From right after returning from the field trip, Hakyoung suffered from a severe body ache.
From the time they left the pension and descended the mountain, he’d felt chills, and that night he had a high fever so intense his whole body was drenched in cold sweat. Since no one noticed, Hakyoung suffered alone until Yumyeong, who woke up late the next morning, discovered him. His voice was pitifully hoarse, and his eyes, moist with what could have been tears or sweat, couldn’t focus properly.
The body ache didn’t heal easily, so Hakyoung had to rest in the dormitory all weekend.
When Hanju returned to the dormitory around the end of Sunday, he was shocked at Hakyoung’s condition. Then he asked Yumyeong how exactly they’d done the field trip for Hakyoung to be so severely sick.
“Um, well. We did sleep on the ground…”
“You slept on the ground?”
“Yeah, to look at the stars. Hey, but that was Ryu Hakyoung’s idea. Still, it wasn’t that cold.”
“That’s why he got sick! You killed him. You’re an assassin.”
“He’s not dead yet. Don’t kill Hakyoung off.”
That day, he himself had felt a bit of cold too, but it wasn’t weather cold enough to get this severely ill. As Yumyeong pondered the events of that night, he suspected he might have stolen all of Hakyoung’s blanket while drunk on sleep.
Hakyoung didn’t recover easily, and because of that, he couldn’t go to school even on Monday. When they informed the homeroom teacher of this fact, they only got scolded about why they hadn’t gone to the hospital right away. Yumyeong secretly grumbled his complaints only inwardly.
‘Ah, of course I tried to go. That bastard insisted on not going…’
After finishing classes, Yumyeong stopped by Hakyoung’s room.
Today, if there really was no improvement, he was determined to drag him to the hospital by force.
“I’m coming in.”
Striding inside, Yumyeong approached the bed with its small curtain. When he pulled back the curtain, he saw Hakyoung with a pale face covered in cold sweat.
Despite being very sick, he lay there beautifully like a sleeping princess in the forest. His bloodless, pure white face and pale pink lips, with strands of hair scattered bit by bit across his forehead as if they were accessories, embellished his face. Admiring how when someone is too good-looking even sweat-soaked hair becomes decoration, Yumyeong settled beside him.
“Did you eat anything? Are you conscious?”
“Mm…”
His eyes slowly opened and Hakyoung looked this way. Yumyeong knelt and sat close, placing his hand on his forehead.
“Should we go to the hospital?”
As expected, Hakyoung shook his head.
“Let’s go to the hospital. I’ll carry you on my back.”
“…Just leave me. I’m fine.”
At the stubborn words, Yumyeong sighed. Yesterday too, he’d been stubborn like this, so all they’d done was make him take fever reducers obtained from the dorm supervisor’s office.
“You’re funny. Even your body resembles your personality—cold medicine doesn’t work on it either.”
At those words, Hakyoung closed his eyes and laughed.
“Oh my, now you have the spirit to laugh.”
“Medicine doesn’t work…”
Hakyoung said in a slow tone, with a deeply sunken voice. It was exactly the tone of someone who knows their own illness. Yumyeong bent down and whispered in Hakyoung’s ear.
“Hey, since only you’re this sick, people are suspecting what I did to you. What are we going to do? I’m being treated as an assassin.”
When he whispered softly close to his ear, Hakyoung groaned as if ticklish and turned his head. Yumyeong followed once more.
“Isn’t the difficulty level of astronomical observation too high? Just from going out once…”
“I’m dying…”
As he kept whispering, Hakyoung groaned with his eyes squeezed shut. The breath coming from his mouth was very hot, surprising Yumyeong a bit.
Hakyoung was covering with his hand the ear where Yumyeong’s breath had touched. Thinking he’d tormented a sick person, Yumyeong felt a bit sorry.
“Do you need anything?”
“Mm…”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
Then Hakyoung met his eyes and whispered in a low voice.
“Let’s go again.”
“What?”
Yumyeong asked as if questioning whether he wanted to go again even in this state. But Hakyoung seemed sincere.
“In October, it’s meteor shower season.”
“Eh, that’s a long way off.”
“I told you. Astronomical observation has its proper timing. That’s the only time. We’re definitely going.”
It was both funny and cute how he stubbornly spoke with that sunken, completely hoarse voice, so Yumyeong laughed.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
“Mm…”
“You like it that much?”
At those words, Hakyoung opened his eyes. His black eyes looked at Yumyeong for a while before answering.
“Yeah.”
Hakyoung knew. Why he was sick.
Probably a fever. While continuously sleeping engulfed in fever, only Yumyeong appeared in his dreams. And not in his childhood form, but his current form. Hakyoung was surprised at the fact that he remembered so many and so vividly all the very diverse aspects of Yumyeong he’d witnessed since transferring schools.
