He put one hand against her lower back and leaned in, pressing his cheek against the side of her head. His lips were nearly touching her earlobe as he whispered, "I'm still a man, you know? You shouldn't let a man into your room at night so easily."...
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Haneul texted Sungwoon back, telling him that she agreed to meeting up with him.
The two sat on a small, brown, wooden table on the second floor of a café. Haneul had her hood up all the way and tightened the strings. She had an egg look, while Sungwoon had a tan cap pulled over his head.
"I came here to tell you the truth about why I broke up with you and dated someone else," he said.
Haneul silently nodded, staring at her cup of tea. The steam hit her face, warming her up from the cold of South Korea. The steam wasn't the only thing that warmed her up. Her heart beating rapidly and her anxiety made her blood rush to her face. She felt dizzy in ways that could be described in saddening ways.
She remembered feeling this type of dizzy when she saw Sungwoon with another girl. It was the type of dizzy someone would feel if they had a burning fever and tried to run a mile.
Haneul's throat was clogged with her thick saliva. She wanted to raise her teacup to drink from it, but she knew that she wouldn't achieve much with her shaking hands.
"I'm sorry for everything that happened in high school. I'm sorry about how I played you. That girl you saw—I never loved her. I wouldn't even call it dating her because... She bribed me, Haneul. My grandfather's farm was going to be taken away by the bank, but her family was rich, while ours was poor. She agreed to pay for the expenses as long as I dated her to make her friends jealous."
Haneul finally looked up, but she didn't look at him. She stared out the window and brought her knuckles to her mouth, resting her lips on her knuckles.
"You could have just told me. I would have never blabbed," she replied.
"I couldn't take chances," Sungwoon said.
"Then I guess you just didn't trust me enough."
"Don't be like that, Haneul. I'm not one of those crappy exes in a high school drama movie. I'm not the bad boy that turned good. I'm not the wolf hiding in sheep's clothing. I'm a human being who you used to be in love with."
"Used to, Sungwoon. I loved you—I did—but you hurt me so much. You were my first everything. My first true love, my first time, and my first heartbreak. Maybe we could have been more if you just told me the truth."
"Maybe we couldn't have," he interjected. "What if I did tell you the truth, but you didn't like that I was dating her? What if you knew the truth and couldn't handle not being together? Because fuck, I couldn't handle it either. I couldn't stand the thought of being alone with another girl and pretend that I loved her, and all for what? For money? It saved my grandfather's farm and it was worth the pain. I can't pick against blood. If your mother was dying of cancer, would you jump at the chance to save her?"
Haneul sighed. "Yeah, I would."
"Well, there you go," he replied, throwing his hands in the air.
"Your grandfather wasn't dying."
"Does that part really matter? Blood is blood, family is family, and love is love. Haneul, it's been six years since we broke up. If I'm here now to apologize and explain myself, doesn't that mean I still care for you? Or do you think I'm just doing this to get a good laugh out of it? Because if you do, then you really have changed."
Sungwoon stood up to leave after leaving a ten dollar bill on the table. Haneul stayed seated, but called out to him when he was about to walk down the stairs.
"What do you want me to do? Say 'thank you for the crappy high school experience?' Would it make you happy if you knew that I still loved you after you broke up with me? Would it make you happy if you knew that I still carry a picture of us in my wallet?" she asked, staring straight into his eyes.
Sungwoon's mouth gaped open. His angry and hostile stature from before dissolved after hearing Haneul's words. She didn't let her guard down and continued to stare at him.
"Do you really carry a picture of me in your wallet?" he asked, taking out his own wallet. "Because I do too." He opened his wallet and showed her a photo of the two of them. It was the exact same photo that Haneul had in her wallet.
