NCBF Ch 13

“Wow, two thousand comments, fuck. Are you an idol?”

“What’s with 30,000 followers on a single photo? Did you hit the algorithm right or what? Hey, you crazy bastard. What’s with the 248 DMs?”

Hyun Gyujin checked the comments under the photo with an expressionless face, casually scrolling up through them. Most were comments saying he was handsome or asking if the two of them were dating, and the rest were people who had written down their friends’ handles, seemingly to tag them to come look.

“Hey, quickly press that thing at the top.”

When he pressed something at the top as Kim Junjae instructed, unread messages and the like appeared. They kept telling him to look at something, but finding it a hassle, he just handed the phone over, whereupon Kim Junjae and Choi Haeyoung began checking Hyun Gyujin’s DMs and making a fuss.

“This is Jin Suji’s handle, right?”

“Yeah, quickly. Wow, fuck.”

“Hey, Jin Suji says she wants the two of you to meet up? Crazy.”

“Below this is Shin Taeri. She says it was nice seeing you last time? Hey, when did you see Shin Taeri?”

“When was this sent…. 17 weeks ago?”

Having no interest whatsoever in what the two were talking about, Hyun Gyujin, who was just idly scraping his foot against the ground, snatched the phone back and pressed on his following list, which had only one person. Then he pressed on the account belonging to Yuwon, who had set a photo of himself making a V sign as his profile picture. Yuwon, likewise, had only uploaded one frame from the four-cut photo they had taken together, just like him.

“Is this Lovestagram?”

“DMs probably came for Jeong Yuwon too, right?”

“Of course they came. Hey, but aren’t you going to reply to Jin Suji?”

“Why should I? Ah, time’s up. I’m leaving.”

“Crazy, if you’re gonna be like that, sell the account to me. Or sell enzymes instead. You’d make a shit ton of money. Tell them they’ll grow tall if they eat it.”

Hyun Gyujin, who leisure raised his middle finger before lowering it, walked out of the alley without looking back. Watching Hyun Gyujin leave, Kim Junjae and Choi Haeyoung shook their heads side to side. To the two of them, it was truly an incomprehensible friendship.

∞ ∞ ∞

Less than five minutes after he went to the front of the academy, Yuwon came out. Hyun Gyujin, who smiled upon seeing Yuwon waving his hand in greeting as he went in and then waving again in greeting the moment he saw him upon coming out, naturally took his bag and slung it over one shoulder. Just as he was about to ask if they should grab something warm to drink on the way home, he saw an unfamiliar face that had come out of the academy grab Yuwon’s arm. Hyun Gyujin’s gaze landed on that hand.

“Jeong Yuwon, I’ll take a picture of the error correction notes later and send them via KakaoTalk.”

“Yeah, thanks. See you next week. Bye.”

Seeing him go so far as to wave his hand at a kid he was seeing for the first time while spouting ‘bye’, it seemed there was a kid he had gotten close to at the academy without his knowledge. Hyun Gyujin stood behind them, shifting his weight onto one leg with his head tilted askew, watching the scene where they were exchanging goodbyes.

“Who’s that?”

“Ah, Yunseong.”

“Who’s Yunseong?”

“The new kid who came today. Class 1. He said he transferred last week.”

“You two looked fucking close.”

“We just sat together today and talked during the break, so we got close. Yunseong said he saw me a few times at school.”

It had been a really long time since he felt that he disliked almost all the words forming the sentence: ‘just’, ‘got close’, ‘Yunseong’, ‘said he saw [you] a few times’. Hyun Gyujin stared intently at Yuwon, who spoke casually.

“Why did he see you?”

“He probably saw me as he passed by.”

“Hey, that’s not something to talk about so casually. Didn’t that bastard also watch you to make an opportunity because he’s a pervert, and then approached you?”

“…That’s going too far.”

“There’s no harm in being careful.”

“When I talked to him, he seemed nice…”

Hyun Gyujin, feeling a bit annoyed as he watched Yuwon keep speaking positively about Yunseong or whatever no matter what he said, shut his mouth. At the same time, an uncommon silence followed.

“Why are you being like this…”

“What.”

“What is it that you don’t like?”

“What about me.”

“You’re a baby, a baby. You’re the exact same as when you went to kindergarten. You haven’t grown up at all.”

Back then too, Hyun Gyujin would grumble and make it obvious he was hurt whenever Yuwon made another friend. Of course, when Hyun Gyujin made a new friend, Yuwon also felt hurt, feeling as though his friend had been stolen away, but he had never openly grumbled and expressed it like this.

