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Cha Eun Jae shoots another glance at the same direction for the hundredth time in five minutes.
If she was soberer than she is she’d probably realize as to why she keeps searching and searching for the two bodies in the confusing shadows of that lousy student pub. But that’s exactly the problem with Miss Cha Eun Jae. Even if she can’t stop staring at the physical form of Seo Woo Jin, and not exclusively here, but also on a regular basis whenever he’s around—lectures, college cafeteria, the library—there’s a defense mechanism she’s built with the sole purpose of blocking her conscious mind from the fact that she’s head over heels not only with her nemesis, but also with the single guy who appears to be the most unbothered by her in the whole class, and might even go as far as to totally despise her.
Because Cha Eun Jae knows Seo Woo Jin—cool and collected as he is—despises, if not her, at least everything she represents. Because he has to know. Woo Jin has to know she comes from money, and that she holds the privilege of having her future in this highly competitive field settled from the cradle, being the daughter of her father, a Senior physician with a networking to be envious of. She can’t believe anyone in their university might still be oblivious of this, especially when she listens to them talking behind her back everyday. This is why she avoids this type of gatherings as a principle, why she’s so set to be the first of their class. She needs to prove them nothing of what she’ll get in the future is some gift a friend of her family handed her because of her name. She needs to show them she’s the most deserving of them all.
And yet, Cha Eun Jae fails every single time. Because of him. Because there’s this guy who might have zero connections or privilege, but he’s a natural. He’s everything she’s not. Eun Jae secretly hates all of this. She hates Medicine. Seo Woo Jin loves it. Whenever he opens his mouth or does anything related to it you can tell he was literally born for it. And he despises her because he knows she isn’t, and yet she’ll still have more chances than him just because of who she is. She’d hate herself too if she were him, if she were any of them.
Cha Eun Jae doesn’t really know how she ended up here, sitting at this table with some people she almost doesn’t recognize as her peers. Most of them she has never had a real conversation with before, in the years of sharing a classroom. Is it her fault too? She acknowledges she could be more open and accessible, but she has to admit to herself this image of ice queen everyone looks up to or fears has been so convenient to her it soon built a dynamics she cannot seem to break even for one night. So instead of chatting with her college mates she has been drinking non-stop stuff she’s not used to, Western stuff like whiskey and gin. She’s not sure she’ll be able to stand up the moment she finally decides to stop looking for him, or at him; it depends on the moment she’s caught in the action.
Until a solid half an hour ago he was sitting at the adjacent table, a discerning eye on her as he always keeps, from a distance. Seo Woo Jin might be cold towards her ninety-nine percent of the time, but Cha Eun Jae knows he’s somehow always aware of her, of her every move. The reason? She has no idea. Now more than ever she cannot begin to understand why a guy who hates her guts and looks at her with nothing but derision is constantly mindful of her, as if he needed to check on her. It’s probably to criticize her, she reckons. Why else would he keep tabs on her like this, when he doesn’t care about the life or death of her? Of course he’s always waiting for her to make a mistake. Isn’t she doing exactly the same with him all the time?
The issue tonight is that, at some point of the evening, between her sixth or seventh glass of whiskey, Seo Woo Jin stopped being aware of her altogether. Someone at her left asked her a random, inopportune question they didn’t even care about, but when she gazed back at the place she expected to find him, he was nowhere in sight… Maybe because she’s so used to him being always close, always at a safe proximity, she was startled, and immediately began to look around. She even went as far as thinking of doing a tour of the pub to find him. Maybe he had just gone to the toilet to refresh himself. But no… As she was breaking her neck to detect his presence among the people parading the place like zombies, she suddenly spotted his jacket in a corner at a certain distance. At the same time, as if it were a slap of fate, a conversation at her back hit her like a ton of bricks.
“He doesn’t even need to talk to get a hook-up. Girls literally throw themselves at his feet whenever he walks around,” a non-identified voice said, and Cha Eun Jae had to pull some magic on herself not to turn around and learn who was the owner of that knowledge. Because she knew who they were talking about, and yet she was not ready to learn many other things.
“Would you blame them? I’d do the same if he wasn’t in our class…” Girl number two added. Aish. Why were they behaving like he was some sort of Lee Min Ho no one could resist? They were so cringe. Eun Jae wasn’t going to say Seo Woo Jin is barely tolerable, but it was not like he was the hottest guy she’d met in real life.
“Same, but I don’t because I wouldn't be able to look at him again after…” Girl number one carried on. Oh, please. Whoever this was, why would they think they stood a chance with Woo Jin when he hardly paid attention to anyone in their class? Because Eun Jae had observed him long and hard, and she was pretty sure no one had ever caught his fancy.
