# Chapter 13
Huh?
It was when he raised his head at the unexpected words.
Right then, Yumyeong was grabbed by the nape of his neck by Hakyoung and kicked out of the room.
“Ah, what, what! Why! Why are you being so childish!”
“Get out.”
“Ah, I’m leaving on my own two feet, no… My clothes are tearing!”
Contrary to his words, Yumyeong put strength into his legs and held his ground. However, the grip strength that was determined to drag him out and kick him out was stubborn.
Bang!
The door closed in front of Yumyeong, who had been thrown out of the room. Yumyeong stood up straight, staggering in disbelief.
“Is there such a violent bastard…”
However, Yumyeong, standing looking at the door, immediately felt a little embarrassed.
[Room 310
Ryu Hakyoung]
Below the dormitory room number, in the section where nameplates were inserted, the names of the students using that room were written. In the four slots prepared for the four-person room, there was clearly printed paper with the name of Ryu Hakyoung, who used this room alone.
Hakyoung’s room was even right across from Yumyeong’s. He himself hadn’t paid much attention to the door he saw head-on every day. Yumyeong was the only one still calling the transfer student “transfer student,” so objectively speaking, it was true that he was excessively indifferent.
“Well, I mean, it could happen. So petty…”
While grumbling, Yumyeong thought that the guy must have been seriously hurt in his pride.
Was it a feeling like ‘You’re the first man to treat me this way’?
“I really didn’t know.”
Yumyeong clicked his tongue.
Moreover, Hakyoung had said this.
“Do you really not remember me?”
What that meant was, of course, he thought Yumyeong would remember him.
Also, asking if he didn’t remember him had a different meaning from simply asking if he didn’t know him.
It wasn’t showing off about his fame. It meant there was a private past between just the two of them. He felt a little sorry for dismissing his own poor memory as the guy’s excessive self-consciousness, but…
‘Well, maybe we went to the same academy or something.’
Yumyeong didn’t think much of it.
Up until elementary school, Yumyeong had constantly digested a schedule of academies including private education that filled his daily schedule to the brim, as well as various hobbies, culture, and sports that helped brain development, and had met various kids there. Among them, there were kids he met repeatedly in luxurious environments that were extravagant for young children to learn, like horseback riding, golf, or private instrument lessons from university professors. Since families that could invest that much in their children’s education were limited to begin with, even among the children of well-off families, their own league was formed.
Children who had been familiar with hotel membership fitness centers and swimming pools from a young age absorbed the adult world and reflected it more blatantly in their own world. It was obvious that they divided classes by their parents’ wealth and fame.
But from that time, Yumyeong felt that guys who bragged about their parents’ wealth were not his type.
If Ryu Hakyoung was exactly that type, it was natural that he couldn’t remember him even if they had hung out to some degree. He didn’t like those kinds of kids in the first place.
‘It’s obvious. Everyone would have acted like a tongue in the mouth wanting to make connections, but I didn’t remember him, so his feelings were hurt. Tsk.’
Yumyeong thought of this as a minor fuss and returned to his room across the hall.
However, Hakyoung seemed to have been hurt in his pride more than expected.
From that day on, he began to thoroughly ignore Yumyeong.
Far from having the staring contests they always had during roll call, he treated him like he was invisible. When Yumyeong picked a fight, he would respond each time, and sometimes the guy would scratch at him first, but when his attitude changed, Yumyeong was at first exhilarated and then quickly bored.
Hakyoung’s attitude didn’t seem to be deliberately put on. His silently closed lips only opened quietly when the dorm supervisor asked questions. When a sunken voice came from Hakyoung’s mouth, the supervisor worried if he had a cold. Yumyeong also examined Hakyoung’s face, but he just let all of Yumyeong’s gaze slide off with downcast eyes.
Looking at the guy wrapped in an unusual atmosphere, Yumyeong felt puzzled. He chattered pointlessly, wanting to draw attention.
“Hey, yesterday the dormitory fairy slept in our room too…”
But before he could finish speaking, the door slammed shut in front of him.
“What. I almost got my nose cut off.”
Only then did he realize. The attitude Hakyoung had shown until now wasn’t really serious disgust.
Yumyeong was a little flustered by the perfect disregard that treated people like walls.
The most unsettling thing was that he didn’t feel like he’d won.
***
Right after lunch, the air in the classroom was warm and languid. Sunlight passing through the windows heated each desk, and students dozing like sick chickens appeared here and there. The math teacher, who was yawning along with them, said he couldn’t stand it anymore and told the kids sitting by the windows to open them right away for ventilation.
“Ugh, it’s cold, teacher!”
“Get hit by the cold wind and come to your senses, you brats.”
