He Is That Guy

“Yu Ji-han. Are you actually okay?”
Kim Daeseok frowned, suspicion creasing his brow as he asked in a low voice. I knocked back a shot of soju and answered flatly.
“What.”
“Why are you getting skinnier than when you’re drowning in assignments and exams?”
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Even that bastard Eun Haeseong asked me yesterday if something happened to you. And I’m the one overreacting?”
Worried as he was, Kim Daeseok still refilled my empty glass right away. I snorted and lifted the newly brimming shot.
“I just haven’t had much of an appetite the last few days. That’s all.”
“You got some terminal disease? Why’d your appetite just vanish all of a sudden?”
“How would I know?”
Of course I knew exactly why… but I had zero desire to talk about Chae Yu-jeong, so I played dumb.
I’d already told Kim Daeseok last time that Chae Yu-jeong and Yu Chae weren’t the same person, and I didn’t want to explain what happened or get comforted by anyone. A little consolation wouldn’t fix how I felt anyway.
“Cut the crap and drink.”
I steered the conversation away while topping off his glass. He clicked his tongue but clinked without protest.
We drank with the clock creeping toward midnight, and when we stepped out of the place, thick snow was pouring from the night sky. It had been snowing a lot lately.
—I’ve had good things happen to me since way back whenever it snowed.
Watching the white flakes drift down, I thought of Chae Yu-jeong.
—Today is the happiest of them all.
His face flashed up—smiling wide as he confessed with all his heart—and a hot wave punched up my throat, warping my eyes on its own.
Two weeks had passed since his birthday—the day I found out he’d lied to me. He had messaged me every single day since, and I hadn’t answered even once.
I didn’t read the stack of messages on purpose and I didn’t pick up his calls. I couldn’t bring myself to block him, so I just left it all there… but I couldn’t keep ignoring him forever.
The snow didn’t let up on the ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) way home. I couldn’t be bothered to pull up my hood, so I let it fall on me and fished a cigarette from my coat. Just as I was about to put it to my lips, a figure appeared under the streetlamp across the way.
Hearing my steps, Chae Yu-jeong snapped his head up and met my eyes. He must’ve been waiting a long time—his hair was wet in the lamplight.
“…Hyung.”
I quietly slid the cigarette back into my pocket. Him showing up didn’t surprise or piss me off. If anything, I’d figured he’d come around about now.
Both of us had run out of patience. We needed to settle this one way or another—even if the conclusion wasn’t going to be pretty.

I walked over without a word, and he bowed his head. Tears, big and round, spilled over the reddened rims of his eyes. Trying to stifle his sobs, he stumbled through his words.
“I’m sorry for coming without asking.”
“……”
“I get it if you h-hate me. But I really… hic… I can’t let it end like—”
Watching him cry without any control over himself gave me a headache.
“I get it. Stop crying.”
“S-sorry… I’m sorry…”
“You said then that you’d explain everything.”
I kept my eyes off his pleading face and spoke, hard and clear.
“Come on. Let’s hear how amazing this explanation is.”
He pressed his lips together. In the end he couldn’t refuse and trailed after me as I walked ahead.
I took him into a 24-hour café near my place and picked the most secluded table. We sat facing each other.
He’d finally stopped crying a little, but even in the warm room he was pale and shaking. I ignored it and said:
“Explain however you want. I’ll listen however I want.”
“……”
“I’ll make up my mind after I’ve heard it all.”
It was the last courtesy I could offer him. After a long hesitation, he spoke with a resigned look.
 
****
A woman who had married the man she loved got pregnant the following year.
With a man who was genuinely happy about the pregnancy and a circle of people offering their congratulations, the woman carried the child without much worry, cherishing the life in her belly.
But happiness didn’t last. In the eighth month, the man’s affair came to light and their peaceful everyday life collapsed in an instant. The other woman worked at the same company.
Caught, the man abandoned the woman and the child without a second thought. In the blink of an eye, the baby in her belly stopped being a welcome presence to a woman discarded by the man she loved.
So the child who was born—Chae Yu-jeong—was never going to be loved in a normal home.
Second floor of an old ten-pyeong villa with a kitchen and two tiny rooms. He lived there with the woman, who was always busy with work.
Time passed. The year he graduated elementary school—he was fourteen—it happened on a day in February.
He was watching the snow pour beyond the window when the front door opened, and he hurried over. The woman coming home late reeked of alcohol.
He watched anxiously as she stumbled in. When she wobbled, nearly falling while trying to kick off her heels, he reached out on reflex to steady her. She shook off her own son’s hand without mercy.
“Disgusting…”
“……”
Slurred to a mush, the word still pierced like an awl. The disdain he’d half-sensed since he was little pressed against his skin, stark and undeniable.
She shoved past his stunned body and staggered into the bedroom. Left alone at the entryway, he blinked, then caught a whiff of himself.
There really was a strong stench coming off his body. She had called him disgusting because he was disgusting. At a loss, he glanced between the bathroom and the room she’d gone into.
What do I do…
To get rid of the smell, he had to wash, but if he turned on the water while she slept, she’d definitely yell at him for being noisy. He hovered at the bathroom door, sniffing himself over and over, then finally pulled on a thin coat and carefully opened the front door.
With the reek radiating off him, he couldn’t bear to stay inside. If he couldn’t wash, then the only way not to smell was to go outside.
He stepped out into the dead of winter with snow pouring down and sat his butt on the concrete in front of a rust-eaten metal gate. The wind cut at him like it meant to swallow him whole; he hunched his shoulders tight and clasped his hands together.
Under the yellow streetlamp, the whirling snow looked like petals. Even in the cold, he thought it was pretty. Watching the flakes glimmer in the light made the knife-edge chill feel a little duller, or so it seemed.
He stared blankly at the snow for a long time like that—until an umbrella slid into his view from nowhere.
He flinched and drew in, turning his head aside. The big umbrella tilted a little, revealing the face of the person standing in front of him.
“Hey.”
Under hair black as the night sky, his features were neat and clean. The boy had a backpack on. He held an umbrella in one hand and a convenience store bag in the other, and he greeted him like it was the most natural thing.
“What are you doing out here?”
The boy asked again when he just sat there frozen. There wasn’t a lick of malice in the simple question. Fingers twitching where his hands were clasped, he managed to answer.
“Just….”
Heat crawled up his skin from the unfamiliar attention, and the cold faded to the background. The boy coming closer made him painfully aware of himself.
He’ll smell it.
He was scared the boy would say he was dirty, just like the woman had.
“Just? Aren’t you cold?”
“Not really…”
The boy studied him for a moment as he mumbled without meeting his eyes, then rustled in the plastic bag and held something out.
“Want this?”
The sudden offer came so bluntly that he took it before he even registered what it was. Warmth spread from his palm. Ridiculously, it was a heated triangle kimbap.
“It’s my favorite flavor. You have it.”
“……”
Before he could say anything to this random triangle kimbap, the boy walked off without hesitation. For the first time in his life, someone had given him something. He stared down at it, dumbfounded.
A toasty, savory smell rose up, and for a second he could pretend it covered his own stench.
Clutching the warm kimbap, he kept his eyes fixed for a long time on the spot where the boy had disappeared.