The Spaghetti She Loved

Afraid he might hear the reckless hammering of her heart, Hye-won quickly lowered her gaze.

"What? Disappointed I'm not some younger, better-looking guy? Ah—open your mouth, Han Hye-won."

Do-heon snatched the spoon from her hand and pushed a bite of rice soaked in seaweed soup between her lips.

"I can feed myself."

Her face burned crimson at the way he kept tacking "Miss" onto the end of every sentence just to tease her. She reached to reclaim the spoon, but he refused to surrender it.

"Are you an idol? Forty-three kilos at your height—does that even make sense? Even idols need outstanding looks and health to pull it off."

The day he had brought her down from the mountain, Do-heon had summoned medical staff to the hotel and asked them to treat every visible injury and run a basic checkup. That was when he learned her condition bordered on malnutrition.

"Pfft—"

"Teacher!"

Han-su burst out laughing at Do-heon's blunt roasting and clamped both hands over his mouth to stifle it. Watching him, Hye-won wanted to crawl under the table from sheer embarrassment.

"And with a body this frail on top of everything—what am I supposed to do with you?"

No strength left, so of course she fell hard enough to end up covered in bruises. Quietly distressed by how painfully thin she was, Do-heon scooped up a heaping spoonful of bulgogi this time and steered it into her mouth.

"I—mmph. I'm not frail at all. Do you know how good I am at working? When I cleaned the grills at the barbecue place, the owner said I was the best at it."

Do-heon watched her chew with cheeks puffed out like a squirrel stuffed full of acorns, fondness softening his expression—until his eyes grew a shade darker.

"You cleaned… grills?"

"Yes. I may not look it, but I'm experienced. I've been doing it since the third year of middle school. They don't usually hire middle schoolers, but it was a neighborhood restaurant and the owner knew me well, so he took me on. I worked even harder out of gratitude."

A girl in the full bloom of adolescence, a time meant for dreaming about the future, had done that kind of work with hands even smaller and more delicate than they were now. The thought struck him that she might carry far more wounds than he had ever imagined.

"Well, that's a relief. At least you're not completely useless."

"Of course not! A person has to earn their keep."

There was nothing wrong with what she said, and yet her bright smile twisted something painfully tight in his chest.

"Eat this too. You always liked spaghetti."

Do-heon twirled pasta around a fork and lifted it.

"How did you know I like spaghetti?"

Hye-won's eyes widened with hopeful anticipation.

Once upon a time, Do-heon had been her first love—and the first love of every student in the school. The Hye-won who adored him had waited for his class periods with fierce devotion. Determined to catch his eye and win his favor, she had poured everything into English, and as a result she always scored a perfect hundred on his exams.

Not that it meant he remembered her in any special way. Whether a student excelled or struggled, Do-heon treated them all with the same even fairness. That was precisely why he had been such a popular teacher.

"Is there a woman alive who doesn't like spaghetti?"

"W-well, that's true."

The answer was so simple it left her sheepish; she let out a small, wry laugh.

Of course. Among so many students, there was no reason he would have specially remembered her—or the food she liked.

Do-heon watched her laugh, awkward and faintly disappointed, and fell quietly into thought.

After that, the mere mention of spaghetti brought her to mind.

Had she been living so hard she couldn't even afford spaghetti?

Now that the thought finally reached him, the eyes he turned on her grew tender with quiet ache.

"But, Teacher… how did you know to come?"

"Know what?"

Do-heon, still half-lost in recollection, pulled his gaze back from the empty air.

"Why were you in those mountains that day? Did you… come looking for me?"

That mountain was not a place people climbed for recreation. Red signs forbidding entry stood here and there alongside warnings that it was private property. There was no way they could have run into each other there by chance.

"What? Worried I went up there to marry you or something?"

"No, that isn't what I meant."

Hye-won ducked her head, still sorry and mortified even now. Do-heon only gave a short laugh instead of answering.

The truth was, even he still didn't know why he had gone there. His body had simply moved first. That was why he had left Baekwoljeong before the breakfast meeting was even over.

"Let's talk about marriage one more time, Han Hye-won."

She had gone red all the way to her ears, and he found her so endearing he couldn't resist teasing her again.

"I'm sorry about the matchmaking day. Back then I was so desperate I think I came up with that ridiculous idea."

"At the time you looked ready to marry me on the spot. Where did all that boldness go?"

Shy eyes, flushed cheeks. At last she looked like the Hye-won he remembered.

"I really am sorry."

She couldn't lift her head, answering in a voice that barely crawled out of her throat.

Her claim that she had been truly desperate was sincere. Knowing Jin-sang's nature—that he would force the marriage to Jae-mun no matter what—her only thought had been to escape it by any means. So she had even begged Chae-na for help and shown up to the blind date. Looking back now, though, it had been a completely one-sided and rude thing to do to Do-heon.

How absurd it must have seemed. A student he hadn't seen in three years suddenly demanding, out of nowhere, that he marry her—from his perspective it must have been staggering. Even now, the memory made Hye-won's face burn.

"How do you know Kim Jae-mun?"

Do-heon cut a sandwich into a small piece and slipped it into her mouth as he asked.

Hye-won ate like a baby bird taking feed from a parent. She accepted every bite so readily and so cutely that he picked up a slice of pizza next—only for her to clamp her lips shut in protest.

"Can't I stop eating now? My stomach is so fu—"

She never finished the word full. The moment she met Do-heon's chilling gaze, she instinctively sped up her chewing. Bite after reluctant bite, she finally got through one more slice of pizza before the meal was allowed to end.

"How do you know that man, Teacher? Are you acquainted? I heard it was a private wedding—only the innermost circle invited."

"I don't know trash like that."

Do-heon drew a firm line. Even if he did know him, he would rather not.

He had first encountered Jae-mun while attending high school in the United States. Jae-mun had been two years his junior. Rumors said he had fled to America on a last-ditch study-abroad escape just before being expelled back in Korea.

Whether the rumors were true or not, it hadn't taken Jae-mun long after arriving to start his filthy little games. He formed a clique with other boys from similar families and began tormenting students from poorer homes—openly mocking their poverty, belittling them, handing out humiliation without a second thought. At night they gathered at their hangout for messy parties full of drinking and girls. There was talk of marijuana, and sometimes harder drugs.

Someone had once invited Do-heon to join the group. He had zero interest in getting tangled up with pathetic creatures like that. The suggestion wasn't even worth a response.

He had assumed they would simply go on preening among their own kind for the rest of their lives. Then, one day, news of a death reached the school.

It was Min-a—the younger sister of Do-heon's friend Min-wook, a family that had immigrated only a few years earlier. She had taken her own life.

They said Min-a had been suffering from depression for six months. Everyone assumed it was stress from how hard she pushed herself academically. The truth was Jae-mun.

Jae-mun had fallen for Min-a, a classmate in his year, and confessed to her repeatedly. She refused him every time. Her family had come chasing the American dream only to end up scraping by day to day; Min-a refused to become a burden to them and threw herself entirely into her studies. A boy like Jae-mun never stood a chance of catching her eye.

But Jae-mun, thoroughly fixated, kept pursuing her—and kept being rejected. Then one day someone mentioned that Min-a seemed to like Do-heon. Jae-mun's eyes went wild with spite, and he began to torment her in earnest.

He spread the false rumor that she had slept with multiple boys. He even killed the stray cat she had been caring for and stuffed the carcass into her locker.

The shock drove Min-a into severe depression; she began seeing a psychiatrist. Terrified that her family might find out Jae-mun was harassing her—terrified the situation would explode and cause them real trouble—she fretted alone until, in the end, she made the most extreme choice of all.