While half-resting his chin and looking obliquely behind him, Hakyoung suddenly lowered his voice and whispered something toward the back seat. Yumyeong felt an ominous feeling from that attitude.
‘Is this from Shin Yumyeong?’
That’s what Hakyoung’s lip movements were saying.
After checking the sender of the note, Hakyoung, far from passing it along, calmly unfolded the note right there. Yumyeong’s back, which had been leaning loosely against the chair, instantly straightened. The moment the desk rattled as he corrected his posture, his eyes met with Hakyoung’s again as he glared behind him.
‘Hey!’
Yumyeong only shouted inwardly as he watched Hakyoung’s eccentric behavior. Having committed the cruel act of stealing and reading someone else’s note without permission, Hakyoung went even further right there. He crumpled up the note without permission and threw it into his drawer as if discarding gum wrapper.
At that moment, Yumyeong couldn’t hold back and muttered as if whispering.
“You wanna die?”
“Who just said they’d kill someone? Stand up!”
However, perhaps because the anger-laden whisper was too intense, even the teacher heard it. When Yumyeong looked forward, Teacher Choi was looking this way and pointing directly at him.
“Oh my, was it Shin Yumyeong? Hey guys. You’re all bored from hearing too many of my romance stories and first kiss stories, right? Then shall we hear about our Yumyeong’s first kiss story?”
“Teacher!”
At the sound like a bolt from the blue, Yumyeong’s eyes wavered.
“Come on, hurry up and come to the front!”
“Ah, teacher!”
Yumyeong screamed and immediately protested. But the problem was the atmosphere of the class. With the thought of ‘as long as it’s not me,’ the kids snickered, banged on their desks, and pushed Yumyeong’s back.
“I haven’t done it!”
“No lying, come on out.”
“But it’s true…….”
Being forcibly pushed to stand up from his seat, Yumyeong’s ears were unusually bright red. Gazes poured onto Yumyeong as he walked out hesitantly. Even Hanju’s eyes sparkled with a face that had driven away sleep, and Heeun, who ultimately didn’t receive the note, also looked up at Yumyeong. Hakyoung was just looking at his desk with his arms crossed.
“Okay, Yumyeong, stand here.”
Choi Namseon pulled Yumyeong’s arm and stood him in front of the teacher’s desk. Yumyeong didn’t know what to do as he tucked his slightly long back hair behind his ear.
“Teacher, this is private!”
“I don’t think that’s something to say from a guy who treated my private life like public property.”
The teacher’s words were true. From first year until now, Yumyeong had been at the forefront, more enthusiastic than anyone in digging up every teacher’s past romance history, first kiss, first blind date, first college meeting, and so on.
“I really haven’t done it.”
“Booooo~”
Jeers poured out. At that moment, for some reason, his eyes met with Hakyoung’s, and Yumyeong unconsciously thought ‘I’m screwed.’
“A guy who hasn’t even lost his virginity!”
“Then have you?”
“Yeah!”
“Gross.”
“What? Why is that gross?”
“Get away. You’re gross, so don’t even touch me.”
He remembered bragging about having experience to show off in front of Hakyoung. Yumyeong turned a bit pale at the thought of being caught now that it was all a lie. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to lose face to that guy alone.
“Well…… actually, I have done it.”
“Waaaah!”
The kids banged on their desks and got excited like a primitive tribe.
“……It’s such a precious experience that I don’t want to talk about it.”
With good timing, Yumyeong’s face flushed pink in the sunlight. It was just heated by the spring sun, but somehow it was a performance that added credibility.
Then Teacher Choi regretfully tapped the teacher’s desk with the book he was holding.
“Yumyeong! Sharing precious memories with everyone is also valuable! Things that would just disappear if only you know about them can become special memories if you talk about them in front of everyone.”
And then the teacher went even further and scrawled ‘Sharing Memories’ on the blackboard. Yumyeong’s jaw dropped in disbelief.
“So how old were you?”
“For a first kiss, um…… does it count as the first time on the lips, not a peck?”
“Wowwwww!”
“Crazy bastard! He’s done it!”
Watching the students fall into a frenzy of enthusiasm, Yumyeong bit his plump lower lip. Hanju was shocked with eyes that said ‘You didn’t tell me!’ Heeun had an expressionless face, impossible to read. Feeling like his sincerity was being doubted, Yumyeong was anxious.
When he swallowed dry saliva, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed.
“There was a kid I liked when I was young…… with that kid.”
“When you were young, how old?”
Saying that, the teacher wrote a subtitle under ‘Sharing Memories.’ With flashy hand movements.
[Age: ]
Thinking this person is also kind of crazy, Yumyeong answered straightforwardly.
