Love for Love’s Sake - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Cha Yeowoon’s back was trembling sharply as he gazed down at the ground with his hands on his knees. It was as if the number he carried was heavy.

“Gyeonghun.”

“Yeah?”

After seeing the world of Cha Yeowoon, which was overflowing with negatives, I turned to Ahn Gyeonghun.

“Do you happen to need a friend?”

I ask subtly, like a snake oil salesman. Ahn Gyeonghun didn’t seem to understand what I meant and only blinked his eyes.

“How about the three of us have dinner together tonight?”

In Ahn Gyeonghun’s thick glasses, my sly smile was reflected.

* * *

“I don’t want to.”

Cha Yeowoon, dressed in gym clothes, shook his head.

“What do you mean you don’t want to? Let’s go eat.”

“I’ll just go home and eat.”

“Hey. You said you wanted to have lunch with me.”

“Senior, that’s for lunch.”

This brat. It had been hours.

I waited for track and field practice to end, only to have my dinner invitation immediately rejected. Cha Yeowoon had insisted on having lunch together and had questioned why I had avoided him. Now, he was behaving as if it was an inconvenience.

“You’re on your way home anyway. We’re going home too. Go to school together, eat together, and go home together. Isn’t that school life?”

“You talk like someone who’s been to school for 10 years.”

“Uhm, Yeowoon…”

Ahn Gyeonghun, who had been silent behind us, spoke up. When Cha Yeowoon and I turned around simultaneously, he stiffened and curled his lips.

“…Mister.”

“Haha.”

I burst into laughter at the honorific Ahn Gyeonghun had used.

“No, what’s with calling Yeowoon mister? It’s not a matchmaking session.”

Cha Yeowoon’s already unsettled expression turned even more sour as he stood beside me. It was becoming funnier.

“Just speak casually if you want. You’re my senior.”

“I-If it’s okay, let’s go eat together…As a thank you for what happened during lunch.”

“Right. Yeowoon did great during lunch.”

“I only brought the teacher.”

“That’s an active role. The real hero always shows up at the end.”

With the momentum, I squeezed Cha Yeowoon between me and Ahn Gyeonghun. Caught between us, he looked like he wanted to do something about it but was carried along nonetheless.

“Okay, let’s go. Mister Yeowoon.”

“Making a big deal out of nothing, senior is really childish.”

“Since we’re having dinner, how about going to karaoke afterward?”

“I don’t want to.”

“But I do.”

Cha Yeowoon turned into ice again. This time, even Ahn Gyeonghun was astonished and froze.

“Gyeonghun do too.”

At my next words, Cha Yeowoon’s face crumpled, and Ahn Gyeonghun’s eyes behind his glasses seemed to bulge out.

I revised my judgment that putting the two of them together would be disastrous. It was cuter than I thought.

Before Cha Yeowoon could explode, the three of us had already crossed the school gate, and now only the real problem remained.

“Guys, what should we eat?”

* * *

I wondered if Cha Yeowoon’s archenemy from a past life was tteokbokki.

“Yeowoon, did you happen to be a tteokbokki in your past life?”

“What?”

“Well, you have this solemn expression that almost looks like your clansman were facing a tragedy.”

“…Senior. If you’re going to tease me in the future, please pay for the meal.”

“Hamburger, tteokbokki, spaghetti. We decided what to eat with rock-paper-scissors, and it became tteokbokki. You should know how to accept the outcome like a man.”

“That’s why we’re here.”

In fact, among the three of us, only Cha Yeowoon had a clear opinion. I simply assumed that the children liked tteokbokki, and while Ahn Gyeonghun did mention a good tonkatsu and spaghetti place in front of the school, he said he was fine going anywhere.

So, when Cha Yeowoon suggested eating hamburgers, I tried to go along with it. However, he then said that if each of us had something we wanted to eat, it should be chosen fairly. Eighteen-year-old Cha Yeowoon was a man who lacked not only social skills but also flexibility.

I won and declared we would eat hamburgers. However, Cha Yeowoon truly was a man with no flexibility.

The three of us were sitting in a tteokbokki restaurant according to Cha Yeowoon’s wish that we should stick to the original bet. Cha Yeowoon had appeared pale throughout even after settling down.

“Are you not good with spicy food?”

Ahn Gyeonghun asked cautiously. Cha Yeowoon didn’t readily answer; instead, he gulped down a glass of water. Seemed like he couldn’t handle it.

“Just order a mild flavor. Have some sundae, sundae.”

“I can eat it.”

“Why are you being stubborn? It’s okay if you can’t handle spicy food. They have mild flavor here. There’s also fried food and sundae.”

Cha Yeowoon didn’t relax even after our orders were placed. Ahn Gyeonghun glanced at him and then at me. Despite my attempts to reassure him, he was sweating profusely. I felt apologetic for bringing him here.

Anyway, I didn’t soothe Ahn Gyeonghun any further. What bothered me was something else other than the tteokbokki.

The debuff. It felt as if it would activate whenever we were together, but was the timing completely random? What about reversal?

[ Debuff triggered due to negative favorability. ]

Wow. No honor at all.

