The personalities of Min Yugeon and Seo Suho were strikingly different in the eyes of others. Min Yugeon was active and playful, easily mingling with various people, whereas Seo Suho remained quiet, rarely speaking to anyone unless absolutely necessary. Naturally, it drew curious glances when the two were constantly seen together, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“You guys seem like total opposites. Don’t you fight a lot?”
“I bet Seo Suho just puts up with him. That guy’s always all over him.”
As the students teased with laughter lacing their questions, Min Yugeon just shrugged nonchalantly.
“It’s called affection.”
“Ughhh.”
“You two should just get married after graduation!”
Some of them jeered playfully, patting Min Yugeon’s back in jest.
Since he had no intention of going into detail about his relationship with Seo Suho, Min Yugeon brushed it off with a single short response and laughed as he took the hits from the surrounding fists. Looking back on it now, not once had he and Seo Suho ever clashed. It was hard to even imagine them hurling hurtful words at each other like Min Sanghan and Lee Minha had. And of course, he never had any intention of letting such a situation happen.
Some say that fighting and making up is how relationships grow stronger, but Min Yugeon had never once thought of hurting Seo Suho or even bothering him. He just wanted to stick by him for life, behaving sweetly and craving his affection.
“……”
As Min Yugeon walked down the corridor, he locked eyes with an upperclassman approaching from the opposite direction—someone with whom he’d had an unpleasant conversation not long ago.
The upperclassman stopped in his tracks and glared at Min Yugeon. His eyes were filled with a mixture of humiliation and fury, as if the sting of being coldly rejected after failing to even confess properly still hadn’t faded. The stubborn refusal to accept reality was also clearly written on his face. Min Yugeon met his gaze with indifference, then walked past him without reacting to the blatant hostility.
Though the upperclassman didn’t call out to him or try to stop him, he remained standing in place. Passing students looked on, puzzled. Even as he felt the persistent glare stabbing at the back of his head, Min Yugeon didn’t bother turning around. Wasting time and emotion was a choice he refused to make.
But if that resentment were to be directed at Seo Suho instead of himself, that was another matter entirely.
“What happened to you?”
The moment Min Yugeon saw Seo Suho in the hallway between classes, the smile vanished from his face. Seo Suho’s forearm, which he’d grabbed to examine, was flushed red as if scraped against something—and tiny drops of blood were beading up in places. Min Yugeon’s expression grew increasingly grim.
“It’s nothing.”
Seo Suho responded nonchalantly and tried to shake off Min Yugeon’s hand, but the grip on his wrist only tightened. Staring hard at Seo Suho’s expression, which remained calm as ever, Min Yugeon quickly realized that this wasn’t just some careless injury.
His gaze turned icy.
“Let’s go get that treated.”
“Why? It’s just a scratch. I’ll rinse it with water.”
Seo Suho sighed as he replied. Meanwhile, Min Yugeon glanced at a student nearby who looked like they had something to say but was hesitating. Without a word, he stood Seo Suho up. Seeing Min Yugeon so concerned, Seo Suho reluctantly allowed himself to be led away, though he raised an eyebrow, clearly annoyed.
“You get hurt way worse than this and don’t even care.”
Between the two, Min Yugeon was injured far more often. But even when he got scrapes or bruises while exercising or in accidents, he never made a fuss. He didn’t go to the infirmary right away either, which meant Seo Suho had to constantly nag him about it.
Min Yugeon finally softened his expression a little at the rare sight of a pouting Seo Suho.
“Okay, okay. I’ll start going to get treated right away too.”
“…For real?”
“Yeah.”
Seo Suho went quiet, seemingly satisfied with that answer. That look on his face was so unintentionally cute that Min Yugeon found himself smiling again, his earlier irritation momentarily forgotten.
After seeing the school’s on-site medic, Seo Suho was told the abrasion wasn’t serious but covered a large area, so he needed to be careful not to irritate it. Watching Seo Suho being disinfected, Min Yugeon winced as if he were the one in pain. When the treatment was over and Min Yugeon hugged him tightly, Seo Suho lightly swatted at his chest in protest. He could feel the curious stares pretending not to watch.
The mood was light as they returned to class together, but when Min Yugeon spotted the student he’d noticed earlier inside the classroom, he called them out to the hallway.
