Only Good To Me

Since I became a middle school student, my mother had been commuting between several cities to teach at universities. My parents were practically weekend spouses, and after I entered third grade, their relationship deteriorated so much that I often couldn’t see my mom even on weekends. When my mom didn’t come home on weekends, my father and I would go out for dinner with my uncle and his wife.Both my uncle and his wife were police officers, and my father, perhaps jealous that my uncle’s eldest daughter had gone to a science high school, would always criticize my uncle’s profession behind their backs. There was even an argument about this at the dinner table with my mother. However, I liked my uncle and aunt; they were cheerful and generous people.“Oh my, Won really looks so neat and tidy. How can a boy be so well-mannered? It’s so nice to see.”My aunt said brightly while mixing the yukhoe bibimbap. I gave a barely audible laugh. I hardly spoke when I was with my father.“Oh my, looks like he’s growing, getting some pimples here and there, huh?”It felt like my father turned his head to look at me. Feeling uncomfortable, I lowered my head even more. My uncle loudly teased his younger son, who was engrossed in his phone.“Won looks chubby from the front, but he’s actually, so, so thin! Unlike some people! Unlike those who eat snacks all night and get fat!!”My cousin snorted, sticking out his tongue and only looking at his phone. My cousin, who is three years younger than me, has been obese since childhood. My father snapped sternly:“Is it okay to be distracted by something else when you should be eating?”At my father’s words, my cousin put his phone down with a very annoyed look on his face.On the way back home, the car was quiet and awkward. I had discovered a trick to overcome the silence where no words were exchanged. It was to divide one second into five parts. I focused on the passing time, counting each moment as finely as possible. That way, the awkwardness would fade.“These days, everything’s about smartphones. What does a student need a smartphone for?”Since it seemed like a question that didn’t require an answer, I just blinked.“Do all the boys in your class use smartphones?”“Yes.”“How many?”“More than… half…”“Tsk.”My father gave a twisted sneer.“What kind? Usually.”“Mostly Galaxy or free LG phones… some use iPhones too…”“What do you like?”After some thought, I decided to tell the truth. There seemed no reason to pretend I didn’t need a smartphone.“Well, I think I like iPhones…”“iPhone? The most expensive one? Why would a student use such an expensive thing? Tsk.”It was better to just gloss over it and count one second as 0.2 seconds.“Do you? Need one? A smartphone?”Fixed-answer questions are always uncomfortable. I gave another insincere smile.The next day, after finishing my academy at 9:30 PM, I got home to find an iPhone 5 Black sitting lonesomely on my desk.Even now, when I think of my father, my emotions swing between extremes, especially regarding things like this. Buying me the latest iPhone, occasionally handing me pocket money when he drove me to school in the morning, or his back when he was doing the laundry and hanging it out to dry. Thinking about such things, I still get confused. Whether I hate my father, despise him, or maybe even loved him a little. I’m still confused.🏐Generally, I remember all the details of my interactions with Seo Hangeon. The memory of that spring is when I was in charge of distributing the milk.Having acquired the iPhone 5 Black, I was preparing for the mid-term exams with a happy heart. Apart from being assigned as the milk duty by the white dove homeroom teacher, there weren’t any other notable events. Since serving as the milk duty for a year would fulfill the community service hours requirement, the competition was fierce. With everyone raising their hands, the homeroom teacher openly showed his favoritism by assigning me the duty.“Quiet, quiet! You don’t have a choice. I’ll decide. Won, who has worked hard in my class, will do it! I owe a lot to Won.”When asked to choose a friend to do the milk duty with me, I naturally chose Kangho. All we had to do was go to the administration office on the first floor before the morning assembly to get the milk crates and return them during cleaning time.Perhaps because he was irritated by the fact that I was favored by the teacher, the square-headed kid put on a show that day.It was during self-study time when the teacher wasn’t in the room. The classroom was relatively quiet due to the threat that if the class president wrote down your name, it would go on your school record. The square-headed kid threw a note at me made from torn textbook pages. His seat was one row behind and to the left of mine, so thankfully, I didn’t have to see his face. I unfolded the note nonchalantly.The note had a drawing of a man with an exaggerated penis urinating like a waterfall and another drawing of a man dripping blood from his wrist, both in the style of Zolaman. Below it was written, “Congratulations Pee Boy on being milk duty! Drink lots of milk and pee a lot lol.”Don’t be scared, but completely ignore it. That’s how you win. I folded the note back and put it beside my pencil case, planning to throw it away during break when I went to the bathroom.The kids who had been enjoying themselves behind me started whispering, “look, look.” Soon after, another note came flying. I placed it beside my pencil case without even opening it. Moments later, something itchy hit my ear. It was eraser dust.Sigh… I sighed inwardly. Pathetic kids. Low-level guys with nothing else to do but find someone to bully during self-study. Clumps of eraser dust kept hitting my left ear and cheek, then falling. I quietly collected the eraser dust that had fallen on my notebook, planning to drop it on the floor as a statement.That’s when it happened. A chair scraped the floor with a screech.