Chapter 14: The Cruel Reality of a “Model Student”

My hair felt like it was standing on end.

Despite it being a mid-June afternoon with July just around the corner, a sudden chill swept over me, raising goosebumps. I reflexively turned my head. That movement sent another gust of his scent toward me. The sweet fragrance filled my lungs.

“Do you hate it?”

“…Get lost.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, get away from me.”

Song Yun Jae took a step back with that characteristically blank expression. Only when distance was established between us did my body temperature begin to regulate. It felt as if my blood flow, which had momentarily frozen, was now racing at a frantic pace. I didn’t welcome the sensation of the heat rushing to my face.

I was on the verge of spitting out a jagged remark at the boy, who stood there with wide, innocent eyes, completely oblivious to the state he’d put me in.

“Did everyone do well on the exam?”

The homeroom teacher entered for closing announcements. The rowdy classroom fell silent instantly. It was a relief, honestly. Seizing the brief moment of quiet, Song Yun Jae leaned down and lowered his voice.

“You have to apply the ointment for me after school.”

He used a period instead of a question mark, deciding my schedule for me, and went back to his seat. Ointment or not, the bigger problem was the throbbing heat around my neck that refused to subside. The teacher’s words didn’t even register. And the fact that I’d been thinking about the ointment sitting in my bag for days…

That really wasn’t like me at all.

“This place looks good, right?”

“Where did you even get the key for this?”

“They gave it to me, so I took it.”

“You certainly have a talent for that…”

After the final bell, Song Yun Jae had intercepted me as I tried to leave. He’d snatched my bag and led the way. Truthfully, I didn’t care much for the bag; I could have left it behind and bolted. My cigarettes were in my pocket, and my phone was in my hand. I really could have just ignored him and walked away.

But the ointment I’d tucked into the outer pocket of the bag weighed on my mind.

He wasn’t the type to rummage through my things without permission, but the “what if” kept me tethered. Following him like a well-behaved dog, we arrived at the gymnasium. He pulled a key naturally from his pocket, opened the door, and looked back at me with a glint of pride.

“Try living like me. The teachers just hand things over.”

Once inside, he relocked the door and pulled the blackout curtains shut. He looked somewhat excited. At some point, I’d started noticing peaks and valleys in his expressions and moods. I couldn’t tell if they had always been there and I was just now seeing them, or if they were a recent development. I kept my eyes on him, shoving my hands into my pockets.

“And what exactly is ‘living like you’?”

“Living kindly?”

He answered as he placed my bag on the stage first. He shed his own bag, set it down, and pulled a seemingly brand-new tube of ointment from his pocket. Seeing the plump, unused tube made me feel strange. The urge to play along with his upbeat mood vanished.

Did he have no reason to use it, or no time to use it?

If it was the former, it was a relief. if it was the latter, it meant he was an utter fool.

He checked the door once more and pulled off his cardigan.

“…….”

Had I been subconsciously expecting it? Seeing his bare skin without any time to prepare made the back of my neck go stiff. On the skin I hadn’t been able to check for days, there was a fresh, red bruise. It was quite large, stretching below his elbow.

I’d only seen his arm, yet a hollow laugh escaped me.

“Is this what ‘kindly’ looks like?”

“Huh?”

“It looks f*cking foolish.”

The atmosphere turned cold instantly. His hand, which had been unbuttoning his school shirt, froze.

“I thought you weren’t getting beaten these past few days, but I guess I was wrong.”

Song Yun Jae stared at me silently for a moment, then slowly resumed his movements. Once the last button was undone, he stood still again. From about five paces away, I just watched him.

I didn’t like the way his pale skin peeked through the open shirt, nor did I like the way he kept showing me his bruises so casually.

Perhaps sensing my foul mood, he bit his lip nervously before speaking.

“…They don’t usually hit me much during exam periods. I have to keep my grades up to get the scholarship.”

The words that followed were f*cking atrocious. A surge of irritation, stronger than what I felt seeing the red bruise on his arm, boiled up inside me.

“Why, is your father too cheap to spend money on you, so he tells you to go to school only on scholarships?”

“No. He uses the money for gambling.”

“…….”

