Chapter 19: The July Heat and the Red Mask

“What’s with you lot slacking off before lunch? Just because break is coming doesn’t mean you’re at the rank to get lazy. You’re seniors next year.”

The slumped students sat up one by one. Some teachers insisted on pushing through lessons even after exams, while others—like our homeroom teacher—granted us self-study time. Most kids, their sense of purpose having evaporated, spent the time facedown on their desks.

Weak jeers followed the teacher’s greeting. “Aww, we still have half a year left!” “Sir, why are you being like this?” Ignoring the timid whining, the teacher tidied the lectern and stepped out the front door. Simultaneously, the bell rang. Lunchtime.

“Let’s go.”

Song Yun Jae reached my desk faster than usual and grabbed my wrist firmly. For someone who claimed to be suffering from the summer heat himself, his fingertips were startlingly cool.

“What?”

The word flew out reflexively. I almost ended up overlapping my hand over his. At my slight frown, his eyes went wide and round.

“What?”

“…Nothing.”

“Were you dozing off? Come on, I’m having the sausage set today.”

I felt him tighten his grip on my wrist as I tried to pull away. For such a scrawny guy, he sure puts his strength into the weirdest things. I stood up and followed him for a few steps before stopping when I noticed his knuckles had turned white from the effort.

“Your hand.”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Did it hurt?”

He released me hurriedly, looking a bit flustered. Honestly, who’s worrying about whom here?

“I was worried you’d be in pain.”

“Ah….”

His lips parted slightly. Every time those nicely full lips parted, my gaze couldn’t help but linger on their reddish shape. Why doesn’t this guy even have a shadow of a mustache? Whether it was because he lacked the dark peach fuzz most guys had or because his lips were just that vivid, my eyes kept drifting back to them.

“Stop ‘ah-ing’ me. If you’re having a sausage set or whatever, get a move on.”

“…Okay.”

Pushing him forward bluntly to hide my embarrassment, he led the way with a somewhat awkward gait.

Walking behind the boy who was a full head shorter than me, I had to swallow the rising heat of July—and I couldn’t help but notice the tips of his ears turning red once again.

Since the start of July, I found myself suppressing a ticklish feeling in my heart more and more often.

Had the Song Yun Jae I knew always been this talkative? It felt like more words were coming out of his mouth than food was going down his throat.

“So, I’m a bit worried about where to apply for college…”

It started the moment we reached the snack bar and he picked out a cup of ramen, sausages, cheese, and chocolate milk. He went on a tangent about how the cafe he took me to had the best strawberry lattes in the area—though “the area” only had a handful of cafes to begin with. He mentioned how, even without a proper meal, he’d charged his sugar levels enough to study more at home, and then he asked if I felt overwhelmed about being a senior next year, just like the teacher said.

Because his voice was calm and steady, it didn’t feel noisy, but realizing he was talking twice as much as usual made it a struggle to suppress the snickers leaking out of me.

“Why worry already? We still have over a year.”

“The ‘Senior’ label is less than six months away.”

Watching him with fascination as he dunked sausages into spicy stir-fried noodles—as if that weren’t spicy enough—I took a few sips of my tomato juice.

“You’re doing fine, so what’s there to worry about?”

I threw the comment out casually as I picked up my chopsticks, but he suddenly stopped eating. Unaware, I was about to shove black bean noodles into my mouth when I met his wide-eyed, blank stare head-on. I choked. I nearly spat the food back out.

“What?”

He watched me with that vacant expression until I finished rinsing my throat with water after the coughing fit.

“What? What is it?”

“Say it again.”

“Say what?”

“That I’m doing fine.”

The tension in my furrowed brow vanished. First, he tells me not to pity him. He tells me to just be real friends. And then he says something like that with such a guileless face—how is a person supposed to keep their heart hardened? He had a talent for making a person’s chest feel tight and stinging in an instant. Just as I was about to open my lips after grazing the sensitive skin inside my mouth, he hurriedly covered his own.

“No, don’t say it.”

“You’re really giving me the runaround, aren’t you?”

“Don’t. If I hear it twice, I don’t think I’ll be able to focus on studying this afternoon.”

“…Seriously, you’re something else.”

He went back to stuffing ramen into his mouth.

