Life never goes the way you want it to.
He’d always felt that throughout his life, but lately he found himself thinking it more and more.
It was less about life in general and more about how everything had started going sideways ever since he’d begun living Seo Cha-heun’s life in his place. Whatever he imagined, reality always managed to exceed it.
Had school always been such a terrifying place? Maybe the problem was starting as a student rather than a teacher — his belated school life was unsettlingly far from smooth.
…What am I going to do with these shameless little idiots.
Cha-heun caught the faint curl of cigarette smoke drifting through the school building, squeezed his water bottle tight, then released it and let out a heavy sigh.
Seowol High School had a fairly large campus, and apparently three years ago they’d built a new annex and relocated all the music rooms, art rooms, and so on from the old building. As a result, the original building was now used mostly for storage or as prop rooms for a few clubs.
The old building was quite a distance from the others, so hardly anyone came and went from it — and the area around it was just as empty. With no foot traffic and no eyes on it, this kind of place was exactly the sort of environment that students in their prime found ideal for getting into trouble.
I followed Baek Yu-gyeong here and now look at this.
Baek Yu-gyeong had been asked by Nam Yun-hwa, the homeroom teacher of Class 8 in second year, to bring some things over to the annex. On his way there, he’d spotted Cha-heun and insisted on dragging him along. Carrying a load nearly as big as himself and clinging to Cha-heun’s side, whining that he didn’t want to go alone — Cha-heun hadn’t been able to just abandon him, and so ended up following along.
Still, doing what the teacher asked without complaint — he was a good kid. Cha-heun had tried to help carry the load, but Yu-gyeong said he’d only let him if he gave him a kiss, and since the kid was young and clearly had energy to burn, Cha-heun had decided to just leave the whole thing to him.
Strong enough to manage it fine on his own.
Anyway, while he’d been waiting in the corridor for Yu-gyeong to put the things away inside one of the old building’s classrooms, the smell of cigarette smoke had begun seeping in through the open hallway window.
Wondering which teacher would have the nerve to smoke on school grounds, he’d looked down from the second-floor window — and spotted a group of students in school uniforms manufacturing clouds of smoke. They looked visibly delinquent at a glance, and there were quite a few of them, which made the situation feel rather dangerous.
Lucky it’s not a teacher — or maybe students make it worse? I genuinely can’t tell what the problem is with this place.
Even so, his professional conscience as a teacher told him he ought to put a stop to it, and it was while he was mulling it over that he happened to glance down at the water bottle in his hand — and that was what set everything that followed in motion.
…No, but still, pouring water on kids’ heads is a bit much.
He was leaning toward the conclusion that a water drenching was a little harsh even in the name of discipline, and that since Yu-gyeong would be coming out soon, he might as well let it go just this once — when it happened.
“Hey, did you see Baek Yu-gyeong today?”
Cha-heun’s ears perked up. Up until just now the conversation had been the kind that was hard to make sense of — barely human, really. A solid 90% of it had been filth laced with profanity, so the mention of Baek Yu-gyeong’s name among all of that stuck out to him.
…Why was Yu-gyeong coming up?
“Earlier, Nam Yun-hwa told him to do something and he went running off wagging his tail.”
Oh.
Following a teacher’s request without complaint made him a very good and admirable student. Indeed, well done. Separate from how clingy and bothersome Yu-gyeong was to him personally, Cha-heun had gradually been coming to feel that as a student, the kid was genuinely excellent.
“That guy, he likes any girl, doesn’t he. Even if an alpha’s a girl, he gives her the time of day? Guess Nam Yun-hwa falls within his taste range too. Maybe like Baek Ha-gyeong says — no mother, so he gets attached to anyone around that age?”
Cha-heun clapped a hand over his own mouth. A stream of vicious profanity had nearly burst out of him.
These absolute little—
A coarse, unpleasant wave of laughter drifted up, and woven through it was a voice notably low and husky for a high schooler.
“Well, Nam Yun-hwa is a beauty. Baek Yu-gyeong’s always had refined taste — makes sense.”
“Wow, Sa-un, you’re into older women?”