“My mom doesn’t apply the ointment. I don’t let her. She just cries the whole time she’s doing it.”

“…….”

“But yesterday, he must have been so wasted he forgot my exam schedule, so he hit me again. Anyway… instead of ‘father,’ just call him ‘that man.’ If a person like that is a father, it’s a bit… you know.”

Ha.

The kid couldn’t even swear properly, yet he uttered such sh*tty stories with a calm face, as if everything was fine. That made me feel even weirder.

While I swallowed the curses threatening to spill out, he finished speaking and pulled his shirt off. I saw the sharp lines of his collarbones move as he slid his arms out. There seemed to be faint, blue bruises on his ribs as well.

It was an impulse.

I crossed those five paces in a few strides and snatched his wrist before he could even turn around. A sweet scent, stronger than before, drifted from him as he looked up at me with dilated pupils. I couldn’t tell if the scent of fabric softener had seeped into his skin or if his natural scent was mixing with it.

I couldn’t stand it—this kid who carried a sweet scent while being covered in bruises. I thought he was just foolish, but it seemed he didn’t know when enough was enough. Holding his wrist, I extended his arm to examine it. At first, he stayed limp, not understanding what I was doing, but then he started to tense up. I checked the new bruises one by one.

“What are you…!”

“I need to see how much you got hit.”

I couldn’t bring myself to touch his bare skin directly, so I pulled his arm to turn him around instead of grabbing his shoulders. There was a bruise slightly above his waist. It looked like the kind of mark made by being kicked multiple times. My jaw tightened. No matter how I looked at it, Song Yun Jae wasn’t treating me as a friend; he was treating me as a test of my patience.

“…Hey, I just asked you to apply the ointment.”

Uncomfortable with my gaze scanning his body, he held the ointment out over his shoulder. It was brand new. I stared at his fingertips—he’d even gone to the trouble of opening the cap and removing the seal for me—before snatching it away. I squeezed out the ointment and dotted it across his back and arms.

The emotions that had been surging since earlier were a mix of irritation, frustration, and unpleasantness—and something else, something unfamiliar and raw.

I ground my teeth repeatedly as I spread the cream. Every time my hand applied a bit of pressure, his back flinched, forcing me to let out a shallow sigh and repeat the process.

Finally, at the end of a long-suppressed sigh, I spoke.

“How can you be so sure that I won’t pity you even after seeing this?”

“…….”

“Don’t you think it’s selfish to tell me not to pity you while acting like this?”

“…….”

“What kind of—”

Sh*t-show is this?

I barely swallowed the last words and muttered a low curse. He must have heard me, but he said nothing. For a long time, I suppressed my annoyance while tracing unknown curves over his bruises with the ointment.

I only realized how quiet the gymnasium was for just the two of us when his voice broke the silence in a small whisper.

“Thank you, Hyun Uk.”

Perhaps my first touch had been too rough. Even though I wasn’t pressing anymore, the ointment kept coming out.

There was no way to stop it.

“Thank you,” my ass.

I roughly brushed my hair back. I was sitting at my desk looking at tomorrow’s exam material, but I couldn’t focus at all.

‘Thank you, Hyun Uk.’

Is this pale brat mocking me? What is he even thankful for?

His small voice had completely drained the fight out of me. After that, I hadn’t even stayed to watch him get dressed; I just grabbed my bag from the stage and left the gym. There was no voice calling after me.

I couldn’t picture what his eyes looked like or what expression he might have been wearing.

With every irritated step I took, the various expressions he usually hid so quickly flashed through my mind.

Why does he hide his emotions like that? What lies behind that blank face? Every time the curiosity flared, it felt dizzying.

“Ah, I’m really screwed.”

Ha, f*ck, seriously.

the irritation that hadn’t settled on the way home remained the same once I was inside. I was about to pull out a cigarette when I heard a knock. I stayed silent, but then came the sound of the doorknob turning. It wasn’t the housekeeper.

The door creaked open, and a woman’s face appeared.

“The door isn’t locked today.”

Her eyes sparkled with surprise. Leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed, she offered a sweet, tender smile. The boiling irritation vanished instantly. It felt as if my hot blood had suddenly turned to ice.