New Normal - Chapter 71

Jisoo idly traced the rim of the teacup on the table, her gaze fixed beyond the café window. Her eyes wavered ever so slightly, searching for a familiar silhouette among the passing strangers.
Like an unfinished canvas abandoned mid-stroke, Song Woohyun had, at the height of his brilliance, suddenly covered everything up and disappeared without warning.

Just recalling their last moment together made her heart sink, like coffee gone cold and bitter.

“I’m leaving the country next month.”

The voice in her memory still rang vividly in her ears.

Their meeting place had been a small café tucked into an alley near the university district, ironically, the same one they had frequented when dating, and the same place they had come to on the day they broke up.

Jisoo took a sip of her coffee, the taste now tinged with the bitterness of that recollection.

“Shin Jisoo?”

A familiar voice brushed past her ear, accompanied by the weight of measured footsteps. Her gaze shot toward the source of the sound, and for a moment, her breath caught at the sight of him.

“Why were you here so early?”

It was Song Woohyun.

He smiled faintly, but he had changed, almost to the point of being unrecognizable. The warmth in his bright eyes remained, but the awkward, innocent young man in a checkered shirt and horn-rimmed glasses was nowhere to be found.

His hair, once falling over his forehead, was neatly swept back. The well-tailored charcoal suit accentuated his tall frame and squared shoulders, giving him a polished, refined air. Only the pure yet deep light in his eyes behind his round silver frames was the same as before.

“Jisoo, it’s been a while.”

His low, gentle voice caught her off guard, and for a moment, she couldn’t find her words.

“Uh… yeah. It has.”

Hearing her evasive reply, Woohyun smiled again and took the seat across from her.

“You even ordered for me? You didn’t have to, sorry for the trouble.”

“It’s fine.”

Jisoo averted her eyes, realizing she’d remembered his preference without thinking, and the fact that she had startled her even more.

She brushed her cheek with her hand, trying to steady herself. Woohyun lifted his cup with a smile.

“Vanilla latte? Thanks. I’ll enjoy it.”

The ease with which he carried on the conversation, as if to erase the years between them, almost made her feel as though she had slipped back into the past. But the man before her was no longer the shy, clumsy student in his twenties.

When she found herself staring at him, unable to look away, Woohyun, sensing her gaze, awkwardly ran a hand through his hair.

“Feels a bit awkward, huh? I got new glasses, and I cut my hair.”

“No, it… it suits you.”

Her tone was short and even, but her eyes kept drifting toward the table. Sitting here with him now, she was unsettled, forgetting both the moment they broke up and the existence of Chae Juwon.

A heavy silence settled between them, much like the one that had filled the air the day they parted.

That day, too, Woohyun had shown up looking resolute as if he had made an important decision. They had once weighed their futures together: whether he would continue his doctorate in his advisor’s lab or get a job. But suddenly, without warning, he announced he was going abroad to study alone.

With no real explanation or convincing reason, the abruptness of that farewell had left Jisoo reeling. Sensing her guardedness in the silence, Woohyun was about to speak when Jisoo beat him to it.

“When did you come back to Korea?”

“Permanently? This summer. But I was in and out since spring for evaluations.”

“So it’s been a while.”

“Yeah. Had some lectures and the final interview with the university president…”

“Congrats on your appointment. I guess I’m a bit late, it’s already past midterms.”

Her congratulations was dry, like something one would offer an old colleague. Woohyun gave a faint, unreadable smile.

“Thanks. Honestly, I got lucky. I didn’t expect to land a tenure-track position right after finishing my postdoc.”

“You always had the best research record in Professor Cha’s lab. And you worked hard overseas too. You earned it.”

He watched her as she spoke, her eyes still avoiding his. A shadow briefly crossed his expression.

“Jisoo.”

The careful way he said her name made her look up. In his eyes lay the weight of long-held guilt and regret.

“The reason I asked to see you… It’s late, but I wanted to sincerely apologize.”

“It’s fine. That was a long time ago.”

