‘Don’t, don’t whisper…’
Saebyeok stuttered awkwardly as he entered the school store.
“What can I get you?”
The grumpy-looking man said with a smile in his voice. His voice was incredibly kind, but his face was full of hostility.
“P-pizza bread and…”
“We’re out of pizza bread. After lunch break, you can pretty much forget about getting any.”
What?
“Th-then kimchi dumplings…”
“The killer already cleaned those out.”
Seonwoo Jeong, was it you? Shin Saebyeok appeared calm, but internally his eyes were spinning wildly.
Saebyeok hesitantly grabbed every snack he could see that Gong Pyeonghwa had ever eaten.
“Why not just buy the whole store?”
The store clerk, saying he’d never seen such a big spender, pressed calculator buttons with a tired face.
“I’ve never seen a student spend 120,000 won at the school store before.”
Filling a bag of gifts that would make Santa Claus weep, Saebyeok coolly paid in cash and trudged up the stairs.
“Hey, look at that guy.”
“It’s the school store robber. The school store robber.”
School store robber? In his 17 years of life, Saebyeok had never been given such a dishonorable nickname.
With heat rushing to his face, Saebyeok climbed the stairs more quickly.
And finally, he reached the rooftop. He saw Gong Pyeonghwa lying on the garden bench, wiggling his feet.
Saebyeok opened his mouth to say what he had prepared all night.
“I’ve misunderstood you a lot…”
“Wow. What’s all that?”
Pyeonghwa circled around Saebyeok, pointing at the bags that looked ready to burst.
“…It’s, it’s a gift.”
Pyeonghwa never gave time to prepare. Saebyeok changed his order, deciding to give the gift first instead of expressing his gratitude and then giving the present.
“A gift? Who? Me? Me? Me?”
“Yes!”
Hearing it was his gift, Pyeonghwa turned the bags upside down and shook them onto the floor. He showed not a trace of delicacy.
“Oh wow. Potato chips. Salt flavor. Salt flavor.”
“I, I thought you might like them…”
Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the pizza bread, but he had managed to get everything else.
Pyeonghwa immediately opened the potato chips and ate them. While crunching on chips with one hand, he opened a drink can with the other and gulped it down.
With a feeling like reciting scriptures to a deaf cow, Saebyeok decided to express his true feelings.
“L-listen while you eat. So, th-thank you…”
He felt so much self-loathing for causing trouble to Pyeonghwa. Honestly, he never expected Pyeonghwa to actually lose for him.
Even if Pyeonghwa had suddenly called him one day and cried, begging him to lose just once, he would never have done it.
‘I would have studied even harder out of excitement.’
But Pyeonghwa didn’t do that. He didn’t particularly ask why and really lost. Not just carelessly missing one or two more questions, but completely messing up the marking on all subjects.
“I-I’m sorry. I was, um, under so much stress… I was so struggling that I unconsciously… I was a nuisance to you, wasn’t I? I’m sorry.”
“Honestly? A lot? You were a total nuisance.”
Saebyeok thought he wasn’t listening because he was focused on eating, but surprisingly, Pyeonghwa was capable of multitasking.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, I, being the nice person I am, forgive you.”
“Th-thanks.”
Sweating profusely, Saebyeok squeezed out his next words.
“I, I think I’ve been misunderstanding you. I’m sorry. And you don’t have to lose for me in the next exam. Th-thank you.”
“Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding?”
“Since you don’t like me, I thought you’d naturally beat me to show off and look down on me, but I think that’s not the case.”
The hand eating potato chips stopped.
His evaluation of Pyeonghwa had been more vicious than he thought.
Pyeonghwa raised his eyebrows sharply as if in disbelief and said:
“Don’t talk nonsense. You disliked me first. This is ridiculous.”
“What? No, I didn’t. You disliked me first.”
Saebyeok felt like he was somehow becoming childish when talking with Pyeonghwa. But he couldn’t leave a false statement uncorrected.
“Look at this guy pretending to be super nice now? Ridiculous.”
“What’s with your language. I’ll chastise—”
“Are you for real?”
What, what are you talking about? It was just the quick reflex of a Level 2 Chinese character certificate holder, but to Pyeonghwa, the internet addict, it seemed like pure swag countering a joke with another joke.
“From when we first met, you ignored me when I spoke to you. I remember it very clearly.”
Pyeonghwa, who held grudges for miles, finally childishly dredged up memories from when they were five.
“When did I ever!”
“When we were five! At that gathering! I still remember the taste of the pudding I ate that day, so don’t deny it!”
But when it came to feeling wronged, Saebyeok was no slouch either.
“You!”
Shin Saebyeok shouted, gathering strength from his core. Pyeonghwa stumbled at the unexpected abdominal breathing vocal technique.
“M-me! What, me what!”
