Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Doyeon waved both of his hands. “I didn’t want to keep you waiting. You hate getting your schedule out of whack.”

“It’s fine, just walk here next time.”

“Are you an angel...?”

Doyeon leaned in his chair with an exaggerated expression. By the time he got his breath back, he felt grateful Hyunoh was being so kind when he was twenty minutes late to their meeting.

Hyunoh reached out and wiped Doyeon’s forehead. His cold fingers made Doyeon flinch, bringing his shoulders up to his ears.

“What the heck?”

“You’re sweating.”

“You don’t have to do that, it’s gross.”

“You’re the one feeling gross, not me,” Hyunoh said as he pulled out a handkerchief.

Doyeon wiped his sweat with it and noticed the handkerchief was scented.

Hyunoh Gong was probably the only guy in the whole school who carried a handkerchief around with him at all times.

But why did he wipe his sweat when he acted like he had to be the most clean person in the world? And bringing around a handkerchief? Hyunoh was the most mysterious friend in his friend group.

He was obsessed with keeping things around him neat and tidy, but he was sometimes the coolest person in the world when it came to destroying his stuff. He was a careful person who had to keep to the time he promised himself, but he was also generous to other people who were late to the promised hour.

If Doyeon had been twenty minutes late to a meeting he arranged with Kangbin, Kangbin would have throttled him.

He’s weirdly kind sometimes.

Doyeon felt the heat rise to his face again, so he flapped his collar around. When that revealed Doyeon’s pale neck and collarbones, Hyunoh immediately threw his gaze out the window and took a long sip of his cold drink. The ice clacked inside his cup.

Doyeon folded the handkerchief and knocked on the table.

“How far did you get in our homework?”

Hyunoh finally turned back to Doyeon. “I didn’t do anything. I waited for you to get here.”

“What? Oh, wow, the loyalty here’s amazing,” Doyeon said as he pulled out his worksheets from his bag.

There were a lot of things from the menu on their table, even though they only planned to be in the café for one or two hours. There were three drinks, two pieces of cake, and four kinds of bread.

“Is someone else coming?”

“No. Two of the drinks are for you, and one’s for me.”

Hyunoh pushed a drink in Doyeon’s direction. He seemed to have ordered both in advance because water had beaded on the glass.

Doyeon thanked him and downed a drink without refusing it because of the heat. He felt alive after that.

“You’re good with me buying stuff now.”

“Yup. I won’t be declining when my rich friend’s offering to buy. Why should I?”

Hyunoh seemed to like his answer because he pushed a plate of some kind of bread in Doyeon’s direction.

“Did you have breakfast?”

“No. I don’t have breakfast at all.”

Doyeon bit into the ham panini Hyunoh bought, while Hyunoh finished a croissant in one bite. Then Hyunoh dug a fork into the slice of cake on his side and finished it in two bites. Doyeon was astonished by Hyunoh once again.

“Dude, how do you never get fat when you eat so much?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s a family trait. My dad doesn’t get fat either,” Hyunoh replied, looking down at his body. Then he pushed up his shirt and showed Doyeon his belly.

“Look, I have abs too.”

“What the heck, you’re sick!” Doyeon whisper-shouted, taking a quick look around the café.

Hyunoh laughed and pushed his shirt back down while Doyeon took another bite of his panini with a bewildered face. He had seen his abs when Hyunoh flashed them. He couldn’t forget them. Those muscles looked like they were sculpted or something, because those lines were clean.

Was that... right to have, as a student? His arms were thick, too...

But why is my belly soft and squishy...?

Doyeon rubbed his flat belly and flipped a page on the worksheet with a disappointed look.

* * *

Their summer vacation went by quickly. Doyeon took the advanced class with Hyunoh, ate the meals Hyunoh gave him, and studied in the library alone for a while until Kangbin and Sunwoo arrived. Then Hyunoh would join them, so they’d all study until midnight.

Then he did it again on repeat until he reached the last day of break. School started after this weekend.

At around 11 P.M., Doyeon went down to the first-floor convenience store of the library with Hyunoh and bought a drink before sitting down on one of the blue plastic chairs.

“Hyunoh, are you allowed to hang out with me right now? Your very specific, very detailed schedule tells me Mister Hyunoh should be studying.”

“Eat,” Hyunoh said instead, shoving an ice cream in Doyeon’s mouth.

He had practically shut him up.

Doyeon grabbed the stick on the other end of the ice cream. “Free?”

“Yes. One plus one.”

“Thanks.”

Doyeon tilted the chair back to look up at the sky. He ate his ice cream and enjoyed the breeze tickling the back of his neck.

The dark night of Seoul covered the stars in the sky, but the streetlight was nicely bright.

“This tastes good.”

The ice cream was crunchy and tasted like mandarin sherbet. Doyeon ate through half of his ice cream while staring up at the sky, then straightened his chair. Hyunoh was throwing away his ice cream stick in the trash can.

“Hyunoh,” Doyeon called.

Hyunoh raised his gaze from his hands, which he had been wiping with wet wipes.

“Yeah?”

“To be honest, I didn’t really like you when I first met you.”

“You’re saying that to my face?”