When exactly did his feelings of liking become far greater than his resentment? He really had hated him, so how did his heart come to lean this way…
However, tracing it back was meaningless. Like weight slowly accumulating on a scale, it had tilted bit by bit, and the moment exactly one drop fell, everything tipped completely over. From the moment he decided to meet him again, these feelings had only been accumulating, so it was something bound to happen someday.
As much as the sense of liberation that came the moment he admitted he liked him, the weight of the many homework assignments still unresolved also covered him. The past he still didn’t have the confidence to reveal, and the misunderstanding that he liked someone else.
Among these, the biggest worry was that Yumyeong liked girls…
Still, he thought the decision to return to his side was the right one. It was a strange thing. Despite being this agonized, to think he was glad to have gone through this.
Before long, Hakyoung shook off the fever and got up from bed. He pondered with a pale face whether he’d been helplessly swept up in the second love that had come to him, or whether he’d chosen it himself.
***
The newly established astronomy club officially began recruiting members. At the same time, applications exploded.
This had actually been foreseen from when the club was established. With two popular figures, Shin Yumyeong and Ryu Hakyoung, both in it, it wasn’t very surprising. Usually club applications close at the beginning of the semester, but there was an exception for newly established clubs. A separate period of two weeks after establishment was secured for recruiting new members. Thanks to this, applications flooded into the astronomy club from people regardless of gender who wanted to become close with the two.
Hanju couldn’t close his gaping mouth looking at the hefty club application forms.
“Wow… Wait, Kang Minyeong? Huh, is this Kang Minyeong from Class 2? She’s really pretty.”
“Who is it? Is it someone you like?”
When Sunmin asked, Hanju waved his hands in shock.
“No no! How could I dare look at Minyeong like that? That’s ridiculous. I’m really just with a pure heart…”
“I didn’t say anything…”
It was while they were looking at the application forms like that. Hanju’s gaze fixed on something outside the window.
“There they are together again. I’ve been saying since the very beginning that those two would become close.”
Just then on the terrace outside, Hakyoung and Yumyeong were bickering with each other. Come to think of it, these application forms seemed to have been brought and placed by those two first. The sound of what they were saying couldn’t be heard well, but their expressions were quite serious. Sunmin, who was nearby, frowned.
“That’s true but… Right now it looks like they’re fighting?”
No sooner had the words ended than Yumyeong put his arm around Hakyoung’s shoulder. Then he just pushed Hakyoung into a blind spot not visible from inside. Hanju and Sunmin, watching this, craned their necks. Hakyoung’s face, pushed into the corner, wasn’t visible, but the two could see Yumyeong arbitrarily sticking his hand into Hakyoung’s shirt pocket.
“Oh my…! Sunmin, this is what you were talking about! It really does look like extortion. But surely not, right? If it’s true, I don’t understand Ryu Hakyoung either, like does he really have some weakness being held over him?”
At those words, Sunmin’s expression became serious. He had recently figured out Hakyoung’s true feelings.
Could it be related to that?
Then Sunmin shook his head. Yumyeong was absolutely not the personality to grab and wield someone who liked him by their weakness. Even if a weakness was caught, it would be because Hakyoung willingly let it be caught. That’s what the heart of liking someone is like.
Hanju muttered beside him while adjusting his glasses.
“Shouldn’t we stop them? It’s not something serious, right?”
“I know, but we can’t see well. What are they doing…”
Like this, while the two inside the club room were worrying, Yumyeong and Hakyoung on the terrace were doing something completely different from their misunderstanding.
“No, let me see it. What were you looking at?”
“What was I?”
“Where’s your phone?”
Yumyeong pushed Hakyoung into a corner and searched here and there on his body trying to find his phone. The hand that had gone inside his shirt came out and headed to his back pants pocket. Because of Yumyeong unhesitatingly groping his butt, Hakyoung’s expression hardened slightly.
“Here… Ah, here it is! Show me too, hurry.”
Having easily found the phone, Yumyeong held it out to Hakyoung showing him the screen. However, Hakyoung, his expression hardened, snatched the phone back with a thwack.
“Whatever I’m looking at, why should I show you?”
“How petty. I’m your only helper.”
“I don’t need one.”
A little while ago, Yumyeong had caught Hakyoung looking at photos while avoiding others’ gazes and ambushed him. It was hard to discern what kind of photo it was, but there was a human form. With his own intuition, Yumyeong jumped to the conclusion that it must be Hakyoung’s secret, or his first love.
Sure enough, as soon as he pounced, Hakyoung hastily turned off his phone.
