“Won’t you stop?”
Eorin murmured. It was the first time I’d heard this voice. Startled, I looked at Eorin—his eyes were blazing.
“Let go of Chiwon, you fucking bastard.”
“Fucking bastard? Did you just call me a fucking bastard?”
“Let go. I’ve said it three times now.”
It felt like a whirlwind was sweeping through. Like a dam bursting open, Eorin’s pheromones poured out all at once. There wasn’t a dominant alpha among them who could match Eorin, so the kids were instantly overwhelmed by his pheromones. An alpha’s pheromones instinctively repulse other alphas, so the kids’ faces were thick with displeasure. Eorin’s eyes glinted coldly.
“Chiwon-ah, come here. Let’s go.”
Even in these seething pheromones with such a clear message of threat, I could breathe. Eorin’s pheromones didn’t attack me. As I took a step toward Eorin, Choi Gyuchan tightened his grip on my fingers. At that voice asking where I thought I was going, chewing over each word, I swung my arm and shook off Choi Gyuchan’s hand.
“I’ve forgotten what you guys did to me, what happened in middle school. It has nothing to do with me now.”
“……”
“So you guys should stop now too.”
It was a lie. I hadn’t forgotten and it wasn’t irrelevant. It was a memory that would stick to me for a long time to come. But I had hope that I could step over it and stand up. And more than anything, I thought that’s what these kids would hate most. Me completely escaping from under them. Me not suffering over that incident anymore. Them becoming nothing to me.
Choi Gyuchan’s expression surged with emotion. As if to counter Eorin’s pheromones, the kids sharpened their pheromones. As the pheromones from both sides clashed, it felt like my skin stung and hurt just from the pheromones touching it.
“Don’t talk shit, you bastard. Forgotten? Irrelevant? You haven’t seen us for a few months and you’ve become a whole new person. When were you trembling on the ground?”
“……”
“No matter what you do, you’re the same beggar bastard as back then. You know? Just because you went to some fancy school with borrowed money, you think you’ve become something?”
It’s not like I’d never thought that. Not because I came to Haebam High, but because Eorin had spoken to me.
The moment Choi Gyuchan, his face red, yelled something more and tried to grab me by the collar, Eorin caught Choi Gyuchan’s wrist with one hand and with his other arm wrapped around my face, pulling me into a tight embrace and covering my ears. It was just as Choi Gyuchan, unable to control his anger, was about to rush at Eorin.
“……”
There was a sound of something dropping from the front. Everyone’s gaze turned that way. Standing there, surprisingly, was Kim Hyeonho. Even though he must have had it confiscated yesterday, Kim Hyeonho stood in an awkward posture with a cigarette in one hand. It seemed he’d dropped his lighter and was picking it up when he looked this way. Kim Hyeonho, looking at us with a surprised face, seemed to grasp the situation as he sighed and walked over. Lee Jaeseong looked like he was furtively watching Kim Hyeonho’s reactions.
“What are you guys doing?”
“……”
“Lee Jaeseong. Are you still going around doing this?”
At Kim Hyeonho’s sigh-laced words, Lee Jaeseong’s face instantly turned bright red. Come to think of it, yesterday the two of them looked like friends, but maybe they weren’t.
“Yesterday I let it slide because things were chaotic, but why do you act like such a fucking kid whenever you see Chi…… Yuchiwon? Isn’t it time you got your head straight? It doesn’t look too good on you.”
At Kim Hyeonho’s words, Lee Jaeseong couldn’t retort even once. After a moment of silence, Lee Jaeseong quietly muttered, “Hey, let’s go,” and left. As soon as Lee Jaeseong’s figure disappeared around the corner, the sound of him kicking the wall and spewing curses could be heard.
“What are you doing? Not going?”
Lee Jaeseong’s gang also seemed to know Kim Hyeonho, as they all quietly left. Choi Gyuchan, who glared at me until the last moment, shook off Eorin’s hand and glared at Eorin as if he’d kill him before disappearing.
“……”
With just the three of us left, an awkward silence hung in the air. Kim Hyeonho glanced between me and Eorin, then discreetly hid the cigarette he’d been holding. He seemed to be concerned about what Eorin had said yesterday.
“Um…… thank you.”
“……It’s nothing.”
When I thanked him, Kim Hyeonho cleared his throat. Then, as if to break the awkward atmosphere, he raised his voice.
“Don’t worry about those pathetic bastards.”
“Do you know them?”
When Eorin asked, Kim Hyeonho scratched the back of his head with a troubled expression, then suddenly looked at me.
“Chi…… Yuchiwon-ah.”
“Huh?”
“You…… don’t remember me.”
“……?”
“……I figured as much.”
Kim Hyeonho sighed.
“I went to elementary school with you……”
“……Doji Elementary?”
“Yeah. We were even partners once in fourth grade. I moved in sixth grade, so I went to a different middle school.”
