SSL 37

“Don’t squirm so disgustingly.”

“…”

“Did you really not do it?”

“I, r-really, didn’t, do it…”

“Then it’s even weirder. Why would he play with a bug like you?”

Jincheol said with a grin.

“In my opinion, even if you didn’t suck his dick, I’m sure you did something. Right?”

“…Ugh…”

“Just what did you do to turn a perfectly normal kid into that.”

The bus stopped.

It was the stop where Doyoon was supposed to get off. But with Jincheol blocking the way with his legs stretched out, Doyoon couldn’t even move. He could only watch as a few people got off and many more got on.

A couple of the people who got on stood by the pole next to the seat where Doyoon and Jincheol were sitting. Jincheol let out a short laugh, then kicked his shin again and said.

“Get off with me at the next stop.”

“…”

“I think we need to talk a little longer somewhere quiet to get an answer, Doyoon.”

“Woo Jincheol.”

A small voice called from behind.

Jincheol turned his gaze, and Doyoon looked too and was surprised. A boy with a large build was sitting in the seat right behind them, his head bowed and his face covered with his hands.

He seemed to be a friend of Jincheol’s. Had he been sitting there the whole time? He had no idea. Whispering like a breath, he placated Jincheol.

“Stop it.”

“Why.”

Woo Jincheol protested with a frown.

“You’re having a hard time because of him too. We need to give him a proper talking-to at least once.”

“Forget it. Just stop… Let’s just go.”

“Hey, you were the one who earlier…”

“That’s enough. Let’s not make it a bigger deal.”

He spoke louder than before, so a proper voice mixed with his breath. Doyoon froze. He had been unsure, seeing only the chin under the shadow of his hand.

But there was no mistaking the voice. Without even having to remember it with his head, the muscles all over his body contracted on their own like a dog hearing a whistle. Park Kanghyuk. It was Park Kanghyuk. He had lost weight and was gaunt, his voice was hoarse, and one of his cheekbones was bruised and swollen as if he had been hit, but it was definitely Park Kanghyuk.

“…”

Jincheol didn’t answer.

The bus kept going. Doyoon stared blankly at the seat in front of him, and Jincheol didn’t bother Doyoon anymore either. The bus came to a stop. Jincheol got up from his seat, and then he and Park Kanghyuk tapped their cards and got off. Beep, beep, twice.

Even after the doors closed and the bus started moving again, Doyoon remained seated, staring straight ahead. Only after passing two more stops did he get off, and only after leaning on a street tree and staring at his own shadow for a long time did he finally cross the street and take a bus again from the opposite side.

When he came to his senses, he had arrived at the apartment complex. His body was cold. With no clear memory of how he had walked there, Doyoon opened the front door and went inside. There was no one in the living room. It wasn’t time for his father to be back yet, and his younger brother seemed to be holed up in his room.

It was a relief. If he had faced his family in his current state, he would have collapsed. Doyoon went into his room, put down his bag, and slumped down in a corner. His shin throbbed. A bruise was probably starting to form, but he didn’t feel like checking it right now.

<Why would he play with a bug like you.>

Jincheol’s voice roamed through his mind.

<In my opinion, even if you didn’t suck his dick, I’m sure you did something. Right.>

<Just what did you do to turn a perfectly normal kid into that.>

What did I do.

What did I do? Doyoon clutched his face.

He had been hit where it hurts. He tried not to think about it. Because Jaehyun had said they were already friends. He said he would get angry if he pretended they weren’t friends now. So he just thought it couldn’t be helped. He accepted it as a given fact. He had only resolved not to cause him too much trouble. Not to take up too much of his time or brazenly accept money or food.

He didn’t try to guess the reason why Jaehyun wanted to be friends in the first place. He was afraid to know.

It was also true that whenever he tried to imagine Jaehyun’s true feelings, only images of dark lumps would well up. His mom had been like that too. She had always treated him well with a smile, but it was a lie. So he believed that Cha Jaehyun must be the same. That he actually disliked Doyoon very, very much, but was faking it for some reason. Thinking that way made him feel at ease.

But that wasn’t what he was really afraid of.

Right. That’s how it is. Doyoon wrapped his arms around his shoulders. It’s natural to be loathed. It’s okay to be deceived. It’s just a familiar reality. But if it wasn’t even that…

No. Doyoon denied it inside his mouth, shaking his head. But memories welled up in his mind like spring water. The face smiling with narrowed eyes. The brown eyes. The ends of his ears turning red, the soft words that flowed from between his prettily parted lips.

<I could, like you, not in a weird way, but as a friend.>

<It’s not that I want to force things I want to do on you. It’s because I like you…>

“No, no, no…”

Doyoon squeezed his eyes shut. His stomach twisted. What if, it’s impossible, but, it should never be and it can’t be, but.

What if by some chance Jaehyun really did have a favorable impression of Doyoon. And that’s why he was being nice to him.

Then that would be Doyoon’s own sin. Kang Doyoon had deceived Cha Jaehyun.

Jincheol was right. Even if it wasn’t on purpose, he must have done something. He had lied and acted falsely without knowing it and deceived Jaehyun. Just as he himself always produced wrong answers, he had induced a wrong answer from someone else. He had created a faulty problem from the start. In a way that deceived people who solved problems normally and diligently.

Kang Doyoon is a bug. A disgusting, writhing thing like a bug with its legs torn off. No one could have a favorable impression of such a creature. Unless they were terribly deceived. Wasn’t that what happened with his mom? Maybe she had really loved Doyoon at first. Deceived, not knowing he was a bug, and only finding out later.

The one who betrayed was me.

