“You scared me. You said something so weird.”

“Honestly, it wasn’t that weird.”

“Yes, it was weird.”

Looking back, my mistake actually turned out to be helpful. Because of that mistake, we now had something to talk about. To be honest, the only thing I had to start a conversation with Shin Jaehyun was "Why did you ignore my messages?" But with this awkward atmosphere, I now had a chance to throw in a joke or two. It worked out well.

I pretended to hesitate and sat down at an empty desk a little distance away. I thought it looked pretty natural. Then, to keep the conversation going smoothly, I teased Shin Jaehyun, who was blushing.

“Are you taking this too seriously?”

“Ah, well, it was a bit much for me. It was a little weird.”

“Was it really that weird?”

“Usually… if someone says something like that…”

Shin Jaehyun mumbled and trailed off. He probably didn’t want to say something that would harm my reputation, but my conscience had already been pricked by a thousand tacks.

“Americans are more conservative and biased than I thought.”@@novelbin@@

“Americans? I’m Korean, you know. And Korea is just too dull.”

“That’s funny, isn’t that all based on American standards? You… Confucianist.”

“No, Korea is kind of unique. You know, same-sex physical contact and awkward compliments between men are pretty common here.”

“Is that really enough to say? That’s narrow-minded.”

“No, it’s not. It’s actually not a good thing.”

“Why?”

“Well, that’s because they ignore the very existence of homosexuality. So that kind of physical contact and remarks are seen as normal. But you don’t really see that kind of thing between opposite sexes.”

Shin Jaehyun cleared his throat and gently stroked his reddened neck, continuing his words.

“Especially you, you shouldn’t do that.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re good-looking.”

“……”

I think I must have looked at him a bit drowsily without meaning to.

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