#2
Since he wouldn’t play along, had he suddenly changed? It turned out that he wasn’t actually nice but just pretending to be. All sorts of thoughts crossed my mind, but Nam Seonwoo still sat there with a dazed expression.
“Get lost since you have nothing to say.”
At that moment, Nam Seonwoo’s shoulders twitched. His eyes widened as he stared at me, and his gaze was focused again. It was as if he had been dreaming until just a moment ago.
He’s a bit strange. Among my mother’s colleagues, I had seen someone whose mind wandered like that. Thinking he might be of that type, I was about to get up when Nam Seonwoo let out a strange exclamation.
“…Wow.”
Then he muttered something and suddenly burst into laughter. His condition seemed more serious than I thought. As I was considering seriously recommending treatment, my vision spun with a dull thud.
“…?”
What just…
Looking up, Nam Seonwoo was looking at his palm with a refreshed face. Only then did I realize that he had slapped my head with that white hand. It was more bewildering than painful.
…Why?
I couldn’t understand why Nam Seonwoo, who had been sitting there looking like he was about to confess, suddenly hit my head, or why he had such a relieved expression. None of it made sense.
“You, right now—”
“What, you bastard.”
His tone was completely different. So, I could only stare blankly at Nam Seonwoo as he pushed his fingers into his forehead and muttered incomprehensible words. He cursed, saying I had no manners, that I would grow old and die alone, and laughed as he spewed all sorts of insults. His face didn’t seem sane even if I tried to see it positively. When I asked what he was doing, he just got angrier, so he seemed like a crazy person. A pretty-faced lunatic.
Then it happened.
“Anyway, live well. I’m leaving.”
Unlike his previous giggling, Nam Seonwoo was smiling brightly as he said that.
At the moment I saw that bright smile, I felt a strange feeling. I didn’t know what this feeling was, but I thought I had to grab Nam Seonwo. As I hastily reached out, the homeroom teacher opened the door and came in.
“Lunchtime is over, you guys. Sit down.”
Following Park Gyuhyeon, who appeared next, Nam Seonwoo was dragged back to his seat. Fortunately.
‘…Fortunately?’
The thought that suddenly crossed my mind felt unfamiliar, as if it wasn’t mine. When I shook my head and came to my senses, Nam Seonwoo was quietly sitting in his seat. Looking at the back of his head, I thought, maybe I’m having a ridiculous dream right now. But seeing Nam Seonwoo cautiously checking his surroundings after school, it didn’t seem so.
The bewildered feeling continued even after I got on the motorcycle after school. But from the next day, Nam Seonwoo became quiet again, and that uneasy feeling seemed to disappear. Until Nam Seonwoo collapsed from a shuttlecock a few days later.
It was Saturday. Even while playing badminton in the school gym, Nam Seonwoo was running around well. The body hidden under his T-shirt seemed like it had never seen the sun in its life, but surprisingly, he nimbly returned the shuttlecock. I thought he was just a bit thin but had decent stamina, but I never expected him to faint from being hit by a shuttlecock.
Nam Seonwoo, lying on the hospital bed, looked like a corpse with his already pale face. Even though the nurse said there was nothing wrong, I couldn’t relax and even put my finger under his nose. Feeling a faint but regular breath, I felt an inexplicable sense of relief, but for some reason, I couldn’t leave my seat. So I waited. Until Nam Seonwoo opened his eyes.
On the way back home, I took out the shuttlecock I had put in my pocket and dropped it over my head. The shuttlecock was so light that I couldn’t feel its weight at all.
‘What on earth…’
I couldn’t even imagine how weak he must be to faint from this. Was he not just mentally unstable but also physically weak? As I thought about that, the day had already darkened.
Even after doing a couple of part-time jobs as a substitute and coming back to finish showering, the image of Nam Seonwoo lying in the hospital bed didn’t leave my mind.
At first, I thought it was because I was so shocked that Nam Seonwoo had collapsed. But the ‘discomfort’ that followed every time I recalled that image was far from being just shocked. As I chewed over the familiar yet unpleasant feeling, my mother came home, and seeing her haggard face, I thought I knew where this familiar discomfort came from.
My mother often fell ill. When I was young, I was afraid that she might not wake up when I saw her lying thin in the hospital bed. It was a memory from long ago that I had forgotten, but it seemed that the unpleasant memory had unconsciously resurfaced.
Looking at the clock, it was past midnight. I had left a note taking responsibility for throwing the shuttlecock, but my phone remained silent.
