Mint Is Pure Love - Chapter 75
B Side ❚❚
Hyung, emotions don’t last that long, do they? Love, sadness, happiness, none of those things can really endure.
I mean, I can tell just from how, even when I come looking for you, it doesn’t hurt like it used to. So I believe even these feelings I have right now won’t stick around for long. What else could they be but some memories from my green, naïve years, clinging to someone I can’t even meet again? Right?
There’s no such thing as an emotion that never fades. Just like there’s no color never dulls. That kind of thing is impossible.
***
September, 2003.
“Lee Hyuntaek.”
“Yes.”
“Jang Sunhee.”
“Here.”
“Cha Seokyung.”
“…Yes.”
Instead of calling the next name, the man with the rimmed glasses raised his head and looked straight at me. With thirty-something students around, I didn’t even need to guess who he was searching for when my name came again.
“Cha Seokyung.”
“Yes.”
“Come to my office after class. We need to talk.”
I probably knew why he wanted me, but I didn’t feel like objecting. Didn’t even have the energy for it. I just nodded.
When the lecture was finally over, I was dragging my feet, shoving my books into my bag when a high-pitched, overly friendly voice cut in.
“You’re probably being called in because you skip too many classes. Professor Yoo is really strict about attendance. But if you hand in extra assignments, he usually lets it slide. Want me to show you my notes?”
Unnecessary kindness. Meddling I didn’t ask for. And with her eyes sparkling like that, there was really only one response left for me. I swung my bag over my shoulder and walked right out of the lecture hall without a word.
***
“You know why I called you, right?”
“Yes.”
The shelves along the wall reeked of old books. Behind the broad back of the middle-aged man, the September sky stretched out—clear, piercing blue. When was the last time I even looked up at a sky like that?
“Your assignments, your exams, they’re… tolerable. Not bad, considering how little you show up. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? You barely come at all. You know you can’t pass without meeting the minimum attendance.”
“…I’ll take whatever grade you give me.”
It was always this kind of crap that annoyed me. I wasn’t in high school anymore, so why the hell did I need to be dragged in to get lectured about attendance? If I were actually scared of failing, I wouldn’t have skipped this much in the first place.
Maybe he caught what I was really thinking, because I could feel his eyes behind those gold rims weighing on me.
“Your father… he’s doing okay?”
That unexpected question made me look up. His expression had sobered a little.
“I heard about it late, from some old classmates. I thought about visiting him once… but what would he think, right? Do you go see him often?”
The places I went were predictable. The temple where my brother was. My father’s prison visits. And…
“Yes, at least once a month.”
“I actually saw you once, back in Boston. You were so small, of course you wouldn’t remember.”
“…”
“You grew up well. Your brother Jaehwan must be proud.”
The professor smiled warmly, as if he were my father himself.
“But don’t think I’ll give you any special treatment just because you’re my friend’s son. I don’t do that. You understand?”
“I’ve never expected that.”
He clicked his tongue, dissatisfied, then shoved a stack of reports and printouts across the desk toward me.
“Pick a company from here. Write an intrinsic value evaluation report. Use DCF, use PER. Don’t just crunch numbers. Include a full analysis, future projections too. At least five pages. It won’t make up for your absences completely, but I’ll give you a C.”
“…Can’t you just give me an F?”
“Shut up, kid.”
A tricky assignment for a mere second-year undergrad. Troublesome. A pain. But what did it matter? Expulsion, repeating a year. It didn’t scare me. I wasn’t that attached to any of it anyway. Just as that thought crossed my mind, there was a knock.
“Professor.”
“Oh, Jeongmin.”
Some guy came in, yammering about clubs or whatever. I half-listened until I noticed the professor’s sharp gaze turn toward me.
“Seokyung, your English isn’t bad, right? Perfect. Join this club. Jeongmin, get his number. No—actually, I’ll give it to you.”
If he hadn’t been “my father’s friend,” I would’ve scoffed and walked straight out of there. Instead, I watched the awkward idiot fumble as he saved my number, and I didn’t stop it. Honestly, even if he’d tried to take my whole phone, I might’ve let him.
Fine. Whatever. Let it be.
“Next week. Have it done by then, understood?”
His voice followed me out, as if I’d forget.
“You know, your father used to say back in college—sometimes just staring at numbers on a page clears your head better than anything.”
The door shut. My arms were full of paper. And I thought— Maybe life just continues like this. Not with grand meanings or dramatic events, but by solving a single page’s worth of problems each day. Scribble it out, crumple it up, throw it away. Then repeat. That’s all it is.
In the end, none of it amounts to more than a sheet of paper. So really, it’s all nothing. I just stared at the paper. Blankly.
A picture spread out before me, like today’s sky. Not me as I am now, but some other me, with checkered dresses and dimpled cheeks and long hair blowing in the wind.
“….”
And I hated myself. Hated how pitiful I looked, clinging to scraps of paper like a fool. I jumped up and shoved it all into the trash.
Better to just sleep. Better than this pathetic bullshit. I hadn’t even slept three hours the past couple nights. Sleep was worth more.
I’ll wake tomorrow clear-headed. Finish the damn assignment. Eat properly, go to class, even join that stupid club. Maybe even move out—list the apartment, start fresh somewhere else.
Dragging things out isn’t my way. I won’t repeat the same mistakes my mother and my brother did, always clinging, dragging. Enough is enough. This isn’t logical anymore.
It’s time to live my life properly again. Time to let go of a name that isn’t even worth a single piece of paper. I closed my eyes. The black void was easier. Comfortable. Nothing to see. I turned, shifted, counted the tick of the clock. Turned again, buried my head, covered my ears. Again, again.
And finally, I stopped denying it. Got up. Like always, when sleep refused to come, there was one solution left. Sweat it out.
I grabbed the jacket off my chair and went outside.
Night was never cold. Not when you ran hard enough for sweat to drench you through. I slipped past the familiar alleys, down the main road, looped back again, past the old delivery station where I used to toss newspapers.
Turned corner after corner. And somehow, my feet carried me to the same place. Always the same. That gate. Beneath the orange streetlight where we used to sit side by side, whispering. Where I’d leave one newspaper, and one pack of strawberry milk.
“…Ha…”
Breathless, I stopped, gulping in air. No matter how deep I breathed, it wasn’t enough. My lungs still felt clogged.
As the breath left me, another emotion surged up. I ran again. My thoughts kicked my legs into motion. I retraced streets I’d run a hundred times before, all the way back to the empty house my brother had set aside.
I yanked open the trash lid and pulled out the crumpled paper. Smoothing it out desperately, like begging for forgiveness.
“….”
“Seokyung, you’re not in your right mind.”
“Hyung, I know. But feelings like this… they fade quickly, don’t they? Right, hyung? Feelings like this are meant to fade. So…”
Before the water stains could soak into the photo, I wiped them clean. Once. Twice.
“…Ha.”
Didn’t Dad always say? That we were the dullest kids alive. But hyung, what do you think? I don’t think he was right. Just look at me now. Look how ridiculous I am. Hyung… what should I do?
Give me an answer.