Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The wind rushed in from the window.

“Do you feel like you need attention? Like you want someone else’s things? Do you feel possessive over your stuff?” Hyunoh pushed.

The rain climbed up the ground, snuck up the leaves, and invaded the classroom. Doyeon’s shirt rippled with it. The cold wind brushed past his neck, raising goose bumps.

He bit his lip and stared at Hyunoh’s fluttering hair.

“You damn a-hole, are you calling me an attention seeker?” Doyeon’s voice trembled, and his ears turned red.

Why is he bringing up nonsense like “lack of attention”? Is he asking because I was raised only by my mom? He must think I grew up without much attention because of all the stereotypes that come with a single-parent household. It’s just like what everyone else believes.

Well, Hyunoh had assumed correctly.

Doyeon had needed to take care of his sister ever since he was young, and he rarely got to rely on his mother. He had to keep his gripes and troubles to himself, even when he wanted to whine and complain like the other kids.

He did all of this because he didn’t want to put another burden on his mom.

His mom definitely loved him, but her main focus was on Aeyoung, and Doyeon often took on the role of giving love rather than receiving it.

There wasn’t enough space for him to have a room of his own in their house, and the glass sliding door didn’t provide any privacy. But even in an environment where there was no private space or personal belongings, he never complained. He was willing to share for Aeyoung, and he wasn’t immature enough to complain about his unchanging circumstances.

But maybe his heart felt differently—despite what he told himself—because at some point, Doyeon had begun to obsess over his belongings.

What did Hyunoh think about his actions? Did he appear shabby and pathetic? Did Hyunoh think he was strange? Like those strange kids that have an attachment to irrelevant things because they were raised in a poor environment?

“Were you raised without love?”

Doyeon had been ignored and looked down on for being poor, but he had never been asked whether he lacked love.

Was that how he appeared? Like a child who wasn’t loved?

It was a new kind of shock.

“I lent you my pencil for this? Give it back if you’re going to spew crap, you scumbag,” Doyeon growled in a low voice. He wanted his voice to sound playful, but he wondered if it actually did.

Doyeon rubbed the back of his neck. Hyunoh asked whether he was cold, and before he could answer, he closed the window.

The window moved with another screech. The sound outside filtered into silence.

Doyeon spent the rest of the day going through classes with a blank mind.

* * *

“Dude, why are you so quiet today?” Kangbin asked as they walked out of school with a crowd of students. He shoved his phone in Doyeon’s face and started talking about a school vlog.

Doyeon covered his eyes and shook his head. “What do you mean, ‘quiet’? I’m always calm and collected.”

“Yeah, right. Move your hand and let me film you.”

“Stop it. You’re invading my privacy.”

“It’s not as if the camera’s going to wear you down. You and Hyunoh act like I need to pay you two to be in my videos! You know what? I’m going to film a twenty-four seven documentary of you guys one day!”

“Twenty-four seven? What, you’re going to film me sleeping?”

“I don’t know! Whatever, I’m sad!”

Kangbin walked ahead with Sunwoo, complaining to the camera. That left Doyeon trudging behind with Hyunoh. They were the only two who remained silent in a crowd of shouting and chattering boys—their gazes fixed on the road ahead of them.

They never spoke to each other, but Doyeon found the silence awkward.

He still didn’t like the way Hyunoh had described him earlier.

Was that how he appeared to Hyunoh? Kangbin’s lackey, a kid after his friend’s money, and an attention seeker who was raised in a loveless household? A pathetic beggar attached to his belongings?

Whatever it was, it was bad.

Doyeon sighed. Why did Hyunoh’s every word affect him so much? If anyone else had said that, he would have shaken it off while questioning what sort of disease they’d caught that day, but Hyunoh’s opinions kept weighing him down.

But why? What was so important about Hyunoh Gong?

As he thought it through, he reached the split in the road. Doyeon walked past the bigger one and onto the smaller street without saying anything.

Hyunoh stopped him.

“Doyeon Yoo.”

Doyeon turned around. Hyunoh was standing at the crossroad under the streetlamp. He took a small paper bag from his backpack and handed it to Doyeon without a word.

