“Ye Uwon. Let’s break up.”
Kim Heeyeon opened her mouth with a cold tone.
“Every time I see you being kind and soft to everyone, I feel like I’m getting smaller and smaller inside. That kind of self-loathing makes me feel like I’m the bad person just by being next to you. Uwon, I don’t want to keep feeling like this while dating you, so let’s end it here.”
Sunlight filtering through the window brushed past Ye Uwon’s eyes. His face slowly emerged from beneath the hair that modestly covered his forehead.
Jet-black hair and eyes that looked like they’d been dipped in ink, pale white skin, and a sharp impression that might seem cold at a glance. But his eyes stood out the most.
He wasn’t crying, but his eyes looked like he was. Kim Heeyeon flinched at the sight.
“So you called me here to break up.”
But when he finally spoke, his voice had no trace of tears.
Ye Uwon’s quiet voice felt calm, even in the face of a breakup.
“Yeah. We’ve been together for two years after all, so we should talk face to face.”
Ye Uwon looked straight at Kim Heeyeon, the woman sitting across from him who had now become his ex-girlfriend.
She was the one who’d said they should break up, and yet her eyes were reddening like she might cry any moment.
Ye Uwon.
He rolled his name around in his head again. His name had so many circles—so many "ㅇ"s. Was that why he couldn’t say no to anything, why he was so soft? Or maybe it was his parents’ words, echoing in his brain like they were programmed there.
“We hope you grow up to be a soft person, Uwon. Don’t live a hard, exhausting life like us, always on edge.”
Looking at Kim Heeyeon, who said she wanted to break up and was now backing away, Ye Uwon suddenly remembered the words he’d heard countless times growing up.
His parents were calculating, always had to return favors, couldn’t stand to lose.
Even when helping others, they’d have to think of at least a dozen benefits they might get in return before taking action. Because of their exhausting personalities, they constantly doubted people’s intentions and lived with a collection of stress-induced illnesses.
“So Uwon, no matter what anyone says, don’t doubt them. Just trust. Helping others is also…”
“Honey, should we at least check how much of a tax deduction we’d get before donating...?”
……His parents, precisely because they were like that, desperately didn’t want their child to turn out the same.
So, since he was too young to even remember, they drilled into Ye Uwon the values of altruism and devotion. Of course, they did equip him with minimal self-protection.
“It’s okay to give your flesh. But if they ask for your bones, bite them.”
He was taught to bare his teeth only when someone crossed a certain line. But as long as they didn’t, he was raised to go in the complete opposite direction of his parents.
Grow up soft, Uwon. Accept everyone’s words and actions as gestures of kindness without ulterior motives. Be so gentle that even a blade couldn’t cut you.
Ye Uwon grew up swallowing those words whole. Maybe that’s why—
“So many people used to call me a pushover. Kim Heeyeon said it plenty of times too.”
While they were dating, Kim Heeyeon would often express her frustration, begging him not to be like that. But Ye Uwon, who’d grown up this way his entire life, couldn’t just flip a switch and change overnight.
In the end, he kept obliging other people’s requests like a reluctant doormat, and it drove his girlfriend, Kim Heeyeon, absolutely insane.
“……”
After saying what she had to say, Kim Heeyeon fell completely silent. As Ye Uwon looked straight at her tear-ready face, he finally opened his mouth.
“…Kim Heeyeon. Got it, but put this on first.”
Her eyes moved to the outerwear that Ye Uwon had neatly folded and pushed toward her.
“You’re shivering right now.”
“……”
“If your seat’s too cold, we can switch too.”
Ye Uwon’s eyes, filled with genuine concern rather than pretense, made her gaze tremble.
She parted her lips slightly, then clamped them shut. It was those eyes. The problem was always those eyes. The way they looked at her with such warmth.
“Even now, you say things like that? Yeah, you did nothing wrong. You’re considerate, kind, devoted… But—ha, I just can’t keep this up anymore.”
