Chapter 7: The Convenience Store Remedy

The irritation that had been surging because of the woman subsided hollowly in the face of that absurd food combination. As I reached for the cigarette pack buried under the triangular kimbap, the tiny print of the expiration date caught my eye. It was midnight tonight—less than an hour away.

“Ha, seriously… he’s doing the most.”

It wasn’t that I was hungry. This was even less my kind of food. I could have just tossed it all in the trash, but even doing that felt unsettling.

It’s really not my taste…

In the first grade of elementary school, I first encountered convenience store food when I followed a friend whose parents were both busy working. I had told my mom about it all excited, and from then on, she started packing snacks in a small lunch box for me. Looking back, I think it was her way of telling me not to buy and eat things like that.

Back then, I didn’t even know what it meant; I just giggled, happy that Mom had prepared something for me. Since I never had a chance to be hungry, I naturally didn’t go out of my way to find convenience store food. I used to empty those lunch boxes even more ostentatiously, using my friends’ envy as a side dish.

That rhythm broke in middle school, when Mom vanished from this world. The habit that hadn’t wavered even while she was bedridden fell apart spectacularly once I entered middle school and began attending various private academies regardless of my own will.

When you move according to a schedule so tight you don’t even have time to wait for a hamburger, your feet naturally lead you to a convenience store. Back then, it felt natural to swarm there with friends moving along the same route to fill our stomachs.

And at some point, I started throwing it all back up.

Filling my stomach with the money the woman handed me every morning was like putting my own neck into an invisible noose. The things that filled my lungs with a faint sensation gradually turned into clear guilt and self-loathing, choking the life out of me.

As the days I threw up became more frequent, I naturally stopped buying things from convenience stores or the school snack bar. That was easier on my stomach in many ways. The only thing I bought with the money she gave me was cigarettes.

And yet, I was sitting on the edge of my desk, taking the items out of the bag one by one.

The lukewarm milk was just a lump of sugar, so drinking it probably wouldn’t make me sick, but what on earth was I doing taking all of this out…

He really is doing the most.

“Seriously, what a f*cking mess.”

As if I had finally made myself sick, my stomach was a wreck from the morning.

The bloated feeling hadn’t subsided all night, so I got out of bed earlier than usual. My body, which hadn’t fallen into a deep sleep and had been tossing and turning, was even complaining of slight muscle pain. That alone was exhausting, and I didn’t want to endure the time at the dining table where the usual nonsense would surely unfold. So, I left the house two hours earlier than usual, arriving at an empty school all by myself.

The stabbing abdominal pain continued subtly. Normally, I would have put on earphones and opened a workbook, but today I didn’t have the energy and just slumped over on my desk. I thought about using my arm as a pillow, but even that felt like too much work, so I just closed my eyes with my temple pressed against the cold desk.

I wonder how much time passed. While I was struggling to catch a wink of sleep listening to the sounds of kids entering the classroom one by one, a cool sensation spread across my forehead.

As I opened my eyes reflexively, a blank face was far too close.

“…What are you doing?”

“Are you sick?”

It was Song Yun Jae.

“Move.”

“It’s my first time seeing you sick.”

“…I’m not sick.”

“You have a fever, though.”

Checking my temperature by placing one hand on my forehead and his other hand on his own, he then grabbed my ear. To my body, exhausted by a dull heat, his body temperature felt like a faint sense of pleasure. I had to take a sharp breath at his touch, which unhesitatingly grabbed even the nape of my neck. Every time the cool sensation touched me, goosebumps rose, and a frighteningly comfortable and dizzying sensation spread.

I was displeased.

“I said move.”

I pulled his hand away somewhat roughly. The wrist I grabbed to remove his hand from my neck was also cool. Simultaneously with the realization that I did indeed have a fever, a slight thirst bloomed.

I felt an instinctive thirst to be touched a little more, but the fact that someone’s touch was deeply involving itself in my senses was uncomfortable. That discomfort was greater than the instinctive thirst.

Fortunately, Song Yun Jae didn’t seem to notice that discomfort.

As I sat up and brushed back my bangs, Song Yun Jae pulled over the chair directly in front of me and sat down. Sitting backward on the chair, he studied my face obsessively with that blank expression.

“I told you, you have a fever.”

“Your hands are just cold.”

“That’s true, but your forehead is hotter than mine.”

“…I’m just pissed off because of you, so get lost.”

I couldn’t understand why he was acting so obsessive, unlike his usual self.