“Are you out of your mind — read the room, you idiot. Sorry, hyung. This guy’s a complete moron.”
“Yeah. Seems like it.”
A brief, cold silence fell —
“Don’t be such a pushover.”
The student who appeared to be Sa-un said it like it was nothing, and soon after, a mix of snickering, profanity, and miscellaneous nonsense flowed back into Cha-heun’s ears as unpleasant noise.
Cha-heun felt something burning in his chest, leaned his back against the wall, and tilted his head up.
Yeah, sure — my mistake for overlooking the fact that your vocabulary is entirely outside the bounds of decent human behavior. Well done, my foot.
Boys from all-male schools were not fully human. Cha-heun knew that from experience. Come to think of it, back in his own middle and high school days, the sports kids’ vocabulary had consisted of nothing but expletives with the occasional particle. The words they used for each other had been exclusively ‘idiot,’ ‘moron,’ ‘this bastard,’ and ‘that bastard.’
Of course, the kind of kids who had conversations like that were always the same type. Back then he hadn’t even bothered associating with them — but coming face to face with kids like that again at this point in time put him in a difficult position.
Why can’t these little punks keep their garbage between themselves, why do they have to go running their mouths about someone else.
Cha-heun bit down hard and narrowed his eyes.
Is this what it’s been like? If this keeps up….
Just as he was about to sink into thought, he noticed Yu-gyeong stepping out of the classroom — apparently finished moving everything — and walking toward him.
Damn, how long has he been out there? Did he hear any of it?
Cha-heun hurriedly checked Yu-gyeong’s expression first.
Thankfully, whether he hadn’t heard or was simply good at hiding it, Baek Yu-gyeong’s expression didn’t look particularly serious. When he approached with his usual face, Cha-heun startled and quickly looked back down toward the window. From the students still laughing and chattering below, another voice reached him.
“Baek Yu-gyeong, his older brother —”
…Yu-gyeong’s older brother? Right, he’d mentioned having a sibling above him.
“Is a —”
Oh, forget it.
Thinking they were about to start talking trash about his family too now, Cha-heun hurriedly twisted the cap off the water bottle he’d been holding and tipped it out the window in a steady stream. Water began cascading freely from the wide-mouthed bottle, raining down on the students below.
“What the f***!”
“…Huh.”
“Hyung, are you okay? What the hell, you got completely soaked.”
“What, is it raining?”
“Rain my ass! Up there — look!”
Along with the shouting, the students began looking up toward him. Cha-heun, who had already pulled himself back from the window, just waved his hand.
“Quit smoking! Here’s a little gift to go with that!”
He hurled the water bottle cheerfully in their direction too. There was a loud thunk, followed by someone apparently getting hit — and the noise below erupted again in a chorus of curses.
Cha-heun quickly stepped away from the corridor window, grabbed Yu-gyeong’s arm, and shoved him toward the classroom window side.
“Hy — mmph?”
Cha-heun swiftly covered Yu-gyeong’s mouth and spoke in a low whisper.
“Hey, those kids down there were smoking. Students with no respect, right?”
He gave a quick nod of his head as a signal to keep quiet, and Yu-gyeong nodded back as if he understood.
“Let’s go, we need to get out of here. If the smell gets on us, we’ll get hit with an unfair misunderstanding from the teachers.”
As they hurried to move, something dropped to the floor with a small thud — but Cha-heun didn’t notice, and left the spot with Yu-gyeong in tow.
Holding Yu-gyeong’s hand, they rushed toward the end of the corridor — and then Cha-heun was hit by a sobering realization.
…Wait, there are only two entrances in and out of this place, front and back — if we go that way, we’ll get caught.
Third floor. Two exits below. If they block off both doors on either side…
…Oh, damn.
From somewhere far below inside the empty building, the sound of footsteps ascending began to reach him. Cha-heun glanced around frantically for somewhere to hide, and spotting a cabinet inside an empty classroom, he yanked Yu-gyeong along and rushed through the classroom door. He eased the door shut behind them, and as the sound of heavy footsteps thudded closer, he shoved Yu-gyeong into the cabinet and squeezed himself in after him.