She tried to sound indifferent, but her voice trembled almost imperceptibly. Woohyun caught it, his own tone turning somber.

“No. I shouldn’t have done that. Leaving like that was cowardly. And I never even explained to you why I did it.”

Jisoo lowered her head as heavy emotions rose from deep within her chest.

His announcement of studying abroad had come not long after he’d met her mother. Though they hadn’t been physically intimate, Jisoo had considered him seriously enough to introduce him to her family, and thinking of marriage.

Their first meeting had been nothing unusual, like many student couples. During her senior summer break, while preparing for grad school, she attended an academic conference with some upperclassmen.

Woohyun, an undergraduate majoring in materials engineering, had dropped by out of interest in the humanities and arts. By chance, he ended up sitting right in front of her during a presentation. Even as a student from another field, he asked surprisingly deep questions, which piqued her curiosity.

They quickly became close during the afterparty, kept in touch, and by the start of the next semester, they were dating. They were together for two and a half years.

He had been with her through an important stage of her life. Though their majors were different, their tastes, habits, and ways of thinking matched. They could share both intellectual discussions and emotional resonance. They even shared the background of coming from divorced families due to their fathers’ infidelity.

Early in their relationship, she had accidentally revealed that she still saw her father, and without meaning to, had to bare her family’s wounds. Woohyun had understood her completely, and unlike past boyfriends, he never pressured her for s3x, respecting her boundaries.

He was someone she could talk to all night about anything, from silly jokes to philosophical debates. They could walk from Gwanghwamun to Namdaemun and on to Seoul Station without feeling tired, or simply sit by the Han River listening to music and feel content.

Even as a fellow student, he did his best for her both financially and emotionally. Once, he even saved up several months’ worth of his research stipend and tutoring income to give her a lavish gift.

Whenever she felt fear about the future, pain about the past, or unease in the present, he was her anchor. He was a confidant she could tell things even her closest friends didn’t know.

That was why his sudden breakup had been so hard to accept. She had imagined countless reasons for it, sometimes even blaming herself.

Woohyun now spoke quietly, eyes downcast.

“Jisoo, back then… I always felt like I wasn’t enough. For you, for everyone. I never showed it, but being by your side, I felt small.”

Jisoo looked at him, her fingers still absently tracing her cup’s rim. It was the first time she’d heard this, but it didn’t surprise her. Looking back, he had always underestimated himself, often growing anxious comparing himself to others.

“I wanted to be someone better before standing next to you. But I never had the confidence. And I thought I couldn’t make you happy like that. I thought… if I improved myself, then I could stand proudly beside you.”

The emotions she had buried long ago stirred again, heavy and painful. With time, she had come to understand him a little, even if she hadn’t back then. But knowing it with her head didn’t erase the wound left in her heart by being abandoned by someone she had leaned on so deeply.

“Jisoo.”

His voice was deeper now, tinged with desperation.

“Not talking to you first about something so important, expecting you to just understand, that was wrong. But I couldn’t bear the thought of you seeing me fail. I know it was foolish. I know it was selfish. But at the time… I couldn’t think about anything except myself.”

Jisoo gripped her cup tighter. And strangely, she thought of Chae Juwon.

Juwon was different from Woohyun, he always confident, always composed, but just as clumsy at showing his true feelings. Even when he cared deeply, he avoided revealing his heart at critical moments, making big decisions alone and simply informing her afterward. The resemblance to Woohyun in that habit was uncanny.

The difference was, Woohyun had acted out of not wanting to show his weakness. Juwon… didn’t even have that reason.

Jisoo drew in a deep breath. Sitting here with Woohyun now, only one thought filled her mind.

[I’m flying back from New York tomorrow. Let’s meet when I return. Please make time for me.]

What was she going to do about Chae Juwon? No, what did she want to do?

The sense of betrayal and unease felt eerily similar yet distinct from the day Woohyun had broken up with her. And it hurt in the same way to realize that the two men she had trusted most had, in their most important moments, shut her out.