Chapter 14

Chapter 14

When Doyeon finished his lunch, he walked out into a beautiful sunny day.

The four bought drinks from a vending machine before slinking off to the field, where other kids were running around in front of a goalpost. There were eight soccer balls on the field at all times, so Doyeon always wanted to know how they knew which ball was theirs.

“Hey! Wanna join?!” Someone shouted, noticing Doyeon’s group. It was an invitation to a soccer match.

Kangbin and Sunwoo sprinted off with glee, while Doyeon and Hyunoh walked behind them slowly.

A while later, Doyeon was panting for breath while wiping his sweat. He hadn’t intended to try so hard, but when he’d gotten his first kick in, he’d begun to run after the ball like his feet were on fire.

“My ball, my ball!”

Doyeon passed to his teammate while trying not to run into the sophomores on the other side.

“Hey! Shoot!”

Unfortunately, he passed to Hyunoh.

Hyunoh kicked the ball clean into the air the moment Doyeon passed it to him, and it flew in an arc with Hyunoh’s slide-on sandal. The rubber band around his shoe must have snapped off.

The ball bounced into the net and the slide sandal bounced onto the patch beside the post.

“Goal! Gooaal!”

Broken slides or not, Hyunoh enjoyed the high of scoring a goal. He threw hand kisses into the air and ran a little ceremonial lap.

Doyeon walked toward the post while clicking his tongue. “Is he that happy he scored a goal? He’s so weird, I swear...”

He kicked the three-striped slide with its floppy rubber band in Hyunoh’s direction like he was kicking a ball. Hyunoh noticed it, finally. He looked down and picked it up by its floppy rubber.

“Does anyone have glue or tape?”

No one. There were only eight huffing and puffing boys on the grassy field.

Hyunoh gave up and walked back to the classroom with one slide on.

When Doyeon finished washing his face and hands in the bathroom and returned to the classroom, he saw a swarm of girls around Hyunoh.

“What’s wrong with your sandal? Did you run around too much?”

“No, no, just wrap it up with tape!”

Each girl said their piece as they milled around Hyunoh while the emergency procedure was being conducted on his shoe. Every time Hyunoh spun the tape around his sandal, they giggled.

“Like this?”

“No, you need to wrap it around the base of the shoe, too! Altogether!”

Doyeon stared at the girls for a moment before taking a seat in one of the vacant rows of desks to the side. He couldn’t bear to ask the girl on his desk to move.

Was it that fun to wrap tape around a sandal?

Doyeon stared at the crowd curiously when someone tapped on his arm. It was Gahee Bak—a girl he felt thankful for. She had probably written that “pretty” comment on his rolling paper.

“Chased off?”

“Yup. There’s way too many girls.”

“What’s wrong with Hyunoh’s shoe?”

“It flew off with the soccer ball earlier. I thought the two were a set.”

He drew an arc with his finger that made Gahee giggle.

“So that’s why Hyunoh asked if anyone had glue or tape when he got to class. To fix his shoe.”

They laughed together. Gahee suddenly fixed her eyes on Doyeon’s forehead.

“But why is your hair so wet? Did you play soccer through lunch?”

“No, I just washed my face. This isn’t my sweat,” Doyeon quickly explained. Gahee might feel disgusted if she thought his hair was soaked with sweat.

She took a pouch from her bag and held up a small bottle of lotion.

“Here, your skin’s going to feel dry. Put this on.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Doyeon placed his hand out, palm up—Gahee squeezed out some lotion. He dipped his thumb into the puddle of lotion and dotted it on his face. Gahee laughed, asking why he was putting it on like a cat.

“Why are you so delicate with it?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like lotion should be put on this way when it’s a girl’s. I usually put it on like this—at home.”

Doyeon rubbed his hands together, then rubbed both hands on his face. When he looked up after a good scrubbing of the lotion, Gahee was laughing.

“Are you washing your face?”

“This smells nice. I feel like I’m in a forest or something,” Doyeon said as he sniffed his hands.

Gahee laughed as she smacked his shoulder. “That sounds weird.”

