Drowning in the Aftermath

Haeyoon wordlessly poured soju into his glass and downed it in one go.
He was someone who neither liked soju nor could handle it well, yet no one could stop him.
In a situation like this, getting drunk might be for the better.

“f*ck… I thought for sure they’d have a huge fight and break up.
How are they getting married?
That’s so fucked up.”
Finally unable to keep silent any longer, Sumin spat out curses.
It felt like a thousand fires were blazing inside her, even though it wasn’t even her own problem.
Naturally, Sua chimed in.

“Guess they’re a perfect match since they’re both pieces of trash.
Those two assholes deserve each other…
Hey, but lots of couples break up while preparing for a wedding.
And getting married doesn’t mean they’ll be happy, right?
The way I see it, those bastards both lack any sense, so it won’t last long.”
Even as she said that, Sumin, burning with frustration, downed the full glass of beer Haeyoon had poured for himself straight down her throat.

She couldn’t live with this anger.
All three of them had been by Haeyoon’s side, watching how much he had suffered, so it was even more infuriating.

The guy who was usually stoic and never showed any sign of distress over most things had lost 5kg in an instant.
He was already thin for his height, and watching him become haggard day by day back then, they had been so worried about what might become of him.

They had finally managed to coax and comfort that guy back to looking somewhat human again, and now, out of nowhere, a wedding?
Those goddamn bastards were actually going through with getting married.

“Haeyoon.”
It was right at that moment that Woojin, who had been quietly listening to Sumin and Sua’s curses, spoke up.
His low voice sounded especially weighty today.

“Why are you suddenly setting the mood?”
Sua asked, sensing an unfamiliar shift in the atmosphere.
But Woojin continued without even looking at Sua, his gaze fixed on Haeyoon.

“So… actually, I have a friend who knows Baek Jeongha.”

“Baek Jeongha?”
For a moment, the other three wore puzzled expressions at the sudden mention of an unfamiliar name.

“Hey, seriously…
That Baek Jeongha?
The one Ahn Seonwoo was crazy about?!”
Sumin, startled, momentarily raised her voice almost to a shriek before hurriedly covering her mouth with both hands and looking around.
Fortunately, the noisy bar seemed to have no one paying attention.
Sumin leaned towards Woojin and asked again.
“Him, it’s that Baek Jeongha, right?
The one Ahn Seonwoo clung to like crazy.”

Woojin nodded.
The atmosphere at the table changed abruptly.

Baek Jeongha.
Haeyoon clearly remembered his name too.
He was, quite literally, Ahn Seonwoo’s first love.
Not some puppy love from middle or high school, but his real first love.

Back then, the entire campus knew how desperately Ahn Seonwoo chased after Baek Jeongha.
Seonwoo himself was a noticeable omega to begin with, and Baek Jeongha was an alpha who had received undivided attention from the moment he entered school due to his exceptional looks and rumors of an extraordinary family background.

Ahn Seonwoo, who was notorious for being proud and arrogant towards alphas, had thrown all his pride aside and chased after Baek Jeongha, so it was impossible for it not to be the talk of the campus.
There were countless alphas vying for Ahn Seonwoo’s attention—enough to form a line across campus with a bit of exaggeration—yet for years, Seonwoo only doggedly followed Baek Jeongha.

The rumor was widespread that his one-sided love only ended because Baek Jeongha threatened him to never loiter around him again.

It was no exaggeration to say Baek Jeongha was the person who created Ahn Seonwoo’s dark history.

“Baek Jeongha…”
Haeyoon quietly rolled the name on his tongue.
It wasn’t hard to recall his face.

Baek Jeongha was a junior in Jaeyeol’s department, and they got along fairly well.
Seonwoo would often pester Haeyoon to get Jaeyeol to set up occasions where they could have meals with Jeongha.
And Haeyoon, who always wanted to help Seonwoo in any way, would often fill the seat to help set the mood.

In his memory, Baek Jeongha seemed cold and unfeeling.
Even when eating with Seonwoo, he would thoroughly ignore him to a degree that made onlookers uncomfortable.
The sight of Seonwoo desperately clinging to Jeongha had remained a painful memory for Haeyoon for a long time.

So Haeyoon hadn’t liked Baek Jeongha much.
It was impossible to like someone who treated his best friend so coldly.

Wrapping up the now utterly meaningless past memories, Haeyoon opened his mouth.
“Why bring up Baek Jeongha all of a sudden?”

