Chapter 80: The Unspoken Truth

“Because back in high school, you and Kang Wooju were completely flying out there. But seeing Kang Wooju on the court while you’re standing outside it made even me feel weird.”

At Yoon Jaeyeon’s laughter-filled voice, Wooju’s footsteps inevitably came to a halt.

Wooju slowly turned his body around.

“Why are you getting so defensive? I’m just saying it because it breaks my heart. Seeing a once-promising player ending up like that.”

Yoon Jaeyeon was even shrugging his shoulders.

At the words dripping with mockery, Wooju unconsciously clenched his fists.

From his current position, he could only see Jitae’s back.

He wondered what kind of expression Jitae was making after hearing such things.

He wondered if Jitae would just brush it off like he had done with that senior actor last time, but fortunately, Won Jitae paid Yoon Jaeyeon back in kind with his own words.

Seeing Jaeyeon’s face contort in anger made Wooju feel it served him right.

If Won Jitae had stayed quiet, Wooju had been planning to step in this time too.

But this was Yoon Jaeyeon’s complete defeat.

Just as Wooju was swallowing a laugh to himself, an unexpected topic caught his ear again.

Yoon Jaeyeon suddenly brought up Jitae’s mother.

At that moment, Wooju couldn’t help but recall the text message he had seen at the cafe.

“It was when she was sobbing her eyes out because she ruined her son’s volleyball career. Do you know how much I…….”

Ruined his volleyball career? His mother?

Wooju furrowed his brows at the confusing conversation, but only for a moment, as Jitae suddenly let out an unfamiliar sound and charged fiercely at Yoon Jaeyeon.

Startled, Wooju quickly sprinted over to them.

It seemed Yoon Jaeyeon had said something else, but consumed by the thought that he needed to stop Won Jitae right this second, Wooju couldn’t hear it properly.

In any case, it was a relief that they had avoided a major incident.

Yoon Jaeyeon was still an athlete, after all, and if anyone saw Won Jitae hitting him, things could have blown out of proportion.

It was his first time in his life seeing Jitae looking as furious as a demon.

The sight of him raising his fist while spitting out vicious curses was unfamiliar.

But at the same time, he couldn’t help but wonder what exactly had made him so angry.

Yoon Jaeyeon seemed to know things that even he didn’t, but he had no desire to hear it from his mouth right now.

If he was going to ask, it had to be from the person involved.

“Oh? Athlete-nim! You’re finally here.”

As he went to the parking lot, one of the writers waved her hand in front of Wooju’s car.

“Sorry for being late. Cleaning up took a bit longer than expected.”

Wooju offered a convenient excuse while glancing into the car.

Strangely, he couldn’t see Jitae, who he had assumed would be in the driver’s seat.

“It’s fine. The first team has already left, and we’re done cleaning up the rest, so we should be heading out now too.”

“Um, what about Jitae?”

“Oh? Did you not hear?”

Hear what… Wooju smiled awkwardly and shook his head.

“The Actor-nim suddenly said he wasn’t feeling well. As soon as he arrived, he joined the PD and the first team and left early.”

Wooju bit down on his lip.

The writer awkwardly scratched her head, saying she thought Jitae had already told him.

“…Let’s get going too.”

With a resolute face, Wooju got into the car without hesitation and gripped the steering wheel as calmly as possible.

The production crew had offered to drive for him since he must be tired, but he had refused.

He wanted to get home as quickly as possible no matter what.

To the house where Won Jitae, who would have arrived first, was waiting.

The expression he had seen earlier when he blocked Yoon Jaeyeon continued to flicker before his eyes like an afterimage.

“You worked hard today, Athlete-nim. Get some good rest.”

“Yes, you all worked hard as well.”

After making sure to bid farewell to the writers, Wooju quickly dashed into the house.

One of the writers looked at his retreating back a bit strangely, but Wooju had no time to care about such things right now.

As soon as he threw the door open, bright light poured out.

Wooju quickly took off his shoes and stepped inside.

“You’re here?”

At that moment, a voice rang out from the stairs to the second floor.

With a towel draped around his neck, Jitae was coming down with an expression no different from his usual one.

“My stomach was feeling a bit upset, so I came back first. Sorry.”

Jitae nonchalantly dried his hair with the towel and walked into the kitchen.

Wooju simply stood awkwardly in the hallway, staring intently at him.

“You’re hungry, right? Should we whip up something simple to eat?”

Jitae was exactly the same as always.

His tone, his voice, and his actions.

At a glance, it was impossible to even imagine that such an incident had occurred just a few hours ago.

“Won Jitae.”

And Wooju felt as though that very nonchalance was going to make him incredibly angry.

“Do you not have anything to say to me?”