Was his comment funny? Doyeon couldn’t tell, but he put down his hands and smiled at Gahee because she was laughing.

Meanwhile, Hyunoh stood up from his chair. The emergency fix on his slide sandal was done. He was jumping up and down, happy that the tape-covered, three-striped sandal was working.

Whenever he took a step, the sticky sound of plastic against the floor crackled. He didn’t have any problem walking, though.

Hyunoh grinned in satisfaction and gave a thumbs-up.

“Ooh, perfect.”

“What’s perfect?! Are you stupid?”

The girls started chiding him all at once. Then they pointed at Hyunoh’s odd sandal, laughing. Doyeon stared at them, then at Gahee next to him.

Girls in our class laugh a lot, don’t they...?

* * *

Since Hyunoh’s slide-on had turned into a tape slipper, Doyeon could hear Hyunoh coming before he saw him.

Chhk, crrk, shrrk. The loud, bright sound of tape being pulled off the ground meant Hyunoh was close.

Since he had a functioning, tape-covered sandal, Hyunoh didn’t buy a new pair of slides. He didn’t seem to care what others said or thought.

“Dude, buy a new pair of shoes. You have enough money...” the kid next to Hyunoh complained.

Hyunoh looked down at his left leg that was crossed over the other and shrugged. “Isn’t it enough if I can walk in it?”

Doyeon found Hyunoh interesting. He also imagined that Hyunoh would, most likely, wear that sandal until he graduated.

I would buy a new one no matter what. He couldn’t imagine walking around with a crackling, sticky, taped-up shoe that made his height uneven.

They were really polar opposites. Hyunoh was so different from him—he sometimes thought Hyunoh was from another planet.

A few days later, Doyeon shook his head at Kangbin’s persistent tugs on his arm.

“I want to take it easy today. I’m tired.”

“Really? But I wanted a 2v2!” Kangbin argued as he thumped the badminton racket on his shoulder. He had brought four with the intention of having a badminton competition instead of a soccer game for some unknown reason.

Doyeon had taken care of Aeyoung through the night because of her nosebleed, so he declined once more and returned to his classroom. He passed the dancing kids who were filming a video in front of their locker and leaned forward on the desk next to the window.

Loud noises wafted across the window sill, and just when he was about to fall asleep with those screams and shouts as his lullaby—

“Doyeon Yoo,” someone said above him. Doyeon raised his head off the desk and rubbed his eyes. Yukyung was sitting next to him.

“What are you doing here?” She never said anything to him in school.

“I’m here to give you the cookies I promised last time,” Yukyung replied, shaking a cookie box in her hand. It was what she’d agreed to give him when they’d last studied together in the library, and he was to give it to Aeyoung. Strangely, no one had wanted the gift, despite its hefty price point.

Doyeon smiled and accepted it. “Oh, thanks. Aeyoung will love it. Fancy cookies, yeah?”

“I added in some hair pins and hairbands while I was at it. They’re all new, so give it straight to Aeyoung.”

“Really? Don’t you only use the expensive kinds? Thanks!”

Yukyung shrugged. “‘Expensive,’ my butt. I’m going.” She stood to leave.

Doyeon left the cookie box on the desk and saw Yukyung out of the classroom.

“Bye.”

“I don’t need an escort out of a classroom.”

“Still, thanks a lot.”

When Doyeon waved his hand, Yukyung smirked and waved back.

A few boys glanced at her as they walked by. Annoyed, Yukyung glared at them and picked a fight. “What are you looking at, you damn losers?”

The boys flinched back and rushed past her, while Doyeon clicked his tongue. “Ugh, Yukyung and her damn personality...”

They’re glancing at you because you have a pretty shell and rotten insides, Yukyung. Why else...?

Doyeon watched Yukyung walk into her classroom, Class Three, before returning to his desk. There were three boys surrounding his seat. They seemed to have emerged out of nowhere, but Doyeon recognized the tallest one: Taeil Im.

They were from the same middle school, but he had a sneaky, vicious personality that attracted two other kids of similar antics from a different class. They were a group of three mean boys.

Taeil poked at the box Yukyung had left behind.

“What’s this, Doyeon?”