Just A Friend

#23

* * *

The last day of exams.

In other words, the end of the first semester and the beginning of summer vacation.

The rainy season, which was said to be starting, began pouring with a fierce intensity from dawn. The air in the classroom was humid and stuffy, and the sound of rain filled the square space.

Yesterday… he had barely studied.

The one fortunate thing was that today’s exam difficulty was average. From the reactions of his classmates, English seemed to be the most difficult, but for Nam Seonwoo, many familiar passages appeared. They were all questions Kang Jihan had asked. Perhaps he benefited a bit from Kang Jihan’s constant questioning; it seemed he had done fairly well on the final exams.

“If even one complaint comes in during the vacation, if even one of you causes trouble, our class won’t have PE.”

Although the members were milder compared to other classes, they were still third-year high school students, so the homeroom teacher seemed worried. He listed about twenty things they shouldn’t do during summer vacation before finally ending the meeting.

Nam Seonwoo quickly packed his bag. He was thinking of going straight home to sleep. He had already told Park Gyuhyeon he would leave first, and just as he stood up from his seat—

“Nam Seonwoo.”

Kang Jihan had approached and was blocking his way. Nam Seonwoo clicked his tongue inwardly.

In fact, he had been avoiding Kang Jihan since the morning.

When the break time bell rang, he would dash out of the classroom and hide in the bathroom or wander around the playground, only returning to the classroom when the start-of-class bell rang. It wasn’t like he had done anything wrong, and it felt a bit unfair, but he had no choice.

After returning home like that yesterday, he had pulled at his hair in self-loathing. He kicked off his blanket in shame for doing something close to delusion, and also hit his pillow repeatedly, thinking it was Kang Jihan’s fault for doing weird things in the first place.

When sleep finally came in the early morning, he thought he might get some rest, but even his dreams didn’t help Nam Seonwoo.

It started with the same scene. In Kang Jihan’s room, Kang Jihan was eating ice cream while wearing his school uniform. Then he licked the ice cream that had dripped onto Nam Seonwoo’s arm, and the scene suddenly changed.

The man before him was no longer a high school student in uniform, but a proper adult. Kang Jihan as a college student, wearing a shirt with a navy blue sweater. Even in the dream, Nam Seonwoo immediately recognized when this was. It must have been at the freshman orientation. After a long drinking session, the two returned to Nam Seonwoo’s rented room, and in the narrow space with the lights off, they kissed. And then…

Slap.

“…You!”

His cheek stung. Trying to cut off the dream scenes that kept intruding, Nam Seonwoo raised his hand to strike again, but his wrist was caught by a strong grip.

“What are you doing?”

One slap seemed to have been effective; the Kang Jihan before him had returned to being a high school student in uniform. He looked surprised but otherwise the same as usual. In other words, he didn’t seem awkward about yesterday’s events.

‘This guy doesn’t seem bothered at all…’

What am I doing? As if I still have feelings for Kang Jihan.

Get a grip, Nam Seonwoo. Get a grip.

It seemed he had gotten too close under the pretense of being okay as friends. He figured if he distanced himself a bit, these almost pathological symptoms would disappear. So he decided he needed to get away from Kang Jihan for now. Twisting his caught wrist free, Nam Seonwoo said irritably,

“I’m leaving.”

But his wrist was caught again. The stronger force this time made him frown involuntarily.

“Aren’t you going to clean?”

He had no response to that. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t cleaned by himself plenty of times before, so why suddenly bring up cleaning now? Nam Seonwoo frowned without looking at Kang Jihan.

“I’ll do it all next time. I’m tired today.”

There was no answer, but he could tell it wasn’t agreement. The grip on his wrist remained firm. As the silence lengthened, he could feel glances from others looking their way. Finally, Nam Seonwoo looked at Kang Jihan with a sigh.

He looked like he had something to say. And Nam Seonwoo could vaguely tell it wasn’t about cleaning duty.

“I said I’m tired. Let’s talk at school tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

He realized his mistake as soon as he said it. With summer vacation starting today, there was no reason to come to school for about a month. Nam Seonwoo added quietly,

“…Or text me.”

“…”

Kang Jihan didn’t let go. If anything, his grip seemed to tighten, causing Nam Seonwoo to snap irritably,

“Can you let go? It hurts.”

As soon as there was a slight gap in the grip on his wrist, he pulled his arm free. It hadn’t been held that tightly, but already red marks were appearing on his skin. Being quite pale-skinned, this was familiar. As he was nonchalantly shaking his hand, Kang Jihan clenched his fist and asked in a low voice,

“Did something happen?”

“What do you mean?”

When Nam Seonwoo responded calmly, Kang Jihan’s voice rose slightly.

“Then why are you avoiding me?”

“When did I avoid you?”

