“Yeah. Do Hyeondo.”
Ah. He does know it.
I stared dazedly at those lips as Kkotmoa pronounced my name clearly. His lips pursed into a small circle, then parted slightly before pursing again. I had the absurd thought—was my name always this ticklish and cute? It was a phenomenon I’d never felt once when my parents, Kang Junwoo, or any other kids called my name. Somehow I kept feeling ticklish inside my body, but since I didn’t know where, I couldn’t even scratch it. It was soft yet somehow uncomfortable.
“Isn’t it?”
“What is.”
“Your name. Isn’t it Do Hyeondo?”
I stared stupidly at the shape of those lips asking again as if to confirm. If at first I’d been drawn to look dazedly as if possessed by something, this time I was really stupidly staring at those lips even by my own assessment. As soon as I became aware of that, I awkwardly averted my gaze and answered.
“…Right.”
“Don’t tell me you thought I was an idiot who didn’t even know my own deskmate’s name?”
It was an answer I liked more than expected. Following my parents to various events, all the words I heard were about how anyone could not know the name of D Group’s one and only heir. At the very least, I’d often heard such things even at school.
That’s him, Do Hyeondo. D Group’s heir.
My family background always followed after my name. I detested such words that reflected power in the background. I’d never disliked or felt uncomfortable about my family, and even though I found it useful in many ways, I still felt suffocated. I was disgusted by a world where the majority were humans who disgustingly pandered to me, trying to get on the good side of even a minor like me with no power.
To me like that, Kkotmoa called my name “my deskmate’s name.” It was the most trivial and modest thing I’d ever heard. For the first time, an absurd thought spread that I was being recognized as myself with the background removed. With just one insignificant remark, Kkotmoa made the corners of my mouth twitch for no reason.
“I’m not that dense, you know. The kids keep calling me gentle, so I think you’re misunderstanding, but I’m not gentle and I’m not meek either. I’m surprisingly really tough.”
Isn’t saying something like that itself being gentle? From what I’d observed, the word Kkotmoa heard most often after Kkotmoa was indeed “gentle.” I actually thought it suited him really well. Whether it was because of his characterless, pale face, this guy just looked like he was born gentle. If his family hadn’t run a flower shop, he would have suited being called “gentle” instead of by name.
But even in the midst of that, it was cute how he confidently said with his own mouth that he was tough. Not just tough either, but really tough. I must have gone crazy. Here I was, flopped over having impressions like “cute” while looking at a nineteen-year-old male bastard the same age as me. But I couldn’t deny it was troublesome because he was cute. Ah, fuck. The trouble soon transformed into irritation, and that irritation turned entirely toward my deskmate.
“You said you weren’t dense, so why did you check again?”
“Just in case.”
“What do you mean just in case?”
“…Are you upset? Because I was showing off?”
The moment I saw him asking with innocent eyes, I forgot the fact that I needed to blink. I have no idea what this guy trusts to rub up against me so defenseless like this. Not just rubbing up either, but doing it really prettily and delicately. It wasn’t an artificially created atmosphere but the kid himself was like that. I don’t understand why he has such an innocent face unlike other nineteen-year-old male bastards.
Before that, one thing I need to address is that I have absolutely no idea when he showed off. Could it be that saying he was really tough was showing off? The absurdity made even the trouble that had transformed into irritation evaporate. This kid was so weird that he often made me weird too.
“I was just joking around. I’m sorry if you were upset.”
He apologizes without hesitation too. Usually immature nineteen-year-olds had the mistaken way of thinking that not apologizing first was protecting their pride. There were countless kids who, rather than apologize, would turn it into an emotional fight and fall out over trivial matters. Then they’d hang out together again as if nothing had happened. It had nothing to do with me, but that was typical of nineteen-year-olds. This is why he had no choice but to seem different.
“But I really am really tough though.”
At his words containing a sense of injustice, asking me to believe him, laughter burst out of me without realizing it. This time too he looked cute, but I wasn’t troubled or irritated like before. This guy is really ridiculous. He really didn’t look like a nineteen-year-old male bastard my age. He looked like a kid from a completely different world to the point where the nickname Kkotmoa seriously suited him. That’s why other kids felt no sense of incongruity calling him Kkotmoa.
