TFEB 06

Chapter 6…

 Your Question

While living with thorns like a cactus, I learned three things.

It hurts when you’re pricked by the thorn of jealousy. It leaves a wound in your heart that can last for decades. I hated Cha Junjae, who had planted those thorns inside me, as if I wanted to kill him. But that wasn’t the whole story.

Sometimes, thorns could also become the driving force that lifted me up, pushed me forward, and helped me grow. They would poke my sleeping side and force me to wake up somehow. Come to think of it, those thorns were like an indispensable source of energy in my life.

The sky above the island, where night fell early, was a playground for the stars. A humid breeze brushed against my cheeks from time to time. Tonight, I had the perfect excuse to drink.

With no adults around to chatter away, I followed my memories of the past like someone obsessed. Unable to live without water, my body headed toward the swimming pool, and along the way, memories of Class 1-1 began playing in my mind.

The sense of crisis that the world was becoming smaller because of Cha Junjae’s appearance was mine alone.

My mother had grown bolder after meeting a close friend. She had become inseparable from Aunt Suyeong, who was having difficulty adjusting because she had only recently arrived in Korea. She even started including Cha Junjae as part of the package when signing us up for after-school academies. Apparently, it was convenient for picking us up or something.

The result of my mother’s kindness was disastrous.

From art academy to piano academy and even English academy, I ended up going everywhere with Cha Junjae as if we were a pair. It was a tremendous relief that Aunt Suyeong hadn’t enrolled him in ballet academy as well.

My weekend ballet lessons were my peaceful sanctuary. Weekdays, on the other hand, were a war without gunfire. At school and at the academies, I was stuck with the role of looking after Cha Junjae.

At first, it was certainly inconvenient to have acquired an unwanted extra burden, but things hadn’t reached the point where life became unbearable.

Cha Junjae was the type who obediently did whatever he was told without complaining. He was also such a devoted son that he listened remarkably well to his mother. If I told him to fetch water during art class, he’d promptly go get it like a servant.

And once our homeroom teacher entrusted the quiet, absent-minded Cha Junjae entirely to me, I began ordering him around like a personal attendant. I made good use of him throughout the first half of the first grade.

My reputation in class was excellent, too. I only made friends with the children I liked. Whenever break time came, kids flocked to my desk like bees searching for honey.

I thought I would enjoy the popular-girl life I had long wished for forever.

However, my first-grade life, which had been as warm as the sunshine, came to an abrupt end.

It was because of one question.

Cha Junjae, who usually spent his time sitting around with a sulky expression, called out to me one day.

“Eundam.”

I already knew Cha Junjae wasn’t incapable of speaking, but during the more than a month we’d spent together, we’d barely had a conversation.

He was naturally quiet and shy. Just look at how wide Minji’s eyes grew as she sat beside him, coloring together.

“Is that fun?”

Had he eaten something wrong at lunch?

This was the same kid who never even glanced at his deskmate, whether she was jumping rope or playing gonggi beside him. In particular, the children in our class who had been ignored by Cha Junjae showed intense interest.

“Wow, Junjae is talking!”

“Junjae?”

I was several times more shocked than the other children who were surprised.

I gripped the colored pencil so tightly that my hand turned pale.

“Can I join you, too?”

My mother had told me to understand that Junjae was slow to speak because he’d come from America. Little did she know that I had nearly died of shock because he was actually an idiot with nothing but a pretty exterior.

“W-Well, this is something you do with two people. I’m sorry, Junjae.”

Coloring was something three or even four people could do together, but I lied, my lips trembling.

Instead of questioning whether I was telling the truth, Cha Junjae smiled gently.

“It’s okay. Let’s do it together next time.”

He must have gotten a stomachache from eating the seasoned zucchini side dish served for lunch. That was the only explanation I could think of.

The other children, aside from me, seemed captivated by the changed Cha Junjae. A group of kids gathered around my desk, observing him as he smiled brightly.

I couldn’t say I didn’t understand the looks in the children’s eyes, wanting to talk to him.

Cha Junjae, who had once done nothing but eat, sleep, and stare blankly into space like a baby wrapped in a blanket, was now talking.

And smiling.

And how should I put it? There was something strangely familiar about Cha Junjae’s smile and way of speaking, something difficult to put into words.

Perhaps because we were deskmates, Cha Junjae’s unwavering gaze would occasionally turn toward me.

Even while happily chatting with the other children, I found myself glancing to the side every now and then. The boy who used to stare only at the blackboard like an introvert had changed his target and was now watching me for long stretches of time.

His persistent manner was making my pointless sense of tension grow.

His black eyes and even darker hair followed me throughout the entire day. Cha Junjae’s behavior of staying by my side everywhere except when I went to the bathroom was raising my stress levels.

“Bye, Eundam!”

“See you!”

I told the academy I had caught a cold and skipped class. I wanted to rest in bed and sort out my thoughts.

