EX Ch 2

I stared back and forth at the two of them conversing for a long while, continuously gulping down the orange juice sitting in front of me. Strangely, my throat kept feeling parched.

“Excuse me… I’m going to go to the bathroom for a bit.”

Anxious, I finally stood up. I grabbed my small bag from the corner of the sofa and quickly made my way to the restroom. My legs were trembling so much the entire way that I felt like I might die. After barely escaping the cafe into a back alley, I hurriedly rummaged through my bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes I had hidden deep inside.

“Ha, damn… What do I do, seriously.”

With a terrified expression, I tried to light the tip of a cigarette, but my hand kept slipping. What should I do… Of all places, to meet Yoon Hyeonjo here. And for him to be my current boyfriend’s childhood best friend? Could there be any other fate this fierce? Should I just break up with Woosik? If I run away like this, Yoon Hyeonjo won’t be able to say anything more. No, if I do that, what if he talks trash about me to Woosik? If word gets out that I was the one who stole the Rolex…

“Darn it…”

As someone with so much to lose—like a squirrel with acorns hidden in its cheeks—my anxiety grew even greater. I repeatedly tried to strike the lighter with my shaking hands, but the wind was causing trouble. After a long while of fumbling fruitlessly as the wind blew from all directions, a large shadow fell over my head.

Before I could even hunch my shoulders, a large hand approached my cheek and blocked the fiercely swirling wind. Then, he calmly lit the flame for me. The moment I instinctively took a drag and lifted my head, my eyes met Yoon Hyeonjo’s, who was looking down at me with an expressionless face.

Ah. What on earth are you supposed to say to an ex-boyfriend you’ve run into after half a year? Should I ask if he’s been well? Or if he’s been sick anywhere? However, Yoon Hyeonjo looked excessively healthy and fine to be asking formal questions. If anything, his physique seemed even better. Why are his forearms so big?

I tentatively scanned the mood of his coldly frozen expression, and in the end, I let out the most useless question of all.

“…Is, is Derby doing well?”

“What?”

“…”

“Fuck, what did you say?”

Did I… say something wrong? I was just trying to start a conversation naturally. My neck naturally grew chilled at Yoon Hyeonjo’s expression, which had become even colder than before. What’s the problem? I just asked because I was curious about news of Derby. As I stood there with my lips just hovering open in embarrassment, he gripped the lighter in his hand as if he were going to crush it and spoke to me with a terrifying expression.

“After meeting for the first time in barely half a year, the thing you say is ‘Is Derby doing well?’”

“…”

“Are you even human? Are you a person? In all my life, I’ve never seen anyone with a personality as wrecked as yours.”

What? My personality is wrecked? My face stiffened at the verbal abuse pouring out right in front of me. I, I know I did wrong, but this is too much! No matter what, though. While I was just blinking with a flustered face, he swept back his bangs with a low sigh and began to speak with a look that said, ‘Good, I’ve got you now.’

“We dated for half a year and then you told me to break up overnight. Not only that, you irresponsibly ghosted me. You changed your number entirely. Even Satan wouldn’t do that.”

“…”

“I didn’t even know the reason why you wanted to break up; you didn’t even give me a chance to change. You… Fuck, you just turned a person into an idiot in an instant. And even after that, you can shamelessly ask about Derby’s well-being?”

Uh, uh. It seemed Yoon Hyeonjo had a lot of pent-up resentment toward me. Well, it made sense. There wasn’t a single thing wrong in what Yoon Hyeonjo said. At that time, I found Yoon Hyeonjo a bit tiring, annoying, and burdensome.

Dates always started at seven in the morning and ended at midnight, and I always had to spend weekends and public holidays with Yoon Hyeonjo. How should I put it—rather than dating, it felt like I was living the life of someone preparing for a state exam. There was no such thing as freedom. I was already exhausted from school life, but since he was pestering me to death beside me, I ended up falling away first. Even my immature dream of living comfortably while receiving pocket money from a rich boyfriend grew faint.

“And you even wrote the breakup text while you were wasted. Right? It was full of typos, too.”

