The two stopped in their tracks at the small flower bed attached to the library entrance, as if they had made a promise.
“Ah, I’m tired.”
Having unintentionally exhausted his energy from early Saturday morning, Hongdan sprawled himself on the rightmost bench. The maple leaves draped above had already passed their peak, with only the lazier leaves barely hanging on at the tips of the branches.
Back in those days, after eating lunch, they always came here first.
However, this place wasn’t pretty only to Hongdan’s eyes, so even if he really inhaled his school meal and rushed over, securing a seat was no ordinary feat. In his first year when he frequented this place with Hyeonchan, most of the time they could only smack their lips at the fully occupied benches before turning back.
Then around his second year, as Hongdan became close with Seonha and began thoroughly enjoying the benefits of his halo, this place also became the two’s reserved seats.
‘Hey, hey. Get up, get up.’
‘Ah, why does that bastard keep coming here making a fuss? His family garden is probably a hundred times better than this place.’
‘Shut up and get up, man.’
Indeed, no matter how they wore the same uniform, a young master from a conglomerate family was still a young master.
When Seonha appeared, the packed benches would empty like the parting of the Red Sea.
Hongdan found it too embarrassing at first.
It felt exactly like being an incompetent princess who cleared all obstacles by putting a prince at the front. There were many times when Seonha, unable to bear watching Hongdan just hesitate even after seeing the empty seats, directly pressed his shoulder to make him sit down.
However, at some point, there were more cases where he truly put Seonha forward like a princess to directly obtain the seat he wanted. Since he was going to be called a bedbug clinging to Yeon Seonha anyway just by staying still, he figured he might as well become a parasite with better appearances rather than feel wronged like a beggar.
Though in the end, I did quit doing that too.
Closing his thoughts with self-deprecation, Hongdan tilted his head all the way back. Then the cloudless blue sky poured down, filling Hongdan’s entire view.
A maple leaf shadow flickered on the bridge of his nose. About the size of a child’s palm, it matched quite well with Hongdan’s cheeks that had turned red from the untimely running.
Seonha was secretly taking in all of that scenery with his eyes.
He quietly swallowed his lust along with dry saliva and settled down with only about half a finger’s width of space between them.
“Hongdan-ah, your hair.”
As a pretext for tidying up Hongdan’s disheveled bangs, he tried caressing the corners of his eyes once. Contrary to his worries, seeing him obediently accept his touch, Hongdan seemed to be in quite a good mood today.
Eleven years had passed since they first met, but Hongdan’s characteristic slightly torn eye shape remained the same. Sometimes appearing fresh and innocent, yet giving a lonely impression when he lowered his gaze—these were also the parts that had first caught his eye from the moment he became aware of his existence.
Perhaps even after twenty years, no, fifty years had passed, thanks to these eyes, Seonha felt he would be able to recognize Hongdan anywhere.
“You haven’t aged at all.”
He dared to be confident.
But Hongdan, who had no way of knowing what was in his heart, just let out a scoff.
“How many years have passed and I haven’t aged, my ass.”
“It’s true though. You’re exactly the same as back then!”
Seonha jumped up and started explaining where and how Hongdan remained the same. Starting from his hair and going down in order through his eyes, nose, and mouth—how meticulous he was.
If left alone, he seemed ready to count even the wrinkles on the soles of Hongdan’s feet. Before he could witness that bizarre spectacle, Hongdan grabbed and pulled down the noisy index finger that was tickling the back of his neck.
“If you want to eat meat, just say so.”
“Why do you keep distorting people’s sincerity like that?”
Seonha narrowed his eyes in protest.
“Because you’re spouting nonsense.”
Regardless, Hongdan just kept holding Seonha’s finger and busily poking at his lips that were about to pout out. Seonha’s proudly beautiful lips were pressed down ridiculously.
“Iz thiz fun?”
There was no particular response, but a smile gradually spread across Hongdan’s face as well. Pleased to see it, Seonha didn’t particularly resist aside from scrunching up his face.
“Ugly.”
After tormenting those hateful lips with Seonha’s finger for a while, Hongdan, having apparently played to his heart’s content, gently released it onto the bench. Instead, he rolled his head around to face Seonha.
Without a word. Just quietly.
As if searching for something, Hongdan was calmly scanning his counterpart’s face like Seonha had done earlier.
Under that subtle gaze, Seonha also turned his body halfway and silently met his eyes in response.
Surprisingly, it was Hongdan who broke the silence first.
“You said you remember up until roughly summer vacation?”