“When I was six or seven…….”
“Booooo~”
At the unexpected age, jeers and murmurs grew louder. They seemed to think it was an intention to gloss over it as something from childhood and pass by.
“What, you told me to talk about my first time?”
Yumyeong got irritated.
“On the lips, that really was my first time.”
“Ehhhhh~”
Along with jeers that it was boring, criticisms like ‘shameless bastard’ flew around. Yumyeong shouted in frustration.
“It’s true!”
“Then what about your last kiss?”
It was a question that caught him off guard.
Feeling like he’d fall into his own trap if he lied sloppily about this, Yumyeong decided to just be honest. He moistened his dry lips with his tongue again.
“My last one, honestly speaking, um…….”
Yumyeong carefully traced through his memories.
At that moment, wind blew in through the open window and the curtains fluttered. After the spring cherry blossoms and lilacs had all fallen, roses bloomed everywhere. Even in the wind blowing up to the third floor, a faint flower scent was carried.
“My last kiss was…….”
Strangely, when he breathed in that air, memories rushed in like a sense of smell.
The memories he had buried until now were vividly replayed before his eyes. At the same time, the tender emotions, scenery, and even tactile sensations from that time all came back to life. It felt like memories sleeping in the depths of his brain had awakened. Like touching the mud settled beneath a calm lake and everything instantly rising to the surface.
“……When I was ten.”
“You had quite a colorful romance history when you were young. Just how many people did you date when you were young?”
At those words, Yumyeong shook his head.
“Just one person?”
***
Just one person.
And if it was from when Yumyeong was six to ten years old, that could only be him.
The moment he realized Yumyeong was talking about him, Hakyoung’s heart dropped with a thud.
A small, sharp tinnitus came from far away. As if dully submerged in water, noise became dull and only Yumyeong was visible in his field of vision.
What, he remembers it properly.
Heat suddenly rose in his body. In the midday classroom, Hakyoung rested his chin and lowered his head, hiding his face in it. Dry breath touched his palm and soon his cheeks grew hot.
Only the sound of his heart was beating like a drum in his muffled eardrums. He was afraid others might hear it, so Hakyoung hunched his back a bit and tried not to let his agitation show.
The moment the past that he thought Yumyeong had completely forgotten and decided to bury as his alone came back to life from Yumyeong’s mouth, an overwhelming amount of emotion rushed in.
Hakyoung still had no intention of accepting the current Shin Yumyeong. He himself would someday come to know real love, but the expectation that it would be Yumyeong had long since faded.
The guy called Yumyeong before his eyes was so different from the child he once liked that he even felt betrayed, and the wound of that betrayal still had a long way to go before healing. It was even more so after learning that from childhood until now, only he had wanted to meet him all along.
And yet…….
If he remembers everything, and just can’t recognize me?
If he remembers childhood as tenderly as I do?
Hakyoung slowly raised his head.
“That was really your last time? You’re not lying?”
At the teacher’s interrogation, Yumyeong shrugged his shoulders.
“Hey, if I was lying, I’d make up something more plausible.”
“Then what happened with that friend that you broke up?”
“I got dumped……. I think I got dumped.”
“If you got dumped, you got dumped, what do you mean you think you got dumped.”
Yumyeong laughed awkwardly with a “heh heh heh.”
Watching that, Hakyoung’s heart rippled in a way that was hard to explain.
When they parted, Hakyoung had to leave Korea without being able to give any hint. It wasn’t his own decision. As his father officially married his mother, this became known to the media, and some media outlets dug into his existence. Because Hakyoung was born while his father was married to his ex-wife, people easily jumped on this sensational gossip. His parents, worried about him who was still young and even had speech impediment, hastily decided on going to America.
Because of that, he didn’t even know the last meeting was the last. Goodbye, see you next time. They waved goodbye like that, and he boarded the plane without even being able to give him the letter he had been thinking of giving next time they met.
The sense of loss and heartbreak from that time still felt within reach.
“Hey kid, you should have treated them well.”
“Ah, I did treat them well…….”
Seeing Yumyeong express that as being dumped, he wanted to tell him right away.
That it wasn’t your fault.
If not now, then someday, for sure…….
With a heavy feeling in his chest, Hakyoung let out a very quiet sigh.
“Okay, Yumyeong, go back now. How about it. Everyone’s awake now, right?”
When the teacher waved his hand, Yumyeong left the front of the teacher’s desk with a face that said he was finally free. As he passed by the seat next to him, Hakyoung unconsciously lowered his eyes. In the gently blowing wind, the faint scent of roses from outside the window seemed to be carried in.
