EAR Ch 3

Oh Seungpyo now began to blame others quite cynically. Holding the pen he was carrying as if he were smoking a cigarette, he wiggled it between his fingers.

Seungpyo’s father was not a person who built his life through academic credentials. However, as a deep-sea fishing vessel captain, he earned quite a large income and Seungpyo had never felt economically lacking, which meant Oh Seungpyo was at least around a silver spoon level himself.

His dad didn’t deny that the reason both Seungpyo’s older brother and Seungpyo were good at studying was their mother’s side of the family history. His dad didn’t have much interest in grades or his sons’ career paths. He only made carefree remarks, saying that as long as men were well-built, they just needed to be able to make a living somehow.

If his smart mother had been by his side, wouldn’t she have taken better care of his studies, resulting in better outcomes than now? Seungpyo was now attributing the reasons for his defeat even to his mother, whom he couldn’t even remember anymore.

At any rate, Ryu Jaemin was a model student, and he was handsome. He was a handsome guy in a slightly different style from Oh Seungpyo. Although Seungpyo hadn’t seen him playing sports at school, his physique was decent, and his posture was straight and confident. Seungpyo had thought he was ordinary at first, but that seemed to be because his anger at failing to reclaim first place in the whole school had interfered excessively.

Although his appearance wasn’t flashy, even just a slight smile made his impression clear and bright, and his features were reliable yet neat, making his face one that would easily win people’s favor. Since he was a punk who did nothing but study, they said no kids blatantly approached him to ask him out, but he was subtly popular.

His height was a bit shorter than Seungpyo’s. He always wore his school uniform neatly without getting disheveled, and while the content of what he said was ordinary, his tone was polite and gentle, which sometimes felt ticklish to Seungpyo, who tended to blurt things out brusquely. In other words, a model student’s way of speaking.

If his household managed his grades like that, they probably made him exercise separately, too. Still, whether he refrained from outdoor exercise altogether, his skin was on the fair side. His hair was a normal style of appropriate length with bangs, but every time Seungpyo looked, his hair texture looked soft and nice. It seemed he used good shampoo, too.

‘Shampoo my ass. Have I gone crazy?’

At last, he was now having all kinds of thoughts. Seungpyo, who had been immersed in all sorts of random thoughts, was lazily spinning his pen when it slipped right out of his hand.

Clank!

Falling as if plunging off a cliff, the heavy pen hit the stairs one flight down, making a loud sound as if it were breaking.

Tap, tap, clank, roll…

The pen bounced down the stairs as it pleased, rolling down the hallway at the very end. The voices of the teacher and Ryu Jaemin, who had been chatting in the quiet hallway until then, broke off abruptly as if startled.

Instantly flustered, Oh Seungpyo held his breath, abandoned the pen right then and there, and tried to hurry back up the stairs. However, he had to stop before he could even turn his body, because that pen was an engraved pen he had received as a high school entrance gift from his dad. Since Oh Seungpyo’s name was engraved on it, if anyone turned it over a few times, there was no way they wouldn’t know who the owner of the pen was.

Dammit. Swallowing a curse inside, Seungpyo had no choice but to trudge down the stairs. The teacher standing below looked up and asked as if surprised.

“Oh my, Seungpyo. Is this yours?”

“Yes, I dropped it while coming down in a hurry.”

Right then, Ryu Jaemin bent down. Lifting the dark blue pen with a cap in his fair, neat hand, he met Seungpyo’s gaze squarely and held it out to him.

“Here.”

“Yeah.”

His fingertips brushed lightly when taking the pen. Feeling uncomfortable, Seungpyo stiffened his face without realizing it.

Here, Yeah. That was their first conversation. Though there were countless times they had exchanged gazes or clearly been conscious of each other during every exam period, this was the first time they officially spoke words to each other.

After a short exchange of words that couldn’t even be called a conversation, when it grew quiet as if they had agreed upon it, the teacher looked at the two of them and smiled.

“It looks nice seeing 1st and 2nd place in the whole school standing together. Get along nicely.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

The two answered almost simultaneously. The teacher left the spot first, and the two who remained awkwardly in the hallway exchanged short words this time as well. This time, Seungpyo went first.

