He had his cap pulled down low, but there was no hiding that massive frame. It was Lee Juhak. He was sweeping consumables into his crossbody bag. Dooyoung immediately checked the register, but the employee was busy cashing someone out and hadn’t noticed a thing.
Dooyoung chewed on his thumbnail and anxiously tracked Lee Juhak’s movements. He looked singularly focused on stuffing his slim bag full, indifferent to whatever he was putting in it.
Lee Juhak patted his now-bloated bag like it was his own belly, then picked up a single stick of gum and set it on the counter. He paid for it and was strolling out of the convenience store when the alarm went off. The ear-splitting sound brought employees from neighboring shops out to see what was happening.
Lee Juhak launched himself forward and bolted — agile in a way that didn’t match his build at all. The employee who’d let the thief slip away wailed, and the onlookers quietly disappeared.
Dooyoung was still standing behind the utility pole, watching the whole scene unfold like some sinister stalker. He saw strange things often enough that he had to stop and consider whether he’d just imagined it.
Even setting that aside, there was plenty of reason to be suspicious of what he’d just witnessed. Lee Juhak’s family was clearly well-off. He’d taken taxis to and from school for three years straight, and had blown well over a million won on shoes using his mom’s card without asking. Why someone like that would steal made no sense to Dooyoung.
Then it struck him as funny — what did any of this have to do with him? He had enough of his own problems. Dooyoung put the thought away, stepped out from behind the pole, and limped toward Penstemon.
When he arrived at the café and opened the door, Yoo Jaemin spotted the state of him and dropped the cup in his hand. The limited edition cup — saucer sold separately — shattered into pieces.
Yoo Jaemin crossed the distance in an instant, cupped Dooyoung’s face in both hands, and said:
“You’re not working today.”
At the firm command, Dooyoung waved him off.
“I’m, I’m fine.”
“Rest. Now.”
Yoo Jaemin widened his eyes in a look that left no room for argument.
“Why do you think I hired you in the first place. What are we going to do about this face……”
“……”
Yoo Jaemin didn’t answer Dooyoung’s unspoken question and moved quickly to lock up the café. Then he loaded Dooyoung into his car and took him to a traditional medicine clinic run by someone he knew. The director — rumored to be the reincarnation of Heo Jun — examined Dooyoung’s condition with a kind eye, then administered moxibustion and acupuncture. And just like that, Dooyoung’s condition began to visibly improve, as if by magic.
It was remarkable. He’d never seen results this immediate before. His leg wasn’t limping anymore either. Dooyoung looked at the director with eyes full of trust. Behind that sturdy, commanding presence, a deep halo seemed to glow.
The early-winter rain that had been falling steadily since dawn stopped the moment he arrived at school. The sky stayed the same shade of ash grey. Drained by the weather, Dooyoung lay listlessly slumped over his desk to pass the time.
The tension of the approaching college entrance exam had the classroom wound tight. The desperate resolve of his classmates felt almost tangible. Catching some of that charged energy, Dooyoung suddenly pushed himself upright, pulled a textbook out of his desk drawer, and gripped his mechanical pencil with purpose.
But the tangled mess of symbols swimming on the page made him want to be sick, and he shut the book again. Right, I knew it wasn’t going to work. He didn’t have the money for university anyway, and he’d never really stuck with anything long enough to call it effort.
University had never been a place that suited him to begin with. The fear of unlucky outcomes coming back to mock every effort he made — that fear had always stopped him from even trying, and out of habit he slipped into thinking that way again now.
Still, he couldn’t help getting swept up in the atmosphere. If I started studying now, could I still make it into a Seoul university? If I went, what would I even major in? Even if I got in, could I afford the tuition? The deposit alone is no joke.
Dooyoung gnawed at the corner of his textbook and rubbed his shin. Just yesterday he’d been struggling to sit still in a chair, but now he felt considerably better. All thanks to the specialist Yoo Jaemin had introduced him to.
When his body wouldn’t do what he wanted, it dragged him down into a dark place. And that darkness wasn’t the kind you could enjoy on the occasional walk through it. You had to get out while you still had the strength. If you didn’t, you’d be adrift in an endless despair forever.
Dooyoung slumped back over his desk and buried his face between his folded arms. He squirmed around, researching which position would let him sleep the longest without his arms going numb.
Then the chair beside him scraped against the floor. Dooyoung turned his head without thinking — and locked eyes with Hong Seungpyo, who had just barely made it in time. Seungpyo mouthed a silent “Hey.” Dooyoung gave the faintest nod in return, and when Seungpyo’s gaze moved carefully over his face, he straightened up in his seat, feeling a little self-conscious.
“You look better.”
“…Yeah.”
