Na Eun’s eyes widened.

What? Before she could ask, he apologized to her again with an unusually serious face.

“I didn’t know you were that stressed. I’m sorry for speaking so lightly.”

“…”

“But I’m not taking back what I said about reducing your part-time work. You are overdoing it these days.”

I was the one who did wrong, but he’s the one apologizing.

She was so embarrassed by this strange situation that she couldn’t say anything more.

Hee Won, who had helped her, been scolded, and then apologized first, checked his watch as if nothing had happened.

“You need to stay for 10 more minutes to finish the IV. Lie down. I’ll go buy some drinks.”

You need to drink a lot of fluids.

Adding that, as Hee Won got up, Na Eun hastily grabbed his sleeve.

“What?”

His expression, calmly asking if she wanted something else to drink, was as peaceful as if nothing had happened.

Na Eun faced Hee Won and moved her lips a few times, but then firmly closed them.

Hee Won waited quietly for Na Eun, who hesitated for over a minute, without a single complaint.

…Finally, what came out of her mouth was a sincere apology instead of the truth.

“…I’m sorry. You were trying to help me, but I spoke unkindly.”

She admitted that she had been irritable due to exam stress and had taken it out on him unfairly.

It wasn’t the truth, but it was close to a sincere apology.

Hee Won roughly wiped away the tears that had started to roll down Na Eun’s eyes with his palm.

With a rough but affectionate touch, as if dealing with a young sister.

Na Eun inwardly sighed at the tears that had been bursting out only when she was alone lately, now coming out at such a bad timing.

She quickly dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve and smiled to change the mood.

“I’m really terrible. I did wrong, and now I’m the one crying.”

This is the thing I hate most, and now I’m doing it.

As she said this, Na Eun suddenly seemed to remember something and said with a forced laugh.

“Sorry. You must be really annoyed right now.”

I tried not to cry in front of you. It was something she said remembering Seo Hee Won frowning with a genuinely annoyed face on some autumn night, saying ‘It’s irritating when someone cries’ to an unnamed person.

It was half a joke, but Hee Won just stared at Na Eun blankly.

He raised his hand again to wipe Na Eun’s soaked cheeks and said.

“…I’m not annoyed.”

Then suddenly, as if something bothered him, he hesitated and corrected his words.

“…But don’t cry.”

“Because it annoys you?”

“…”

Hee Won silently looked at Na Eun, who was now smiling broadly as the mood had lightened.

Because it makes my heart sink.

Unable to answer so honestly, Hee Won could do nothing but smile bitterly at his own patheticness.

Taking Hee Won’s advice to adjust her schedule, Na Eun returned to working as an assistant instructor at the academy only on weekends.

As a result, she couldn’t waste the study time that opened up on weekdays, so she decided to fill the three empty hours between the end of school and before tutoring with exam preparation.

There was a clear difference in motivation between working for money and studying for herself, so she was able to concentrate better than usual.

Since the school library and study cafes were already full due to the exam period, Na Eun barely managed to secure a seat at a large cafe quite far from school and was able to open her major textbooks.

Na Eun, who had been so dependent on coffee in high school that she was teased as a caffeine addict, couldn’t break the habit this time either and added four extra shots to her Americano. Out of conscience, she also ordered a strawberry cake to prepare for sitting for a long time.

It was less because she wanted to eat it and more because it felt like she was properly paying for her seat.

Although there were quite a few college students studying at the cafe besides Na Eun, there were also many other people who came to hang out, so the second floor of the cafe was bustling.

Na Eun concentrated on her studies without wavering, as moderate noise was better for concentration than complete silence.

She was already realizing through experience that immersing oneself in something was the easiest way to forget current distress.

After sitting like that for about an hour, transferring the notes she had summarized so far into her textbook, Na Eun held her breath when she noticed someone suddenly sitting down in the empty seat across from her.

“You still haven’t broken the habit of relying on caffeine when studying.”

Placing a new drink in a disposable cup next to Na Eun’s pen-holding hand, and pulling the half-empty Americano that had been beside her towards himself, Jae Kyung smiled gently.

Unlike before, he wasn’t wearing glasses and was in casual clothes.

At a glance, he could be mistaken for a college student, or even a office worker out on a holiday.

He looked like someone who could exist in any form he desired.

Na Eun’s hand holding the pen trembled slightly, but such a faint tremor wasn’t very noticeable.

Jae Kyung seemed pleased with her much less agitated appearance compared to their previous encounter, and smiled.

Na Eun instinctively rolled her eyes to check the many customers and staff in the cafe.

