Runway Chapter 18

That bastard often, no, quite frequently, says things that disregard me. He knows it won’t work with force, and since I’m not tough and can’t fight, he doesn’t even think of coming at me. Because he knows that, he scratches at me with words every day.

With me, unable to say anything more, in front of him, Lee Wookchan took out all the bills from his wallet and personally pressed them into my hand.

It was at least a million won. It could have been more than a million won.

“I got it helping Hyeonseok hyung. You use it. Don’t go around starving just because you don’t have money.”

“Do I look like a beggar to you?”

A prickly question came out of my mouth. The hand clutching the wad of bills trembled.

If I followed my feelings, I wanted to throw it in Lee Wookchan’s smug face.

Who are you calling a beggar. That bastard makes money doing bad things, and every bit he earns he gives to me. If I don’t take it, he fills my stomach instead.

“Yeah. Look at the state of your house.”

Lee Wookchan said, pointing at our apartment with his chin.

“It’s better than your house.”

I didn’t let it slide either. Objectively, our house was better than the house Lee Wookchan lived in.

At least people lived above, below, and next door. The elevator worked too. Very occasionally, someone even cleaned. It’s a battlefield, but there’s a parking lot too.

In Lee Wookchan’s original home, it’s more surprising that people live there at all. His father, hyung, noona, and Lee Wookchan live there.

His mother was absent from the beginning, and his father went wherever there was money.

His hyung hadn’t come out of his room for years, and his noona, who had been in juvenile detention, sold alcohol at a pojangmacha near the house. And Lee Wookchan.

Who’s looking at whose house….

At my words, Lee Wookchan put strength into his eyes. Tension quietly pooled.

I wondered what I’d do if he got irritated and hit me. But there was no need for such worry.

Lee Wookchan burst out with a puff of laughter. Anyway, a bastard who can’t read the mood.

“Bae Seonho.”

“What.”

“Do you know why noona is acting like that right now?”

Lee Wookchan asked, shaking his phone. He seemed to know that I had seen the messages that came to him earlier.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t ask either. Lee Wookchan has Lee Wookchan’s own circumstances.

Noona getting angry like that must also be nothing serious. I had to believe that.

As I quietly kept my place, Lee Wookchan asked.

“Aren’t you curious?”

“Yeah. This money or….”

When I reached out my hand, Lee Wookchan took a step back.

“If you’re not curious, then don’t, you bastard.”

And as if he had never been grinning, he hardened his expression and left without even a word of goodbye.

As always.

∞ ∞ ∞

I don’t want to know about Lee Wookchan.

What kind of shady things he does behind the scenes, who he meets, what he does to earn the large sums he sometimes drags in.

What he does when he meets Mina noona, what kind of people the ones he calls hyung and noona are… I’m not curious at all.

Lee Wookchan is a guy like the wind. When he comes, he comes fluttering, and when he leaves, there’s not a word.

I thought of the last time with Lee Wookchan.

The last meeting was in mid-November, and before I knew it, it was almost mid-December.

Winter had fully come right up to my nose, and I, who hadn’t even properly said goodbye to autumn yet, had to face it as it was.

“Seonho.”

Before I knew it, Jeong Hyeonwoo was sitting facing me. He pulled over the chair of the guy in the front seat and rested his chest against the back.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, I see.”

Jeong Hyeonwoo filled Lee Wookchan’s empty seat. Jeong Hyeonwoo isn’t as arbitrary as Lee Wookchan, and he’s a pretty decent guy.

There’s no high and low in his personality. And he’s affectionate… he’s not a bad guy.

It’s also quite amazing that I adapted to that. Around me, there had always been only guys like Lee Wookchan.

∞ ∞ ∞

To be honest, Jeong Hyeonwoo is a boring guy.

It means he’s not the kind of guy who makes pointless jokes like Lee Wookchan, forces laughter, or makes fake laughter seep out with low-quality words.

Of course, there were humans who were high-class, or high-quality laughter generators who gave laughter without tearing anyone down, but unfortunately, no such high-class personnel existed around me.