“Let me sit here for a moment.”It was a voice that always felt like it was pressing down on my heart. The kid who had been sitting behind me stood up timidly and swapped seats with Seo Hangeon. A crack formed in the silence of self-study time. I tried to steady my breath which was trembling wildly. I felt a finger tapping my shoulder.“Give that to me.”I turned around. Seo Hangeon gestured towards my pencil case with his eyes. His face was too close, and he emitted a calm scent. Up close, I noticed he didn’t have double eyelids, and his eyes slanted slightly downward at the corners. His gaze seemed gentle yet sharp, full of intelligence.I picked up the eraser that I had placed in front of my pencil case.“This?”Seo Hangeon shook his head, his black hair swaying.“No. The note.”“…”Kangho, sitting in the first row of the fourth group, was watching with wide eyes behind his glasses. Not just Kangho, but the whole class was observing this situation. As I hesitated whether to give him the note or not, a long arm and chest suddenly reached over my shoulder. I was breathless for a moment as Seo Hangeon leaned over me to snatch the note.And soon, a calm, low voice that didn’t disturb the silence of self-study time echoed from behind me.“Hey, you piece of shit.”What was the square-headed kid thinking? I was trembling, enveloped by the warmth of Seo Hangeon from his body heat on my back and neck.“Don’t you know about environmental protection? You throw eraser dust, but we should save resources, right?”The square-headed kid spoke in a voice that was getting smaller.“No, he wasn’t answering so…”“Oh, I see.”“…”“But Dongyoung, do you want to get your jaw dislocated?”The classroom, which had been quiet, became even quieter. It was true. The decibel level dropped significantly; not even the sound of breathing could be heard.“Huh? Didn’t I say I don’t want to hear the term ‘Pee Boy’?”I quickly thought. He must have said this before.“Fuck, this asshole has no sense, no sense. Doesn’t your dick pee? Your dick is the size of a mung bean. Doesn’t your mung bean pee?”Smack. The eraser hit the square-headed kid’s cheek. From the sound, it seemed quite painful. Now I was getting scared. The atmosphere around was too heavy. This time, a mechanical pencil hit the square-headed kid’s ear and fell onto the desk.One pen, then another, struck his cheek painfully. Each time a pen flew, the long intervals made the atmosphere sink even more in the silence.After a few seconds of silence, a pencil case hit his head. Thankfully, it was made of thin fabric.“Ah, sorry? You weren’t answering.”Amazingly, Seo Hangeon smiled brightly.“Sorry, but could you pick those up?”At Seo Hangeon’s words, the square-headed kid silently got up, picked up the pencil case and pens that had fallen on the floor, and even put the eraser, which had left a red mark on his cheek, back into the pencil case. He placed it in front of Seo Hangeon. Seo Hangeon, humming a popular tune, returned to his seat.I remember the eyes of the tiger on your varsity jacket and the shape of the stains on your white Nike sneakers. But do you really not remember me? I kept wondering about that.Even when Kangho rushed to me during cleaning time after that incident, I was still pondering that question. Kangho, who had slid over to me, said something surprising.“Man, I was so scared.”“Why?”“Suddenly, Seo Hangeon talked to me.”Given what had happened during self-study, it was understandable to be scared. The thought of Kangho’s big, double-lidded eyes trembling in front of Seo Hangeon made me chuckle a bit.“Why?”“Well, he asked if I could switch milk duty.”I couldn’t give an immediate answer. Kangho quickly continued.“He said he wanted to keep one memory from being on milk duty in middle school before graduating, saying some weird stuff. He was begging me.”“…”“If you switch with him, his dad works at a welfare center, and he’d give you a certificate for one hour of service, which would complete your hours. He said he’d ask you first, so I said okay. What should we do?”“He said he’d ask me first?”“Yeah. I thought you might get upset if I just decided on my own. It’s Seo Hangeon, after all.”I tried to make a proper judgment.“What if it’s a lie?”“Yeah, I thought of that too. We don’t even know if his dad really works at a welfare center. And what if you switch and he doesn’t do anything, leaving you to move milk crates for a whole year?”“Then…”“Wouldn’t that be against school violence policies?”“Wouldn’t it? If it’s coercion through lying?”“Maybe? Could it be?”My decision was leaning towards doing the milk duty with Seo Hangeon.