Chapter 2: The Stagnant Pond

Before two months had even passed since my mother was given a terminal diagnosis, my father brought a woman home.

To be precise, he brought me and sat me down in front of her.

The woman was young, beautiful, and elegant.

She was someone who was often caught on camera alongside conglomerate chairmen on the news.

The daughter of a second-generation tycoon, her face was famous for being a talented individual with both wealth and beauty; however, to a thirteen-year-old boy in the winter before starting middle school, none of that mattered.

The round curls of her brown bob simply felt alien.

Unlike my mother, whose face was pale and whose very shadow was thinning in the hospital room, my father’s new woman sat before me with a mysterious smile, boasting a colorful vitality.

The brown bob, the sparkling corners of her eyes, her deep brown pupils, pink cheeks, red lips, the gloss flowing over those lips, and…

“Aren’t you going to say hello?”

“…….”

“I guess you don’t want to talk to me.”

…Even her voice.

That woman’s existence was far too vivid compared to my mother’s.

“Whether you greet me or not is your freedom, but the more you act like this, the more I—and other people—will wonder just how your mother raised you… well, they’ll think things like that. You don’t want your mother to be insulted, right?”

“…….”

“You can survive in this world even without manners. But not in front of me.”

The woman laughed.

She laughed and grabbed my arm.

I felt strength being put into her grip.

There was no sense of overwhelming power in the grip of those delicate hands.

However, when the woman’s sharp nails, painted with a toned-down green polish, dug into my skin, my shoulders hunched instinctively.

The woman laughed.

Releasing her hold on my arm, she stroked her own glossy hair instead of the boy’s head, and laughed.

Slowly and affectionately, as if looking at her own reflection using the other person’s eyes as a mirror.

While that chilling beauty suffocated me, my father, who had his back turned, never once looked my way.

My mother died before spring arrived.

It was the day I was dragged by the woman’s hand to get my school uniform fitted.

I was the only chief mourner, and the woman sent a floral wreath.

My father, who appeared only near the end of the funeral procession, gave off a faint scent of perfume and didn’t look the least bit sad.

“Don’t stand out. Don’t cause trouble and graduate quietly. Don’t leave a blemish.”

I wondered whether the thing that shouldn’t have a blemish was my school life or my father’s life, but I didn’t bother to ask.

From that day on, my father was merely that woman’s man.

Today, as usual, he was sitting by the window in his usual attire.

In early March, after a rule was established that seats could be chosen in the order of arrival, the window seats usually remained empty until the very end.

The window seats only filled up quickly on days when the cool spring breeze of April blew.

Since the chill passed right through in winter and the sunlight and heat were unavoidable in summer, they weren’t actually very good seats.

Nevertheless, he stubbornly sat by the window.

It wasn’t that he arrived late and chose a leftover seat, either.

He always arrived much earlier than the start of period zero.

And among the five window seats, he always sat in either the very back or the fourth seat.

Sitting upright alone among the kids who were slumped over sleeping, he didn’t seem to suit the window.

“The mock exam is tomorrow, you brats. What are those of you who are sleeping doing?”

At the teacher’s words, the kids looked around and woke up those who were slumped over.

5th period.

It was a time when it was easy to let drowsiness spread after having lunch.

He, too, looked at the blackboard and the textbook with a languid face before glancing around a beat late.

It was quite amusing to see him looking around for no reason, even though he didn’t have any close relationships to the point of personally shaking someone awake.

After being swept up in the atmosphere for a moment in a way that looked even more awkward to the observer, he soon pulled his chair in close.

Just as I thought he was looking at the textbook again, our eyes met.

There was a single desk between us.

“…….”

“…….”

I felt like I had been caught watching him.

A brief silence passed as I couldn’t even think to turn my gaze away.

Fortunately, the bell rang at that moment, and the teacher left the classroom after saying that those who were sleeping should follow.

As the front door of the classroom closed, he turned his head first.

Normally, I would have slumped over on my desk to get some sleep during the ten-minute break, but the way his gaze broke away without regret felt like it was scratching at something again.

A look that wasn’t wary or curious, but rather quite cold.

Sleep had already fled.

Giving up on sleeping, I slowly stood up, dragging my chair.

Before the start of 2nd period, only my portion of milk remained in the milk box that the student on duty had placed in the corner of the front door.

The slightly bloated milk carton had long since become lukewarm.

It wasn’t sweltering heat, so it might have been fine, but it wasn’t a temperature that appealed to me when I was feeling thirsty for no reason.