Oh, come on, you idiot. There are two cabinets — why are you cramming both of you into this one narrow one.
Cha-heun mentally berated himself, but thankfully Baek Yu-gyeong was quietly going along with everything he did.
In the silence where only the sound of breathing could be heard, something began to faintly reach him from beyond the chest pressed against his.
…What is that?
…An unsteady sound. No — something he could feel. Pressed this close together, he could feel the other person’s heartbeat on the other side of that chest against his.
Just then, Yu-gyeong suddenly pressed his back flush against the metal cabinet wall, tilted his upper body down slightly, bowed his head, and buried his face in Cha-heun’s neck.
“…Hyung.”
The warm breath landing on his nape made Cha-heun’s body jolt.
No — this isn’t what you think. He’s not going to say something like ‘I’m worked up’ right now. You’re not someone oblivious enough to do that.
Running through Baek Yu-gyeong’s usual behavior with impeccable rationality, Cha-heun redirected his focus outward and strained his ears toward what was happening outside.
Shrrk —
The sound of the classroom door sliding open was followed by footsteps entering the room. Cha-heun pressed a hand over his mouth to signal silence, pulling them both close together.
Thankfully, Baek Yu-gyeong stayed still, and whatever presence had seemed to be scanning the classroom quickly withdrew back outside.
…Phew. Living my school life all over again — it’s genuinely spectacular.
He felt more physically drained than even back during training, and it didn’t seem like just his imagination. It was as if the energy was draining right out of his body.
Huh?
Yu-gyeong’s thigh suddenly pushed between his legs, and Cha-heun looked up in surprise. Yu-gyeong was smiling that coy little smile of his as he pressed even closer inside the already cramped cabinet.
…Huh?
At the unexpected, deeply intimate contact, a red alarm went off in Cha-heun’s head. This wasn’t just a hug — the position was wrong.
Indecent acts on a minor….
The horrifying phrase surfaced in his mind, and he felt his blood run cold as his previously steady heartbeat spiked sharply.
No, absolutely not!
It went without saying that anything happening between an adult and a minor was off-limits — but among all the professions that couldn’t escape severe social condemnation and where it was absolutely, unconditionally impermissible, there was one particular category. Generally speaking, these were occupations with a strong sense of professional duty — namely,
…Teachers. Teachers. Teachers!
Cha-heun jerked back in alarm, and Yu-gyeong’s arms wrapped around his lower back and pulled him close, then whispered against his ear.
“Hyung, stay still. We’ll get caught.”
“You — you little — get off me.”
“…So then, why did you do it. You’re listening so carefully, hyung.”
“What do you mean? Never mind that, first —”
“…And yet you’re so quiet about it yourself. That’s not fair.”
Yu-gyeong, eyes soft, smiled his clear, guileless smile — and buried his face between Cha-heun’s neck and shoulder again, rubbing his cheek against him.
…And with that, for some inexplicable reason, a suffocating tightness came over him and it became difficult to breathe — which then shifted quickly into something rougher. And yet strangely enough, Baek Yu-gyeong’s chest barely seemed to be moving at all.
By the time they made it outside, Cha-heun was the only one in a complete wreck. Fortunately, not long after, a middle-aged man who appeared to be the volleyball club coach came to the old building together with some sports club students — and as a result, those kids had apparently given up on finding the culprit and left. Those kids would have reeked of cigarette smoke too, and running into a teacher was the last thing they’d want.
With that parting shot of that’s not fair as his last word, Baek Yu-gyeong — having made excellent use of a situation where they’d had no choice but to stay hidden — had apparently decided this was his moment and clung on, filling himself up with everything he wanted. Cha-heun, held tight inside that cabinet, unable to escape his role as some toddler’s comfort object, only managed to get outside once every last drop of his energy had been wrung out of him.
Having savored the full experience of being a worn-out stuffed toy, Cha-heun fixed Yu-gyeong with hollow, sunken eyes — and Yu-gyeong, stepping out into the sunlight, stretched his arms wide and grinned. Watching Yu-gyeong single-handedly staging his own photoshoot, Cha-heun clenched his fist.
That little punk. He has no idea what’s going on inside me.
