‘It’s nice being desk partners with you.’
‘I’m not that clueless. The kids keep calling me docile, so you seem to be misunderstanding, but I’m not docile and I’m not gentle. I’m surprisingly quite scrappy.’
‘This is the tutoring fee. Is it still not good? This is the first time I’ve wrapped something myself.’
‘Let’s go eat something delicious. I’ll treat you. I got my allowance yesterday, so my allowance is really fresh.’
‘I’m only telling you this…, actually, I only have two dads.’
‘Of course it’s different. You’re my desk partner. You’re also my Do Teacher.’
‘I like that you’re kind.’
I wanted to be kind only to you. You tamed me so that I would want to become kind only to you. In just a few months, we shared so much time with each other and built memories, more than we could handle. If I took them out one by one, there was no end, and no matter how many times I recalled them, I never got tired or bored, and each time I mulled them over, I’d laugh to myself thinking we really had so many things happen to us.
‘I feel empty even when studying alone. Especially when solving math problems.’
‘You look like a total perfectionist but you’re surprisingly sloppy.’
‘The back of the hand is the math god, and the English god is the palm.’
‘I like walking. I also like walking while holding Jaea.’
‘When you praise someone, you always say “Not really” with that stoic face. Cutely.’
‘Then I’ll make you dinner as a tutoring fee. Even if I’m not good at studying, I’m good at cooking.’
‘It’s been a while since I’ve slept alone and I can’t fall asleep, so I just called.’
‘Do you know there are so many stars in the sky right now? Pretty, right? When I see stars, I think of you. You’ve been like that since I first saw you. You sparkled. That’s why I wanted to become close with you.’
‘I didn’t know 8 minutes and 14 seconds would be this long.’
‘You’re handsome, very much so. You’re the most handsome among handsome kids. Really. You study well and you’re so handsome on top of that, it’s unfairly handsome.’
‘Since I lay down first, you turn off the light and come. I’ve wanted to do this. Quickly lying down first and telling you to turn off the light and come.’
In that small room, we laughed so much together. In that narrow room, I felt so many butterflies. Just being together was good. That moment when my heart beat in my palm was happiness.
‘Don’t bully my math god and English god. Even without that, your hands are pretty, so I’d be sad if they got ruined.’
‘Being stoic again saying “not really.” You’re cute anyway.’
‘Would it be too shameless if I tried to receive the language section god’s energy too?’
‘I like it when someone strokes my head. But even though you’re kind, my stoic Do Teacher doesn’t praise me even when I solve problems well. Now I deliberately don’t let other kids touch my head.’
‘Do Teacher, I’ve been thinking. After taking the college entrance exam, regardless of the results, I’ll grant you one wish.’
I both laughed and cried recalling the moments I spent with you. If I’d turned away from the overflowing feelings then and severely disciplined myself, could we have been different? If so, could I have told you my wish after the college entrance exam ended? That wish would have been, without even thinking, to accept my confession—what reaction would you have shown? Could you have granted my wish?
No, turning away from overflowing feelings was impossible from the start. It was a feeling that came out on its own, beyond my control. The size of the overflowing feelings was much greater than my will. Now I missed the time of purity that could no longer satisfy me, and I resented myself for realizing my desire to possess you.
‘Are you hurt anywhere?’
‘…No.’
‘Yeah, that’s a relief.’
If I’d known that would be our last conversation, I should have said something different—I regretted it again and again. That regret wasn’t about the things I did, but was limited only to our conversation. However, no matter how many tens of thousands of times I mulled it over, thought about it, and thought about it again, I didn’t know what I should have said.
What could I have said in front of you with tears brimming in your eyes…
My confession that overflowed without a chance to catch it seemed to disappear, disguised as the calm friendship of friends. I confessed but didn’t hear his answer, and instead of an answer, I caused a huge incident over what I heard. After making things this big, I thought it would be a terrible thing to do to him to confess my feelings again.
We didn’t contact each other. It was because I feared my feelings that would overflow again, unable to endure if I contacted Kkotmoa, and I didn’t know why he didn’t contact me. Since the day I came in Secretary Park’s car, Kkotmoa never contacted me even once. We were gradually becoming disconnected like that.
Around that time, news of my first-semester early admission acceptance came. I felt the weight of Father’s power. I didn’t know how he resolved it, but the assault I committed didn’t have any impact on going to college. I wasn’t even curious about how he resolved it, and didn’t want to know. Rather than being grateful to Father for quietly resolving the matter, the fact that I now had to enter that kind of world was unbearably sad.
“Do Hyeondo! Come down, a friend is here!”
I heard Mom calling from the first floor. I naturally thought it was Kang Junwoo. For a month, Kang Junwoo had come exactly four times. He came every Saturday and was annoyingly persistent to the point of being sick of it. Since today was also Saturday, I naturally thought it was Kang Junwoo.
“Tell him to come up!”
However, Kang Junwoo had never once announced through Mom that he’d come, and Mom also would say “Junwoo’s here” rather than “a friend is here” if Kang Junwoo had come. I was so devastated that I couldn’t even notice such a sloppy, hole-filled call. A moment later, there was a knock. I wondered if Kang Junwoo had finally gone crazy.
