95.
It was a week and a day later that he met that boy again.
Just like when they first met, the boy with a school bag on his back and a convenience store bag in his hand was passing through the alley in front of his house, and when he saw Chae Yoo-jeong, his eyes widened slightly. The boy also remembered Chae Yoo-jeong.
“Uh, hi.”
Unlike Chae Yoo-jeong, who looked out the window and checked the alley every day in case the boy passed by, his reaction was very calm.
When Chae Yoo-jeong saw the boy walking close to him, he secretly smelled his own body. Fortunately, there was less odor today.
“Do you live here?”
Just like last time, the boy spoke informally as a matter of course.
He seemed to think that Chae Yoo-jeong was much younger than him. Not surprisingly, the boy was one head taller than Chae Yoo-jeong. The difference was due to the fact that the boy was much taller than his peers, and Chae Yoo-jeong was much shorter than his peers.
The boy approached Chae Yoo-jeong, who was hesitant and unable to answer, and took something out of his convenience store bag and held it out, just like last time. This time it was a light-yellow sausage.
The boy smiled slightly as if he thought Chae Yoo-jeong was cute and asked as he took the sausage out so that it would reach him.
“What is your name?”
“……”
“How old are you?”
“…….”
Chae Yoo-jeong blinked his big eyes and pursed his lips. Despite ignoring everything he said, the boy didn’t seem particularly offended, and sat down on the steps of the alley.
Chae Yoo-jeong, who was glancing at him, sat down as well, about three steps away from him. The two sat side by side and ate the sausages in silence.
Chae Yoo-jeong followed the boy’s lead, ripped off the plastic skin on the outside of the sausage, and took a bite. The sausage he ate for the first time following the triangle gimbap last time was really delicious.
After about 10 minutes, the boy who had finished eating the sausage got up from his seat. Then he left without any regrets, without even giving Chae Yoo-jeong a chance to catch him.
The meeting that had been waiting for over a week ended in vain like this. Chae Yoo-jeong, who had been sitting in silence for a long time after the boy left, lamented belatedly.
‘That’s stupid.......’
He kept waiting and when they actually met, he felt so stupid that he couldn’t say a single word properly. He wanted to at least say thank you.
‘Just going to eat it again.’
Chae Yoo-jeong, who was looking down at the plastic sausage wrapper left in his hand, raised his head, and looked at the alley across from where the boy had disappeared.
***
After his second meeting with a boy who he didn’t even know the name of, the person Chae Yoo-jeong waited for late at night changed from the woman to the boy.
Chae Yoo-jeong was hoping that the boy would come visit him at least once more like his first and his second encounter. At the end of February, ten days later, he finally found that the boy had appeared in the alley again.
Chae Yoo-jeong ran out in a hurry, taking the small piece of candy he had managed to find after searching through his house. Suddenly, he pushed aside the rusty iron door and came out in front of his house, and the boy who had been scrambling while looking at his cell phone noticed Chae Yoo-jeong.
“Uh, hi.”
He greeted him the same way as last time. Feeling the sound of his heart pounding, Chae Yoo-jeong struggled to open his mouth.
“...Hi.”
It was a voice as small as an ant. But just that short answer made him so nervous that he couldn’t help but stutter.
The boy who managed to hear that small greeting looked surprised for a moment, but then smiled his characteristic soft smile.
“Do you even know how to say hello?”
“……”
Chae Yoo-jeong blushed, not knowing how to react to the light tease. The boy, who was looking curiously at Chae Yoo-jeong’s cheeks as he stood on his feet, said as he put his cell phone in his coat pocket.
“I don’t have anything to eat today.”
Certainly, unlike last time, there were no convenience store bags today. Chae Yoo-jeong shook his small head and held out his hand, which was tightly holding a candy.
When he opened his fist, clenching it so hard that his skin turned white, the little candy fell out. His yellow packaging shell sparkled in the streetlight.
“Are you giving it to me?”
This time Chae Yoo-jeong’s head bobbed up and down. The boy who was looking around at the candy with a strange expression asked.
“How old are you?”
“14 years old.”
“What? really?”
The boy, who opened the candy wrapper without caution and immediately put it in his mouth, showed a very surprising reaction when he heard Chae Yoo-jeong’s answer.
“I thought you were 12 at most.”
Chae Yoo-jeong, who was offended by the words of the boy who shaved two years off his age, fiercely retorted.
“I’m 14.”
“I’m 15.”
The boy, who chewed the candy and slowly spit out a word, lowered his upper body and made eye contact with Chae Yoo-jeong.
“When you’re 14, you start middle school, right? Where do you go to school?”
“...Next to here.”
“Yuseong Middle School? I go there too. School starts next week. If I do well, I can meet you at school.”
Chae Yoo-jeong’s round eyes shone as he continued to speak. Same school? So, instead of just snooping around in front of the window like now, we can meet whenever we want?
Chae Yoo-jeong never enjoyed the place called school even for a single moment. But somehow he felt a little happy thinking that this boy was in the middle school he was going to start next week.
“That’s…….”
