exams all week. Until next Friday afternoon.”
“You finish late...”
Han Jio muttered listlessly as he poured cola into a paper cup.
“What are you doing after your exams?”
His intentions were obvious. He was probably going to suggest going somewhere over the weekend. The question I had been fiercely considering for that brief time wasn't whether I wanted to go out with Han Jio. It was whether Kang Uihyeon would go on a date with Jeong Sujin.
...He definitely would. By then, they might have ended their flirtation and started dating for real. When I imagined myself aimlessly hanging around the cafe near my apartment, my shoulders slumped. I felt even more helpless because there was nothing I could do about Kang Uihyeon and Jeong Sujin's relationship.
“I don't have any plans.”
“Then would you like to go to an exhibition with me? It's at the Ttukseom Art Museum, and it looks fun.”
Han Jio hadn't touched the pizza yet. For the nervous man, I generously nodded. Once he understood that I had given him permission, the corners of his lips slowly lifted.
Just then, the phone beside me buzzed. As soon as the name ‘Uihyeon oppa♥’ appeared on the screen, I pressed the button to silence it and turned my phone face down. Han Jio looked puzzled, but I pretended not to notice and ate my pizza.
I didn't want to be cruel enough to answer a call from the man I had loved unrequitedly all my life in front of someone trying so hard to impress me. After all, Han Jio was the person who had bought pizza and come to see me because I was lonely. I had a duty to show him some basic decency.
“One of the professors in my department gives the exact same questions every year. But last year, he suddenly changed every single question. Apparently, all the upperclassmen bombed the exam, and there was a huge uproar.”
As I listened to Han Jio, I let my eyes drift across the pond. It was only a coincidence. Hurried footsteps echoed through the quiet complex, so naturally, I looked.
But I had some instinct about who those footsteps belonged to. The nerves that had been sharpened toward only one person for so long reacted again, telling me they might be connected to the call I had just received.
A man emerged beneath the streetlight after passing through the trees' shadows. He stopped when his eyes met mine. He looked at me as though relieved while catching his breath, then noticed Han Jio eating pizza beside me. His chest, which had been rising and falling rapidly, went still.
When I found Kang Uihyeon, who had been looking for me, I felt a secret thrill. He had searched the apartment complex because I hadn't answered his call and he didn't know where I was. He must have already stopped by our place, and maybe he had checked the cafe I often went to as well.
“That person...”
Han Jio spotted Kang Uihyeon too.
“You know him.”
He stated it as he kept his eyes fixed on the man approaching us.
“He's the one studying beside you when I gave you my note at the library.”
There was no need to give Han Jio extra points for his memory. Kang Uihyeon was the kind of person who stayed in your mind after seeing him once. Even on our school's anonymous community, everyone immediately knew who people meant when they said, “That guy from the Business Building.”
Kang Uihyeon's steps entered the shade of the pavilion. A stare intense enough to bore through my face landed on my cheek. After calculating whether I was close enough for him to hear me clearly, I answered Han Jio.
“He's a close friend of my brother.”
My brother's friend. Nothing could have defined the relationship between Kang Uihyeon and me more clearly than that. If it hadn't been for Yu Dogyeom, we might never even have crossed paths. Kang Uihyeon being my brother's friend was the greatest fortune for me, but for Kang Uihyeon... it must have been an unpleasant meeting that left him burdened with annoying baggage.
“What are you doing here?”
Kang Uihyeon asked once he reached the pavilion. The fact that he didn't even greet Han Jio was far from his usual way of showing everyone the proper amount of courtesy.
“I'm eating pizza with Jio oppa.”
I explained the situation exactly as it was. Kang Uihyeon's gaze reluctantly shifted to Han Jio. The two men bowed to greet each other, and neither looked pleased.
“I talked to Dogyeom.”
Kang Uihyeon explained why he had come here at this hour.
“But when I went to your place, no one was there.”
Because Han Jio was listening, Kang Uihyeon's explanation came out in fragments. Still, the unspoken details were impossible to miss.
Yu Dogyeom must have been fuming and made it obvious that he had fought with his younger sister. Kang Uihyeon, who knew the Yu siblings' usual fighting routine well, must have immediately understood what had happened. That was why he had run around the apartment complex looking for me, worried that I was alone.
But what was Kang Uihyeon feeling now that the girl he had been so worried about was peacefully eating pizza with some guy? Was he angry? Or disappointed? Or was he relieved that there was someone new he could pass me off to?
“Have some pizza.”
Han Jio readily offered. He had probably asked because he naturally assumed Kang Uihyeon would refuse. No one would want to suddenly wedge himself between a man and a woman and get grease on his fingers.
“I'll gladly have some.”
But Kang Uihyeon sat down beside me. He even had the nerve to reach for pizza as though he had been part of our group from the start. Confusion passed over Han Jio's face.
“Did you want pizza?”
Kang Uihyeon asked me. I was thrilled that he had come looking for me, but I was starting to feel conscious of Han Jio.
“Not really. I just felt like munching on something.”
“You should've told me. I would've bought some for you. Have you been here the whole time? You didn't go anywhere else?”
Han Jio was being excluded from Kang Uihyeon's questions again and again. By now, I couldn't help feeling obligated to lead the conversation between the three of us.
“Yeah, I only took a walk around here. Oppa, Jio oppa goes to our school too. He's in the Department of Mathematics.”
Kang Uihyeon had known Han Jio's face and had his contact information for a long time, but he deliberately went through the motions of introducing himself. It was an unspoken demand for them to greet each other as though they were meeting for the first time.
“Hello. I'm Kang Uihyeon from the Department of Business Administration.”
“I'm Han Jio from the Department of Mathematics.”
Sitting between the two men, it felt awkward to openly look at only one of them. I chewed and swallowed my pizza while looking only at the pond across from us.
“How old are you?”
“I'm twenty-five.”
“Then we're the same age.”
I suddenly remembered Kang Uihyeon once judging Han Jio to be too old. I wondered whether that standard applied to himself too. Maybe all he wanted was to play the older-brother role with me. If I had been twenty-four like Jeong Sujin, would he have seen me as a woman?
“Should we speak casually, then?”
Han Jio asked as he sprinkled Parmesan over my pizza.
“Thank...”
“No.”
Before I could even finish thanking him, a refusal flew in from beside me. It was so sharp that it made everyone listening feel awkward. Han Jio froze as he wiped his mouth with a tissue, then looked at the man sitting next to me.
“It's not like we're going to see each other again after today, anyway.”
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