Runway Chapter 16

Sometimes laughing, and when a sad scene came on, flipping the channel while watching.

That emotional exhaustion is, in the end, something only those who can afford to live do.

The colors spreading on the glass changed, perhaps because Mom had changed the channel. I didn’t greet Mom, who would be tired, and went into my room.

There was nothing but darkness. Without a single point of light, it was quietly holding its breath. Yeah. As expected. Lee Wookchan wasn’t there.

Lee Wookchan was probably at Mina noona’s house, or in a studio apartment where his friends lived crowded together, or in a cheap motel room, or if not that, a PC bang, or someone’s house, or on the rooftop that was their hideout, puffing away on a cigarette.

Lee Wookchan gets very lonely. I know that, but… yeah, I know it.

I took out my phone. Sure enough, there was a message from Lee Wookchan.

「Traitor」

I sent a reply to the short message.

「Where are you?」

As if he had been waiting, a reply came back. But with thorns raised all over.

「None of your business lol」

He must be really irritated. Then he should just not reply.

I stared blankly at the screen. A message quickly came back from Lee Wookchan.

「Mina’s place」

「I won’t be going to your house anymore」

「Bye」

「Yeah. Get lost.」

At Lee Wookchan’s message that needlessly scratched at my nerves, I sent a reply too.

A call came from Lee Wookchan. I didn’t answer. It would be curses anyway.

What kind of bastard, what kind of bitch, he’d probably run through all sorts of animals and pour curses on me.

Knowing that better than anyone, I didn’t answer. Instead, without even washing up, I flopped down onto the bed.

Unable to even turn on the light, I quietly, in the darkness, was buried together with the darkness.

Lee Wookchan. With Mina noona… he’d do it, probably. It must have been like that from the beginning.

That must also be why Mina noona couldn’t abandon Lee Wookchan. Because she kept around Lee Wookchan, who stole the money she earned by working herself to the bone, cursed whenever he had the chance, and had rough behavior….

I closed my eyes. Closing them made my thoughts multiply even more.

It became complicated, tangled and tangled like a skein of thread that couldn’t be unraveled.

“Lee Wookchan, you irritating bastard.”

I muttered to myself. But there was no one to hear it.

∞ ∞ ∞

An unremarkable daily life passed. If there was just one thing that changed, it was that Jeong Hyeonwoo began sticking close to me in earnest.

For moving classes like PE, English, and math, he pushes past all the guys loitering around him and comes to me first.

“Seonho, let’s go to the moving class together.”

I, who had been glancing around to escape, end up being dragged by his hand.

That’s not all. During lunch, cleaning, and break time, he circles around me.

Humans are creatures of adaptation. At first, I was cautious and prickly, but.

“Jeong Hyeonwoo, let’s go to math class.”

In the end, I adapted. It was truly a regrettable thing.

Two weeks had passed since I fought with Lee Wookchan like that. I thought Lee Wookchan would chase after me the next day, no, right after I ignored his call, but that didn’t happen.

At our house, our old, our apartment, no more thug bastards with familiar faces were seen.

They must have left for somewhere like migratory birds. Early November. It was a season where that was entirely possible.

“Here.”

While walking down the hallway side by side with Jeong Hyeonwoo, he took something out of his pocket and held it out to me. When I glanced at it, it was a Warhead candy.

Just looking at the wrapper made my brow furrow.

Without answering, I raised my head to ask what he meant, and he rummaged through his pocket once more and took out three or four Warheads.

“Pick one.”

“How many are you carrying around?”

“Hurry.”

With doubtful eyes, I took one out. Jeong Hyeonwoo also took one and put all the rest back in his pocket.

Saliva pooled under my tongue. I tore open the wrapper and put the round thing in my mouth. Crunch, as soon as I bit down, yep, that’s right.

“Ugh… I really hate this.”

I’m on the unlucky side. Unfortunately.

Jeong Hyeonwoo grinned. I barely managed the drool dripping down and the tears prickling out.

I swallowed it down, but my mouth still tingled.

Shit… As I grumbled and complained, Jeong Hyeonwoo took out something else from the opposite pocket and held it out.