As I turned around, debating whether to drink it or not, our eyes met again as he watched me blankly from his seat.

There was no need for debate.

The greeting I had given that day, saying “see you tomorrow,” had already been rendered meaningless.

Why was he staring so intently after being the one to turn his gaze away first without regret? I might as well go over.

As I approached the window seat, the one who spoke first was surprisingly Song Yun Jae.

“Are you going to drink that?”

He glanced at the milk carton in my hand and then looked up at me.

Gone was the boy who rolled his eyes like a startled rabbit.

The composition of him sitting and me standing hadn’t changed, but perhaps because of the distance that had grown much closer than that day, the atmosphere of his face was quite different.

I held out the milk carton as an answer to him, whose gaze was fixed upward while his head remained still.

“Do you want to drink it?”

“I think it’s spoiled.”

Ha.

A dry laugh escaped me involuntarily. What is with this guy?

I thought I knew why Song Yun Jae talked to the kids but didn’t mingle or fit in with the group.

His way of speaking was quiet, and his voice was calmer than I expected, but it had no pitch.

No emotion—such as worry, interest, or playfulness—could be read.

I thought he was just blank, but he was completely hollow.

“Then why do you ask?”

“In case you drink it.”

Even so, he didn’t have a worried expression. Neither did his tone.

However, it felt like a waste to give a trivial response to such a hollow guy.

I gave him a thin smile—it was the first smile I had ever shown him.

I added a greeting at the end of the smile I had deliberately put on.

“What am I going to do with you? Thank you for even worrying about me.”

Only then did an expression appear on him.

Something near his brow twitched.

He seemed to blink a couple of times quickly before lowering his gaze to the desk.

He placed his right arm, which was holding a mechanical pencil, by his ear and turned the page with his left hand.

It seemed to mean that he wouldn’t engage in further conversation and that I shouldn’t bother him because he was going to study.

Suppressing the laughter that wanted to leak out, I returned to my seat.

From the side, he really looked like someone who had been studying like that for a long time.

That was even funnier.

Should I say it, or not?

I watched him while fiddling with the corner of the milk carton.

Another page turned.

The bell announcing 6th period rang.

He continued to stare upright at the book.

“Hey, Song Yun Jae.”

I spoke so that it would only reach him, even though he didn’t look back and only pretended to throw a slight glance.

“Math ended in 4th period, aren’t you going to change your book?”

“…….”

Thud.

I bit my lip firmly at the sound of the book being closed irritably.

He was a strange breed, through and through.

“I’m home.”

It wasn’t a greeting I had spat out.

It was a kind of ‘demonstration’ the woman spat out for me to hear.

The voice that rang in a high tone as soon as she stepped into the entrance was unwavering and elegant.

After relaxing my body, which had stiffened for a moment, I entered the living room, and the woman smiled thinly while sitting modestly on a dark leather sofa.

It was no different from when I first saw her in the winter when I was thirteen.

The woman’s smile, her style, and the look in her eyes as she watched me. They were the same.

“If saying that one phrase when you come home is still this hard for you, what am I to do?”

“…Yes, I’m home.”

“Seeing as you can’t memorize it even after I’ve been telling you for five years, it seems you didn’t inherit your father’s brain.”

The way she brought up my mother in her elegant voice whenever I didn’t please her was also the same.

In the end, she likely wanted to say that it was because I took after my mother.

As I headed toward the stairs to the second floor without responding, a voice with a bit more strength called me again.

“Your mock evaluation results will need to be better than last time.”

My face frowned instinctively.

It meant she had entered my room while I was away.

I had never shown her my report card first.

So, her mentioning the previous grades could only mean that she had found the report card on her own.

The scene of her taking out what I had kept in my room drawer at her own whim played out before my eyes.

Whether she didn’t know I was looking back at her or simply didn’t care, the woman continued speaking.

“Don’t you have to go to a good university, just as your father said? It would look nice if you were alumni with your father. Put in more effort.”

I swept the inside of my mouth once.

A piece of soft flesh I had been chewing on poked out, irritating me.

Even as I felt it was irritating, I swept it once more with my tongue.

“I wasn’t aware you had a talent for art.”

“What?”

“Don’t enter my room without permission. Especially when I’m not here.”

Only then did the woman turn her head.

A faint anger hovered over her face as she faced me while maintaining her smile.

I gave a light nod to her face, which met mine with strength in her eyes, and then climbed the stairs.

The image of the woman’s wide-open eyes followed me like an afterimage.

Suddenly, the face of Song Yun Jae looking up at me earlier today came to mind.

“F*ck.”