“Then, we just tell the homeroom teacher. I can be the witness.”“Right. So, should we switch?”Kangho asked again after a heavy sigh.“Are you okay with it?”“It should be fine.”“Okay. I’ll tell him you said yes.”However, contrary to my worries, I can assure you that I never had to move a milk crate filled with milk after that day. Every morning, the milk crates were promptly placed in front of the classroom, and the moment the cleaning bell rang, they were taken away by Seo Hangeon. Kangho received a certificate for a year’s worth of service hours over the weekend. Seo Hangeon hadn’t lied.🏐So March passed. For the entire month, I did nothing that would justify my responsibility as milk duty. Whenever the milk delivery truck arrived, Seo Hangeon would leave the classroom before I could even get up, and as soon as the bell for cleaning time rang, he would quickly take the milk crates out the front door. I didn’t have the guts to talk to him about it. I didn’t know what to say, and it just left me confused.Except for the eraser dust incident, Seo Hangeon was much quieter than the rumors suggested. He didn’t study much, but he didn’t act tough or make empty threats to his friends. If he got caught sleeping in class, he’d apologize with a sincere, “Yes, I’m sorry!” and move on. If he didn’t do his homework or got caught chatting, he’d take the punishment without a word.There were no particularly offensive curses or unethical remarks from him. Such roles were usually taken by his peers around him. Terms like “punk”, “asshole”, “backstabber” were thrown around colorfully.“Seo Hangeon! Two strikes! Three! Four! Five!”“Damn, look at that.”That gag was funny enough that Kangho and I couldn’t help but laugh secretly. We had to hold our stomachs to keep from laughing out loud.“Damn, why didn’t you answer the phone yesterday! Where did you go with Eun-yoon, did you see her boobs?”That wasn’t funny.“Stop messing around. Turn it off while you can, you dumbass. When did your pants tear, you idiot.”“Huh? Didn’t it get fixed again?”“It didn’t, asshole. Get lost. I’m tired from getting ripped off while delivering yesterday, so turn it off.”“Why are you like this these days? When do you even jerk off if you’re always working, man?”“Shut up, you little shit, really!”The kid who could talk to Seo Hangeon like that, someone who was somewhat on equal footing with him, didn’t show up in our class much after that. Instead, Seo Hangeon started leaving the classroom more often during breaks. Even when friends came looking for him, he wouldn’t stay in the classroom but would go outside with them.From the conversations in the group, I learned that Seo Hangeon had no plans to go to a sports high school but still regularly visited gyms and dojos to meet up with older friends. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to go to a sports high school.Seo Hangeon had habits like shaking his leg, chewing on pens, and biting at the skin around his nails. These habits were very distracting, especially on exam days. Seo Hangeon, sitting in front of me to the right, shook his leg throughout the entire exam. During breaks, he chewed on a blue Monami pen.‘I wish he wouldn’t do that.’I couldn’t blame my less-than-stellar mid-term results on him. On the last day of the mid-term, I was quite down, lingering in the classroom with Kangho. We compared answers, and it turned out I had gotten about four or five questions wrong. Especially in math, I made several mistakes apart from the problems I had to give up due to lack of time.“Won, it’s okay. I could be wrong too.”Even with Kangho’s clumsy consolation, my mood remained dark. I already felt like I was sitting in a dark bathroom. The exam was over, and all that was left was to go watch a movie with friends from the academy, but I didn’t even feel like having fun.While waiting for Kangho, who had gone to take a quick bathroom break, the class monitor returned. I took the classroom key from the monitor and slowly walked to the back of the classroom.It was a clear spring day with a bright classroom, but my heart was dark. Looking down towards the lockers, I spotted something rolling on the floor that belonged to Seo Hangeon – it was a blue Monami Plus pen.I quickly scanned the classroom and looked out the wide-open back door into the hallway. No one was there. I bent down to pick up the pen cap Seo Hangeon had been chewing on. Sweat dripped from behind my ear as if I were shoplifting. I put the pen in my school pants pocket just as Kangho came back through the back door.“Won, let’s go!”“Yeah.”I quickly went to the teacher’s desk to get my phone. Our school had a rule where phones were collected during morning assembly and returned during the closing ceremony.But my iPhone 5 looked a bit strange. The screen protector was chipped at the edges and cracked in places. Upon closer inspection, the phone case was different too. It was the same transparent hard case, but the back was cluttered with coupons, tickets, and cut-out fashion magazine photos.“Huh…? Looks like someone switched phones.”