“The kids order frequently, you know. Even the teachers sometimes order. Tell him if he brings them when he comes to school, you’ll give him a student discount. Teacher’s Day, seriously, it’s no joke. Last year, I thought the entire school ordered carnations from him.”
While I half-heartedly listened to Kang Junwoo’s words, the teacher’s desk brightened up. Kkotmoa had carefully trimmed the crushed rose and placed it in a cut plastic water bottle. I could hear him talking with his deskmate in the front row by the teacher’s desk.
“Wow, that’s amazing. The petals are coming back to life.”
“Because I put it in water. Actually, if you briefly submerge even the petals in cold water, they revive even more, but there’s no basin big enough for that, so this is just a temporary measure. Even like this, it should last a week.”
Being a flower shop owner’s son, he knew a lot. I suddenly remembered how when Mom received flowers as gifts, she’d kill them in less than two days. Not that I felt any desire to tell Mom about that method.
The sweet scent of flowers seemed to drift all the way to my seat at the very back. This was a class full of jet-black male students, and that guy was obviously a male student too since he was in this class, yet I couldn’t understand why flowers suited Kkotmoa so well.
“Oh my, what’s with the flowers? Did Moa bring them?”
Just as Kang Junwoo said, Kkotmoa must be famous as the flower shop owner’s son. As soon as the homeroom teacher came in for morning assembly, he smiled at Moa with his eyes. The homeroom teacher who let out the exclamation “Oh my” was a man. It was a bit difficult to watch such a burly, large man use that kind of exclamation. Unlike his appearance, he had a delicate personality and looked after the class with various things, but it seemed few students liked him.
“Junwoo ordered it.”
At Kkotmoa’s answer, the homeroom teacher looked at Kang Junwoo as if surprised. Kang Junwoo, with an utterly annoyed face, said something he didn’t need to say.
“I threw it away and that bastard picked it up?”
“Oh my, why did you throw away flowers?”
Ah. Please.
That way of speaking from the homeroom teacher was exactly what I hated hearing most. I hated the exclamations, and I hated words ending in ‘-ni’ even more. The thick, rough voice that didn’t match his way of speaking, and watching that hulking body was exhausting, so I was about to turn my head when the homeroom teacher’s clear-cut words followed.
“Ah. You got rejected? You were making such a fuss about confessing to Seowon from Class 8.”
That’s right. This crazy bastard had gone around blabbing about it enough for the teachers to hear. Not knowing it would turn into such an embarrassing situation.
“Still, you shouldn’t throw away flowers. What did the flowers do wrong? Anyway, the teacher is very happy to see flowers on the desk.”
Even fanning the flames of a burning house would be far better than this. Judging from Kang Junwoo’s fierce expression, if it weren’t for the homeroom teacher, he looked ready to break at least one leg.
Regardless, I let the homeroom teacher’s morning announcements go in one ear and out the other while looking at the back of the head of the guy sitting in the very front row, in front of the teacher’s desk. The nape of his neck, glimpsed beneath his jet-black hair, was exceptionally white. Without knowing why I was looking at Kkotmoa’s back of the head, I stared as if entranced until the homeroom teacher left and the first period started.
* * *
After Kang Junwoo’s order, Kkotmoa never brought flowers again, but once I became aware of him, I saw only Kkotmoa to an almost absurd degree. No matter how little interest I had in school and the other students, it was more amazing that I hadn’t even known such a kid existed despite being in the same class for two whole weeks. That’s how much Kkotmoa stood out.
Kkotmoa was always surrounded by kids. He seemed to have a charm that drew people in. Every break time, kids would come even from other classes to act friendly with Kkotmoa, and many borrowed things from him. Kkotmoa never once showed any sign of annoyance. Without refusing, he would smile brightly and lend out his belongings, textbooks, and even his gym uniform. As someone who hated sharing my belongings with others, this was incomprehensible to me. I thought maybe Kkotmoa just had a foolish personality that couldn’t refuse.
All I did when I came to school was observe Kkotmoa. I didn’t understand why I was watching him so much, but whenever I came to my senses, I was looking at Kkotmoa. The sight of him sitting in the very front row during class, dozing off with his head bobbing; during break time, hurriedly copying his deskmate’s homework; opening his small mouth to receive snacks from kids like a baby bird; before lunchtime, stuffing bread into both cheeks until they looked ready to burst, chewing away; struggling after putting his gym uniform on inside out; sucking up banana milk from a jar through a straw. Watching him, there was never a dull moment. All those foolish actions suited him perfectly.
