Unrequited Love Obsession Diary - Chapter 5

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 5

Yeon-jae got up from the swing and approached Dohan. Then she spoke without hesitation.

“Hello. I’m Shin Yeon-jae, I go to the nearby middle school. There’s a girl in my class who likes you. She wants to ask for your number but she’s too shy.”

Those words came out without a single stutter, like rapid-fire rap.

Dohan stopped with a bewildered expression. He waited quietly while Yeon-jae finished speaking.

A brief silence passed between them.

Yeon-jae swallowed. She was afraid she might not get Dohan’s number.

After a long silence, Dohan finally spoke.

“But why didn’t that friend come herself and sent you instead?”

His tone was genuinely curious. When Yeon-jae hesitated, Dohan gestured toward the swings with his chin. Suddenly she found herself sitting on the swing where she had been alone just moments before, now with Dohan.

Yeon-jae was a little worried that other girls might be watching this scene right now.

Contextually, it was the perfect situation to be labeled a vixen.

The swing Dohan sat on swayed slowly. Yeon-jae only looked down at the tips of her shoes.

Dohan didn’t say anything. She wondered why he had suggested sitting on the swings if this was how it would be.

Meanwhile, the sun set. Before she knew it, the streetlights came on, and lights turned on in apartment windows. After a long silence, Dohan asked.

“Would it be a problem if I don’t give it to you?”

Yeon-jae couldn’t bring herself to answer.

Whether her silence served as an answer, Dohan turned his backpack to the front and opened the largest zipper.

“I don’t see any paper.”

After rummaging around for a while, Dohan pulled out a pen and looked back at Yeon-jae. Then he asked.

“If it’s okay, could you make a fist?”

When Yeon-jae made a fist with her fingers facing toward him, Dohan carefully grabbed her wrist and turned it so the back of her hand faced up.

Then he picked up the pen and wrote eleven digits.

* * *

That was why.

From that day on, Yeon-jae’s goal was always Dohan.

She studied with Dohan as her goal, and chose her university accordingly. She even repeated a year of high school to get into the same university as Dohan.

Finding out about Dohan’s current situation was easy. He was a local celebrity, and if she searched through seniors’ social media, she would invariably find glimpses of his back.

However, she couldn’t reveal all these facts as they were.

Yeon-jae avoided Hyeonoh’s gaze and offered a suitably filtered response.

“When I was really struggling, Dohan senior extended his hand to me. Of course, it was probably such a trivial matter that he doesn’t even remember it, but it meant a lot to me. That’s why. That’s all there is to it.”

Hyeonoh was silent for a moment. Then, after quite some time had passed, he spoke.

“Well, that’s how unrequited love usually is. You can spend years just staring at the tips of someone’s fingers.”

“You speak like someone who’s experienced it. Are you… perhaps in unrequited love?”

“No.”

Ugh.

Yeon-jae was about to take a step but stopped. She was suddenly curious.

“But isn’t it kind of weird?”

“What is?”

“I’m a stalker.”

After hearing it repeatedly, those words now flowed out without much difficulty.

Perhaps noticing that Yeon-jae’s answer was different from before, Hyeonoh’s expression also became deliberately serious.

“If you knew that, why did you stalk him?”

Stalking.

To be honest, Yeon-jae had thought that several times too.

‘Am I being too much like a stalker?’

But that was just joking self-examination.

However, after hearing the word ‘stalker’ directly from Hyeonoh several times today, she thought that this unrequited love might appear that way to others.

Still, it was difficult to answer Hyeonoh’s question. Yeon-jae pondered what would be a good response.

But the words that were ultimately chosen after all that consideration were.

“…Because I want to know about him, even if it has to be that way.”

Confessing love required great courage, even if it was to a third party rather than the person involved.

Embarrassed by her own words, Yeon-jae immediately changed the subject.

“A-anyway, you said you’re close with Dohan senior. Are you really close?”

“Yes. We’re close. I told you we’re close. And you should know best, right? You wrote down a whole page about me. If you really can’t believe it, should I call him right now?”

Then Hyeonoh also made exaggerated gestures as if making a phone call somewhere.

She thought it was just pretend, but Dohan’s familiar voice came through the phone with the volume turned up.

Hello.

A voice that could make someone’s heart race with just four syllables.

“Oh, Dohan. Where are you?”

Yeon-jae’s expression turned to shock as she looked at Hyeonoh. She mouthed the words.

Hang. Up. Right. Now.

