Eighteen’s Bed Novel Completed - Chapter 67

Park Ha-on turned his body further towards me and couldn’t continue.

Then I had nothing to say either. If Park Ha-on, who was hostile to Oh Yeonjun, was taking Oh Yeonjun’s side, then I must have truly committed treason in this class. If it were a second year, it would have just passed. But because they crammed only kids sensitive about grades, this situation happened. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, and I was well aware of my precarious situation, so I didn’t bother to make excuses.

“…”

I subtly raised my head and looked at the wall with the mirror. I had just found out about it recently. That mirror reflected a tiny bit of Go Yohan’s legs and hands, who was sitting in the very back. Go Yohan’s hand, holding a writing utensil, was still. I slowly closed and opened my eyes, preparing for humiliation.

Maintenance is better than falling. Even if it was terribly awful and humiliating, I had to do it.

“…I’m sorry about then.”

My hands, hidden under the desk, clenched tightly.

“Then you’re going to share the performance evaluation, right?”

“Yeah. I will.”

“Wow, really. Kang Jun has really become a kid, hasn’t he?”

Oh Yeonjun pointed at me with his finger, boasting. Park Ha-on tilted his head in thought, then asked me.

“What are you going to do? Have you decided on a topic?”

My path smoothly led towards becoming the class’s common wallet. I saw ghouls in the mouths of the children asking questions. But it was an unavoidable path. This was the only way for a weakling who had made the top their enemy to survive. This much forgiveness wasn’t enough. I heard a silent warning.

Park Ha-on and Im Yungi left the classroom shortly after talking to me.

My friendship with them was exactly that far. We talked in the classroom, but we weren’t close enough to share a meal together. Of course, I fully understood how big a deal it was for high school students to bring a new person into a fixed group. I would have been the same. So I didn’t feel any resentment or hatred.

I held a pen in my left hand, and when I couldn’t concentrate, I put the pen down and chewed on dry bread. Even while chewing bread, I lost my appetite, threw it on the desk, and picked up the pen again. Repeating that, I let out a deep sigh.

“Damn it. What am I doing?”

I felt a sense of futility. I put down my pen and rested my chin on my hand.

I’d rather go back to the beginning of freshman year. Then I wouldn’t have become friends with Han Junwoo. If I hadn’t been lured by that hierarchy and become friends with Han Junwoo, I wouldn’t have gone through such a humiliating experience, nor would I have become friends with Go Yohan, and then I wouldn’t be having such a shitty time now.

No, I shouldn’t have looked at Go Yohan in the cafeteria then. I shouldn’t have made eye contact. Even if I did, I should have ignored him.

However, regretting irreversible things only left me with an empty sense of despair. Besides, boys are always obsessed with hierarchy for life. If I hadn’t become friends with Han Junwoo or Go Yohan, would I have been enviously watching another <Kang Jun> smiling brightly next to them?

So what am I supposed to do?

“I really don’t know myself.”

Lately, I often think I’m pathetic.

It was a sudden thought after seeing a tree I could never climb. I found myself stupid and pathetic for needing to climb over others to feel proud, but I also didn’t want to live envying others. Life is a continuous series of worries and conflicts, they say. Did young Kang Jun know that 19-year-old me would be living with such pathetic worries?

I was thinking about the pathetic Kang Jun. The chair of Im Yungi in front of me rattled. At the same time, a sandwich wrapped in plastic appeared before my eyes. What? I slowly raised my head.

It was Shin Jaehyun again.

“Eat.”

“…?”

“It’s an egg sandwich.”

A sandwich? I furrowed my brows.

“Why are you suddenly giving this to me?”

“Don’t feel burdened.”

Shin Jaehyun suddenly took the bread I was eating. My bread. My blank face turned towards Shin Jaehyun’s mouth. Shin Jaehyun shamelessly ate the bread he had taken and said.

“Mine was the school lunch.”

Thinking about it, today was Wednesday. The day for special meals.

