Don't You Need an Omega Lucky Charm - Chapter 15.2
“You are the one.”
Cha Jeongwon emptied his glass once and slowly continued his words.
“You are already getting drunk and making preparations to blame it on me.”
“Wow…”
So you want to see who wins, huh?
“You always pin me down as the culprit first, Senior. You don’t believe me even if I say it’s a coincidence, and you don’t believe me even if I say I was avoiding you.”
Ha-on’s irregularly swaying eyes became sharp at some point.
“Why don’t you think of the opposite?”
He slightly tilted his head.
“Conversely, it could be that you were trying to see me, Senior.”
As if he had to clearly address at least this point, he spoke distinctly word by word.
“It was like that earlier too.”
Ha-on was merely walking down the street. Right then, Cha Jeongwon appeared by taking a taxi.
“The one who dropped right in front of me was you, Senior.”
Ever since their very first meeting, that is.
Although drunkenness was mixed into his voice, it was a reasonably valid suspicion.
“You said you weren’t coming today either, but you came.”
His head grew even dizzier at the fact that he remembered when he ran into Cha Jeongwon and what happened back then all too clearly.
“On top of coming…”
The tip of Ha-on’s finger tapped the table once.
“To the corner table where I am sitting, of all places… Even after this, are you innocent, Senior?”
“Your conceit is severe.”
As if he had been waiting, Cha Jeongwon shot back.
“I knew you would say that.”
Ha-on smirked.
“Still, just as you suspect me, Senior, I have the right to suspect this much too, don’t I?”
For a moment, their gazes crossed.
It was impossible to tell who turned their eyes away first.
Cha Seojun, stuck in the middle, read the room carefully.
“I think both of you are drunk, so how about stopping?”
On top of that, Cha Seojun stopped Cha Jeongwon first.
“You don’t usually drink this much. Stop drinking.”
Next, he turned to look at Ha-on.
“I had a lot of things to say with you today, Senior Ha-on, so you shouldn’t drink anymore. Absolutely not. I really wanted to hear stories about college life and get advice from you, Senior.”
Although his tone was full of regret, it seemed obvious that today was already a lost cause.
“If I had known it would be like this, I shouldn’t have brought Jeongwon hyung.”
Ha-on’s feelings were exactly that. Why did you bring him?
“Stop it.”
Cha Jeongwon set down the bottle he was holding. The sound of the beer bottle hitting the table was dull and heavy.
He wondered if his words were directed at Cha Seojun, but his gaze was precisely locked onto Ha-on.
“Stop what?”
“Useless imaginations.”
Ha-on looked at Cha Jeongwon with a face full of things to say.
Aren’t those words I should be saying? Who is the one that pushed me into a corner with strange thoughts!
“The reason I came here today isn’t because of you.”
“I can guarantee that. I dragged him here by force when he said he wouldn’t come. I begged and begged Hyung because we wouldn’t be able to do a welcome party together if not this year.”
Cha Seojun raised his hand and interjected.
“…Of course, I regret it now though.”
He ignored the small whisper that followed afterward. At any rate, since Cha Jeongwon didn’t come to meet Ha-on, was there anything more to say here?
“Fine.”
Ha-on slowly nodded his head.
“Then please just think of me as a person sitting next to you by chance.”
Then he made a gesture as if making a toast again.
“By chance on the stairs, by chance in the elevator, by chance at the welcome party table.”
Every time he mentioned what had happened, Ha-on remembered those memories vividly.
“Why do you pick your words like that?”
“Isn’t it a hundred times better than you jumping to conclusions that I appeared on purpose, Senior?”
Though they were words thrown out in the heat of the moment, they were genuine in their own way.
Drunkenness rose further. His chin gradually grew heavy.
Every time he raised his head, the room’s lighting followed one beat late.
At the adjacent freshmen table, someone was shouting “One shot!”
Compared to the noisy singing, laughter, and clinking of glass cups, words gradually diminished at this corner table.
Instead, only the glasses were emptied at a steady pace.
He couldn’t even estimate how much he had drunk.
From a certain point, the taste of the beer was all the same. It was neither sweet nor bitter.
Ha-on felt that he himself was strange too.
He felt like he had already exceeded his usual alcohol tolerance, so why was this happening?
It didn’t take long to recall the reason. Far from disappearing as time passed, alcohol accumulated in his body.
It was because he had taken suppressants before coming to the pub, making his senses duller than usual.
So what had become dull was not the drunkenness itself, but the sense of recognizing that drunkenness.