“I’ve grown fucking huge.”

“What’s the point if only your height grew? What you do is the exact same.”

“Me doing the exact same thing means you’re doing the exact same thing too. Because you’re the same, I’m the same too.”

“The kid who transferred last week goes to our academy, so we just sat together to take the class, and because there were parts I missed while organizing, he decided to take a picture of it and send it to me. What is there to be mad about here?”

The word ‘Bye’ lingered in his head the entire time, but Hyun Gyujin didn’t make a sound. Honestly, it wasn’t his exclusive greeting, and it was just a goodbye to wish him well, so he couldn’t say he felt unpleasant about it. Hyun Gyujin knew that he was making a very childish, unreasonable scene himself.

“…”

“…”

An uncommon and uncomfortable silence lingered between the two a little longer. Hyun Gyujin, who was walking more slowly than usual to match Yuwon’s pace, tapped Yuwon’s arm upon seeing a bubble tea shop at the end of the academy district.

Yuwon, who thought he would never fall for something like bubble tea, ended up bursting out laughing as he watched Hyun Gyujin repeatedly look at him once and look at the shop once.

Going into the shop together, they ordered one taro bubble milk tea and one earl grey bubble milk tea using the kiosk, then headed to the innermost seat in the shop. It was a place like their designated seat whenever the two stopped by on their way home.

Waiting for the vibrating bell to ring, Hyun Gyujin, who quickly brought the drinks, even unwrapped the wrapper off the thick straw and poked it in for him. Yuwon quickly sucked up a gulp of the light purple taro milk tea. The round, chewy bubbles came up through the straw, delighting Yuwon.

“It’s so delicious….”

Watching Yuwon eat the chewy bubbles so well, Hyun Gyujin reached out his hand as if something had come to mind.

“Give me your phone for a sec.”

Without even asking why, Yuwon placed his cell phone on top of Hyun Gyujin’s hand. Hyun Gyujin unlocked it with Face ID, found Yuwon’s Instagram app, and opened it. Seeing that, just like his, he hadn’t logged in for a long time and was logged out brought out a smile.

“Do you remember your Insta ID?”

“Mm…. I don’t know? I haven’t logged in since making it with you last time…. Why that?”

“Earlier, someone said they sent something, so I logged in after a fucking long time, and a lot of trashy stuff had come. I figured it’d be the same for you.”

“Trashy stuff?”

“Yeah. There were ads, and there were ones throwing a fit asking to meet up.”

Logging into Insta on his own phone, finding Yuwon’s account, checking the ID, and writing it down, Hyun Gyujin held the phone back out to Yuwon.

“Password.”

He asked out of courtesy, but the password was probably dbdnjsl0630. The English letters were Yuwoni, and 0630 was his birthday. Smiling as he watched Yuwon diligently typing as expected, Hyun Gyujin took the phone back and checked the account.

As expected, Yuwon also had over a hundred DMs that had arrived. Cases where they recognized his school from the uniform he was wearing in the photo and struck up a conversation were the most common, and the next most common were bullshit sexual harassment DMs. There were bastards throwing a fit saying he looked horny or asking if the person next to him was his lover, and there were bastards who left their contact info saying cute types were right up their alley. There was even a photo that had arrived, and upon clicking it, Hyun Gyujin came face-to-face with a photo of someone’s genitals, causing him to blurt out a loud curse without realizing it.

“Ah, fuck!”

“Why?”

“…No, some psychopathic bastard sent a filthy photo. I can delete it, right?”

“Yeah. I don’t use it anyway….”

He couldn’t bring himself to explain to Yuwon what kind of photo had arrived. Having his own eyes ruined was enough; there was no need to shake up the heart of a kid who was already weak-hearted anyway. Hyun Gyujin reported that account, blocked it, and then deleted the DM. After deleting all the other DMs one by one, Hyun Gyujin logged out again and returned the phone.

“Since making it back then and uploading the photo together, I haven’t used it, but someone sent something to me? A stranger sent it?”

“Yeah. Saying they liked you after seeing your photo.”

“Ah…. They send words like that. Did you see stuff like that earlier too?”

“Yeah. What was it, Jin Juhee? Jang Sumi? Because a girl like that sent me a DM and I ignored it, she’s apparently going around telling everyone about it here and there.”

“Is she someone you know?”