My mouth dropped open. I felt really bad, but I couldn’t remember him at all. Though I did think he seemed familiar……
“So I’ve known those guys since elementary school too. Lee Jaeseong especially, um, because of our fathers’ work, our families know each other a bit……”
That one sentence said it all. Now I understood Lee Jaeseong and Kim Hyeonho’s relationship a little better. Lee Jaeseong acting friendly yesterday, and today not being able to say a word in response to Kim Hyeonho. To Lee Jaeseong, Kim Hyeonho was someone he needed to befriend and also someone he couldn’t afford to offend. Kim Hyeonho sighed.
“Those guys are just all pushovers. If they think your family has some money, they can’t even squeak in front of you. Kim Eorin, if you’d just mentioned your name, they all would’ve run away.”
“That’s a bit…… disgraceful.”
“Them?”
“No, me. It’s ridiculous to suddenly introduce myself when they’re picking a fight…… But if it helps, I’ll consider it in the future. Though I doubt those bastards are that hopeless.”
At Kim Eorin’s words, Kim Hyeonho chuckled.
“Chiwon-ah, are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay.”
Eorin removed the arm he’d wrapped around me and cupped my cheeks with both hands, looking at my face. I’d been so tense earlier that my heart was pounding—I could feel it in my body—so I’d broken out in a cold sweat. Choi Gyuchan’s pheromones were a terrible memory. Exhausted from suffering between the sharp alpha pheromones, I crouched down, and Eorin bent down with me, stroking my back.
“Want to go to the room and rest?”
“I’m okay. Just a little longer……”
“Really?”
“Yeah. ……I’m glad nothing happened.”
Once I’d calmed down a bit, I started to feel disgusted with myself—worried about Eorin getting hurt on one hand, while thinking about not being able to attend school if I lost my scholarship. I was really glad nothing happened. If Eorin had gotten hurt, I would’ve……
“I’m really glad…… Thank you, Kim Hyeonho.”
“……I said it’s nothing.”
Kim Hyeonho also crouched down to match my eye level.
“Actually, I kept trying to talk to you every time I saw you…… but it seemed like you didn’t remember me.”
“……”
“And yesterday and today, um, it wasn’t on purpose, but I found out a little bit……”
The subject was missing, but I thought I knew what he was talking about.
“That’s why I wanted to apologize even more.”
“Apologize?”
“About the, uh, cig, cigarettes.”
Kim Hyeonho’s face was bright red as he mentioned cigarettes.
“Asking you to hide them…… I just asked because I knew you, without thinking much, but when I thought about it again yesterday, I thought maybe it felt different to you……”
Ah, shit. Kim Hyeonho scratched his head vigorously.
“Anyway, I’m sorry. For just standing there in front of the school store yesterday too. I was a bit flustered…… And Kim Eorin, you too. After hearing what you said, I had nothing to say in response. I’m sorry. The cig…… the bad things I do, I’ll take responsibility for them.”
“Okay.”
Kim Hyeonho grinned, saying he felt better now after apologizing. What struck me more than the apology was his words that he’d tried to talk to me every time he saw me. I’d thought I hadn’t made any connections in elementary school either, but there was someone who remembered me from back then and had tried to talk to me.
Maybe…… it might be very different from what I remember…… That thought suddenly occurred to me. Maybe I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought. There might have been many things I’d missed because I hadn’t looked around me. Maybe it was me who’d been receiving other people’s gazes and gestures with twisted eyes.
“I’ll talk to Lee Jaeseong again later…… Oh, no. If you want to just forget the whole thing……”
“Kim Hyeon, Hyeonho-ya.”
“Y-yeah?”
“If it’s okay, ……when I get my phone back tomorrow. Will you give me your phone number?”
Even now, if there were places where I could reach out my hand, I wanted to do so. Even if I couldn’t help what I’d already missed, there were still hands that hadn’t passed me by yet. At my words, Kim Hyeonho blinked his eyes, then nodded with a smile. I smiled too. Eorin’s hand on my back patted me gently.
Kim Hyeonho left first, and after sitting a bit longer, when Eorin and I returned to the room, it was already time when all the kids had gathered in the auditorium for recreation. I’d said I was okay, but Eorin inevitably made me rest in the room. After taking me to the room, Eorin said just one thing to the teacher—’Chiwon met kids from his middle school’—and the teacher seemed to understand immediately, saying it was fine to rest.
The teachers also had to participate in recreation, so they said they had to go to the auditorium now and asked if I’d be okay alone. I was about to say I was fine, but Eorin stepped forward and said he’d stay by my side. I hadn’t said a single word about being sick, but I was being treated almost like a patient. When the teacher asked if we needed anything and I shook my head, Eorin asked the teacher to tell Junsu and Woojin that we’d be resting in the room.
As soon as we got to the room, Eorin laid out the blanket first. At the hand gesture patting the blanket, I shook my head.
“I really think I don’t need to rest……”
“Want to go look in a mirror first?”
……It seemed my complexion was a bit bad. I sat down on the blanket without another word.
“You’re really not going? Recreation is about to start.”
“Yeah. I’m not going.”
“But……”
“Roh Jinho probably snuck in an iPad, so it’s okay. Let’s watch the video he takes later.”
So be patient even if you want to see it, and rest for now. Eorin patted me to lie down, then sat leaning against the wall, looking down at me.
“Are you really okay? Your stomach doesn’t hurt?”
