“Hyung, you’re not a baby — don’t just sit on any old floor. You’ll get something dirty on you.”
Yu-gyeong said that, then tossed his white PE top down onto the ground like a mat and sat Cha-heun down on top of it.
“Hey, isn’t this your shirt?”
Whatever Cha-heun said, Yu-gyeong paid no mind — he folded himself down onto the laid-out shirt and pressed close to Cha-heun’s side.
Cha-heun stiffened and looked at him. Baek Yu-gyeong, apparently delighted just to be pressed up against him, was subtly wrapping an arm around his waist and leaning his head on his shoulder.
Give me a break, he’s making his move. How does he never miss an opening. Relentless.
With that thought, Cha-heun was about to shift away — but he took one look at Yu-gyeong’s PE top, now covered in dirt, and just let out a sigh instead.
…More importantly, this kid.
Cha-heun felt something strange and looked over at Yu-gyeong pressed up beside him.
Why is he breathing like that?
Yu-gyeong beside him had thrown aside his PE top and was only in a thin short-sleeved shirt, and his chest wasn’t visibly rising and falling. Whether he’d been exercising or not, his large, firm chest sat perfectly still, without a flicker of movement. As if he were someone holding his breath.
“……?”
As if sensing Cha-heun’s gaze, Yu-gyeong’s eyes moved to Cha-heun’s face. He seemed to notice the small split at the corner of Cha-heun’s mouth and fixed his gaze there, then pressed a finger against it.
“Ow!”
“Ah, sorry. But hyung…. Who did you fight with?”
Saying he fell didn’t seem like it would work, so Cha-heun just answered honestly.
“…Just, a bit of a thing between siblings.”
“…Hmm…. I see. Is your brother a bit like that by nature?”
“Siblings are like that.”
“…Come on~”
Before Yu-gyeong could press further, Cha-heun got there first.
“Baek Yu-gyeong.”
“What? Are you saying you like me that much? Yeah, I like hyung too.”
“…I’ll put up with you sitting this close, so stop ruining your clothes like this.”
“……”
“Do you have a spare? It’s still too cold to just be in short sleeves.”
Cha-heun looked at Yu-gyeong’s short-sleeved shirt with concern. Does he have a change of clothes inside? Was that what I was thinking about?
He glanced to the side — the corner of Yu-gyeong’s mouth was twitching, barely holding back a smile.
“Hyung, do you like me that much? I can stay pressed up against you anytime?”
“…Good grief….”
“The proposal was supposed to be my part — if hyung does it instead, what am I supposed to do. I’m upset.”
And then he subtly wrapped his arms around his waist and clung to him whining, and Cha-heun wanted to smack him just once. Having tried every possible way to pry him off without success — because he simply couldn’t win by force — Cha-heun asked in a deflated voice,
“Were you always this much of a neat freak?”
“I mean, isn’t it weird to just sit on a floor where people walk all over and who knows what’s been tracked in? So don’t just plop yourself down anywhere either, hyung.”
“…Fair enough. …But, you.”
“Yeah?”
“I already knew, but you really do scream pampered rich boy, don’t you.”
Thinking about how other boys their age rolled around on floors without a second thought, the fact that this one wouldn’t even set his rear end down was — how to put it — like some kind of fastidiously clean cat creature. Cha-heun stared at Yu-gyeong as if looking at something peculiar, then let out a dry laugh.
“Mm, wouldn’t hyung rather have me — rich me — than someone with nothing anyway?”
Caught off guard, Cha-heun was briefly speechless.
“Hey.”
“Ah, hyung, I’m going in for jokgu. You have to watch me, okay? If you look at other guys I’ll sulk.”
“…And if you sulk, then what.”
Whatever you do, it’ll just be mildly annoying at most.
“If I sulk I’ll come to hyung for comfort, and in hyung’s class—”
“……”
Cha-heun felt uneasy. What, you’ll be glued to me all day? Coming to my classroom and all that?
That would be more than a little annoying.
For a while, Baek Yu-gyeong had, as if trying to show he could listen, at least not come inside the classroom — but the thought that carelessly provoking him might make things more troublesome made Cha-heun narrow his eyes.
“I’ll crouch in front of your classroom and cry.”
“……”
So he won’t come in — but he’s still listening in his own way.
…Funny guy.
Picturing a big kid crouching down and crying did make him want to laugh, despite himself. Cha-heun laughed emptily — but Yu-gyeong was, all things considered, quite pretty, so he reached out and ruffled his hair once. The smooth, wheat-gold strands shifted slightly out of place.
“Whether you’ve got money or not, I have no intention of dating you — but separate from that, you’re a decent enough kid, that part’s true. Anyway….”
“……”
“Too bad I’m on the other team so I can’t cheer for you, but I’ll watch you. Do your best.”
Baek Yu-gyeong lost his words and stared at him intently. Those deep cream-colored eyes sent such a heavy gaze his way it was almost overwhelming.
“…Baek Yu-gyeong?”
Even after being called, he just blinked without responding — like a cat. Might have been the upturned corners of his eyes.
……?
