Runway Chapter 3

It wasn’t somewhere he went in and out of every day, but it did happen sometimes. Whether he was her lover, her kept man, or neither, or even her helper—I couldn’t pin down their exact relationship. Well, sometimes he did help when noona went to work.

“Yeah.”

Lee Wookchan sat with his legs crossed. He wasn’t just big—thanks to his long legs, he looked like a model.

It was a body type that went well with a school uniform and solitude. Lee Wookchan took out the cigarette he had set down on the bench and put it in his mouth.

Then he lit the ember with a hot pink lighter that didn’t suit him at all. Ah, annoying. I accidentally read the business name written on the lighter. 00 Motel.

“I don’t know, how would I know. I said I don’t know.”

The two of them suddenly bickered. I snatched the cigarette hanging from Lee Wookchan’s mouth and put it in mine. From some unknown frustration, I held the smoke in and let it out. But nothing was relieved. What’s so good about this that Lee Wookchan smokes it.

He didn’t get irritated even once. He just kept talking on the phone.

“Do whatever you want, yeah, yeah, okay.”

The childish bickering continued for a moment, and then Lee Wookchan finished the call with an answer deliberately designed to cut the other person off.

“What did she say?”

I handed over the cigarette I was smoking. Lee Wookchan, taking the cigarette and putting it in his mouth, just shrugged his shoulders.

“She said don’t come home.”

“Why?”

“She says I took her money.”

“A thief, really.”

“I didn’t spend it, fuck, like I said, would I really skim money, she just cries and whines whenever there’s no money.”

It was funny how a guy who stole just fine was acting wronged. Still, just this once, I decided to take Lee Wookchan’s side.

Because Lee Wookchan’s sense of justice and conscience were close to zero. Even if he stole, it was like, yeah I stole, so what—he was a guy who showed that kind of calm audacity.

And Mina noona, whom I’d met a few times because of Lee Wookchan, was forgetful. She probably still didn’t know my name.

∞ ∞ ∞

Honestly, I’m pretty good at studying. I mean, that’s the biggest problem.

I’m not stupid. But there’s no one to support me either.

No one at school bullies me. This is also thanks to Lee Wookchan, but really it’s because we go to different schools, so there’s no one who’d pay attention to me.

Lee Wookchan attends a place that’s a school in name only. It was a place where they scraped together and locked up all the people at the bottom.

The age range was diverse too, he said. In the same class as Lee Wookchan there were hyungs and noonas, he said.

Still, whether because of Lee Wookchan’s size, or because he had a strong spirit, or because a young punk clawed his way up desperately, everyone got along as friends, he said.

What benefit is there in similar humans being friends with each other. What a pitiful sight.

I put in my earphones. From the phone I’d tucked under my desk, a pop song with an unknown meaning flowed out.

Listening to music is also only at school. At home I didn’t want to fill the emptiness with music, and when I was with Lee Wookchan, Lee Wookchan hated me listening to music.

He was always making noise himself, yet he hated noise. Maybe that’s why he keeps me by his side.

I was on the quiet side. At least, the most among the shit-flies around him.

“Seonho.”

I raised my head at the voice calling me. Out of the forty or so students, the only one who paid attention to me was the class president.

He transferred at the end of the first semester and became class president in the second semester. Among students waging a fairly fierce war to write even one more line in their self-introductions and school records, he had been recognized.

The class president couldn’t be helped. Especially my high school. Unlike middle school, you couldn’t rule over kids by strength alone.

Strength and stubbornness. The guys who trusted in that all ended up like Lee Wookchan. They ran around in groups and all fell into the pit, leaving the school’s fence behind.

Sometimes, whether lucky or unlucky, the guys who still remained inside the fence couldn’t use strength like before.

The teachers no longer feared the kids who ran wild. Neglect was everything.

They’d only crack down a few times at the start of the semester, and after that they had no interest.

