Chapter 35

But before he had gone very far, Jio sensed Cha Gyuhan trailing right behind him, trotting along like a puppy.

Gyuhan followed him all the way to the foot of the steep hill—a stairway roughly slathered in concrete where every step differed in width and height, turning deadly perilous in the winter.

He could no longer pretend not to notice. If the kid followed him all the way to his front door, and if by some terrible chance his uncle was still with his guest…

Jio pressed his lips together, sucking on them, before whipping around. Cha Gyuhan was blinking innocently.

“What? Why are you following me?”

“It’s dangerous. I have to walk you home.”

“Why would you?”

An incredulous snort slipped out before he could stop it.

“I walk up and down this path every day. What’s dangerous about it?”

“Come on, still. My mom told me you always have to treat girls well. Always open doors for them, hold their hand, lay down a handkerchief before they sit, and carry heavy things—”

“Wait, what did you say?”

“The essential rule of being a real man is to treat ladies with—”

“No, I mean, what? Lady? A girl?”

Cha Gyuhan nodded with sparkling eyes.

Jio was so stunned that laughter wasn’t even an option anymore. Even as he stood there rendered utterly speechless with his mouth shut for a long time, Cha Gyuhan waited patiently. Like a gentleman waiting on a lady…

Finally, Jio jerked into motion like a rusted mechanism. Pointing a finger at himself, he double-checked.

“Me? A lady?”

Cha Gyuhan nodded vigorously. Then, lowering his eyes as if feeling shy—shy, of all things!—he mumbled, “Out of all the kids I’ve ever seen, you’re the prettiest, Jio-ya…”

“…”

“Can I call you Pretty Jio?”

Jio couldn’t even bring himself to snap back, Do you think that’s okay? Besides, Cha Gyuhan’s naming sense was far too atrocious for any gentleman. Words that sounded like they belonged to a creepy old pervert were spilling from the mouth of a twelve-year-old boy.

Bewildered, Jio brushed his hand against his neck, only to feel his long hair draping over his fingers.

A headache throbbed behind his temples.

Don’t tell me he mistook me because of my hair length? No, but still, there are things you mistake and things you don’t! He’s not a kindergartener, he’s old enough to know better!

Jio took a heavy step down the stairs and grabbed the wrist of Cha Gyuhan, who was waiting for him. Ignoring his startled reaction, Jio forced Gyuhan’s hand against his own neck.

“Whoa! Hey, what are you doing suddenly?!”

To Cha Gyuhan, whose face had flared bright red in panic, Jio spoke with utter calm, keeping the boy’s hand pressed firmly to his throat, “My Adam’s apple is coming in.”

Question marks virtually floated across Gyuhan’s face before he went, “Ah,” and nodded.

“Right. My mom has one of those too.”

Had his mother heard that, she would have clutched her forehead in despair. The ‘Adam’s apple’ Gyuhan was thinking of was merely an internal structure showing through his mother’s slender, lean neck.

Jio thought to himself, Is this guy for real an idiot?

“Anyway, I’m not a girl.”

Gyuhan gave him a bewildered look. Jio hammered the point home again.

“I’m a guy.”

At that, Gyuhan looked flustered for a moment, rolling his eyes back and forth before cautiously asking, “…Then what about our marriage?”

In that exact moment, Gong Jio finalized an evaluation of Cha Gyuhan that would not change for a very long time.

He really is a total dumbass.

And to vent the irritation he had felt earlier, Jio replied deliberately meanly.

“Tough luck. Looks like you’re going to have to marry a man.”

What had Gyuhan said after that? Something about a wife as cute as a rabbit or clever as a fox? Whichever it was, it certainly wasn’t something that should have come out of a twelve-year-old boy’s mouth either.

Cha Gyuhan shouted, grappling on top of Gong Jio. “Take it back!”

“No, you bastard! Go marry a guy!” Jio flipped Gyuhan over, pinned him underneath, and wrestled back stubbornly.

“Take it back!”

“No!”

“Take it back!”

“No way!”

The childish brawl showed no sign of ending. The fight raged on until Auntie Gilja—who lived at the very base of the long stairway, down-down-down-down below Jio’s house—spotted them on her way home from work and came running over to tear them apart.

Jio had a nosebleed, and Gyuhan had a double nosebleed. Jio’s lip was split, and Gyuhan’s shirt was stretched out beyond repair. Jio thought it was a relief his clothes were intact, while Cha Gyuhan couldn’t stop crying from pure shock and terror.

Watching Gyuhan wail at the top of his lungs, Jio wiped his split lip with the back of his hand. Then, he declared triumphantly, “Keep crying and your dick’s gonna fall off. Marrying a wife? As if. You’re gonna end up married off like a bride!”