“Yeah, because it’s a fling, and nothing else. Being this hot and at his prime it’s not like he wants a steady girlfriend…” Wait. Did Woo Jin have some sort of Casanova reputation? Why had Cha Eun Jae not learned about any of this sooner? Maybe because she didn’t perform the basic college rituals with anyone? Not even the mindless gossip to fill uncomfortable silences?
“Ugh, if only I didn’t know him,” girl number one complained under her breath, sounding quite dejected.
“Well, looks like someone got lucky already…”
At that moment, the mystery surrounding his absence Cha Eun Jae was so set to unveil from her vantage point seemed to open itself for her to read on like in some horror novel. What she’d seen was indeed his jacket. Seo Woo Jin was still inside of it, nearing a wall not too far ahead. But instead of being alone, there was a whole human body trapped between him and the bloody wall. A whole human body like one of those she was terrified of when they were in a hospital bed, only that this one was alive and kicking.
Cha Eun Jae felt a rush of heat surge through her as she put two and two together amid the haze of her brain. She didn’t realize what her physical reaction meant, but she knew exactly what was happening between them. For some reason, her psyche seemed incapable of articulating it, as if she didn’t want to put a label on it to prevent it from becoming too real. But why did she care? Why would she care what Seo Woo Jin was doing with random bodies against random walls in pathetic student pubs as pathetic as him? Imagine being a future doctor and pulling this sort of stunts on a Friday night. What was he? An animal without self-restraint, looking for random mates to quench his thirst? Ugh, she should have seen it coming from someone like him, who seemed to lack even the basic manners. Cha Eun Jae turned around as soon as her disjointed brain allowed her to, disgusted.
But as disgusted as she claimed to be in her internal monologue, minute after minute of Seo Woo Jin not returning to his table she felt the growing compulsion to check if he was still there. Maybe he had come up with the brilliant idea of leaving the place to take care of his carnal business elsewhere. Cha Eun Jae knew he had drunk a lot too. She wasn’t sure it was enough to make him as intoxicated as she was, but more than half bottle of bourbon had to affect his judgment in some way. Maybe that was the reason he had been so conspicuous as to put up a show in front of everyone. Yeah, Eun Jae thought to herself reassuringly. It had to be it. It wasn’t as if he was a real Casanova, hooking up with random girls systematically, not even having to utter a word to have them rubbing their backs against filthy pub walls. He was making out under the influence. That was the excuse she crafted for herself to assuage the feeling building at the pit of her stomach, something akin to the same dejection girl number one had manifested a moment ago.
But Cha Eun Jae wasn’t like every other college girl, ready to send their dedication and perfect student record to waste because of a pair of male trousers. Cha Eun Jae was her family’s jewel, their last promise, and, probably, even their only redeemable quality.
She doesn’t know for how long she’s been staring into the void. Because Eun Jae wants to tell herself that’s what she’s been doing since the moment she noticed Woo Jin had abandoned their group… That she’s worried about the reputation of a colleague, as if men don’t get praised, rewarded and looked up to for this kind of behaviors when it’s enough to ruin a woman’s life. This is why she’s been thinking of telling him this all this while, because he’s probably doing it without realizing, and he’s jeopardizing his image in the process, and Eun Jae, as the perfect college mate she is, feels in the obligation of doing something for him to prevent the situation from escalating further.
Cha Eun Jae tries hard to ignore the drive to get up and walk up to him she feels is motivated by something else. She can’t admit to herself it’s more than earnest concern what has her squirming on that cheap wooden chair…. Just because she’s so used to disregarding her own feelings, to rationalize everything in order to keep everyone around her happy, and to soothe her worries with stupid balms for the soul that sound like poor self-help trash.
But this is who she’s come to be.
What else can she do? Should she try to listen to that tiny voice inside of her and say to hell with it all? To get up, march to Woo Jin and tell him to stop doing what he’s doing because she’s hurting, and not because of some lame excuse she made up for herself? She’s drunk enough to do so even if she ignores it. Maybe all she needs is to look at them a little longer instead of in short intervals as she’s been doing, just to figure out by herself what a great time they seem to be having together, how much they’re enjoying it. Maybe if she watches hard enough she will notice the way his body curves into this woman’s, as if he wanted to devour her; how his hands tug at her waist and her hips, as if he's desperate to rid her of her clothes in the middle of the place and in front of everyone; how his plump lips she sometimes has caught herself staring at reach deeper each time, and tilt just to bring Woo Jin the pleasure buried at the back of the girl’s mouth.
