SSL 26

The place I want to be right now. As he mulled over the expression, it turned into a vague question. A place… Does it necessarily have to be a specific room or building? Can’t it be a person? Just then, the sound of the bell flowed from the speaker, scattering his thoughts. The bell signaling the start of the exam. The teacher gestured with his chin towards the front of the rows and said.

“Person in the very front, pass the test papers back.”

The rustling sound of paper filled the classroom for a while, and then it soon became quiet.

“Good work, everyone.”

Two days later, on Wednesday at 12:15, as the proctoring teacher collected the Information subject test papers and left, the kids let out sighs.

The entire three-day final exam schedule was oaver. Without even a moment to check answers among themselves, the homeroom teacher came in right away and began distributing the answer keys for self-grading. The answer keys for the three subjects they took today. The kids received them and immediately picked up their pens.

“Ah, fuck.”

“I’m screwed.”

A few minutes later, sighs and curses began to leak out from here and there. The kids who did well were quiet, just smiling silently at their desks. Then, the kids started gathering in small groups here and there in the classroom. They chatted and consoled each other.

Doyoon sat at his desk with his shoulders hunched, not knowing what to do. It was because a group of five or six people had swarmed over and were making a fuss.

“Show us. I’m curious.”

“Come on, reveal your scores.”

“We saw yesterday’s scores anyway.”

The two boys who had brought the math problem before had brought one more person with them this time, and Yeji and her friend were also leaning against the desk in front, pestering him. Doyoon was frowning, then without a word, he laid out the three test papers side by side and pointed to the top of each one in succession.

Social Studies 82, Ethics 73, Information 87. “Oh,” Yeji deliberately exclaimed loudly.

“You did well!”

“You did well yesterday too. What’s your average so far?”

“Eighty-three……”

“Wow.”

“It went up a fucking lot.” After saying that, Yeji whistled. The boys grumbled. “Fuck, this bastard did better than me,” they said. Then they each gave Doyoon a light knock on the head for no reason and left.

He was not hit very hard. Yeji, who was sitting with her legs crossed, pointed to her friend and said.

“Want to go to karaoke?”

“……?”

“We’re going right now with her, those guys from before, and a few others from another class. You want to join?”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Figured you’d say that.”

When Doyoon answered with genuine alarm, Yeji giggled and stood up.

“Bye. See you again tomorrow.”

“……Yeah. Bye.”

Only after everyone had left did his spot become quiet. Doyoon, without realizing it, let out a long breath and looked out the window.

He was completely overwhelmed. The air around him felt tattered and torn to shreds by the presence and voices of people. After staring motionlessly at the foot of a distant mountain for a long while, his senses finally, slowly returned. The space reassembled into a single layer, healing and becoming stably solid.

Only after repeating deep breaths did Doyoon turn his eyes back to the inside of the classroom. To the classroom that was almost empty.

Doyoon was slow at grading. The kids who had finished self-grading quickly had already packed their bags and left. On top of that, he had spent more time responding to Yeji and her friends and looking out the window, so it was not strange that the classroom was empty. However, Doyoon was surprised to see that Jaehyun was still at his desk.

Jaehyun has many friends. Today is the day the finals ended. So he thought he would have left right away to hang out with other kids.

Why is he still here alone? But it didn’t seem like Jaehyun was remaining for no reason. He looked busy. He was rummaging through his desk drawer, then he would stand up and check under his chair, tilting his head. Then, as if he noticed his gaze, he looked towards Doyoon and smiled.

“You haven’t left yet?”

“……Yeah.”

“You did well on the exam, right? I heard you talking with the others earlier.”

“The self-grading results are okay. But I’ll have to see the report card to know for sure.”

Doyoon added cautiously.

“I might have shifted my answers on the sheet. It’s happened before.”

“Still, you did well. Your average went up by more than 10 points.”

“Yeah.”

“Want to go home together?”

Jaehyun asked as he stood up from his seat.

“Huh?”

“Our routes overlap until the bus stop. Let’s go together.”

“What about the other kids?”

“They left first. I lost something, so I stayed behind to look for it.”

“Did you find it?”

“No.”

“Then shouldn’t you keep looking for it?”

“No, it’s just……”

There he goes again. Doyoon took in the tips of Jaehyun’s ears.

The color had changed. They were flushed as if blood had risen and pooled there. But Jaehyun waved his hand and smiled immaculately as if wiping the color from his face.

“It’s nothing important. I’ll just come and look for it next time. Let’s go.”