There are many people, it’s a public place, and it’s daytime now. …If something was going to happen, it would have happened already. It meant that at least for now, she was safe.

“…Did you come to check if I’m keeping my mouth shut?”

Jae Kyung looked at Na Eun, who asked calmly, with a somewhat surprised expression, then soon smiled slightly.

It had been nearly two weeks since they had encountered each other in the elevator that day.

Back then, she couldn’t even say a word properly, but after two weeks, Jae Kyung seemed amused by Na Eun’s nonchalant act and nodded.

“That’s part of it. I also came because I missed you.”

“…”

“Didn’t you miss me?”

Throughout their dating period, saying ‘I miss you’ was as natural as breathing between them.

Jae Kyung always asked back. Didn’t you miss me?

Na Eun’s answer to that question had always been the same.

“Why should I miss you?”

Facing his ex-girlfriend, who was giving a completely different answer from what remained in his memory, Jae Kyung said kindly.

“Because you must have wanted to kill me.”

“…”

“Did you think about me every day?”

How much did you think about me? How did you want to kill me? Did you imagine killing me? His dark eyes, seemingly asking such questions, were fixed on Na Eun from just a short distance away.

Na Eun, who had been blank for a moment as if at a loss for words at Jae Kyung’s words, soon let out a small, hollow laugh.

Jae Kyung’s smile briefly stiffened at her reaction, as if she had heard a question not even worth considering.

Na Eun removed the earphone she had been wearing in one ear while studying, and said without hiding her incredulous expression.

“Jae Kyung.”

Jae Kyung’s shoulders stiffened slightly at hearing his name from her after three years, but Na Eun didn’t notice. She didn’t need to know.

“It’s true that you tormented me for three years. My body still trembles like this just thinking about you.”

Na Eun spread her hand that had been holding the pen on the table.

Jae Kyung’s eyes fell on the slightly trembling palm. Towards Jae Kyung, who was silently looking at it, Na Eun said.

“But so what.”

“…”

“Did you think I would dream of something like revenge against you because of that?”

As if asking if he really expected that, with a gaze looking down on the lowest of lives, Na Eun sneered.

“Why should I waste my time on that? You’re obviously a villain destined to lose to the hero anyway.”

“…”

“I struggled for a long time in the misery you left behind. I’m still in the middle of it, but someday I’ll get out of there. And I’ll steadily prepare to be happy again. In the meantime, you can just meet a miserable end, defeated by heroes like a proper villain should.”

“…”

“I’m too busy trying to be happy again to have any mental energy to spare for you. That’s why I didn’t even ask my friends about whether you were alive or dead after that incident. Whether you lived or died that day, it no longer had any meaning for me.”

You may be the culprit who twisted my past and made me unhappy, but that doesn’t mean you can control my future too.

The voice, cold as thin ice, struck Jae Kyung’s ears unfamiliarly.

Overlapping the young face that always had flushed cheeks and chattered about liking him, Jae Kyung’s eyes showed an incomprehensible complexity.

But before Na Eun could notice it, he erased it from the surface and sneered at her with his characteristic sardonic smile.

“You’re really kind after all. Seeing that you don’t even want to get revenge on the man who ruined your life.”

Ha. This time, Na Eun laughed out loud.

As soon as she heard Jae Kyung’s words, she let out a scornful laugh, full of disbelief, and looking straight at Jae Kyung, she retorted.

“Who ruined whose life? Is my life ruined just because my family became a bit poorer and my father passed away?”

Na Eun, in a tone more resolute than ever, mockingly threw back at Jae Kyung exactly what she had received.

“That was a tragedy, but it doesn’t mean my life is ruined. I still have a long life ahead of me. How could someone like you ruin my life?”

“…”

“You were just a big trial that came into my life. When I’m fifty, sixty, and become a grandmother looking back on my life, you’ll be nothing more than an anecdote I can tell my grandchildren, ‘You can get through even things like that, dear.'”

Jae Kyung’s expression hardened.

Seeing his lips gradually turning down, Na Eun delivered the final blow.

“You ask why I haven’t asked anyone about whether you’re alive or dead all this time? It’s obvious, Jae Kyung.”

Whether you’re alive or dead, how old you really are, what your real name is, why you did that to me – I won’t bother to ask any of it, and no one needs to answer.

You just need to disappear from my life and never show up again.

Na Eun looked at Jae Kyung as if asking if he still didn’t know that and smiled.

Jae Kyung-.

“I’m not curious about anything about you anymore.”