“Why are you doing something you don’t do? Come in.”
“Hi, Hyeondo-ya.”
Seeing the figure that entered after opening the door, I was so shocked I couldn’t even breathe. I couldn’t understand at all why Kkotmoa was here. Thinking I might be seeing a fantasy or dreaming, I pinched my thigh, but only frowned at the sharp pain.
So if this isn’t a dream right now…
With the face I’d thought about and recalled every single day right in front of me, I was so shocked that my feet got tangled while getting down from the bed and I rolled and fell to the floor. Kkotmoa, who rushed over, supported me.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“You, you, you, why are you here…?”
“Ah… Congratulations on getting into college. You got early admission, right? You said you don’t like flowers, so I bought cake.”
Kkotmoa put down the cake box he’d been holding on the floor. It was the cheesecake we’d eaten together before. Because of that damn kind guy who spent his allowance to buy me cake, the area around my ribs throbbed.
No, I like flowers the most in the world.
I barely controlled my lips that wanted to move on their own. We looked at each other while awkwardly sitting on the floor, unable to even stand up. Me in a ridiculous position from falling, Kkotmoa in a neat, gentle position with only one knee bent.
“It felt a bit awkward to come alone, so I brought Jaea too. Dad made a flower basket for me to bring, but your mom didn’t even pretend to look at the flower basket and just scooped up Jaea and kept kissing him. It’s the first time I’ve seen our dad’s flower basket get treated so coldly.”
I stared without even blinking at the guy who smiled and quietly poured out words just like I’d seen at school yesterday. After that phone call, Kang Junwoo no longer delivered news of Kkotmoa to me. I also didn’t ask about Kkotmoa’s news. If he was doing well, the chubby, cute cheek fat had disappeared. Looking at him, his arms seemed thinner than before too. Except for that, Kkotmoa was treating me the same as usual without any sense of discomfort.
However, my heart wasn’t strong enough to watch him trying hard to act bright. I might be weaker than Kkotmoa. Rather than being grateful for the sight of him deliberately trying so I wouldn’t feel awkward, it was painful and sad. Still unable to become an adult, clumsy and inexperienced, I could only speak prickly to hide it.
“Why did you come?”
“I wanted to give you this too…”
What Kkotmoa took out from his bag and held out was a carnation with a red ribbon that he must have wrapped. I couldn’t hide my dumbfounded face. The carnation that suddenly appeared before my eyes was absurd, ridiculous, and I wondered what he was trying to do.
“I know you don’t like flowers, but still…, I now know how to study alone, and thanks to you I’m studying hard too…, so thank you for teaching me all this time, Do Teacher.”
I knew too. That I was just a desk partner and Do Teacher who helped with studying to you.
I didn’t know having different feelings for each other would be this hard. And yet, seeing the carnation with a red ribbon that he must have made while thinking of me, my chest tightened overwhelmingly. I hated that I couldn’t smile and say thank you. Because this wasn’t what I wanted.
Could I cool my feelings if you clearly rejected me instead? As the thought occurred, the promise to be kind only to you crumbled futilely like a sandcastle swept away by waves. My voice was cold and prickly even to my own ears. I wanted to treat you kindly but I couldn’t.
“Is that all?”
“Hm?”
“I asked if that’s all.”
“That’s not it…”
“If you have something to say, say it quickly and go. I’m tired.”
The clear, transparent eyes that always reflected me gazed straight at me. Before his eyes that revealed everything without hiding anything, I couldn’t budge. I was anxious like someone waiting for a death sentence, unable to even avoid his gaze until he opened his mouth. However…
“…I missed you.”
A breeze blew in the middle of summer. That rather weak wind wrapped around my whole body and entered even the empty place where my heart had been. Warmly and gently, it filled the empty space.
After I’d endured for a month. After I’d endured using all my strength to suppress missing you, you make the wind blow again. When the wind blows, I follow where it blows, and if it’s wind you make blow, no matter how weak the wind is, I can only sway helplessly—I’m still an unripe reed.
“I know it was because of me, so I couldn’t contact you first, and I’m grateful but it’s strange to say thank you, but I’m worried, and if I ask the teacher or Junwoo, I don’t want to hear about you through others…, actually, leaving all that aside, I just… missed you.”
Even knowing that your meaning of missing me is different from my meaning of missing you, I was happy. As happy as I was pained. As pained as I felt joy. As joyful as I was agonized. As agonized as I was happy. As happy as I was in pain. As painful as it was good.
“If Jaea wasn’t there, I wonder how I would have come alone. I was slightly scared when I saw your front gate. Back then, I was with you so I didn’t know that gate was that big and tall. But I’m glad your mom likes our Jaea.”
“…”
“We were stuck together every day except weekends, so not seeing you made me miss you a lot.”
I like you.
“…I missed you, Hyeondo-ya.”
I still like you so much I don’t know what to do. To me like that, you came to me yourself. This was the limit now.
“You…”
Regardless of my will.
“How are you…”
I couldn’t hide the feelings that steadily piled up and kept overflowing.
I cupped Kkotmoa’s cheeks and pressed my lips against his.
It was our first kiss.
