NCBF Ch 11

Every time the two giggled and moved their bodies, there was a smell of cigarettes. It seemed that the two of them—no, even Hyun Gyujin along with them—had been smoking together and got caught by the teacher, resulting in only Hyun Gyujin being dragged away.

“Hey, but your hands are fucking small too. Spread them out.”

My hands aren’t small though…. Yuwon found it too bothering to bother replying, so he just quietly raised his hand and spread it open. Kim Junjae, who pressed his own hand wide against Yuwon’s hand, looked over at Choi Haeyoung.

“Your fingers are fucking thin.”

Just as the meaningless conversation was getting tedious, Hyun Gyujin was seen coming in through the front door. As soon as he looked over here, Yuwon saw Hyun Gyujin stride over with a hardened expression, and Yuwon curled his fingers back in.

“Fuck, what are you doing.”

As soon as he arrived, Hyun Gyujin kicked the leg of the chair Kim Junjae was sitting on with a thud and tilted his head askew. At that moment, the classroom fell silent.

Yuwon stared up at Hyun Gyujin’s sensitive, annoyed face—a look he rarely had a reason to see, as Hyun Gyujin never showed it to him normally. Surely there were times when he got angry or annoyed at Yuwon too, but Hyun Gyujin really had never made a face like that toward him even once.

“What bullshit did you say to Jeong Yuwon? Why are you holding his hand?”

“…No, holding what? His hand was just fucking small, so I just compared ours.”

Choi Haeyoung, reading Hyun Gyujin’s mood, quickly got up from his seat and took Kim Junjae away. Yuwon looked at Choi Haeyoung, who left while giving him a look as if pleading with him to do something about it, and then Yuwon grabbed and shook the wrist of Hyun Gyujin, who was still glaring at the two of them.

“I heard you got caught with your piercing.”

Hyun Gyujin pulled the chair Kim Junjae had been sitting on back over, sat facing Yuwon, and nodded. That cold expression from just a moment ago was nowhere to be found, replaced entirely with a pouty, wronged look from being caught and scold by the teacher.

“Did you get yelled at a lot?”

“Just a bit. They told me to get inspected in a month to see if it closed up.”

“What are you going to do?”

“They won’t even remember a month from now. I mean, when have they ever remembered what they said? No, but what did those bastards say to you? Why did they come over and throw a fit?”

“They just told me you went to the staff room.”

“Ignore those bastards if they talk to you. They’re filthy, filthy.”

Looking at Hyun Gyujin waving his hand off at his own friends—not just anyone else—Yuwon laughed, rested his chin on his hand, and met his eyes.

“If your friends are filthy, then you’re filthy too.”

“Hey, where are you comparing me to them? I’m not.”

“They say birds of a feather flock together.”

“Then what about you, hanging out with me?”

“So that means Kim Junjae, me, and you are all the same.”

Having wrapped it up quite clearly in his own way, Yuwon shifted his gaze to Hyun Gyujin’s ear. Every time he saw the trace of the pierced earlobe, he felt like it would keep hurting. Since Yuwon himself had never pierced his ears and had no intention of ever doing so, he wouldn’t know, though. Yuwon thoughtlessly reached out, lightly pinched Hyun Gyujin’s earlobe, and rubbed over the piercing mark.

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“…Whoa…. Hold on a second.”

Hyun Gyujin flinched noticeably enough for Yuwon to feel it and quickly covered his ear with his hand. At Hyun Gyujin’s sudden behavior, Yuwon waited quietly for an answer.

“Darling, we agreed to do things like this only when it’s just the two of us.”

“…Are you crazy?”

“It feels weird when you touch my ear.”

“Why is touching an ear weird?”

Yuwon, not understanding what he meant, blankly stared at Hyun Gyujin’s hand approaching him. Soon, the warmth that passed before his eyes was felt on his earlobe.

At the sensation of his plump, soft earlobe being pressed and rubbed with fingertips, a chill ran down his spine. The tips of his toes inside his white socks curled up, and his back automatically stood stiff and straight.

“Isn’t it weird?”

“It’s… fine, for me….”

Trying to act as if nothing were wrong, Yuwon averted his gaze, grabbed Hyun Gyujin’s wrist, and pulled it back slightly. It was about time for the teacher for the next class to arrive, but it felt like he shouldn’t be with Hyun Gyujin any longer, so it was a silent urge to quickly send him back to his seat.

“Yes, yes. I’ll get lost.”

Hyun Gyujin pressed down firmly on top of Yuwon’s head with a large, warm hand, then shoved his hands into his pockets and returned to his seat. The sound of slippers dragging beside him sounded particularly loud again. Breathing deeply at his heart beating even louder than that, Yuwon covered the ear that Hyun Gyujin’s hand had touched with his palm.