“Wow. Turn it on quickly.”When I turned on the phone and saw the lock screen, I remembered the Monami pen in my pocket.The lock screen photo showed about five or six guys, shirts off, shouting and laughing by the sea, with Seo Hangeon on the far right. Behind them, you could see the Gwangan Bridge in the distance. Even among the men, presumably older friends from the gym, Seo Hangeon was much taller. My eyes lingered for a moment on his face, laughing widely and joyously.The phone vibrated. My phone number appeared on the now black screen.I knew I had to answer, but my stomach was trembling uncontrollably. I couldn’t show Kangho how nervous I was. I quickly slid the answer button with my finger. I swallowed hard.Before I could even put the phone to my ear, a firm voice came out:— Why are you answering so late, damn it! Taejoon, what were you doing that you just turned on your phone now? Really, I’m so damn busy!Was I under some sort of pleasant delusion? His words, spoken without any thought, made my heart sink.— Hello?! Taejoon! Where are you!After exchanging blank looks with Kangho, I answered:“Hello.”There was a pause, followed by just the sound of heavy breathing. It sounded like he was walking. The speaker quieted down and then spoke again:— Won?“…Yeah. Uh… I think our phones got switched.”Seo Hangeon’s voice over the phone sounded even better. I always thought that his voice was more handsome than his face. It was a voice that resonated low and peacefully, fitting for songs by Busker Busker or Yoon Dohyun Band, even more robust than his physique.— Ah, anyway, where are you? I’ll come to you.“I’m still at school…”— Huh?Seo Hangeon repeated in disbelief amidst the sound of his heavy breathing, indicating he was walking briskly.— Still at school?“Yeah. I’m about to leave.”— Got it, stay there. I’ll come. I’ll call when I get there.The call ended abruptly. Even though I knew the movie start time, I pretended not to.“What time is the movie?”“3:30. We’re late because of my bathroom break, so we need to go now. Hyungon is already waiting in front of Lotte Cinema.”“Then go ahead and watch. I’ll take some time to get my phone back.”“He’ll come quickly. Let’s go together.”I tried hard to send Kangho off first.“Hyungon’s waiting alone, and Juyong will be late too. Who knows when Seo Hangeon will come.”“Come on, they’re sending tons of messages, telling us to hurry up.”Hyungon was sending messages every few seconds, saying he was embarrassed to be alone. On my phone, which Seo Hangeon had, group chat notifications would be going off constantly. I didn’t lock my phone or my KakaoTalk due to my father’s requirements. I was worried Seo Hangeon might look at my phone, but since it was so uninteresting, I wasn’t really concerned. There was nothing to hide. My life at that time was that monotonous.Kangho went ahead to the cinema, and I lingered in front of the school gate for a few minutes. The spring sun was strong, making me sweat a bit. It was the season when the knit material of the school vest became warm. I loosened my tie a little.A tall silhouette appeared in the distance. I wondered when he had changed into casual clothes; Seo Hangeon was wearing a black bomber jacket with slim-fitting jeans. Squinting in the sunlight and checking the crossroad, he ran across quickly. His glossy Dr. Martens boots reflected the harsh yellow light.The jacket looked nice, not made of cheap material. The expensive bomber jacket and Dr. Martens suited him well. Did Seo Hangeon’s family do well? He said his father worked at a welfare center, but do they get paid well there? Was his father like a director of the welfare center or something? No way, he would have mentioned it if his father ran the place. Various thoughts ran through my mind.“Sorry! Damn, I just looked at it quickly.”“It’s okay.”Seo Hangeon took off his jacket while catching his breath. A Nike short-sleeve T-shirt that outlined his shoulders and upper body came into view.The spring light was too bright, so I shielded my eyes with my hand and stepped back. Seo Hangeon’s eyes briefly scanned my wristwatch.Where was he rushing off to? Was he in the middle of meeting friends or a girl? Seo Hangeon suddenly thrust my phone towards me. I also quickly returned his phone from my pocket to its rightful owner.“Messages kept coming in, huh?”I was too busy observing his well-shaped, sturdy knuckles to answer. After tapping the screen a few times, Seo Hangeon’s thumb stopped at the top of the call log. My phone number was at the top, with numerous calls logged.“The last digits, it’s your birthday, isn’t it?”“…Yeah.”“Got it. I’m leaving.”As Seo Hangeon turned to leave, my complicated subconscious spoke up.“Hangeon.”“Yeah?”“Uh… the milk duty. We should do it together.”“Yeah, why? We are doing it together.”Seo Hangeon turned around, smiling cheerfully over his white short-sleeve shirt.“When I don’t do it, you do it.”“…Maybe we should take turns each month…”“When I don’t do it, you do it. That’s the deal.”In spring, you were a generous milk duty partner.