Then, before Cha-heun could stop him, Yu-gyeong planted one hand on the ground beside him and brought his face close in an instant. Something soft and warm made contact with his cheek.
“Since hyung said he won’t cheer for me, I figured I’d collect in advance.”
Baek Yu-gyeong’s striking face was still close. He tilted his eyes up with a sly, pleased look and pulled one corner of his mouth into a smile.
“I’ll be off. If I win, you give me one on the lips.”
What had just happened.
Having sat there stupidly frozen, it wasn’t until Yu-gyeong had practically made it to the stairs that Cha-heun snapped back to reality and shot to his feet.
“Baek Yu-gyeong!!”
“Hyung! If you call that loud, Yu-gyeong gets embarrassed!”
Cha-heun grabbed the back of his own neck.
…He was burning up inside. Burning.
I’m sure of it. That kid definitely has an older brother or sister. And with a significant age gap too.
There was no other way to explain a full-grown male high schooler referring to himself in the third person.
Cha-heun tried his best to think of it charitably — but the reality that he had just been kissed on the cheek by a male high schooler still refused to sink in, and he had no choice but to scrub at his cheek with his hand.
…Prickling. The gazes.
…What’s this?
Cha-heun let his eyes slide sideways at the impossible-to-miss barrage of stares coming from beside him.
…Girls? Second-years?
He could see students clustered together on the spectator steps to the side. They weren’t staring openly, of course, but the sideways glances drifting over in his direction were prickling at him. Maybe they thought he wouldn’t notice — the self-centered thinking particular to that age group was almost endearing in its way, but he found himself wondering what exactly those looks meant.
…What is it? Are they looking because there’s some guy just sitting around doing nothing when he didn’t even go out for jokgu?
Just as Cha-heun was thinking about it seriously, the almost-screaming sounds from the girls made him look sharply ahead.
Oh, right. Baek Yu-gyeong.
Only then did Cha-heun begin to actually pay attention to the jokgu match already in progress.
It looked like they’d ended up selecting four players per side for a match between second and third years — and Baek Yu-gyeong, one of the four chosen, had apparently already scored again.
He scored before, he scored again just now. Is he playing a solo game?
He was impressively tall to begin with, and apparently had taken second place in kendo at some point — the kid was probably just naturally good with his body.
…That’s strange. I was good at judo, but jokgu is just completely….
…Well, he had a distinct memory of getting pummeled by his university teammates. It was during an MT trip in still-cold spring — the penalty for losing was jumping into the water, and Cha-heun’s three consecutive blunders had sent every member of his team plunging into the freezing spring sea. He’d even caught a cold from it, and ever since, he hadn’t so much as glanced at jokgu.
But that kid is really good.
The others were good too, but Baek Yu-gyeong stood out unmistakably. If you were going to hold up the textbook example of an all-rounder with everything going for him, it would be that kid.
Must be nice.
He’d been watching Baek Yu-gyeong’s impressive performance from a distance for some time when it started to bother him that he was still sitting on Yu-gyeong’s PE top — so Cha-heun quietly got up, shook the shirt out, and folded it in his hands.
…I’ll wash it and give it back.
He’d figured Yu-gyeong would come running over to him the moment the game ended, so he’d been planning to put a little distance between them — but when it was over, he saw Yu-gyeong surrounded by a cluster of girls, so Cha-heun took the PE top and headed back toward his classroom.
“You’re not wearing a jacket underneath either. That’s another point.”
“……”
Caught at the school gate, Cha-heun watched the student patrol member who had even managed to find the vest inner layer, thinking privately what a thorough piece of work this kid was — while keeping his expression carefully composed. On his way into school, he’d already racked up three demerit points courtesy of that large kendo club student.
Meticulous and cold. Is this guy in both the kendo club and the student patrol? What a hardliner.
It would have been easy enough to let it go, but he’d steadily handed out two points, and then gone so far as to insist on removing the cardigan to confirm there was no vest underneath — Cha-heun was thoroughly done with it.
The problem was that he’d overslept in the morning and forgotten his tie, and in his half-asleep state had put on comfortable slippers instead of his school shoes. Unfortunately, the thing inside the student body wasn’t actually a student but a full-grown adult, and he simply hadn’t gotten used to this kind of regulated life.
But still, they usually don’t go after third-years like this….
There had been a similar incident before — he’d shown up to school in roughly the same state, and that time the student patrol member had glanced at Cha-heun’s name tag and let him off with just a reminder to be more careful next time. It seemed like there was an unspoken tendency for the second-year-heavy student patrol to cut third-years some slack — but this particular student seemed to operate with absolutely no such allowances.
Feeling a little hard done by, he looked the student over to see how perfectly turned out he was himself — and was left speechless, because there existed a student this impeccably put together from head to toe.
Impressive. And insufferable….
He knew a qualified teacher had no business thinking this way — but this male student was genuinely insufferable.
He’s probably a rule-absolutist, thoroughly rational type….
…Go become a doctor or a judge when you grow up. Admirable kid.
Cha-heun trudged on into school, wondering how many more points he’d need to rack up before he’d have to clock community service hours.
