-15-
Bunhong barely managed to answer.
“Eyes… you mean?”
Then Hangeul nodded and continued speaking as if excited. His languid voice suddenly became faster and more intense.
“I keep thinking about them. It’s routine to sing while making eye contact with the audience every time, but somehow only those eyes wouldn’t be forgotten and I kept thinking about them.”
“…”
A person with unpredictable purity. With this one expression, Bunhong finished his evaluation of Hangeul.
“In front of something he likes, he’s really passionate.”
All barriers toward strangers crumble. Unlike Bunhong, Hangeul, who never had such barriers to begin with, spoke familiarly:
“I thought you were a fan, but you weren’t, were you? I thought so.”
So Kim Bunhong was able to muster courage and carefully ask him. Because that voice full of certainty, that expression, that attitude brought about change.
“…What kind… of eyes were they?”
Then, as if he had been waiting, Hangeul confessed:
“Sparkling eyes.”
“…”
“Eyes that looked like they wanted to come up on stage right away and sing together.”
The light that Bunhong had felt from Hangeul. Your eyes were also shining as much as mine.
“…”
At those words, Kim Bunhong was speechless for a moment.
He had believed his whole life was painted black. He had always evaluated himself as someone who could only be someone else’s shadow, and that was a ‘fact’ that could never be denied.
Yet why had he wandered so much? For the first time, Bunhong questioned that fact.
Why had he wandered endlessly through the empty streets where Oh Hangeul’s passion had been left behind? Unable to forget the full weight of the microphone he had held with empty hands, Kim Bunhong grasps his trembling hand with his other hand.
Gradually the trembling subsides, and he stands straight without avoiding Hangeul’s gaze that looks at him tenderly.
Although he couldn’t actually sing there like him, the immense satisfaction that Bunhong felt, even if briefly. What to call the substance of that emotion was unknown, but
However, listening to this man’s words, he could realize his hidden inner feelings.
“I thought I wanted to do it.”
Much more than I thought,
“Music.”
Was I that desperate? I thought only loneliness was growing.
Did it reach him? That indefinable, wordless emotion that even he himself didn’t know?
Hangeul, who had been scratching the back of his neck nervously as if his previous unhesitating attitude had disappeared somewhere, hesitated a bit before extending his cell phone to Bunhong and asking:
“By any chance,”
“…”
“Could you give me your phone number?”
“…”
“I want to invite you to my studio.”
At that careful action, even the last fortress hidden deep in Kim Bunhong’s heart crumbles.
In those honest eyes looking into him, calculations in his head disappeared. In Oh Hangeul’s clear black pupils, his own reflection remained like an afterimage.
Was the Kim Bunhong of that day, who had stood on that desolate street with some kind of desperation that he had seen, also contained there? As if enchanted, Bunhong followed those traces.
“Okay.”
Before reason could stop him, his lips lit the fuse first. Only after accepting did Bunhong regret it a little.
Although he was also afraid of the consequences that this impulsive promise might bring, his anxiety subsided surprisingly quickly at the three characters [Oh Hangeul] now saved in his cell phone, so Bunhong didn’t delete the number he had given.
His heart pounded with a good premonition, and he held his cell phone wrapped in both hands like a prayer.
“Maybe I’ll be able to see sunbae-nim again someday.”
Bringing his forehead to his clasped hands, he stood like that for a very long time.
* * *
He had just arrived at school and hadn’t even put down his bag when Youngwoo, who had been giggling with other friends in front of the lockers as if waiting for Bunhong to come, immediately ran over to his desk.
“How was it?”
At his extremely excited expression, Kim Bunhong rolled his eyes, wondering how to answer as he felt flustered.
“Hmm.”
Then the student supervisor passing through the hallway was surprised by this rare and unexpected combination and came into the classroom to stand in front of them.
“You rascal. You’re not trying to lead the class president astray, are you?”
When he tapped the desk with the stick he was holding, Youngwoo complained rebelliously:
“Ah. Why! The college entrance exam is over, so just go on your way.”
At those words, the supervisor sighed as if pathetic.
“Really, what will a kid like you become when you grow up?”
A social menace, a social menace.
With the supervisor clicking his tongue and dragging Youngwoo by the ear to follow him to the faculty office, Kim Bunhong was left alone.
Morning sunlight poured down. Feeling strangely amazed, he looked around the classroom and enjoyed the leisure he felt after a long time.
