“Oh, it’s vibrating. I’ll go get it.”
Kkotmoa went back to the counter holding the vibrating pager. I had no way to hide my hollow feeling. I only thought about how I could put this in his hands. I racked my brain to death.
“This is really delicious. It’s called Mango Magic. The employee noona recommended it and it’s sweet and tasty. Want to try?”
The guy who placed the affogato in front of me sucked on the yellow slushie-like thing with a straw and asked. My gaze stuck to the straw his lips had touched. The urge to put that straw in my mouth and suck on it was intense. As soon as I became aware of that, I couldn’t help but be flustered.
“No.”
“Really? It’s really good though.”
“…And.”
“Yeah?”
“Take this. You’re the one who won it.”
“Why?”
“Because other people ordered first while you were choosing the menu. That’s how you became the hundredth. If I’d gone and ordered, I would have done it right away, so I would’ve been ninety-eighth or ninety-ninth and wouldn’t have won. So this is yours.”
Kkotmoa just stared at me while listening to my sophistry. Was he convinced, or not, was he in a bad mood—in my anxiety, one second felt like an hour. We just looked at each other silently with our eyes meeting. I couldn’t tell what Kkotmoa, who had his usual gentle expression, was thinking. That made me more anxious and nervous.
“I can really have it?”
Seeing him ask innocently, it seemed he’d really been wondering if it was okay for him to take it. I felt completely deflated.
“Yeah. I don’t need it.”
“Thanks, Hyeondo-ya. If I buy a chocolate cake to take later, Jaea will really like it. I saw in the display case earlier that there was a cake Jaea would like. I wanted to buy it for Jaea, but something smaller than my palm was more expensive than I thought so I hesitated, but now I can buy it. Actually, I already spent all this month’s allowance. Ah, now I’ll buy for you too every time we tutor. With this.”
Kkotmoa showed an unguarded smile, clutching the cafe card tightly in both hands as if it were a treasure. Even in the midst of this, he wasn’t thinking about what he wanted to drink but took care of his younger brother first. On top of that, he even took care of me, making me feel a bit pleased. Anyway, my plan was ultimately successful.
But I don’t know how this kid plans to survive this harsh world being so innocent and kind. Making people worry…
Kkotmoa wasn’t the type who was bad at thinking. Rather, he belonged to the category of quick comprehension and smart. He immediately understood what I explained for 2 hours and solved problems smoothly. In math’s case, he struggled a bit when application problems came up, but he quickly grasped those too when I explained them. So this kid wasn’t bad at studying—he just hadn’t studied. With this kind of brain, he could easily raise his grades with just a little effort. Originally, going from an average of 90 to 95 is hard, but going from 60 to 85 is relatively easy.
For 2 hours straight, we only studied. No, not me—Kkotmoa concentrated on studying. And I concentrated on Kkotmoa listening to my explanation and solving problems. Watching him be happy like a child saying the problems were solved easily made the corners of my mouth keep trying to rise on their own.
I divided and taught him the internal assessment and mock exam parts. Even though it was already late, I wanted to boost his morale, so I focused on internal assessment first. For internal assessment, I picked out only things likely to appear on this midterm exam. I boldly filtered out types that seemed unlikely to appear on the test even when Kkotmoa asked me to explain them. It was almost May now, and if he wasted time on useless things, Kkotmoa wouldn’t get the grades he wanted.
The problem was the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation mock exam in June. Mock exams weren’t simple like school midterms or finals. It seemed I’d have to organize problems by type for preparing for the college entrance exam this weekend. I felt strange thinking that Kkotmoa would carry around what I organized and study it every day.
“Um… Teacher Do. I don’t get this. It won’t solve.”
The guy who’d been burying his face in the workbook suddenly raised his head, and our eyes met. The guy who usually gently called me “Hyeondo-ya” said “Teacher Do” when studying. Since I’d unknowingly been watching him continuously, I was flustered when I suddenly met his clear eyes.
“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
My expression must look strange. Pure concern reached me.
“Ah. Did we go too long today? Did I take up too much of your time? It’s already been two and a half hours. Should we stop for today?”
“…Which problem.”
I overlapped my hand on top of the guy’s hand that was trying to gather up the workbook. It was an action that came out unconsciously because I felt like he’d leave. I absolutely didn’t intend to hold hands. A soft and warm energy spread on my palm, climbed up my arm, brushed past my shoulder, and reached an unknown place. My heart pounded. No, my palm covering the back of his hand pounded.
