#82
It was April Fool’s Day back then too. While enjoying April Fool’s events with classmates in the department room, some juniors who heard about it came to visit. Kim Minhwan, who was Seonwoo’s paired junior, received admiring teases for his rough style of dress even then.
Classmates placed Nam Seonwoo, his paired senior, next to him and laughed, saying “It’s hard to tell who’s the senior here.” When the department head suggested taking a photo as a memento, Seonwoo took Minhwan to the photo zone and naturally put his arm around his shoulders.
The usually cheerful guy seemed unusually stiff that day, which was strange. Thinking something might be wrong, Seonwoo naturally pulled him away from the classmates. While patting the awkwardly standing guy’s back, he said something like:
‘Go ahead. Don’t mind them teasing you. The school uniform suits you well.’
And what the hesitating Kim Minhwan said then suddenly came to mind now:
‘It really suits you too, hyung.’
The way he stood there watching until Seonwoo returned to the department room, the photo of the two taken with an instant camera that disappeared from the department room one day, and then the scandal with a same-sex student that came to light after graduation—as these memories connected, a suspicion crossed Seonwoo’s mind.
‘This guy, surely not.’
I hope he doesn’t have some dirty fetish.
“Hey.”
Startled, Kim Minhwan tore his gaze away from the school uniform. But then he flinched again at Nam Seonwoo’s frightening expression.
“Uh, what?”
“Listen to me carefully. Even for preferences, there are acceptable areas and absolutely unacceptable areas.”
Nam Seonwoo had worked in education. He felt his affection for Minhwan almost disappearing in that moment, but because of their past relationship, he chose sincere advice instead of cutting ties. Not punching him right now was already showing great restraint.
“Especially if you want to work as a teacher, you’d better replace that rotten brain of yours. If you can’t, don’t even think about entering the teaching profession. Do you understand?”
“…Huh?”
Nam Seonwoo stood up and slung his bag over his shoulder. As he left the classroom, Kim Minhwan hurriedly tidied his things and shouted, “W-wait! Let’s go together!”
Originally, Seonwoo had planned to hang out with Minhwan until meeting Park Gyuhyeon, but the favor he’d planned to ask Minhwan had already completely disappeared from his mind. Soon, with the sound of large footsteps, his shoulder was firmly grabbed.
“Wait, hyung! Hold on! I’m really being wronged here. Listen to me. Please listen before you go!”
His face, usually playful, now looked genuinely urgent and wronged. He seemed to have understood exactly what context Seonwoo’s sudden advice had come from.
“It was like this last time too, why do you think of me as such trash? Is that how I appear to you? Like I have that kind of… with school uniforms… No, this is so absurd I can’t even speak. I’m telling you it’s not like that!”
Seonwoo pushed away the arm from his painful shoulder, but Minhwan, mistaking it for rejection, gripped Seonwoo’s shoulder even more desperately.
“I’m not that kind of pervert! Is it because I kept looking at you? If I had that preference, wouldn’t I have been looking at everyone else too? I don’t like uniforms, I just like you…!”
Kim Minhwan, who had been speaking without restraint, suddenly stopped. With his eyes wide open, he seemed confused and unable to continue. Just like when he said “It’s fun when I’m with you, hyung” while asking him to join a group date.
“You…”
Nam Seonwoo discerned two things from that confused face. First, Kim Minhwan didn’t seem to be lying. Seeing him protest to the point of almost crying, it didn’t seem like he was just trying to salvage his reputation.
And second…
“Let’s go outside first.”
There were too many eyes watching. Since it was the first time Minhwan had shown such an agitated appearance, concerned glances from classmates were gathering. Fortunately, Minhwan nodded obediently to the suggestion to talk outside.
Not a word was exchanged between them as they left the education building. Seonwoo’s mind grew more complicated by Minhwan’s unusual silence—not chattering or pestering as usual.
“I don’t like the uniform, I like you, hyung.” He seemed to know what words might have followed. And that the weight of that “like” was probably more than just a degree of friendliness.
‘I guess he surprised himself too.’
He already knew that Minhwan would come to like men, or at least be open to liking men. But he didn’t know it would be now. If he had known, he wouldn’t have thought of asking Minhwan to pretend to be his lover in the first place.
Sorry to Minhwan, but Kim Jaewoo inevitably came to mind. It felt like things that hadn’t happened in his previous life kept occurring. Even though the only difference between then and now was that he wasn’t dating Kang Jihan.