Once Cha Eun Jae notices, there’s no more casual glancing around. Her brain might not acknowledge she’s staring at them or the reason why, but she’s transfixed. A new feeling she won’t begin to examine has settled on her lower belly, making her burn. Is this hatred? Is this pain? Is it second-hand embarrassment? Is someone else sitting here feeling like she does? The thought makes her turn around, but to her surprise Eun Jae realizes she’s alone at the table; that everyone else is not only not paying any attention to Seo Woo Jin at all, but that they also have gone as far as to remove themselves from the scene during some point of her musings. So it becomes her moment. This is her chance to save Seo Woo Jin from himself. He’ll thank her later.
With that in mind, Eun Jae decidedly stands up, only to have the nasty, crowded room spinning around her for an instant. She sets a hand on the table to steady herself, without losing her resolution. She knew she was drunk, but as long as she’s able to walk it’s okay. Maybe she doesn’t even need to talk to Woo Jin to get her point across. But what is her point anyway? Does she know at all? She’ll walk up to him and interrupt his fervent kissing session because…? She can. Because she can. Because she has to… For reasons. His reputation… The kindness of her soul… Her rampant imbecility, she thinks as she braces herself and begins her resolute strut to Seo Woo Jin.
When she gets there, what’s going on between these two looks even steamier from up-close than whatever she imagined from her supposed vantage point. Maybe she shouldn’t have come up here in the first place. Contrary to her imagination, her sole presence next to them hasn’t been enough for him to cease the rough treatment he’s giving to this poor woman’s body. God. She’s going to get bruises in the morning because of the way he’s handling her. But as Eun Jae turns her head to look at the girl, it doesn’t seem like she has any complaint on the matter. In fact, it looks like she’s having the time of her life between the arms of this guy Cha Eun Jae hardly recognizes anymore. As she zones out because of the realization, the loud music starts pumping in her ears. She’s a freak… A total freak staring at a couple making out from a short distance. And it hurts; being this freak who suddenly doesn’t know what to do with herself hurts. So instead of turning around and undoing her previous steps she goes further, and grabs Woo Jin by the wrist.
“What the fuck…” He says as he’s startled by the gesture, clearly annoyed but unaware as to whom he has to direct his anger at. When he spots her, his wild eyes soften.
He has one arms in the air, but the other remains hooked around the girl’s waist, and Eun Jae hates how intimately they were embracing each other.
“Come with me,” she states, glaring, and she pulls from him in a way she hopes bears no opposition.
“What?” Cha Eun Jae hears him complaining at her back. “What’s happening?” There is a door somewhere nearby. She’s seen people coming and going all night. “What do you want, Eun Jae-ssi?” Woo Jin seems to mock her, but in spite of it he’s following her without much bodily opposition. The fact that he’s left his casual lover standing alone against a wall sends a thrill throughout Eun Jae she’s rarely ever felt related to anything other than grades.
Once she crosses the door she realizes it’s a sheltered alleyway to go out for a smoke. There’s some people around, but no one she recognizes as their classmates, and they couldn’t be paying any less attention. This time it’s her turn to take action involving walls, so she throws an unsuspicious Woo Jin against it with a clumsy movement.
“What is wrong with you tonight, Cha Eun Jae?” He barks at her as his back makes a loud thud. She can see he’s quite drunk; otherwise he wouldn’t be in such poor control of his body. “What is this supposed to mean?”
“What does it mean?” She replies with a hint of irony. “Nothing,” she lies. “It means nothing… I just came to your rescue.”
“Rescue?” Woo Jin frowns, stabilizing himself with the palms of his hands. “Do I look like in some kind of danger to you?” He imitates her tone.
“Maybe not you, but your reputation certainly was.”
“My reputation?” He chuckles. "What is this? Some moral kdrama I wandered off to inadvertently?” Eun Jae had forgotten how much he despises convention, so of course he would think everything was fine with his behavior.
“Look, pal, you might not know in what world you live, but these actions have consequences,” she tries to lecture him, sounding all high-and-mighty. “Don’t you care about what your classmates would think of you?”
“No,” Woo Jin deadpans.
“Yah, Seo Woo Jin!” Eun Jae spats at him, frustrated, her body bending a bit because of the intensity of her speech. She’s fairly close to him, and it makes her unstable. It’s not like she hasn’t been this close to him before, but tonight she’s not totally in control of herself as she usually is. “No man is an island. I know college is supposed to be the time of your life, but these are your future colleagues… Are you going to tell me it’s not an issue if they think you are a Casanova?” She tries to reason with him. Her point is valid.