My heart beat in my palm.
“Your hand is really big.”
It was when I couldn’t even think of withdrawing my hand, frozen with my pounding palm. Kkotmoa lifted my hand and compared it as if matching it with his palm. My hand, larger than average, and his hand, smaller than average, overlapped. Even though we were the same age, perhaps because of the difference in height and build, our hands also differed by about one finger joint. My heart was still beating in the touching palms.
“It really is big. I’m probably the smallest in our class, right? That’s nice. If your hands are big, you can hold many flowers at once. My dad’s hands are big like yours too, so he can hold a lot of flower bunches at once. My hands won’t get any bigger from here, right?”
I couldn’t hear well what Kkotmoa was saying. He was still matching palms with me, tilting his small head and examining this way and that. Only the pounding of my heart beating in my palm was fully transmitted to my ears. My palm felt hot.
“……”
I came to my senses after the softness disappeared from my hand. Without knowing when he’d withdrawn it, my hand was left alone forlornly on the table. Even though his hand had already left, the remaining hand still pulsed with a heartbeat alone. And before I could deal with the sudden and unfamiliar emotion, I had to receive an additional attack in a defenseless state.
“This is the tutoring fee.”
Ah. So this was why he said he had to stop by the flower shop earlier. This was why he protected his bag behind his back without showing it.
The moment all questions were resolved, this time my heart beat in my chest. It beat so hard that my heart seemed like it would pop out of my mouth. Kkotmoa held out to me a single rose wrapped in transparent plastic with a pretty ribbon tied, which he’d taken out of his bag. I just stared at Kkotmoa blankly without even thinking of receiving it.
“You don’t like it after all? It’s the first one I wrapped myself.”
“…No. Give it.”
I snatched the rose. The plastic wrapping clutched in my hand felt awkward. This kid felt sorry for asking for free help, and all he could give was flowers overflowing in the flower shop, but even knowing that, my agitated heart fluttered.
‘It’s the first one I wrapped myself.’
A flower you wrapped yourself for the first time, for me, only for me.
Thump, thump, thump…
My earlobes heated up as if I’d received a confession. I wondered what male bastards were doing acting like this with each other, yet I couldn’t control my hotly burning earlobes or pounding heart. If another bastard had done the same thing, I would have disgustingly asked what the hell he was doing and slapped him with this flower. Even my closest friend Kang Junwoo would be no exception. So this was a phenomenon I couldn’t deny that I’d become strange.
What exactly was different about Kkotmoa?
“It’s pretty. It suits you well.”
Because you saying that are prettier and more sparkling. Because that’s what’s different.
Kkotmoa, who sat before my eyes blooming radiantly, was more fragrantly dazzling than the rose I received from him.
Even knowing I was strange, I couldn’t stop grinning the whole way home. My gaze was fixed on the rose the entire time.
What kind of expression did you have when wrapping this, how many times had you practiced wrapping, why did you give me the flower you wrapped yourself for the first time…
Just because he was grateful I was helping with studying, because he was a flower shop owner’s son so they had lots of flowers at home—even though there were many meaningless obvious reasons, I was anxious to assign special meaning to it. I know, I’m really strange. However, a thrill greater than recognizing I was strange stirred me up. My chest felt stuffy thinking I wouldn’t see Kkotmoa for two whole days because it was the weekend now. I was also annoyed at why things like weekends existed when exam students didn’t have enough time even if they went to school and studied every single day.
“You’re home, son?”
“I’m back.”
I saw the flower basket Kkotmoa’s dad made yesterday placed on the living room table. Just one flower basket was added, but the living room looked radiant.
“Is today Mom’s birthday too?”
“What are you talking about?”
Mom’s birthday was still a long way off, yet she shamelessly smiled and held out her hand. This woman must be confusing her own birthday now that she’d gotten older. I was so distracted right now that I’d even forgotten I’d sold Mom’s birthday and bought a flower basket.
How dare you covet this flower? This is a flower Kkotmoa wrapped himself for the first time—where are you trying to reach?
I protected the flower and came up to my room on the second floor. Without even changing out of my uniform, I lay on the bed and gazed endlessly at the flower. The corners of my mouth pulled up to my ears and had no intention of coming down. Without even realizing what my emotion was, I just kept fluttering. What was this single flower that my entire room smelled of Kkotmoa’s fragrance?