The message window appeared as soon as I thought about it. That was why people shouldn’t have unlucky thoughts.

“Here’s your tteokbokki.”

What was the debuff this time? Where was it? Was Cheon Sangwon and Tak Junho suddenly going to kick in the door of the snack shop?

As I kept an eye on the door, a part-timer put down the tteokbokki at our table.

“Let’s eat.”

And just as Cha Yeowoon, with a fork in hand, took a bite of the tteokbokki upon its arrival…

“Cough!”

After taking a big bite, he vigorously coughed in reaction.

“Cough, cough, ugh…”

“Hey, hey, are you okay?”

“Yeowoon, here, drink some water.”

The coughing persisted. Ahn Gyeonghun and I, both taken aback, offered a glass of water, but he didn’t even glance at it. He covered his mouth–his face now red–and ran to the bathroom.

“If you can’t handle spicy food that well, you should’ve said something…”

“My-My-Myeongha.”

“Huh?”

When I looked over at Ahn Gyeonghun, he was also blushing as much as Cha Yeowoon had been just now.

“C-Can I have some water?”

The stammering Ahn Gyeonghun hastily grabbed the water bottle.

Him too? That was strange.

The tteokbokki on the table looked ominous and met my eyes silently. I carefully poked the rice cake with a fork and put it in my mouth.

“Ack.”

That confirmed it. The debuff I had seen earlier was this.

* * *

“Geez, I’m sorry. I apologize. Students.”

The identity of the tteokbokki that had wreaked havoc on the three of us was revealed to be a cooking mistake. It turned out that it wasn’t the mild flavor but rather the highest level of deathly spiciness, and it was due to a cooking error where the spicy seasoning was doubled.

We weren’t charged for the meal, so we just left, but the problem was not the cost of the tteokbokki.

“Yeowoon, are you dead?”

“…”

“Are you alive?”

“…Shut up.”

The problem was that, except for me, the state of my friends was like this. In particular, Cha Yeowoon.

Ahn Gyeonghun went home first because his home was near the school. Cha Yeowoon, who had become pale after vomiting his lunch, was in no condition to go home alone, so I was accompanying him.

He was still feeling nauseous on the bus, so I opened the window and fanned him from the side. I felt guilty for having caused this.

After shouldering him and climbing up the stairs to his rooftop room, I felt that he could understand my true feelings.

Of course, far from being thrilled, he collapsed upon arriving home. My heart ached when I saw him groaning.

“Hey. The light won’t turn on in the living room.”

“The power’s out.”

Cha Yeowoon, sprawled on the floor, responded sluggishly. There was no trace of energy in his voice.

When I opened the refrigerator, it was either fortunate or unfortunate that it was completely empty. Was the water still running? Cha Yeowoon watched me as I went to the sink to turn on the water.

“Did you forget to pay the electricity bill?”

“I’ve been so busy taking my grandmother to the hospital for the past few months that I forgot to pay.”

“How much is it?”

“I don’t know. I have to check the bill.”

Another uncharacteristically obedient answer. Maybe it was because he was too weak from vomiting. I became more worried because he wasn’t his rude usual self.

“You don’t eat at home?”

Cha Yeowoon let out a bitter laugh. He didn’t reply, but I understood. The fridge looked like that; how could he be eating?

Was that why he hadn’t been running well? He hadn’t had a proper meal and now his insides were a mess. My speculation made me uneasy.

“I’ll go buy some porridge, so wait.”

“It’s okay…”

“What’s okay? It’ll be bad if you sleep on an empty stomach.”

“I saw senior today during track and field practice.”

Cha Yeowoon’s eyes were sharp. He wasn’t looking in the direction of the stands, so how did he find me?

“You saw from quite a distance. You’re really sharp.”

“You must have seen all the messed-up records too. That’s why you asked me to join you for dinner?”

“I just thought it would be nice for the three of us to eat together. It’s delicious when you eat with many people.”

“I’m going to quit track and field.”

A sudden bombshell dropped between us.

What should I say in times like this? My mind momentarily stopped.

“You don’t want to do it anymore?”

I managed to ask despite being stunned. Cha Yeowoon looked up at me. I didn’t see the same smile as before. He just looked exhausted.

“I didn’t originally run because I liked it. I did it just because I was good at it… but now I can’t even do it well.”

“What’s the fuss about a temporary slump in your condition?”

“My records haven’t been good ever since my grandmother fell ill. Now that I have no excuses left, I guess people will find out that this is just my skill.”

Wasn’t it due to a health issue that his performance declined, rather than his skill?

“So senior should just leave me alone now.”

“What do you mean by ‘so’?”

It was a logic that I couldn’t quite grasp. Suddenly, when Cha Yeowoon raised his head to meet my gaze, his eyes appeared solemn and red.

The sunset streaming through the small window of the rooftop room appeared as if it had scorched the floor. His pale face, devoid of vitality, sharply contrasted the sunset.

Cold sweats had formed on his handsome face, and his eyes had become damp at some point. Negative 100. I recalled Cha Yeowoon’s number that had hit rock bottom.