Chapter 19
Yeonjae was truly grateful.
It was undeniably a good situation. Yet, she couldn’t help feeling restless.
Her skirt, picked out with unnecessary fuss early in the morning, only added to her embarrassment.
‘There’s a reason they say doing things you don’t normally do can be fatal.’
Determined to avoid unnecessary mistakes from now on, Yeonjae followed Dohan as he led the way.
The nearest campus café that opened on Saturdays was a ten-minute walk from the central library.
Ten minutes.
Just the two of them.
‘Aaah…’
Good! It was good! But—
The conversation they shared when alone was almost entirely one pattern, as if randomly selected from a list of small talk topics for college students on the internet.
Hometowns, whether they lived alone, campus restaurants, and so on. They had even exhausted those topics, and it seemed Dohan had run out of things to say.
‘Being alone together for a long time isn’t necessarily all good.’
Her charm—or even her likeability—was likely plummeting.
Yeonjae idly tapped the floor with the tips of her shoes, silently resenting herself for being so inarticulate and socially awkward.
“By the way, how did you get close to Hyunoh?”
Dohan asked, glancing at Yeonjae’s shoes, which were still rhythmically tapping the ground.
“Oh, um… I accidentally dropped something in the Digital Marketing Strategy class, and Hyunoh sunbae picked it up for me. Somehow, that led to us talking… Haha.”
…Not exactly a lie.
Dohan merely nodded briefly, showing no other notable reaction. An awkward silence lingered between them.
A little later, Dohan spoke again, in the same calm, neutral tone as before.
“You two go well together.”
Huh?
Yeonjae thought she must have misheard.
“Go well together… what do you mean by that…?”
“Are you two… seeing each other? Or is there a thing going on?”
Huh??? What?
“…Sunbae, I think you’re mistaken. We’re absolutely not like that.”
“Ah, really?”
“Really! We’re just ordinary senior-junior friends…! A little closer than usual…!”
“I see? Maybe I misunderstood.”
Dohan nodded and responded casually, as if Yeonjae’s flustered explanation had meant nothing.
But that wasn’t enough. Her unease still lingered.
“I really, really mean it! We’ve just been hanging out more recently, but that’s only because of coincidences. Really…”
“Right. Well, friends becoming a couple happens all the time anyway.”
Still, he hadn’t cleared the misunderstanding!
“No, sunbae! I really mean it, we’re not like that!”
“Oh? You’ve been talking longer than usual, I think this is the longest I’ve heard you speak.”
Dohan joked lightly, and only then did Yeonjae realize that her tone had gotten unusually high and her sentences long.
“It’s really not like that… I just got a bit worked up because I didn’t want you to misunderstand. Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. You’re lively, it’s nice to see.”
Dohan smiled and gave a thumbs-up. Yeonjae walked along, feeling awkward.
After that, Dohan didn’t make any more remarks connecting her with Hyunoh. Of course, her lingering unease hadn’t fully dissipated.
Still, the atmosphere had become slightly less awkward by the time they reached the café.
“Ice Americano for me and a Java Chip Frappuccino. Oh, put extra cream on the Java Chip. What do you want, Yeonjae?”
“Ice Americano for me too.”
“Alright, that’s fine.”
Dohan naturally handed over his card.
“I’ll transfer the money right away!”
“No, I’ll pay. You’ve never had a proper coffee from me. It’s just a small thing compared to a meal, no big deal.”
“Yes… thank you…”
Yeonjae’s heart was jumping again, and she nervously trailed off mid-sentence. Yet she still felt uneasy, likely because of the misunderstanding earlier.
It seemed to have originated from Dohan’s mind, yet the misunderstanding was so absurd Yeonjae couldn’t believe he had even thought of it.
And for Yeonjae, Dohan was precisely the one person she didn’t want to have any such misunderstanding about.
Hyunoh?
‘Definitely the most absurd misunderstanding I could imagine.’
The urge to clarify the situation surged within her once more.
“Sunbae, but you know I really am not like that with Hyunoh sunbae, right…?”
“Yeah. If you say it’s not like that, then it’s not.”
“Not just that. I really, really mean it. It’s not like that with anyone, not even Hyunoh sunbae.”
“Got it, got it.”
Now Dohan looked apologetic.
“I may have gone a bit too far teasing you because your reactions were fun. Sorry about that.”
“No, no. You don’t need to apologize… Anyway… it really isn’t like that.”
Dohan was such a nice person.
Even after repeatedly explaining herself, he accepted it without complaint, and then apologized for teasing her.
Yeonjae was so happy she could have cried, yet also worried that her behavior might already be annoying him.
Once her thoughts reached that point, she just wanted to disappear.
‘If only I could turn back time…’
To waste a perfect opportunity in the world’s most boring way—it was frustrating beyond belief.
A brief silence fell. Yeonjae’s eyes rolled around in her head. Dohan simply stood there, seemingly at a loss for words.
“Shall we go in?”
After the silence, Dohan asked first. Yeonjae nodded and followed his broad back to find her seat in the reading room.
Hyunoh was already seated, fiddling with his phone.
As Dohan received the drink handed by Hyunoh, Yeonjae glanced sideways.
Then a message arrived.
“Enjoy the date?”
Yeonjae sat at her seat and slowly typed a reply.
“ㄴDisaster date”
She sighed so heavily it felt like the ground beneath her had collapsed, slumping her shoulders.
How bad? Out of ten points, what score?
Can I pick zero points?
Something like that?
ㅠㅠ I don’t know, don’t ask
Yeonjae placed her phone face down.
That day, the three of them really only studied.
Honestly, Yeonjae pretended to study, but in reality she spent the entire lunch hour replaying her time with Dohan.
The meeting ended earlier than expected that day.
“Something came up, I should probably head home?”
Hyunoh, acting like the organizer, mentioned he had to leave early. Everyone else decided to go home too, especially since Dohan had a brief stop to make later in the evening.
Yeonjae half-resigned herself.
‘Could he be lying about having plans just to avoid being alone with me…?’
There must be a German word for becoming the least attractive person at the moment you want to appear most attractive.
‘If that’s true, it certainly applies to me.’
Back home, Yeonjae flopped on her bed, kicking at her regrets.
“Make the house echo! Echo!”
She only stopped after being scolded by her mother passing by the door.
That night, trying to clear her cluttered mind, Yeonjae mindlessly scrolled through shorts that seemed to drain her intelligence.
Suddenly, a message notification popped up at the top of her phone.
“Ah!”
Yeonjae was so startled that she dropped the phone on her face. She rubbed her sore nose and picked it up, confirming the name clearly.
It was Dohan sunbae.
She quickly scanned the preview in the notification center.
(Photo)
“Thanks for the snacks~^^”
Yeonjae rubbed her eyes to make sure. The sender was definitely Dohan. At first, she thought maybe it was sent via the group chat Hyunoh had made, but no—it was a private message.