If there was another fact I learned from observing him, it was that he smiled so very well. Even at trivial stories, he would crease his large eyes with long outer corners and no double eyelids, laughing hard enough to form dimples in his cheeks, and no matter who made eye contact with him, he would smile prettily. The expression “smiling prettily” for a nineteen-year-old male bastard was cringeworthy, nauseating, and even disgusting even to me, but when I saw Kkotmoa smile, the only words that came to mind were that he really did smile prettily. That’s why it was even more bewildering.
Occasionally our eyes would meet too, but honestly, since I stared at him so much, whenever he turned his gaze he could meet mine at any time, but even then Kkotmoa would smile radiantly like a flower in full bloom filled with sunshine. Kkotmoa was a harmless existence in our class, and the only white and clean existence among the jet-black boys.
And Kkotmoa uncomfortably captured and held my gaze.
* * *
Before I knew it, the last day of March arrived, and as the homeroom teacher had announced, we were changing seats. I’d grown quite attached to the window seat at the very back, and thinking I had to move to a different seat was both annoying and bothersome. If I was unlucky enough to get the very front seat or a seat awkwardly surrounded by kids, I might suffocate to death. I thought I should probably switch with whoever drew my current seat.
The kids were uncomfortable around me. When I first enrolled as a freshman, these were the same kids who had gawked at me like a monkey at the zoo and tried to strike up a conversation somehow. Since rumors spread that the only son and sole heir of D Group, which showed sales performance exceeding half the national budget every year, had enrolled, it wasn’t strange for kids from other classes to come gawk and act friendly. It was just annoying. My father was the chairman of D Group, but I was just a high school student like them with no power whatsoever.
I ignored all those kids. I didn’t answer them and didn’t make eye contact. I just wished they wouldn’t bother me. Sure enough, the one-sided offensive quickly withered. The kids who had tried to become friends with me somehow started cursing me out behind my back, calling me unlucky. Yet in front of me, they still tried hard to act friendly somehow. Of course, I continued to consistently ignore them and not engage. If Kang Junwoo hadn’t transferred in, I might have maintained my school life as an unlucky voluntary outsider.
Then one day, an incident finally erupted. I only had the small wish to quietly maintain attendance, graduate, and be done with it. But a group of senior third-years dragged me to the empty lot behind the school. The kids murmured but not one of them stepped forward.
The seniors who dragged me away were clearly a pathetic group who had nothing to do with studying for all three years, yet without even having gone to college yet, they wanted me to recommend them to my father’s company. What was even more absurd was that it wasn’t a request but a threat. At my monosyllabic refusal, they immediately swung their fists, trying to make me submit through violence. I didn’t like violence, but I hadn’t ignored my father’s words that you must respond with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It was a golden opportunity to verify in real combat the various sports and martial arts skills I’d learned from experts. I’d been secretly curious too. Whether the things I’d learned were really techniques I could use in actual combat.
The results were honest. After that, the bastards who bothered me by acting friendly disappeared. Rumors always inflated more exaggeratedly than actual facts. Judging that it was better for them to find me intimidating rather than unlucky, I didn’t bother to correct the rumors.
That’s why I knew well that if I drew a number and boldly demanded to switch numbers while sitting in my seat, there would be no kid who could refuse.
“Hm? You’re my deskmate?”
That didn’t mean I knew that Kkotmoa would end up sitting next to the seat I’d protected like that.
Having missed the timing to respond, I inadvertently stared blankly at his cheerful face. This was the first time I’d seen him at such a close distance. Even though the other kids were noisily moving to their seats, it didn’t bother me. My eyes only saw Kkotmoa’s neat appearance as he organized the belongings he’d moved to his desk into the drawer.
“Ah. If you’re uncomfortable, should I switch seats with Junwoo?”
Because I’d stared too intently, the guy who’d been organizing his things paused and asked. This guy seemed to have heard the rumors too. It was off-putting that he seemed to treat me uncomfortably like the other kids. However, unlike the other kids, there was no sign in Kkotmoa’s voice of being wary or intimidated. He was asking with purely genuine curiosity. I don’t know why I felt relieved.
“No.”
“Okay then. Please take care of me during this semester.”