Woo Jin throws his head back, seemingly annoyed at her wisdom, and rubs the tips of his fingers on his eyes as to force himself to focus. “I don’t know how I can get this through that thick skull of yours, Eun Jae-ssi, but not everyone is like you… Not everyone cares about what other people will think of them. I don’t,” Woo Jin tells her, accentuating the last word as he leans closer, as if this closeness is going to do anything for his point. As she raises her hands in the air in exasperation, he captures one of her wrists, and gives her a slight shake as to gain her undivided attention. “This is not the best of times. There is not such thing in my life…” His eyes are digging holes at hers, and his voice is tinged with something someone with her limited empathy wouldn’t riddle even with a fully functioning brain. “Having you coming at me like this, throwing a tantrum when I’m minding my own business without bothering anyone is almost my definition of the worst of times…” Why does he sound so mad at her? It’s true she interrupted him, but is that reason enough to literally classify her as such? Why is he always unfair to her in his assessments? Does he think she has no feelings?
“It bothered me!” Eun Jae tries to rein on her tone, but he’s so infuriating she cannot help but raise her voice. Woo Jin’s eyes widen momentarily at her words, but then he faces away, snickering.
“You are drunk…” He laughs to himself derisively, letting her hand go. Ouch.
“I am drunk!” Eun Jae raises her voice even louder, the only way she thinks she can regain his attention after his complete dismissal. “I drank almost half a bottle of Western liquor by myself, so how could I not?” She steps closer to him, and for a moment it looks like he’s going to panic. How much does he hate her? “But I’m not a kid! And if I tell you it bothered me, then it bothered me,” she emphazises. "And don’t you dare to invalidate me!”
Seo Woo Jin looks at her dead serious. He’s generally serious, but even with her clouded judgment she doubts she’s ever watched him as serious as this. Should she get scared? There’s barely no one around anymore. Her body flinches as an instinct, stepping away from him. In the back of her mind she realizes there’s a pattern to this, a pattern to their interactions, no matter the nature. There’s always a line none of them seem to ever cross, because the line moves with them as one steps closer, and the other pulls away.
It’s a vicious circle, and they’re going to loop on it until one of them stands firm and breaks it. That person is going to be her. She’s going to stop this, whatever it is. Where it will take them she has no idea, but something deep inside of her tells her it cannot go on any longer. “What does that mean?” Woo Jin mutters, as if he’s suddenly dropping some sort of invisible shield when this time he comes closer and she doesn’t flinch. Maybe it’s not that scary to hold her ground.
“Why do you care so much about meanings, when I am here stating a fact? It bothered me to watch you with someone else. I said it. It bothered me!”
“Are you playing with me?” Woo Jin asks, taking another cautious step towards her, as if trying to prevent her from storming away. Why does he have so many questions? What is he worried about?
“I said what I said, Seo Woo Jin! What is your problem with that?” She gestures in exasperation.
“My problem is that I am drunk as hell, for real, and I’m probably misunderstanding, and you are drunk as hell as well, and you are probably just playing with my feelings!”
“Ha, Seo Woo Jin, feelings? What feelings are you talking about?” Eun Jae mockingly says.
“My feelings!” He points at his chest. “The feelings I have for you; the feelings I promised myself never to confess to you!” Woo Jin argues. It seems it’s his turn to sound quite hurt. “Especially in a circumstance like this one in which we are both dimwitted because of alcohol!”
Eun Jae can’t believe her ears. “Do you have feelings for me?” She manages to mumble as she watches him, dumbfounded.
“Can I get a Baeksang for my performance of acting as if I didn't care about you for all this time?” Woo Jin rants, the epitome of sarcasm. “Because it looks like it’s worked, and I feel somewhat proud of myself…”
“Have you been pretending not to care about me?” Cha Eun Jae is still unable to process the full picture. She needs further clarification before her brain stops working altogether. “Does this mean…”
“I care about you? YES.” But no matter how loud he speaks or what he says, her mind doesn’t seem to be responding or even registering the latest turn of the conversation. This is literally too much information.
“Do you?” As she gazes at Woo Jin, Eun Jae can tell he's losing his patience.
