Chapter 8

Chapter 8

“Aren’t you on your balcony? Why is your voice still ringing?” Kangbin asked.

“Yeah. Hey, you’re so loud that I can hear your voice echoing in my house... You know my house is small, right?” Doyeon replied.

“Wait, for real?!”

“Yeah. Can you also shout more quietly? Your voice alone is like a hundred decibels.” Doyeon rubbed his arms. It seemed like cold air was seeping through the sealed balcony, despite it being made of metal.

He kept wincing and rubbing his eyes as though his swaying hair tickled him constantly.

Kangbin apologized in a whisper. The soft “sorry” made Doyeon laugh. He lowered his head to hold it back.

“You don’t have to speak that softly. I can’t hear you now, you idiot.”

His lowered head showed his smooth neck.

Hyunoh clenched the can and tried to drink from it again, but it was empty. Hyunoh licked his lips, still feeling thirsty.

Should I get another? He wanted to stand, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Doyeon on the screen, either.

“Who’s next to you? Is that Sunwoo?” Doyeon asked. He seemed curious about the arm that kept flickering on their end.

Hyunoh threw the crushed can into the trash and tilted his face onto the camera.

“No, it’s me.”

“Uh…”

Doyeon looked off-put. It was funny. Hyunoh always found Doyeon’s reactions funny. Doyeon, try as he might, could never hide his true feelings.

Kangbin continued to talk without noticing the odd atmosphere. “Sunwoo went home early. I think he got sick after eating a hamburger. He was really pale.”

“Oh... Really?”

Hyunoh leaned back on his chair, moving out of the frame. Kangbin and Doyeon were still talking, so he watched them.

“But when are you coming back to the center? You can come with us.”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking of going when Aeyoung’s done adjusting to the new school year.”

“Wow, you just sound like a real dad.”

“Yes, sir, I have eight years of experience now.”

Doyeon’s expression had remained stiff ever since he saw Hyunoh. He started to care about his appearance, brushing back his hair every now and then and straightening out his sleeve.

Hyunoh didn’t like that.

“So can you come gaming with us this weekend?”

“I can, but only for two hours.”

“That’s fine. We can go to New World. Their gaming chairs are so comfortable.”

“Sure. But couldn’t you have said that tomorrow at school? Why did you have to wake me up? Explain yourself, mister.”

“What? I just remembered! What was I supposed to do?” Kangbin brushed it off.

They continued to talk for a while afterwards, talking about all sorts of random things until Doyeon waved a fist at Kangbin to “please, get off the call.”

Kangbin shoved his phone in his pocket and stretched. He was smiling.

“Doyeon, this guy—he does everything I ask while complaining. It’s adorable.”

“That’s adorable?” Hyunoh asked as he stood. He kicked Kangbin’s trainers. They needed to get back to class.

Kangbin rubbed his eyes as he stood.

“Yeah. You don’t know yet, do you? Doyeon always shakes his head when I offer him something, but if I keep shoving it in his direction, he ends up eating it. Spoon-feeding, yeah? He says ‘oh, I don't wanna,’ ‘no,’ ‘don’t be annoying’ when I ask him to go somewhere with me, but he ends up coming anyway. It’s adorable how he always complains and says no in the beginning.”

“Are you a sadist?”

How cute can a guy get...?

Hyunoh clicked his tongue as they stepped through the door. The moment he got seated in front of Kangbin’s chair, the tutor walked in and the classroom fell silent.

Hyunoh flipped a page.

“You don’t know yet, do you?”

Kangbin’s voice kept ringing in his head.

Of course he didn’t. He hadn’t known Doyeon for long.

They were always together because they were desk partners, but he couldn’t be as close as Kangbin was to Doyeon. They’d known each other since middle school, and that was enough time to know a person inside and out.

…Enough to call each other when they were disheveled.

Hyunoh, on the other hand, had to face Doyeon trying to put himself together. He gritted his teeth.

He felt bad for some reason, but he couldn’t put a finger on why. That annoyed him.

