Love for Love's Sake - Chapter 79
Chapter 79
The train station at night was quiet.
Train tracks, which didn’t have safety bumpers properly installed, made onlookers anxious. A drunkard was precariously crossing the yellow safety blocks.
As I boarded the train and took my seat, Cha Yeowoon looked around with curiosity. The night scene rattled through the window.
“It’s my first time taking the train at night.”
“So it seems, my Yeowoon.”
“Don’t tease me. Has senior taken the train often?”
“Just occasionally.”
“Where did you go?”
The questions didn’t stop. Cha Yeowoon had many questions about me.
“There were times when I went for work, and there were times when I rode because I wanted to.”
“Have you always worked? What kind of work?”
“This and that.”
It wasn’t easy to list the various jobs I had done by the age of 29, so I glossed over the question.
“Does senior have a habit of avoiding answering when you don’t want to? Just saying, ‘this and that.’ That’s how you talk.”
“No. This is a habit.”
As I stroked Cha Yeowoon’s hair with my palm, his tidy hair became disheveled. His wrinkled nose was cute. Despite constantly being teased, he always managed to soften his expression.
Although I knew he would be disappointed, I didn’t want to lie. I tried to avoid talking about my past as much as possible, but sometimes it would slip out unconsciously.
Perhaps there was something I wanted to confess.
“I wanted to take you to the mountains, but it’s a bit much at night.”
“I like the sea. Since senior likes the sea.”
As the conversation shifted, Cha Yeowoon adapted accordingly. If I were to say I enjoyed taking the train at night, I didn’t doubt he would say the same.
“We can’t go to the sea. If we want to see the sea by taking a train at this hour, we have to go down to Busan, and then we’ll really have to sleep.”
“Just sleep and come back.”
I laughed at the quick answer.
“Have you given up on early morning training?”
“No. Lately, the training has been too much all of a sudden. I need a day off too.”
Cha Yeowoon said so naturally that it seemed he really meant it.
Despite knowing there was training and still bringing him along, I wasn’t in a position to stop him.
After about an hour, we arrived at our intended station.
The outside air was refreshing. As I looked around the station surrounded by old buildings, memories from my past resurfaced.
“This place hasn’t changed much.”
“Have you been here before?”
“I stayed here for a while.”
Back then, I didn’t want to return to the neighborhood I had lived in even if it killed me, and there wasn’t a specific place to return to. There was nowhere to go.
In the end, I settled near the area where there used to be a military base. It seemed there was absolutely nowhere to find my footing.
“Then, is this the neighborhood where senior used to live?”
Cha Yeowoon looked around eagerly.
Within the scenery of my twenties, now there was Cha Yeowoon in the world I belonged to.
My heart pounded. To hide my agitation, I led him to a restaurant. There were many roadside eateries for drivers around the old train station.
“Let’s eat something other than seafood this time.”
As we passed by signs advertising grilled fish and octopus, memories of Cha Yeowoon struggling to eat a meal in Jebudo resurfaced. Furthermore, I had a specific menu in mind to feed him this time.
“Do you have something you want to eat?”
Cha Yeowoon asked hesitantly, walking ahead of me.
“That.”
I had wondered what I would do if it wasn’t there, but the restaurant from my memory was still there. Under a lit sign, I pointed to a menu written in large letters.
Once we entered the shop and took our seats, the ordered food arrived quickly.
The Gukbap with bean sprouts and kimchi was spicy. The tangy soup, boiled like porridge, went down smoothly.
It was a dish that Cha Yeowoon’s grandmother, who was from North Gyeongsang Province, used to make when it was cold or rainy.
“My grandmother liked this.”
“She ate it when it rained. It has been raining these days, so I’m reminded of her.”
Cha Yeowoon didn’t eat the Gaengsigi; instead, he simply looked at me with his spoon.
“Why? Is it not good?”
I asked, worried that the food here might not suit Cha Yeowoon’s taste.
“No. I’m falling in love.”
A response, unrelated to the taste of the food, followed.
[ Calculating Cha Yeowoon’s favorbility. ]
[ Favorability: 73 ]
Cha Yeowoon’s words and actions were consistent. He was genuinely falling in love.
“Do you fall for someone just by eating now?”
“Love has always been independent of time and place.”
It was cute and funny whenever this happened. Cha Yeowoon would turn what would have been a cheesy line from an old romance movie into something simple and honest. He seemed unaware of how cheesy he sounded, making it even more genuine.
“How much do you know about love when you’re just 16?”
“I know.”
Cha Yeowoon adamantly denied my teasing.
So, he had always been sincere. It wasn’t something he had said to please me. It was his honest feelings and confession.
Was receiving love a matter of experience and skill? If I knew how to be loved properly, would I have been happy with his affection?
Maybe because I didn’t experience it in the past, every time he said such things, my heart would ache.
After finishing our meal, we walked, following my memory. The destination was soon visible.
A flowing river near the train station. A trail was created along the riverside, with a bridge above and the slope paved with stones.
Normally, there would be frequent pedestrians, but perhaps due to the rain lately, there were few people around.
As I sat down on a rock with protruding grass. Cha Yeowoon took a seat beside me.
“Is this also a place where senior came before?”
“Uh…when things were tough.”
When work became tough, I used to come here alone to have alcohol. I didn’t want to drink in a poorly ventilated room.