It was the moment when Chae Yoo-jeong, who had been hesitant, finally had the courage to open his mouth to ask his name. A vibrating sound rang out of the boy’s coat pocket and interrupted his words.
“Thank you for the candy.”
The boy took out his cell phone, checked the screen, spoke a final greeting, and turned his back without hesitation.
Unlike Chae Yoo-jeong, who still had a lot of questions, the other person didn’t seem to be very interested in him. If you think about it, that attitude was normal. Who would pay attention to a child you just met by chance on the street and talked to for about 10 minutes?
Chae Yoo-jeong was even less sociable than the other children and was extremely timid. And he stinks... and it’s not much fun to talk to him....
Chae Yoo-jeong, who was left alone where the boy left him, continued trudging along, blaming himself for how pathetic he is as usual. Still, he gave the candy today and found out that they were at the same school, so it’s not like he didn’t get anything out of it. That fact was the only comfort to him.
***
As February passed and March passed, Chae Yoo-jeong became a middle school student and wore a school uniform.
While he didn’t know the boy’s name and was worried about how he would find someone in the same school, Chae Yoo-jeong was able to hear about the boy right away just a few days after school started.
He said the boy’s name was Yoo Ji-han and he was in class 5, of the second year. He was quite famous around school for his decent grades and neat behavior. It was said that many girls liked him, perhaps because of his looks.
He was so popular that it even reached the ears of Chae Yoo-jeong, who had no friends and rarely went out of class. Contrary to Chae Yoo-jeong’s expectation that they would meet at any time if they were in the same school, the two did not see each other even once until the end of March, almost a month later.
Since the grades were different and most classes were held in classrooms, there was not much time to go around the school. He waited every night to see if Yoo Ji-han would pass by the alley in front of his house, but he never came.
In the end, Chae Yoo-jeong couldn’t bear it any longer and, feeling like he was grasping at straws, he went out into the hallway alone. He planned to look around the school every recess and lunch hour to meet Yoo Ji-han, who might be somewhere.
Chae Yoo-jeong, whose shoulders were stiff from tension, was shorter in height and build than his female students. Chae Yoo-jeong staggered out of the classroom and started walking down the hallway as his feet took him.
‘Where is he?’
The hallway where all kinds of students wandered around was a lawless area in an unusual way from the classroom.
It was truly horrible because there were noisy, rude, and careless people running around indiscriminately. Chae Yoo-jeong walked around the hallways whenever he had time, suppressing the disgust rising from deep in his heart.
Three days passed like that. He visited all the places he could but couldn’t find Yoo Ji-han. He made a firm determination and went to class 5 of the second year, but Yoo Ji-han was nowhere to be seen.
It was at that time that Chae Yoo-jeong let out a sigh of exhaustion and was about to go down the stairs and return to his class. Across from him, a group of male students, who were burlier than average students, approached while making a loud noise.
“……!”
The person in the center of the group of five or six people was Yoo Ji-han, whom Chae Yoo-jeong had been looking for. He was walking with a soccer ball and smiled brightly when his friend said something.
Unlike Chae Yoo-jeong, who was dressed tightly, including his tie, Yoo Ji-han was wearing a school uniform shirt with all buttons undone over his short-sleeved t-shirt. The sight of Yoo Ji-han coming towards him, chatting lively with his friends, felt so bright to him, like the midday sun.
His heart pounded loudly as he came face to face with Yoo Ji-han, who was so different from himself. He gave strength to his slightly trembling hand and opened his mouth towards Yoo Ji-han, who had come right in front of him.
“Yoo……”
“The kid kicking the ball over there is crazy!”
“Now, it looks like Ji-han’s buying drinks because of you.”
“Anyway, I got points with that, so why all the fuss?”
Before Chae Yoo-jeong could finish speaking, someone hit his shoulder hard. Yoo Ji-han and a group of male students who did not hear Chae Yoo-jeong’s call passed by, talking amongst themselves. It was Yoo Ji-han who hit his shoulder.
Chae Yoo-jeong, who was pushed back by his strength, was completely pushed back by just hitting his shoulder, causing his back to hit the wall in the hallway. When he finally met Yoo Ji-han, his once flushed face instantly turned pale.
I’m sick of it.
Yoo Ji-han’s voice became increasingly distant. In the place where Yoo Ji-han’s pleasant-to-hear voice disappeared, several voices mocking him filled up.
“Look at that bastard.”
“It’s so embarrassing.”
He looked around but could not see the owner of the voice. However, it was not visible to his eyes, but he could constantly hear the sound of ridicule.
The sense of nausea rose strongly. Confused, Chae Yoo-jeong left his place as if he was running away by moving his feet in a hurry.
---
Credits:
Translator: Hoshi Miya
Editor: Meimei
Support on Kofi:
HM: I sorta feel sad but at the same time…. Dang… did Yoo Ji-han really not notice him there? It seems that Yoo Ji-han was popular from the time he was born. www
GX: Oh no, I don’t know who to feel bad for. But our beloved MC was popular from the beginning, I’m glad that he was at least liked by his peers?
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