Cha Gyuhan started crying even harder. Jio thought those hiccuping sobs were hilarious. At the time, at least.

Jio felt much, much better.

To tell the truth, he felt downright fantastic.

But that childish sense of victory was short-lived. Smugly nodding when his uncle held his belly laughing at his bruised state before asking if he’d won was brief. By nightfall, Jio began to dread the next day.

Ah, shit. What if they demand compensation for the beating?

Brooding over terminology rather too advanced for a twelve-year-old boy, Jio sank into deep anxiety. It was already hard enough repeatedly falling behind on school lunch fees and barely scraping by to pay them. His uncle wasn’t even going out to the fishing reservoir where he usually worked. What if the adults from that rich household showed up with a mob, shrieking over their son’s beaten face and dragging Jio out? What if they seized even this miserable dump of a house—where would he sleep then…? Worry chased worry in an endless spiral, keeping sleep far out of reach.

Tossing and turning, Jio eventually sat up. In this state of mind, no amount of counting sheep would ever coax sleep to come, nor was his head in any condition to count sheep.

He reached out and pulled the cord to turn on the light; it flickered once, twice, before finally buzzing to life. Glaring at the sound of his uncle’s snoring from the open across-the-way room, Jio flipped open his textbook.

He had outgrown fairy tales, and he had neither the money nor anyone caring enough to buy him the educational comic books popular at school. In the end, he had only his textbooks.

He read them lying on his stomach, slouching, sitting up, and even doing a headstand when his body grew stiff. That was how he greeted the dawn. As the hour to head to school drew near, the anxiety he had tried so hard to avoid came rushing back.

What do I do?

No matter how grown-up he tried to act, a kid was still a kid. Jio paced in circles, unable to sit still for even a second.

Should he just go to school early? Or feign an illness?

Unable to reach a decision, Jio packed his school bag for now. Even if he didn’t end up going to school, he couldn’t stay home. Not because his uncle cared about his attendance. Far from caring, the man probably didn’t even know whether it was currently vacation or semester time. It was simply that Jio hated the thought of his uncle bringing someone else home, and he hated this house.

With his bag slung over his shoulder and no destination in mind, Jio trotted down the mismatched concrete steps of varying heights and widths, only to freeze dead in his tracks at the very last step.

“Hi.”

There at the bottom of the stairs, right where they had brawled yesterday, stood Cha Gyuhan. With a bandage slapped across his face.

Jio swallowed hard, tucking his hands behind his back. Then, putting on a brave, brazen front, he demanded, ”You here to make me pay for your medical bills?”

“I came to apologize.” Cha Gyuhan lifted his chin and spoke with vigorous conviction. “So you have to apologize too. My dick didn’t fall off, and I’m not getting married off as a bride. I’m going to take a wife.”

Jio was struck dumb, wondering if the idiot had actually believed him yesterday. All his tension drained away in an instant. “Fine. Then apologize first. You’re the one who came looking for me.”

Gyuhan cleared his throat with a few ahem, ahems, even making a show of smoothing his voice. Not that it changed anything, given his boyish treble that hadn’t even begun to break.

“I’m sorry I mistook you for a girl. I meant it as a compliment, though.”

“If you’re apologizing, just say you’re sorry. Why tack on excuses?”

At Jio’s blunt snap, Gyuhan’s eyes went round. “Whoa, you talk so well. You must be good at studying, huh?”

“…”

Jio wondered if anything short of being told to marry a man or that his dick would fall off could ever make this kid get angry or cry. What a bizarre set of nerves.

Jio let out a sigh. Why on earth had he fought so seriously with a kid like this? “I’m sorry too. Glad to hear it didn’t fall off.”

“Yeah. But just to be sure, I’m gonna keep checking it for a few more days.”

Whether he was being serious or joking, it was undeniably funny.

As Jio turned his head and let out a dry laugh, wonder spread across Cha Gyuhan’s face. Gyuhan had to clamp both hands over his own mouth before he blurted out, You’re so pretty, why don’t you smile more? all over again.

Once he reined in the urge, Gyuhan promised with an air of magnanimity. “Later, I’ll even show you that it’s completely fine.”

“…No thanks.”

“You’re going to school, right?”

“…”

“Let’s go together. Come to think of it, I never heard which class you’re in. What class are you?”

“Class 7.”

“Class 7? I’m friends with Jungyu, Seungsoo, Taeho, Mingyu, and Sihyeon in that class!”

Even though Jio had never agreed to walk together, Gyuhan trotted alongside him, chattering without a pause. After listening for a while, when Jio remarked, “You sure have a lot of friends,” Gyuhan proudly answered that he really did—without a single trace of shadow or insecurity in his demeanor.

