EAR Ch 6

He exhaled exaggeratedly and turned the steering wheel. Since they were only in a relationship where they met on the way back and forth, there wasn’t much of a chance to get particularly close, but Jaemin still liked the brief time he spent chatting with the pickup hyung. When he went inside his house, the rigid atmosphere made him walk on eggshells first regarding what to say, but when talking with him, he didn’t have to care about things like the mood.

“Goodbye.”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

Parting with the pickup driver, Jaemin let out a light sigh and opened the door. The large house, where even the TV wasn’t turned on, was quiet as if no one were there, but as soon as Jaemin stepped inside, signs of presence arose. His mother, who happened to be out in the living room, greeted Jaemin first.

“Are you back, Jaemin?”

“Yes.”

She was holding a glass of water, as if she had just swallowed the painkiller she always took. Jaemin’s mother had a sensitive personality, so she had frequent headaches. She instructed him in a quiet voice.

“Mom has a bit of a headache today. I want to be quiet, is that okay?”

“Yes, are you alright?”

“Of course.”

“What about Dad?”

“In the study. I heard you took a test at the academy today.”

“Ah. The results come out tomorrow.”

He hadn’t even told her he was taking a test today, but his mother already knew. He hated times like this the most. Jaemin nodded his head, left his bag in his room, and headed straight to the bathroom. Today of all days, his face in the mirror looked exceptionally expressionless. When he came out after showering and changing clothes, the living room was desolate.

When both of his parents were out in the living room, the atmosphere was at its worst, but since no one was there today, it was a decent day as far as things went. Jaemin grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator and quickly headed to his room. Now he didn’t want to come out of his room if possible. Standing in the empty living room, he raised his voice so they could hear.

“I’ll review today’s material and sleep. Good night.”

Even if there was no special issue and they weren’t saying anything to each other, coming home and staying in the same space as his parents made him uncomfortable for the sole reason of sharing the space. Once he went to college, he would probably be able to move out and live on his own like his older sister.

Jaemin pulled out the second cell phone he had hidden deep inside his bag and plugged it into the charger. The charger was also hidden in an unnoticeable corner so that it would be hard for others to find even if someone suddenly walked in.

While the cell phone was charging, Jaemin opened his academy textbooks. Saying he would review wasn’t a lie. Coming home and reviewing the material he studied that day was a routine as natural to Jaemin as breathing. After that, he would use the second cell phone for just 10 to 20 minutes before sleeping to surf the internet. It didn’t take up much time, yet had a great refreshing effect, making it quite a decent pattern for wrapping up the day.

Only after finishing all his studying did Jaemin pick up the cell phone in his hand. In the meantime, the cell phone had been fully charged. Jaemin tilted his head. Usually, after posting a new photo, at least three or four comments would be posted, so it was strange.

“Why are there no notifications at all?”

Muttering, Jaemin noticed a change more important than the fact that there were no social media notifications. The photo set on the lock screen was different from usual.

Jaemin’s cell phone lock screen was the default screen set when first buying the phone, but now a photo of some sea was displayed on the screen. It was an open sea where waves rose vividly, as if taken from atop a boat. It was a scenery he would have thought looked cool if he had seen it under different circumstances, but right now, it felt as though his heart sank completely.

He tried touching the screen to unlock it, but face recognition didn’t work. As a second best option, he entered the password, but a vibration rang along with the phrase that it was an input error.

Jaemin continuously entered the same numbers as if wanting to believe the cell phone was broken, and each time, the cell phone stubbornly popped up an error message. It was the sight of him mentally denying the now obvious fact that the object in his hand was not his cell phone.

“…”

Jaemin, who fell into a blank silence, eventually put down the cell phone and hurriedly sat in front of his laptop. Normally, he would naturally feel sleepy around this time, but on his pale face, not even a shred of sleepiness remained.

When he urgently entered the address in the internet window, the social media screen appeared on the monitor. Finishing logging in after entering his ID and password, Jaemin swallowed a startled breath.

It was because a three-digit number was flashing in the new message notification window. Jaemin didn’t interact much on social media, so even if he posted a new entry, getting under twenty notifications was all there was to it. This was an obvious abnormal situation.

***’s reply has been posted.

Even in the meantime, new replies were continuously coming up diligently. There was only one case where so many notifications piled up on a social media account where not many people frequented in the first place. It was when making a mistake and getting cursed at. Things had gotten twisted.

However, no matter how much he thought about it, Jaemin had not posted an entry worthy of that. Today was an ordinary day like usual. If there were special circumstances, it was that it rained, and that he collided with Oh Seungpyo when coming out of the abandoned building.

So… his cell phone must have gotten swapped with Oh Seungpyo’s. There was no other part he could point to besides that.

‘Please… by any chance, he couldn’t have seen it, right?’

Jaemin swallowed his dry spit. Unable to bring himself to click the social media notification window, just in case, he checked Oh Seungpyo’s cell phone that he had brought (presumably belonging to him), but only multiple message notifications were displayed, and there was no record of missed calls coming in while the battery was turned off. Then did that mean Oh Seungpyo lost his cell phone and wasn’t even looking for it?

Jaemin turned his gaze back to the laptop screen. To Ryu Jaemin, the top-ranked student in the whole school at Ilyang Boys’ High School, if it was a secret, it was a secret, and if it was a dark mark, it was a dark mark. It was the fact that he was running an anonymous account on social media.

It wasn’t an account created to be used this way from the beginning. When there were frustrating things at home or at school, it was an account created for use as a kind of bamboo forest, to write them down here like a diary and shake them off.

Fixing upon a social media platform that he settled on after avoiding all places where photos had to be uploaded, places frequented by many peers, and places where identity verification was required or anonymity wasn’t guaranteed properly, Jaemin timidly created an anonymous ID that felt unfamiliar even to himself.

Having created an empty space like that, curious about what kinds of posts other people uploaded, he read posts recommended by AI or blindly read posts of people that popped up in results after searching specific words. Since every person’s way of utilizing social media was really diverse, while there were people who used it for scribbles, chit-chat, or as a diary according to Jaemin’s intention, there were also people who uploaded things like drawings or novels they drew, and people who posted records of good restaurants or photos of travel destinations.

Reading various stories of other people was quite fun. Even if he tried to spare time to read things like web novels or webtoons on the internet, it would take at least a few minutes, so there were many times he couldn’t even attempt it and let it pass; however, social media was convenient because things to see were updated even if he logged in briefly, and he could read them spending just a few seconds.

Speaking of his own story, even after creating the account, it was uncomfortable. When he was angry because of his parents, when school suddenly felt so tedious, when tomorrow was an exam again…

At times like that, even if he wrote a few lines and posted them, somehow he disliked leaving his impulsive emotions behind in writing, so he ended up deleting them after a few days. Because of that, Jaemin’s account remained empty without content for quite a long time even after being opened.

The moment Jaemin discovered an account of a nature he hadn’t even thought of was a coincidence that occurred while searching with a word of an interest topic. Like a water bottle or a shoe mixed into a net thrown to catch fish, it was mixed in between ordinary search results.

A sexually suggestive photo taken with the face covered, and a space of a total stranger that was covered with all kinds of obscene talk shared between the photo’s protagonist and an unspecified majority.

At the time, he was startled and turned off his cell phone right away, but the account he saw then remained intensely in Jaemin’s mind afterwards as well. For quite a long time. Until eventually, controlling his beating heart just like when lying to his parents, he posted his own photo for the first time in the empty account.