Inside the room, there was only one long desk attached to the wall. He plopped down the mattress he’d brought from the second-floor dorm bed onto the floor. A bit of dust rose but not enough to worry about. After settling in appropriately, he flopped down on it.
“Ah, nice……”
Just lying down inside the school somehow felt liberating. Maybe it felt even more so because he was lying down in a self-study room where others were banging their heads against desks studying.
Yumyeong looked out the window while lying down. Since it was at the end of the east building, the club room had a large window showing the terrace. Beyond it, mountains and blue sky could be seen.
While he was idling like that.
Creak.
Unexpectedly, the club room door opened and someone entered. Yumyeong only slightly raised his head to check the face of the person who opened the door.
“Oh, Yumyeong-ah. You were here too.”
The one who entered was none other than Sunmin. Yumyeong relaxed his slight tension and lay back down using his arm as a pillow.
“What, it was you? I thought it was a teacher. I just thought of this, should we hang a long curtain in front of this door? So the inside isn’t visible right when the door opens. Or we could find a tall storage cabinet about person-height and set it up.”
“Huh? Should we?”
Then when the door opened and someone barged in, they wouldn’t be caught blatantly lying down. Yumyeong was very satisfied with his own idea.
Since there was only a desk in the room, Sunmin was standing and looking around. It seemed like he was wondering where to sit since there wasn’t even a chair. Noticing this, Yumyeong tapped the spot next to him.
“Want to lie down too?”
“Huh? No no no.”
Sunmin shook his head quickly and refused three times. Yumyeong tapped the spot beside him again.
“Then at least sit. It’s a bit much to just sit on the floor.”
“Oh, should I?”
Sunmin very carefully crouched down on the mattress, trying not to touch Yumyeong’s body. Seeing Sunmin find a place to sit, satisfied Yumyeong muttered.
“I should bring a pillow tomorrow too.”
“Will it be okay? This is a club room……”
“So what, as long as we don’t get caught.”
“Where would we get chairs from?”
“Can’t we just snatch them from the library or somewhere?”
“I don’t think so……”
Sunmin put the brakes on Yumyeong’s theft with a reluctant face.
“Then where does everyone else get them from?”
For a moment, the sound of students noisily passing through the self-study room hallway could be heard. Silence naturally flowed between the two.
It was Yumyeong who broke the silence.
“Sunmin-ah, do you have any dating experience?”
Yumyeong had recently decided to help with Hakyoung’s love life. He wanted to be even a little helpful, if only because he felt sorry for obstructing and tormenting him until now.
At the very least, he needed to know the target well to make a strategy.
He asked the question with that thought, but Sunmin shook his head urgently with an overly stiff attitude.
“Huh? I haven’t done that……”
“Really? What about experiences like being confessed to……”
“Nothing like that particularly……”
Sunmin nervously fiddled with his ear, wondering why Yumyeong was asking such questions. Yumyeong looked at Sunmin like that while lying down, wondering if he’d said something he shouldn’t have.
He couldn’t understand at all the feeling of liking a man, but since Hakyoung liked Sunmin, he somehow found himself observing him closely. It was a plain and neat impression with no particularly noticeable parts but no ugly parts either.
Suddenly thinking of the bastards with rotten personalities who had bullied this quiet guy for being a sexual minority, Yumyeong clicked his tongue briefly.
“Then you haven’t kissed either?”
“What?”
“You haven’t done it yet?”
“Uh……”
“That’s good. When you do it from now on, that’ll be your first kiss, right?”
Yumyeong clapped his hands once and was happy by himself. Sunmin scratched the back of his neck, feeling absurd.
“Suddenly why……”
Just then. The club room door swung open once again. Yumyeong only raised his head like before to check the door.
“You’re here?”
There stood Hakyoung with a complicated face. He had rushed in with a somehow urgent feeling and seemed to not know what to say first.
“What were you two talking about…… No, where on earth did that mattress.”
“I brought it from my room.”
“This is a club room.”
Hakyoung firmly closed the door with an expression like his head was throbbing.
“However we use it is up to us. You’ll come to think this is absolutely necessary too. Hey, right. There are no chairs. You sit here too.”
Saying that, Yumyeong tapped the spot next to him again. Sunmin made room to create a spot for Hakyoung to sit. However, Hakyoung looked down at the two with his arms crossed, with a face showing no intention of sitting. Without saying anything, just chewing his lips.
Facing Hakyoung like that, Yumyeong realized belatedly.
‘Ah! This bastard is jealous. Well, it makes sense. We were stuck together nicely on the same mattress…… In a way, we’re sharing a bed.’