Nam Seonwoo stopped walking. The education building parking lot was deserted. Recalling that he had escaped here when he first met Minhwan, he felt strangely nostalgic.
‘What should I do about this?’
When he turned around, Kim Minhwan couldn’t meet his eyes, like someone who had done something wrong. Since he didn’t seem inclined to speak first, Seonwoo started with an apology.
“I’m sorry. For jumping to conclusions.”
“……”
“If I’d been misunderstood like that, I would’ve been angry too. I was shortsighted.”
Kim Minhwan hesitantly raised his eyes. He clearly hadn’t expected an apology. He spoke in a dejected voice.
“It’s okay… I must have appeared that way for you to feel like that. But I’m really not a pervert…”
“I know. I never thought that way normally. During that drinking game, it was just because you were the most comfortable person to me.”
Recalling how he had cried so pitifully at the group date, Minhwan tightly closed his mouth. Seeing his chin tremble, it seemed he had been continuously bothered by it. It was awkward to see this guy—dressed like a gangster and built like a bear—looking like he might cry at any moment.
“And, um…”
Nam Seonwoo softly cleared his throat. He was at a loss for how to bring up the next issue.
To be frank, Minhwan hadn’t actually confessed. He would need to express his feelings to be rejected, but judging from his reaction earlier, the guy seemed confused as if he had just become aware of his feelings. So neither he nor Seonwoo knew if it was truly a serious emotion.
It would be ridiculous to tell someone “Sorry, but don’t like me” when they hadn’t even clearly realized their feelings. But he couldn’t just pretend not to know either. Since they had to see each other almost daily, it would be impossible not to be conscious of it if the guy suddenly became awkward.
‘At least not right now.’
Even Minhwan would need time to think, so he wouldn’t make a confession attack right away.
“Hyung.”
But at that serious voice, Seonwoo swallowed a curse inside.
“You know.”
What do I know? Don’t do it. You’ll really die. He tried to dissuade him intensely with his gaze, but Minhwan was fixating on the ground.
“I know this might sound weird…”
“If you think it might sound weird, not saying it is also a good choice.”
“Huh? Ah, no. Still, people should be honest. I think it’s better to speak than to keep it bottled up inside.”
“Sometimes, keeping it bottled up might be necessary? People should think things through carefully.”
He meant that one should at least consider whether those feelings were momentary attraction or serious emotion, and what consequences expressing those feelings might have. He couldn’t understand why all the guys around him were the type to hit the accelerator immediately when they liked someone.
Dealing with just Kang Jihan alone was already giving him a headache. As Seonwoo desperately threw the topic far away, Kim Minhwan, persuaded by his words, nodded saying “I guess so.” The saying that academic intelligence and social intelligence are separate seemed truly accurate.
Then Kim Minhwan cautiously asked:
“You don’t have classes in the afternoon, right? What are you doing today?”
Fortunately, he had plans with Park Gyuhyeon in the afternoon. Mentally thanking Gyuhyeon, Seonwoo quickly replied:
“I’m going to my high school with an old classmate. At one o’clock.”
Park Gyuhyeon had said he’d come to Korea University by one o’clock, so there was about an hour left. According to the original plan, he would have treated Minhwan to a meal and asked him to act, but now that the plan was scrapped, that hour was left hanging. While thinking about how to spend this awkward time with the now awkward Minhwan, Minhwan whined as usual:
“What? One o’clock is soon! I heard there’s a big April Fool’s event at school today, and I was planning to go to the department room and the central plaza with you…”
While saying this, he pulled out promotional booklets from both pockets. He seemed to have collected flyers distributed by each college—there were at least five. Seeing that each was marked with a marker, it looked like he had already checked which booths and experience zones he wanted to visit.
“They said they’d give prizes just for visiting here and here, and you can do a lucky draw just by writing a Post-it here, and also this place…”
Simple, fortunately. Kim Minhwan had returned to his original innocent self.
“Go with our classmates. Looking at this, it seems more fun with more people.”
“It would be uncomfortable for you with them.”
“……”
“I know you talk a lot more compared to before, but I know you still feel awkward. I looked it up, and social anxiety doesn’t get cured right away. You might seem fine on the outside, but I heard it’s actually really uncomfortable…”
Nam Seonwoo looked down at the numerous promotional booklets. Now that he looked closely, all the events checked were ones that only required passive participation. None reflected Minhwan’s own preferences. This directly revealed his kind nature.
