Color my youth?
Kwon Yunsu’s world began to spin again.
**Side Story 1**
Though others wouldn’t believe it if they heard, Kwon Yunsu remembered his senior year quite peacefully.
Life was simple, everyone gave way before the senior year title, and all he had to do was sleep regularly, eat the meals provided, and study. Apart from not being able to watch soccer to his heart’s content, he didn’t really have any pent-up desires, and puberty, even at nineteen, was as unfamiliar as the name of a deep-sea creature.
‘You’re lucky to be so simple.’
He heard that lifelong regular comment most often during his senior year. In the eyes of boys and girls losing sleep at night due to grade worries plus hormones surging like crazy, Kwon Yunsu was the deep-sea creature.
Why is he so excited and having fun? Doesn’t he have any interest in girls? Does he at least masturbate at home?
Kwon Yunsu didn’t know that guys worrying about romantic issues thought such things while looking at him. He didn’t think it was strange either. Lee Euishin, who was closest to him, had as little interest in the opposite sex as he did.
Lee Euishin wasn’t swamped with studying, wasn’t getting bad grades, and didn’t struggle with confined life either. He had enough leisure to regularly tutor him, yet didn’t date. Even though he was firmly rumored to be an iron wall, it was fascinating that he kept receiving confessions until graduating high school.
Kwon Yunsu remembered one of them exactly like his own memory, or rather like a scene from a movie. It was April when cherry blossoms scattered in the schoolyard, awakening even the sensitivity of a soccer idiot who only knew about lunch menus, soccer, and numbers.
‘Lee Euishin. Can I see you for a bit?’
On the day of written exams, it was an afternoon when only those who wanted stayed for self-study. Confined places like study rooms didn’t suit his constitution at all, and the library was too open, making him anxious instead. Kwon Yunsu who found it best to sit in the classroom, watch what other guys were doing, and do his own thing, definitely stayed. Lee Euishin, who grumbled all he could but generally followed his movements, also stayed. It was when he’d come back from eating lunch at a lunch box shop near school and was pretending to concentrate on studying, following the decent Lee Euishin.
A shockingly pretty girl opened the classroom door and came in, surprising Kwon Yunsu. When he looked around quickly, the five or six guys remaining in the classroom also had their eyes wide, staring at the front door. Since it was gender-separated classes, it was extremely rare for a girl to enter this stuffy space.
At that proud and neat gaze looking only at Lee Euishin without a hint of embarrassment, Kwon Yunsu felt intimidated for no reason. Lee Euishin had a nonchalant face, no, a ‘who are you?’ face. And after looking back at him poking his side repeatedly and sighing, he stood up as if forced. Kwon Yunsu already felt sorry for the girl.
‘Let’s go!’
Ten seconds after Lee Euishin followed the girl out of the classroom, Kwon Yunsu whispered to the guys remaining in the classroom.
‘Let’s go watch, watch!’
But no one stood up. Though their curiosity was piqued, there was no one on familiar enough terms with Lee Euishin to do such a thing. Lee Euishin who could make people feel uncomfortable, back off, and imprint distance with just a glance was a classmate more difficult than openly delinquent guys. Even cheerful and gentle Kwon Yunsu looked a bit difficult when stuck together with him.
Knowing nothing, Kwon Yunsu thought he couldn’t understand why they’d pass up such an exciting spectacle and left the classroom alone. The hallway was already quiet, but it wasn’t difficult to predict where they’d gone. The bench under the cherry tree that had grown tall enough to reach the three-story building at the back of the schoolyard was the perfect place for that kind of atmosphere. Instead of heading straight there, Kwon Yunsu turned his body toward the passage connecting the old and new buildings. From the second-floor sky bridge, that bench could be seen at a glance.
And as expected. When he carefully stuck his head out while pressed against the wall and looked toward the cherry tree, Lee Euishin with his hands in his uniform pockets and the girl were facing each other.
‘……’
A breathless admiration flowed for a moment. The surroundings were pink in all directions to the point where his eyes felt honored, and the tall boy and girl standing in uniforms were slender and pretty like a painting. Even the guy’s cocky side profile exuding arrogance and the girl’s cheeks flushed as if troubled became a picture as is. Wow…
‘…Pretty.’
Friend, seeing you like this, you’re… really something. You should live up to your looks, really. But don’t make the girl cry. If only you’d use your heart more kindly you’d be perfect, but why are you so prickly?
It was a scene he peeked at while holding vague expectations not knowing what they were directed toward. The gentle wind scattering hair strands and the spring scent circling the tip of his nose, and the boy and girl facing each other among scattering flower petals. The magnificent tree watching it all.
Suddenly Lee Euishin turned his body and looked precisely this way. …Ghost. Their eyes met immediately and Kwon Yunsu grinned while hiding his startled inner feelings. Sneaking a peek at the guy’s confessions like this actually wasn’t just once or twice.