“I’m going.”

“Yeah.”

Seungpyo walked back up the stairs. The fingertips that had brushed felt ticklish. Dusting off his palm as if something were on it, he arrived at the spot where he had been standing a moment ago, then peeked his head out slightly to look down. Ryu Jaemin had a serene expression on his face while looking out the window, as if he wanted to enjoy some time alone.

It would be winter vacation soon. Though he had suffered complete defeats on all the tests this year, he couldn’t let that happen all the way into his second year. If he wanted to reclaim first place in the whole school, he had to work really hard during winter vacation to seize the momentum starting from the first test of his second year.

Setting a goal is essential to devote oneself to studying. Naturally, the goal was beating the 1st-place student in the whole school, Ryu Jaemin. Even during vacation, there were supplementary classes, but those started in January. That meant he wouldn’t even brush past Ryu Jaemin from mid-December until the end of the month.

Seungpyo lifted his phone and covered the speaker so that no camera sound would be made. Pulling the zoom, he took a shot of Ryu Jaemin’s face looking out the window.

Right now, he could see the punk when he came to school, so his sense of purpose burned on its own; however, he wouldn’t be able to do that during vacation, so it seemed necessary to refresh his competitive spirit by peeking at the enemy commander’s face once in a while like this. Taking a single face photo secretly wasn’t that cunning of a deed, anyway.

‘He photographs well, too.’

The side profile looking far off into the distance came out better than necessary. Annoyingly enough. Seungpyo gave a short snort and turned off the photo app.

Compared to Oh Seungpyo, who was permanently popular, the popularity of the 1st-place student in the whole school was no less impressive. Ryu Jaemin, who had been staring blankly out the window alone, was leaving the spot while chatting quietly with kids who had approached his side before anyone noticed. Seungpyo also walked up the rest of the stairs.

📚

High school winter vacation was at a level where it practically didn’t exist.

Seungpyo’s school spent a vacation without school attendance for about ten days from late December through the New Year holidays, and began supplementary classes from the first week of January. The kids, who had been separated for even a short period, busily chattered about how each of them had spent their time.

“Where did you go?”

“My mom and dad were busy, so I just stayed home. Ah shit, I asked them to send me on a trip even if it’s just by myself, but they said no.”

“I went to Jeju Island. What about you, Seungpyo?”

“I briefly went to ride a board with my brother.”

Ever since the second semester, Seungpyo’s older brother had gotten deeply hooked on college club activities, and after the semester ended, he occasionally went to ride snowboards with the club members. Having gone once, he got completely hooked on the fun, and after that, he took Seungpyo to the ski resort a few more times.

Although there were many kids who learned leisure sports from a young age, it wasn’t easy for Seungpyo’s brothers, whose caretakers were inconsistent. Flower viewing in spring, the sea or a water park in summer, and a ski resort in winter. That standard family formula didn’t exist in Seungpyo’s house.

Becoming an adult, his older brother played hard all year round as if trying to relieve his pent-up regret from all those years. Seeing him mess around and play like that, he definitely seemed to have ruined his exams, but after nagging Seungpyo that his grades fell after going to high school, he never let Seungpyo know his own college GPA.

What was the big deal about being born a few years earlier? Oh Seungpyo felt wronged, but he decided to let it slide smoothly. After all, while at the ski resort, he had played well on his brother’s dime.

“It was my first time going, and it was fun.”

“If you’re wearing snowboarding gear, everyone would probably think you’re a college student.”

“Yeah, actually, when I was standing with my brother, there were a few older girls who asked to hang out together.”

“For real? Did you get your phone number asked for?”

“No, when we said we were brothers, they just left. What’s wrong with being brothers, anyway?”

“Ah, this punk was going around scrounging for scams.”

Although it was a short vacation, while pulling out the things that had happened during that time one by one and giggling and laughing, the school he had been reluctant to come out to quickly became familiar again. Right then, one guy opened his eyes wide as if he had just remembered and chimed into the conversation.

“Speaking of which, the top student in the whole school was at the academy I went to for special lectures. It’s a place my mom signed me up for to attend briefly during vacation.”