Perhaps finding Yeon-jae amusing, Hyeonoh played around a few more times. Even while dodging here and there to prevent Yeon-jae from grabbing his phone, his voice remained the same as usual.

“Yeah. I’m with someone right now. I came back to school and~ was wondering where you were so I called~”

Though she knew it was Hyeonoh’s way of lightening the mood, it was extremely flustering for Yeon-jae.

Hang. Up. Please.

“I’ll call you later.”

The call ended and Hyeonoh looked at Yeon-jae again. Then he spoke with a somewhat triumphant look.

“Does this prove it now? How excellent of a helper I can be?”

Proof or whatever. It didn’t register well in Yeon-jae’s ears. She was just busy calming her startled heart.

“No. But I still don’t understand. Dohan senior is popular, not someone who lacks attention. Why me of all people… I’m not particularly pretty…”

Hyeonoh didn’t answer immediately to those words. He just stared at Yeon-jae as if dumbfounded.

“But you do take off those glasses when you wash your face, right?”

“Excuse me?”

And the answer that came after a long while was difficult to understand immediately.

Yeon-jae asked back, but Hyeonoh didn’t explain further, and Yeon-jae didn’t ask for the meaning again.

She just thought he was a strange person.

The two continued walking while maintaining that awkward silence.

Hyeonoh, who had been walking while dangling an empty plastic cup, stopped.

He closed one eye as if aiming at a target, adjusted his position several times, then threw the cup.

The cup traced a crescent-shaped trajectory and landed precisely in the trash can marked with a plastic recycling sign, but the straw he threw afterward fell to the ground right in front.

“Ah.”

Hyeonoh let out a disappointed sigh, and she thought he would just leave it, but he walked forward, picked up the fallen straw, and properly put it in the trash can.

Yeon-jae simply thought that sight was a bit unexpected, watching Hyeonoh from a distance.

She could have left Hyeonoh behind and gone ahead at this timing, but she didn’t. Because she somehow felt he wasn’t such a bad person.

Eventually, Yeon-jae and Hyeonoh only stopped walking when they reached where their building directions diverged.

“Give me your phone.”

When Yeon-jae hesitated, Hyeonoh lightly snatched her phone, entered his number, and even finished making a call.

“Contact me.”

Hyeonoh turned his back first. Yeon-jae watched Hyeonoh’s retreating figure and made a resolution.

That americano was disgustingly bad. I’m never going to that cafe again.

And she realized a beat later.

This was the first time she had eaten with someone else during her free period.

* * *

The Korean Literature Department classroom was already sparsely filled with people.

Yeon-jae sat in an empty seat, avoiding people whose faces she vaguely recognized but knew nothing else about.

The girls who had arrived in the classroom first were already gathered in small groups of three to five, chatting away.

“What do you think the GPA cutoff will be for academic scholarships this year?”

“I’ve given up now. I had a 4.1 last time but didn’t even get the 30% academic scholarship.”

“But seriously, who’s the top student in our department? I tried to figure out the rankings last time and found up to second place, but I have no idea who’s first.”

Hmm… Yeon-jae felt awkward for no reason and fixed her gaze on her textbook.

Yeon-jae was in the Korean Literature Department, but when she first entered university, she had no interest in Korean literature whatsoever.

While few high school students in Korea choose their majors with genuine passion, Yeon-jae at the time cared even less about her major since her only goal was to attend the same university as Dohan.

But as she studied, she found enjoyable aspects, so she worked hard at it.

And before she knew it, she became the top student.

People like geniuses, but Yeon-jae believed that effort also had value.

‘That’s exactly the mindset I have about my one-sided love too…’

When she thought about it, compared to unrequited love that wouldn’t go her way, studying where results matched her efforts wasn’t really that difficult.

Yeon-jae was mindlessly rolling her pen around, thinking about what had happened that morning.

“Excuse me.”

Just then, someone tapped her on the back. Yeon-jae turned around.

A girl with long brown straight hair neatly tucked behind her ears smiled at Yeon-jae.

Yeon-jae knew this girl.

Choi Si-eun. The sophomore class vice-representative and the Korean Literature Department’s ‘pretty girl.’

They had met at a department event once, but hadn’t developed any real friendship since then.

Si-eun had an expression like she had something to say.

‘What could it be? Is she going to ask about grades?’

Si-eun skipped greetings entirely and asked directly.

“Are you acquainted with Kang Hyeon-o oppa?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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