Jaeyoon looked at the red ginseng extract handed to him with cloudy eyes. This was the sixth time. Lee Minho visiting his class to hand him health foods…
‘What the hell is going on?’
Jaeyoon felt his temple aching. Minho had been acting strange since last night. First, he came to his room unexpectedly and hugged him, then apologized out of nowhere, and suddenly left after giving Jaeyoon red ginseng jelly with tears in his eyes.
‘Why is he acting like this?’
Thanks to him, the water Jaeyoon had prepared for his half-body bath overflowed from the tub and soaked the floor. Because of that, Jaeyoon had to abandon his dream of a half-body bath and take a shower late at night.
“Are you very sick?” Heejun asked.
Jaeyoon shook his head vigorously. Except for his insomnia, Jaeyoon’s body was completely healthy.
“Why is your brother suddenly acting like that?”
“…I don’t know, I’d like to know the reason too.”
Seeing Jaeyoon force a smile by lifting one corner of his mouth, Heejun sipped his persimmon leaf tea and patted him on the shoulder.
“It’s almost break time, so go have some fun.”
“But we had plenty of fun yesterday?”
“Yesterday we were promoting.”
They had actually just been having fun everywhere under the pretext of promotion…
“Just go have fun. Do you want to keep working so hard?”
Jaeyoon laughed softly and shook his head.
“Change into something comfortable today and walk around. Hanbok is uncomfortable to move in anyway.”
“Is that okay? We can’t promote without wearing hanbok.”
“I mean, I’d prefer more people coming because of our promotion, but…”
Heejun’s gaze shifted to the class president. His complexion, which had been vibrant just this morning, had turned pale again.
“…Is it my fault?”
“You just did your role brilliantly. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
Before going to change his clothes, Jaeyoon handed the red ginseng extract to the class president, who was working with a resigned expression. He didn’t forget to give a thumbs up in encouragement. The president responded with a strained smile, holding out a trembling thumb.
‘Should I tell him to sleep? His condition looks pretty serious.’
As if reading Jaeyoon’s mind, the president held out his palm and shook his head, indicating he was fine.
‘This guy is a real workaholic…’
“Go have fun. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“I’m worried… if you need to take him to the nurse’s office, let me know. I’ll come right away.”
“Sure, don’t worry and have a good time.”
“…Honestly, I think you should get some sleep too.”
“I’m used to pulling all-nighters, so I’m fine.”
‘Already working so hard at such a young age…’
Leaving behind the worried Heejun and the class president, Jaeyoon went to the bathroom to change his clothes. During the festival period, students were allowed to come to school in comfortable attire. Thanks to that, students wore casual clothes or gym uniforms, and Jaeyoon also came to school in comfortable gym clothes.
Jaeyoon placed the gym uniform he brought to change into on top of the partition and began carefully removing his hanbok.
‘Hanbok is troublesome to put on and take off…’
As he removed the gat from his head and started undoing the hanbok layer by layer, he heard the bathroom door open. Jaeyoon didn’t think much of it, assuming someone had just come to use the bathroom. But the moment he heard the person’s voice, his hands stopped in the middle of undressing.
“Why, why, why are you saying this?”
“…Yeonwoo.”
“Why are you saying such things?”
“I’m sorry…”
Lee Minho, who had visited his class just a little while ago, had somehow gone to Kim Yeonwoo, and they had entered the bathroom together.
‘…Of all the bathrooms, why did they have to come to this one? This isn’t even close to Minho’s class or Yeonwoo’s class…’
Jaeyoon’s expression darkened instantly.
‘No, it’s still a school bathroom… Unless they plan to advertise their relationship everywhere, they wouldn’t be cuddling like in the dormitory room…’
Fortunately, as Jaeyoon hoped, Kim Yeonwoo and Lee Minho weren’t engaging in embarrassingly intimate conversations that would make listeners uncomfortable. But…
“What, what did I do wrong? Is that why? Then please tell me. I’ll fix it!”
“No, no, Yeonwoo. It’s not your fault! This is just… just my personal problem.”
“That’s not true! I must have done something wrong! That’s why you’re saying such things! Since yesterday, you haven’t been responding to my messages properly…”
“That’s… I had some things to think about…”
“You’ve never been late to reply or ignored my calls before! But yesterday, no matter how many times I called, you didn’t answer, and you didn’t read my messages… So please tell me. What did I do wrong? I can fix it! It’s all my fault! So…”
“Yeonwoo, it’s really not your fault. So please don’t say that…”
They were arguing with a serious atmosphere.
‘What’s this? Are they fighting…?’
Jaeyoon was surprised inwardly and opened his eyes wide, having never heard Kim Yeonwoo and a romance character fighting before. He had heard them having lovers’ quarrels, but never such a serious argument.
After blankly listening to the two fighting, Jaeyoon soon put his hand to his forehead.
‘Even if they’re fighting, I still can’t leave…’
Jaeyoon wasn’t insensitive or thick-skinned enough to calmly open the bathroom door and walk out while others were fighting.
‘I wish they’d make a habit of checking if someone’s inside… Why are these secretly dating kids so careless?’
