At his desperate apology, Hong Seungpyo gave a single nod and left it at that. Then he began staring blankly at Dooyoung’s hand, which was gripping the strap of his bag. Belatedly noticing his gaze, Dooyoung hid his hand — plastered all over with bandages — behind his back. The wounds had come from cleaning up the broken glass in the early morning hours.
When homeroom ended, Seungpyo put his earphones in and walked out of the classroom without a second glance. It was the most anticlimactic reaction Dooyoung had ever experienced. Having weathered what felt like a storm all on his own, he imagined how pathetically his own overblown reaction must have looked to Hong Seungpyo. Even entertaining that thought was like dying a second time.
And of course, his seat happened to be right next to the window. It felt like a sign from the heavens — jump if you’re that embarrassed.
2. Ice Cream
Saturday morning deliveries were relatively quiet. He didn’t have to go to school after work. The pay wasn’t great, but for someone with as many glaring personality defects as him, it was a job for life.
The pre-dawn streets, empty of any other soul, felt like a time carved out just for him — someone who never fit in with other people. During these hours, he wasn’t a loner. He wasn’t pathetic little Heo Dooyoung.
Dooyoung stepped out of the elevator, cradling the milk bags carefully against his chest. Hong Seungpyo had a standing order every Saturday — two bags of milk. One was probably for Sunday, he figured.
Honestly, plain white milk didn’t suit Hong Seungpyo at all. The guy looked like he could knock back a whole crate of soju in one sitting — and he drank milk? Dooyoung couldn’t quite picture it.
After filling the slim milk pouch, Dooyoung reached into his backpack and pulled out a pale blue towel. It was the one Seungpyo had lent him the other time.
He hesitated for a moment, then buried his face in it and inhaled. It smelled like ordinary laundry soap. Up close, he could see it was riddled with tiny holes. Calling it a towel at this point felt a little generous, but he could only hope Seungpyo would pretend not to notice.
He crammed the towel into the milk pouch in the most graceless way possible, and it looked ready to burst at any moment. Dooyoung tied the opening tight so nothing could spill out, then left the building. Having taken care of what he came to do, he felt a little lighter.
He grabbed the handlebars of his bicycle — cold as pillars of ice — but it barely registered. His hands had always been colder than that to begin with. Still, he did worry about his worn-out body catching a cold. Getting sick meant a hospital visit, and that meant spending money. The most wasteful kind of spending there was.
He rubbed his nose with his fingers, bent red from the cold. He tried to force them straight, but they wouldn’t cooperate — as if the blood in his veins had frozen solid. When I get home, I need to dig out the gloves and scarf I put away last spring. Come to think of it, he also needed to change the light bulb in his room.
Dooyoung pedaled hard and muttered under his breath.
“Light bulb, gloves, scarf… light bulb, gloves, scarf……”
His memory was so bad he had to drill things in like this. White puffs of breath escaped his moving lips. Even at this hour of the morning, there was a mountain of things to remember.
A faint indigo light crept in through the window. Hong Seungpyo opened his heavy eyelids and stared blankly at the ceiling. His face, wearing its usual air of raw-nerved tension, looked as though he hadn’t slept a wink. He slowly pulled himself upright and leaned back against the armrest of the sofa. His gaze, fixed somewhere in the distance, didn’t waver even slightly.
The silence in the room was suffocating — like the depths of an ocean with no light. He exhaled like someone finally surfacing after a long time underwater. He dragged himself to his feet and headed to the kitchen wearing nothing but boxer briefs and a hoodie. He opened the refrigerator and reached in without looking, feeling around blindly — but his hand found nothing.
Only then did Seungpyo shift his gaze from the window outside to the inside of the fridge. The spot where the milk should have been was completely empty. Come to think of it, he hadn’t brought in the day’s milk from outside.
Seungpyo shuffled lazily to the front door. With one hand, he swept his not-quite-dry hair back; with the other, he pressed down on the door handle.
Like when he’d rummaged through the refrigerator, he let his gaze drift to nothing and just reached an arm out the door to feel around for the milk pouch. But the unexpectedly plump feel of it was enough to overcome his laziness, and he finally stepped outside the entryway.
“Ha. Cute little thing.”
The milk pouch was so stuffed it made you want to kick it like a ball. He let out a dry laugh at the Mutt’s handiwork. He pried the opening wide with his long fingers and pulled it apart. The first thing in view was the pale blue towel. He searched his memory for a brief moment, then let out a deflated sound.
Said he’d give it back tomorrow. Kept his word right on the dot.
Seungpyo pulled out the towel and held it up in front of him. The smell of cheap laundry soap drifted to his nose. Even at a glance, it was riddled with holes all over the place. He’d lent the guy a towel, and it came back as a rag. Impressive handiwork.
