Mint Is Pure Love - Chapter 73

“You really don’t know the meaning of ‘just enough,’ do you?”

That was something Yang Jisoo had been told since she was a kid. Unlike her friends or teachers who criticized her for it, her father actually encouraged that side of her. He used to say, “If you don’t know how to do things ‘just enough,’ you can get more out of life. Just like you’re doing now.”

“Here. Drink this.”

A warm glass bottle, fresh out of the heated display case, was held out in front of Jisoo, who was still sniffling while sitting on a plastic chair in front of a convenience store a little off the busy street.

“…I don’t even like honey tea that much,” Jisoo mumbled, her nose stuffed.

“Ha.”

Yeonseo blew a little puff of air to push her bangs aside, then cracked the bottle open right in front of her.

“Doesn’t matter if you like it or not. I already bought it, so drink.”

Jisoo hesitated, then finally took it from her hand. After a small sip, she must’ve decided it wasn’t bad because she took several more gulps. The warmth sliding down her throat calmed her, and her crying began to subside.

Yeonseo pushed the bag she had placed on the table back toward Jisoo.

“I picked up everything that fell, but I don’t know if anything’s missing. Looked like you dropped an earring earlier too. Was it expensive?”

“……”

“See, that’s why you should zip your bag,” Yeonseo muttered as she dragged it over and zipped it shut herself.

“…Why do you keep pretending to be nice?”

The voice made her glance back. Jisoo, her nose red and eyes swollen, was staring straight at her.

It was something you’d normally take offense to, but strangely, Yeonseo wasn’t upset. Jisoo’s tone was mushy, like a sentence soaked in water, stripped of any bite or venom.

“At the MT, when I showed up in Jungdo, even now, why didn’t you get angry? Why didn’t you make that face, like you were glad things turned out this way, like you were happy?”

“…Because I’m not happy about it?”

“I mean, I dated Seokyung oppa for real. Isn’t a guy’s ex supposed to be annoying? Just the kind of person you don’t even want to look at?”

Of course it hurt. Pretending otherwise would’ve been a lie. But instead of saying all that, Yeonseo simply shrugged.

“…Well, I don’t attack women.”

She shoved her phone into Jisoo’s hand, ignoring the baffled look she got back.

“Don’t go home alone. Call someone to come pick you up. I’ve got people waiting…”

Her own phone buzzed in her back pocket. Probably Seokyung. She thought she should pick up on her way back, and was just about to stand when Jisoo’s voice caught her.

“…You’ve never been bullied before, have you?”

“……”

“That’s why. That’s why you can be like that. Someone like me, who’s pretty, and comes from a decent family, people think that means they get to say whatever they want to me. Once you’ve been through that, you can’t help but grow thorns.”

Yeonseo looked down at her. Ah. So this was why. Why she couldn’t bring herself to ignore Jisoo. Because in some way… she saw herself. Different methods, same instinct. Yeonseo too had once lived with her own thorns out.

She thought of those days, setting boundaries in every relationship, keeping things light, never naming anything. What would she tell her younger self if she could?

“Jisoo, do you know what confirmation bias is?”

The blank look on Jisoo’s face was answer enough.

“It’s when you set up a theory in your head and only accept the information that fits it. Basically, you only see people the way you’ve already decided to see them. People tend to believe what they want to believe.”

“……”

“If someone decides they hate me, then they’ll only ever notice things to hate. Even if they sneeze, I’ll take it as proof they hate me. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t matter, it just feels that way.”

Whether they truly hated her, or whether there was anything actually hateful about her at all, maybe it was all an illusion.

“Rumors work the same way. Once one gets stuck in your head, it’s all you can see.”

Ji Yeonseo, cold-hearted b1tch. Figures. That’s how rumors were.

A faint, unsettling thought flitted through Yeonseo’s mind, too fleeting to fully grasp.

“…What I mean is, don’t trust other people’s eyes too much. Or even your own. Just because someone seems to hate you, or you think you hate someone… doesn’t mean it’s real.”

“……”

“So don’t keep all those thorns up. You don’t need them.”

Maybe this was exactly what she wanted to tell her eighteen-year-old self. Yeonseo, you don’t need to live bristling like that. Even if you don’t, some people will still hate you and some will still love you.

Shaking her head free of the thought, she continued, “Anyway, get home safe. Honestly, I’d rather not run into you again. And…”

The words she hadn’t managed to say at the café last time, the words that left her feeling like she’d lost, she finally let them out.

“I like Cha Seokyung.”

That pebble of a feeling inside her, wedged deep and unshakable, still gleaming.

“But… there are reasons why I couldn’t say it properly.”

They’d promised from the beginning to keep it light, let it go easily.

“I know you’re not the type to play Cupid, so you won’t say anything.”

With that, Yeonseo pushed her plastic chair back and stood.

“Alright then. Goodbye.”

The night breeze felt especially chilly today. As her phone buzzed again in her pocket, she thought she’d better hurry back. But just then Jisoo exploded.

“Wake up, unnie! What’s so great about a heartless bastard like him?!”

“……”

“Sh1t… I chased him for a year. If he were human, he should’ve cared at least a little! Don’t you think so?!”

Her words came out half-sob, half-growl.

Jisoo had believed indifference was better than hatred. That starting from zero was more promising than starting from negative. She thought softening up a man who didn’t care was easy.

But the man she’d devoted herself to for a year never budged. Not even a crack, not a flicker of human warmth. Whether she was beside him or not, whatever she said, he gave nothing back.

“I was the one who spread the rumor that we were dating. That’s true.”

And when confronted, he hadn’t said no. Not yes, either—but still. Since he let the rumors circulate without denial, she thought she had a chance.