“I have a lot of time. I have plenty of time at school.”Seo Hangeon, eager to leave, spoke quickly. I smiled awkwardly. After a brief silence, Seo Hangeon asked with his bright, round eyes:“Why does your face look like that even though the exam’s over?”Why do I feel a strange sense of stability and reliability from you that’s different from other delinquents? Every time I see your distant, vague face, I feel the desire to stare for a long time, but I only dare to look for a few seconds out of fear of being caught or starting a fight.I looked away from the face that seemed to be watching me from a higher place and smiled. Seo Hangeon shouted:“I’m going. I have to go hang out, then go to the dojo, and then make some money.”“Okay.”Seo Hangeon quickly turned his head to check both sides before dashing across the road. After he disappeared from my sight, I lifted my phone and tilted it slightly. On the screen protector, there were smudged fingerprints, and I noticed a thick smudge about a third of the way from the top.I slowly brought my nose close to where your ear must have touched. All I felt was the hard texture of the device with no scent. Feeling foolish, I stopped laughing and held my phone, which had touched your ear, in both hands. I kissed deeply where your trace remained on the screen. Over the road shimmering with heat, your beautifully shaped knuckles seemed to wave.🏐“Won! Why are you so late!”As soon as we left the cinema, Juyong shouted. It was absurd because he was supposed to be the latest, yet he was scolding me for being late. When I squinted and smiled, Kangho answered:“He had to go get his phone back because he swapped it with Seo Hangeon.”“Is he in your class?”Hyungon knew Seo Hangeon from elementary school, and Juyong just knew about him. Hyungon shook his head quickly.“I really hate his gang.”“Why?”“They took so much money from me back in elementary school. Shamelessly. I left 3,000 won there just now, and it disappeared after you came. I knew they stole it, so I made them give it back. They used that trick a lot to extort money from me.”I frowned inside and asked:“…Did Seo Hangeon do that?”“No, not him. One of his gang. Anyway, I hate it. Don’t they do that to you guys?”“They don’t do that to us.”At Kangho’s indifferent response, Juyong chimed in:“I heard he fought with a teacher, right?”Kangho was in the same class as Seo Hangeon in the first year. Kangho snapped his fingers as if he’d found a fun story to tell.“Oh, that! Honestly, it was really fun to watch. Science was totally scared.”“Science teacher?”“Yeah. He’s completely crazy, that teacher. Anyway, at first, Science started it, asking why he was looking at him like that. He was just going off, nagging, and then he picked a fight with Seo Hangeon. So Seo Hangeon said, ‘Why my eyes? They’ve always been like this.'”Juyong and Hyungon started hitting each other in excitement.“And then! And then!!”“Science said, ‘Lower your eyes!’ And Seo Hangeon said, ‘Why, I don’t want to. I’m already looking down.’ ‘Look down, you punk!’ ‘I am looking down.’ ‘This fucking kid!’ ‘I’m not a fucking kid.'”“So cool! And then!”“But then, Science went too far, saying something like since he doesn’t have a mom, he has no manners.”“Wow.”“So Seo Hangeon kicked the chair, stood up, and went up to Science like he was going to hit him, cursing him out.”If I saw Seo Hangeon facing such injustice right in front of me, I might burst into tears out of frustration. But this story had been twisted into a sort of heroic tale among my friends. I didn’t respond at all.I closed my ears for a moment and then opened them again; Juyong and Kangho were doing their high-gag again.“That was kind of pitiful, Hangeon.”“I agree, Hangeon.”“Still, he’s nicer than you’d think, Hangeon.”“Nice? That’s suspicious, Hangeon.”Led by Juyong, we all went to Seomyeon. After eating dinner and returning home, it was past 8 PM. The time for returning the phone had passed, but my father wasn’t home yet. It seemed like it was a day for his screen golf or photography club meeting.With my father not at home, I felt like I could breathe. I let out a big sigh, flopped down on my bed, and stared at the wall blankly. I remembered I had put my phone on airplane mode to save data, so I picked it up. As soon as Wi-Fi connected, KakaoTalk notifications started popping up one after another.A few seconds later, I was shocked to the point where my eyes almost popped out.[Did you get home safely?]My heart sank. My vision fragmented, and I felt a rush of heat.After the name and message that made me doubt my eyes, the chatter from Juyong, Hyungon, and Kangho in the group chat continued. I jumped up from the bed. My thumb was already sweaty. With my damp fingertips, I opened KakaoTalk.“Wow!”I gasped audibly upon seeing Seo Hangeon’s name. Seo Hangeon had sent the KakaoTalk message at 3:23 PM.[Did you get home safely?]I redefined the purpose of smartphones and KakaoTalk.Seo Hangeon sent me a KakaoTalk message.Seo Hangeon went through the trouble of adding me as a friend on KakaoTalk, searching for my name in his list, and sending me a message.Seo Hangeon is curious if I got home safely.Seo Hangeon is talking to me.Seo Hangeon knows my phone number.Seo Hangeon knows me.I clutched my head and slumped back onto the bed. I felt like crying from happiness, and sitting there in a daze, I felt like a fool. Sniffling, I pressed the keypad. The screen was dotted with sweat from my hands.[Yeah, I was out with friends and just saw this.]Sending that one reply drained all my energy, and I felt like my head had been dunked in cold water. As soon as I lay down on the bed, feeling exhausted, my phone vibrated. I thought it couldn’t be, but it was Seo Hangeon.