I heard a sound like air escaping with a “pfft,” then silence followed for a moment. Then I heard a slightly lower voice again.
“I don’t have a lover. But there is someone I like.”
This time I looked at Jukyung, a bit surprised. His profile looking only ahead while driving in a relaxed posture was calm.
“Someone you like, what, don’t tell me you have unrequited love?”
Kwon Jukyung having unrequited love? That bastard who stole away all my date partners with just a few words?
“What do you mean ‘don’t tell me’? I can’t have unrequited love?”
It’s not that you can’t… I just can’t imagine it.
“No, well… you don’t seem like the type to pine alone.”
“She doesn’t really like me.”
“Hm? Who. She doesn’t like you?”
“……”
Jukyung didn’t answer. That meant yes.
Wow… A girl who doesn’t really like Kwon Jukyung. Judging by that friend person mentioning England earlier, there’s a high possibility she’s a Leroy student. Did Kwon Jukyung ever get rejected while dating someone? Well, I wasn’t close with Kwon Jukyung either, so even if something like that happened, I might not know. She might not be a Leroy student. Plus.
I crossed my arms and leaned back into the seat as if burying myself, lost in thought. Thinking about what that bastard did to me over the past two days, isn’t he worthy of rejection? Didn’t he blatantly clean the car seat I sat in right in front of me saying it was dirty, didn’t he make me strip in the entrance, didn’t he throw a tantrum telling me to go hungry and sleep even after ordering food…
If it weren’t for a situation where I was desperate, fistfights would have broken out several times—would a woman stay still after being treated like that? Obviously she’d kick him ten times and more.
And you should be clean in moderation—women also dislike men with such severe cleanliness obsession. No, it’s even perverted. No matter how important cleanliness is, smelling and checking people’s scent—that’s too ambiguous to even call cleanliness obsession, what the hell is that?
Whoever she is, I wanted to see the face of that woman who’s his unrequited love. Can’t I get to know her? I feel like we could be close friends.
While thinking that, somehow the corners of my mouth turned up. Why do I feel satisfied yet also pleased somehow?
“Hey.”
Perhaps noticing I was smiling secretly, I heard a considerably offended voice. I quickly composed my expression and looked at Jukyung with a calm face.
“Yeah, why?”
“At times like this, shouldn’t you at least say empty words like there’s no way anyone would dislike you?”
“Sorry.”
I lowered my eyes.
“I’m not good at lying.”
Jukyung spat out a curse in a low voice. It was somewhat fresh. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve heard that bastard curse much.
“But who is it? Do I know her?”
“…No. You probably don’t.”
So she’s not from school.
“What kind of person is she?”
“……”
Jukyung closed his mouth. I was extremely curious, but it felt awkward to press him, so I just looked ahead too. If we were very close, I’d put him in a headlock to make him confess, but we’re not like that. As the silence continued, I thought Jukyung didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
We drove along the dark road in silence for quite a while when Jukyung suddenly opened his mouth.
“Just, when I look at her, my heart tickles. She’s cute.”
I looked at Jukyung’s profile, a bit surprised. In the dark interior with the lights off, only Jukyung’s pale face stood out prominently. On his white cheeks, lights from outside formed like patterns then disappeared. Was it because of those lights that his ears, cheeks, and nape looked flushed, or was it…
Ugh…
I somehow felt ticklish all over and my whole body shrank. I never thought such words would come from Kwon Jukyung’s mouth. Does the feeling of liking someone make people this childish?
Even though I thought I should hold it in, “pfft,” a suppressed laugh leaked out. Ticklishly cute, he says. Oh man. I feel ticklish all over.
“Hey.”
Even though I quickly covered my mouth, Jukyung shot me a fierce look, having heard my laughter. I quickly pretended to cough and cleared my throat with a “ahem ahem.”
“Ah, maybe it’s because the air is bad these days, my throat is so ticklish.”
But saying when he looks at her his heart tickles and she’s cute—does that mean she’s a small, cute type, or is it just how he feels? Was there a girl with that feeling at Leroy? I racked my memory to recall the girls Jukyung dated. Come to think of it, most of the girls who dated me once or twice then went to Jukyung were small, cute types. In other words, my type.
What? Did our preferred styles overlap? But aside from those girls, I didn’t see him with cute-style women. Well, even if others see her as a chic type, Jukyung might have rose-colored glasses on and see her as cute. Actually, most women would look small to Kwon Jukyung anyway.
