Too late.

Chansik and I were too slow to leave the restaurant before they saw us.

As Woohyun was sitting facing the entrance, he saw Chan and I enter. He waved at us to come out and join him. He said a few words to Hyeri, who I remembered as the girl who always sat alone in the physics lectures, and they both scooted over to make room for us.

Distantly in my mind, I wondered why Woohyun was being so friendly to me. He had a wide, cheesy smile that never deviated from his face, plastered there, strong and true. If I wasn’t mistaken or delusional, it looked as if he was… happy to see me. It also didn’t help that my heart thumped painfully in my chest when I saw him.

It was also the first time I had properly seen him in person since his mother’s engineering dinner, where he gave me his jacket and we took a walk around his garden. He must have seen that as an act of truce. I accepted his jacket to keeo me warm, which was a parallel to accepting his apology, right? I sighed. I guess it was, because at this very moment, based on my physical reactions, I no longer had any bitter feelings for him. Just myself.

I quickly glanced at Chansik, who bit his lip and tried to explain to me in the five seconds before the waiter led us to their table. I shushed him, and nodded, signaling to him that I understood completely. I understood why he didn’t want to come into this restaurant, and I understood that this was the girl he was afraid to speak to.

Seizing this opportunity to properly introduce them, I stormed confidently to the table and greeted Woohyun and Hyeri.

Woohyun stood up, like the gentleman he was, and pulled out a chair for me – the one next to him. I’m sure this was a plan to ensure that I was the one who sat next to him, not Chansik.

He shook Chansik’s hand and made the appropriate introductions. Had Chan and Woohyun met before? I couldn’t remember. I knew that Chan knew of Woohyun because of everything I had told him, but I wasn’t sure if they had been introduced to each other. I decided to do it again anyway.  

I cleared my throat extremely awkwardly. “Woohyun, this is Chansik, Chansik, this is Woohyun.”

“Nice to meet you, man,” they said, shaking hands. Awkward silence.

“Hana, this is my friend, Hyeri. She goes to – “ He paused, something clicking in his head. “Hey, do you guys know each other? She goes to the same university and studies engineering too.”

I saw the chance for Chansik, who had sheepishly taken the seat next to Hyeri, and not saying a word, and grabbed it.
“Yeah, I think I’ve seen you around in my physics lecture! Do you have Professor Choi for physics? His 9am classes?” I put on an extremely friendly exterior that I was sure Woohyun and Chansik found weird. It was not like me at all, but not that I wasn’t friendly normally.

“No way!” She exclaimed. “You have him too? How great is he,” she chuckled, shaking my hand. “It’s such a small world!”

“Chansik has him too,” I interjected, patting him on the back, perhaps a bit too hard. I hoped the pat said wake up Kang Chansik, say something before she thinks you’re a mute.
“He goes to the lectures all the time,” I continued, “but I just watch them online ‘cause they clash with my chemistry lab.” I chuckled again, hoping she’d take the bait. I’d seen her sit alone a few times, and I hoped that, somehow, I could make them sit together.

“Aw, damn, I hoped that we could sit together! I know no one in that lecture. All my friends chose the 3pm one.” She pouted cutely, in a way that would surely make Chansik melt. Not that he wasn’t already. She was conventionally pretty, with shoulder length, cropped hair and large eyes hidden behind green contact lenses and dark eyeliner.

“Hey!” I pretended that a sudden idea had struck me, when really, I had thought of it the moment I knew it was her. “You and Chansik can sit together!”

“Yeah!” Her eyes lit up and she smiled, turning her eyes into crescents. “Hey, Chansik, what’s your number? Let’s sit together on Monday!”

He nodded, and smiled, mumbling something incoherent, finally snapping out of his gaze and handing his phone to her.

I sat back and glanced at the menu, smiling secretly to myself. My work here was done.

“Nice work,” Woohyun said out of the corner of his mouth.

I jumped, forgetting that he was sitting next to me.

“I know,” I whispered back. “Sorry for stealing your girlfriend.” I emphasized the last word with particular malice. I knew I was being a but... well, could you blame me?

He looked at me with the strangest expression. “Hana, you know that, well…. Minji is my girlfriend.”

I laughed bitterly. “You think I don’t know that?”

He winced. He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

“Waiter, please, we’re ready to order now. One large plate of marinated beef ribs and one large plate of thin pork belly and two bowls of rice.”