Because it seemed like he was just Kkotmoa from the beginning.
Seeing these idle thoughts spread naturally, it seemed like a screw had come loose since becoming deskmates with him. Kkotmoa is a weird kid. So it seems even I, his deskmate, am becoming weird.
The shape of Kkotmoa’s small, round, pursed lips as he pronounced my name kept flickering before my eyes.
“Want some?”
Having apparently already been to the school store, Kang Junwoo approached crunching on snacks. Kang Junwoo spent most of break times out and about, but when he didn’t, he came to my seat to kill time. He’d chase away the guy sitting in front of Kkotmoa and sit there as if it were his own seat, spouting utterly useless words. What can I do even if it’s pathetic—this bastard is my best friend and will become a key executive of Kangsan Group in the future.
Please, I hoped Kang Junwoo wouldn’t lay his hands on Kangsan Food later. I didn’t think I’d want to buy and eat food products with that bastard’s signature on them. Just looking at how he was eating snacks now made me think that.
If D Group, which has 55 affiliates, makes the largest sales from hotels and department stores with electronics following behind, then Kangsan Group, which has about 20 affiliates, focused on elevator monopoly and construction. Even with few affiliates, because Kangsan Group monopolized elevators in our country, they achieved the remarkable feat of 2nd place in total sales last year. Anyway, his brothers who were much older than him wouldn’t give up elevators and construction, which were equivalent to the heart and lungs, so there was a high possibility this bastard would take on the food business, which was like a kidney—having two so you could donate one. Just the thought killed my appetite completely. The snack bag Kang Junwoo was holding also had the Kangsan Food logo stamped on it.
Unlike me shaking my head at Kang Junwoo holding out the snack bag, Kkotmoa nodded. If I watched carefully, he seemed to really like eating. He didn’t look like someone with a big appetite, but Kkotmoa never once refused when someone gave him food. Sometimes I’d even seen him scurry over to the guy in the very front seat of the fourth row—in other words, the seat diagonally farthest from my seat—and snatch away what he was eating.
“…”
Did Kkotmoa not have hands, because Kang Junwoo was putting snacks into Kkotmoa’s mouth. Seeing him nonchalantly open his small mouth and nibble away at it, he did look tough like he’d said. If his intention was to not dirty his own hands because hands with snack crumbs stuck to them would be sticky and gross, I could fully understand and accept that. However, Kkotmoa wasn’t that cunning of a guy. That was just him opening his mouth because Kang Junwoo picked it up first. Automatically reflexively.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t the first time I’d seen this. I’d seen it several times before becoming Kkotmoa’s deskmate. Other guys would naturally put snacks into Kkotmoa’s mouth, and Kkotmoa would naturally open his mouth and receive them. It was incredible. I remembered the impression I’d had watching that scene without thinking much of it—thinking of him as a baby bird receiving feed.
“Don’t you have hands?”
“Hm?”
“Why are you picking a fight? With a kid who’s quietly receiving it.”
Instead of Kkotmoa, who looked at me with sparkling eyes not knowing what this was about, Kang Junwoo threw a fit. If I looked carefully, it seemed like all the kids in this class were weird. The cringeworthy and disgusting things they wouldn’t do for other kids even if they died and came back to life, they did to Kkotmoa strangely nonchalantly. Like feeding him snacks just now, for example.
“Do you want to eat what he gives you? When that bastard goes to the bathroom, he doesn’t even wash his hands after touching his dick.”
“Ah fuck! What disgusting bullshit are you spewing, you crazy bastard?”
Kang Junwoo exploded, but I didn’t care. Kkotmoa scrunched up his face and pretended to gag playfully as if to spit out what he’d eaten. Then he turned his head toward me and opened his mouth halfway like a real baby bird. His action was so natural I almost unconsciously picked up a snack to put in his mouth. I couldn’t tell if he was originally like this or if the kids had gotten him into bad habits.
“So what.”
Even at my cold and prickly words, he showed no sign of being hurt and just stuck out his lips in a pout.
“…Aw, it doesn’t work on you. I didn’t want to get it on my hands.”
Maybe Kkotmoa was more cunning than I thought. Even knowing that, my hand fidgeted wanting to reach for the snacks.
