NCBF Ch 34

Yuwon tried his best not to show it. But the moment that large hand softly wrapped around his neck and those long fingers brushed up to his chin, his lower abdomen surged violently. Without even realizing it, Yuwon pushed Hyun Gyujin’s hand away, stood up from his seat, and left the stands. To anyone watching, it was clearly a retreat.

“Hey, Jeong Yuwon!”

Sensing Hyun Gyujin following behind him, Yuwon panicked, slipped inside the central main entrance, and ran down the empty hallway. He then ducked into the faculty restroom located at the end of the first floor.

“…”

He couldn’t think straight about what kind of situation this was or what he should do from here on out. But one thing was clear: he could absolutely never get caught having such a strange reaction to his friend’s touch. Looking at the empty restroom stalls, Yuwon stepped into the very last one and shut the door.

“You really…”

However, before he could lock the door, it flew open again. Looking at Hyun Gyujin standing there holding the door, Yuwon instinctively took a step back. As if dumbfounded by Yuwon’s behavior, Hyun Gyujin let out a short sigh—ha…

“Jeong Yuwon, what are you doing?”

“…That’s…”

“Why are you running away?”

“It’s not that…”

“As if avoiding me wasn’t enough, now you’re straight-up running away?”

He needed to say something so Hyun Gyujin could make sense of this situation, but his words kept getting tangled and his mind was in knots. In truth, there was hardly anything he could say. He couldn’t exactly tell him that his lower abdomen churned at the feeling of his hand holding the back of his neck and that it scared him.

“Actually, this is better. Let’s just talk openly.”

“…Can’t we talk later, just a little later?”

“No, we can’t. So you can run off again?”

“No, I won’t…”

“What do you mean you won’t, when I just saw it clearly with my own two eyes? You just ran off the second you saw me.”

The situation was overwhelmingly difficult. It was only natural for Hyun Gyujin to be this angry, yet Yuwon couldn’t say a single word. Unless he spoke the honest truth, it felt as though no words could ever clear up Hyun Gyujin’s misunderstanding.

“Did I do something wrong to you?”

“…No… It’s not like that…”

“If it’s not, then why are you acting like this?”

“…”

“Shutting your mouth again. I really tried to think about it on my own, but even though we’ve fought over small things a few times before, you’ve never once unilaterally avoided me like this, so I seriously can’t get a grip on it, you know? Everything that comes to mind is so ridiculous that I’m really, fuck.”

Because there were no classrooms around, it was usually quiet, but since class was in session, there was no one coming or going, making the restroom and hallway even quieter as Hyun Gyujin’s voice echoed through them. He wanted to speak as calmly as possible, but having burst open what had been pent up inside his heart, it wasn’t easy to settle down.

“I tried to hold back and wait as much as I could. Thinking you had your reasons, that you’d tell me when the time came, but what was that just now? Why do you keep…”

Still holding the door as he spoke, Hyun Gyujin turned his head to look toward the closed restroom door. Though faint, approaching footsteps could definitely be heard. For someone to come all the way here, they were undeniably coming to use the restroom. Hyun Gyujin pulled out a “Under Repair” standing sign visible inside the opposite stall containing cleaning supplies, placed it in front of the entrance door, stepped into the stall with Yuwon, and locked the door behind them.

“What are you…”

“Shh. Someone’s coming.”

There was nothing good about being caught together in the faculty restroom, especially during class hours. Hyun Gyujin stood face-to-face with Yuwon inside the cramped stall, straining his ears toward the outside. Soon, just as expected, the sound of the main restroom door opening rang out.

“…”

“…”

Though he couldn’t tell who it was, the sound of someone humming echoed, followed by the loud rush of water pouring from the sink faucet. Rather than the fear of getting caught in this situation by the teacher outside, Yuwon found standing this close to Hyun Gyujin—so close their bodies almost touched—far more distressing.

That peculiar sensation gathered once more in his stomach, which had already churned from just having the back of his neck held. Hyun Gyujin’s shoulders right before his eyes, his Adam’s apple visible with just a slight raise of Yuwon’s gaze, and his sensitive expression as he watched the wall where the noise was coming from—all of it continuously tormented Yuwon. On top of that, Hyun Gyujin smelled… so good. It felt like it was coming from his P.E. uniform, or perhaps from around the back of his neck.