Dooyoung answered in barely more than a whisper. Seungpyo gave a small nod as if in acknowledgment — then abruptly buried his face in the side of Dooyoung’s neck. Warm breath grazed the skin there, and Dooyoung immediately raised a hand to cover the back of his neck. He went stiff, blinking slowly, and when he did, Seungpyo — looking up at him — stared for a moment before opening his mouth.
“You smell like medicinal herbs.”
Dooyoung’s brain ground to a halt for a beat, then he understood perfectly what Seungpyo meant and moved his lips.
“It, it’s probably the traditional medicine clinic… the smell.”
“Traditional medicine clinic?”
Seungpyo raised his eyebrows in a gentle arc. He looked like he was hearing the words for the first time.
How could someone not know what a traditional medicine clinic is?
It suddenly occurred to Dooyoung — among all the rumors about Hong Seungpyo, there was one about him being American. Whether that was true or not, he didn’t know, but if it was, it would make sense that he’d grown up somewhere with no reason to know about it. Dooyoung hesitated for a moment, then began to explain haltingly.
“A traditional medicine clinic is a kind of hospital that uses Eastern medicine… do you, um, know Heo Jun by any chance?”
Ah — if he doesn’t know traditional medicine clinics, he probably doesn’t know Heo Jun either.
Dooyoung had grown up watching old dramas with Kim Chunnyeo, and naturally absorbed all kinds of knowledge that way. He wasn’t sure how to explain something he’d come to know so organically. But the worry turned out to be unnecessary.
“I know Heo Jun. Read about him in a book. I’d seen signs that said ‘traditional medicine clinic’ before and always wondered about it — now I know, thanks to you. Thank you.”
Thank you.
Dooyoung replayed that “thank you” silently in his head several times over. He could feel the loneliness that had been crumpled up in some corner of himself stir and shift, so he reached up without thinking and tugged at his earlobe.
And then it happened. Seungpyo smiled — a full, open smile that showed all his neat, even teeth. That already rare and striking face, right in front of him, bright with a smile like that — Dooyoung blinked rapidly.
Why does smiling look that good on him, honestly. Right on cue, the sun emerged from behind the grey stormclouds. A shaft of light cut through the window and fell over him in full. It was as if the whole world were paying tribute to his existence.
The pleasantries came to an end, and Seungpyo leaned back loosely against the hard backrest of his chair. Dooyoung snuck a sideways glance at him, then fidgeted trying to let his own body relax and sit with the same effortless ease. The result was something that wouldn’t look out of place heading straight to sea — he’d turned himself into a turtle.
Whatever he did, awkwardness was something decided at the moment of birth. Dooyoung gave up quickly and sat the way he always did, shoulders rounded forward.
Homeroom was well underway before the homeroom teacher finally arrived. He swept into the classroom trailing a heavy mood, a deep shadow carved between his brows, and looked around the room.
“Whoever stole from the convenience store near the three-way intersection yesterday — turn yourself in.”
That was enough to make everyone’s ears perk up. For the first time in a long while, Dooyoung actually listened to what the homeroom teacher was saying.
“Witnesses from the surrounding shops identified the school, so it won’t take long to narrow down who did it. Hoo… even thinking about it makes my blood boil. What kind of idiot steals in school uniform? Did I or did I not say — if your brain can’t handle it, don’t act on it?!”
At the sweeping lecture, a few students shrank in their seats, while others counted dust motes in the air and let it go in one ear and out the other.
Dooyoung knew exactly who the idiot the teacher was talking about was. His mouth itched with the urge to say something. He couldn’t hold it in, and kept scrubbing his lips with the back of his hand. Then his elbow knocked his pen off the desk and sent it to the floor.
He bent to pick it up — but before he could, a large hand had already snatched it. Dooyoung stopped short at Hong Seungpyo’s face, suddenly right in front of his. The clean lines around his eyes curved gently.
“Here.”
A neat, unhurried voice that left no crumbs behind. Dooyoung accepted the mechanical pencil with a light hand and dipped his head in thanks. The relentless way Seungpyo’s gaze followed him was starting to feel like a weight. Like he was trying to see straight through to the inside of Dooyoung’s head.
“I’m passing a note around now — if you have any suspicions, write down the name. If you don’t know, write that you don’t know.”
Dooyoung stared quietly at the slip of paper — two words at most of space — like he had a grudge against it. A scrap of paper that small was pressing down on his narrow chest. He swallowed, then raised his pen tip that had been hovering nervously. He scrawled a name across the slip and folded it quickly. The handwriting was a mess, but it would be legible enough to make out whose name it was.
Just then, a shadow spilling across his desk caught his eye. It had been there for a while now, unmoving — and it seemed to be tilted in his direction. Dooyoung glanced to the side without thinking, found Hong Seungpyo staring straight at him, and promptly dropped the slip of paper. It slid over onto Seungpyo’s desk, hit his hand, and came to a stop.