“If it’s a Warhead, I won’t eat it.”

I replied with considerable firmness.

“It’s not a Warhead. You can eat it.”

Jeong Hyeonwoo even peeled off the wrapper himself and showed me the contents. This time it was caramel.

Caramel, which I used to eat often but don’t see much these days.

I took it and ate it. In the place where the sourness had left, sweetness had already filled in.

“Seonho, is it sweet?”

Jeong Hyeonwoo asked a question about nothing much. I replied, Yeah.

Jeong Hyeonwoo opened his mouth. The way to the math classroom felt quite far.

“When you go to the pediatrician when you’re little, there are hospitals that give you candy after treatment, right.”

“Yeah.”

Of course, I had never been. I went to the hospital in our neighborhood with ‘clinic’ in its name. Everyone, young and old, went there.

There was no doctor who gave candy to crying children. I grew up healthy like this under a doctor who treated me mechanically with a weary face and a similar voice and prescribed medicine.

Still, I pretended to know about the existence of pediatricians. Because I had seen them on television.

“The candy they give at the hospital tastes especially good. So I even cried on purpose. Once when getting examined, once after getting a shot, once when going to get medicine. That way I got at least two candies. For the last one, Mom bought me Tenten at the pharmacy.”

A useless story. I, who had never received Tenten no matter how much I begged at the pharmacy, didn’t answer.

My mom bought me Vita500 a few times when we went to the pharmacy. I ate it deliciously, and I always thought it wasn’t enough.

I think I even wondered why Vita500 isn’t sold in large sizes.

But it’s obvious. Who would drink a giant Vita500? They’d just buy a drink.

“Here, since you ate the sour one well, I’ll give you a prize.”

Jeong Hyeonwoo flipped through the math textbook with a swish and handed me a thin chocolate the size of a hand. It was just an ordinary chocolate. When I raised my head, Jeong Hyeonwoo smiled.

“That’s why I wanted you to eat the sour one. Giving it to you from the start would be a bit much. It’s embarrassing.”

“Why are you so good to me?”

I know this isn’t the kind of conversation guys would have with each other. Embarrassing and awkward conversations.

Even if Jeong Hyeonwoo is on the warmer and more affectionate side compared to guys our age, I know this is strange.

Only then did Jeong Hyeonwoo withdraw the smile he had been wearing out of courtesy.

“I don’t know.”

And he gives an answer that hardly qualifies as one.

“…”

“…”

Jeong Hyeonwoo and I looked at each other without a word. The one who avoided the gaze first was Jeong Hyeonwoo, and then I also turned back to the front. We went on our way.

Because I felt math class was more urgent than the reason he was being good to me, or because I didn’t want to know the reason… anyway, it’s a difficult question.

∞ ∞ ∞

I was lazy but bright. To put it differently, I was rather clever, and the guys who disliked me, representatively Lee Wookchan’s friends, said I was pathetic and petty.

And the person who controlled my fast-spinning brain better than anyone was Lee Wookchan.

When he thought I was using my head, he would grab my head as it was. So that I couldn’t turn it or roll it. And he’d curse.

“You’re fucking rolling your head. You crazy bastard.”

In the bewildering situation, I stopped in place. And I rolled my head. Because I didn’t know how I should react.

Thanks to that, from about ten steps away, I blankly looked at him sitting on the steps in front of our apartment’s shared entrance.

Lee Wookchan spat out curses like that and spat. It’s a relief I can’t see it because it’s night. Disgusting bastard.

Lee Wookchan puts his hands in his pockets and lifts himself up. Huge as he is, he pierced through the darkness and came right up to me.

“Hey, Bae—. Didn’t you miss hyung?”

“Why are you causing a scene.”

“You smell sweet, fuck….”

Lee Wookchan came back to me. It had been two weeks.

I thought of my two weeks without Lee Wookchan. I woke up in the morning and went to school, went to the library during supplementary classes, and when supplementary classes ended, I came back to school and did night self-study.

And when that ended, I took the bus home, fiddled with my phone a little, and went to sleep. A hamster-wheel daily life repeats. Endlessly… continuously…