“Hey, do you have something to say to me?”
“Huh? Uh…”
“You kept staring.”
Min Yugeon asked with a disarming smile. The student fidgeted, clearly debating whether to speak up. They were the timid type, one of the students often seen hovering around Seo Suho out of interest. Min Yugeon had never found them likable, but there was a high chance they had something to say about Seo Suho—so he waited patiently.
“Well, actually…”
As he listened to the story, Min Yugeon’s face quickly went blank. The student, now silent, hunched their shoulders and watched his reaction nervously.
“Suho saw that upperclassman too… but just let him go. I don’t know why, but…”
“…….”
“Um, then I’ll head inside now.”
Unable to handle the tense atmosphere, the student quickly turned and slipped back into the classroom. Almost immediately after, Seo Suho stepped out, having just left the room, casting a puzzled glance at the student’s retreating back before approaching Min Yugeon.
“Min Yugeon. You should come in soon.”
“Suho.”
Min Yugeon cut him off with a low voice. Seo Suho stopped mid-step and looked at him.
“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“…Say what?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Apparently, someone had deliberately shoved Seo Suho from behind as he walked down the hallway, causing him to slam into the wall and fall hard while completely off guard. A few startled students had rushed over, but the culprit—who’d pushed Seo Suho—ran off without so much as an apology.
The student who quickly came to tell Min Yugeon about it, however, knew who that culprit was. It was the same upperclassman Min Yugeon had seen just a few hours earlier.
“Why’d you hide it?”
For the first time ever, Min Yugeon looked genuinely angry as he stared at Seo Suho. But of course, it wasn’t Seo Suho he was angry at.
Seo Suho had never even spoken with that upperclassman. If the upperclassman harbored resentment, it was clearly aimed at Min Yugeon—so instead of confronting him directly, he’d cowardly targeted Seo Suho as a form of petty revenge. All because of Min Yugeon.
“…Because it was nothing,” Seo Suho finally answered, his voice quiet and unsure under the weight of Min Yugeon’s barely restrained fury.
“If I react to every childish stunt like that, it’ll only egg them on. It wasn’t worth responding to, so I let it go.”
“Every?” Min Yugeon echoed in a low whisper.
How many times had this happened?
He stared at Seo Suho, stunned. The realization that the upperclassman had done things like this more than once—and that he hadn’t even noticed—left a sickening feeling in his chest. It might’ve all started the day Min Yugeon had crushed the upperclassman’s pride a few days ago.
Seo Suho went silent under Min Yugeon’s reaction, blinking slowly as if he regretted saying too much.
“Don’t misunderstand. It’s not like it’s been like today every time.”
“……”
“And don’t blame yourself.”
Min Yugeon bowed his head, swallowing a bitter laugh. If what Seo Suho said was true, that meant he’d always known why the upperclassman was targeting him. And he’d endured it—because he was afraid Min Yugeon might feel responsible.
Seo Suho often had a way of saying exactly what Min Yugeon needed to hear, before he could even ask. But right now, Min Yugeon didn’t feel like he deserved that kind of kindness. He slowly lifted his head again. Seo Suho’s black eyes met his with a cautious look, watching for a reaction.
Even the fact that he’d made Seo Suho feel like he had to be careful around him—it made him burn with fury.
He turned away from Seo Suho, leaving his hand behind. His expression twisted into something fierce, and he stormed off down the corridor. Students who had been about to greet him quickly closed their mouths at the sight of his face. Ignoring the murmurs around him, Min Yugeon scanned the hall until he found the upperclassman. The moment their eyes met, the upperclassman flinched.
“What? Got something to say?”
The upperclassman put on a bold front, but sweat was already forming on his brow—he clearly knew why Min Yugeon had come.
Without a word, Min Yugeon reached out and grabbed the back of the upperclassman’s neck. Before he could react, Min Yugeon twisted his body and slammed him back against the nearby wall.
“Agh!”
The upperclassman let out a sharp scream as the wall rushed up to meet him. But just before his face hit the surface, Min Yugeon stopped—dangerously close. Leaning in close to the upperclassman’s ear, who had cowered and shut his eyes tightly, Min Yugeon whispered.
“How’s your face doing, sunbae?”
“……!”
“If you’re gonna mess someone up, at least be fair about it.”