“You’ve been avoiding me all day today.”

It’s only been one day, what’s the big deal… Although he knew the Kang Jihan before him wasn’t the same Kang Jihan, remembering how his lover had treated him like he was invisible for so long made him suddenly flare up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you done? Can I go now?”

Silence fell again. The classmates who had been watching to see what was going on started leaving the classroom after seeing Kang Jihan’s face.

After most of the students had left, only Kang Jihan, Nam Seonwoo, and one or two others remained in the classroom. The remaining students were just packing their things, not paying attention to them. In the quiet classroom, Kang Jihan’s equally low voice sounded,

“Is it because I ate it all?”

Nam Seonwoo couldn’t believe his ears for a moment. He immediately understood what Kang Jihan was talking about. The ice cream. The remnants of that day kept swirling in Nam Seonwoo’s mind. But he never thought Kang Jihan would have such a silly idea. He was so dumbfounded that words just tumbled out,

“Do I look like such a petty person to you?”

“…”

The lack of response was also infuriating. But soon, looking at that face made him feel self-loathing. What are you doing with someone so much younger… Nam Seonwoo ran his hand through his hair.

Right. From Kang Jihan’s perspective, it must have looked strange. Suddenly running away from his house yesterday, ignoring all his messages, and obviously avoiding him today. So Kang Jihan must have thought he had done something wrong yesterday. …Although the conclusion that it was ‘because he ate all the ice cream’ was still infuriating, he had clearly been too emotional.

“…Bed.”

As Nam Seonwoo was trying to calm himself down, remembering that he was the adult here, Kang Jihan came out with another unexpected word.

“I’ll let you use it.”

“What?”

…What’s wrong with this kid? His mouth fell open in shock. Kang Jihan, who had been staring at the floor, added seriously, regardless of Nam Seonwoo’s reaction,

“I said you can lie down.”

He couldn’t control his expression. After being dazed for a few seconds, Nam Seonwoo tried to piece together what Kang Jihan had said.

So now, he’s inviting me to his house? …Why?

“The exams are over, why would I go there?”

Now he’s openly glaring. At that moment, the homeroom teacher made his presence known at the corridor window. His look said, “Why aren’t you cleaning yet?” Caught red-handed, Nam Seonwoo had no choice but to put down his bag and say,

“Are you done with what you wanted to say?”

“No.”

“Then say it now.”

Kang Jihan kept his mouth shut, neither saying what he wanted to say nor moving out of the way. Not knowing what he was supposed to do, Nam Seonwoo didn’t avoid his gaze, and Kang Jihan said,

“Wait here. You don’t have to clean.”

‘Here’ seemed to mean Nam Seonwoo’s seat. With Kang Jihan blocking his front and the wall with closed windows behind him, the only place he could go was onto the chair. Nam Seonwoo let out a long sigh.

Only after confirming that he sat down did Kang Jihan head towards the cleaning supplies. Now they were the only two left in the classroom. As silence fell over the classroom, the forgotten sound of rain once again filled the space.

Nam Seonwoo watched Kang Jihan with one arm propped up. He couldn’t figure out what on earth this guy was trying to do, or why he was being so stubborn.

Had something like this happened with Park Gyuhyeon too? If his memory was correct, there hadn’t been even anything similar to this. It seemed a bit too much to just be guys expressing their hurt feelings to each other. His fingers tapping on the desk, tok, tok, sped up a little.

‘But…’

Was it just his imagination, or did the sweeping seem particularly slow?

It seemed like this was the first time he had watched Kang Jihan clean, even though he had made him clean before. Even though no one was checking his cleaning, the broom swept the wooden floor thoroughly without missing a spot.

‘Unnecessarily.’

Instead of being diligent about such trivial things, he should be more considerate towards people. As the image of Kang Jihan, who hadn’t been a diligent lover to him, kept overlapping with this nineteen-year-old, Nam Seonwoo turned his head away sharply.

The sound of rain hitting the old building reminded him of when he was trapped in the annex with Kang Jihan. Back then, nothing had seemed strange, but he couldn’t understand how things had ended up like this.

…By the way, what did Kang Jihan want to say? Seeing how tightly he was keeping his mouth shut, it didn’t seem like he had any intention of speaking here. Still, there was no way Nam Seonwoo was going to his house. Letting him use the bed? Sorry, but that wasn’t appreciated at all. He had even made a mistake this morning because of the dream he had last night, how could he lie down there?

Kang Jihan finished cleaning around the time when the noise from the corridor had completely died down. When they locked the classroom and came out, the lights in the other classrooms were already off.

Although it was early, walking through the empty corridor felt strange. The biggest problem was walking with his wet dream subject and ex-lover in a place without a single sign of life. Wanting to end the uncomfortable silence quickly, he spoke first.

“What did you want to say?”