SSL 14

Other kids also took a step forward, cornering Doyoon into a tight space.

Doyoon looked at the seven faces one by one, fumbling through his mind. Ah, right. As soon as the morning meeting ended and the teacher left, the kids had snatched Doyoon from his seat and brought him to the back of the classroom. They had chattered about something and told him to apologize to a girl.

But then the wind came in through the window and he got distracted and forgot everything. It was a common occurrence. Whenever people spoke, he would get sleepy and dizzy, and his attention would drift elsewhere. To things like the sound of the wind, the color of the sky, or the rustling of leaves.

It could not be helped. Because things like that were much more interesting than the words people chattered on about. They were strange, fascinating, and above all, easier to understand. Anyway, Doyoon searched his memory as hard as he could and then asked a question.

“Why should I apologize?”

“She got hurt because of you!”

“Who got hurt, and why because of me?”

“This is driving me crazy. Are you doing this on purpose? Why can you never understand what people say?”

“Hey, earlier. When Jihyun was about to hit you, you blocked it like this, like this.”

Another boy pointed at the girl, then raised his arm and made a motion. Only then did Doyoon faintly understand. Before the morning meeting began, there had been a girl who had tried to hit him on the head as she passed by while he was sitting quietly. Doyoon had unconsciously raised his arm to block her. And then the girl had made an ‘Ah!’ sound.

The boy continued to explain. He said the girl had hit Doyoon’s blocking elbow at that time and gotten a bruise on her arm. So Doyoon had to apologize. Doyoon nodded and said obediently.

“Okay, I get it. I’m sorry.”

“Is saying sorry enough?”

“I don’t know if it’s enough, but you told me to apologize. So I said I was sorry.”

“I’m asking if just saying it with words is enough.”

Doyoon stumbled. His body was suddenly pushed, causing his back to hit the lockers. He felt a sting above his shoulder blade, as if he had been scratched by the lock, so Doyoon protested.

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what.”

“It hurts. Don’t hurt me.”

“Why not? You hit her. But you’re not allowed to be hit?”

“I’m not allowed to be hit. And I’m not allowed to get hurt.”

Doyoon said, looking straight up at the boy.

“My mom said she’d be sad if I get hurt. So you can’t.”

“He’s talking about his mom again.”

The kids burst out laughing. Mommy, my mommy said so. They even mimicked him before asking back.

“Hey, your mom doesn’t know, does she? That you go around causing trouble for others like this. If she knew, she’d probably say it’s okay for you to get hit.”

“That’s not true.”

Doyoon shook his head.

“I don’t go around causing trouble for others. I’m not an idiot. My mom said I’m not….”

Another boy came up and pushed Doyoon’s shoulder. Doyoon’s back hit the lockers hard again, and soon his feet were tripped and he was pushed around until he fell to the floor. Three or four kids rushed at him at once. It felt like his arm was about to be twisted and held.

Doyoon twisted his whole body, resisting. It was not particularly because it hurt. Doyoon was dull to pain. No, it was not that his senses themselves were dull. He definitely felt the physical pain. But he could not figure out why or how he should react to it. It felt like solving a difficult problem, and it would just make his head spin.

However, in cases like this, the answer was set. Mom had said so. She told him not to get beaten up by other kids at school. She told him not to get hurt. So it was right to resist. But he could not win against the numbers, and while Doyoon was stretched out with his stomach exposed, the biggest boy lifted his foot.

“This is revenge for Jihyun.”

“Everyone?”

A voice came from the back door of the classroom. Doyoon turned his eyes. The first-period Korean teacher was standing there.

“What are you all doing?”

“……Doyoon lost the game.”

The boy holding Doyoon’s arm said nonchalantly and smiled. The other kids also snickered and added a word each.

“We’re carrying out the penalty.”

“Tickling his stomach.”

“Be gentle.”