Do well. He said with lip movements. Our noona really regrets not dating in her uniform. So do well. The uniform is a waste and your face is a waste too, Euishin-ah.
‘……’
Even from afar, he could feel Lee Euishin looking this way with deep, cool eyes. Not just that gaze, but worried the girl looking at the flower petals pooled on the ground might notice, Kwon Yunsu hurriedly hid his body beyond the wall. Looking from beyond with just his eyes peeking out, Lee Euishin was coldly turning his back. The wind stopped, and the girl eventually showed tears.
Lee Euishin who returned to the classroom had a more ominous face than usual.
「Euishin-ah, sorry for peeking. I’ll buy you strawberry milk on the way home.」
The note he offered while reading the room was shoved in the trash. The way home that day was extremely awkward.
***
…At that time, was it Lee Euishin who made that girl cry, or was it himself?
To what extent did he contribute as a cause to the guy spending such a prickly teenage period?
To me they’re all enjoyable and bittersweet memories, they were nothing but fun without a single wrinkle, but at what point in those memories might your hurt be embedded like stars? But then…
「When are you coming?」
「Come before I barge in and smash your in-laws’ place.」
…You bastard, why don’t you give me time to indulge in sentimentality? And why is your language use like that?!
After finishing his bath and coming out to check his phone, Kwon Yunsu became gloomy. Though he’d expected it to be rough, he didn’t know his insides would boil and he’d be embarrassed this often.
I said noona came. I said Kwon Yunju who never once contacted Dad in her life came home and for what felt like a million years the three of them ate out and went shopping together. I even texted that bad Kwon Yunju swiped Dad’s card hard and my feelings were complicated, and because you didn’t believe me, I even secretly took and sent a picture of noona watching TV at home. I sent a picture of the three bowls we ate from too, huh? And, I said give me some time to prepare my heart!
“This bastard…”
With a wet towel draped on his head and gripping his phone, Kwon Yunsu trembled.
He’s the guy he spent the longest time with throughout his student days. Now he’d become someone who knew his preferred dining-out menu and clothing taste better than blood relatives. So familiar, and though he’d seen him to the point of being sick of it—. At the touching moment when his father and noona were having an awkward conversation, Kwon Yunsu was blushing while thinking of that familiar face.
‘Being in pain because of you… I’m going to stop that now.’
He kept remembering kissing repeatedly in the car,
‘Kwon Yunsu, go out with me.’
The voice that had urged him in such an extremely arrogant tone became a booming drum ringing in his ears,
‘I’m a virgin.’
Those words spat out with tremendous resentment and expectation crossed his mind from time to time.
I must be crazy. I must miss Euishin.
He’d never thought about missing him since it was a face he saw every day, but this must be that…. It was an unfamiliar and shocking feeling.
Monday morning, noona who was in the middle of sacrificing her expensive youth to become a doctor left at dawn. Father also went to work, and the clothes noona had bought in abundance (with father’s card) and the things he’d packed to take to his lodgings were neatly stacked in the living room.
‘Make up with Euishin and come down together next time. Dad will buy you something delicious.’
Having even heard such words from his father leaving for work, it was right to go back now. Lee Euishin, and he himself too, wouldn’t have the patience to hold out any longer.
…But if it were up to his heart, he wanted to leave his body behind and only take his eyes, mouth, and hands. The reason his heart was this heavy was because the other parts of his body were boycotting. If he went up now, Lee Euishin would pounce asking to do something as dirty as foreheads anyway, and Kwon Yunsu who’d clicked on soccer match highlights several thousand times more than dirty videos in his life didn’t have confidence he could do such things enjoyably. Not yet, for a while, for now at least.
But anyway, he had to go. There was nothing more to do here either. He carefully locked up and gathered his luggage and left the house. The face he saw in the elevator was pale and haggard like someone who hadn’t slept. Though the weather was hot, he’d sprawled in the bathtub for too long.
“Phew…”
The fortunate thing was that they were both virgins. No matter how much Lee Euishin, his eyes wouldn’t suddenly open wide and things wouldn’t suddenly change drastically. He didn’t know either, same as me. That kind of thing was originally done slowly. Adults and the internet said you shouldn’t rush into trying to do it.
It was hard to walk to the station carrying heavy luggage, so he took a taxi. The familiar neighborhood scenery quickly passed by beyond the car window. Since he didn’t respond, his phone started buzzing again. After sticking out his lips and looking down at his hand, he turned off the power. Go. I’m going now, I say. I’m bravely going right now, you damn landlord.
The sound of cicadas crying in the distance was loud. The rainy season had ended too, and until the autumn typhoon came, the sweltering heat would continue.
