What drove the wedge into that anxiety was the high school entrance exam.
The study abroad in America that had been hammered into his ears since childhood had suddenly disappeared. Instead, to Yumyeong who was looking into prestigious high schools and foreign language schools within the metropolitan area, his father said to specifically choose this school located in Gangwon Province and go there. Living in a dormitory would distance him further from his parents’ eyes. That sounded like a declaration of giving up on him, and Yumyeong felt extreme anxiety.
“There are lots of specialized high schools in Seoul too. I want to commute to school from home.”
That was the only time he ever voiced his opinion out loud. Yumyeong, who had always obeyed without complaint, expressed his hope for the first and last time like that. He had endured acting spoiled to say that he wanted to be by his parents’ side somehow. However, at those words, his strict father remained silently unresponsive.
And Yumyeong knew his father’s personality well. He never reversed decisions he’d made.
“If you go to the dormitory, you’ll be able to concentrate only on studying without distractions.”
At his father’s euphemistic way of speaking, Yumyeong eventually realized he had to go. At the same time, he regretted having stated his opinion. If it was going to end up like this anyway, he shouldn’t have even said words that went against his father’s wishes.
And so he entered this school. Even at this nationwide autonomous private high school that selectively chose students with outstanding grades, he was the most exceptional. He wanted to prove that he was a son who met his parents’ expectations by entering at the top of his class and maintaining first place in the entire school afterward.
However, that expectation slowly crumbled.
The anxiety he had already sensed was becoming reality one by one.
Was it about three months after enrollment? One day, Yumyeong visited home on the weekend without notice. But shockingly, the rest of his family except him had gone on a trip.
“You didn’t hear they went on a trip? They said the eldest young master is busy studying so he wouldn’t be able to come home…”
At the housekeeper’s words, Yumyeong knew but pretended he’d forgotten and smiled.
Like that, he sat like a guest in the house where he’d grown up and ate the tea and snacks the housekeeper had prepared for him. Then he left the house again without even entering his room once.
After that, Yumyeong didn’t visit home. Not only on weekends, but even during vacations he applied to remain and stayed in the dormitory. As if he was excluding himself from the family alone. In truth, it was more accurate to say he gradually avoided meeting them because he didn’t want to be hurt.
Before he knew it, the family was functioning with just the three of them without him. So even when the credit card he’d been using instead of an allowance was cut off, calling to say “give me money” felt too pathetic so he couldn’t contact them.
What if they knew the card didn’t work but left it alone?
What if they were thinking they didn’t want to invest in the son called ‘Shin Yumyeong’ anymore?
From the moment he suspected that perhaps his parents had deliberately stashed him away in this place, he couldn’t be in his right mind.
Why on earth?
What part of me was so lacking?
What could be the reason for cutting off affection in an instant?
That’s when it happened. An unexpected voice was heard behind Yumyeong.
“What are you doing here?”
Yumyeong blinked once and slowly raised his head toward where the sound came from. The moment he confirmed the person standing behind him, that face that had been blankly frozen until now cracked as if breaking.
It was Hakyoung. Yumyeong deliberately acted like he was shuddering and raised his voice.
“What, stalker bastard. Are you following me outside of school now too?”
Then Hakyoung, who had spoken to him, flared up.
“Don’t falsely accuse me.”
Hakyoung sighed and sat down next to Yumyeong. In his hands was also hamburger packaging.
“You got a hamburger too?”
“Yeah. I suddenly wanted to eat one…”
“Hmm…”
Yumyeong was narrowing his eyes, smiling, and calmly looking Hakyoung over. Hakyoung’s gaze, which had been watching that smile, fell downward and his heart grew increasingly gloomy for unknown reasons.
Hakyoung had heard that Yumyeong had gone outside the school with Teacher Choi and came out unconsciously drawn. If you got down to it, it was stalking, so he was angry at himself for unconsciously doing such a thing.
Moreover, he didn’t know why this bothered him so much, but Yumyeong was respectful to female teachers while acting cutesy and charming with male teachers. He did this especially with young teachers who had just finished their student teaching, and it was really an eyesore.
Anyway, getting caught following him dishonorably and being hit right on the mark made his throat dry.
Yumyeong was staring at Hakyoung with a relaxed face as if seeing through all those inner thoughts. Hakyoung’s head gradually fell toward the floor. As he did so, he regretted whether he should have spoken to him at all.
The root of the problem was unconsciously speaking to him because Yumyeong’s atmosphere sitting stupidly at the bus stop was different from usual. He should have passed by without even worrying.
It was when Hakyoung was unconsciously chewing his lower lip.