It wasn’t that I wanted Cha Junjae to remain silent until graduation, but for some reason, his suddenly gentle and friendly attitude made me uneasy.

I ate strawberry cake while watching my favorite cartoon on TV. However, perhaps because my worries were interfering with my concentration, Cha Junjae’s smiling face kept floating across the screen in my mind.

Even after taking a nap and waking up, that boy’s smile, which had sent a chill down my spine, remained vivid in my head.

It was perfectly natural for someone to treat me warmly and smile at me.

Yet his kindness made me so uncomfortable that I could practically tear the wallpaper off the walls…

“Hi, Eundam!”

“Hi.”

I went to school after spending the entire night wide awake and let out a long yawn.

So what if Cha Junjae had become kind and started smiling more often? What was the big deal?

I chatted with a friend I ran into on the way to school, trying to shake off my sleepiness. When I arrived at the first-grade hallway, the cheerful laughter of my classmates filled the air.

I hurried over and confidently opened the classroom door.

“Hahaha!”

“Let’s do this one, too.”

“It’s pretty! Is this Junjae’s?”

My desk was empty of its owner.

And what filled that desk were Cha Junjae’s coloring supplies.

At the center of the group, Cha Junjae was happily chatting with my classmates.

I stood motionless at the classroom’s front door, watching this mutated version of Cha Junjae.

Just as I had watched him on the first day of school.

“That…”

After observing him from a distance, I finally realized the source of the familiarity I’d felt yesterday.

That way of speaking, that smile, those gestures, that expression… They all had an original.

And that original was me, his deskmate.

He was imitating me with that pretty face that had planted a thorn in my heart from the very first meeting.

“Junjae! Let me join, too!”

“Sure. Let’s do it together.”

Unlike me, who had only allowed the children I liked to join in, he had chosen a different path.

Cha Junjae was winning popularity through his fair and beautiful heart.

Even the children who had been left out joined in, creating a warm and friendly atmosphere.

It was something that a narrow-minded, self-centered person like me could never create.

From that day on, I came to realize one thing.

Cha Junjae’s persistent gaze was meant to observe me, and his questions were the starting signal for him to take away what belonged to me.

It was impossible to forget the memory of that day, the day he taught me what loneliness felt like.

“I really hate you.”

Because that was only the very beginning.

When I arrived at the swimming pool, I realized that all the alcohol had worn off, and I let out a small laugh.

The swimming pool, brightly illuminated by the lights, already had a guest.

It seemed that gentleman was just as troubled as I was. After all, he was swimming like a fish in water despite how late it was.

Thinking about Cha Junjae made me drink, and thinking about Cha Junjae sobered me up.

I wiped my face with my dry hands and dipped my feet into the pool, only up to my ankles.

Feet submerged underwater always looked more beautiful than they did in reality. Everything that happened on land became insignificant once you entered the water.

That was why I had fallen in love with swimming.

While imagining the sea I would enter tomorrow, I quietly sealed my memories with a strip of tape. I also trimmed the thorns that had grown sharper while I wasn’t looking.

Just then, the man who had been swimming stopped midway and stood up.

His sudden action caught my attention. He had been swimming all the way to the end and then coming all the way back without stopping.

The first thing that emerged above the water was the man’s back.

Having seen countless shirtless Western men since coming here, I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of admiration.

Was he an athlete? His body had well-defined, firm muscles.

The hand that brushed the water from his hair moved gracefully backward.

Perhaps the alcohol still in my system was making every movement of his seem even more stimulating.

Should I head inside now?

Half of the men who came here on vacation already belonged to someone, while the other half had come looking for someone to belong to.

Of course, there were also those who were like moths drawn to a flame, seeking a one-night romance.

I had no idea how the man might interpret my gaze.

I pulled my feet out of the water and slowly placed them on the tiled floor.

Feeling good, I hummed a little tune.

I was just getting up, clutching the room key my mother had given me so I wouldn’t lose it.

At that moment, the humming tune I had been singing so enthusiastically, a little song composed by Song Eundam herself, came from somewhere ahead.

My foolish body had always been quick to react to the things I disliked.

My wet feet hesitantly turned backward.

“Eundam.”

I had gone so far as to deceive our parents just to avoid being alone together.

It must have all been for nothing.

“I was actually planning to come see you tomorrow.”

From that day onward, Cha Junjae had become talkative.

On the other hand, I had started suppressing my usual personality and words whenever I was around him.

Our positions had been reversed, making our first meeting seem almost meaningless.

“That’s a nice song.”

And even now, after all these years had passed and we had both grown up, his questions still hadn’t stopped.

“Tell me the title.”

“……”

“You and I have similar tastes in music, don’t we?”

What else was he preparing to take from someone as penniless as me?

Faced with that probing gaze that began investigating me the moment we met, I finally raised both hands and feet in surrender.

I’ll never be able to beat that bastard.