The hand rummaging through the refrigerator froze mid-air.

With a thud, the refrigerator door closed, and the cold air that had billowed out from it filled the space between them.

To be honest, when he came home, he thought Jitae would bring it up first.

If he did, Wooju had planned to use that as an excuse to slowly unravel this long-standing curiosity and frustration.

He was angry at Yoon Jaeyeon’s actions, but on the other hand, he also felt a sense of gratitude.

Because it was basically the same as providing an excuse for a conversation.

“You’re talking about what happened with Yoon Jaeyeon, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That… wasn’t really a big deal. He and I just didn’t get along very well back when we were students.”

Jitae scratched his head.

Even in this moment, he wasn’t looking at Wooju.

“We were just picking a fight with each other, and things got a bit heated, that’s all.”

“The guy who apathetically brushed off being accused of getting a movie role through connections grabbed someone by the collar just because an old classmate picked a fight?”

“That really is all there is to it.”

Wooju’s face crumpled entirely.

This wasn’t the picture he had wanted at all.

“Actually, I heard everything.”

“…….”

“The conversation you and Yoon Jaeyeon were having—I heard it all from start to finish.”

Even so, the reason Wooju hadn’t brought it up first was because he wanted to wait.

He wanted Jitae to tell him first.

To confess the truth.

But even to Wooju’s repeated questions, Jitae simply dismissed it as nothing.

The frustration he had been harboring all this time instantly swelled in size.

“So you probed me even though you already knew everything?”

“I thought you would tell me first.”

Jitae powerlessly dropped his head.

“Since it’s come to this, let’s have a frank conversation.”

Wooju resolved that this time, he absolutely had to get rid of this boulder firmly lodged in his chest.

“What on earth happened to you after graduation? Why did you quit volleyball, and what the hell was that stuff about your mother that Yoon Jaeyeon mentioned?”

This was the second time he had asked this question.

He had asked it once during their first week in the training camp, borrowing some liquid courage.

To his pure curiosity about why he had quit volleyball, Jitae had revealed slightly incomprehensible emotions and given an absurd answer.

“Volleyball… I told you. Because it wasn’t fun anymore…….”

“Don’t give me that bullshit. Do you really think I’d believe something like that?”

At that reaction, Wooju felt like he had needlessly touched a subject he shouldn’t have, so he hadn’t brought it up since.

He had merely asked Coach Kim Hyun about Jitae instead.

Yes, that was how it had been up until then.

It was just simple curiosity, and if the person involved was that reluctant, he had no intention of forcibly digging deeper.

He had complacently thought that perhaps a vague opportunity to find out would arise someday.

But over the roughly four weeks he had spent with Won Jitae, that curiosity hadn’t disappeared; instead, it had only grown larger.

The more he got to know Jitae, the more facts he learned that he hadn’t known in the past, an uncomfortable feeling like a jagged stone kept randomly poking and prodding at his insides.

“Yoon Jaeyeon seemed to know everything, so why won’t you tell me?”

It wasn’t just a simple question of why he had quit volleyball.

During that time after graduation that he knew nothing about, during those years when they had lost contact—he kept wanting to know how Jitae had lived, what had happened to him, and whether he was at peace now.

“He just found out by coincidence.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

He had attached the label of ‘friend’ to this relationship that they hadn’t been able to form in the past.

But the frustration and discomfort hadn’t disappeared.

He didn’t even know where these emotions stemmed from.

He just felt that this displeasure with an unknown origin could only be relieved once he knew everything about Jitae.

“I want to know too, Jitae.”

Jitae, who had been glaring solely at the floor all this time, lifted his head.

And in that moment, Wooju couldn’t help but freeze.

What draped across Jitae’s face was sheer apathy.

At that alien expression—like a well-crafted doll completely devoid of both soul and emotion—Wooju unconsciously clenched his fists.

He had seen that emptiness before.

A few days ago, it was the image of Kanghyun on the movie screen.

That was the exact expression he had worn when he could no longer be a doctor and was completely abandoned by everyone around him.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“…….”

“To you, especially… I don’t want to say it.”

He had vaguely thought that there simply hadn’t been a trigger.

That the reason he couldn’t have deep conversations with Won Jitae about the past was simply because the right situation hadn’t presented itself.

The first time he asked, their relationship was still awkward and he had been drunk, so he figured that once a situation where they could have a proper conversation arose, Jitae would tell him too.

“I don’t want to talk about it. To you, especially… I don’t want to say it.”

But through those very words just now, Wooju realized that it had been nothing more than his own delusion, the result of mere wishful thinking.

“What? To me, especially? What is that supposed to mean?”

Wooju’s voice had grown heated at some point.

Sweat was seeping from his tightly clenched fists.