The Wedding Invitation That Broke Me

Of course, he hadn’t asked because he didn’t know.
The luxurious paper, elaborately decorated from the cover, was unmistakably a wedding invitation to anyone who looked.
Haeyoon knew that too.
Yet, Haeyoon still couldn’t understand what this was.

“What is… this….”
Haeyoon struggled desperately to focus his blurring vision, trying to read the text inside.
‘This can’t be it,’ he thought.
‘Surely he wouldn’t be that cruel to me.’
Haeyoon still clung to a hopeless hope.

[Groom Oh Jaeyeol X Groom Ahn Seonwoo]

The characters on the invitation stabbed into his eyes like thorns.
He’d already thought several times that nothing could be more wretched than this, but life kept delivering terrible betrayals to Haeyoon.
And Haeyoon’s pain and betrayal always stemmed from the same people.

“Why to me… why this….”
His words wouldn’t form properly.
Even as he blinked rapidly, his vision kept blurring.
He hadn’t cried much in his life, but he kept wanting to cry because of those two names.

“Why are you giving this to me….”
Why are you being this cruel to me? That’s what Haeyoon really wanted to ask.

Humans are like that by nature.
There are times we do things even knowing they’re wrong, times we commit acts we know we shouldn’t.
Because the heart doesn’t move as we intend, things that shouldn’t happen, happen.
Haeyoon had tried to understand the two of them.
He wanted to understand.
How painful must the hearts of these two people, who caused him this pain, be?
He tried hard to think that way.

But why go this far?
His lover and his friend had an affair behind his back and abandoned him.
And as if that wasn’t enough, why were they so cruelly trampling on his heart one last time?
Even though they were once people who loved and cared for each other.
Why.

“Why, you ask, Haeyoon-ah.”
Then, Seonwoo, with an incomprehensible smile on his lips, spoke.

“You’re my best friend.”
“Ah…….”
“So of course I have to give you the invitation.”

The edge of the paper Haeyoon was holding crumpled mercilessly.
Haeyoon lowered his head, panting.
He couldn’t breathe properly.
His chest hurt so much he thought he might die.

“You’ll congratulate us, right, Haeyoon-ah?”
Despite Haeyoon’s visible agony, Seonwoo didn’t even blink.
In fact, Seonwoo was satisfied by Haeyoon’s pain.
He was even a little surprised at himself—had he disliked Seo Haeyoon this much?

If asked whether Haeyoon had wronged him enough to warrant this, the answer would be no.
But what could he do?
Whether Seo Haeyoon intended it or not, he had deepened his own wretchedness, so he could only reap what he sowed.

Eventually, Haeyoon’s tears began to fall, drop by drop, onto the invitation.
Haeyoon was usually composed and not prone to emotional extremes.
Crying in front of others was even more rare.
Clutching the crumpled invitation, Haeyoon spat out words as if vomiting blood.

“Ahn Seonwoo…. How could you do this to me….”
At first, he thought it was a mistake.
Then, he tried to understand that maybe Jaeyeol really couldn’t help it either.
He didn’t want to hate them.
He didn’t want to end his feelings for the two most important people in his life with hatred.
So he tried to accept it as just… just an unexpected accident.

But this had clear intent.
Calling him out after it was already over and driving in a nail that didn’t need to be driven—that was neither a mistake nor an accident.
Haeyoon wondered.
He wanted to know why they were doing this to him, why they had done this to him.
What meaning would it have now? But he still wanted to know the reason.

“Haeyoon-ah. You’re phrasing things a bit strangely.”
“What…?”
“‘How could you do this to me?’ Saying it like that makes it sound like… I did something terribly wrong to you.”

For a moment, Haeyoon’s expression went blank.
A single teardrop rolled down his deathly pale cheek.
Seonwoo watched that teardrop with delight and spoke.

“You should have done better.”
“…….”
“It’s your fault for not being able to hold onto his heart even after dating him for so long… Why are you blaming me?”
“Seonwoo-yah….”
He’d often felt frustrated watching dramas or movies.
He couldn’t understand the protagonist who just shed tears without uttering a single word of retort while the villain spouted nonsense.
Why were they just listening to that? Why couldn’t they refute it?
If words failed them, they should at least get up and leave.
He thought they were foolish.

But now that he was in this situation himself, words wouldn’t come.
Not because he had nothing to say, but because it hurt so much, he was so angry, his chest was so tight, that he couldn’t make a sound or move.

“Or you should have been born an Omega, not a Beta.”
‘I want to have children too, Haeyoon-ah.’
Instantly, Jaeyeol’s words from their breakup, shifting all blame onto Haeyoon, came to mind.

They were ultimately in it together.
Both Oh Jaeyeol and Ahn Seonwoo.
The pain Haeyoon would suffer was never in their consideration from the start.
Haeyoon was the only one struggling desperately to somehow understand them.
How pitiful.

