“What’s wrong with you? Are you sick somewhere?”
It would be better to actually be sick. Hakyoung squeezed his eyes shut then opened them, wanting to pass out.
Childhood Hakyoung couldn’t speak. The two always met alone without outside interference. Thanks to that, Yumyeong, who received no hints whatsoever, simply and naturally thought the child he liked was a girl.
He couldn’t blame him for that.
If there was anything to blame, he should blame the situation that made him misunderstand.
Or something like his own face that was too pretty.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing……”
Finding the dry voice strange, Yumyeong tapped his shoulder.
“Hey, looks like the laundry’s done.”
Yumyeong, who heard the washing machine’s alarm, got up first. Hakyoung, watching him leave with his hands shoved in his pockets, also got up from his seat with a deep sigh.
***
In his dream, Hakyoung was sitting in a classroom. Waiting for someone.
As soon as he became aware of where he was, he heard someone approaching from the hallway. The hasty footsteps walking almost at a run seemed to carry wordless anticipation.
With a rush, the sliding door opened and a welcoming voice pierced toward Hakyoung’s back.
‘Yeong-ah!’
It was a familiar voice. The owner of the voice was none other than Shin Yumyeong.
He approached the long-haired female student with eyes full of anticipation.
Wait, long-haired female student?
Hakyoung touched his hair with a bewildered face. Hair of a length he had never once grown extended all the way down past his chest.
‘What is this!’
Before he could suppress his confusion, the approaching footsteps stopped behind him. Someone’s hand rested on his shoulder. It was a gentle and soft touch, quite different from the weight of the hand he always felt.
‘Yeong-ah, I missed you……’
As soon as Yumyeong’s words ended, Hakyoung turned around. Yumyeong’s eyes, confirming Hakyoung’s face, were instantly colored with shock and bewilderment.
‘Uh…… huh? Ryu Hakyoung, why are you here……’
‘Yumyeong-ah, it’s me.’
‘Bullshit. You’re saying you’re Yeong?’
‘Yeah. I’m your childhood first love, Yeong.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! You think wearing a long-haired wig makes you a girl? Where did the real Yeong go? Yeong is……’
‘I’m telling you I’m Yeong!’
‘Ugh, don’t come close!’
Then Yumyeong fainted right there with a pale face unable to overcome the shock. As Yumyeong’s knees buckled, Hakyoung hurriedly caught him with a flustered and surprised heart. Then Yumyeong, who he thought had fainted, bounced up like a spring and hit Hakyoung’s chest repeatedly and kicked him.
‘Get away, cross-dressing pervert!’
‘Yumyeong-ah, it’s me. Yumyeong-ah!’
“Ugh, uh……”
Hakyoung woke up from his sleep in distress.
“Huk! Haah, haah……”
Pulled out of the dream in an instant and opening his eyes, he found himself lying in bed. The Yumyeong he had been holding in his arms just moments ago didn’t exist either.
Hakyoung, who had been fiddling with the blanket with his empty arms, sat up and let out a deep sigh.
His sleep had been very restless. In a way, it was a bizarre dream where his current worries were blatantly revealed. How fortunate that it wasn’t reality…….
“I’m going crazy.”
But even though it was real reality, it wasn’t much better than this messy dream.
After that, Hakyoung continued to have similar nightmares. While it was somewhat profitable to discover that Yumyeong remembered his childhood and even still longed for ‘Yeong,’ there were bigger problems piled up. Moreover, at present, he didn’t even know how to solve those problems.
As long as Yumyeong firmly believed his childhood first love was a girl.
“What am I even……”
Why did I even come here?
Looking at the ceiling of the bunk bed full of meaningless graffiti, Hakyoung flopped down on the bed and let out a deep sigh.
***
“Third floor evening roll call complete! Dismissed!”
As soon as the dorm supervisor called out dismissal from roll call, doors were about to close with bustling sounds from here and there in the hallway. Just then, several third-years appeared from the top of the stairs as if they had been waiting for this moment.
“Hello. Sir, we have an announcement for the second-years.”
When the third-years, who usually rarely came to other floors, appeared in a group, the second-year students made funeral faces thinking ‘here it comes.’
The dorm supervisor glanced at those third-years and said.
“Don’t go too hard on them, and finish quickly.”
“Yes, understood!”
The third-year standing at the end of the hallway shouted loudly enough to make the corridor ring.
“Lee Gwanyeong, Choi Pilyeon, Shin Yumyeong. Assemble in the lounge within 10 minutes, now!”
Hanju, who had been about to close the door, placed his hand on Yumyeong’s shoulder and said.
“Again?”
“Ah shit…… They don’t even forget.”
Yumyeong grumbled and adjusted his slippers. Then as he was about to leave like that, thinking it would be uncomfortable doing push-ups, he changed into sneakers instead.
