WYK 65

“Want to share the umbrella? Stand in front of me.”

“It’s okay. I’m already completely soaked anyway.”

Jeong-yoon shook his head at Moon-sun’s offer. His shirt was already clinging to his shoulders, completely wet. Chae-heon, who had been silently listening to their conversation, moved the umbrella handle from between himself and Moon-sun to between Jeong-yoon and Moon-sun. Rain began falling heavily on Chae-heon’s head and left shoulder.

“Huh? I’m fine though? You use it, Kang Chae-heon.”

Jeong-yoon said, poking his head out. Chae-heon shook his head and smiled with his usual kindness.

“I’m already soaked too, so it’s fine. You use it, you must be cold.”

Jeong-yoon wiped the raindrops from under his chin with an awkward expression and quietly said okay. Then Moon-sun, who was in the middle, said incredulously:

“Why are you two making such a fuss over my umbrella? Anyone can use it.”

After that, the three walked in silence. Moon-sun hummed some unknown song to himself, Jeong-yoon walked quietly, and Chae-heon was lost in thought.

Come to think of it, what was Jeong-yoon doing earlier? He was moving an earthworm, wasn’t he? Must have been bothered by the sight of it writhing and dying on the asphalt in the rain. Anyway, he’s really strange. Why go out of his way to do such troublesome things when no one’s giving him credit?

Then at the end of that thought, he remembered how Jeong-yoon had taken over all the classroom duties for him.

“…”

Only then did things start to make sense. Why Jeong-yoon had shouldered the burden alone and worked so diligently on classroom duties.

Right. That’s just the kind of person Seo Jeong-yoon was. He was kind to him just as he was kind to a worm that received neither attention nor love. Jeong-yoon was someone who could be considerate and kind to others without any ulterior motives or particular affection. Just born that way.

‘…So I’m about on the same level as a worm to Seo Jeong-yoon?’

Chae-heon let out a faint laugh. It was so absurd he could only laugh emptily.

***

After that, Chae-heon actively participated in classroom duties. It wasn’t from the ridiculous thought of wanting to be more than a worm to Jeong-yoon, but just because it bothered him. His conscience pricked at letting the incredibly kind and good-hearted Jeong-yoon, who even cared about worms, shoulder all the burden. Though, of course, the classroom duties weren’t particularly hard or strenuous.

Human relationships were somewhat amusing. Spend some money and act nice, and unnecessary flies quickly stick to you. People who try to follow and offer things without being asked. Though he lacked nothing himself, he wondered why they’d hover around checking his reactions.

Those types who disguise their actions as goodwill but ultimately want something in return.

He despised that, so he deliberately ignored and pushed away such people, but he couldn’t understand why he wanted to get closer to Jeong-yoon, who watched his reactions and did his classroom duties for him. Even to the point of wanting to take care of him.

Curious about such a Jeong-yoon, Chae-heon used classroom duties as an excuse to come to school early and observe him.

Alone with him, Jeong-yoon was quite a still and quiet person. In the classroom filled with bluish dawn air, Jeong-yoon just sat and studied.

Chae-heon also sat quietly with his chin in his hand, wearing earphones with the sound off. Though he opened his book, nothing registered. He was only conscious of Jeong-yoon behind him.

He thought he might hear Jeong-yoon’s breathing if he took out his earphones, but they seemed to form a wall blocking his inexplicable emotions, so he couldn’t.

Though he didn’t know what the emotion rising within him was, it seems he instinctively knew from then that it absolutely must not surface.

***

They were in the same class again in second year. Chae-heon sat in the last seat reading a book. Still wearing earphones with no sound, he followed Jeong-yoon’s voice.

“Ugh, you little punk… are you a beggar? Put on some lotion.”

Jeong-yoon was slathering hand cream on his seatmate’s hands. Perhaps due to spring dryness, his seatmate’s hands were cracked white. The seatmate was startled at first but soon submitted like a good lamb. Jeong-yoon roughly massaged the lotion into his hands.

After the lotion was applied, the seatmate lifted his hands and sniffed.

“Seo Jeong-yoon. Why do you carry such things? It’s gross.”

“My sister gave it to me. She said I have to take care of myself from a young age.”

“Take care of yourself? Bullshit…”

“Don’t be like that, you should too. Look at your face, look… My sister even puts face masks on me. That’s the secret to my beauty.”

“Must be nice being handsome, idiot.”

“Yeah. It’s fucking great.”