Jio lifted his head and looked in the direction of the neighborhood’s famous Green Gate House.

The distance from the bottom of these long stairs to the school was considerable. It must have taken quite some time to walk all the way here from the Green Gate House in front of the school.

Had he planned to walk him home yesterday and then hike all the way back along this long road?

Watching Cha Gyuhan march briskly ahead, swinging a tree branch he had picked up from who-knew-where, Jio asked, “Did you come all the way here just to say that?”

“What do you mean, ‘just to say that’? An apology is serious business for a man.”

“I beat you up that badly, so it’s a wonder your pride didn’t get hurt coming here.”

Jio tested him, probing for a reaction. Cha Gyuhan replied without a moment’s hesitation.

“I hit you too. As long as we both got our hits in, it’s fine. We’re both guys, so what’s the big deal? Besides, I like you. I wanna hang out with you.”

My mom said not to play with you. I don’t wanna hang out with you. You smell. Is your uncle really your dad?

Those were the phrases starting with “You” that Gong Jio was accustomed to hearing. He didn’t know how to respond to words like this. So he deflected with a different question instead.

“You’re not very smart, are you?”

“Huuuh?!”

At the sudden, blunt insult, Cha Gyuhan froze in place, eyes wide, mouth agape, and legs spread wide apart.

“Why?!”

From the fact that he asked why instead of denying it, Jio could be certain that this wasn’t the first time the kid had been asked if he was stupid…

Yet, even if others might have meant it cruelly, Gong Jio harbored no malice behind the question.

“Just seems like you like moving your body a lot.”

More specifically, it was the inverse of the saying that a good head saves the body from suffering—he assumed Gyuhan was so physically gifted that he’d never had to strain his brain—but Jio didn’t feel like explaining all that point by point. Mostly because…

“Heh, can you tell? You’re right! I’m super good at sports and I’ve never even caught a cold!”

He figured this guy wouldn’t take offense even without an explanation.

Jio’s hunch was right on the mark.

As Gyuhan suddenly let out a martial-arts yell in the middle of the road, claiming he was going to show him a poomsae form, Jio quickly walked away to leave him behind.

“Hey, wait for me!”

Cha Gyuhan showed up at Class 7 every single recess.

Getting from Class 3 to Class 7 required passing the staff room, which was the size of two and a half classrooms—a considerable distance—yet he never failed to appear. At lunchtime, he was even more relentless, begging Jio to play soccer with him.

At the time, Gong Jio hadn’t been able to pay his school lunch fees. Relying on school subsidies and special accommodations only worked once or twice. For about two months out of every year, things were always this tight. The fishing reservoir where his uncle worked was seasonal, so during the off-season, his uncle simply slacked off.

“Whoa, you eat crazy fast.”

Gong Jio concealed that fact. Standing in the hallway outside the classroom with an expression of utter boredom as if asking what took him so long, he acted as though he had already finished eating before Gyuhan even arrived. Gyuhan marveled at him without a shred of suspicion, and instead treated it like a personal competition, scarfing his lunch down faster and faster each day to arrive earlier.

“I can’t eat any faster than this.”

Watching Gyuhan thump his chest, making retching sounds from eating too fast, Jio seemed to recall feeling relieved. If Gyuhan came any faster, the lunch line wouldn’t even have finished serving, and his secret—the fact that he didn’t even have a lunch tray—would have been exposed.

Cha Gyuhan, dancing unwittingly to Gong Jio’s deception, was not the type to sit around waiting for the other kids to finish their meals. He would drag Jio out to the soccer field, circling the deserted grounds while performing Taekwondo forms, talking about his favorite uncles, or recounting phone calls with his father over the weekend. By this point, Jio also knew how Cha Gyuhan had ended up here. His grandfather seemed to have retired from some dangerous line of work, but scarier men thought his father was still involved and made trouble, so Gyuhan and his mother had temporarily relocated down here to lay low.

Hearing that, rather than being curious about what dangerous work his grandfather had done, Jio’s first thought was simple. Then Cha Gyuhan is just a temporary guest passing through.

If he was just a guest, Jio could hang out with him all he wanted. A guest wouldn’t alter the structure of a house or overturn its furnishings just because he came and went. The light bulb that flickered on sluggishly, the creaking floorboards, the peeling linoleum, the patches of mold—none of it would change. At least Cha Gyuhan would never have to see any of that, which meant in the end, they would return to being strangers.

If so, he could play soccer all he liked. For a temporary period, he could chase a ball around on an empty stomach as much as needed. It didn’t matter how loudly his belly growled during fifth period.

Because you’re going to leave anyway.

But… when the hell was this bastard leaving?

Struck by the sudden thought, Jio lifted his head.