But come to think of it, I must have been subconsciously thinking Kwon Jukyung’s girlfriend would be a chic type in both appearance and personality. Somehow I couldn’t really imagine a small, cute woman standing next to Jukyung.
“Get out.”
Jukyung suddenly said in a completely sunken voice. My mind snapped alert in an instant.
Petty bastard. Is he going to leave me on the street and go just because I laughed at his earnest feelings about his unrequited love? See, see. He only does ill-mannered actions that girls would hate. I’m enduring it because I’m really a man, but ugh, if it weren’t for my situation of running away from home…
“Hey. Kwon Jukyung. I really…”
I was about to say I’m sorry for laughing, that I wasn’t mocking him, when Jukyung glanced at me from the corner of his eye.
“Aren’t you getting out? You said you have things to buy?”
At Jukyung’s words, I finally looked outside properly and saw the car had stopped in front of a large bookstore building with an art supply corner. Come to think of it, I’d said while eating to stop by briefly on the way.
“Oh, right, yeah.”
Only then did I collect myself and awkwardly fumbled to unfasten my seatbelt. It’s a secret that I secretly breathed a sigh of relief inside. Jukyung looked at me somehow as if I was pathetic. I don’t know how we ended up in this atmosphere so quickly.
“I’ll park and come, so take care of your business and meet me at the entrance in about 30 minutes. Since I’m here anyway, I’ll look at some books too. You have your phone, right?”
“Yeah.”
I answered meekly and got out of the car. As I went down the stairs toward the bookstore entrance, I wondered if Jukyung would just fly away while I was in the bookstore, then suddenly felt self-loathing. Even as a child I never trembled with fear that Father might abandon me, so why am I like this at twenty-three? I let out a hollow laugh at the absurdity.
***
I checked the store directory at the entrance and walked slowly to find the art supply corner located in a secluded spot. Since it wasn’t a professional art supply store, most of the items displayed were for beginners. There weren’t many display items and everything was tightly packaged, so it couldn’t be possible, yet my sensitive nose strangely caught the distinctive smell of an art room mixed in. It was probably imagination though.
Besides an ordinary sketchbook to use at home, I also picked up a notebook I could carry around and a diary-sized sketchbook. As I was choosing pencils, I also noticed sculpting tools, clay, and plaster statues like Julien placed next to them. I was momentarily drawn to that direction as if enchanted.
To call it tender sentiments about a lost dream feels a bit funny and embarrassing. The word dream is too grandiose to attach. It’s like calling a daydream that passed in a brief moment a “dream.”
I went to private school for all of elementary and middle school. As the tuition was expensive, most were children from well-off families, and it was an atmosphere where parents devoted themselves passionately to private education. Among them, there were some children absorbed in games, genre novels, or idols who wanted to become professional gamers, novelists, or entertainers, but such children were a very small minority and were usually treated as immature or pathetic by teachers and parents. Even by their peers.
Most thought about studying to become doctors or lawyers, or following the study abroad course their families laid out and inheriting businesses. There were kids who did arts and athletics too, but most were cases where they were exceptionally talented or had firm will from themselves or their parents. These children stayed at school after hours to practice, received separate private education, and prepared to enter arts middle schools and arts high schools.
In the winter of my first year of middle school, I went to France and saw Rodin’s work “The Kiss” and became hooked on sculpture. I looked up all of Rodin’s works in France and when I returned, I was holed up in the school art room for a while. Naturally, my grades that had been ranking first or second in the whole school plummeted, the school went into an uproar, and it was even reported to Father.
At first, Father, who had been indifferent thinking it was part of cultivating refinement like learning violin or horseback riding, even making a studio at home and arranging private lessons, changed his complexion when my grades fell.
Private lessons were naturally discontinued, and the plaster statues, sculpting materials, tools, sketchbooks, and all my studies until then were all disposed of. I actually didn’t make any particular resistance even while watching those things. It was partly because I was afraid of Father, but also because I was gradually realizing it. The fact that I had no talent.
As I said before, in well-off families, cases of majoring in arts and athletics were when the child’s talent was obviously outstanding or the parents’ will was firm. Additionally, if it’s a family you can communicate with, you might be able to insist even without talent.
Though our family was on the side of not communicating, I still sometimes think that since there’s my hyung who’s a perfect alpha, if I had clung to it to the end saying I’d do it even if I died, they might have let me be. However, it was around the time concerns began that I might not be able to completely manifest, so I was in an even more withdrawn state.
