3) Wanting to Be Helpful
A few days later, Han Jun really did come back.
Yi-hyeon didn’t know how he’d managed to persuade Assemblyman Han, but seeing Han Jun return to school filled him with so much joy he felt like he might leap into the air. Han Jun was no different than before—slumped forward with his head down at his desk—but Yi-hyeon hadn’t realized that just seeing him like that could make him this happy, and the realization left him dumbfounded.
While secretly peeking at the back of Han Jun’s head as he slept the moment he arrived, Yi-hyeon fiddled with a mechanical pencil tucked inside his pencil case.
It was a cute mechanical pencil he’d discovered while at the stationery store buying art supplies. The Pomeranian face attached to the cap looked just like Louis. Hoping that every time Han Jun saw it, his longing for Louis might ease just a little, Yi-hyeon had even gone so far as to spend a whole week’s worth of allowance in advance to buy it—but now that Han Jun was right in front of him, Yi-hyeon worried that it might only make him think of Louis even more.
Suddenly feeling uneasy, Yi-hyeon couldn’t bring himself to give him the pencil.
Just as he was about to close his pencil case again—
A harsh, acrid smell stabbed at Yi-hyeon’s nose, his olfactory cells—now thousands, tens of thousands of times more sensitive than a human’s—sending the sensation straight to his brain.
He gagged reflexively.
Wonseok, who’d been wafting the stench of nicotine as he passed by Yi-hyeon’s seat, stopped short and stepped backward.
Then he snatched the mechanical pencil Yi-hyeon had been fiddling with just moments ago.
“Did you just gag at me? What the hell? What is it—did you catch a whiff of my mouth like Han Jun did or something? That kind of… what, nuance?”
“No. It’s just… I’m kind of sensitive to cigarette smells……”
“Cigarettes? Who was smoking?”
“I’m not saying you smoked—just… that the smell’s coming from you.”
“Oh, really? That bastard Lee Woo-in—I told him not to smoke next to me.”
Lee Woo-in was the vice class president of Yi-hyeon’s class. Someone just as far removed from cigarettes as Yi-hyeon himself. Even without that, Yi-hyeon had known from the start that Wonseok was lying. Every time Wonseok breathed, the acrid stench was already mixed into his breath.
“Anyway, how old are you, seriously, to be using some elementary-schooler-level pencil like this…… you keep saying ‘cute, cute’—what, did you devolve or something?”
“Give it back.”
Yi-hyeon reached out his hand to demand it back, but Wonseok lifted his arm high, putting it well out of reach. Left with no choice, Yi-hyeon stood up from his seat and stretched his arm, rising onto his tiptoes. Wonseok mirrored him, lifting his heels too, flashing an infuriating grin with his eyes.
“Ohhh, Yoon Yi-hyeon’s getting taller. Growing nice and tall.”
“Give it to me.”
As Yi-hyeon tried to grab the pencil, he lost his balance and pitched forward. Better to fall than to cling to Wonseok. Just as he was about to hit Wonseok’s chest, he blocked himself with his elbow.
“You’re really pressing up on me hard, huh? What’s this? You into me or something?”
Even so, Wonseok snickered, mocking him, calling him gay, calling him a homo, just because Yi-hyeon had touched him. Humiliated to the point his face burned, Yi-hyeon took a step back and clenched his fist tight.
“It’s because I couldn’t reach, so I stood on my tiptoes and lost my balance.”
Wonseok plopped his hand down on Yi-hyeon’s head.
“Then why didn’t you grow taller, huh? Doesn’t your orphanage give kids milk or something? Wanna me buy you some? Though I guess they wouldn’t give a shit about the height of kids who aren’t even their own, right?”
The insult—mocking people who cherished the orphanage kids like their own children—made Yi-hyeon’s tightly clenched fist tremble.
You can’t cause trouble.
At that moment, a voice of reason barked inside Yi-hyeon’s head. At the same time, the many circumstances surrounding him flashed by in rapid succession—the director who trusted him, the fact that he still had over half a year left until graduation, the kind of retaliation he might face if he provoked Wonseok now.
He’d already lost his mid-term scholarship. If he resorted to violence here, the scholarship would be gone for good. And if it escalated to a transfer?
Yi-hyeon’s clenched fist never reached Wonseok.
