“You know it’s been officially two months since the first time I entered this closet,” I said, putting the mop back to its rightful place and rolling down my sleeve; I was just done cleaning.

“Oh, that is very good, Yukwon-ssi,” she smiled politely, closing her book that she had just finished. “Just a month more and you’ll be free,” she laughed lightly.

“Yeah…” I tried to make it sound cheerful, but it came out as a sigh. Then I thought of what to follow up that monosyllable, but then…suddenly I was robbed of the ability to speak.

I didn’t know it had already been five awkward minutes until she said, “Is something wrong?”

I turned to look at her. “Ah? No, no.” I cleared my throat.

“Thank goodness,” she sighed, putting a hand on her chest. “Because you really seemed sad,”

I was?

“Yukwon-ssi, if you don’t mind…I have a question to ask,”

“Go ahead,”

“Does Jaehyo-ssi like chocolates?”

Holy moly.

She likes Jaehyo-hyung?

Shock overrode the better part of my being that I just stared at her with my eyes as wide as my mouth, my voice losing its way out of my throat.

I must have looked like a retarded, heart-attacked clown that she laughed at me. “Yukwon-ssi! Your face!”

Immediately getting embarrassed at my own reaction I fix myself and clear my throat with a clenched fist before my mouth. “Uh,”

She observed me for a while, then started afresh, her ears turning pink. “Yukwon-ssi, please forget about it. Forget I ever said anything,”

Honestly there’s this tight feeling in my chest all of a sudden. “You…like Jaehyo-hyung…?”

She crossed her open palms in front of her, as if to shield herself from something. “I—well, please! Just forget about what I said!”

I approached her and took the liberty of holding her arm, then slowly brought it down. “Hey…it’s okay,” actually no it isn’t “You…can tell me everything. We’re friends, right?” and dammit, because is that what we’re ever going to be?

Carefully, cautiously, she put down her arm, and then bowed her head. “I…I’m sorry,”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Because…well, I’m not supposed to like your boss, am I?” lachrymose. She was lachrymose.

“No—hey—no—look at me,” I put both my hands on her cheeks. Looking straight back at me, her eyes were the epitome of worry. “It’s okay. No one’s gonna get you for that,” her face was only a breath away from mine.

I thought I was going to die then and there, because she stared back at me with her widened eyes behind those huge spectacles, and I would’ve gladly lost myself there. The realization that this was what our pose was like dawned late on me—I think it took ten good seconds—and upon so I quickly removed my hands from her face and looked down.

Following my embarrassment she also avoided my gaze and withdrew away from me, and focused her interest on the floor.

An awkward, obtrusive kind of silence started to loom over, which I didn’t want to last long, so I spoke, “But really, you can tell me anything. Don’t be…shy.” It took all my willpower to look at her again and say, in a normal voice, “I’m not the Kim Yukwon you’ve known before. I’m your friend now,”

Probably she was touched by this. Her expression was like that of careful happiness—brows knitted in worry and a smile slightly suppressed. “I’ll remember that, Yukwon-ssi,”

And thus the further development of our friendship. It wasn’t really easy for me though. Every time the Jaehyo topic was brought up I had to force myself to give a fit answer, act as if I was truly listening and not being eaten up by envy. I had asked her why she liked Jaehyo-hyung, to which she visibly enthusiastically replied with the reason, “because he seems mysterious” and told me about her brief encounter with him during middle school—when hyung still was a good guy, when he still wasn’t a gangster—when he was still the Jaehyo no one ever knew.

Every day I had to battle with Jaehyo-hyung’s ghost, and it was everyday that I would lose. He wasn’t all we ever talked about every day, but still—witnessing this girl I like loving him, despite unrequitedly, it had me powerless. I always, always had the choice of confessing, didn’t I?

But cowardice.

If that hadn’t existed I would’ve gladly confessed to her my feelings.