“My dad told me once, if someone lifts the tent flap for you, you shove your whole body inside. If you stop halfway, you’ll never get anywhere.”

But who asked him to lift the flap in the first place? If he didn’t want her, he should’ve shut her out from the start. So wasn’t it his fault for leaving her hope?

“I spread the rumor, yeah! But he should’ve told me to stop if he hated it, shouldn’t he?!”

She remembered his empty eyes, his expressionless face, like a scarecrow in human clothes. Even back then she’d thought, he wouldn’t flinch even if someone stole right in front of him, or hit him. And maybe, she thought, that was her chance.

But her warped way of thinking had crumbled that night at Gangchon Station, when he shoved her into the backseat, then dumped her there and drove off.

Even so, she had gone all the way to Jungdo for one last desperate attempt. Because she didn’t know how to do “just enough.” Especially not with someone like Cha Seokyung.

“Ha…”

What was she even saying? Yeonseo found herself baffled. Did she really have to sit here and listen to her boyfriend’s ex rant?

“…Breaking up works like that. You’re supposed to be cold.”

“Cold because we broke up?” Jisoo chewed her bare lower lip, smearing away the last trace of lipstick.

“Funny. You have to date first to even break up.”

“……”

“What does dating mean, anyway? Just sticking a label on it? Don’t you have to spend time together, hold hands, kiss, sleep together? I don’t even know where he lives.”

She scoffed. How do you break up when you were never really together?

“It’s not that he got cold after a breakup. Cha Seokyung’s just that kind of person. Someone like you would never actually like someone like him. So unnie, wake up.”

Yeonseo should’ve felt indignant at the warning. But instead, another thought gnawed at her.

“…What are you even saying right now?”

Jisoo’s sharp gaze cut through the vagueness of all her earlier words.

“I never dated Cha Seokyung.”

God, how humiliating. She bit her lip, muttering low.

“At first it was half a slip of the tongue. I admit that. But then… I got greedy. Why’d he lift the tent flap, huh? Wasn’t it because he left me hope? He never denied it, never corrected me. He let me say whatever I wanted.”

“…Oppa, he was fine with all of it. He accepted it all…”

Her voice shook.

“But in the end, we weren’t even as close as strangers. Do you know how painful it is to chase someone for a year, without even knowing their number, their address, what they do day to day? No human should be that cold.”

And just like that, a year had passed. Until he finally warned her to stop her foolishness. And even that thin, nameless connection blew away.

Yeonseo was dazed. The facts in her head and the truth from Jisoo’s mouth clashed, warped, shifted. The memories of Seokyung’s hand around her, his tears, their reunion, flashed through her.

“Yang Jisoo. If she upset you… I’ll apologize.”

“She’s not a bad kid. Just… a little clumsy.”

Yeonseo swept her cold forehead back with a hand. Even her fingertips were chilled. Cha Seokyung, what were you thinking? Her voice wavered.

“…He thinks about you a lot.”

So much warmth in the way he said it, it ached to remember.

Jisoo let out a bitter laugh.

“Ha. And you know why? Because of you, unnie.”

“……”

“It was all for you to see.”

Her whisper was almost a confession. Thanks to you, I was treated like a girlfriend, for the first and only time.

In that entire year, under the empty title of “girlfriend,” had they even exchanged twenty words? Did he know a single thing about her? Jisoo doubted it.

“…But I know you, unnie. Ji Yeonseo. The girl Cha Seokyung cried out for.”

Yeonseo stared back, confused, but Jisoo only shrugged.

She didn’t want to help anymore. Not after remembering the way he’d dismissed her. “Don’t make Yeonseo upset.” Every last bit of affection had drained out.

With nothing more to say, Yeonseo pushed back her chair again and stood. Strangely, the night breeze no longer felt cold. She was about to leave without another word when she suddenly asked,

“You said you two were going to get married, didn’t you?”

For the first time, Jisoo flinched. That was all the answer Yeonseo needed.

“…You heard that from Polylog 02, Yoo Sojung, didn’t you?”

“……”

“She asked me if it was true. Like I’d just been dumped one-sidedly.”

Was it malice? Or just stupidity? Yeonseo turned away, leaving Jisoo with the foolish look of a child who’d made a mistake.

Slowly, she walked back up the path she’d come down. Not long ago, she’d walked down a similar path, carried on someone’s back.

“…Yeonseo, don’t you have anything you want to ask me?”

“Don’t you want to know the truth, or check for yourself?”

All those rumors, Yeonseo had never once asked, never once demanded an explanation. She just believed them. Ridiculously, even while liking Seokyung, she believed the ugly rumors about him.

Even though she herself had denied countless rumors about her in high school, she never questioned his.

Maybe because he never corrected them either.

But the thought disgusted her. How could I? How could I take rumors about the person I love at face value? How could I just accept them so easily?

“……”

And yet, the strongest feeling inside her now was undeniable.

The ache of knowing there were parts of Cha Seokyung’s past she didn’t know. Parts where he loved someone else. The time she tried to soothe herself, telling herself it was fine, telling herself she had to accept it because she hadn’t been there. The guilt of pushing those feelings down, convincing herself even that sadness was wrong.

The moments she told herself not to interfere when he walked away with Jisoo. The moments she convinced herself she had to understand him, even when he apologized on Jisoo’s behalf.

“Yeonseo!”

A voice called from afar. She lifted her head, instantly recognizing the man running toward her. His bangs stuck to his sweaty forehead, his face etched with worry.

“Yeonseo, where have you—”

“Cha Seokyung.”

Because she liked him, she respected his past feelings too. But now—

Her gaze, usually soft, now carried a sharp edge that pierced right through him. His heart sank. Her voice reached him, cold as ice.

“…Cha Seokyung, what the hell are you?”