[I thought something happened lol See you tomorrow]See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow.Seo Hangeon wants to see me tomorrow. Now my head was spinning with excitement. I turned off the screen for a moment due to exhaustion, but then another message came.[Let’s do well with the milk duty for a year.]Is he usually talkative? But then, this much messaging is normal among classmates. Thinking that way cooled me down a bit. With my head spinning, this was all I could reply:[Yeah, see you tomorrow.]Again. I hadn’t even put down my phone after sending the reply when I got another one.[Yeah, good night.]Seo Hangeon told me to sleep well. I stared blankly at the screen, and after about a minute, another message came.[Won—ah]I couldn’t sleep well. Naturally, I tossed and turned all night.🏐The blue Monami Plus pen I found in the classroom still had Seo Hangeon’s bite marks. After hiding the pen in the back of the first drawer, I strangely felt reassured. It felt like I had obtained an object with mysterious power.Therefore, even during my father’s punishment for my mid-term results, I wasn’t that sad. In the dark bathroom, I thought about Seo Hangeon’s KakaoTalk message. The hour of solitude didn’t feel so dark. I closed my eyes, listened to the voices from the neighboring house, smelled the dampness of the bathroom closely, and even counted the uneven rings on my toenails. And I imagined a voice calling my name.— [Won—ah]After that day’s KakaoTalk conversation, there were no more messages exchanged, and in the classroom, we didn’t speak much either. Seo Hangeon was still deeply engaged in his solo milk duty play.— [Won—ah]I liked that last message so much. It felt like he was actually calling my name. I really didn’t want to leave the chat room, but because of my father’s scrutiny, I had to reluctantly exit. Since my father could look through my photo album, I couldn’t even take a screenshot.“Already, the science high school, the foreign language high school, all that is gone. If you don’t recover your last score in the final exam, you’ll be punished again. Understand? Lee Won!”My grades weren’t good enough to aim for such high schools. In the last test of the second year, I was at least 15th in the whole school, but this time I had fallen to 30th. In my father’s view, since his police uncle, who had a job he considered inferior, sent his daughter to a science high school, I had to endure even more amplified stress from him.“Lee Won. What kind of person are you going to become in society? Has anyone ever succeeded by studying like you? Huh?”Does Seo Hangeon, who has many older friends and already does part-time jobs, know the answer to this question?“Huh? Lee Won!”Last year, at least my mother was home, looking at me with sympathy while I was bombarded with one-sided questions and scoldings. At the time, I didn’t realize it, but now I understand that having my mother there watching over me while I was being scolded was comforting.The next day, I felt sick from the morning, and after lunch, I completely lost my appetite. I felt nauseous, and a painful headache set in. I lay my head down during class, trying to endure it, gasping for breath. I tried to vomit in the bathroom, but that didn’t work well either.In the midst of this, one of Seo Hangeon’s lackeys tried to get a greeting out of me. The kid, sticking his head out from the crowd, shouted:“Hi? Lee Won? Huh? Hi?”Damn dog. Does he have no sense? My head is killing me. I understand not wanting to greet him after a year of ignoring him, but why now? Was it that much of an affront to his pride?I thought I’d just say one word to get rid of him.“Hi.”Huh? He responded. What’s this? Heh heh! His annoying laugh made my headache worse.Come to think of it, it was cleaning time. I wondered what was going on with the milk duty today; the empty milk crate was just sitting in front of the classroom.“Ugh, really, today of all days…”Still, I couldn’t blame the milk duty who had been working alone for almost two months. I exhaled painfully and picked up the milk crate. I went down the stairs and passed by the administration office on the first floor.I blinked a few times at the figure I saw in the distance. In front of the stacked milk crates, someone was loitering around.Seo Hangeon was standing there.‘…?’No matter how much I thought about it, there was only one answer to this situation. He had intentionally set this up to talk to me.Seo Hangeon walked slowly towards me and gently took the milk crate from my hands. I furrowed my brows and looked down. The dark blue school vest rustled. His angular thumb joint brushed past, and then two pills appeared.“The yellow one is for digestion, the white one is for headache.”“…”“Take the urgent one first.”I felt like I had to take them, so I held out my palm. My mind seemed to have flown to the seventh dimension.“Won—ah.”At the sound of the word I longed for so much, I looked up. Seo Hangeon was looking at me with an expressionless face.