Doyeon held it up in surprise. He looked inside to find a wrapped-up plastic bag. Inside was a new pencil case with a bunch of mechanical pencils and stationery. He seemed to have bought it at the stationery shop outside of their school before the bell rang.

“What’s this?”

“Yours.”

Doyeon stared silently at the bundle of stationery with a blank expression. There seemed to be at least ten pencils in there.

“You don’t have many yourself.”

Is he giving me these because I don’t have a lot of them?

He recalled the pencil case with the Nonghyup brand mark in his bag.

His head blanked white.

Then, memories flickered through his mind—Hyunoh’s voice back in the classroom, the chestnut bread he shared in the convenience store, and his old balcony that Hyunoh must have seen when Kangbin Baek had called him from his tutoring center.

He thought of his pathetic desperation to find his mechanical pencil and the free pencil case from Nonghyup.

His brain churned with those moments over and over again. His neck first burned with shock, but red quickly overtook his eyes.

It felt mildly like humiliation.

Doyeon clenched the paper bag.

Hyunoh Gong. You’re making me feel...

“Dude, I’ve been holding my tongue for a while, but... didn’t I tell you?”

“What?” asked Hyunoh.

“Not to treat me differently because my family is poor? I’m pretty sure I said this before.”

Hyunoh was silent.

“Did you buy a dozen because you pitied me for only having one? How should I accept this kindness, Hyunoh? Is it even kindness?”

Hyunoh didn’t reply to his gritted questions. He looked confused.

Doyeon, however, couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was being pitied.

“No one asked you to buy me this, Hyunoh Gong. Do you buy the other kids pencils when they lend some to you?”

Again, Hyunoh said nothing.

Doyeon threw the paper bag at Hyunoh. “You’re doing this because it’s me, Doyeon Yoo!”

Hyunoh, who had been hearing him out without a sound, picked up the bag and tilted his head back. “I bought these because I dropped your pencil this morning and felt bad. I wanted to apologize for dropping your favorite one.”

“That’s why you bought this many?”

“Well, the more you have, the easier you get through them,” Hyunoh answered in a soft tone, probably to calm him down.

But Doyeon was at his limit and blinded by his own feelings. He continued to glare. “What does that matter to you?”

“What?”

“What does it matter to you that I have one damn pencil? That I’m poor? You’ve been getting on my nerves for a while now... Is money your way of apologizing to people?”

Hyunoh frowned at that, annoyed. The bag crumpled in his fist as he glared back at Doyeon. “So I shouldn’t care?”

“Yes. Stop caring. Don’t sympathize, don’t do crap. I don’t need anything from you.”

“I don’t need anything from you.”

That sentence switched Hyunoh’s expression into something cold. “‘Sympathize’? Does everything I do look like charity work out of sympathy to you?”

“What?”

“Why, because I’m rich? Screw your victim mentality, Doyeon. Were you going to treat me any differently if I appeared as a beggar?”

His voice was laced with emotions, unlike his usual self, and his angered face was so foreign. Doyeon bit his lip.

“You know what, let me ask you—what is your issue with me, specifically?” Hyunoh asked. “What did I do to you?”

Doyeon had seen Hyunoh’s smiling face as he edged people into frustration, but he had never seen Hyunoh with that expression.

Doyeon’s words were caught in his throat. He continued to bite his lip with his upper teeth.

Hyunoh stared at Doyeon’s red lip when he released it, looked away, and then swore to himself.

Damn it...

He then forced his eyes up to meet Doyeon’s.

“You complain when I share my snack, you complain when I buy you crap because I feel grateful, you complain about every damn thing I do... and it’s damn annoying.”

Hyunoh swept his hair back and threw the paper bag back into Doyeon’s chest. “Throw it away, take it, do whatever. Like you said, I’m so sympathetic and rich, I don’t care.”

The paper bag bounced off Doyeon’s chest and thudded onto the ground. Hyunoh didn’t look as he spun on his heels and walked off.

Doyeon could only stare at his disappearing back. He stood there until Hyunoh disappeared out of sight. Then, finally, he bent down and picked up the paper bag. It felt rough in his hand.

Doyeon sighed and turned around. He felt rough too.

The cold anger in Hyunoh’s eyes kept flashing across his mind. It made him feel like sand was rubbing up against his chest.