INM 2 Part 2

Straightening my back, I smiled at the young people and spoke firmly. 

“It seems I couldn’t be of much help. I’m sorry, but beyond this…” Ethan’s shadowy eyes caught my attention. Their gloomy atmosphere made me change my words impulsively. “Would you like some cake with dried fruits?” 

I almost held my head in my hands at my own words. What on earth was I saying? This is why I have trouble interacting with younger people. The concept of “being myself”, which I had finally mastered after years of effort, seemed to slip away in about twenty minutes. 

Any faint hope that they might refuse was dashed when Victor and Chloe nodded without hesitation. Reluctantly, I returned to the kitchen and cut the cake into Iittala plates that matched the cups. The moment I placed the plates in front of them, the poor cakes disappeared in an instant. I had hoped to calm my nerves by the time they had finished eating, but it seemed my cake wasn’t enough. 

I thought for a moment and decided to share a story I had heard from Alan, not for their sake, but to calm my own mind. 

“I once heard Alan talking about his friends. I think he meant you.” 

The students’ faces lit up. 

“Did Alan talk about us?” 

“I didn’t hear about your age, gender, or physical characteristics, so this is just my guess. First of all, the one who joked about LGBT issues was probably you, Victor? Alan often sulked about it.” 

Despite my softened expression, Victor’s face stiffened. It was a bit surprising, since he had acted as if it was nothing. Perhaps he also carried a guilt that could never be resolved. 

“You were the one who brought Alan into your group, right?” I continued as gently as I could, hoping to ease his mind. “Alan told me how much his life changed because of this. I think you’re his benefactor.” 

“Not really. I just acted the way I wanted to.” Victor murmured sadly despite his words. 

“And then there was a reliable friend of his…” I continued, and this time Chloe straightened her back. “He always liked to talk about space, so lately I’ve been looking up at the sky.” 

Chloe’s eyes widened. Immediately, large tears began to fall from her eyes. 

I placed a box of tissues and a small trash can next to her, then turned my eyes to the exceptionally tall, red-haired young man. 

“And this is a story from the only time I saw Alan laugh out loud…”

“Alan laughed out loud?” Ethan asked, confused. 

I grinned at him. “He mentioned the quiet one in the “Redhead Alliance”, so I think he was talking about you, Ethan. He said you once went on and on about your theories about red hair.” 

Victor muttered, “What a terrible torture.” looking exasperated, while Ethan’s mature face crumpled in embarrassment, his cheeks turning red. 

Remembering the young man who used to stand next to them, I continued, “It seems it got funnier for him as time went on. Whenever he smiled out of the blue, he was probably thinking of you.” 

“That guy…”

Ethan’s expression softened, becoming incredibly soft. 

“And then… this is really just a hunch, so I’m not sure if it’s you, Kasim. Was it you in high school who was worried about Alan’s injury and talked to him?”

The young man’s eyes widened in surprise at my question.

“He remember that?”

So Kasim was Alan’s first love. Alan had only ever talked about how special that moment was to him, describing the person as “the center of the school”. It was really just a wild guess.

“He said it made him happy.”

As I simply conveyed this, Kasim closed his eyes with a pained expression.

Victor was the one who casually broke the silence.

“Mr. Potter, do you have any idea about Alan’s suicide?”

I closed my eyes and smiled wryly at the young man’s words, deliberately shaking my head.

“Just call me Luke. This formal address makes me uncomfortable.”

I dropped the words and continued.

“It’s not that I have any particular thoughts. It’s just that, as hard as it may be for you to believe, I was once his age. Like Nizan said, being twenty isn’t always as bright as it seems. I know that too.”

Half of my words were sincere and half were evasive. The young men looked at me with solemn faces. Only Kasim, with a troubled expression, kept his eyes on his own feet.

I leaned against the doorframe and waved as I watched the students’ backs disappear. My bold front finally reached its limit, and as they disappeared into the elevator lobby, I exhaled a breath that felt like it squeezed every cell of carbon dioxide out of me. I was glad I had talked to them. That was real. But after this morning’s encounter with the cops, Jane and Maria, it was a little too much. They all shook me up a little too much.

When I got back to the office, I immediately started cleaning up. The cake was completely gone, but the tea consumption varied interestingly. One cup was completely empty, two were less than half full, and one hadn’t been touched at all.

I quickly cleaned up, wiping down the kitchen and office. There was still time for Brian to arrive. Just as I picked up the tools to give the floor a quick wipe, the doorbell rang. It wasn’t from the reception on the first floor. It was the bell at the door.

I wondered who it could be.

In this building, the elevator can’t be used unless the concierge at the front desk or I operate it. So it’s unusual for the doorbell to ring out of the blue. 

I tilted my head in curiosity and opened the door to find Kasim, the young man I had just said goodbye to, standing there. At 174 centimeters tall, I had to look up slightly to meet his intense blue eyes. His gaze held such pressure that my body froze for a moment. Up close, the intensity of his eyes was even more striking. 