Then again, when had Song Yun Jae ever been within the realm of the understandable? Since when were we close enough for this sh*t? He throws a milk carton at me one day, and now this. Perhaps because of my twisting stomach, his strange behavior seemed even more irritating today.

Whether he had a thick skin or not, he didn’t react at all to my words. I tried to ignore him and slump down again, but he suddenly stood up and grabbed my wrist.

“Go sleep in the infirmary.”

“Ha… seriously.”

Just as the irritation surging from within was about to explode, I heard the kids’ greetings. It was the homeroom teacher.

The teacher, who had come up to check the attendance before the period zero self-study time, scanned the classroom. Most of the kids were sitting at their desks, either slumped over or with books open. So, it was natural for the teacher’s gaze to fix on Song Yun Jae and me.

“What are you two doing over there? Do you want to go stand in the back together as punishment?”

Song Yun Jae, who hadn’t let go of my wrist until then, beat me to it.

“Sir, Cha Hyun Uk says he’s really sick.”

F*ck. Every eye in the classroom turned toward me at once, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

As it turned out, he might not be a “hollow” guy, but a total fox.

At his voice, which was the loudest I’d ever heard it, the teacher issued an order for me to leave for the infirmary without even asking me, the person concerned, a single thing.

Despite me being perfectly capable of walking, he lingered by my side, following me to the infirmary in a strange way—neither properly supporting me nor walking completely separately.

How was it “support” when he was just slightly pulling on the hem of my uniform shirt at the waist?

Then, he opened the infirmary door first and shouted “Cha Hyun Uk is sick” to the teacher again. His behavior was so ridiculous that I just kept my mouth shut, suppressing my surging irritation, and I guess that made me look even sicker.

While I answered the questions about my symptoms and took the medicine I was given, he watched my face. Then, after confirming that I was lying down, he left the infirmary, saying, “I’ll come back.” Whether he did or not, I closed my eyes with the blanket pulled up to the top of my head.

Starting with the darkness spread before my eyes, my body—exhausted from suffering all night—let go of its tension as if it had been waiting.

I fell into a deep sleep, not even knowing how I had drifted off.

I wonder how much time passed. I woke up feeling the heat because of the blanket covering me, but the feverish sensation that had been running through my body seemed to have disappeared.

I didn’t know what period it was or how long I had been like this, but the state of the light coming through the window wasn’t that of the morning. As I went to move the blanket that had slid down to below my nose and sit up, something white was curled up near my side.

“…….”

Without even time to be surprised, I froze in the position I was in while trying to get up.

Again, it was Song Yun Jae.

I suppose he had pulled over a chair and been sitting there; I didn’t know when he had arrived. If he was going to sleep, he should have slept in an empty bed. Why was he slumped over right next to a sleeping person’s side?

If I sat up like this, he was bound to wake up. I wondered what it mattered if he woke or not, but seeing him sleep with that pale face for the first time made me hesitate for a moment.

His face, looking even sicker than the patient, was so pale it looked like it had been powdered.

With skin so clean it didn’t even have a common pimple, his face was unexpectedly interesting to examine piece by piece.

The neat and surprisingly dark eyebrows, the faintly placed double eyelids, the quite long eyelashes, and the long, thin bridge of his nose.

Excluding his lips and jawline, which were hidden by his arm, even just combining the parts I could see, he had quite a handsome face.

If you looked at him piece by piece, you’d think he was good-looking, but when you put it all together, it was a face that didn’t feel masculine. I wondered if his secondary s*x characteristics were just late. If that was the reason, it would explain why his frame was so small.

When my thoughts reached that point, the thin back he had shown me in the bathroom came to mind.

The afterimage of the bruises I had been trying not to recall flickered. Looking at that alone, the person who should really be lying here was him.

My words came out before my thoughts.

“Hey. Wake up. You lie down.”

There was no movement.

“Hey.”

What is this? How can he fall into such a deep sleep in this uncomfortable position?

I had stopped mid-way through sitting up awkwardly, with one hand supporting me on the bed. I waved my other hand in front of his face. There was still no reaction.

Placing my hand on his forehead like that was an unconscious action.

Even though no one was watching, I pulled my hand away in surprise. Fortunately, there was no fever. Just as the fact that I felt relieved there was no fever was about to make me uncomfortable…

“I guess the fever broke. That’s a relief.”

Song Yun Jae spoke while still slumped over, without even opening his eyes.