Even as Sunday midnight passed into Monday morning, there was no contact from Nam Seonwoo.
—
The impression of Nam Seonwoo changed day by day. From a mentally weak person to an old man with a strange way of speaking, and then to an annoying study bug. Of course, Nam Seonwoo wasn’t the typical study bug type. After all, such an annoying guy wouldn’t have made a year’s worth of study plans for a complete stranger, let alone on a weekly basis.
I couldn’t define Nam Seonwoo with a single word, but one thing was certain: he was a type I had never seen before. Sometimes he seemed to have lived a lifetime with his maturity, and other times he seemed like a childish kid who would bet his life on a game.
So I kept watching him. Even when he was pretending to be a silly Santa, or when he was rolling a surprisingly pleasant English pronunciation in his mouth.
Through Nam Seonwoo, I learned that a person could have such diverse aspects. And through Nam Seonwoo, I also learned that spending time with others didn’t have to be uncomfortable.
Nam Seonwoo knew how to draw the line. He could have asked about the lush rumors, or questioned whether it was me who had the chicken delivered that time, but Nam Seonwoo never asked any of those questions.
That appropriate distance was comfortable. Since we were just classmates sharing a classroom for a year before parting, it was good that he didn’t show unnecessary interference and concern. I had disliked such things and didn’t feel the need to interact with others, but I thought it would be okay to have Nam Seonwoo by my side. It seemed it wouldn’t be bad to meet occasionally even after graduation.
So I took him home. As expected, Nam Seonwoo didn’t exclaim excessively about the house or ask about the family members. The only thing he asked was where to buy the red pepper powder used in my mother’s kimchi. Without changing his expression at the strange dishes, Nam Seonwoo emptied the side dishes one by one.
“Jihani likes me so much that it’s troublesome. How much? He even wipes the blackboard for me and does the recycling…”
It was amazing that even though he kept talking nonstop, it didn’t feel noisy. The repeated “Jihani, Jihani” wasn’t annoying but rather pleasant to hear. The sound of conversation echoing at the dining table and the continuous laughter in between were also nice.
Even after coming into the room, Nam Seonwoo kept chattering. He not only got onto the bed in his outdoor clothes but also rustled around on it, but I didn’t particularly stop him. The way he rubbed his face on the sheet as if he liked the texture was like a cat. And when he yawned, he looked exactly like a cat.
The chattering voice changed to a sleepy murmur, but Nam Seonwoo’s voice was clearly imprinted in my ears, syllable by syllable.
“Kang Jihan… smell.”
At that moment, I couldn’t help but look at Nam Seonwoo. I wanted to ask why he was saying such a thing with that face, but his sleeping face was too peaceful, so I couldn’t bring myself to wake him. I lifted the neck of his T-shirt slightly and smelled it, but I couldn’t figure out what Nam Seonwoo was talking about.
Alone in the room, smelling the bedding where Nam Seonwoo had rubbed his face was an unconscious act. There was a faint scent that I had never smelled in the room. As I brought my face closer, I felt as if a soap bubble had popped.
“…?”
For some reason, the feeling was strange, so I turned off the light and lay down. But the strange feeling didn’t go away easily. The bed I had lain on every day felt unfamiliar, as if it belonged to someone else. As I closed my eyes, a faint scent lingered around my face.
‘…Is he wearing perfume?’
Since the scent remained even though he had only lain there for a few hours, it seemed that was the case. Nam Seonwoo wearing perfume. It was absurd, and I laughed. But the more I thought about it, the more it strangely seemed to suit him. I imagined Nam Seonwoo spraying perfume under his school uniform shirt every morning. Until I could no longer smell the soap scent.
But it wasn’t perfume.
On a day when the summer rain soaked my whole body, the scent that rose among the grassy smell became stronger in the narrow shower booth. Only then did I realize that the scent was Nam Seonwoo’s body odor. I didn’t even have time to think about how a man’s body could smell like this. The sight before my eyes was too white.
“I think it got inside your clothes earlier. Can you… take it off, quickly…”
I thought the part revealed outside the summer uniform shirt was white enough, but the inside was even more so. …More than I thought.
“What are you doing! Just…”
As I lifted my gaze, which had been fixed, and reached out my hand, I thought I might have been stung by a caterpillar. The tingling sensation that ran through my body made me quickly pull back my hand, but the caterpillar was quietly sitting on my finger. The body fluttering in front of me was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear it.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