“……Yeah.”

When Doyoon nodded, Jaehyun gestured to the back door. The two of them left the classroom and walked down the hallway side by side.

The hallway, just like the classroom, was already quiet. Jaehyun walked slowly to match Doyoon’s pace, and thanks to that, the two of them lingered in the empty school for quite a while. While walking, Jaehyun would occasionally ask Doyoon about the exam, but it was not a conversation with any particular substance.

Doyoon also answered without feeling the pressure to give a correct answer. The fact that voices echoed easily in the hallway helped as well. It felt good how Jaehyun’s low voice and Doyoon’s own rather high voice continued with a slight gap between them, as if they might touch. The sounds were exchanged clearly, and that alone was enough.

After leaving the building, they walked across the schoolyard, sharing only the wind by their shoulders without much talk. It was only when they reached the crosswalk to get to the bus stop that Jaehyun spoke.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, if you have time. On Saturday……”

Just then, the pedestrian signal turned green. But Jaehyun did not even pretend to see it and kept his eyes fixed on Doyoon as he asked.

“……Do you want to come over to my place to hang out?”

“It’s a green light. You have to cross.”

“I don’t have to cross right now. My noona is going out somewhere again on Saturday. Since you said you didn’t want to go to the art museum together.”

Jaehyun paused for a moment, then let it out.

“So how about we hang out at my place? I have my part-time job from the afternoon, so I’m free until four-thirty. Is the time we used to study okay with you?”

Doyoon hesitated. He bought time by glancing around at the fence and the traffic light pole for no reason, before finally getting the question out.

“Do friends go over to each other’s houses to hang out and stuff?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, they do.”

“Not for a purpose like studying, but just to go to their house and hang out? While doing something?”

“Yeah. Like we did before, eating snacks and reading books together, or watching a movie, or just chatting. Friends do that a lot.”

I see. Nodding, Doyoon recalled. Jaehyun had said it, that he would get mad if I pretended we were not friends.

From what he just heard, it seemed that the category of that friendship also included ‘visiting each other’s houses to hang out’. If so, he should not refuse. Doyoon answered obediently.

“Yeah. I’ll come over.”

“Okay.”

Jaehyun grinned and added a question.

“Is there anything you want to eat, or anything you want to do? So I can prepare it in advance.”

“……”

“If we’re watching a movie, we have a projector at my place. We can listen to music too. And for games, if you want to play, I have a console too. Though I doubt you’d be interested.”

“Can I look at books?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know about those kinds of drawings? Like this……”

Trying to explain with words, Doyoon drew the shape of an animal on his palm with his index finger. He tried his best to show Jaehyun the cat shape Yeji had drawn, remembering it exactly.

“Like this, where you don’t draw it realistically but deliberately make it simple.”

“Like character design? Yeah. I have a few books on that. Not many, though.”

“Then can I… read that?”

“Sure. But, what made you interested?”

“There’s a girl named Baek Yeji.”

Doyoon raised his hand awkwardly around his head as he answered.

“She’s in our class, her hair is curly like this.”

“I know her.”

“She drew pictures in my notebook and workbook. She drew a four-leaf clover for good luck on the exam, and she also drew an animal picture to cheer me up. So I became curious.”

“I see.”

“The pictures, they’re scattered in several places. I’ll bring them all to show you on Saturday.”

“Okay.”

Jaehyun nodded.

“Looks like you’ve become friends with her.”

“Became friends… not exactly.”

“See? I told you so. Kids in high school would be different from middle school.”

As he spoke, Jaehyun patted Doyoon’s shoulder a couple of times. With a smile on his face. The curves spreading from the corners of his mouth and eyes.

Doyoon stared at that face without moving. A strange sense of déjà vu. In elementary school, on the day the house furniture was covered with red stickers, Doyoon had felt relieved seeing his mom sitting in the chair at the dining table. Because his mom was smiling just like usual.

But she was not. To his eyes, she was clearly the same, but in reality, she was not the same. He only found out later when he heard his hyung yelling at his dad. Looking at Jaehyun’s face, Doyoon was somehow seized by the same shock as back then. Could it be that Jaehyun is like that right now?

Is it possible that he is only smiling on the outside, but not actually smiling? But Jaehyun soon turned his head, pointing at the traffic light. The green lamp that had, in the meantime, turned on again and started blinking.

“I’m going now. See you tomorrow then.”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

Doyoon raised his hand to about his shoulder and gave a small wave.