“…”

That tingly sensation from when Hyun Gyujin rubbed his earlobe still remained in his body. Thinking that Hyun Gyujin must have felt this way too when he touched Hyun Gyujin’s ear made him feel so very strange. Feeling the soft texture of Hyun Gyujin’s earlobe lingering on his fingertips and the warmth left on his own earlobe at the same time, Yuwon tightly squeezed his slightly parted thighs together.

It was a completely unrelated matter, so why did last night, when he tossed and turned unable to sleep, come to mind? Yuwon recalled Hyun Gyujin’s face as he climbed over his body and looked down at him with a smile, then quickly shook his head hard. Another inexplicable thing had been added to his list.

∞ ∞ ∞

As soon as school ended, Yuwon, who went out with Hyun Gyujin, headed not for home, but toward the academy district. They could have stopped by home first, but that would make the timing awkward and difficult to eat dinner comfortably, so on Wednesdays and Fridays when they went to the academy, he and Hyun Gyujin usually ate dinner together in the academy district.

Since they had to choose a menu that wouldn’t take too long to eat out, most of what they ate was hamburgers, pizza, or street food snacks. Unwrapping the hamburger wrapper, Yuwon bit into a long french fry that approached his mouth.

The freshly fried fry was, as expected, delicious. Yuwon naturally opened his mouth toward Hyun Gyujin again. Hyun Gyujin, who had already been dipping a french fry in ketchup to give it to him again anyway, smiled and let Yuwon bite onto the long fry.

“It’s delicious.”

“Eat a lot.”

“You too.”

Taking a bite of the hamburger with a chicken patty, Yuwon nodded in satisfaction at the taste. Then he looked at Hyun Gyujin’s hamburger, who had taken a bite in the exact same way. The size of the hamburgers was different, the thickness was different, and even the size of a single bite was different, which brought out a laugh.

Well, since Hyun Gyujin was nearly 190 cm tall, a single ordinary hamburger like the one Yuwon ate wouldn’t satisfy his stomach. Even as a child, he was taller than other kids, but once he entered middle school, Hyun Gyujin really started growing at a terrifying pace. Yuwon remembered that time as well. Exaggerating a bit, it really felt like he grew taller every time they met. Back then, Hyun Gyujin drank 2 liters of milk a day, and saying he was still hungry no matter how much he ate, he would regularly eat three bowls of rice per meal. And everything he ate back then went straight into his height.

“Why are you only eating one today?”

“Because I’m scared I’ll grow even taller.”

“What’s that about….”

“Eat three of them, Jeong Yuwon. That’s how you’ll grow more.”

Grinning playfully, Hyun Gyujin picked up a chicken nugget and put it in his mouth. While Hyun Gyujin neatly finished off one hamburger, Yuwon, who had barely eaten half, chewed slowly and thoroughly as he took a small bite. Even from that small bite, his bulging cheek moved slowly.

“Are you meeting Kim Junjae and Choi Haeyoung today too?”

“Huh? Uh, yeah. To kill time.”

“I feel like they might feel bad that you only meet them when I go to the academy.”

Yuwon recalled Kim Junjae and Choi Haeyoung saying earlier that they were his stand-ins. Although they said it laughingly like a joke, he thought it might actually be their true feelings hidden behind a joke.

“What did those bastards say to you?”

“No, just…. Since you said you meet them to kill time….”

“Why are you worrying about stuff like that? Those bastards all use each other to kill time when they meet, too. Choi Haeyoung leaves when his girlfriend calls while he’s playing games. Kim Junjae leaves too if another guy asks him to get a drink.”

“Do they drink alcohol too?”

“Occasionally.”

“You too?”

“No. For me, I kind of feel like this. We’ll end up drinking a shit ton of alcohol once we go to college anyway, so I wonder if there’s any need to sneak around drinking right now.”

Resting his chin on his hand, Hyun Gyujin picked up a nugget, dipped it in sauce, and fed it into Yuwon’s mouth. Knowing that Yuwon wouldn’t eat it in one bite but split it into two, he didn’t let go right away, waiting until he bit off half, and then dipped the remaining half into the sauce again.

“What about cigarettes? Your lungs will really rot away at this rate.”

“Still, I’ve cut down a lot lately. I used to smoke a pack a day before, but nowadays if I buy one pack, it lasts more than a week. Sometimes it even lasts ten days, you know?”

Hyun Gyujin, who fed the remaining half of the nugget into Yuwon’s mouth, grinned. Watching Yuwon, who finally finished his own share of the hamburger and was neatly folding the wrapper, was cute. To the point where he thought it would be nice to have a younger brother like him.

“I’m full….”