“Don’t respond to that guy’s greetings.”His voice was sharp and low, and I looked straight at him, surprised at what he was saying. The next moment, I was shocked. Had the square-headed kid ever received such a cold stare? This was the first time I’d seen Seo Hangeon’s stern expression from so close, and I wasn’t used to it. I hadn’t seen this expression in our few encounters.As I stiffened my face in response, the cold air he had just exuded quickly turned into a smile. Seo Hangeon beamed with the warmth of the afternoon.“You don’t want to respond, right?”“…”A command that expects a certain answer. I didn’t want to give a positive response, so I turned my stiff mouth and eyes aside.“I’ll talk to him, so don’t respond to his greetings, got it?”The moment I heard him say he would talk to him, I understood why Seo Hangeon had waited for me here. It was a kind of political maneuvering on his part. He had already learned at that age how to maintain a kind of leadership.He knew instinctively that if he treated his followers like he did the square-headed kid, he wouldn’t gain respect, loyalty, or likability. So, he chose to talk to me separately and then quietly to that guy. He naturally chose and executed this method. Seo Hangeon was smart.Perhaps due to his adept handling of such situations, there were always many people around Seo Hangeon. People feared him yet wanted to be on his side, wanted to be his friend or acquaintance, sometimes worshipped him, sometimes felt close to him, and felt a follower’s zeal in being part of his group. Looking back now, Seo Hangeon knew how to capture people’s hearts even back then.“Got it, Won—ah?”Even though I didn’t answer until the end, Seo Hangeon kept his bright smile.“Why should you deal with that idiot’s nonsense? There’s no reason for it.”After throwing down the milk crate, Seo Hangeon lightly put his arm around my shoulder.“Let’s go.”I couldn’t push him away, so we walked to the water fountain looking quite friendly. While I swallowed the headache pill, Seo Hangeon, who had been stretching in the distance, came back with a smile.“Let’s go.”The stares that fell upon us when we entered the classroom together are still vivid in my memory. Seo Hangeon, with his arm around my shoulder, returned to his seat nonchalantly and started joking with his friends. And after the closing ceremony, as he passed by me, he said:“Hi.”I naturally responded:“Hi.”The look on the guy’s face who had tried to get a greeting from me for two years was quite something.Looking back now, it’s strange that I liked Seo Hangeon so much when I knew nothing about him – not his family situation, not why he gave up on sports high school, nor what he lived for.I definitely felt something different from him than from other kids our age. He was different from the usual troublemakers and different from everyone else his age. He had a certain weight to him, and he knew how to have a complex look in his eyes that most teenagers couldn’t. His eyes were heavy and complex.Perhaps there are invisible particles in a person’s soul, and I might have absorbed and taken in his without knowing it.I might not have known the superficial facts about him, but I felt I knew what color his unseen particles were. By some universal force.🏐It was summer. No matter how hot it got, my left wrist had to wear a watch. Even though it was just a light prank with a cutter knife, the scars remained stubborn. Because of the double or triple scratches, I lived with a watch on my wrist for 365 days a year. A black student watch. Simple and wholesome.Mom would secretly put a new watch in the last drawer of my desk. The Casio watch I had been wearing for over a year was still in good condition, so there were two watches left in their packaging in the last drawer.Mom said she would be home this weekend. Maybe I should wear the new watch and go out. The thought of seeing Mom on the weekend made me feel good. Checking my schedule for tomorrow and going through my bag, I glanced at the corner of my desk.A transparent plastic container full of snacks. I used it to collect the treats Seo Hangeon gave me. It was a nut container that my father had thrown away, which I salvaged, removed the label from, and turned into a clear container.After that day, Seo Hangeon often left the milk crate uncleared on purpose. When I took the crate downstairs, he would be there, throwing stones against the wall or whistling around. He would ask when I went to sleep, why I laughed in PE, how my study for the exams was going. He would end each conversation by pulling out some candy from his pocket and handing it to me.It was small snacks like Chupa Chups, My-chew, and Kisses. Strangely, he always gave me the same flavor of Chupa Chups. The vanilla cream flavor in light sky-blue packaging. It was a flavor I had never seen in convenience stores or supermarkets. It tasted good. I was curious why he only gave me the vanilla cream from the Creamy Line, which you could only buy at large supermarkets, but at the time, I just assumed he liked that flavor.I couldn’t gobble up those snacks hastily. I stored them in the clear container and only took one out when I really wanted to eat it.There’s also a funny story about this with my father. One day, half of the snacks in the container were gone, so I searched the entire house. No matter how much I peeked into my father’s room, they were nowhere to be found. The next day, or was it? When I got into the passenger seat of my father’s car to go to school, I saw a pile of My-chew and Kisses behind the gearshift, which made me laugh.Listening to Seo Hangeon talk with his friends sometimes confused me.