He spent a good while examining Dooyoung’s masterpiece, then draped the towel around his neck and went back inside. He put one milk bag in the refrigerator and downed the other in one go. The empty carton went into the recycling bin.
He stretched and did some bodyweight exercises. He’d tried every workout imaginable trying to fix his chronic insomnia. And yet his mind blazed on, loud and restless as a city that never sleeps. Without his medication, his nerves were only getting more frayed by the day.
Two hours of punishing his body and a shower later, time still hadn’t moved in any noticeable way. Seungpyo squirmed with boredom and scrolled through his backlogged messages with a vacant expression. But that didn’t last long either, and he ended up resting with his arm draped over his eyes.
The messages were all about the homecoming party that had been going on for a month now. Even that had started to bore him. Same faces, same fun. Once you know exactly what something tastes like, you never want to put it in your mouth again.
Something dug into his back. He felt around with his hand and caught the culprit. It was the pale blue towel Heo Dooyoung had left behind. Seungpyo’s eyes flickered with a small spark of interest as he confirmed what it was. He lifted the towel and draped it over his face.
“Put it to good use, didn’t he.”
The holes were wide enough to see through. He was pretty sure he’d told him to just wipe things down roughly, but the guy had gone and polished everything until it gleamed. Enough to leave his hands covered in cuts.
His seatmate — more often called Mutt than by his actual name — didn’t really have a puppy-like face. If anything, going by looks alone, he leaned more toward the aloof feline type. And yet he was called Mutt because something in his mannerisms and way of speaking gave off the vibe of a dog that had been kicked around one too many times.
It crossed his mind suddenly — how quickly the guy had let his guard down the moment Seungpyo gave him one strand of hair. He rubbed his dry fingertips together as if seasoning them with salt, savoring the memory of his seatmate’s skin. And he turned over the image of Dooyoung’s face — lingering in him like an afterimage — with relentless focus.
The line from the cupid’s bow up to the upper lip was remarkably delicate. His coloring was so light overall that in direct sunlight, the edges of him seemed to blur. His irises weren’t just plain brown — they were a clear, translucent amber.
Heo Dooyoung held every warm color there was, yet he was damp and gloomy as overcast grey skies. Like sleet falling in winter, or monsoon rain pouring down in the dead heat of summer.
Seungpyo closed his eyes. He stayed that way for a long time, but he didn’t fall asleep. Outside the window, the first light of dawn slowly began to brighten.
“Ah.”
Hong Seungpyo walked into the classroom, clapping a hand over the forehead he’d just smacked on the door frame, and let out a single sound. Kim Jinho, lounging crookedly in his chair, grinned and greeted him.
“What’s up? Did you get even taller? In just a few weeks? Jesus, that’s disgusting.”
For all his words, Jinho was eyeing Seungpyo’s height with something that looked a lot like envy. Seungpyo ignored him with practiced ease and made his way to his seat.
He sat down, looking at the small, slight back of Dooyoung, who was slumped over his desk asleep. The last class was all that was left of the day, and the guy hadn’t woken up even once. It was almost enough to make you wonder if he was actually dead.
Right then, Seungpyo’s phone lit up. A message from Jinho.
[u going to the hideout today?]
The hideout — that would be the abandoned building Lee Juhak’s crew hung around. Filthy, run-down place, and Seungpyo had no interest in it. He kept his eyes on his phone and shook his head. From across the room, where he’d been watching him, Jinho sent another message right away.
[juhak said he’s buying meat at wooridongane, u really not coming?]
Jinho took Seungpyo’s dry responses completely in stride. He was a people person by nature, and his vanity ran deep — one look at the Patek Philippe on a transfer student’s wrist was enough for all to be forgiven.
[lame ㅠ guess i’ll just drag the mutt along]
Seungpyo, who’d been about to ignore him as usual, caught the pop-up notification and tapped the screen. He shot a glance over at Dooyoung and sent a reply.
[why?]
[bored]
[why?]
[wtf ur scary]
Seungpyo flipped his phone face-down and bounced one leg. It wasn’t like he had anything to do after school anyway. It was about time he found himself some new entertainment.
Resting his chin in his palm, he stared at the round back of Dooyoung’s head. The Mutt had no idea what kind of conversation was going on about him and was just sleeping away without a care in the world. He’d apparently been an outcast for years, and yet he seemed to have no sense for these things at all. Either that, or he was a little slow.
Heo Dooyoung sprang awake the second class ended, like he had a sixth sense for it. Jinho came up close and kneaded the back of Dooyoung’s neck like he was massaging it.
“We’re heading to the hideout today, so don’t disappear.”
Seungpyo stared at Jinho’s hand and cut into the conversation.
“I’m coming too.”