Before regression, nineteen-year-old Kim Bunhong’s school days were all about the sound of turning pages. After that, as an idol, he had to keep tremendous schedules and digest endless appointments, and in his spare time he only lived in practice rooms.
Is this what an ordinary person’s daily life is like? He felt like he could breathe for a moment. While going to the school store alone, a text arrived from someone he had been waiting to hear from.
[Oh Hangeul sunbae-nim: Are you free today?
I really want to keep that promise.
Ta-da. I’m inviting you to my own space.
Address: xx
-xxx-xxxxx]
Only one day had passed, but Bunhong’s eyes widened as he hadn’t expected contact to come so quickly.
As he brought his hand to the keyboard to reply, his phone turned off after finishing its business. Startled by his own face reflected in the black screen, Bunhong stepped back. He realized that the corners of his mouth had risen quite a bit before he knew it.
Youngwoo, who had apparently finished his business with the student supervisor and happened to meet him in the hallway, spoke to Bunhong:
“Girlfriend?”
Judging by his slightly disheveled hair, it seems he had a somewhat intense conversation between teacher and student.
Sensing Bunhong’s gaze, Youngwoo arranged his hair and said:
“That supervisor bastard, today’s the last day I’ll let it slide. I’m an adult now too! Next time I really won’t let it go.”
Seeing him still not losing his spirit and swaggering, he seems just like nineteen, that age.
“…”
Even at Kim Bunhong’s lack of reaction, perhaps because he was so bored, he flew paper airplanes throughout class time.
Looking at the countless paper airplanes falling in front of his desk, Bunhong scratched his brow. The trap was that he didn’t actually unfold them.
Kim Bunhong’s expression was thoroughly fed up as he watched Park Youngwoo, who left his friends behind and followed him even after school. Honestly, he let out a big sigh inwardly.
“Before regression, we had no connection at all.”
It seemed related to how his atmosphere had changed from before, but he declined curiosity.
After successfully shaking off Youngwoo, Bunhong got off the subway he had been riding to transfer.
Just then, a call came from Oh Hangeul.
Since he hadn’t thought he would call directly instead of texting, Bunhong was startled.
“…!!”
Even so, he quickly answered the phone and brought it to his ear. Then he heard Hangeul’s low voice.
-Did you arrive?
Still feeling his voice was pleasant to hear, Bunhong cleared his throat unnecessarily and answered:
“I think I’m almost there.”
Then Hangeul said he didn’t need an access card, so come straight up in the elevator.
-Just tell the manager Bunhong-ssi’s name. Then he’ll know.
After the brief phone call, Bunhong walked without much thought. As he said, no access card was needed, and luckily the elevator was stopped on the first floor so he could get on right away. The sound of the door closing smoothly was heard.
At that moment, just before the door closed, someone stopped the elevator.
“Wait a moment.”
While pressing the open button, Bunhong straightened his body that had been leaning against the wall and thought suddenly:
“That’s a somewhat familiar voice.”
Kim Bunhong, who looked up to check on the other person without any preparation, let out a short, painful groan.
Before regression, he had never even comfortably made a frowning expression in front of that person. Because when he was smiling, he felt gazes coming several times more than when he wasn’t smiling.
Countless times of being ignored, the past when he had been desperate to somehow receive attention swept through Bunhong’s mind like a storm in an instant.
Ah, his vision wavered to the extent that it felt like he was dreaming.
Bright yellow bleached hair, a face a little more youthful than before regression, but still an indifferent gaze.
Jeong Ido.
No matter how many times he rewound time, it was a name that Bunhong could never forget.
Bunhong, who almost called out his name, barely managed to ask:
“…Which floor are you going to?”
His strength left his body, but he summoned all his power not to stagger. At the same time, he bit his lips tightly not to cry. Thanks to that, Kim Bunhong could really act as if nothing was wrong.
It’s because I’ve become so numb. Suppressing emotions in front of Jeong Ido was so routine that he could pull it off. Even now when they met again after regression…
Bunhong thought:
“It’s only natural.”
Because that gaze with no particular emotion even when looking at him was so familiar.
“Hyung wouldn’t remember me anyway.”
The fact that he had regressed was really fortunate. To return to before knowing him. Although his feelings toward him remained the same.
As if treating someone he was seeing for the first time, at the seemingly indifferent answer telling him which floor to go to, the tension that had dominated his whole body relaxed with a thud.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
