Chapter 9: The Debts He Could Never Repay

“Wait.
Naengmyeon is pretty heavy, so I think it’d be better to have a guy go with you.”

“Huh?
No, it’s fine, Oppa.
I’m strong!”

“No, there are plenty of guys here.”

“Then should I go?”

Un-jae asked as though he were about to get up at any moment.
However, Han-gyeol had someone else in mind as his partner.

“No, I’m going with Senior Anix.
Senior, get up.
Let’s go together.”

“…Joo Han-gyeol.”

“Yes?”

“You look pretty pleased with yourself.
You must have really wanted to put your senior to work, huh?”

Anix’s voice was unusually stiff.
That wasn’t all.
His trademark smile, the one that always managed to get under people’s skin, had vanished without a trace.
In stark contrast, Han-gyeol’s spirits were soaring higher and higher.
He finally felt as though he’d landed a blow against that shameless Anix.
It was like knocking aside the sword of an unassailable opponent who had driven him all the way to the end of the piste and scoring a point against him.

“But you were the one who started pulling strange tricks, Senior.”

“Tricks?
What tricks?”

“Don’t play dumb.
You were trying your hardest to get Si-yeon and me together, weren’t you?”

When Han-gyeol pressed him sharply, Anix subtly averted his eyes.
Just as he suspected, Anix had something to feel guilty about.

“Well, I won’t deny that I interfered a little.”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“Obviously, because I thought you two would make a good couple.
Give it your best shot.”

Han-gyeol could only sigh.
What on earth was he talking about?
Was this something he was supposed to chalk up to cultural differences?
He’d never expected someone to meddle so openly in another person’s affairs.
And it wasn’t as though he and Anix were even particularly close.

“Tell me to give it my best shot all you want, but that’s just your wishful thinking, isn’t it?
What about my feelings?
What about Si-yeon’s?”

“Moon Si-yeon’s feelings are obvious.
She said she’s your fan.
Of course she’d want to see if things could work out with you.”

“Being someone’s fan doesn’t necessarily mean their feelings will develop into something romantic.”

“No, Moon Si-yeon definitely likes you.
Didn’t you notice while you were playing games together?
The way she looked at you practically dripped with affection.
And you can tell just from the fact that she joined this weird club.
Do you really think she joined because she likes games?
Of course she brought her friends along because you were here.”

“That’s not certain, and even if your guess is right, you shouldn’t be getting involved like this.
Let me make this clear.
I don’t have any feelings for Si-yeon.
And I don’t have the time to date anyone right now.
So stop doing weird things from now on.
Here, you carry this.”

It was an entirely reasonable response.
There was no need to get worked up over something so pointless.
Firmly reminding himself of that, Han-gyeol handed Anix half the bag containing the bowls of naengmyeon.
Anix lifted it effortlessly, showing no sign that it was heavy.
He seemed to mull over Han-gyeol’s words for a moment before immediately launching a counterattack.
And it was a remarkably illogical one at that.

“Even if you don’t have feelings for her now, you will later, idiot.”

“You’re calling me an idiot again.
What are you, a prophet?
How would you know that?”

“I’m not a prophet, but I know.
I was just trying to speed things up a little.
The outcome will be the same.”

“Did you expect me to say, ‘Oh, I see,’ and nod along just because you said that?”

A childish argument was unfolding between two grown men, both large enough to fill a doorway.
To Han-gyeol, Anix seemed insane for claiming he could see the future and trying to pair him, a returning student, with a girl who hadn’t even been at university for a year.
Had he watched too many novels and movies?

“Senior, real life isn’t a movie.
Stop trying to find romance in reality.”

“There’s romance in reality, too.”

“No, they’re different.
You should stop watching so many movies.
You keep confusing them with real life.”

“Is this because of what happened when Park Shin-woo retired?”

“…What?”

“You’re strangely passive about everything.
You’re frustrating, too.
How long are you going to keep clinging to the past?
I know he was a popular athlete, but it wasn’t your fault, was it?
So why don’t you finally—”

Han-gyeol stopped dead in his tracks.
He fixed Anix with a glare far more vicious than any he’d given him before.
Apparently, Anix hadn’t expected him to react so sharply, because he stopped speaking and froze in place as well.
For the first time, Anix seemed to be watching Han-gyeol’s reaction carefully.
He looked as though he’d made a mistake.
It was certainly astonishing to see, but Han-gyeol was so angry that he couldn’t even feel surprised.
In a razor-sharp voice, he demanded an answer.

“How do you know about that incident, Senior?
Did you hear about it from Un-jae?”

“……”

“I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but don’t act like you understand me based on things you’ve picked up from other people.”

“I didn’t pick it up from someone else.
And I’m not pretending to understand you.”

