Sunshine Shower Chapter 109

Woo Yeonjae checked the flood of messages. They all asked the same thing: “Did you know Moon Seoyoon enlisted?” It seemed that Moon Seoyoon had reached out to friends after his military training graduation.

Kim Seonju had just entered the café and sat next to him, but Woo Yeonjae’s gaze remained fixed on his phone.

As he was aimlessly scrolling through the messages, a call came in from an unknown number.

“…”

What should he do? After a brief moment of hesitation, Woo Yeonjae answered the call.

— Woo Yeonjae.

It was a familiar voice, one he hadn’t heard in a while, flowing through the small device. It sounded calm, just like always, as if nothing difficult had happened.

“Moon Seoyoon?”

His voice instinctively took on a teasing tone.

So, that’s why he didn’t look for me. Because nothing hard happened.

— Sorry for calling so late. You’re not mad, right?

Only then did Woo Yeonjae realize the reason his nerves had been on edge for the past few weeks.

— I ended up enlisting. It all happened so suddenly, I didn’t have the time to tell you beforehand. Sorry. Today’s the training graduation… It’ll probably be busy again once I get assigned to a unit, so I wanted to call before then.

“Hm… Got it.”

Woo Yeonjae tightened his grip on the phone, but his reply was as gentle as if he hadn’t just been mocking. He knew that if the call ended awkwardly, so would their relationship.

“Who is it?” Kim Seonju asked curiously, in a quiet voice.

— Are you with your girlfriend?

“Yeah.”

Even though she wasn’t physically present, he could easily imagine the startled expression on her face.

— Sorry. I’ll hang up. Let’s meet when I’m on leave.

The call ended with a click, not even lasting two minutes.

“Who was that? You look so serious,” Kim Seonju asked with wide eyes. They had met during a group project in a general education course, and she had proposed something intriguing: “We both have a lot of rumors following us. Why not date casually? It might cut down on some annoying situations.”

It had been two months since he had casually agreed, finding her a decent companion.

“Childhood friend.”

Woo Yeonjae replied curtly.

“A friend? Did something happen? I’ve never seen you look so upset.”

“He enlisted.”

“What? Already? He must’ve gone early. It’s going to be tough.”

At the mention of the military, Kim Seonju made a knowing expression.

“He should be fine.”

Since he wasn’t in public service but active duty, there was no avoiding the physical strain. But with his father’s influence, it was likely he’d be stationed somewhere without troublesome people. Moon Seoyoon would never know that strings had been pulled for him.

“A year and a half…”

They’d been friends for 15 years. Maybe it was time to take a break, now that their relationship had grown tiresome.

“It’s going to be long.”

For him, it would be a time of endurance.

* * *

Woo Yeonjae submitted a leave of absence. It wasn’t part of his plan, but he didn’t like the idea of being two years ahead of Moon Seoyoon. He thought he’d take a year off to travel and clear his mind, then return to school a year earlier.

By the time Moon Seoyoon returned, Woo Yeonjae would have familiar juniors around him, and some of the people who had been bothering him would have graduated, which didn’t seem like a bad situation.

Naturally, he also broke up with Kim Seonju. With one of them taking a leave of absence, their relationship had outlived its usefulness.

As he traveled here and there, occasionally he’d hear news about Moon Seoyoon. The source was either Professor Moon or his own father.

Professor Moon’s updates were typically about leave or time off, while his father’s information came through his military connections, giving insights into the internal workings of the military. Despite having the means to contact Moon Seoyoon, Woo Yeonjae never reached out. He knew better than anyone about his own obsession with his childhood friend.

He had never denied his obsession with Moon Seoyoon.

And the root of that obsession was clear.

It had started when they were six. The moment Moon Seoyoon had quietly reached out and held his blood-stained hand, a desire had been born.

He was fully aware that his possessiveness wasn’t normal. He knew his mind wasn’t quite right, and that this innocent desire he had felt as a child still lingered into adulthood. But having grown older, Woo Yeonjae had learned to be quite good at self-reflection.

“I need to hold back.”

Lately, he had been building up his patience.

He had decided to let Moon Seoyoon breathe, so naturally, he needed to suppress his desires. Not visiting during Moon Seoyoon’s service was part of that effort.

The time he spent without Moon Seoyoon was the longest they’d ever been apart. In such a situation, a single mistake, a loss of self-control, might lead him to do something he couldn’t undo.

To build patience, the first step was to avoid the object of desire.

“I’m curious, too.”

On the other hand, there was another reason he didn’t reach out.

