ST 05

Chapter 05

She was about a hand’s width shorter than me and small in build.

Seeing her carrying a school bag, it seemed she too had just arrived at school.

My gaze naturally drifted to her left chest.

Han Songi.

I read the name on the white name tag and nodded.

“Yeah. Do you happen to know where it is?”

“Go straight to the left and it’s at the very end.”

“Thanks.”

As Han Songi said, the faculty office was at the left end of the hallway, and by the time I came to my senses, I was following the homeroom teacher toward my new classroom.

Second year, Class 3, number 12, Yoon Seul.

I repeated my newly assigned affiliation in my head several times.

Just that alone made me feel strangely like I’d really been given a place here.

Drrrr—.

As I followed the teacher into the classroom, the noisy atmosphere died down in an instant.

The teacher tapped the podium with the attendance book.

“Alright, everyone, say hello. We have a new transfer student from Seoul today. Seul-a, introduce yourself to the kids.”

I slowly scanned the students’ eyes and greeted them.

“Hi. Nice to meet you. I’m Yoon Seul, and I transferred from Gangsol High School in Seoul. Let’s get along well.”

At the mention of Seoul, the quiet classroom immediately stirred.

“She’s from Seoul.”

“But why did she transfer all the way here?”

Lowered voices came from here and there.

Not all the gazes were merely curious.

There were eyes scanning me up and down, and kids giggling as they exchanged glances.

Mr. Byeongun’s words about transfer students being rare suddenly felt real.

Come to think of it, I must have been an outsider through and through—suddenly wedged among kids who’d grown up in the same neighborhood since childhood.

“Seul, you can sit at the end of the first row over there.”

The teacher gestured with his chin toward an empty seat by the window. Even as I crossed the classroom to take my seat, several gazes followed me.

When our eyes met I smiled lightly, but all I got back were awkwardly averted glances.

Perhaps because I’d never had many friends, the reaction wasn’t entirely unfamiliar.

With that thought, I set my bag down on the empty seat.

As soon as I sat down, the teacher launched straight into the morning assembly.

I was half-listening, staring out the window, letting the talk about suspicious people lurking near the school lately and not walking alone after sunset wash over me—when it happened.

“Sorry I’m late.”

An indifferent voice came from the back of the classroom.

I turned my head without thinking and froze solid.

“…Huh?”

It was him. The boy from yesterday.

The one who’d pulled me out of the pool and vanished without even telling me his name.

Seeing him standing at the door neatly dressed in his uniform gave a completely different impression from yesterday.

The hair that had been plastered to his forehead, wet, was now dry and soft, and his straight neckline showed beneath a white shirt with a loosely tied necktie.

Yesterday I’d been too flustered to notice, but he was quite tall too.

Found him.

Much sooner than I expected.

My heart began pounding as if it had been waiting.

“Bae Dohun.”

At the teacher’s voice, I learned his name for the first time.

“Showing a great example by being late on the new transfer student’s first day. Hurry up and get in.”

“Sorry.”

Dohun bowed his head and entered the classroom. And then he walked straight toward me.

‘…No way?’

My heart beat faster and faster.

The closer he got, the more my expectations swelled along with it. Dohun stopped right next to my desk.

It was the empty seat beside me.

“……”

He looked at me, and I looked at him.

On his indifferent face—just like at the pool yesterday—a flicker of bewilderment passed for just a moment.

He recognized me.

The moment I realized that, the corners of my lips rose.

Meanwhile, Bae Dohun pulled out the chair and sat down without a word.

“Hi. We meet again. You remember me, right?”

Bae Dohun’s hands, which had been organizing his bag, paused briefly.

Then with a short sigh, without even looking at me, he spoke low.

“We’re in the middle of assembly.”

Even that one word made me smile.

Because it meant he remembered.

I subtly tilted my body so the teacher wouldn’t see.

“I found out your name.”

When I smiled with my eyes folded, this time he turned his head.

“You didn’t tell me yesterday.”

Dohun looked at me as if incredulous.

Yesterday I’d rolled around on my bed because I couldn’t get his name, and today all I had to do was turn my head and there he was.

From that day on, I began wedging myself into Bae Dohun’s days very quickly.

Bae Dohun came to school around 8:10 every morning. The first day when he was late was the exception.

When he arrived, he came straight to the classroom, and during self-study he’d plug in his earphones and work through textbooks or problem sets.

It wasn’t that he had no friends.

He just didn’t seem to like moving in groups.

Especially at lunch—unlike the other kids who bolted the moment the bell rang, he always got up quite a while later.

“You’re not eating?”

At first I asked out of curiosity.

“I eat.”

“Then why aren’t you going?”

“There are too many people.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“I can bear it.”

He was a strange one.

The boys I’d known were always in a hurry to dash out before anyone else when lunchtime came.

Thanks to that, those hours were quite welcome to me—who still didn’t have a single friend in class to properly talk to.

Often, I and Dohun were the only ones left in the classroom after the kids rushed out.

Glance—I looked outside the classroom.

The hallway was already full of kids leaving in small groups.

We’d been facing each other in the same classroom for days now, but there was still no one I was close enough with to naturally blend into that crowd.

When Dohun came out late and walked the hallway, I’d trail two or so steps behind him, shuffling along, and even when we reached the cafeteria, rather than pretending to know him in front of the other kids, I’d loiter around wherever Dohun sat.

And every time, Dohun noticed me first.

“What are you doing. Aren’t you going to sit?”