His mouth tasted sweetish. A sour taste began to rise from his throat. He tried to get up to go to the bathroom, but his knees wouldn’t obey. After flailing his arms and legs a few times, Doyoon ended up just clinging to the wall, hunched over and trembling. No, no.

“No, no. It’s all a lie. It’s okay.”

Cha Jaehyun dislikes you. He actually dislikes you. It’s okay. Don’t worry. It’s a lie. You didn’t do anything.

His sense of time disappeared. He felt trapped in a round, squishy prison with no front or back, no up or down. It’s an attack, Doyoon realized. The same kind of attack that had occasionally visited him since he learned the truth in the sixth grade, the one that had come during his last midterm math exam. Crawling, Doyoon began to move little by little. He needed something to lean on.

Reaching the three-tiered bookshelf, Doyoon stretched out his hand. The bottom shelf, where the black, blank notebook was. A notebook full of drawings of broken corpses, just like Doyoon himself.

But looking at his own fingertips, Doyoon gritted his teeth. He gathered his convulsing limbs, somehow managed to push himself up from the floor, and touched the top shelf. He took out the file tucked next to the textbooks and pulled out the piece of paper carefully placed inside.

“…It’s okay.”

Doyoon whispered, looking down at the report card.

It was his final exam report card. A report card where his average had gone up by 11 points compared to the midterms. White background with black lines drawn on it, numbers.

He had raised his grades a lot. He would raise them more. He would get good grades and go to a good university. He would get good grades at a good university, get a good job, and send a lot of money to his father’s bank account. I should find out Cha Jaehyun’s account number too. I have to send him a lot.

Numbers are different from people. They can’t lie. If the average went up from 72 to 83, then it went up. If there is 12,000 won in the wallet, it’s there. Numbers are different from people and have nothing to do with people. Because even a very disgusting and monstrous human can earn money. A corpse or a bug can’t, but a person can.

Numbers are unrelated to the nature of the human who earns them. It’s okay. Doyoon muttered with the edge of his lips.

I can do it. Even someone like me can earn money. With the money I earn, I can do something for someone. I saw it today. I saw it today. I bought Jaehyun a cup of coffee and a brownie, that was real. Doyoon inhaled and then slowly exhaled.

“Oh…”

Doyoon was surprised when he looked at the clock. It was already six-thirty. His father said he would be home around seven, and today there was no leftover rice, so he had to start preparing dinner right away.

But despite his hurry, his father came home much later. After nine o’clock. Eunseo, who must have been hungry, kept going in and out of the kitchen. But according to their father, a family should eat together as much as possible, so the two waited until their father came and ate at the same table.

By the time he finished the dishes, it was ten o’clock. Taking off the rubber gloves and returning to his room, Doyoon unfolded the folding table and opened his textbook. As he was solving the homework he had gotten from Jaehyun, he stealthily went out to the living room when it turned twelve.

I’ll just look. Doyoon thought as he sat down in front of the computer.

I’ll just search for what kind of part-time jobs are available. There’s no harm in just searching.

Doyoon hunched his shoulders and grabbed the mouse. He was scared. Because he was doing what Jaehyun had told him not to do. Jaehyun seemed to be good with computers too, so he thought he might be watching what Doyoon was doing on the internet. He didn’t know how, but with Jaehyun, somehow.

Still, Doyoon moved the cursor carefully. When he searched on the green portal for ‘part-time job’, ‘minor’, ‘high school student’, a few results came up. First, a few hamburger places.

This seems like it would be difficult. Because you have to deal with a lot of people. He had once gone to the place where his hyung worked and had run out, pale with fright, just from watching. Serving at a restaurant or cafe was scary for the same reason. Wedding hall, he couldn’t even guess what kind of work he would do. Putting up flyers in a new town apartment complex…

This might be okay. Doyoon copied the phone number onto a piece of notebook paper he had torn out beforehand. It said you could work on a one or two-day basis, so it seemed good for time management too. The wage was 20,000 to 40,000 won per day.

That’s a huge amount of money. He swallowed hard. At least 5 iced americanos, 7 brownies.

His heart beat fast. He was starting to feel a little better. But at almost the same time, something dark came to mind. As if hormones were being secreted to suppress unnecessary excitement. The shape of a face, or more accurately, the shape of an injury. The dark red swelling that had crawled up from the cheekbone to the eye socket.

“…”

Doyoon turned off the computer and stood up, swallowing dryly. His insides churned. It was because he had tried to move forward. The thing he had tried to abandon behind him, telling himself it couldn’t be helped, tugged at his mind. The thing he had done and yet tried to ignore.

The face of another person to whom Doyoon, without knowing, had done ‘something’.

“Come in.”

On Wednesday, Jaehyun said as he opened the officetel door.

While Doyoon sat on the stoop and took off his shoes, Jaehyun just stared blankly at his back. Then, when he had taken them off and was about to enter the living room, he raised a hand to stop him.

“Stop.”

“…?”

Though he didn’t know why, Doyoon stopped obediently, and Jaehyun approached him. He came right up to his chest, then held out a hand, fingers curled to make it small, under his chin. As Doyoon stared at the back of that hand, it slowly began to move upward. Barely brushing his cheek, to his ear, to his ear, and then to the crown of his head.

“Good boy.”

Jaehyun smiled as he gently petted his head.

“Petting your head, let’s do it like this until you get used to it. Okay?”

“…Yeah.”

“Good.”

Jaehyun lowered his hand and tapped Doyoon on the shoulder. It was a sign to come to the table. And as soon as Doyoon approached and sat down, he opened a book and began.