Yuwon shifted his awkwardly hanging hands forward, pulling his long P.E. jacket top down even further to hide his front for no good reason. Perhaps because he was stuck this close to Hyun Gyujin for the first time in so long, that strange sensation kept pooling in his lower abdomen. At this rate, something might happen that would leave him feeling as guilty as he did after having a dream about Hyun Gyujin.

“…”

“…”

A vibration sound echoed from outside the stall, and soon a familiar voice rang out. The moment they realized it was the P.E. teacher, their eyes met. Holding their breath even further, they stood quietly listening to the P.E. teacher’s private, meaningless conversation outside.

The weather wasn’t even that hot, but perhaps because they were trapped in a tight space while tense, heat kept rising here and there. Feeling suffocated, Hyun Gyujin raised his hand to grab the front of his P.E. top and fluttered it once; his gaze then dropped straight to Yuwon’s hands, which were holding his clothes unnaturally for some reason. He couldn’t make sense of why Yuwon was pulling his P.E. top out and stretching it downward for no apparent reason.

“Why are you acting like…”

Whispering softly enough so that his voice wouldn’t leak outside over the P.E. teacher’s voice, Hyun Gyujin grabbed Yuwon’s hand that was pulling down the P.E. top.

“…”

“…”

Yuwon’s hand was trembling. Only then did Hyun Gyujin raise his gaze from Yuwon’s hand to take in his intensely flushed face. Seeing his trembling pupils, as well as his bright red face, ears, and the back of his neck, his mind finally began to piece things together.

He had been so consumed by feelings of hurt—bringing up grievances to Yuwon, who had suddenly jumped up and left when he approached nicely to mend their relationship—that he had forgotten something crucial.

That the reason Yuwon was suddenly avoiding him and keeping his distance had to be one of two things: either he had come to hate him like crazy, or… he had come to like him. He had been stretching his patience to the absolute limit for days to figure that out, yet to think he had forgotten it at this crucial moment and was merely throwing a temper was truly pathetic.

“…”

“…”

The P.E. teacher’s phone call dragged on. In any case, since he had given the students free time before coming inside to slack off himself, he wouldn’t particularly care about him and Yuwon disappearing from the playground. He probably didn’t even know they were gone.

Even if he did, that kind of thing wasn’t what was important to Hyun Gyujin right now. With a side of Yuwon he had never seen before right in front of his eyes, what did some P.E. teacher matter? Hyun Gyujin stepped even closer to Yuwon.

“…Go away…”

Leaning his body further back against the wall, Yuwon raised his trembling hands and pushed against Hyun Gyujin’s shoulders. Hyun Gyujin stepped even closer, trapping Yuwon between himself and the wall. Then, he grabbed the hem of the P.E. top that Yuwon had let go of and gently lifted it up.

“I’m really, fucking asking this just in case, but…”

“…”

“Are you…”

“…”

“…hard?”

Startled by the words echoing in his ear, Yuwon pushed Hyun Gyujin’s shoulders with quite a bit of force. Hyun Gyujin willingly let himself be pushed back and let out a long breath at the sound of footsteps finally leaving the restroom. Now, Yuwon was sitting down with his legs bent completely, burying his face in his knees.

“…Let’s go out. Let me talk to you outside.”

“…You go.”

“No. I have something to say. And you have something to say to me, too.”

“Hurry up and… go out…”

At the voice laced with choked back tears, Hyun Gyujin had no choice but to open the stall door first and step out. He pushed the “Under Repair” standing sign he had kicked back into the storage space, walked over to the sink area, and locked the main restroom door itself. It seemed like it would take Yuwon some time to come out, so he had no choice.

“…”

Ah, I should have just kept it in my head and not asked. You crazy bastard. Why the hell did you ask? Jeong Yuwon must have been so shocked. We’ve never talked about stuff like that before.

Come to think of it, even though they were glued to each other every single day, he had never shared this kind of topic—that is, sexual conversations—with Yuwon. When he was with guys like Kim Junjae or Choi Haeyoung, those topics came up all the time even if he didn’t bring them up himself, but when he was with Yuwon, well… the thought itself had never even crossed his mind.