Yumyeong clicked his tongue and dusted himself off as he stood up. He patted the mattress to restore the cushion, cleared his throat with a ‘ahem,’ and left the club room.
“Here, Hakyoung-ah. Sit here. Have a good time.”
“……?”
In front of Sunmin, who had an expression of complete confusion, Hakyoung was hanging his head with his chin propped heavily. From that handsome face, somehow frustration emanated.
‘We’re already roommates…… What is he talking about?’
***
Yumyeong’s support continued after that too.
The methods were extreme yet useless. He would act proactively as if suddenly thinking he should help, then later often forget and just stand by. Thanks to that, Hakyoung’s heart seemed to ride a roller coaster. He was on the verge of getting gray hair from hoping he wouldn’t stir up anything.
For example, like this.
“But even if Lee Sunmin is in a different class, I’ve never once run into him in the cafeteria during lunch.”
As if very curious about it, Yumyeong quickly ate lunch then started wandering around the entire school like catching mice. Eventually passing by the library, he found Sunmin sitting as if hiding inside, and was delighted, pounding on the window from outside with his fist and waving his hand. Sunmin had a bewildered face seeing Yumyeong suddenly breaking his peace and coming to stick flat against the glass window.
Thinking he’d accomplished something, Yumyeong immediately ran to Hakyoung to share.
“Hey, it seems like he’s in the library every lunch period. Since he’s hard to see, you have to go all the way inside to find him.”
“What?”
“I’m talking about Lee Sunmin. That…… because of the guys who bullied him, it seems he stays in the library then eats alone later. How’s that, premium intel? So you should also coincidentally go to the library and appeal your intellectual side while pretending to flip through books. Or if you stand at opposite bookshelves and make eye contact through the space where you pulled out books, wow……”
“Why would I specifically have to go to the library and do that?”
“Huh?”
“You know we’re roommates, right? I see Lee Sunmin every day.”
“Hey. It’s completely different. That’s an everyday space and the library is a special space. You really don’t know anything. Originally something has to happen when you unexpectedly meet in a non-everyday space.”
And, whenever Yumyeong taught like that, Hakyoung lost the strength to argue back and just let out short sighs. Saying he didn’t know who was teaching whom when they were at the same level.
Or, he would obtain Sunmin’s middle school graduation photo and secretly share it with Hakyoung.
“How did you get this?”
When Hakyoung asked with a face shrouded in suspicion, Yumyeong smiled confidently.
“Obviously I asked for it directly.”
“……You directly asked for a middle school graduation photo?”
“Yeah. He said he doesn’t have it now either, so he called his mother and asked her to take a picture.”
“……”
“I got it with difficulty. Keep it preciously.”
Hakyoung let out a deep sigh. It was one thing that Yumyeong was making an effort, but it was quite uncomfortable that he kept getting entangled with Lee Sunmin under the pretext of helping him.
Eventually Hakyoung couldn’t stand it and told Yumyeong.
“Stop it now.”
“Huh?”
“This stuff doesn’t help at all.”
“Hey, why are you saying it like that? I’m hurt.”
Yumyeong, with a face showing no hurt at all, smacked Hakyoung’s back. Hakyoung, whose back bent a little in the shape he was hit, muttered quietly.
“To be honest, I’m not even grateful. Whenever you do this, thinking about what expectations he might have……”
“……”
“I wish you wouldn’t…… even talk with Lee Sunmin.”
The words blurted out in complicated feelings were strangely close to the truth.
Just as Hakyoung was thinking ‘oops’ and ruminating on what he’d said. Yumyeong silently stared at Hakyoung.
“Ah, I see…… I butted in for nothing.”
“……”
“I thought you’d like it. Sorry. I won’t do it anymore.”
Then Yumyeong left the room with an awkward face. Alone in the club room, Hakyoung clutched his hair and let out a deep sigh.
There was no way he could tell Yumyeong that what he really wanted to see was none other than your middle school graduation photo. Of course, he didn’t know even now whether the day he could say that would ever come.
***
Hakyoung and Sunmin’s room was usually very quiet. Both didn’t find silence uncomfortable, and during personal time, they were the type to focus only on themselves. Between the two who were accustomed to consideration for others, there was always an appropriate sense of distance and respect.
Today too, only the sound of scribbling notes echoed in the room. Hakyoung had been doing homework since earlier but actually wasn’t concentrating very well.
He just slightly raised his eyes to give attention to Sunmin sitting on the bed. The face reading a comic book while half-lying down wearing a headset was no different from usual.
Supposedly he had feelings for Yumyeong too, but it didn’t really show on the outside.
