A9 7

“You’re one to talk. You’ve got nothing going on yourself.”

“Do I look that way to you?”

“Yeah, you do. Honestly, you’re treated worse than me. At least no one runs away just because they make eye contact with me. But you? Sometimes he practically jumps out of his skin when he sees you. It’s not even unusual anymore for him to hurry off just to avoid running into you.”

Jaeyoung let out a hollow laugh, grinding his teeth.

“I don’t know who should be worrying about who here, when you don’t even realize how you’re being treated.”

“……”

At those words, Minhyuk fell silent. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to hear, but he couldn’t deny there was some truth to it. From the very beginning, when Suho started avoiding him, he had thought maybe it was just another ploy to get his attention. He figured it would stop after a few times and let it slide. That was his mistake.

He shouldn’t have done that. He should’ve made sure to keep Suho right in front of him. If he had, Suho wouldn’t have ended up running into all kinds of people and getting himself in trouble like this.

As belated reflection settled in, Minhyuk’s eyes narrowed slightly. The words were right, but hearing them from Jaeyoung’s mouth was infuriating.

“He just hasn’t found his footing yet. Once he comes to his senses, he’ll come back.”

Minhyuk’s voice was lower than before as he looked down at Jaeyoung. Refusing to be cowed, Jaeyoung raised his voice in return.

“…Ha, come to his senses? Are you saying Suho’s lost his mind and is just wandering around now?”

“That’s a fitting way to put it. Lost his mind and is wandering.”

Jaeyoung went quiet for a moment. Minhyuk spoke so carelessly that Jaeyoung couldn’t figure out what he could possibly say back.

“…You’re really exhausting, you know that? If Suho had heard this…”

“Don’t go tattling like a kid. Not that it would make a difference anyway. I doubt he’d listen to you first.”

Come to think of it, maybe he had gotten on his bad side because of what happened earlier. Raising one eyebrow, Minhyuk recalled the commotion from a short while ago. He didn’t know what Jaeyoung had misunderstood when he so uncharacteristically worked up the courage to approach Suho, but for Minhyuk, it wasn’t a bad outcome at all. In fact, he was almost pleased that Suho had shaken off such a bothersome tagalong on his own.

Perhaps Minhyuk’s words had cut quite deep, as Jaeyoung’s eyes, which had been holding steady until now, began to redden around the edges. Eventually, unable to contain his emotions, a faint sheen of tears welled up, but as if he couldn’t bear to let Minhyuk see him like that, he abruptly turned his body away.

“You’re going to regret this someday. Big time.”

It’ll be ugly and miserable, too. With that rare curse, Jaeyoung crumpled his report card into a mess and headed to the back door of the teachers’ office. Unlike earlier, when he’d been cautious and pretending to be composed, he yanked it open with a bang loud enough to echo through the hall. From inside, faint sounds of the teachers’ scolding and disapproving glares spilled out after him.

Regardless, Minhyuk stood still with an unreadable expression, staring down the corridor where Suho had disappeared. Somehow, he felt a twinge of regret at the scent that lingered faintly in the air where Suho had been.

As for why…

Who knew.

* * *

Anxious footsteps echoed down the hall. Only after leaving the corridor and climbing the stairs did Suho realize how overboard his reaction had been. Thinking back on it, trying to grab Jaeyoung by the collar was truly the most pathetic thing he’d ever done.

“…Ha.”

A sudden wave of shame stopped Suho mid-step on the stairs. Letting out a deep sigh, he clutched his head with both hands. His face burned strangely hot. He had sworn not to get involved again, so why had he gone and created that kind of situation? He was the one who had ruined his grades, so why had he taken it out on Jaeyoung, who had done nothing wrong?  

Suho sighed heavily, scolding himself out of habit. He even began to wonder if he had misunderstood Jaeyoung because of how sensitive he’d become about the Suneung.

Just then, as if telling him to stop blaming himself, the school bell rang overhead. Suho dropped his hands from his head and blankly stared at the remaining stairs. For some reason, the distance he had to climb felt impossibly far. The steps barely reached his waist, yet he couldn’t bring himself to move.

The moment that thought crossed his mind—thump, thump—his heart constricted. His fingertips trembled faintly. Sunlight breaking through the window scraped against his skin like sandpaper, setting it aflame. He couldn’t move forward or back, and in the silence behind him, he felt a sharp, cutting energy. Gathering to a single point, it turned into a well-honed blade. And just like that, as if it had been waiting for this moment, the sensation crept closer and closer to his throat.

