Chapter 20.1
He stood at the doorway as if unwilling to step inside, gazing at me with the light at his back.
âWhereâs Go Ha Ram?â
âHe went back to the dorm to eat chicken with the others.â
âThen why didnât you go?â
âI had something to think about.â
ââŠâŠ.â
ââŠâŠ.â
A suffocating silence settled between us after the brief conversation. Cheon Tae Rim wasn’t exactly a gentleman. He always showed up abruptly whenever I was thinking about him.
He turned around as if to leave but then closed the locker room door, apparently deciding it would seem stranger to avoid me. Until he passed by me and stopped in front of his locker, he never once looked my way.
âHey.â
I fixed my gaze on Cheon Tae Rimâs broad back as he hesitated to change clothes. Pretending not to care at all, he couldnât even take off his T-shirt properly just because I was there.
âIâm curious about something. Can I ask you one thing?â
âWhat?â
Giving up on changing clothes, Cheon Tae Rim leaned against his locker and turned toward me. Now it wasnât his back but his face I was directly seeing.
There were countless things I wanted to ask, but there werenât many I could actually say aloud. Why do you hate me? We got along okay at first, didn’t we? Can’t we just debut together again, since I won’t insist on being the leader this time? You donât want one regressor per group either, rightâŠ?
My useless pride swallowed all those questions. I instead bit down hard on my innocent lower lip.
Why did you take that stab for me?
You wonât even let me take one hit for youâso why did you take a knife for me?
âHow did you win over Myeong In Woo?â
Instead of what I really wanted to ask, a completely unrelated question spilled out. Cheon Tae Rim tilted his head slightly at my words.
âI didn’t win him over.â
âReally?â
âReally.â
I got up from where I was sitting and quickly strode toward the door. Cheon Tae Rim turned around slowly only after I stepped away.
He didnât like me. I sighed again, remembering Go Ha Ram’s clueless remark. When he clearly treated me differently from others with cold indifference, it took talent to interpret that as affection.
* * *
Cheon Tae Rim almost fainted. Because when he entered the locker room to change into workout clothes, Sun Ye Jin was sitting there looking like a fairy.
If the thirty-two-year-old Sun Ye Jin had decadent charm, the nineteen-year-old Sun Ye Jin was ethereal like a fairy.
Sun Ye Jin constantly toyed with Cheon Tae Rimâs heart with his ruthlessly beautiful face. When he suddenly said he had something to ask but then mentioned Myeong In Woo instead, Cheon Tae Rimâs heart raced.
In the previous life, Sun Ye Jin had never shown much interest in Cheon Tae Rim. Cheon Tae Rim never became as close as Go Ha Ram was to Sun Ye Jin, nor did he earn Sun Ye Jinâs trust like Choi Hyun Hee had.
To Sun Ye Jin, Cheon Tae Rim was merely a ‘decent same-age peer.’ With time, he earned the prefix ‘nagging,’ and right before Sun Ye Jin left Reverb, he had gained another labelâ’someone whose phone number he didnât even know.’
So an impossible hope had sprouted up inside himâthat maybe this time, Sun Ye Jin might approach first. A foolish hope.
Expecting friendship after openly cutting him off and refusing to even talk was ridiculous. Cheon Tae Rim had no right to expect such things. Pushing someone away first and then expecting them to approachâsuch shamelessness was practically an illness.
On top of everything else, Cheon Tae Rim was already tense because Shin Ji Oh had harassed Sun Ye Jin. Specifically, he couldn’t bear the thought that Shin Ji Oh had struck Sun Ye Jin. Where did he even dare hit someone so slender?
That’s right.
In front of Sun Ye Jin, Cheon Tae Rim always stiffened. He was no different from a grade-schooler who acts cold to someone they secretly like. Unable to confess, he desperately tried to hide any indication of affection.
His feelings must never be exposed. At least that’s what Cheon Tae Rim believed. Love wasn’t assassination, but for trainees, love had to be carried out like an assassination. If Sun Ye Jin discovered his real feelings, heâd surely be disgusted and run away.
Even in their previous life, it was Sun Ye Jin who first drew a line and distanced himself. When he moved out of their dorm to live alone, he had told Cheon Tae Rim clearly:
‘Now, you can leave me alone.’
That was when Cheon Tae Rim was still pestering Sun Ye Jin, even after their manager had long since given up, advising him to at least take a personal break if he was so exhausted. At the time, Sun Ye Jin had genuinely found Cheon Tae Rim irritating.
‘Iâve done everything I can, so what more do you want from me?’
Not everyone is as passionate about being an idol as you. Arenât you holding on because thereâs nothing else you can do anyway? Is this really your dream, or are you just fooling yourself?
That question was sharp. In truth, Cheon Tae Rim’s original dream wasn’t even his own in the first place.
caffeinecat
Ohhh đ