As a full armful of reluctant energy settled on his face, Yoon Minoh completely revised his plan. He had tried to make a stylish date proposal, but it seemed he had already thoroughly ruined it.
He changed his attitude and spoke in a lifeless tone.
“I attended middle school diligently…, but I dropped out of high school in my first year due to circumstances.”
Yeo Dowoon was a tree that would fall if you kept chopping. There was a clear difference from people who wouldn’t fall but only became stiffer no matter how much you swung the axe.
The tool that worked best on him was compassion.
“I really want to go back there once. I want to see how it’s changed, and smell that smell from back then… I really liked the smell from that school. It’s similar to a playground, but a bit more stuffy and cool.”
Facing Yeo Dowoon who had softened at his tears, he knew. This person is the perfect type for me. Because I’m confident in pretending to be pitiful.
“Hyung. Do you see this?”
Yoon Minoh pointed to his white shirt peeking out between his hooded zip-up. When Yeo Dowoon seemed not to notice, he pulled down his clothes to show it in more detail.
Yeo Dowoon checked uncertainly.
“Don’t tell me that’s a school uniform?”
“Yes. The pants are a uniform too. The one I wore when I first met you, hyung.”
Looking at it, it seemed Yoon Minoh was talking about when he appeared without warning and stole his Americano to drink. Yeo Dowoon recalled the kid in a uniform outfit very far from neat and let out a heavy breath. What ordinary student would walk around with platinum blonde hair and an eyebrow piercing?
“I guess you even prepared a uniform since you’re going to school.”
“Of course. That’s proper etiquette.”
Being active as a pair with that brat—there were plenty of awkward aspects even to accept as reality.
“When I submitted my withdrawal form, I really didn’t cry, you know? But as soon as I saw the letters the kids wrote me, tears just kept flowing. It wouldn’t stop no matter how much I wiped, so I went into a bathroom stall and bawled.”
Yoon Minoh didn’t miss the sections where gaps formed in Yeo Dowoon. Yeo Dowoon raised his eyebrows high.
“If you withdrew while crying, why do you want to go back there?”
“Hmm…”
I knew you’d respond like this. Yoon Minoh selected and spat out an answer that could sway Yeo Dowoon.
“I feel like I could never set foot there again by myself.”
“…”
“If hyung is by my side, I think I could finish the greeting I couldn’t complete and leave.”
“Who are you going to greet and leave on the weekend?”
“The school, of course.”
Everything before was a complete lie, but the words he was speaking now were sincere.
“It was an unwilling withdrawal I did reluctantly, so I left without being able to say a proper goodbye.”
“…”
“I want to tell them, even if it’s late. That I’m not going because I want to. That I’m not running away.”
I was kicked out. He didn’t bring out the five syllables he had swallowed.
***
‘An unwilling withdrawal done reluctantly…’
Even while turning the steering wheel, various thoughts were boiling over. He didn’t know how long it had been since he turned his head like this. Yeo Dowoon glanced at Yoon Minoh reflected in the rearview mirror with a complex and subtle gaze.
His appearance lying sprawled asleep in the back seat looked exactly like a high school student. Well, since he had just turned twenty, it was an age where youthful inexperience was bound to emanate. Yeo Dowoon said.
“We’re here. Wake up.”
Yoon Minoh, who had been sleeping soundly with a beanie covering his face, sprang up.
He straightened his bird’s nest hair while his waist was bent. Swish, he pushed back his hair and put on the beanie, revealing a face fully loaded with piercings.
“Already?”
Yoon Minoh asked in an impudent tone. He yawned with his mouth wide open as if not fully awake.
Yeo Dowoon, who had played driver for over an hour, didn’t answer and unbuckled his seatbelt. Click, when he opened the car door and got out, the distinctive grass smell of the tree-lined street spread abundantly.
Yoon Minoh got out following Yeo Dowoon without any rush.
“I guess it’s because it’s an expensive car, the ride is comfortable. I thought I was sleeping in a bed.”
Yoon Minoh, who finished saying he had even drooled on the seat, massaged Yeo Dowoon’s shoulders. The broad and neat shoulders were just like stone without a handful of grip pleasure.
“I drove well.”
When he concentrated on rubbing the area where the shoulders and neck connected, Yeo Dowoon irritably shook off Yoon Minoh’s hand. If it had been a massage for a healthy purpose, his fingers wouldn’t have been trying to slip smoothly into his collar. Yoon Minoh said “okay, okay” and separated from him.
After walking a few more steps, a crude-looking building came into view.
“We’re finally here.”
He said while looking around as if filled with new emotions. The harmony of the sandy playground and soccer goalposts was quite a useful means to stimulate dormant nostalgia.
Even Yeo Dowoon, who had never received compulsory education, felt a moment of elation.
“This is the place you attended, right?”