He played around on his phone and switched Doyeon’s contact name from “Doyeon Yoo (Desk Partner)” to “Doyeon Yoo.”

* * *

After lunch, Doyeon walked out of the cafeteria humming. He was in a good mood because Aeyoung hadn’t whined or fussed for the past few days.

He was behind the crowd, in line, when Kangbin grabbed his shoulder.

“Hey, let’s go to the store! I want instant tteokbokki!”

“Didn’t you just have lunch? Is there space for more snacks in your stomach? You said you had more than usual because it’s boneless chicken.”

“My sister said there are different spaces in your gut for food and rice cakes.”

“Oh really? Your sister is absolutely right,” Doyeon nodded, thinking of Kangbin’s sister, Jinju Baek.

Family was a line that should never be crossed. If his sister said so, that was the law.

They went through the same routine the moment they got to the store. Doyeon sat at a table first because he never chose to get a snack, and Hyunoh followed suit after grabbing the same chestnut bread. Then Kangbin and Sunwoo would sit with armfuls of snacks.

Kangbin opened up a can of Pringles.

“No?”

“No. Not today. I used all my pocket money.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, I bought Aeyoung a squishy toy yesterday.”

Doyeon made a circle with his forefinger and thumb to describe the toy. She had begged him for that squishy toy, in its rainbow-colored glory. It robbed his entire wallet.

Doyeon watched his three friends eat. How were they able to eat their lunch and eat rice cakes?

Where did all the food go...?

“But how much is this squishy toy? It couldn’t have taken up all your pocket money. Is it that expensive these days?” Sunwoo asked as he opened up a hot bar.

Doyeon tilted his head, asking “Squishy toy?” again.

“You just said you spent all your pocket money. Is there a squishy toy that costs more than 10,000 won?”

“No, it was 2,000 won.”

“What?”

“2,000 won. My weekly pocket money is 6,000 won,” Doyeon answered.

“Huh?” Sunwoo repeated, shocked.

He seemed to have thought Doyeon was on his scale of wealth, since he had lots of pocket money to spend, and he couldn’t have known Doyeon’s financial status since they had become close friends while attending a tutoring center in their last year of middle school.

Doyeon was used to Sunwoo’s reaction because he’d gone through the same dance with Kangbin in the beginning.

It was hard to teach Kangbin the lifestyle of the poor since he was from a wealthy family. Doyeon had to describe things, like how he couldn't order drinks and strawberry cake with him at a café, how he couldn’t go eat steak with him on the weekends, and much more. All of it took time.

“You can... survive on 6,000 won?”

“Yes. I walk to school, don’t I? And I don’t eat snacks.”

“Riiight... Huh?”

“I can save up to go to the gaming room with you guys, so it’s fine.”

“Uh-huh.” Sunwoo nodded, then looked Doyeon up and down. He looked as though he was seeing Doyeon anew.

Kangbin interrupted, shoving his head in between them. “Doyeon, you’re still coming with us to game this weekend, right?”

“I just said I used up all my pocket money.”

“I’ll pay.”

“No, I’m busy.”

“You’re busy? With what? Why without me? Are you going somewhere without Kangbin?!”

“Yep. I’m going to have fun without you,” Doyeon shrugged, dusting off the crumbs Kangbin had spilt all over the table. He had been eyeing them for a while.

As he wiped them off, he thought about the 6,000 won conversation he just had.

Doyeon was never ashamed of his life and the burden of poverty. He hadn’t chosen to be born into his class, so he thought there was no reason for him to be ashamed.

In fact, it wasn’t a miserable life.

His mother was busy but kind, and his younger sister, who grew like a weed, was adorable.

There were limited options for side dishes, but he never had to starve. He had to bathe in cold water in the middle of winter, but he was always clean.

Wasn’t that enough?

He stopped thinking then and threw away the tissue. Doyeon turned back to his friends when something covered his sight. It was chestnut bread that Hyunoh was holding out. He seemed to have broken it off because it was a huge piece.

He found Hyunoh’s blank expression pointed at him, and he wasn’t asking whether he wanted it or not.