Like she hadn’t wanted to say this part, Kim Heeyeon’s expression twisted as she spoke.
“Heeyeon.”
“More than anything… I don’t know if you love me.”
She covered her face with a complicated expression.
Being kind and sweet to everyone? That was fine. She could even tolerate the pushover part. The real issue was that he was equally sweet and kind to everyone—including her.
“This feels like a one-sided relationship. Is this even a relationship between two people?”
If she had at least felt like a priority, maybe she could’ve endured it. But Ye Uwon never gave her that.
Because of how soft he was, people always flocked around him, and it was her who was worn down day after day. The wound she’d tried to ignore finally festered and burst open.
Kim Heeyeon could no longer bear not knowing whether Ye Uwon’s affection was really directed at her.
“……”
Ye Uwon couldn’t say anything. If he was being honest, she wasn’t wrong.
It’s not like he hated Kim Heeyeon. Of course, he liked her enough to want to date, and he did like her as a person.
“I’m sorry.”
……But beyond that, he’d never really felt anything deeper.
And maybe it was only natural that Kim Heeyeon, his girlfriend, had picked up on that.
“Why are you apologizing? You gave it your best too. Uwon, I…”
But Kim Heeyeon, unaware of his true feelings, bowed her head when she saw Ye Uwon quietly apologizing after she’d meant to hurt him with her words.
Even if she didn’t feel loved, she couldn’t deny that he’d done his best. If anything, she was the one who hadn’t.
Seeing Ye Uwon stay so meek even until the end, a flood of words rose in her throat—but she knew if she said them, her resolve would crumble.
“……Thanks for everything. I’ll go now.”
As Kim Heeyeon quickly stood up, Ye Uwon’s lips moved like he wanted to say something, but she had already left. With a complicated expression, he watched her back disappear before sighing and tilting his head back.
Staring blankly at the ceiling, he slowly closed his eyes.
How many breakups is this now?
He thought things were going well this time, since they hadn’t had any major fights. But in the end, it was the same again.
Breakups like this were a regular occurrence for Ye Uwon. And the reasons were always similar. Why are you such a pushover? How can you care so little about me? We’re dating—can’t you treat me differently than others? Do you even like me?
He’d heard those lines so often, they could’ve formed a chorus in his ears.
I guess I should be grateful this one ended cleanly.
At least there was no cheating or rebound. What most people might go through once or twice in their lives, Ye Uwon experienced with nearly every relationship.
At this point, I must be the problem.
Even Kim Heeyeon, who had seemed to understand everything about him, ended things this way.
Now, he could say it for sure. He wasn’t suited for dating. There was something fundamentally lacking in him, and it showed—something that couldn’t be filled.
“Take care.”
As the café door jingled behind him, Ye Uwon thought to himself:
Maybe I’ll take a break from dating for a while.
In his whole life, Ye Uwon had never taken a real break from relationships. His soft nature applied just as much when it came to being confessed to.
It started with his first relationship. When a kid turned bright red and confessed with all their might, saying no to their face was never easy.
Since then, if he had even a little interest in someone, he’d usually accept.
But the feelings never grow.
Starting a relationship based on slight interest is easy. But for it to deepen into something more takes something special—and for Ye Uwon, that was hard.
And lovers… they always sensed that. They’d try to change things at first, try to understand—but it always ended the same way.
“Hello, we’re currently running a grand opening event! For just an hour, you can…”
As Ye Uwon walked along, lost in thought, someone suddenly handed him a flyer. He stopped, startled, and looked at the tall sign next to them.
There used to be a bar on the basement floor here, but it seemed like it had turned into a PC bang. Maybe because of the event, there were quite a few people coming and going.
As he stared at the entrance, he tried to recall the last time he’d been to a PC bang—and his mouth opened slightly.
…Right. There was that game I used to play with Kim Heeyeon.