My age, seventeen. An age some praise as youth, and some dismiss as a kid whose head hasn’t even dried.

Even if dismissed as young, school was a society of only young people. I was vaguely catching on. The class president was a victor.

“Yeah.”

I gave an ordinary answer that was neither kind nor unkind.

The class president smiles. The class president was different from the guys with shaved heads, horn-rimmed glasses, and blotchy acne blooming on their cheeks.

Naturally brown hair, calmly settled hair, and fair skin too.

His uniform fit his frame properly, and his height and build were on the fairly large side.

He didn’t seem bigger than Lee Wookchan, but he still seemed about 180.

And he was warm to everyone. Even if you’ve entered a society where rank is no longer decided by strength alone, there’s that thing among males.

Like how I don’t call Lee Wookchan “Wookchan,” like how Lee Wookchan doesn’t call me “Seonho.” Things time couldn’t solve.

Yet the class president ignored all that and called me “Seonho.” Honestly, it’s embarrassing. The class president delivered the message.

“The teacher says to come to the staff room.”

“Ah, thanks.”

The class president smiled with a good-natured face. The saying that you can’t spit on a smiling face is true.

If another guy had told me that, I would’ve just glanced at him and let it go. But I couldn’t do that to the class president.

“Want to go together?”

The class president made the offer. The guy sprawled next to me glanced over. He says playfully to the class president.

“Hyunwoo, isn’t your way of speaking too cringey?”

Jung Hyunwoo. The class president’s name is Jung Hyunwoo.

The name and appearance suited each other quite well. Gentle, and appropriately resolute-looking.

Jung Hyunwoo laughed out loud, haha.

“Is that so? I don’t know.”

I ignored the warm way of speaking and got up from my seat. The chair scraped against the floor. Kkiik— I frowned at the unpleasant noise. Could it really be only because of the noise. I was always this full of complaints and dissatisfaction.

“I’ll go alone.”

“I have something to submit to the teacher anyway. Wait a moment.”

Having finished speaking, Jung Hyunwoo went to his seat and brought back a bundle of rough paper.

Ah, right. I finally remembered. Why the teacher was calling me.

I smoothed the hair in front of my eyebrows. I wish he wouldn’t follow me. But I couldn’t say it out loud. I hate becoming pathetic. I hate becoming miserable even more.

In the end, Jung Hyunwoo and I left the classroom together. Autumn was autumn.

The air conditioner that had been on all day wasn’t turned on anymore, and even though only the windows were open, there was the distinctive smell of autumn. Appropriately cold, and cool.

“Seonho.”

Jung Hyunwoo, holding the rough paper, calls me. Seonho. It was a ticklish title.

“Yeah.”

I pretended to be indifferent. Actually, it was embarrassing.

“Why don’t you get close with the other kids?”

I turned my gaze back to the class president. His eyes genuinely didn’t understand. I looked ahead again.

“I don’t really want to get close.”

I held up my last bit of pride. It couldn’t be helped. This school is an ordinary humanities high school.

Some kids came from well-off neighborhoods to build their academic records, and some came because it was close by location even though they weren’t great at studying.

Of course, family circumstances varied too. There were rich guys, poor guys, and dirt-poor guys like me.

Facing each other and laughing haha hoho—I had an inferiority complex I couldn’t hide. I didn’t want to show anyone my festering insides either.

“I see.”

The class president, being tall, sat in the very corner. Even in the middle seats, it was either the hallway side or the window side. Or else the very back.

I just sit in the assigned spot. Anywhere is fine.

I had never once sat close to him. And yet at least three or four times a day, our eyes would lock.

Even though we’re far apart, our eyes meet often—it’s strange and awkward.

That said, it’s not like I’m looking around every time. At school I usually just do my own thing.

Since I don’t go to a cram school, I studied alone. I was fairly diligent about previewing and reviewing too. But during moving-class periods when the teacher doesn’t take attendance, I usually went out to play. Not in a group, just by myself.