Even though Han-gyeol was seriously angry, Anix still insisted on talking like that.
Han-gyeol was left speechless with disbelief.

“Then what is it?
Were you there watching?
You didn’t even know me back then, so how could you know?
Even if you had been there, you’re not me.
I’ll say it again.
Don’t act like you understand me.
I don’t want to hear some stranger telling me I’m passive or frustrating.
And stop assuming you know what’s going on inside my head.
What makes you think you know so much about me?”

“Honestly, it’s pretty obvious.
The story of a man who builds walls around himself because he’s suffering from unnecessary guilt and self-loathing.
Putting aside your relationship with Si-yeon, it’d be better for you to let go of those feelings as soon as possible.”

Ha…
Han-gyeol was so dumbfounded that he couldn’t even speak.
Who did Anix think he was, giving him life advice?

“Are you saying my life is predictable?”

“…That’s not what I meant.”

“Maybe you’re right.
Maybe my life looks foolish and pathetic to someone else.
But I’m doing the best I can with the mind I’ve got, thinking things through and working myself to the bone to move forward.
Senior, you only met me for the first time last month.”

Anix looked as though he wanted to say something, but he closed his mouth again.
Han-gyeol, however, wasn’t finished.

“You might have heard stories about me somewhere.
People love gossiping about others, after all.
But I didn’t tell you any of those things myself.
Which means you don’t know me.”

It was the first time Han-gyeol had ever seen Anix make that expression.
Perhaps he was shocked, but it was as if the mask of a smile that had covered his entire handsome face had finally cracked.

What had Un-jae said about him?
That he wasn’t a bad person by nature?

Well, perhaps Un-jae was right.
But that assessment meant very little to Han-gyeol.
When you watched the news, you sometimes saw the parents or acquaintances of criminals being interviewed after their arrests, making excuses on their behalf.
They weren’t a bad person by nature.
Things just took a bad turn.

Seeing things like that made Han-gyeol wonder whether someone’s innate goodness or badness really mattered all that much in relationships between people.
At least, it didn’t matter to him.
What mattered more than the kind of person someone was in general was the kind of person they were to him.

Whatever Anix’s true nature might be, he was still someone who judged Han-gyeol based on secondhand stories and then acted as though he understood him, passing off his unsolicited opinions as advice.
It seemed there was no way he and Anix could ever become close.

“Please tell everyone I had something to take care of and left early.
And from now on, stay out of my business.”

Han-gyeol set the bag down in front of the clubroom and turned away.
Even then, Anix said nothing.

After that incident, Han-gyeol stopped going to the clubroom.

When he returned to the dorm and thought back on what had happened, half-heartedly listening to his roommate’s mournful ballads, he realized that although he hadn’t said anything wrong, perhaps he hadn’t needed to get so worked up and snap at Anix like that.
Even so, the thought of Anix still made him angry, and he couldn’t imagine facing him again and acting as though nothing had happened.

Besides, Han-gyeol had never been the type to participate actively in club activities.
In fact, his enthusiasm at the beginning of this semester had been the exception.
Un-jae had become the club president, so Han-gyeol had wanted to support his friend.
And he felt he’d done enough by now.
He’d attended various events and even sat at the promotional booth.

Han-gyeol returned his focus to training.
Coach Go had a point.
This time, he needed to produce results.

Han-gyeol was a man burdened with debts.
Fortunately, they weren’t financial debts, but his emotional debts had piled up like a mountain.
After all, his life had been a continuous process of accumulating debts.

Han-gyeol had lost his parents and grown up moving from one relative’s home to another.
When the enormous cost of fencing became too much to ask his relatives to shoulder, he’d been on the verge of quitting.
Then an organization involved in the sport offered to support him, allowing him to continue fencing.

Why would they have offered to help a young Joo Han-gyeol they’d never even met?
Out of pity?
Because they felt sorry for him?

No.
They must have seen his talent, not Han-gyeol himself, when they made the offer.

The occasional messages he received from them were all related to fencing.
What competition was he going to enter next?
What rank was he aiming for?
Was his training going well?
Things like that.

On top of that, his tuition and dormitory fees were fully waived as an athletic scholarship student, so he was indebted to the university, too.

Sometimes, Han-gyeol could feel eyes on him.
Eyes that caught him whenever he tried to run away, demanding that he pay back what he owed.

That was why he always ended up returning to the piste.
He had no choice but to return.
He had so many debts to repay.

And the next Olympics were the perfect opportunity to settle a substantial portion of them.

Sweat poured down Han-gyeol’s back like rain.
He could feel Kang-hoon occasionally glaring at him with a menacing look, but surely, even Kang-hoon wouldn’t dare do anything to him in front of the coach and the other team members.

That was what Han-gyeol thought.

However, he soon realized that he’d underestimated Kang-hoon far too much.

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