I slowly reached out and grabbed the sandwich. The freshly made sandwich was warm. My mouth watered slightly. When I tried to hold the bread with my left hand and unwrap it, it was quite difficult. While I was struggling, a hand suddenly appeared and snatched the sandwich away. Shin Jaehyun quickly unwrapped it. The yellow, thick egg was clearly visible. I held out my hand and took the sandwich.

“…Thank you.”

“As I said before, don’t mention it.”

“But why aren’t you eating?”

“Me?”

Shin Jaehyun stopped walking as he was getting up from Im Yungi’s seat and returning to his own, when he heard my question. And he answered very lightly, without any burden, in a nonchalant tone.

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

I unconsciously lowered my head and looked at the sandwich. The egg inside the sandwich was covered in mayonnaise. The reason was clear and unburdening. What a very American reason. It was a moment when I understood why Shin Jaehyun’s nickname was ‘Yankee’.

“Okay.”

He gave it without burden, and I received it without burden, so it was fine. I put the sandwich in my mouth without hesitation. A soft taste spread in my mouth. The school lunch, which I hadn’t had in a long time, was surprisingly delicious. It felt strangely nostalgic. Was that why my heart softened? I unconsciously asked Shin Jaehyun, who had turned his back.

“But your friends?”

“Which friends?”

Usually at this time, saying this implies the people you eat with, doesn’t it? For Shin Jaehyun, who was subtly deviating from Korean common sense, I specified.

“Friends you eat with.”

“Oh. Today I ate with Lee Woon-do from Class 6, but he said he was going to the field to play soccer after eating, so I just came up as soon as I finished eating.”

Shin Jaehyun, who had sat down at his desk and opened a book while speaking, showed his teeth and smiled.

“He really loves soccer.”

“‘Today’ imply your eating companions change every time?”

“Yeah. I just eat with whoever I meet in the hallway.”

“Isn’t it awkward?”

“It’s always awkward when you first meet someone.”

Shin Jaehyun had quite broad shoulders. He had a body typical of a Korean Yankee. His broad shoulders moved lightly.

“After that, I guess it depends on my mindset.”

It was an incomprehensible statement.

Shin Jaehyun threw out such a puzzling remark and turned his head to his book. I looked at the book Shin Jaehyun was holding. It was a novel. An English literature novel that would never appear on an exam. At this time of year? I could clearly see why his grades couldn’t climb to the top.

I tore my gaze from the book’s title and asked again.

“Don’t you have a close friend? Like a best friend?”

“Best friend? No, I don’t.”

Shin Jaehyun, still not taking his eyes off the book, said. The statement that he had no best friend was light and unburdened, as if it wasn’t humiliating at all. After reading the book for a bit, Shin Jaehyun slowly flipped it over on his desk and looked at me, saying.

“Having a best friend means I’m excluding other people that much.”

“…”

What a strange logic. But I tried to understand Shin Jaehyun’s values. Unfortunately, my understanding didn’t last long. Because Shin Jaehyun’s calm voice contained a name I never thought it would.

“Go Yohan, can you close the door when you come in?”

At that moment, I turned my gaze to the back door for the first time. It was Go Yohan, whom I had seen for the first time in three weeks. It was Go Yohan whom I had seen with my own eyes for the first time in a long time. Go Yohan, whom I saw after a long time, looked a little haggard. Why? Go Yohan, whose eyes met mine, slowly closed and opened his eyes. The emotion revealed in his black pupils was contempt.

“…”

“…”

Go Yohan stared at me silently. I turned my head and avoided his gaze, feeling endlessly scared and afraid of his eyes.

At nineteen, new things weren’t just mathematical formulas. When Han Junwoo abandoned me, I felt anger and defiance. How could I have done that? While I was trembling like this for Go Yohan. Preparing for the fall caused by Go Yohan, I realized.

The reason I could defy Han Junwoo was not only because I was arrogant, but also because Go Yohan was there.