Woojin hesitated for a moment, then lowered his voice even further as he spoke.
“Baek Jeongha…
Should I ask him to set up a meeting?”

“…Huh?”
“Haeyoon.
Do you want to meet Baek Jeongha?”
Haeyoon blinked silently.
He did that because he didn’t quite understand what Woojin was saying.
He wondered why a suggestion to meet Baek Jeongha was coming up here all of a sudden.

Sua was the first to grasp the situation.
“You mean get Haeyoon to seduce him?”
“To give Ahn Seonwoo a taste of his own medicine?”
True to being twins, Sumin immediately picked up the thread.
The twins’ eyes suddenly sparkled like stars.

“…What is that.
Don’t say weird things.”
Haeyoon waved his hands in refusal.
Though his expression showed little change, his friends, who had known him for a long time, could feel how utterly shocked he was right now.

Sua, sitting right next to him, pressed his cheeks firmly between her palms and said,
“You good-for-nothing.
If only you’d live up to your looks a bit and have some fun, how great would that be?
Huh?
Let’s get some value out of that face, please, Haeyoon.
Huh?”
Even in this situation, Seo Haeyoon let his cheeks be squished and his face be handed over to Sua’s hands.

The first words people who saw Seo Haeyoon for the first time usually said were ‘pretty’ or ‘handsome’.
Of course, that was a compliment.
But if one heard the next words, phrases like these immediately followed:
But he looks scary.
He looks cold.
It seems like I shouldn’t talk to him.
He looks like he’d look down on people.
He seems sensitive and sharp.
Et cetera.

His pale, cool skin tone like winter snow, handsome yet sharp eyes, jet-black hair contrasting with his fair skin, an expressionless face, thin lips that were always tightly shut, a reticent and shy personality—
Everything that made up Seo Haeyoon’s outward appearance was cold, cool-headed, sharp, sensitive, the type you’d think only has Evian in his fridge, and so on.
Exactly those kinds of things.

But if you spent just a little time with Haeyoon, you’d realize how absurd that image was.
Cool-headed, my foot.
It’d be a miracle if he didn’t get scammed buying a jade floor mat from somewhere.

It was the same when he broke up with Jaeyeol.
Even after being so wretchedly betrayed by the two people he loved most, all Seo Haeyoon did was endure the pain.
It was Haeyoon who stopped Sumin and Sua when they were raging, wanting to drag them around by the hair and spread rumors so they could never show their faces again.

Trusting people easily, following others’ words well, quietly considerate, possessing both loyalty and integrity—that was the kind of person Seo Haeyoon was.

Even now, it was the same.
He must be in shock, and inside that calm expression, his heart must be utterly crushed, yet with a blank face, he meekly offers his cheeks and finally says,

“It’s not like Oh Jaeyeol and I have any relationship now.”

“…What?”
“Before, we were in a relationship, but now we’re not, right?
We already broke up…
It’s not something for me to interfere with.”
That’s what he’s saying.
Of course, it’s true, but still, people have morals and a conscience!
As Sua fumed, asking if he really meant those words, Haeyoon shrugged his shoulders once and continued.

“Let’s just not pay any attention to them.”
“…….”
“I just…
don’t want to be entangled with those people anymore.”
It was Haeyoon’s honest feeling.
He had already been hurt too much by those two.
It had been a painful time he never wanted to experience again.

Now, he just wanted to forget.
Since they were people he wouldn’t meet again anyway, he hoped they’d be completely erased as other people’s lives, thoroughly as strangers’ lives, whether they got married or lived happily ever after.

With the person involved saying this much, there was no room for further meddling.
Sua meekly released Haeyoon’s face and instead filled his empty glass with soju.

“Right.
Let’s just drink and forget!”
“Yeah, yeah.
They’re unlucky bastards anyway, so even if they get married or whatever, they’ll end up ruined, right?”
Haeyoon burst out laughing at Sumin’s following curse.
Even the rebuke asking if he was in any position to laugh felt enjoyable.
Having friends by his side who got angrier on his behalf than he did himself made Haeyoon feel like he could just endure and get through this.

“If you change your mind, tell me anytime, Haeyoon.”
“Okay.
I will.
Thanks.”
Haeyoon nodded at Woojin’s final words, perhaps because a small bit of reluctance remained.
Of course, there was absolutely no way Haeyoon would ever contact Baek Jeongha.