The teacher smiled as if relieved, then turned around the corridor and came in through the front door again. It seemed he had come in a little early today. The kids scowled, then let go of Doyoon and returned to their own seats.

Class began. Doyoon spent the time as usual. He tried to concentrate during class and endured the kids who picked fights with him during every break. And by the time lunchtime arrived, he was already completely exhausted.

The classroom soon became noisy. The kids gathered in groups of three or five, pushing their desks together and taking out their lunch boxes. Doyoon sat alone at his seat and suddenly listened quietly.

The air buzzed with excitement. Doyoon tried to gather the fragments of words floating around amidst the smell of side dishes. It’s like a passage from the Korean exam, he thought. It felt like being given a dozen passages and dozens of questions at the same time.

“You know Chaerin in class 3? She’s a fun kid, but something’s weird. She says she doesn’t go to any academies. She says she has nowhere to go after school and is bored, so she always asks to hang out. Isn’t that weird?”

“Uh……. I think that’s because her family has no money. Have you seen her shoes? She wears only that one pair every day.”

“Hey, didn’t you promise to meet only with me tomorrow? You’re including Jina too?”

“I’m sorry. You must be upset. But Jina asked me for a favor…….”

Doyoon felt a wave of dizziness and soon squeezed his eyes shut. It’s amazing.

Everyone gets the answers right. The kids are really good at it. They read the answers from each other’s appearances, clothes, expressions, and words, as if they were psychics, and get them right. At least, that was how it looked on the surface.

Doyoon’s Korean scores were always bad. Very bad. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get past the 50s. Even though he was in a higher grade, Doyoon often felt that he could still only solve basic problems at the level of a first-grade textbook. For example, connecting words with their meanings.

Practice Problem: Connect the words in the following examples with the appropriate pictures. On the left side of the textbook page, words like ‘chair’ and ‘desk’ are listed vertically, and on the right side, there are pictures of a chair, a desk, and so on. Then you just have to draw a line with a pen to connect ‘chair’ with the picture of a chair, and ‘desk’ with the picture of a desk.

Doyoon could easily solve problems up to this point. But that was it. When a problem came up where he had to read not just individual words but entire sentences or paragraphs and grasp their overall meaning, Doyoon would become disoriented. Moreover, if it was a descriptive question instead of a multiple-choice one, he could barely get a grasp of it at all.

Just take the kids’ conversation from a moment ago. How could one possibly read the meaning ‘that person is poor’ from someone’s behavior or shoes? Reading the ‘speaker’s upset feelings’ from the sentence ‘I’m including Jina when we go on our picnic’ was even more absurd. Doyoon could not even imagine the process of solving that.

Since kindergarten, Doyoon had already been aware. That he could not have a proper conversation with others. Thanks to that, Doyoon was always an outsider in his peer groups. When he entered elementary school, he naturally became a subtle outcast.

But Doyoon did not dislike being an outsider. Because there were plenty of other interesting things in the world. Things like playing the piano, solving math problems, and immersing himself in the scenery outside the window and on the street, and the various scents and sounds.

However, starting from the fourth grade, he began to be actively bullied. He could not quite understand the reason. It might have been because, at the beginning of the semester, the teacher had forced everyone to eat lunch together. Since everyone was still awkward with each other, she had made them eat in groups of four, no matter what, so they could get to know each other.

At that time, Doyoon had thrown up in front of the kids. Because it had been such a terrible ordeal. Having to eat while talking with several people, in other words, while constantly solving difficult Korean problems. That might have been the trigger. Because right from the very next day, someone had started calling Doyoon names like, hey, Pukey.

Doyoon opened his side dish container, laid it out on his desk, and reached for his chopsticks. But as if on cue, a shadow fell over him, and the side dish container clattered loudly as it was knocked to the floor.

“……”

“Ah, my bad.”

“Sorry. Pick it up and eat it.”

Two boys walked past, snickering. They were two of the kids who had cornered Doyoon at the back of the classroom that morning.