Woo Yeonjae wasn’t unaware of how much Moon Seoyoon relied on him. He also knew there were things Moon Seoyoon couldn’t bring himself to say or do first. Usually, Woo Yeonjae would bring it up and make him talk, but sometimes he’d deliberately feign ignorance. That way, Moon Seoyoon would become even more dependent on him.

The side that always takes the initiative to do what the other needs is bound to fade in significance over time. It meant that I needed to distance myself appropriately in order to make Moon Seoyoon feel the need for me.

These days, I was rather curious. When would Moon Seoyoon contact me first?

* * *

Woo Yeonjae lowered his eyelids. There were countless useless messages, but none from the person he was actually waiting for.

“Ha…”

He sighed and leaned his head back. The chair, which had spun halfway due to the sudden motion, stopped moving.

A year and six months had dragged by sluggishly. The patience that had barely reached its limit was now rapidly wearing down after that time passed, revealing the raw edges beneath.

He never imagined there would be no contact for the entire duration of military service. Still, he thought Seoyoon would reach out as soon as he was discharged, but, absurdly, Moon Seoyoon still hadn’t sent even a single message.

Woo Yeonjae knew how Moon Seoyoon was doing after his discharge. He didn’t need money, so why on earth was he working at a café part-time?

“Is it because of Professor Moon?”

He’d heard that Professor Moon got married.

Considering Seoyoon’s personality, he wouldn’t feel comfortable in a house where a new person had moved in, so perhaps he took the part-time job just to reduce his time at home.

However, what puzzled him more was why Seoyoon still hadn’t contacted him, even now, when their other friends knew about his part-time job.

When Kim Hyunseung relayed this already-known information to him, Woo Yeonjae couldn’t help but laugh in disbelief. He knew about the part-time job, the café’s location, and even the working hours.

He wondered why Seoyoon hadn’t contacted him despite all this, forcing him to hear about it from someone else instead of directly from him.

“Did he really get tired of me?”

The new semester would start in a few weeks. Soon, it would be two full years since he had last seen Seoyoon.

The man, who had been absentmindedly tapping the armrest with his neatly trimmed nails, checked the time before slowly standing up.

It seemed like he had to give in this time.

Out of habit, Woo Yeonjae sprayed his perfume as he prepared to go out, but then paused mid-step. The perfume he’d just sprayed was one he first encountered two years ago when he took a leave of absence and went to England. Though he’d been using it frequently lately, it would be an unfamiliar scent to Moon Seoyoon.

“If he doesn’t recognize me, I’ll feel pretty crappy.”

In the end, Woo Yeonjae took another shower and sprayed the perfume Seoyoon was familiar with.

“And if he still doesn’t recognize me…”

It wouldn’t be hard to come up with an excuse. Even if Seoyoon failed to recognize him and pushed him away, he could comfort himself by blaming it on the unfamiliar perfume. Though, deep down, he knew there was no way the scent would be unfamiliar.

It was a café with large windows that made the interior clearly visible. The woman who had left earlier disappeared with a man wearing a long padded coat. About ten minutes later, Woo Yeonjae got out of the car just as the café lights, which had been illuminating the inside, were turned off.

As he approached, a familiar figure filled his view. Moon Seoyoon’s dark brown hair, tousled by the wind, was scattered over a thin long coat.

Instead of calling out his name, Woo Yeonjae reached out and grabbed him by the waist.

“Seoyoon-ah.”

Moon Seoyoon shuddered, startled by the sudden hug from behind, and slowly turned his head.

“I waited for not just a year and a half, but two whole years in silence…”

His brown eyes, soft in their gaze, widened in surprise as if he had encountered someone completely unexpected.

Pretending to be a puppy scolded by its owner, Woo Yeonjae pouted and asked in a whining tone,

“Are you not going to give me the flower shoes ^[1] Waiting for a partner who is serving in the military until they are discharged is called “wearing flower shoes” (꽃신 신는다). In the case of officer candidates, this refers to waiting until just before they are commissioned. So if a woman waits for a man to be discharged eventually without breaking up, the man would gift them flower shoes to say he doesn’t want to break up or thank them for waiting for him. ?”

• 1. Waiting for a partner who is serving in the military until they are discharged is called “wearing flower shoes” (꽃신 신는다). In the case of officer candidates, this refers to waiting until just before they are commissioned. So if a woman waits for a man to be discharged eventually without breaking up, the man would gift them flower shoes to say he doesn’t want to break up or thank them for waiting for him.