“Eat slowly. Don’t end up hunched over with indigestion.”

Seeing his frantic chopsticks slow down, I continued eating, and a short silence followed. His lips, busy chewing the remaining sausage, looked redder than before—likely due to the spicy sauce. Pulling a few tissues from the dispenser and handing them to him wasn’t a result of habit or logic; it was pure impulse.

“…Do you have a girlfriend?”

He asked as he reached awkwardly for the tissues.

“As if.”

I waved my hand as if telling him to take them quickly, but he continued without looking.

“Then what was that?”

“You look like the ‘Red Mask’ ghost right now.”

Only then did he glare at me and snatch the tissues away. The way he roughly wiped his mouth and guzzled the chocolate milk made him look exactly like a kid, but I knew if I pointed it out, he’d just protest, so I kept my mouth shut. Then, a sudden curiosity struck me. He loves sweets this much, so why is he so skinny?

“Hey, how many meals do you eat a day?”

“…Two? I don’t eat breakfast before coming.”

“Start eating breakfast from now on.”

“Where is this coming from all of a sudden?”

I’d feel better if you at least put on some weight.

I wasn’t sure what Song Yun Jae’s weight had to do with my peace of mind, but it felt better to deal with him if he had some meat on his bones rather than being boney as he was now. Settling on that thought, I pulled a few tissues for myself and wiped my mouth.

It looked like quite a bit of chocolate milk remained in his carton. Seeing him at the cafe and here, it seemed he was naturally a slow drinker. If we went back out now, we’d just bake in the sun along with the food in our stomachs. If he still had a drink left, it was better to finish it somewhere cool. Just as I was about to pick up my water bottle—

“How was your weekend?”

It was an embarrassing question. I thought about snapping at him for when he started caring about such things… but I didn’t really feel like it.

“I rested well, thanks to someone who put me to sleep in the middle of the day.”

“…Are you a grandfather? Going to sleep at 6 PM.”

“You told me to.”

“You sleep just because I tell you to?”

He had been staring at the table with the straw in his mouth, but now he turned his head. His eyes felt strange. There was a hint of awkward sulkiness in them.

It was ambiguous exactly what he was pointing at. I felt like no matter how I answered, it wouldn’t quite fit the lock.

As I met his staring eyes, my gaze began to slide away. His faint double eyelids, the straight bridge of his nose, and the arc of his lips below it. As had become the norm, I was the one to look away first. Even after turning my head, the image of his features remained in a blurred afterimage. I blinked rapidly a few times.

If any other kid had said that, I would have cursed them out, but with him, the conversation created a strange, subtle itch. I didn’t know how to handle this unfamiliar sensation that I just couldn’t get used to.

“…Are you done?”

“…Yeah.”

And for some reason, it didn’t seem like Song Yun Jae felt any differently.

Until mid-June, a cool breeze would blow through the window late at night, but the moment July hit, the night air was mercilessly seeped with heat. Still, it was much lower than the midday temperature. Sigh. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs for the first time in a while.

I waited until the late-night self-study ended and the other kids cleared the classroom before opening the window. Clumps of tissue the kids had jammed into holes in the mosquito net caught my eye. After a few deep breaths, the heaviness in my head felt like it was lifting. I sat back down.

From today on, I planned to go home late. Even arriving after self-study was late, but a sudden thought struck me to stay out past midnight starting this week. Would that be better?

‘The Chairman is coming next week for a meal.’

The woman’s voice echoed in my head during afternoon classes. It was when I was unconsciously watching Song Yun Jae’s white feet twitching. Just as I felt a pang of shame for secretly peeking into his peaceful moment, the woman’s voice appeared like a punishment.

It was this week. Seeing as there had been no word yet, it wasn’t today, but I was destined to eat with the woman’s father on one of the remaining four days. Of course, I had no intention of running there just because I was told to. Grades, friends, career paths, college…. Whatever the man—the “Chairman”—asked, the woman or my father would answer for me anyway. Just like every other time I’d been forced to face him. So, there was no reason for me to be there. I had no obligation to satisfy the greed of that father-daughter duo who insisted on putting on a creaky puppet show.

Even if I sat there, he’d just repeat, like a mantra, “Listen to your mother.” As if I had a mother anywhere.