“You bought it with your own money, right? A teacher bought mine for me~”
Yumyeong said that and proudly held up the hamburger. Instantly Hakyoung lost energy and made a deflated sound.
Yumyeong was such a childish guy that it seemed stupid to have been anxious about his inner thoughts being exposed in such a short time.
“Is that something to brag about?”
“I eat for free, you pay money to eat. There’s a clear difference. No need to even compare which is better.”
“I don’t understand begging from others when you could just buy it yourself.”
Hakyoung deliberately spoke harshly. Because the sight he’d seen a moment ago wouldn’t leave his mind.
Following at a certain distance, the relationship between the English teacher and Yumyeong that he witnessed was unexpected. The two between teacher and student looked closer than he’d thought. It was probably because the age difference between the young teacher in their twenties and the student wasn’t actually that big. At the same time, the image of Yumyeong charming his way into getting ice cream after completely captivating him overlapped on top of that.
His stomach churned at the fact that what Yumyeong ultimately obtained by clinging to just anyone and acting cute was just trivial snacks.
“Begging, you’re treating me like a beggar.”
Suddenly Yumyeong muttered in a low voice and Hakyoung unconsciously raised his head. Yumyeong, putting a completely cold cheese stick in his mouth, wasn’t smiling. Not angry either, just staring blankly.
“Well, think whatever you want.”
Saying that, Yumyeong sprawled out lengthwise on the bus stop bench. As if he didn’t care about the bench that had unidentifiable stains left here and there.
Since Yumyeong wasn’t getting angry, it was Hakyoung who felt guilty instead.
Hakyoung looked down at Yumyeong silently and asked.
“Aren’t you going back to school?”
“I don’t want to.”
“What are you going to do here?”
“Just… look at flowers or something.”
Yumyeong’s gaze turned toward above the bus stop. Hakyoung also looked at the trees whose buds were beginning to swell.
Swoosh swoosh, a gentle breeze blew and the petals rubbed against each other’s bodies. The tender leaves that had just bloomed were still firmly clinging to the tree.
“Ha, I thought I’d get a girlfriend in spring.”
“…”
“I like it best when the flowers are falling.”
“You still have to wait.”
“I like being underneath when the wind blows. It’s fucking hard to get the timing right though… You have to catch the day well, one day, or it’s only possible for a few hours. If you’re unlucky, you might pass by without seeing it.”
Yumyeong grumbled quietly.
He still likes flowers, Hakyoung thought only to himself.
The two fell into different dreams under the cherry tree for a moment. Hakyoung was there because he’d come out because of Yumyeong in the first place, and Yumyeong didn’t chase him away because he didn’t dislike having someone by his side.
After a moment, Yumyeong suddenly asked.
“Aren’t you studying for exams?”
“What about you?”
Hakyoung returned the same words. Yumyeong frowned as if sick of it. Looking at that reckless face, Hakyoung opened his mouth again.
“Shin Yumyeong, what are you going to do? I’ve never once seen you study.”
“I’ll take care of it myself…”
“You were 80th in the entire school on the last exam. That’s 20th from the bottom. It’s a serious problem.”
“How do you know that?”
“Rumors about you are rampant.”
“It wasn’t that terrible. You try experiencing it. All the kids here are crazy about studying, so even getting one or two questions wrong makes your rank drop sharply.”
“It’s not just studying. Last year you caused a commotion fighting with upperclassmen.”
“Fighting? I one-sidedly beat them up.”
Looking at Yumyeong focusing on the completely wrong point, Hakyoung thought he should just give up. He hadn’t expected his calm advice to work anyway, but in any case, Yumyeong was beyond help.
At the same time, Yumyeong, who was watching Hakyoung’s fed-up face, chuckled.
It wasn’t like he’d gotten involved in fights because he liked it. However, at some point Yumyeong gave up on the act of explaining and being understood itself. Because even his parents didn’t want to hear about that fight.
Yumyeong thought and thought again about why his parents were making him orbit outside the house. Numerous reasons came to mind, but none of them were reasonable. However, separate from not being able to accept it, this was reality.
When he got involved in the violent incident with the upperclassmen, with a self-abandoning feeling, it seemed he’d hoped his parents would hand down some kind of sentence. However, they didn’t show disappointment, didn’t rebuke him, and just maintained the same attitude as before. They didn’t even come visit the school once. That confused Yumyeong even more.
The student affairs teacher who said he’d spoken with his father tapped Yumyeong’s head and said this.
“Your father is really well-mannered. Don’t disappoint him further and get your head on straight. By the way, I thought you were a model student, but you must have been going around brawling since you were young? He said you were ‘originally that kind of guy.'”
Yumyeong could guarantee it. He was absolutely not ‘originally that kind of guy.’