The sun was warm, but the strong wind that brought the late spring cold was fierce. Some quickly picked up jackets to put on or wrapped knee blankets over their shoulders. The long white curtains fluttered violently and smacked the tops of heads and foreheads of students sitting in the first row. Heeun, sitting up front, kept fiddling with her bangs that had been swept by the wind.
Yumyeong, sitting at the far end of the third row, was lying diagonally with his face leaning on one arm, just rolling his eyes to look at his bustling friends. He felt the white skin with blue veins showing under his rolled-up sleeves and the cold wind blowing on the inside of his elbow. He felt the cold and got goosebumps on the back of his neck, but Yumyeong had nothing to put on.
“Shin Yumyeong! You’re lying flat again, come out and solve this!”
“Eh…”
Students all turned around and attention poured at once. Far from being embarrassed, Yumyeong slowly lifted his body while expressing dissatisfaction with his crumpled brow.
“If you can’t solve it, you’re going to the hallway. Hurry up and come out.”
Yumyeong deliberately pulled out his chair making a rattling sound. He came forward to the platform showing his annoyance with his whole body.
“Don’t know? That’s what happens when you’re always lying flat. This is why advance learning is a problem. What’s the point of coming in after finishing all the curriculum? There’s not a single kid who remembers it properly.”
The math teacher naturally assumed that Yumyeong must have done advance learning through private education. To be honest, that was true. He had already finished the second year of high school curriculum when he was in sixth grade of elementary school.
“So this curriculum is all designed that way for a reason, but it’s not all about just rushing through the material mindlessly. There are a very small number of gifted students who need that, but you guys aren’t gifted, you’re…”
Behind the math teacher’s sermon, Yumyeong scanned the numbers with his eyes and then picked up the chalk with his hand stuck in his pocket. It’s trendy in academically enthusiastic families to do advance learning, but only a very small number of students actually remember it properly. And Yumyeong belonged to that very small number.
Roughly writing down numbers only he could understand, Yumyeong cheerfully wrote out the answer.
“Is it correct?”
His eyes sparkled with expectation of praise as he looked at the math teacher.
It was correct. The math teacher’s expression, who had been giving a long speech about bad examples of advance learning, became sour.
“It’s right, but it’s wrong. Go back.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s no working at all. You have to write the working so other kids can understand.”
“Working? This is like this, you move this here and like this and like this and like this… Everyone understood, right?”
“Just go back! The working is much more important than the answer. A guy like you would get an F if you went to the math department, an F.”
“I’m not going though?”
“You think you can choose what department you want to go to! You write according to your college entrance exam score and if you get accepted, even if you don’t like it, you have to say thank you and go.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll choose where I go.”
The math teacher nagged that he was being cocky with his answers until the end. Among the kids laughing “wahaha” at Yumyeong’s retort, there were exactly two people who weren’t laughing. Hakyoung and Heeun.
Yumyeong, returning to his seat, pointlessly snatched Hanju’s mechanical pencil and put it in his pocket. Hanju, who noticed a beat late, threw a fit and grabbed Yumyeong’s shirt, pulling it hard, causing a small commotion.
Yumyeong, who returned to his seat, habitually looked toward Heeun, who didn’t react to him at all. But at the same time, his eyes met with Hakyoung’s, who had been looking at Yumyeong.
As soon as their gazes brushed, Hakyoung immediately turned his head and turned away from Yumyeong. The unpleasant gaze that remained like an afterimage sharply stimulated the bottom of Yumyeong’s chest.
What are you going to do if you look at me like that?
Yumyeong glared at Hakyoung’s back with a sulky heart.
It’s unfair that he sits in the middle when he’s that tall. Of course, the guy sitting behind Hakyoung seemed to have no complaints about that seat as he was dozing off to his heart’s content using him as a shield.
What was a bit annoying was that Hakyoung’s seat was close to Heeun’s. When they formed groups of four or six in front and back during class, Heeun and Hakyoung would be in the same group. Like all girls, Heeun also showed kindness to Hakyoung, and would constantly tuck her hair behind her ear or listen carefully to Hakyoung’s words at a slightly diagonal angle. Every time her desire to look pretty showed, Yumyeong felt an indescribable sense of pity.
At that moment, Hakyoung passed his jacket that had been hanging on the back of his chair to the seat in front. The one who received the jacket was, unexpectedly, Heeun.
Agitation appeared on Heeun’s face, as if she was as surprised as Yumyeong.
“If you’re cold, cover yourself with this.”
When Hakyoung muttered, Heeun’s ears turned red. A strong wind was still rushing in from outside the window.
***
That day, as soon as homeroom ended, Yumyeong approached Hakyoung. He tapped his shoulder and whispered ominously.
“Hey, follow me.”
