Love - Chapter 2 Part 3

Jung-woo didn’t react to her grand declaration—no anger, no panic. Instead, he hit her with the most useless question imaginable:

“You hungry?”

“No.”

“You haven’t eaten since morning.”

Her stomach chose that exact moment to roar like a disgruntled lion.

Eun-hye’s face burned. “Oppa, is my stomach really the priority right now—?”

GRRROWL.

Jung-woo wordlessly peeled her backpack off her shoulders, slung it over his own, and—for the first time in what felt like years—let out a quiet, breathy laugh.

“Let’s go see how Seoul jajangmyeon tastes.”

He led her to a shabby second-floor Chinese restaurant near the station and ordered a single bowl of jajangmyeon. “Wait here,” he said, then disappeared before she could protest.

The noodles arrived quickly, but Eun-hye didn’t touch them. She clutched her backpack to her chest, eyes locked on the ugly, round wall clock with its jerking red second hand. It was identical to the one in Sister Agnes’s office—the room where she’d first been abandoned.

Tick. Tock.

With every passing second, her dread solidified. What if he didn’t come back? What if this was another goodbye disguised as a meal? She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe—

Then the red curtain by the entrance rustled. Jung-woo reappeared, his black cap pulled low, and Eun-hye’s carefully dammed tears burst free.

“What’s wrong?”

Jung-woo frowned at her crumpled face, her silent, shaking sobs. He scanned the empty restaurant, as if searching for an invisible assailant. “Did something happen?”

Eun-hye couldn’t answer. The truth was too humiliating:
She’d thought he’d left her. Again.

“I thought… you’d run away.”

Tears rolled down her small chin, dripping onto the swollen noodles, turning them sodden with salt.

“I told you to wait.”

“That’s what they said at Eun-hye Won too… ‘Wait here, we’ll come back soon.’ ‘We’ll come get you.'”

Jung-woo pulled out a napkin, but Eun-hye didn’t take it. She just kept talking into the hollow of her own chest.

“So I thought you wouldn’t come back either. That you… that you got sick of me. Hic… That you were gone for good—”

“I called Sister Agnes.”

He exhaled, watching her thin shoulders tremble.

“I asked if I could keep you with me for a while. She said yes.”

“Sister Agnes wasn’t surprised,” Jung-woo said quietly, watching the way Eun-hye’s breath hitched. “She said she’d expected this. That she worries more when we’re apart.”

Eun-hye’s head snapped up, her tear-streaked face a mess of betrayal.

“You should’ve asked ME, not her! Hic… Am I some little kid?!”

Jung-woo’s eyes narrowed to blades.

“Aren’t you?” His voice dropped, cold enough to burn. “To me, you’re still nine years old with gum stuck in your hair, crying over scraped knees.”

Eun-hye’s hands flew to her mouth, but the tears came anyway—hot, furious, terrified. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. That after everything, he still saw her as the child he had to protect, not someone who chose him. That the closer she clung, the more he might vanish.

Jung-woo saw it anyway. He always did.

“If you don’t want to be treated like a kid, stop crying right now.”

But his hand, rough and warm, was already pulling hers away from her face.

“Oppa, why are you really acting like this?”
Unlike how he had been at the facility, his sudden coldness was impossible to understand. Back then, Eunhye didn’t realize that Jungwoo, who had just stepped into the world, was already overwhelmed with anxiety.

“I told you to wait—I never told you to cry.”

She glared at him with reddened eyes, but Jungwoo neither softened his expression nor comforted her. His angry face only made her more afraid.

“If you thought I’d just leave, you should’ve held onto me. If you were that scared, you should’ve followed me. Why are you standing here like an idiot? What if someone takes you away?”

Jungwoo’s pupils darkened. He barely even blinked.

“Go back to the orphanage right now.”

“No.”

Eunhye couldn’t escape his gaze. She bit down hard on her trembling lips.

“If you’re so anxious you can’t even trust me for less than ten minutes, then go ahead—run away, become a delinquent, do whatever you want.”

“It was fifteen minutes!!!”

Tears burst from Eunhye’s eyes again as she raised her voice.

“…Lee Eunhye.”

“It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life.”

Her face flushed with frustration, she stumbled over her words in front of his silent figure.

“And… it wasn’t you I didn’t trust. It was myself.”

“What do you mean?”

Jungwoo’s brow furrowed slightly.

“Someone like me… no one could ever like. So… so…”

“Someone like me… no one could ever love. That’s why… that’s why even my father abandoned me.”

It was the first time Eunhye had mentioned her father instead of her mother. Under Jungwoo’s silent gaze, she wiped her heated cheeks with the back of her hand.

“I’ve always been a bother to you, haven’t I? I know you only put up with me because you’re kind. I know I’ve been annoying… I know I’ve made things hard for you… I know all of it…”

“Liar, Lee Eunhye. Crybaby, Lee Eunhye. Lee Eunhye, clinging to Choi Jungwoo like a filthy little pest.”

Jungwoo shook his head and finally spoke.

“You’re not a bother.”

Eunhye stared at him, her eyes brimming with tears. Jungwoo met her gaze and repeated, clear and firm:
“I’m not annoyed by you.”

“……”

“Not even once have I ever thought that way. You’re my family.”

Jungwoo’s gaze as he looked at Eunhye was unwavering.

“If you can trust me, I’ll take responsibility for you until the end. I promise.”

“……”

“The people who abandoned you—they were all fake.”

“…Oppa.”

“From this moment on, I’m the only real one. Understand?”