Of course, if he really wanted to use it, there was a way to go to his father’s study and borrow it.
However, as long as there was his mother watching him anxiously, worried he might do something foolish, he couldn’t move rashly. She even accompanied him the next day when he went to get his hair cut.
“Ma’am, your son is so handsome. How can he look like this? He’s tall, has pretty skin… Do you have any thoughts of making him a celebrity?”
At the stranger’s praise, his mother was overjoyed and didn’t know what to do with herself. Yumyeong’s eyes, looking at his mother’s expression in the mirror, were deeply sunken.
“But how much should I cut? Anything would suit him well…”
“Not too short…”
“Would this much be okay? Or this much?”
Watching the hair being cut like that, Yumyeong recalled Hakyoung’s touch as he carefully gathered and tied his hair with gentle fingers like a comb.
His mother even suspected whether ‘that friend’ was to blame for the few test results where his grades had severely dropped. She seemed to think he had neglected his studies, excited by romantic feelings. He could endure being reproached himself, but it was hard to sit quietly listening to her blame the innocent Hakyoung.
It wasn’t that he was trying to argue back. He just didn’t want Hakyoung to be misunderstood for no reason, and wanted to at least let her know the facts.
“No. He transferred in during second year. My grades dropping has nothing to do with him.”
“He was a transfer student? How can transfer students come to your school?”
“He probably got admitted through special admission…”
When her son, who never talked back to his parents, opened his mouth for the only time to defend his friend, his mother’s expression slowly began to harden. Not realizing this, Yumyeong continued speaking calmly with downcast eyes.
“He actually told me to study more. He said let’s study hard and go to a good university together. My final exam grades going up was also because he helped me a lot.”
When he suddenly raised his head, his mother’s lips were trembling.
“Mom…”
Only then did Yumyeong realize his words had only backfired. No matter how wronged he felt, it might have been better not to say anything at all.
“How can you say such things in front of me? How can you do this…”
In the end, in front of his crying mother, he had to hang his head like a sinner.
Returning quietly to his room, Yumyeong closed the door, sat at his desk, and mechanically opened a book. Because of the home cam, all he could do was sit glued to his desk.
Yumyeong drew a small calendar in an empty notebook. One, two, three… counting the remaining days.
Not much vacation was left.
He desperately wanted to return to school quickly.
It was strange. Clearly even in 9th grade, he had hated going to boarding school to death, had been terrified of being abandoned by his parents, yet now he wanted to run away to school instead. He’d come back to the home he’d wanted to return to so badly, but what he really wanted to have, how he wanted to live—it was maddeningly confusing.
At least now he knew there was a better daily life than this.
Just then, he heard a small tapping sound on the door. Yumyeong slowly turned his head toward the door with melancholy-laden eyes.
“Hyung.”
The one who poked their head through the crack of the door while fidgeting with the doorknob was none other than his young sibling, Huimyeong.
“Hyung, what are you doing? In your room all day.”
“Yeah. Hyung is studying.”
When he answered with a forced smile, his sibling fidgeted restlessly, wanting to come in. His mood turned bitter at the sight of not entering without permission, though he didn’t know what story the child had heard from their parents.
“Do you want to come in?”
“Yeah… I won’t disturb you.”
Toward Huimyeong who fidgeted while leaning against the door, Yumyeong nodded slightly.
“You can come in.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You can disturb me too.”
Huimyeong came hopping in happily and started chattering away.
“I’ve really never gone into hyung’s room. I only opened the door and looked but didn’t go in. Because mom said not to go in. Because you’d hate it, hyung… So I didn’t go in even when you weren’t there.”
There was no way he’d hate it, but Yumyeong just listened silently.
“Is studying hard, hyung? Really hard, right? I’m dying too. I go to six academies, but mom said you went to even more when you were my age. Hyung, you’re really amazing.”
The eyes of his sibling, looking at the older brother he couldn’t see often because they didn’t live together, sparkled. From childhood, Huimyeong had blindly liked and followed his cool and kind hyung.
How could he hate someone with eyes like these?
Of course, when his sibling was just born, he too was a young child, so he’d been jealous of the sibling who monopolized all the attention and affection. When he became old enough to realize that his sibling’s existence was excluding him from the family, he’d suffered and ached.
But the sibling was innocent.
You weren’t born choosing your parents either, so what sin do you have?
Yumyeong, who couldn’t bring himself to resent his family, was just grateful that Huimyeong had knocked on his door.
“Hyung has lots of interesting things in his room. I want to keep staying here.”
“That’s fine.”
“Wow, really? How long can I stay?”
“Until night? You can sleep here too.”
Then Huimyeong got tremendously excited and jumped up and down on the spot.
“Really? I can sleep with hyung?”
“Yeah, do you want to sleep together?”