“Yes! Cha Eun Jae, I know I should shut the fuck up, but do you know how my heart skipped a beat when you grabbed my hand and I was suddenly looking at you, and the person in my mind superposed…?” Seo Woo Jin murmurs, a hand flat against the spot on his body where his heart is, as if he’s really not supposed to share any of this. What? Was he thinking of her while with somebody else? Is that what he’s trying to say? The information her brain refuses to acknowledge, her body seems more than prone to absorb, wiser, unavoidable. Why does it feel like she’s about to soar all of a sudden? Woo Jin must have sensed her change of mood, because he steps even closer, and his hands reach around her waist, forcing her to face him. “Are you playing with me, Eun Jae?” There’s something about his stare that’s totally new to her. A lump forms on her throat, and she couldn’t answer to his question even if she wanted to. “At this point I don’t care anymore… I don’t care if this is nothing but a dream in which you are finally bothered by me, or if we don’t remember any of this in the morning. I love you…” He says. The very ground seem to melt under her feet, but he’s holding her firm on the spot. “I have crushed on you for so long I can’t even call it a crush anymore…”
Cha Eun Jae feels her knees buckle. She cannot lose herself like this. This is too much for her. “What are you saying?” She wrestles against his strong hands, interposing her arms with his torso so she can separate herself from him. “How can you be such a liar?” She punches his chest. “You were kissing another girl just a minute ago!” Her brain can’t cope. There has to be some sort of mistake. Or it is just a sick joke. “You fucking hurt me, asshole. Let go of me!” She finally manages to push him away.
Woo Jin reluctantly obliges. “It’s not a lie!” He still counteracts. “I do. I do love you, I swear it’s true…” Bullshit.
“How can you claim to love me when you were kissing her like that?” She confronts him further. Why is she doing this? What is this feeling taking control of her every fiber? “I saw it with my own two eyes, the way you’re practically eating her up!” Eun Jae has to refrain herself from crossing his face with a slap like on TV. How does he have the gal to swear his love when she saw what she saw? The image is drilling a hole on her mind. She closes her eyes to fight it, shaking her head.
“I’m sorry.” Woo Jin’s hands come to rest on her shoulders, as to console her, as to reassure her. “Eun Jae, this is how it is…” His voice sounds more like a whining than like his regular voice. “When you have an unrequited love you learn to carry on…” With each word he says he digs his grave even deeper.
“What unrequited love?” She spats at him. “What unrequited love, you, bastard?” Cha Eun Jae almost shouts, trembling with rage. Woo Jin stops dead as he stares at her, her eyes welling up with tears. “I’m crazy about you! Haven’t you figured out yet?” She wrestles again to remove his hands from her shoulders.
“Have you?” He wrestles back as to subside her rising fury, to make her snap out of this irreflexive state before she says or does something she might regret later, or before he loses whatever is left of his patience.
“No, but you like me, so you should have!” But she can’t. There’s no one else but her to blame, but she just can’t stop herself. “You are clearly the experienced one!”
“Experienced in being treated like a puppet by you!” Woo Jin spats back. It was meant to be she’d make him mad. This is how they're used to work together, always walking a cutting edge. Maybe that’s what she’s wanted all along, for him to feel as unsettled as she feels.
“Shut up!” She replies.
“Experienced in being pushed around as if I worth nothing!” He continues, coming face to face with her.
“I hate you!”
“Of course you do!” They’re just inches apart, but she won’t hold her ground anymore. Instead Eun Jae finishes closing the gap separating them, as she crashes her lips on his. Her body shivers as soon as they touch; his lips, softer than anything she could have imagined. And when his mouth parts for her to drink from him, there’s a freshness to his breath and moist she knew without knowing, and craved for not realizing she was craving since the day she first met him. She’s unforgivable.
But Woo Jin doesn’t seem to mind.
They stumble because they’re both drunk as hell, but he’s more worried on pinning her against the wall and showing her with actions—now that words are useless with their mouths differently engaged—how much he cares, how much he’s longed for her and how much he wants her, all at the same time. Because this is how effective the language of bodies is. Words fade from the memory at varied paces, but the bodies remember, touches like scars, especially when they tell a story, when they linger where they linger, and they worship, and they relish on it.
The next morning Cha Eun Jae will wake up alone in her own bed because even if she doesn’t remember, that night they agreed on being too drunk to take things any further.
Sometimes an act of caring and commitment and mutual understanding can put a hold on a whole relationship even unintentionally, when one or the other, or both of the people involved lose track of reality due to heavy consumption of alcohol and a tendency to recurrent, extremely vivid dreams about the other.
Vicious circles are hard to break, and to reset back to the same starting point is a common occurrence when the brain makes even the most spectacular words disappear. But the bodies will remember, and the awareness of the other will hit at the most unexpected times. Bending over someone’s shoulder; resting one’s head on someone’s chest; leaning on someone for comfort.
I know you.
I held you this close before.
You know this.
And without fail, the bodies will cross the line again, as many times as necessary because they know the destination, and they will find each other, and recognize each other all over again.