Humans like Lee Wookchan, who make you think you don’t want to laugh at that kind of thing, or humans like Jeong Hyeonwoo, who are far from fun altogether. That was the endpoint of the human relationships formed by Bae Seonho, me.

I sat in my seat and looked at Jeong Hyeonwoo.

He was surrounded by classmates far below his level and talking with them. Not just in class, but within the school, Jeong Hyeonwoo’s reputation was good.

Teachers and students his age all liked him. So much so that everyone forgot he had transferred.

Jeong Hyeonwoo doesn’t simply study well or show the appearance of a model student.

Sometimes he acts a bit rough, and though curses don’t follow, he shows a prickly side when needed.

Actually, human personality isn’t consistent and shows various sides depending on the situation—the day’s mood, the people one meets, one’s own condition—but perhaps because it was Jeong Hyeonwoo, those sides felt fresher.

Jeong Hyeonwoo, who had been wedged among the guys struggling to continue a conversation on some trivial topic, turned his head.

“…”

“…”

While analyzing him, cutting him into pieces, and looking at him a little more secretly without being intrusive, I was noticeably startled as soon as I received his gaze.

When I flinched my shoulders, Jeong Hyeonwoo turned his whole body.

Then he grabbed the shoulder of the guy he had been facing and pushed him away in a way that wasn’t unpleasant, coming closer to me.

A few people standing behind Jeong Hyeonwoo looked at me. I turned my head away from them and raised it toward Jeong Hyeonwoo, who had come close.

Jeong Hyeonwoo pulled over the chair in the front seat and sat down.

“Want to skip night self-study today and go to a cafe to study?”

He coaxes softly in an affectionate voice, saying something that would make the teacher fall over backward if he heard it.

For me, it’s fine because I quietly enjoy deviations in secret and there’s no one to say anything about it, but Jeong Hyeonwoo is different. For the human ranked number one in trust in our class to discuss skipping night self-study and deviating….

“Yeah.”

Bad thoughts couldn’t help but rise.

At the answer given without even a trace of hesitation, Jeong Hyeonwoo smiled soundlessly. Seen like this, he doesn’t have an entirely good face.

∞ ∞ ∞

Jeong Hyeonwoo and I opened our books at a cafe downtown. It was a three-story building with a smoking room on every floor.

Inside, there were students in school uniforms like us, guys outside school who had dyed their hair yellow and acted like adults but had baby faces, and openly adult people. There weren’t many customers, but they were scattered here and there.

I didn’t particularly like this cafe. To begin with, I had come here because of Lee Wookchan too.

And not just Lee Wookchan, but the guys who hung around with him also frequented it.

The reason they came here wasn’t because the coffee was good or the drinks suited their taste.

It was because the PC bang and arcade they frequented, and the cheap motels and studio apartments where they crowded together, were near this cafe.

I hadn’t been to cafes often enough to choose one. Rather, I could count them on one hand.

Choosing a menu was also hard, so I always got lemonade or blue lemonade… or else I searched before going and ordered some fancy menu item.

Still, today, though only a little, it was a place I was somewhat familiar with, so I ordered a lemonade with ice cream on top.

It was a popular menu at the cafe. Lee Wookchan had grumbled as soon as he drank it, asking why I drank this kind of thing, but it suited my mouth very well.

Jeong Hyeonwoo ordered a hot Americano. As expected, it doesn’t suit him.

Jeong Hyeonwoo is mature. I don’t want to admit it, and I want to attach the modifier old man, but that was the truth.

I watched Jeong Hyeonwoo drinking coffee. Just a moment ago he had been wearing a navy tteokbokki coat that suited a school uniform, and moreover, even after taking off the coat, he was in a respectable school uniform, yet he was sipping a hot Americano.

“…”

When I stared at him, Jeong Hyeonwoo also gave me his gaze. At his question, Why, shaped with his lips, I put down the pen I was holding.

“Drinking an Americano, it’s fascinating.”

“Ah… our house didn’t have drinks separately stocked other than coffee. So I got used to it.”

At Jeong Hyeonwoo’s words, I slowly nodded.