When he asked, Yoon Minoh quickly nodded his chin. Perhaps because he was visiting his alma mater, he had a face that looked excited like a little child.
“The door seems closed, how are you planning to enter?”
Yeo Dowoon gestured with his chin at the locked main gate and asked puzzledly. Seeing that the atmosphere was also quiet, it seemed there were no people at the school either. Yoon Minoh teased him as if making fun of such a Yeo Dowoon.
“Hyung really never went to school, huh.”
“Then did I fake not going?”
“On Saturdays, only the back gate is open. Since only the third-years come to school anyway.”
“Ah… Do they come to school on weekends too?”
“They have to if they want to do well on the college entrance exam. They’ll probably just do morning self-study and finish.”
Yeo Dowoon was newly surprised by Yoon Minoh’s student-like aspects. He said he dropped out in his first year, but it seemed he hadn’t attended school in vain. He suddenly became curious about something and asked.
“How long did you attend before dropping out?”
“…”
“After finishing first year?”
But Yoon Minoh only fiddled with the piercing on his ear and seemed to have no will to answer.
“If you don’t want to say, you don’t have to.”
Yeo Dowoon moved past the question without being clingy. It wasn’t a question thrown with enough curiosity to press someone who was also reluctant.
“…The back gate is around that way.”
Yoon Minoh led the way ahead of him. Yeo Dowoon walked with his hands in his jumper pockets.
When he glanced around the roadside, there were many elements that made it feel real that it was near a school. It was difficult to explain perfectly in words, but some kind of fresh vitality was evident.
As soon as Yeo Dowoon arrived in front of the back gate, he exclaimed “Oh.”
“This is the first time I’ve come to a high school in my life.”
He murmured as if it were fascinating. As Yoon Minoh had explained earlier, unlike the main gate, the back gate was unlocked. Yoon Minoh questioned the truth of what he said, asking if it was really true.
“You’ve never come at all? Completely?”
Yeo Dowoon, who slightly pulled on the beanie with a rounded tip rising at the end, answered while meeting his sparkling eyes.
“Yeah. I took the GED test at a middle school. I wanted to go to a high school once, but I didn’t know I’d come with you.”
“Hyung is popular with high schoolers, haven’t you done things like fan signings?”
“Espers aren’t celebrities, what fan signing?”
He knew that some Esper bastards obsessed with appearances were going around doing all sorts of things using their fame, but Yeo Dowoon didn’t pay much attention to such acts.
Even without going out of his way to make things happen, he always easily drew attention. Yoon Minoh started with a compliment of unknown meaning.
“I’ve been thinking this for a while…, but hyung seems to have a very strong professional spirit.”
It was a voice that had become solemn unlike usual.
“Isn’t it unpleasant to live trapped at the base?”
“Just moderately unpleasant.”
Yeo Dowoon answered calmly. He brushed off his shoes because the leaves underfoot were cumbersome.
Yoon Minoh seemed to judge that he would continue speaking and was still concentrating his attention. Perhaps because the corners of his eyes were naturally raised, Yeo Dowoon received that face with a completely different feeling.
“…I’m saying that’s how it is, do you have a complaint?”
It seemed like he thought it was a challenge to him.
Yoon Minoh shook his head vigorously while hiding his hollow feelings. He took out two masks from his hoodie pocket and handed one of them to Yeo Dowoon, saying.
“Use this too, hyung. You hate getting photographed.”
“What would I get photographed for at school? They’ll all hand in their phones and just study anyway.”
“These days they don’t collect phones. They say it’s an infringement on autonomy. So there are probably kids who study with tablets?”
Then Yeo Dowoon hung the black mask Yoon Minoh offered on his ears and murmured.
“…It’s very different from what I heard.”
“Who did you hear it from?”
“Baek Seonwoo.”
At the annoying name, Yoon Minoh was fed up.
“How can you learn about school from an old geezer! That old man is practically Bronze Age level…”
“Baek Seonwoo is younger than you think.”
“How old is he?”
When he tried to tell him, he couldn’t remember.
But fortunately, Yoon Minoh didn’t try to dig deeply into Baek Seonwoo’s age. Yeo Dowoon, who roughly glossed over it saying he probably wasn’t even thirty, completely pushed open the back gate that had been half open.
“Let’s at least go in before the sun sets.”
Since it was a place he revisited saying he wanted to finish the greeting he couldn’t complete, from now on it was time solely for Yoon Minoh. Yoon Minoh looked at the navy blue banner hanging at the school entrance and narrowed his eyes bleakly.
Next to the large character for “Congratulations,” the name of a student who had won a gold prize at a math competition and the name of the supervising teacher were written side by side.
Supervising Teacher Seo Jinwoo. Supervising Teacher Seo Jinwoo.
“…These days even bastards like that become teachers, I guess.”