“Anyway, I gave you the invitation, so I’ll be going now. See you at the wedding, Haeyoon-ah.”
Having said his piece, Seonwoo rose from his seat with a refreshed look.

“Seonwoo-yah.”
Haeyoon decided to call out to Seonwoo one last time.
There had been days when he felt fortunate to have Ahn Seonwoo in his life.
‘I’m really lucky to have a friend like this. Thank you for always looking after someone as quiet and boring as me.’
There definitely had been days when he was sincerely grateful for that.
So Haeyoon wanted to give him one last chance.
No, did he want to receive one?
He wanted to forgive him.
He didn’t want to leave hatred for a friend he had spent so long with.
Hanging onto the words, Haeyoon spoke to Seonwoo’s retreating back as he turned to leave without a reply.

“Really… you won’t regret it?”
Even if you lose me because of Oh Jaeyeol, even if our relationship becomes forever worse than that of strangers, are you really okay with that?

Ahn Seonwoo answered without hesitation.

“Sorry, Haeyoon-ah…. If you had really been that important to me, things wouldn’t have come this far.”
“…….”
“I’m leaving.”

Seonwoo left the cafe just like that.
As if he had not a single regret.
Haeyoon, left behind, just sat there dazed for a long time.
It felt like he had been left alone in the world.

* * * *

Haeyoon sat blankly at a table in front of a convenience store, a soju glass filled to the brim before him, recalling the voice of Oh Jaeyeol who had declared their breakup that day.
He had never thought of it before, but suddenly today, Ahn Seonwoo’s voice seemed exactly like Oh Jaeyeol’s from that day, which kept bringing him to mind.

“They really… must be in love….”
They say couples in love start to resemble each other.

Haeyoon muttered foolishly.
What good were sharp eyes? Haeyoon just blinked his large eyes dully.
‘Let’s break up, Haeyoon-ah.’

It wasn’t just their voices that were similar.
The shamelessness was the same too.
That day, Oh Jaeyeol, with Haeyoon—who hadn’t even properly gotten angry yet—in front of him, abruptly started with talk of breaking up.
Caught rolling around with his lover’s best friend, he sent the lover home, and a few days later, the first thing he said was a declaration of separation.

‘How can you say that, hyung? Shouldn’t I… shouldn’t I be the one saying that? You should wait until I say it.’

Back then, Haeyoon didn’t cry either.
Would it have been different if he had cried buckets like Ahn Seonwoo and showed a pitiful side? Who knows.
Oh Jaeyeol, who said he liked how Haeyoon—with his stoic face and a personality so quiet others called him boring—became soft and cute only for him, said at the moment of breakup that he was now bored and not fun.
Whether he got tired of the quiet, boring side and thus got tired of Seo Haeyoon, or got tired of Seo Haeyoon and thus got tired of that side… Well, it wasn’t very important now.

What’s important is that day was just like today.
When Haeyoon went out to meet Jaeyeol, all he worried about was what he should do if Jaeyeol clung to him, begging for forgiveness.
‘It was a mistake.’
‘I must have gone crazy for a moment.’
‘I’m an Alpha and Seonwoo is an Omega.’
‘I’ve only ever dated Betas, so I’m not used to an Omega’s pheromones.’
‘A sudden rut hit.’
‘Because of this, because of that…’
He was worried whether he could coldly cut off an Oh Jaeyeol who listed all sorts of reasons and excuses.

It had been a full eight years.
It had been a full eight years since he started dating Oh Jaeyeol and had been with him.
He had never even imagined a life without Oh Jaeyeol.
Breaking up required much more courage than forgiving.
So Haeyoon thought, maybe he might end up forgiving Oh Jaeyeol.

‘I’m sorry it came to this. But Haeyoon-ah, I don’t want to see you anymore. I… don’t love you. So let’s stop, us.’
This, despite Jaeyeol having already chosen Ahn Seonwoo over Seo Haeyoon.

And today, Haeyoon repeated the exact same mistake from that day.

“Sucker….”
Chewing over Sua’s words to him, Haeyoon squeezed his eyes shut and poured soju into his mouth.
He was already almost through one bottle, and as soon as the liquor touched his tongue, a revolting sensation churned in his throat.
They say the world is bitter, so liquor tastes sweet.
Had he not tasted enough bitterness yet?
He let out a short, bitter laugh at such pointless thoughts.
Sua’s words hit the mark.
He really was the world’s most stupid and pathetic sucker.
That’s why he brought this wretched day upon himself.

“Ah….”
Then, plop, moisture fell onto the back of his hand holding the glass.
Before he could wonder if he was crying, plop, plop, droplets kept falling onto the table.
It’s raining.
As if to make him look even more wretched now that things had come to this.