In my second year, the wrecked situation became even worse for me. I came to like Han Joonwoo, Han Joonwoo started getting along with Go Yohan, a gap started forming between Han Joonwoo and I, and a transfer student arrived. Amidst all of that, the last event was the one I disliked most.
The transfer student came at a very ambiguous time: during the final exams of the first term of our second year. Transfer student Han Taesan.
The bastard I hated most.
Han Taesan had particularly dark eyes that he showed us before hiding them and saying “Please take care of me,” I thought he was another ordinary thing in my everyday life. However, at the start of early summer, Han Joonwoo started hating the transfer student.
People spoke and called Han Taesan pitiful. Especially so because that punk was someone who originally ground his teeth at every little thing and would drag someone he hated to the depths of hell and dismantle their heads like a hunting dog. It was said he was a strange punk who would often find great joy in bullying others.
Unlike his name, Han Taesan was short. Also, he went around with his hair flat down as if he had washed it without drying it. If Han Joonwoo looked to be in his mid-twenties, Han Taesan rather looked like a middle school student. Like a country bumpkin, he wore a uniform that was too big for his size but it looked neat and proper in its own way. By the second month, his uniform was so tattered you could call them rags.
One day, however, I realised.
The opportunity came on a day that was really like any other. The problem was that it was Han Joonwoo’s uncomfortable sex life. When Han Joonwoo called me to the hotel for an alibi, I began encountering the women who would leave the room late.
Before I liked Han Joonwoo, I thought it was just annoying to get asked for something at dawn and have to go outside. There were also times where I refused him. I didn’t even remember the faces of the women I would accidentally encounter. It just felt inconvenient. However, one day, as if by accident, I suddenly realised the fact I liked Han Joonwoo and after that I would drop everything and run straight to that space filled with strong and uncomfortable smells. Looking at the women with various appearances, I would think “Is she his type?” and proceed to be in distress over it all day long.
However, what pushed my feelings into a dirty corner more than that was the fact I thought the faces of the women I met twice a month looked exactly like someone.
Especially dark eyes, a young-looking face. A face that looked exactly like Han Taesan. Yeah. At that time, I was the only one who noticed something had changed for sure.
From that day forward, I hated Han Taesan. Just thinking about it made my stomach hurt like it was ripping apart.
I grabbed my chest in the moving taxi. My head fell forth like a moron. Just like my heart. I resented Han Joonwoo. Why did that woman look like Han Taesan? Why does Han Joonwoo still continue to bully Han Taesan?
Han Taesan was a man. Like me, an eighteen-year-old man. He was a man with a smaller build than me, who would nowadays stutter when speaking. Though, I was better at studying than Han Taesan, rich, and handsome. No matter who looked at it, it was a natural fact that I was someone who fit Han Joonwoo better. Why? Rather, it’d be easier to understand if he liked Go Yohan. I felt so disgusted I could die.
“Student—student, are you okay? Shouldn’t you go to the hospital?”
I closed my mouth as if a complaint was about to slip.
Ever since I realised the women who left the hotel looked like Han Taesan, I hid my dislike for him and defended him. It was something that really surprised me. By nature, I was someone who disliked interfering in others’ businesses, and, as you can see, I never stopped Han Joonwoo from doing anything. However, that was something I did for me.
My change was not because I was worried for Han Taesan, but because I didn’t want Han Joonwoo to vent excessive anger on Han Taesan. For the selfish me, the things that made me distressed were more important than the feelings Han Joonwoo held. Han Joonwoo’s gaze, which centered solely on Han Taesan, had to be dispersed even if it was just for a moment. Only at that moment could I regain my breath.
One day, I stopped Han Joonwoo who had found Han Taesan passing time hidden somewhere and dragged him by the collar to an empty classroom and made him lie down to kick him in the stomach.
“Why do you keep bullying him? Act appropriately.”
Ugh. Han Taesan, who was next to me and being grabbed by Han Joonwoo, let out a groan and shrunk like a sow bug. Han Joonwoo extended a foot and kicked Han Taesan on the shoulder and said, “He keeps making me annoyed.”
“What the hell did Han Taesan ever do to you?”
“Ah, fuck. He just pisses me off!”
Han Joonwoo yelled, and I froze. Han Joonwoo’s face turned red, and he glared at me. Go Yohan suddenly cut in between us in that strained atmosphere.
“Yeah, hey. You’ve done enough already. I can’t watch anymore because my heart hurts.”