“Seo Hangeon, you crazy bastard, you’re so good at ignoring KakaoTalk! Why do you always do that!!”“He sends unnecessary messages. He doesn’t treat men’s messages seriously.”“Wow, what an asshole. Me too?”After our first KakaoTalk conversation, we would occasionally exchange messages about homework or exam scopes, and he always replied immediately, which was kind of scary.‘…He must have checked it because it was urgent.’When I asked what the homework was for tomorrow and he didn’t do it, or when I asked about the exam scope and saw him just shaking his leg during the test, I kept getting confused.Why does Seo Hangeon treat me like this?Why?…Maybe you, like me, feel happy coming to school every day? Do you feel that happiness just because you can see me? You too?I was happy even if it was just my imagination.I was happy because I wanted to believe it.But at the same time, I couldn’t forgive you for making me have such expectations.Two days before the final exams, the academy ended past 10 PM. The summer night air was filled with more excitement than in any other season. I sank my tired body deep into the seat of the academy bus and leaned my face against the window. Seeing people in cool clothes passing by made me feel oddly excited. Summer nights had that kind of power.You seemed excited too. The group of boys and girls crowded by the window on the second floor of McDonald’s was full of joy and vitality. In the group of exactly four boys and four girls, possibly paired up, you looked the happiest.Your short-sleeved t-shirt from a brand I didn’t recognize proudly showed off your physique. Wearing jeans with a cut at the ankle and a Nike wristband, Seo Hangeon was laughing heartily. The girl next to him also radiated life. Everyone at that table was full of vibrant energy.Sitting on the academy bus with the air conditioning blowing, I thought about my black wristwatch. I thought about my introverted personality that couldn’t remember the last time I laughed out loud.My night was too quiet, and your night was too lively.My nights were spent on pre-study, review, and at my desk, while Seo Hangeon’s nights were spent with money, work, and out in the world.My house was eerily quiet. I threw my bag on the floor and sat down at my desk. I looked at the thick lines of moonlight in the darkened room before opening the drawer. It was 10:40 PM. My father was in the shower.I took out the blue Monami pen. With a ‘pop,’ I opened the cap and scratched it with my fingertip. The parts where it had been bitten hard were dented inward.I put the pen cap into my mouth like eating a My-chew. Rolling the cap in my mouth slowly, I felt Seo Hangeon’s bite marks vividly on my tongue.“Haah…”I relaxed my eyes while looking at the floor. In the dim moonlight, I saw the Nike wristband move.The wrist with the white wristband was close to Seo Hangeon’s face. Every time Seo Hangeon tapped his chin with his finger, the bones of his hand stood out straight, and every time he laughed towards the group, the muscles in his arm played hide and seek.I realized I was crying. I was sobbing quietly. Tears were also rolling down my cheeks. Even as I wiped the traces clean, flushed them down the toilet in my room’s bathroom, and spat the pen cap into the sink, I continued to sob expressionlessly for some reason.That pen cap in my mouth and the hot summer, everything is still vivid.I hoped that laughter was empty. I hoped that the laughing, shouting, and playing in McDonald’s was, in fact, empty to you. That’s why you shook your leg, bit at the skin around your nails. I hoped for that.If my feelings were something I could control like a physical substance, I would fold them into an airplane and send them flying away. No, something even more crumpled would be better. I should fold them into roses. Anyway, I would crumple them up as much as possible and throw them onto the street. If I could just see my feelings rolling around on the street, that would be nice.To stop expecting more, to stop hurting more.I washed the bright blue pen cap clean and put it back in the first drawer. A while later, when I got a KakaoTalk message from Seo Hangeon, I was thinking:‘I can’t forgive you.’I don’t know what I couldn’t forgive or expect from you, but anyway, that’s how I felt. Seo Hangeon had sent a message in the afternoon asking what the first day’s exam subjects were, but I didn’t reply because I was at the academy and worried someone might see. Much later, I opened the app to check the message.[Is something wrong?]I can’t forgive you. I pressed the keypad with a contorted face.[English, physics, social studies]And I sent one more message:[Don’t send messages after 8 PM. I have to turn in my phone.]I got an immediate reply:[Okay, got it]I didn’t reply. I left the chat room right away and placed my phone on my father’s desk. Then, I stared at the snack container in the corner of my desk for a long time. The container full of light sky-blue vanilla cream candies.