Only then would I pull out the chair across from him as if I’d been waiting.

“Can I sit here?”

“You’re already sitting.”

“I suppose I am.”

After PE class, in front of the quietened snack shop, I’d watch what Dohun picked out.

“You’re going to choose that?”

I asked Dohun, who’d picked up white milk.

“Then I’ll have that too.”

“You’re already holding strawberry milk.”

“Well, if I alternate between the two, it’ll taste good.”

Naturally, I’d never done that. I just wanted to pick the same thing as Dohun.

Dohun scanned me with a peculiar look.

“You’re really weird.”

“I get that a lot.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

I was happy anyway.

I figured out his route home too.

When everything was done, Bae Dohun would leave through the school’s back gate, pass the old stationery shop, and turn right at the small intersection.

Coincidentally, the road to the house where I was staying was that way too. I’d learned this by happening to walk the same path.

But even though we’d cleared up the misunderstanding on the first day, Dohun always turned around around the small intersection.

“Why are you following me. Stop following me.”

Feeling wronged, I quickened my pace and stuck to his side.

“It’s because I’m going this way too.”

“……”

“If you don’t like it, you go a different way.”

Dohun looked down at me as if incredulous.

“Ha, whatever.”

But even as he said that, he didn’t just go on ahead alone.

When I stuck to his side, he’d react as if it were bothersome, but he never fully pushed me away.

Rather, if I fell behind, his pace would slow a little at some point, and if I spoke to him, he wouldn’t ignore me—he always answered.

Of course, the problem was that most of his answers were one-liners.

Bae Dohun was a standout at school too.

When passing by other classes’ rooms, some kids would lean out past the windows just to catch a glimpse of Dohun’s face, and underclassmen whose names he didn’t even know would wave cheerfully from far away.

It was even more so on days when the swimming club had practice.

Girls who didn’t seem remotely interested in swimming loitered around the gymnasium.

Around practice-end time, kids holding drinks would appear one by one.

But the person in question, Bae Dohun, seemed utterly unmoved by such attention.

He’d accept greetings offhandedly and answer only as much as necessary when spoken to.

Even when handed a drink, a single word of thanks was all there was.

And yet the girls would blush and smile.

Of course, I was one of them too.

Around that time, I naturally came to realize.

Ah, he’s popular.

It was only natural, really.

He had looks that stood out even from afar, and I heard he was decent at studying too.

During breaks, boys would naturally crowd around Dohun’s desk, and he’d sometimes laugh among them.

The first time I saw that, I felt a little wronged.

Come to think of it, he was especially cold only to me.

“You’re popular, huh?”

Dohun, working on a problem set, answered without even lifting his head.

“So?”

“Just saying.”

I tapped the corner of my desk with the tip of my pencil for no reason.

After watching that for a few days, something started to bother me.

“…Then do you have someone you like, by any chance?”

The scratching pencil stopped.

Dohun looked down at his problem set for a moment, then spoke.

“No.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah.”

The corners of my lips rose without my meaning them to.

“I seee.”

“What kind of reaction is that?”

“Nothing, just.”

I turned away with a smile.

I had no intention of explaining.

A few ordinary days passed.

Every morning I greeted him without fail, and at lunch I hovered around him as he tried to eat alone and claimed the seat in front of him.

After school, I trailed along behind him as he headed to the pool.

Looking back, I fell for Bae Dohun with strange speed.

When would the Chairman call me back, when could I return to Seoul—

The idle thoughts that had eaten at me before I came down to Cheonghae didn’t cross my mind even once while I was chasing after Bae Dohun.

How should I talk to him tomorrow morning.

Would he eat lunch with me again.

Would I see him again if I went to the pool.

The only things filling my head were trivial things like that.

Maybe that’s why it felt even better.

Because I could momentarily forget the difficult questions—like where I came from and where I’d end up—and just think about that one boy.

Bae Dohun still found me bothersome, but he never fully ignored me.

Even as he said he didn’t like it, he always answered, and even when I stuck to his side and walked with him, he didn’t push me away.

So I decided that didn’t mean he truly disliked it.

That day was the same.

After class ended, I headed to the pool as always.

But before I stepped through the entrance, I heard giggling laughter from inside.

“The transfer student didn’t come today?”

My steps slowed on their own.

“She’ll be here soon. She’s been busy following Bae Dohun around lately.”

It was about me.

I hadn’t intended to hide and listen, but my feet stopped before I knew it.

Somehow I’d ended up eavesdropping.

“But what’s she going to do? Dohun has a girlfriend.”

Someone laughed briefly.

In an instant my mind went blank.

…A girlfriend? Bae Dohun?

My chest dropped with a thud.

He’d definitely said a few days ago that he didn’t have anyone he liked. I’d asked twice, and Dohun had answered without hesitation that there was no one.

But he has a girlfriend?

Does that mean he has a girlfriend but doesn’t like her? Or did he lie to me?

Either way, it didn’t feel good.

My feet, light just moments ago, suddenly grew heavy.

“Perfect timing, she’s here.”

Someone inside said.

I turned my gaze through the open gap in the door without meaning to.

It was a small-built girl.

Black hair falling neatly below her shoulders.

Her small white face had not a trace of makeup, and her neatly worn uniform suited her demure impression.

She was familiar.

As I searched my memory for a moment, the white name tag on her chest caught my eye.

Han Songi.

She was the girl who’d told me where the faculty office was on the first day.