Mint Is Pure Love - Chapter 39

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I watched Cha Seokyung grow smaller in the distance before finally turning away myself. As if desperate to escape, my round sneakers moved faster than my tangled thoughts.

“…That was awful.”

No. Cha Seokyung wasn’t awful at all. The awful one was me — the me from just a moment ago.

I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t care about his family’s financial situation. Even if his house was poor, even if his dad was in prison, none of that was enough to make me see him any differently.

If the tiny fraction of school fees my father grudgingly paid each year ended up going to him, I’d probably be grateful for the first time in my life that Dad spent his money well.

But Seokyung had looked at me with that same warm, steady expression as always, and said I was pitiful.

Just like Baek Hyeji once said, something about Ji Yeonseo was deeply wrong. And because he couldn’t just let it slide… he told me, we should date.

“…Who do you think you are? Who are you to pity me?”

Did I ask for that? Did you ask me to date you because of it?

When I first entered high school, I struggled to fit in. My homeroom teacher assigned me a seat next to the nicest, most well-liked girl in the class. She had lots of friends, a bright personality, and she took her “mission” very seriously. Eating lunch with me, sitting next to me… But whenever she waved to her friends across the room, there was a lightness to her, like she was putting down a heavy bag just for a moment to rest somewhere comfortable.

She didn’t need to carry that weight because of me. So I refused first. I told her I didn’t want to hang out. Ironically, she looked hurt. Even though she was the one treating me like baggage.

Seokyung’s confession felt exactly like that. All of it — just because he pitied me.

Still… still…

“…If you had just asked me one more time…”

I probably would’ve said yes, pretending I couldn’t resist. Not because I was lonely like with Kim Eunho, not because I needed a friend — but because it was you, Seokyung. That would’ve been enough. Just once would have been enough.

I wiped my eyes before the tears could fall. I wasn’t going to cry anymore. But then, just as I was forcing my steps to stay brisk, my shoulder was grabbed from behind.

“You really mean it?”

His face was no longer cold or calm.

“Ji Yeonseo, you really don’t want me?”

His breathing was heavy, his face flushed, his eyes on the verge of crumbling as they looked down at me.

“You really hate me because you pity me?”

“…”

“Even if I give up the scholarship — you’d still hate me?”

My throat tightened. The tears I’d just wiped away blurred my vision again, slipping down my cheeks. His gaze followed each one, making my chest ache.

“Yeonseo… I’ll do better. Still no?”

“…Hh.”

I couldn’t help it. The tears burst out, full of guilt and sadness.

He pulled me into his arms. My cheek pressed against the crisp, sun-dried fabric of his shirt — warm and solid.

“I like you, Yeonseo…”

Something inside me cracked open.

“I like you.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist. His embrace tightened, holding me closer.

“I’m sorry, Seokyung… for saying something so cruel. That’s not what I meant, I—”

“You can say anything to me. Curse, complain, tear me down — I don’t care. But… don’t say you don’t like me.”

“I’m the one who feels pathetic. You’re fine, Yeonseo. You’re more than fine.”

His whisper brushed against my ear, over and over. It’s okay. You’re fine. Just stay by my side. It looped endlessly in my head.

Late August. Summer was fading, the green leaves wrapping around us like a hidden shelter.

***

It felt awkward afterward. Crying always left me with that feeling, but today, it was even stronger. I turned slightly, checking my reflection in a small mirror. My eyes were red and puffy. Hideous.

“You look pretty.”

I glanced at him.

“…From an aesthetic perspective?”

“No. From the very personal perspective of Cha Seokyung.”

“…”

My face heated instantly. The cicadas in the nearby park were still crying their hearts out — the final peak of their short lives. Who was it that told me that?

His voice cut through their song.

“You asked me what I wanted to do with you, right?”

I turned my head. It was the face I knew well — but now I understood the meaning in his eyes.

“In the mornings, let’s ride my bike to school together. At lunch, let’s hold hands and eat. If one of us finishes class early, we’ll wait for the other. And whenever you want to go somewhere or do something… I want to be the first person you think of.”

I still don’t understand how pitying me has anything to do with liking me.

“I know what you’re afraid of.”

“…”

“I’ll always be around. Just within sight whenever you look around. So—”

He drew in a shallow breath.

“Just once… will you let yourself be swept away by me?”

In his eyes, a dark ocean churned. He held out his hand, asking me to be pulled into that current with him — just once.

Would it be okay to step into those waters, not knowing how deep or strong the tide was?
If I did, would I realize, like my PE teacher once said, that this was the ocean I was meant to swim in?

If I just entrusted myself to your current, just once…

“…Seokyung, can you promise me one thing?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t change because of me.”

“…?”

“I don’t want you to change because of me.”

Stay as you are — calm, steady. Like a still surface of water. I’ve seen people who loved me change and grow tired until they left. I didn’t want him to be one of them.

He hesitated, then nodded slowly.

I stood from the bench and offered my hand.

“Let’s go home.”

His gaze fell to my fingers before his much larger hand reached out to take mine — not just holding, but intertwining our fingers, gripping tightly. My ears warmed at the contact.

“This was also on my list of things I wanted to do with you.” He said it without looking at me, his own ears glowing red under the setting sun.

We walked slowly to my place, swinging our linked hands, teasing each other along the way.

The sharp memories of leaving my stepmother and siblings yesterday, the rocky start of the new semester, the emptiness of going home to no one — all of it faded.

Before I knew it, my lips kept twitching upward.

“Seokyung, when did you first want to date me? Was it when we went to Yonghosan Park?”

“…”

“What did you like first? My looks, right? Then you found out I had a great personality too, and—pff—”

“Even you think the personality part’s a joke, huh?” he teased, smirking down at me.

“What about you?”

“What?”

“When did you start liking me, Ji Yeonseo?”

Huh?

“I never actually said I liked you.”

“…What?”

He stopped walking, staring at me. His face cooled as he realized I might be telling the truth.

“Yeonseo, then what is this? If you don’t like me, why—”

He trailed off, like he was scared of what I’d say.

“Hurry up and say it. Say you like me.”

Why did he look so cute like that? I wanted to tease him.

“I’ll tell you later. Depending on how you act.”

“…You’re pissing me off.”

And then he lifted our joined hands and kissed the back of mine.

When I blinked at him, startled, he added, “Because you’re annoying. That’s your punishment.”

I couldn’t help laughing. We kept walking, still swinging our fingers like kids on a field trip.

“…Hey, Seokyung, can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“How did you and Hyeji become friends?”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised I brought her up. But Baek Hyeji’s words kept floating around my head.

After a short pause, he answered carefully.

“Hyeji’s the daughter of the woman who used to be our housekeeper.”

“She practically lived at my house back then,” he added.

It clicked instantly.

“We went to the same school. I found out she was the housekeeper’s daughter by chance. After school, we’d wait at my place until her mom got off work. That’s how my brother met her too. I didn’t introduce them.”

I nodded. He glanced at me.

“When my brother comes home on leave, I’ll introduce you.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll tell him you’re my girlfriend.”

Girlfriend. Just those two syllables sent my heart into overdrive.

“Then you tell your people I’m your boyfriend.”

The summer evening light seemed to burn my face where he looked at me. His own face flushed, eyes darting away as he coughed into his hand.

Heat rushed up my neck. I could hardly breathe. Summer heat really is the worst.