“Hey, hey, Kasim! Did you forget something?”

I tried to sound as casual as possible, but his gaze didn’t soften a bit. I looked around quickly, but the other three who came with him were nowhere to be seen.

“Look, I know it’s really rude of me to just barge in like this, Potter, but there’s something I really need to ask you.”

“Hmm, what is it?”

The young man answered my question in a clear, deep voice.

“From what you saw, do you think Alan was happy?”

I couldn’t help but stare into his blue eyes. After observing his serious gaze for a while, I finally gave up and sighed.

“Come in. Looks like we can’t settle this on the doorstep.”

As I stepped aside to let him in, he walked past me with surprising calm. Despite the powerful aura he radiated, he moved like a shadow. From behind, his tousled brown hair looked like a lion’s mane.

Kasim stopped me as I was about to make some tea and sat down quietly on the sofa. He looked directly at me, urging me to answer his previous question.

“Do you think Alan was happy?” What a difficult question.

“Um, well… Alan told me that he didn’t keep in touch with you after you graduated from high school.”

I opened my mouth because I had no choice, and Kasim nodded calmly. 

“That’s right. Even in high school, when we were classmates, we hardly talked to each other.”

“Then why do you care so much about Alan?”

I wished his sadness was just a way for him to revel in the “loss of a classmate”. It would be easier if I could just pretend to sympathize and then shoo him away.

The young man lowered his eyes slightly. He seemed to be thinking about what to say. A movie about a troubled young lion came to mind, I remembered it had been made into a live-action movie a few years ago.

As if to bring me back to reality, Kasim began to speak slowly. 

“He may not have realized it, but I saw Alan from time to time after graduation. We both went to the same university, and especially in our first year, our campuses overlapped quite a bit.”

 “So you cared for him more than Alan thought?”

He looked around hesitantly before nodding. Then, without meeting my eyes, he continued in a low voice. 

“Potter… Luke, you know about the time I reached out to Alan, right?”

“You noticed that Alan was hurt and called out to him. I heard you about three or four times.”

“Did you hear what kind of injury it was?”

“No… I thought it was just a small scratch or something.”

Kasim shook his head calmly.

“No. I can’t tell you much, being an outsider, but… it was clearly a terrible assault, even to the untrained eye.”

A lump formed in my throat in the quiet office. “The sweet memory of Alan and his first love” was instantly replaced by a horrible scene.

I closed my eyes tightly and gasped.

“Oh, no…” 

“But what really shocked me was that Alan was so indifferent to his injury, as if it had happened to someone else. While I panicked, he just stared blankly.”

At first I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Then I realized that I was looking directly into his eyes, which filled my entire field of vision. The world was filled with light… After a moment, I finally felt his hand grab my arm, and I heard him question me.

Alan’s voice echoed in my mind as he recounted his memories with Kasim. At that time, only pure joy danced in Alan’s eyes.

The feeling of his hand on my arm is still burned into my skin. Just by remembering that feeling, I thought I could endure any situation. My heart was truly at peace. 

“Since then I couldn’t stop worrying about Alan.”

“Maybe he was being bullied?”

“If you mean at school, no. I kept a close eye on things, but there was no obvious bullying or harassment directed at him. Our school had a lot of emotionally stable students, and Alan, for better or worse, wasn’t really the type to stand out. He was quiet but not uncooperative, and he was known for his good grades, but he wasn’t exactly the center of attention. I thought he did well with the minimal social interactions he had.”

“I’m impressed by how closely you watched him.” the former classmate rattled off, adding quietly.

“And because he always thanked people for even the smallest things, I don’t think anyone disliked him.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

Kasim smiled at my words.

“To be honest, every time I saw him on campus after graduation, he was always surrounded by friends and seemed happy… so lately I’ve been feeling pretty relieved.”

“I see.” 

The young man before me really cared about Alan.

With a hint of relief in my voice, I murmured. The young man repeated his earlier question.

“Luke, do you think Alan was happy?” 

“Whenever you saw him, Alan seemed happy, right? That’s your answer. Do you have any complaints?”

“…”

Kasim fell silent at my smile. Okay, so he’s not happy.

Speaking to him as if he were my much younger brother…even though I only have a sister…I continued.

“Hey, Kasim. Alan seemed to have a lot on his mind, but at least to me he looked happy every day. But you see, I didn’t know anything about his daily life or even about the injury. So I can’t answer that question.”

“Still, you must have been the one most deeply involved with his inner self.”

“You overestimate me. I just happened to know about Alan’s problems. I didn’t even know he was still a student.”

“Knowing a lot of symbolic information means nothing. None of the four of us have ever seen Alan laugh out loud. We think that’s the answer.”

He countered with the very words I had used earlier. How completely uncharming.

The view from the window had completely changed into a night scene. Against the dark night sky, buildings and cars scattered their lights as they pleased.