Their casual conversation was so cute that Chae-heon just quietly listened while pretending to read his book.

Jeong-yoon always grumbled but did everything for others. If he’d just done it without complaining, rumors would have spread calling him an angel of this world, but he was the type to ruin it all with his mouth. He was really amusing.

And meanwhile, it also grated on him. Why was he so kind, applying hand cream and being sweet to just anyone? Yet it was somewhat irritating that he always maintained walls with Chae-heon.

Seo Jeong-yoon. Why do you push me away like that when you’re kind to everyone?

Chae-heon absently looked at his own hands. Would he apply lotion if my hands got rough too? He caught himself having such childish thoughts. He found himself quite ridiculous.

***

The sports festival period came. As class president, he was supposed to buy snacks for the event. As always. No one had ever questioned or complained about this. It was perfectly natural and proper. But through the noisy meeting,

“You need to have at least some conscience. Poor Kang Chae-heon.”

When Jeong-yoon’s voice came through, he did feel something. Just wanting to care about Jeong-yoon who said such things.

Suddenly he remembered walking home with Jeong-yoon a year ago. Thursday and Friday when he decided to properly do classroom duties. They took out trash together and went home together. The first and last two days they walked home just the two of them.

Jeong-yoon went straight to academy after school without stopping home and seemed to always buy sandwiches for a snack. Somehow their paths overlapped, so Chae-heon followed him to the sandwich shop. And unintentionally got treated to sandwiches by Jeong-yoon two days in a row.

‘I just got my weekly allowance. Since the class president spent a lot, I’ll treat you too.’

When he offered with sparkling eyes like that, there was no way to refuse.

‘This one’s my favorite.’

After saying that, Jeong-yoon ate an egg sandwich on Thursday and bought the same thing on Friday. He said he could eat just that even if he had to eat sandwiches three meals a day.

And he bought Chae-heon a ham and cheese sandwich. Though Chae-heon wasn’t particularly fond of sandwiches, he ate it cleanly anyway. Seeing this, Jeong-yoon smiled brightly.

‘As expected, you’re even good at eating! So cool.’

What an absurd thing to say.

Good at eating? And that’s cool? He just ate it because it was bought for him. Wasn’t it bought to be eaten? By that point, Chae-heon wondered how exactly he appeared in Jeong-yoon’s eyes.

‘Kang Chae-heon… I always think. You seem too kind.’

‘…Me?’

‘Yeah. You take care of others, look after them.’

‘…’

‘But don’t give too much since many don’t even appreciate it. You probably don’t know since you grew up well… but there are a lot of ungrateful bastards?’

Jeong-yoon said this while sipping orange juice through a straw, looking at him with a genuinely concerned expression.

Chae-heon just stared blankly at such a Jeong-yoon. He was somewhat dazed because nothing was right from start to finish. He wasn’t kind, didn’t take care of others, and hadn’t grown up well.

Rather, those words fit Jeong-yoon perfectly. Jeong-yoon was the one who grew up well, loved in a harmonious family, like sunshine.

Moreover, his kindness to others wasn’t for them but entirely for himself. It wasn’t even for self-satisfaction… he just did it because life was easier if he spent some money and smiled. Therefore, he didn’t care whether there were ungrateful people as Jeong-yoon said.

But how did he appear in Seo Jeong-yoon’s eyes?

It felt strange somehow. Jeong-yoon who spent nearly a quarter of his 40,000 won allowance buying him sandwiches for two days, and himself who mindlessly pulled money from his wallet to buy snacks for others. Which of them was truly kind?

Jeong-yoon was always like a clear lake where you could see straight to the bottom.

How could someone’s outside and inside match so perfectly? It was fascinating and pleasant how Jeong-yoon showed all his thoughts on his face. Being in front of him made Chae-heon feel ashamed of how different his own outside and inside were.

***

And then. On the second-year sports festival day. While he couldn’t eat snacks due to class president meetings, Jeong-yoon handed him a sandwich with a smile.

“Eat this. Kim Seong-chan was eyeing yours, but I protected it hard.”

The moment he faced Jeong-yoon’s gentle smile and kind action, his mind went blank.

Right. The one who was kind to everyone, loved by everyone, and shining brightly wasn’t him but Seo Jeong-yoon. He was just mindlessly drawn to that radiance like a moth to flame.

Seo Jeong-yoon who was kind to everyone. The desire to have that kindness shown only to himself was slowly taking root in his heart.

***

He clearly realized his feelings during summer vacation of second year.