That one was satisfied and refreshed, having gotten every last bit of what he wanted — while Cha-heun had been burning through his nerves over one thing after another and felt like his lifespan had just shortened by about three years. He was so frustrated he felt like he might topple over backward — but there had been something to be gained from all this, so Cha-heun steadied himself.
If things had gone according to the original story, Baek Yu-gyeong would have come here today alone on the teacher’s errand — and heard everything those kids said by himself.
He would have let it slide once or twice, probably. But if things like this had kept happening all the way into the next year? Only now did his behavior make complete sense. And beyond that, Cha-heun had a gut feeling that even worse things had probably happened on top of it all.
…Cha-heun glanced to the side. He thought of how Yu-gyeong, not even understanding what was happening, had ended up running — and how he’d been slipping his fingers between Cha-heun’s and lacing them together, grinning brightly as if holding hands was the greatest thing in the world. Recalling that guileless expression, Cha-heun quietly revised his goal.
It seemed he’d set the wrong goal from the start. Rather than making Baek Yu-gyeong into a better person, he needed to protect him. Looking at it now, it seemed like this kid was getting beaten down one-sidedly without having done anything particularly wrong — and the worry that he might end up going dark was growing.
Of course… by that point, no one will mess with you anymore.
The Baek Yu-gyeong of that time had been like a blade honed to a razor’s edge. Walls built up, and if he was wronged, he’d pay it back with the same amount of humiliation — or more — without fail. After that incident with the student in the hallway, there were hardly any idiots left who dared to go up against Yu-gyeong. It was hard to understand why it had taken him this long to see it.
Well, it was because of Baek Ha-gyeong. The other kids did it because they had him to lean on.
When he’d read the work, Baek Ha-gyeong hadn’t appeared so he hadn’t known — but now, a year before the events of the original, the full context was becoming clear.
In any case, even if Yu-gyeong was a child born outside marriage, he was still a family member in the registry. With a solid backing that could handle things after the fact, Baek Yu-gyeong would not face trial, transfer, or any such punishment. The fact that in the story there had been no depiction of him being punished, despite his reputation taking a hit and him openly tormenting someone — that was probably because the family had managed things quietly at home.
…Wait, if that’s the case, wouldn’t it actually be better for Yu-gyeong to lose his temper at those kids just once? If you establish dominance from the start, they won’t come at you again.
Stopping holding back and letting his anger out in full — maybe that was the better option, since people only stopped coming after him once he did.
…Or maybe not.
He thought of Baek Yu-gyeong from a few days ago, standing in a daze in front of the school gate in the rain.
…What had Baek Yu-gyeong been thinking in third year, when he’d been acting that way? Had he felt satisfied after tormenting someone like that?
…If he’d felt satisfied, he would have looked happy. Smiling around all the time, like he is now.
Without having seen both the original and the current moment, he might not have noticed — but thinking about the gap between who this kid was now and who he’d become, the Yu-gyeong of that time had not seemed particularly happy.
And thinking about it again — no, a person’s heart festering to the point where they can no longer hold it in isn’t a good thing. Whatever it might look like on the outside, the inside would be rotting away something awful. It was a sad thought, that this bright, sunshine-filled kid would eventually end up like that. If anything, wasn’t it better for him to stay the way he was now — living like he was in a field of flowers?
Cha-heun caught Yu-gyeong’s eyes — and Yu-gyeong curved them into crescents right back at him.
“Hyung?”
…He was happy. Meanwhile Cha-heun was mentally exhausted and drained because of him, and that one looked like he’d just eaten something delicious, practically overflowing with energy.
…It seemed like he hadn’t heard those kids’ nonsense after all.
Cha-heun let out a breath close to relief and gave a small nod of his head.
“…Let’s go. You did something good today, so hyung will buy you snacks.”
At those words, Yu-gyeong lit up like he’d just been handed the world and came trotting along after him. Getting that excited over a bag of snacks — what a good age to be.
“Can I hold your hand?”
He’s already holding it before asking.
Cha-heun let out a long sigh and pulled him along forward. Yu-gyeong’s voice chattering away beside him reached his ears in a way that felt, somehow, pleasant.