With a resigned expression, Jaeyoon carefully lowered the toilet lid and sat on it. ‘Should I text Jinhoo sunbae to see what he’s doing?’ Jaeyoon’s fingers lightly tapped the phone screen. He was typing with the sound muted just in case, but there was no need to worry about the small noise he was making. Kim Yeonwoo’s voice while talking to Minho was quite loud…
The argument between the two that he couldn’t help but overhear made no sense to him. Kim Yeonwoo kept shouting that he would fix whatever he did wrong and apologize, while Lee Minho tried to calm him down, saying it wasn’t like that and it was his own personal problem.
And so they went back and forth with the same content for about fifty minutes…
‘My legs are numb…’
Jaeyoon wanted to leave now.
‘Why isn’t anyone else coming to the bathroom? If just one person came in, they might quickly wrap up their fight and leave…’
Jaeyoon soon realized why. With them arguing this loudly, it was impossible not to hear it from outside the bathroom.
‘Everyone… avoided it…’
Jaeyoon’s hand hesitated over his smartphone. After tapping the screen in a steady rhythm, he finally wrote a message and sent it to the other person.
Haah, he sighed involuntarily. Resting his forehead on his interlocked hands, Jaeyoon thought it would have been better if he had been a little more insensitive.
‘But being as insensitive as those two might be a bit much too?’
“Haah…”
Jaeyoon seriously doubted whether what they were doing could be called secret dating. Was it possible they actually wanted to show off everywhere but were too shy, so they talked loudly like this hoping others would find out…?
The screen of the phone in Jaeyoon’s hand lit up. He lowered his head to check the message that appeared on his phone screen and smiled brightly at the reply that said [I’ll be right there].
‘Finally I can leave!’
By the time Jaeyoon was asking for help, the argument between Kim Yeonwoo and Lee Minho had not ended. It seems like nothing major, why don’t they just apologize to each other and end it… As Jaeyoon was about to lean back and push his bangs back, he froze in shock at what came out of Yeonwoo’s mouth.
“Then why did you say we should stop seeing each other? What do you mean you won’t come see me anymore?”
Jaeyoon’s blue eyes opened wide.
‘…What…?’
“…I’m sorry.”
“Tell me the reason! I’ll do better. So…”
“I’ve said it several times, Yeonwoo, it’s not your fault. I’m not doing this because of you, it’s my personal problem… So, I’m sorry.”
“What is this personal problem you keep talking about? Why won’t you tell me?”
“…Sorry, I can’t say.”
“No. I don’t want this. I don’t want to not see you, sunbae…”
“Yeonwoo… ugh, I’m sorry…”
Jaeyoon doubted his ears. Is that really Minho’s voice? Even though there was no way he could have misheard, Jaeyoon listened again to confirm, unable to believe what he was hearing.
‘Minho told Yeonwoo they should stop seeing each other?’
Jaeyoon’s pupils shook rapidly. Did he eat something bad last night? Maybe his head was affected by eating desserts made by the dessert club? Otherwise, the idea of Minho cutting ties with Yeonwoo made no sense.
‘If you were going to break up so quickly, why did you cut ties with your brother?’
Just as Jaeyoon was clutching his forehead from the oncoming headache…
BANG!
The bathroom door was flung open violently, and Jung Jinhoo entered. Kim Yeonwoo and Lee Minho’s bodies flinched. Jinhoo jerked his chin toward the exit and spoke to the two who were staring at him with startled eyes.
“You’re too loud. Go fight somewhere else.”
Their faces froze instantly at his cold gaze.
“D-did you hear everything…?”
At Minho’s question, Jinhoo narrowed his brow. His golden eyes narrowed. Tilting his head to the side, a low voice flowed from Jinhoo’s lips.
“I thought you were desperate for people to hear, but I guess not?”
Get out. At Jinhoo’s command to leave, the two hurried out of the bathroom. In the now quiet bathroom, Jaeyoon opened the partition door and came out.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m sorry for asking such a favor.”
“That doesn’t matter… but your legs, are they trembling?”
“Ah, that’s because I got a cramp…”
Having sat in a tense state for almost an hour, his legs had cramped. As Jaeyoon laughed helplessly while feeling his tingling legs, Jinhoo turned around and crouched down. Seeing Jinhoo’s posture as if offering a piggyback ride, Jaeyoon’s blue eyes shook rapidly.
“…You don’t expect me to get on your back, do you?”
“That’s exactly what I expect.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m not so bad that I can’t walk.”
“It’s okay, I won’t drop you.”
That’s not the problem…
“I don’t want to become a spectacle.”
Getting a piggyback ride at this age… Jaeyoon shook his head quickly from side to side. He had carried drunk friends to taxis many times, but he had never been carried on a friend’s back himself.
He had been carried by his parents a few times when he was young, but personally, he found it embarrassing to be carried by someone else as an adult.
When Jaeyoon politely declined, Jinhoo looked puzzled at first, but then as if something had occurred to him, he changed his sitting position, went down on one knee facing Jaeyoon, and spread his arms.
“I definitely don’t want to be carried in your arms!”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