He finally understood why he unknowingly always followed Jeong-yoon with his eyes. Why among the noisy boys’ voices, only Jeong-yoon’s voice came through clearly. The reason why sincere smiles leaked out during trivial conversations with Jeong-yoon.

He had never not seen Jeong-yoon. They were in the same class in both first and second year, and always saw each other even during vacations due to supplementary classes.

Then came second-year summer vacation. Jeong-yoon missed supplementary classes. He was going on a three-week family trip to Europe.

The first day or two, he thought nothing of it. But as Jeong-yoon’s absence became three days, four days… After not seeing his face for about a week, he started losing sleep.

Where would he be now? With the time difference in Europe, would he be sleeping? What would he be doing now?

He couldn’t bear how much he missed him. While studying at his desk, he flopped onto his bed and blankly stared at the ceiling. No motivation, no fun, everything just made him think of Seo Jeong-yoon. After lying there for a while, he started searching classmates’ SNS on his phone.

Jeong-yoon particularly hated having his picture taken and didn’t even use SNS, which became quite frustrating at that moment. Kwon Sang-cheol, Im Jae-woo, Kim Ye-jun, he flipped through quickly, touching whatever names he could, until finally finding one photo with Jeong-yoon.

Sitting behind Kim Ye-jun taking a selfie, Jeong-yoon was leaning his upper body hard to the right with a slight frown, probably not wanting to be in the photo. But he couldn’t avoid it completely. In the end, his half-cut figure was captured behind Kim Ye-jun’s selfie.

Chae-heon zoomed in and stared at Jeong-yoon’s face for a long time. Even his slightly frowning eyebrows making an “ugh” expression were terribly cute.

He captured that photo, password-protected it, saved it to his gallery, and looked at it again for a long time. Only a week had passed, meaning he had to wait two more weeks to see this face in person. That felt very difficult and regretful.

Then he muttered to himself,

“…What am I doing?”

He really wondered what he was doing.

Once he became aware, that was it.

He wanted to know everything about Jeong-yoon. He wanted to discover his lovable aspects that others didn’t know, to be the only one by his side, to always be in contact. Everything became interesting. Whether he had siblings, where he lived, what he liked.

Alone under his desk lamp, he scribbled in his notebook.

Likes sandwiches. Lends stationery well. Uses 0.3mm mechanical pencil. Good at running. Bad at ball sports. Seems to have older sister and brother. Wants to attend ○○ University. Pretty when smiling. Cute. Lovely.

Then he stopped his pen.

Am I crazy?

Yes. He seemed a bit crazy. He felt like he really couldn’t get caught with this notebook, so he put it in a large pasta dish and burned it. Watching the ashes that left only a burnt smell, he shook his head. His mind was in chaos.

And that night, he had a wet dream about Jeong-yoon. They say if you play with fire, you’ll draw a map on your blanket, but something else happened instead. The price for playing with fire was too embarrassing. And at the same time, he felt so good that he felt self-loathing.

Jeong-yoon’s arms wrapped hotly around his neck, and the sensation of bare skin touching his hand. Jeong-yoon in his arms was as vivid as if it were reality, not a dream. That dream of kissing him while roughly stirring his insides was so ecstatic and overwhelming, it even felt like committing a sin.

‘…This is troublesome. Should I get a girlfriend?’

He’d never had a girlfriend. From the start, feelings of liking someone or sexual urges had always seemed like stories from another world.

It’s torture to be with someone when you don’t want to be with anyone. That’s why he hadn’t put anyone in the position beside him, whether girlfriend or whatever, but after having such a dream about Seo Jeong-yoon, he felt he needed to do something.

He didn’t understand what love was. Same with unrequited love. Everything just felt neutral. Celebrities and pretty girls seemed like paper dolls. Boys weren’t even worth mentioning. He had neither love nor sexual desire. Though it was supposed to be adolescence when bodies burn with passion, he’d lived like someone who’d been castrated.

For someone like him who lacked even basic emotions like attraction to others, such incomprehensible feelings couldn’t possibly sprout.

But they had sprouted.

And towards his classmate Seo Jeong-yoon, at that.

That was really troublesome. He seriously considered whether his preferences lay that way, but it didn’t seem so.

Anyway, Chae-heon seriously concluded he needed to somehow break through this awkward situation.

So when visiting his aunt’s house, he said to his cousin Yu Da-jeong,

“Set me up with one of your friends.”

“What friend? You can’t date.”

Yu Da-jeong rejected it immediately.