He seemed to be checking once more how intact Seonha’s memory was. Seonha nodded easily.
“Yeah. I barely remember anything from the second semester.”
“Mm…”
Hongdan hummed softly as he pulled out an old scene.
At the time, it was a public fact that Hongdan had entered a school that didn’t suit him, having received an academic scholarship. There was no way it wouldn’t show from the beginning. Poverty sometimes gave off a stench more terrible than any sewer smell.
Of course, there were many children from ordinary common families like Hyeonchan at Yeonhwa High School too. But even they weren’t at the level of having to receive their uniforms and gym clothes from the teacher’s office. In other words, they weren’t overflowing with money like the so-called precious young masters and young ladies, but they weren’t particularly lacking either.
On the other hand, Hongdan always lived as if chased by money. He was also given the mission of maintaining his grades to avoid losing his scholarship qualifications, so he couldn’t stay quiet either. Thanks to that, becoming prey for the young masters who needed dopamine in their lives, the so-called “spoiled children,” was also a natural progression.
Unfortunately, most of them were born as blockheads to begin with and were so busy just maintaining the minimum level of humanity that they relatively lacked time to receive character education.
‘Ah, fuck, you’re the one who stole it, Choi Hongdan. You beggar bastard.’
‘Even if I were to steal, I’d steal from the class president, why would I steal yours, you moron? Even now I feel like my IQ is dropping in real-time from talking to you, fuck. As if I’d catch the moron virus.’
‘This bastard really wants to die!’
It was really childish mischief that even elementary school students wouldn’t pull. They sent Hongdan to the teacher’s office saying the homeroom teacher was calling him, and during that time, they stuffed a famous entrance exam academy’s memorization notebook into Hongdan’s bag.
If only the process had been meticulous. Half a dozen pigs were just hovering around his seat so obviously that everyone passing by would find it suspicious. Hongdan couldn’t even manage a snort at that spectacle.
Therefore, he had no choice but to be combative from the start. Though Hongdan preferred to let things pass without making them bigger if possible, there was a limit to the shoddiness he could tolerate. That day, he had firmly made up his mind and intended to deliberately take a group beating. After that, he had perfectly planned out the scenario to sue them all for school violence.
Hongdan walked boldly into that pigsty while reviewing his plan.
However.
Thwack—!
Just as the foot of what seemed to be the leader among those pigs, that Zhu Bajie bastard, was about to lodge itself in his stomach.
‘Take it easy, will you.’
A strange voice flew in that hadn’t left a single trace in his mind even though more than a month had passed since the new school year started.
‘What kind of childish shit are you pulling that wouldn’t even fool kids? At least be a bit more creative with your methods.’
‘I don’t get why kids who pay to attend school are so confident when others get paid to go. If you think about it, his scholarship is practically the same as your parents giving it. They say they rarely need to use the foundation’s money because the childcare fees for taking care of blockheads are so high. My mother said so.’
‘What’s the point of even looking at this thing? This stuff only has meaning to you guys, what use is it to someone who’s already good at studying? Anyway. Even bullying people requires the brains to back it up. Play according to your intelligence level, according to your intelligence. You guys are only suited for stupidly tripping people or something.’
‘Hey, what are you doing? Help him up.’
The protagonist was naturally Seonha. Not just because this is Hongdan and his story, but in fact, there was only one person who could cause such a commotion and still be fine.
‘What, are you embarrassed because you don’t know who I am?’
‘I’ll tell you my name, so just don’t forget it from today on.’
‘I am…’
Yeon Seonha.
Seonha turned Hongdan’s world upside down just like that. With merely extending his hand once, he became an omnipotent being looking down on his everything.
So perhaps that’s why, when he lowered a new lifeline to him after they became adults, he grabbed onto that rope without a moment’s hesitation. The twenty-five-year-old Hongdan hoped that Seonha would change his world once more.
Finishing his brief reminiscence, Hongdan lowered his gaze slightly.
The dark brown bench made of pine now showed traces of time here and there. The paint had peeled off leaving it mottled, and there were also noticeably small grooves, perhaps eaten away by insects.
Hongdan stroked the roughly raised grain of the wood. With a voice as gentle as that careful touch, he asked.
“…Then just one thing.”
“Hm?”
“Can I ask just one thing?”
“What is it?”
Hongdan didn’t immediately continue his question. Seonha also quietly waited for that small mouth to move.
Only after a cool breeze cut between the two of them once did Hongdan bring out the words he’d been hesitating over.
“Back then… why did you help me?”