“Th-that… you were the one who approached aggressively first.”
What did I do!
Pyeonghwa glared at Saebyeok while crossing his arms and chewing on jelly.
Faced with that confident attitude, Saebyeok reconsidered. There wasn’t much to say Pyeonghwa had done wrong. Besides not considering personal space and approaching as he pleased, there wasn’t much to be called a significant mistake.
“S-sorry. Thinking about it now, I might have been too biased in my thinking from back then.”
***
Saebyeok had been sickly since childhood. He had atopic dermatitis and asthma.
He also had severe allergies, and after an unfortunate incident at kindergarten, he was being homeschooled instead when that gathering happened.
“Saebyeok, look over there. Do you see that kid? The one wearing blue clothes.”
Saebyeok’s mother pointed at Pyeonghwa. He looked like a street gang leader at first glance.
Saebyeok’s body tensed up. His toes curled inward as if gripping the ground.
“Especially today, but never show any weakness to that kid. Don’t show any vulnerable side, understand?”
Even his usually quiet father gripped Saebyeok and urged him. Saebyeok swallowed hard and glanced at Pyeonghwa wearing navy blue shorts.
‘I hope he doesn’t talk to me…’
But contrary to Saebyeok’s wishes, Pyeonghwa came straight over with his pudding.
‘Don’t come.’
And it wasn’t just any pudding. It was mango pudding.
“Hey. Do you like pudding? Want to eat pudding?”
“…N-no!”
Saebyeok had a severe mango allergy.
Mango had been served as dessert at the kindergarten he had left.
When Saebyeok didn’t eat the mango pudding, children in the same class asked why, and Saebyeok told them he was allergic to mango.
The children then accused him of lying, saying there was no such thing, and eventually surrounded Saebyeok and tormented him to try mango.
Unable to resist the pressure, Saebyeok ate the mango and collapsed.
A boy who looked like a street leader, the mango-scented pudding he was holding, the navy blue shorts approaching without hesitation—Saebyeok screamed internally.
‘Today I shouldn’t cause trouble, and I shouldn’t let him find out my weakness, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t…’
When Saebyeok refused the pudding, Pyeonghwa didn’t press further and instead asked something else.
“Really? Then what do you like? Hey. Do you like dinosaurs?”
‘S-suddenly dinosaurs?’
Would it be a weakness to say he liked dinosaurs here? Saebyeok racked his brain.
Before he could even answer, Pyeonghwa moved ahead. It was as if he was confident that Saebyeok couldn’t possibly dislike dinosaurs.
“Do you know who would win in a fight between a Spinosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus?”
Saebyeok gasped.
‘Who would win if they fought?!’
***
“Yeah, shit! I didn’t say anything because you seemed like a wimp, but why did you ignore me when I talked to you when we were five?”
Despite claiming he hadn’t mentioned it because Saebyeok seemed like a wimp, Pyeonghwa, who was sulking over something from 12 years ago just five minutes earlier, asked with an aggrieved face.
Sweating profusely, Saebyeok replied:
“Hey, they emphasized so strongly not to reveal any weakness… and you asked who would win in a fight between a Spinosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus.”
Pyeonghwa was shocked.
‘How good is this guy’s memory?’
To Pyeonghwa, who had been stubbornly dwelling on the petty memory of being ignored when he spoke, the sudden appearance of Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus was quite unfamiliar.
‘Did I really ask something like that?’
So who would win? Pyeonghwa, whose dinosaur knowledge had been completely erased in the transition from five to six years old, felt dizzy at this untimely dinosaur debate.
“I was worried that if I said I didn’t know, you’d call me a stupid idiot who didn’t even know that, and if I said I knew but got the answer wrong… while I was thinking about it, you left first saying ‘Hmph. I won’t play with you. You’re annoying.'”
Did I really leave saying something like that? They say memories get distorted, and Pyeonghwa found himself reflecting on his childhood character.
“…You still remember that?”
“Yeah… I went home and looked it up that day.”
Why would a five-year-old go look that up? Pyeonghwa grumbled quietly. It was embarrassing.
“Just guess. It’s fifty-fifty anyway.”
“At the time, I thought it was a 25% chance, and the 75% chance of being wrong was too scary.”
How does a who-would-win question result in 25%? Pyeonghwa’s confusion deepened at this miraculous calculation.
“How did you get 25 percent from that?”
“The Spinosaurus could win, or the Tyrannosaurus could win, or they could tie, or they might have lived in different regions or eras and couldn’t fight, but you might be testing me…”
To think that far at that age? For a five-year-old to be so mentally sharp?
‘How did I ever beat this guy?’
Pyeonghwa, who had twice won by accident due to rigorous rote education, expensive tutoring, and Shin Saebyeok’s shaky mental state, saw the world differently.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