I was trying to eat quickly to avoid this. Doyoon silently got up from his seat, bent his knees, and picked up all the seasoned shredded squid and braised quail eggs with his hands. Some of it had been stepped on and stuck to the floor, but he peeled that off too and put it back in the container. And then he started to eat it again with his spoon and chopsticks.

“Crazy bastard……. Disgusting.”

“Wow, is he really picking it up and eating it?”

“They should send kids like that to a special school, why is he in our class.”

Voices of disgust came from here and there, but he ignored them. Because he could not throw the food his mom had packed for him on the ground. Mom loves Doyoon. He could not let that love be defeated by the kids’ hostility.

<It’s okay.>

It was from when he had a parent-teacher conference in the second grade. The homeroom teacher had told his mom to take Doyoon to a hospital. She told her to have him get some kind of tests in the neurology department.

His mom had nodded as she listened. Yes, I understand, that makes sense, she had replied occasionally. But on the way out of the school, his mom had stroked Doyoon’s head and told him.

<It’s okay, you don’t have to go to a place like a hospital. Our Doyoon isn’t a weird kid. He’s just a little special.>

<My son, another hundred on your math test? I’ll have to go and brag at work.>

<Doyoon, should hyung help you with your craft project?>

<Doyoon oppa, let’s go to school together.>

<What? Who said that? No, our Doyoon is such a pretty and smart kid. Mom loves you very much.>

Swallowing the quail egg that tasted of dust, Doyoon steeled his heart once more. The kids are wrong.

I’m not a psychopath or an idiot. Mom said I’m not. Dad said I was his proud son, hyung said I was a good little brother, and my little sister said she liked me. So it’s not true. This one time, the kids’ answer is wrong. My family’s answer is right.

My family. Doyoon hung the empty lunch box on the hook on the side of his desk. He felt proud for having finished all the side dishes to the very end.

Throughout the afternoon classes, Doyoon, struggling with post-meal drowsiness, thought. I want to go home quickly. He was particularly tired today because the kids had picked fights with him several times.

Doyoon made a plan in his head. He had to escape the classroom before the kids could approach him and do something again after the end-of-day meeting. Finally, the sixth period ended, and the homeroom teacher came in.

“Class president, lead the greeting.”

“Attention, bow. Thank you.”

As soon as the greeting was over, Doyoon slung on the bag he had packed in advance and slipped out of the classroom. But he could not go straight home. He had to pick up his little sister, so he had to stop by the third floor first, where the second graders’ classrooms were.

Almost running up the stairs, Doyoon looked back. Fortunately, it did not seem like anyone was following him.

He had run into some of his classmates on the third floor before. In front of his little sister and her friends, the kids had called Doyoon by his nickname and even poked his head with their fingers while taunting him about something. Though it had only been that one time. Doyoon looked inside the 2nd grade, 4th class classroom, found his sister at the back of the room, and called out loudly.

“Eunseo!”

Eunseo, who had been chattering with a couple of friends, froze upon seeing Doyoon.

Though she had been laughing heartily just moments ago, her lips turned pale for some reason. Her friends also just glanced back and forth between Doyoon and Eunseo in silence. Since Eunseo showed no sign of coming out on her own, Doyoon strode into the classroom and took his sister’s hand.

“Let’s go.”

“……”

“Let’s go home, Eunseo.”

“……Okay, oppa.”

His sister nodded with a somewhat resigned tone.

Doyoon took Eunseo’s hand and left the classroom. Eunseo’s head was bowed low, and she did not reply even when her friends waved from behind, saying, “Bye.”

The two of them walked in silence to the main gate. As they entered the street, Doyoon took a pleasant breath. Early September. It was a period Doyoon liked. Days when a strange scent wafted through the air. A wind blows that resembles the fluctuation belonging to no season, like the cold sweat given off by the cooling summer, like the yellow sunlight of autumn yet to shine down.