But it was one hundred percent my fault for breaking up with Yoon Hyeonjo like that. As people say, there is such a thing as etiquette even in a breakup. In contrast, there was no etiquette to be found in my breakup.

To be honest, breaking up over a messenger app was a method worse than what elementary schoolers do. So, it wasn’t that I couldn’t understand how shocking that breakup must have been for Yoon Hyeonjo, who had a relatively normal view of romance.

“The fact that you’re dating Kim Woosik right now is so absurd my head is splitting.”

“…”

“How long has it even been since we broke up that you’re meeting another guy? Fuck, is that even possible? Is that possible for you?”

I remember it being quite a while since we broke up… Is it not? To be honest, I was more baffled than Yoon Hyeonjo. Because I naturally thought Yoon Hyeonjo would be seeing another woman besides me. Usually, people start a new love in a month or two.

Seeing how he’s still acting like this, despite not looking the part, is he quite the pure-hearted type? Then, could it be he still likes me… No, that couldn’t be it. It’s already been half a year; surely not.

“Wow, everything is easy for you. Isn’t it? You must be so damn happy. Since dating and breaking up are as easy for you as chewing gum.”

“…”

“Ah, I really wanted to ask you this if I ever met you—why the hell did you steal my watch?”

Ah. As if mocking my thoughts, Yoon Hyeonjo immediately began to ask about the whereabouts of the wristwatch. Rendered speechless, I kept my mouth shut and just rolled my eyes here and there. To be honest, even in my own opinion, that was a bit much. No matter how desperate I was for money, I shouldn’t have laid a hand on Yoon Hyeonjo’s things…

“It was so absurd. I thought it was a dream. I thought I had lost it while I was drinking. But it wasn’t that. What are you, exactly? A gold digger?”

“I, it wasn’t that; it’s because I had some debt…”

As soon as I brought up an excuse, Yoon Hyeonjo’s face crumpled menacingly. Well, who would want to hear my pathetic excuse? When I shut my mouth in total fear, Yoon Hyeonjo glared at me with his face deeply contorted.

“Hey, it’s pathetic, so don’t make that kind of excuse.”

“…Okay.”

All I could do was simply nod my head. Yoon Hyeonjo stared intently at my terrified face before speaking with a low sigh.

“Fine, let me ask just one last thing.”

“…”

“Did you… did you ever even love me?”

Huh? Why is he asking this all of a sudden? While I was hunching my shoulders as goosebumps broke out at the suddenly serious atmosphere, Yoon Hyeonjo’s eyes suddenly reddened and his fingertips trembled.

“I was sincere, but you…”

I, I don’t particularly have anything to say. To be honest, I wasn’t even that serious. As I kept my lips tightly shut like a clam, Yoon Hyeonjo burst into a hollow laugh.

“…You can’t even answer.”

“…”

“You’re really the worst.”

“No. I also… in my own way!”

I tried to attach an excuse even if it was late, but it was already too late. Yoon Hyeonjo, who had been scanning me with cold eyes, soon turned his back coldly. I gazed at that back, which was as broad as it had always been, and my lips fumbled several times.

Should I run and grab him, or not? But what would I even do if I caught Yoon Hyeonjo? The watch had been sold long ago, and our relationship had ended long ago.

As I was just moving my toes hesitantly, Yoon Hyeonjo, who had been walking boldly toward the end of the alley, suddenly stopped in his tracks and whipped around toward me.

“And Lee Danyeong, I’m warning you—break things off with Kim Woosik right now.”

“…”

“If you appear before my eyes one more time, I will collect every single penny of that watch’s value.”

Eek. My shoulders naturally shrank at the terrifying warning.

“If you want to see what something truly ugly looks like, just try getting on my nerves until the end.”

Yoon Hyeonjo pointed his finger fiercely at me, and then turned away coldly as if he no longer had any lingering attachments. I watched that Yoon Hyeonjo, and for some reason, I shivered from a mysterious creepiness. Somehow, I kept thinking I had really messed with the wrong person.