This school traditionally had strict discipline between upperclassmen and underclassmen. There was no way to know how such a shitty tradition took root, but inside the dormitory, discipline among students was an area even teachers couldn’t easily interfere with.
Moreover, the intensity of upperclassmen giving underclassmen punishment drills varied each year depending on that year’s atmosphere. Especially now, the second-years and third-years had the worst relationship since the school’s founding, so sometimes the level of punishment drills crossed the line of common sense.
In this ominous atmosphere, after Shin Yumyeong instigated a major first-year rebellion last year, group punishment drills disappeared. The problem was that even after group drills disappeared, the upperclassmen continued to gather underclassmen who fell out of their favor under the pretext of maintaining discipline. Shin Yumyeong was a regular on the summons list, so his personal situation hadn’t improved much.
“What. You got summoned too?”
Yumyeong asked, noticing someone following behind him.
Hakyoung just nodded silently.
“Did they call your name?”
“This afternoon…… a third-year sunbae told me to come too.”
It was a common occurrence. Summons punishment drills were when upperclassmen gathered together the insolent underclassmen who had fallen out of their favor, so anyone could be called. There were even cases where multiple people were summoned simultaneously because they couldn’t agree among themselves on who summoned whom.
Yumyeong clicked his tongue.
“Really? You’re really something too.”
“What did I do?”
“It’s obvious. You must’ve walked around not greeting them and holding your head up high.”
Hakyoung didn’t answer even though he was being criticized to his face. He just walked alongside Yumyeong.
“Still, there’s no need to bow your head to the sunbaes. Especially to guys doing pathetic things like this…… this is nonsense. The justification is shit too. They’re just bullying with authority.”
“……”
“They expect us to greet every third-year even though we don’t know all their faces, and even if we bow silently, we can’t make eye contact—what kind of bullshit is that? And the elevator too. When they’re on it, they won’t let underclassmen ride, but did they rent out the stairs too? Who do they think they are wanting to be treated like that? I’m telling you, it’s always the most pathetic bastards who are dying to prey on underclassmen.”
“You’re right.”
When Hakyoung agreed with him, Yumyeong felt a bit relieved.
It was when they had almost reached the lounge. Yumyeong, who had been determined to ‘see if those bastards get into college well,’ stopped walking and placed his hand on Hakyoung’s shoulder with a tap.
“Just go in and roll around half-heartedly.”
At those words, Hakyoung blinked and asked back in a careful voice.
“How do you roll around?”
“Push-ups, then fist push-ups?”
“You always get called?”
“Regrettably.”
Just then. The sunbaes inside the lounge, sensing people outside, growled and shouted.
“Who’s giggling out there? Come in quickly!”
“Ugh…… Let’s go.”
Yumyeong scratched his head and entered first. Hakyoung followed silently behind him.
“Everyone take your hands out of your pockets and stand in a line. Don’t you realize why you were called here? Lower your eyes.”
As soon as they entered the lounge, a threatening atmosphere surrounded them. The guys who had arrived first moved aside little by little to make space, so Yumyeong also stood beside them. About ten people had been summoned this time. In front of them stood several third-years with their arms crossed. In the middle, as expected, third-year Hwang Gyeongjin was also positioned.
Yumyeong sighed only inwardly. He must have come to watch him get punished, knowing he’d been summoned.
“These days with fewer drills, life’s pretty good, huh? Just because third-years are busy with the college entrance exam, discipline’s gotten lax too, huh? Right or not?”
The sunbae who had been waving something like a long stick approached and poked the solar plexus of the guy standing first in line.
“You. Answer. What did you do wrong?”
“I stood in front of a sunbae-nim in the cafeteria line.”
“Are you in your right mind? Do you know or not that third-years get their meals first?”
“I do know, but. That was second-years’ meal time……. Sunbae-nim came late. Ugh!”
The guy began to complain as if it was very unfair. The content was so childish it made him want to go crazy, so Yumyeong clicked his tongue only inwardly. Even if he said something reasonable, there was no way it would reach the sunbaes’ ears.
As expected, the stick fell on the guy’s shoulder like a whip.
“Is that how an underclassman should act? Am I your friend? Stop nitpicking and do push-ups! Next!”
After that followed a series of utterly childish interrogations. Yumyeong glanced at Hakyoung standing beside him. Hakyoung had lowered his head slightly as instructed, but his face wasn’t intimidated at all. His handsome profile seemed lost in thought in another world by himself.
‘This must be his first time experiencing this. He shouldn’t do anything that stands out.’
The Hakyoung that Yumyeong had figured out was quite a my-pace type of guy. He would often say highly subjective facts as if they were truths (ex: Shin Yumyeong is ugly) or speak his feelings straightforwardly without caring about others’ gazes, turning people’s insides upside down.