“Why are you the one feeling hurt?”
Go Yohan, unlike his appearance, was good at speaking weakly and lowered his brows and made a pitiful expression, making Han Joonwoo’s arrow point at him rather than me. When Han Joonwoo’s eyes glanced at me, I could breathe again and the quick breath that was held was let out on its own.
“Why are you hurt? That bastard’s the one who actually got hurt though.”
“This bastard’s got no friends or anything.”
Go Yohan looked at me as if searching for agreement and pointed his index finger round and round at his temple. “He’s crazy, a mental case.” Han Joonwoo couldn’t hold back his anger hearing those words and ran towards Go Yohan. Go Yohan pointed his middle finger at the running Han Joonwoo and laughed wildly.
The two got tangled up with each other, and I watched the backs of the unilaterally running Go Yohan and Han Joonwoo who chased after him while slightly biting my lower lip. Then, I approached the fallen Han Taesan and grabbed his shoulder to pull him up.
“Thank you…”
Han Taesan, with a completely swollen face after getting beat to death by Han Joonwoo, spoke to me like that. And he slightly pulled the hem of my clothes. Was it possible to feel this unpleasant? I wondered to what extent it could go, and it was to the extent I stuffed the clothes Han Taesan grabbed into the trashcan on my way home.
While brooding over those uncomfortable days, the taxi arrived in front of my house. The driver still worried while looking at me, and the me whose complexion was seen opened the door and left before speaking to the taxi driver, “It was just that my chest hurt for a bit. I apologise for making you worry.”
“Student, you need to go to the hospital. Chronic indigestion is not normal.”
“Yes,” I answered the unnecessarily nosy man. But I didn’t go to the hospital or anything like that. The moment I arrived at school, I greeted Han Joonwoo with an excessively rational and confident expression. Because I, Kang Jun, was a rational person.
Nothing was uglier than showing others a sight where you cried over love and died because of it. To the point where it was contemptible.
I often looked at the ugly sight of men and women being drunk in love and vow that I’d never be like them. I hated having others see my weaknesses, and I also hated Han Joonwoo being the one to find out my weakness in the end.
So, my face was always dignified and shameless.
The face of Han Joonwoo, who had stayed up all night, looked just like that of a puffer fish. I pretended to be fretful and threw a cold can of cider on Han Joonwoo’s desk. On days where Han Joonwoo indulged in his hobby lifestyle, I’d always hand him a cold drink like this. Funnily enough, there was one reason Han Joonwoo’s face would swell up like this.
“Don’t just put up with such a funny appearance and ease the swelling.”
“Thanks.”
“Did your dad not scold you in the morning?”
“Thanks to you,” Han Joonwoo shrugged and said proudly. My mouth twitched and I simply smiled at his actions. And when I turned my head to sit down, I saw a large newspaper cover the seat next to Han Joonwoo. I looked vacantly at that seat.
The seat next to Han Joonwoo wasn’t me, but Go Yohan. I was a span smaller than Han Joonwoo, and since Go Yohan was half a span taller than Han Joonwoo, he sat next to him. Sometimes I hated the me who was short, and for the minor reason of being behind Han Joonwoo, I clung onto the second seat from the back. Even so, I wanted to sit right next to him. That was my only comfort.
I completely hid all of that jealousy and shamelessly referred to Go Yohan, “When did he come?”
“Don’t know. He was already like this when I came.”
“Why is someone who went home perfectly fine like this?”
As soon as I finished speaking, I heard the newspaper lower down with a rustling sound and saw Go Yohan looking bleary-eyed. Thin eyes skimmed over Han Joonwoo and I and he let out a yawn with a tired mouth.
“…just played some games before sleeping, that’s all.”
I wondered if the saying that yawns are contagious was true since Han Joonwoo also yawned after he did. Then, he frowned and spoke sarcastically, “You bastard. When it comes to looks, you look even more indecent than me but the things you do are more wholesome than Ahn Jisoo.”
“Yeah, go fuck yourself.”
“Got it, dickhead.”
Whether he knew Han Joonwoo was playing with him or not, Go Yohan turned his head back coldly and let out a big laugh. I looked at such a Go Yohan and our gazes met. Go Yohan turned his gaze and looked outside the window before directing his attention back and stared at me. I looked at such a Go Yohan before turning my gaze to Han Joonwoo. I felt itchy. I scratched my shoulder.