“Of course, of course of course of course!”
Watching Huimyeong emphasize it several times, Yumyeong finally let out a low laugh. It was the first real smile shown in this house.
However, had he been with Huimyeong for barely about 20 minutes when his mother came to the room.
“Huimyeong, you can’t disturb hyung when he’s studying.”
“But hyung said it’s okay to disturb him…”
“Hyung hates it.”
At the last whisper, his sibling turned to look at him with a startled expression. Being led out by his mother’s hand, Huimyeong’s face glancing at Yumyeong clearly showed signs of reading the room.
***
Though his father treated Yumyeong coldly, he emphasized that the family must have dinner together. The reason being he couldn’t stand the sight of him holed up in his room doing as he pleased even though they were in the same house. Because of that, he had to come down to the dining room on the first floor every evening. His father’s eyes were cold watching Yumyeong’s sluggish movements, his feet coming down the stairs heavy as if wearing sandbags.
Eating silently with the usual feeling of indigestion, Yumyeong suddenly looked at a shrimp body being placed on his bowl.
“Hyung, eat…”
When he glanced to the side, Huimyeong was looking at him hesitantly. The shrimp with its tail crudely removed rolled over the white rice, leaving traces of red seasoning.
Whether his sibling was scared of Yumyeong who was particularly expressionless at every dinner, the child was reading his mood again. To ease the tension, Yumyeong smiled.
“Thanks.”
Then, as he picked up the side dish his sibling gave him with chopsticks,
“Huimyeong, you’re not giving him what you were eating, right?”
His mother whispered in a firm voice.
“It’s not what I was eating…”
“Hyung hates things like that.”
At those words, his sibling made a hurt face. He wanted to say he didn’t hate it, but stayed silent for fear of looking like he was contradicting his mother. Instead, Yumyeong silently scooped up a big spoonful of rice along with the side dish Huimyeong had given him and pushed it into his mouth. He hoped the child would understand it meant he didn’t dislike it.
Just then, his mother spoke up.
“Honey, Yumyeong. I’m thinking of transferring him to a high school in Seoul.”
At the unexpected words, Yumyeong’s chopsticks stopped.
“Even if it’s a bit rushed, if we hurry he could attend from the second semester.”
“A sudden transfer? Is there a reason?”
“Nothing else, but next year he’ll be a senior, and the quality of private education is much better here…”
Yumyeong realized with a slightly pale complexion what his mother’s intention was in saying such things.
She seemed to have decided she couldn’t send him back to the school where Hakyoung was.
Then his father shook his head with a displeased face.
“Those who do well will do well on their own. Whether it’s tutoring or academies, even if you don’t send them at all, those who’ll go to top universities will end up going anyway.”
“Still, we were thinking of sending our Yumyeong to America. For American university admissions, we’ll definitely need help from a study abroad agency… It’s much better here than the Gangwon Province side.”
The food wouldn’t go down anymore.
Regarding advancement, Yumyeong knew he had no choice. If his father accepted his mother’s proposal, he would never return to that school again.
Then seeing Ryu Hakyoung would end with this.
After finishing the meal, returning to his room, Yumyeong lay weakly on the bed. Whether he had indigestion, his stomach hurt too much and was painful. But he didn’t want to cause a commotion, nor did he want to appear in the harmonious living room and ruin the atmosphere. Thinking it would get better if he endured, he groaned, and only when night had deepened and the mansion had become very quiet did he secretly go down to the first floor.
Then he knocked on the housekeeper’s door.
“Oh my, at this time of night… Oh my! Why is your face so pale?”
“Ma’am, do you know where the digestive medicine is? I think I have indigestion.”
“Good heavens, you’ve been holding it in since dinner until now? Oh dear, you can’t even straighten your back properly, should we go to the emergency room…”
At those words, Yumyeong was startled and shook his head. He didn’t want to cause a commotion.
“No, I’ll be fine if I take medicine. I just want to sleep. Please don’t wake anyone.”
The housekeeper said Yumyeong was pitiful and found a sewing kit to prick his finger.
After downing the digestive medicine and returning to his room, Yumyeong groaned silently buried in his blanket. Even after taking medicine, the pain twisting his stomach didn’t get better at all. It was hard to tell whether it was really physical pain or whether his heart was suffering.
Ah, it shouldn’t end like this with Ryu Hakyoung.
Really shouldn’t leave like this…
Yumyeong moaned even in his sleep, suffering greatly. Cold sweat beaded on his pale forehead.
Fortunately, when the next morning came, the abdominal pain subsided.
However, the chest pain that had been squeezing continuously still remained dully.
Yumyeong was very clever. He knew how to view situations objectively and knew what he wanted. Among them, the most certain thing was that he wanted to return to the dormitory.