No, was it because Go Yohan was there that I could be arrogant?

At that time, I secretly knew that Go Yohan would support me. I definitely knew. Then I miserably realized why I had come to like Go Yohan.

While I turned my head, there was a loud scraping sound of a chair being dragged on the floor from the back. The door wasn’t closed. As expected of Go Yohan. Go Yohan stood by the back door for a long time, then slowly walked over and sat down. Amidst this silence. Why bother? I felt like I was going to suffocate.

“…”

Somehow, the sandwich in my left hand felt hot. Only I, Shin Jaehyun, and Go Yohan were in the classroom. A suffocating silence hung in the classroom. I quietly looked at the sandwich, then took a big bite. Crunch, the sound of the egg being crushed.

Shin Jaehyun silently got up and closed the back door that Go Yohan hadn’t closed. Thud, when the door closed. The wind whispered to me.

Remember, Kang Jun. May isn’t over yet.

Just my luck, I had my shoes stolen on my way home after the closing remarks.

I’d heard that such things often happened in a school with some desperately poor kids, but it was the first time it had happened to me. I wasn’t heartbroken since I didn’t have any particular attachment to the shoes. It just felt unpleasant. I quietly closed the shoe locker door and looked down at my indoor shoes.

“I guess I’ll just have to wear these at home today.”

It looked like I was advertising to everyone that my shoes had been stolen. Damn it.

My only comfort was the saying that people are surprisingly not interested in others’ appearance. Please, let them not be interested. Not interested. And I’ll definitely kill the bastard who stole them.

“Steal shoes at this time?”

It was clearly intentional. Are they ignoring me because I’m in this state now?

Even though I thought it was excessive paranoia, considering what had happened to me recently, it would be strange not to think that way. It wasn’t my imagination. A notebook had gone missing, and once, after I came back from the restroom, my eraser and mechanical pencil were rolling on the floor. Just now, my desk was out of line, as if someone had bumped into it, pushed towards the aisle. I could clearly predict it. They had played a prank and hit my desk, and my pencil case fell, but no one picked up my things. When I saw my desk, left alone in the noisy crowd with wet hands, I knew this situation wasn’t my imagination.

“They really changed their attitude like flipping a switch. Annoying bastards.”

Worrying is one thing, but getting angry is unavoidable. I couldn’t help but resent them.

How could these guys, who were acting friendly, calling me ‘Kang Jun, Kang Jun’ just before midterms, change like this? Unable to contain my rage, I walked roughly. I unknowingly tore at my hair.

Then, when I unconsciously took a step.

“Ah!”

The sole of my foot burned. It hurt. I lifted my foot to check, and my white sock was turning red. Below it, I saw a piece of green glass. I paid the price for walking without looking ahead while wearing slippers. As if I wasn’t annoyed enough already. I felt like I was going crazy with the continuous bad luck.

“…Fuck.”

Nothing’s going right. Why is nothing going right in my life? I always… Why do I always!

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuck!”

Rage surged. I couldn’t stand it. Fuck. What a dog’s life. Was I the only one who did wrong?

Come to think of it, Go Yohan also did wrong to me. He clearly did something wrong. Why am I being ignored, why do I have to live timidly, why do I have to be mindful of others, why do my shoes get stolen, and why do I have to step on such a dog-like piece of glass and have my flesh torn? I’m not the only one who did wrong. I’m a victim too. I, I apologized for my mistake by not holding Go Yohan accountable for his. Go Yohan was self-centered from the start, wasn’t he?

“But why! Why! Why me! Why do I have to go through this shit!”

This is why guys are obsessed with hierarchy. Because it’s a world where it’s not about what you did wrong, but who did wrong. It’s unfair. It’s annoying. I hate it too. I hate it too! Do you think I wanted to stick to Han Junwoo or Go Yohan from the beginning? Do you think I wanted to act like a bat?

“If you don’t join them, they screw you over! You bastards!”