Just as Yi-hyeon bit down on his lip in frustration—
“But this bastard really doesn’t know the meaning of ‘enough,’ does he? Keeps crossing the line.”
So childish.
Han Jun appeared behind Wonseok and snatched the mechanical pencil right out of his hand.
Then, twirling the pencil lazily between his fingers, Han Jun lifted the corner of his eyes. Wonseok’s eyebrows scrunched together, irritation brimming as if to say here we go again, his lips twitching.
“Whether I’m childish or not is none of your business. And why do you keep sticking your nose into other people’s personal affairs?”
“Then how about you don’t cross the line in the first place.”
“What line, you little shit?”
“What else? Your lifeline. You keep buzzing around in front of my eyes like a damn gnat—it makes me want to pop you and kill you.”
“Then try killing me, you bastard.”
When Wonseok grabbed him by the collar, students crowded around to watch the fight.
“Is grabbing collars your hobby or something?”
“Grabbing the collars of fucked-up assholes like you is my hobby.”
“Ah…… same here.”
Just as it seemed Han Jun was about to knock Wonseok’s hand away, he suddenly grabbed Wonseok by the hair and yanked him down to the floor. With a loud crash, Wonseok rolled across the classroom floor.
“Grabbing the hair of fucked-up assholes is my hobby too, so I figured I’d enjoy my hobby for once. You cool with that?”
Humiliated by being thrown to the floor in front of everyone, Wonseok grabbed a chair next to him, about to hurl it at Han Jun. Han Jun stomped down hard on the chair’s metal brace, pinning it in place, then bent at the waist and shoved his face close to Wonseok’s.
“For fuck’s sake, grow up already, asshole.”
Han Jun straightened up with a bright, almost cheerful smile and turned away.
“Won’t you shut the fuck up? Aah, fuck! That insignificant piece of shit……!”
Unable to contain his rage, Wonseok slammed his clenched fist into the classroom floor.
“It’s yours, right?”
Han Jun tossed the mechanical pencil with a soft thud onto Yi-hyeon’s textbook. Then, stretching his long arms in a lazy yawn, he walked out of the classroom.
Yi-hyeon stared blankly at Han Jun through the window, and once he disappeared from view, Yi-hyeon silently picked up the pencil.
He helped me again!
A gentle smile spread across Yi-hyeon’s lips—but when Wonseok suddenly sprang up, shouting “Agh!”, Yi-hyeon flinched and hurriedly tucked the pencil back into his case.
***
Having taken a solid hit from Han Jun, Wonseok swore bloody revenge and began waiting for an opening. Grinding his teeth and watching Han Jun’s every move out of the corner of his eye, several days passed—until reports came in from students about a strange smell coming from the lockers. The homeroom teacher began inspecting them, then stopped near locker number 12, pinching his nose.
“Owner of this locker, stand up.”
Haejun, the owner of the locker, stood from his seat.
Haejun was one of Wonseok’s closest friends and a member of the delinquent group that went around bullying other students with him. Unlike Wonseok, however, his father ran a private college prep academy, and perhaps because of that, he was a thug who still managed to do fairly well academically.
“Open it.”
With a scowl, Haejun walked over and opened the locker door. A nauseating stench poured out.
To Yi-hyeon, whose sense of smell was especially sharp, it was an unbearable, revolting odor. He quickly clamped his hand over his nose, but couldn’t stop the gack! that escaped him.
Most of the students ate the school lunch.
And their behavior changed dramatically depending on whether lunch was good or bad. On days when the food was terrible, students would hide portable burners in the empty lot behind the school, on the rooftop, or in unused rooms and cook ramen or grill pork belly. Getting caught meant a trip to the teachers’ office, but students couldn’t easily give up the taste—or the thrill.
Inside Haejun’s locker were ramen packets and eggs he’d been cooking and eating along with them. With late spring bringing warmer weather, it seemed the eggs had spoiled and burst.
“Lim Haejun, care to explain to the teacher what this is?”
“I bought it for my mom as an errand?”
Haejun met the homeroom teacher’s twisted expression head-on, answering as if there were nothing wrong.
“Does anyone take two months to run an errand?”
The teacher tapped the egg’s expiration date with his pointer, irritation thick in his voice.
“Ah, it was an errand from two months ago—I just forgot about it.”