Suho squeezed his eyes shut. It was starting again. That dreadful feeling that always came whenever anxiety took hold of him. It had been a while since the blade had appeared, and it felt so vivid this time that it hardly seemed a mere illusion. No matter how he struggled to escape it, it always chased him to the edge of consciousness and mercilessly pushed away the self barely holding on, making him lose himself. That cruelty was no different today.

 “…Hhh.”

The breath he barely forced out shattered into fragments that stabbed his throat, leaving a deep wound. It felt like the intensity was only getting worse. Suho pressed his lips tightly together and forced his trembling hands to clasp each other. Then, just as he had learned during counseling, he began counting backward slowly, very slowly.

Five, four, three, two….

Rattle—the sound of a door opening. Haha—cheerful laughter of students. Tap-tap-tap—the light tapping of lively footsteps echoed down the hall. And then, the ringing in his ears drowned it all out.

…One.

There was no sound. The frantic pounding of his heart, the trembling of his lips and fingertips, all fell silent. For all that panic, nothing had happened after all. Only after confirming that again and again did Suho finally lift his eyelids.

Like a stone statue, Suho turned on his heel and hurried down the stairs. His shirt, soaked with cold sweat, felt heavy, almost like wearing shackles. His heart still ached faintly, but Suho clenched his teeth and quickened his pace.

To the library. I’ll go to the library and face my true reality there. If I can see with my own eyes that this place is really inside a novel…

“…Please.”

Then, as always, he would be able to breathe again.

* * *

From that day on, Suho became even more obsessed with the library. Only when he holed himself up there and opened the book did he feel as if he could regain his blurred sense of self. Turning one page eased his breath, and turning another restored the heartbeat that had been squeezing tight as if it might burst. Contrary to his fears, those cold, painful moments passed in the blink of an eye.

As always, Suho went to the library again today to calm himself. It’s nothing. This too will pass, he told himself as he opened a book. And when he murmured, “It’s fine, it’ll be fine,” as if under hypnosis, he could return to his usual state. Those ten minutes or so gave Suho the strength to endure for a while.

Of course, it wasn’t all good. During every break, he sprinted to the library faster than anyone else, so his thin legs were constantly sore. If someone said, ‘How could you get muscle pain from just walking around school?’, he wouldn’t have had much to say in return. He could only assume that, unlike Park Geonwoo’s sturdy build, the original owner of this body, who had probably never exercised a day in his life, found even that much movement too strenuous.

Thanks to that, Suho always returned to class completely exhausted, collapsing face-down on his desk. He wouldn’t move even if someone poked him, and he just lay there, like a half-dead body, breathing heavily through parted lips. Today was no different.

“Haa…”

Once again, Suho slumped over his desk and let out a long sigh, closing his eyes. His legs ached, and he was so tired that he thought he might as well take a quick nap. But for some reason, the noise around him made it hard to drift off today.

Normally, he would have told them to quiet down, but this time, Suho kept his mouth shut and simply exhaled softly. It made sense. Today was December 23rd, the day right before Christmas, the biggest event of the year. It was only natural that everyone was excited.

The kids, already buzzing with anticipation, gathered in groups of three or four, chatting animatedly. Every now and then, someone would smack a friend’s arm and burst into helpless laughter that nearly made them choke. It wasn’t the kind of noise that was easy to ignore.

Suho frowned slightly, burying his face deep between his folded arms and sighing again. The laughter just wouldn’t stop, and in the end, he had no choice but to take his Bluetooth earphones out of his pocket.

He hadn’t planned to listen to music, so he turned the volume down low and played something soft. It was a gentle OST from a drama that had been popular lately. Matching his breathing to the calm melody, Suho inhaled and exhaled slowly and deeply. Soon, the voices of the other students faded one by one, and he was just about to drift into sleep when—

He suddenly felt several gazes settling on him.

“I heard… Im Suho… marriage…”

“That was February 14th… Goun Premium…”

“Come on, that rumor… The reporter from Daejo Daily who wrote that got fired…”

Tap, tap—

Their words were half-drowned by the music but still reached him clearly enough. Catching his own name in the mix, Suho tapped the touchpad on his earphones to stop the song. As if waiting for that very moment, the conversation about him became distinct.

“Yeah. I heard the Goun Group suppressed that article?”

They thought they were whispering, but every word landed clearly in his ears.

“And you know how Dayul Hospital partnered with the Goun Group? They’re collaborating on that overseas medical tourism project with support for the country’s largest cancer center.”

“They’ll probably start talking about marriage in a few years. For now, they’re just tossing out bait to see how people react.”

“…But seriously. Are those two really getting married?”