The waiter nodded and walked to put our order in. I was thankful for the distraction, as I was sure Woohyun was just about to apologize. I knew those eyes – they were full of discomfort and emotion. I swallowed the lump forming in my throat.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

Truthfully, if it wasn’t for how well Chansik and Hyeri were getting along, I would have asked to leave already, or sit at a different table. I realized that, even though Woohyun and I had broken up well over two months ago, it was still too soon. Too soon to be sitting so close to him, with reality hitting me like a ton of bricks that he was no longer mine. It was too soon to be with him, pretending to act like what we shared over the past year was nothing to me anymore. It was too soon to sit next to him, less than ten centimeters apart, feeling my heart break even more when he showed how caring, funny and loving he was. At a meat restaurant.

I tried to occupy and distance myself from my thoughts by grilling the meat on the barbeque. Although it was the four of us at one table, conversation was split two ways; Chansik and Hyeri, and Woohyun and I. Well, it was more like Chan and Hyeri because there were no words exchanged between Woohyun and I. I felt the tension between us, but he seemed to be struggling too – but I wasn’t sure what. The awkwardness? The pain? The emotion? I highly doubted the latter two.

I was so happy to see Chan and Hyeri getting along well. They moved from talking about physics to our lecturer, to university life and the all-too-general I’m so stressed I have a lot of work topic. It was cliché, but effective.

The silence between us, beside chewing and sizzling of the barbeque charcoals, was deafening. I needed to say something, and I decided that I wouldn’t be selfish and steal this away from Chansik. I would use this opportunity to find out as much as I could about what exactly Woohyun and Hyeri were doing together.

“So,” I said, clearly my throat and placing down my chopsticks. “What are you two doing together?”

He took his time chewing and turned to look at me. “We’re friends.”

“Should I believe that? You told me that you and Minji were friends too. Look how that turned out.”

I snorted. I really didn’t know where this y side of me was coming from. It was like all my hurt, anger, sadness and hate manifested into one emotion, and out of all in the emotional spectrum, it was being difficult and nasty.

Woohyun winced again. “Hana, please don’t – “

“Don’t what, Woohyun?” I took a deep breath. “I’m asking you a question so that my friend doesn’t have to suffer the same thing I did – chasing after someone’s heart that was never in its proper place. Can you even blame me?” I picked up my chopsticks furiously and put some kimchi in my mouth, chewing menacingly. “Please, explain.”

He sighed and flipped a piece of pork belly on the flame. “She’s just a friend, as I said before. We met at a seminar for engineering that we attended back in high school. You weren’t there because you were at an interview for your scholarship, remember? This was when I was still considering attending your university. We were seated in alphabetical order. Her surname is also Nam.” He paused, eyeing me as I digested this. “Are you happy? Mrs. Love Guru?” His mouth twitched.

I chose to ignore his joke, narrowing my eyes at him. “Woohyun, if you’re lying to me, or not telling me something, or doing anything bad or weird, I swear to God I will – I’ll do something. But I don’t know what. Yet.”

His mouth twitched again at this. Taking the chance, he changed the subject. “So, what are you and Chansik doing out so late at night?”

“We met your girlfriend earlier. She wanted to meet me for coffee, and Chan came along.” I replied nonchalantly, getting more kimchi.

Woohyun spluttered on his beef ribs. “What? What did you just say?” He wiped his mouth quickly. “You met with Minji?!”

“Yes,” I snapped, annoyed. “I thought we had already established earlier that she was your girlfriend.”

“What were you doing? Why…?” He choked, wide-eyed and fearful. “Hana, did she – “

“She wanted to meet, at first, to apologize for being the catalyst, I guess, for what happened…between us. Then she got talking, and I realized that her and I had a lot in common. And I mean a lot – she even thinks the same about mango, and 2ne1 and chicken. Like, everything that we shared. I mean, it was a bit weird at first, but then I guess that’s why you and her are… well, you know. Yeah.” I trailed off nervously. It was weird that there was a third person who thought the same, but I was always trapped in my small world of stubbornness and love that I didn’t even think that there was someone else who shared the exact same interests and Woohyun and I.

Woohyun opened his mouth to say something, but stopped himself just in time. He looked so confused and angry at the same time, but I didn’t understand why. He should know all of this, anyway. Shouldn’t he?

I watched him shake with anger as he unlocked his phone to call Minji. Pressing the phone to his ear, he explained.

“I told her explicitly to stay away from you, Hana. I don’t know what she’s playing at, but it’s not very funny.”

Minji, on the other line, picked up, and Woohyun excused himself with a single finger to go outside and take the call.

Chan and Hyeri looked up from their deep conversation and asked me what was going on. I could only answer with a shrug, as I had no idea myself.