“But you’re okay now.”

Hyunoh laughed. Then he uncrossed his legs and kicked Doyeon’s shoe.

“Doyeon, you shouldn’t take my words out of my mouth.”

“See? We’re actually kinda similar.”

Crunch.

Doyeon smiled through his ice cream. He liked Hyunoh’s exasperated smile, and he liked the tinge of sourness in his ice cream. The air was warm, but that was part of the charm.

A part of a good night.

* * *

The day after he spent that good night with Hyunoh, Doyeon got sick. He was down with a cold, probably because he ate that ice cream in the heat, then walked straight into the freezing library. He knew something was up when his sweat cooled immediately and sent chills through his body.

Doyeon struggled to get into his uniform on Monday morning to go to school.

Doyeon was tying his shoelaces at the front door when he couldn’t handle it anymore and leaned his head on the shoe rack. He sent his homeroom teacher a text.

[Me: Teach, I don’t think I can go to school. I have a fever. I’m not lying, I’m seriously sick. My head’s burning.]

His teacher called him the moment he sent the text, asking how he felt. He wasn’t being accused of faking his fever, at least, which made him proud of how truthfully and diligently he’d lived his life.

His homeroom teacher gave him the all-clear to take a good rest for the day, so Doyeon climbed back into his bed. He failed to change out of his uniform because he fell straight into bed while tugging off his tie.

I heard dogs don’t get colds in the middle of summer…

Vrrrr. He listened to the refrigerator whir in his kitchen, the sound of students walking past below his window, and the din of a busy morning, all of which slowly lulled him to sleep.

When he woke up, it was late afternoon. He could hear Aeyoung laughing over the murky glass sliding door.

“You’re worse than my oppa!”

“Of course I am. Your oppa’s my teacher, Aeyoung.”

“Teacher?”

“Yep, teacher. He’s the one who taught me how to braid.”

He could hear a familiar voice talking to Aeyoung. That was Hyunoh Gong. Doyeon blinked slowly.

I’m hallucinating.

There was no way Hyunoh was here.

Doyeon listlessly kicked off his sheets and rolled out of bed. His body was still hot and his sight was blurry, but the moment he opened the glass sliding door with a trudge, he found the two sitting on his living room couch.

“Huh? Oppa’s awake!”

“Hey.” Hyunoh and Aeyoung stood from the couch.

“Oppa, look! Hyunoh-Oppa tied my hair for me!” Aeyoung shouted, running her hands through very messy pigtails.

Doyeon lost his strength to that sight, and fell to his knees while holding on to the door for support. Surprised, Hyunoh ran to him.

“What’s wrong, are you that sick?”

“I just...”

I just lost strength… He wanted to say the rest of his sentence, but his voice got caught in his stuffy throat.

It was swollen to the point he couldn’t swallow his own saliva, so it was hard to get any words out too. He could barely mumble.

“Why did you come out here?”

Hyunoh lifted Doyeon. Doyeon fell silent at the princess carry. What the heck?

He felt humiliated. He wanted to tell Hyunoh to put him down, right now, but his voice was on mute. He whacked Hyunoh’s arm several times and pointed at the ground.

Let me down.

Hyunoh understood the silent mime and frowned.

“You’re not getting down when you just collapsed. I thought you were filming a sob movie.”

“Collapsed”? I literally just fell because I lost strength in my legs.

Doyeon wanted to protest, but that took energy. He gave up and dropped his head back.

His bed was a few steps from the front entrance, so Hyunoh could get him into his bed easily. Doyeon wriggled into a fetal position with his sheets over him.

“You... why...?”

“Skipping.”

He hadn’t even asked the question before Hyunoh understood it to mean “You’re skipping class at the tutoring center; why the hell are you here?” Doyeon stared at Hyunoh with wide eyes, asking “You? Skipping?” to which Hyunoh replied—

“I heard you were sick.”

Doyeon was moved.

He was worried for me...? Damn, he acts all cool and stuff but he’s actually a softie…

Hyunoh Gong, who hated getting his schedule out of whack, who planned his breaks down to ten minute intervals, and who calculated the transit time between one place to another down to ten minutes, was here. That was emotional.

Doyeon’s emotional gratitude didn’t last long.

“You got a cold because I bought you ice cream, right? I felt kinda guilty, and I thought you might haunt my dreams if I didn’t do a wellness visit.”

Doyeon said nothing.

“See, I brought soup. Don’t blame me, all right?”

Hyunoh’s confession erased all the gratitude he felt. Doyeon banged his chest a few times to get the point across that it was his fault he was sick, not Hyunoh’s, and closed his eyes.

He heard the old washing machine drum across the room and realized it was probably draining the water from a session his mom scheduled. A few minutes later, it rang to tell him it was done, so Doyeon dragged his blanket off and sat up. Hyunoh immediately supported his back.

“Bathroom?”

Doyeon shook his head. He had to get to the washing machine, not the toilet. It was going to stink if he didn’t hang it out.

“Laundry... stinky...”

Hyunoh pressed Doyeon back down with an amazed look.

“You’re going to hang up your laundry because it’s going to stink if you don’t? Right now?”