Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“This stop is Daeryung High Intersection. The next stop is....”

Students in identical school uniforms filed off the bus one after another. With Jaegyeom, who got off last, the final Daeryung High student to be dropped off, Bus 17 blew out a puff of exhaust and rolled away, lighter for having shed them all. At school start time, the front of the campus usually wore the same still, gloomy colors. Even so, there was always a strange vitality in it too. The particular kind of disorderly liveliness that spilled straight out of youth itself. It had been a while since he’d come to school, but Jaegyeom stepped back into that scene with surprising ease.

Ding!

At the small but distinct sound, Jaegyeom stopped walking. He looked around, bewildered. Then he heard it again. This time, he knew exactly where it had come from. Still standing where he was, he slipped a hand into his pants pocket.

The thing he pulled out was, of all things, a cell phone.

Before leaving the house, Jaegyeom had argued with Jeongju for a long time. Jaegyeom had said he was going to school, and Jeongju had flatly opposed it. As soon as they found a new house, Jeongju had been planning to withdraw Jaegyeom from school immediately. Since the earnest wish was no longer an issue, there was no reason for him to keep going there, and he had never imagined Jaegyeom would decide on his own that he wanted to go. Under ordinary circumstances, Jeongju would have been pleased, thinking maybe he had finally started to enjoy life outside. But not today.

At a time like this, going outside was dangerous. If he went out, there was no telling when or where he might run into a Naja. Thinking that, Jeongju had desperately tried to stop him from going, but Jaegyeom refused to give in.

Why are you suddenly saying you’re going to school? You didn’t go yesterday, and you didn’t go the day before that either!

Jaegyeom had looked at Jeongju with an expression that said he was pathetic.

Nobody goes to school on weekends.

That was true. Today was Monday.

Ah... right....

Just as Jeongju wobbled and pressed a hand to his head, Jaegyeom scratched his cheek and spoke.

Just for today.

He had meant to go see Jo Youngwoo once before leaving. They hadn’t even been together for a full month, and they probably would never see each other again after this, but it bothered him more than he cared to admit to leave without saying anything. If he disappeared without a word, that idiot would definitely pine over it for a long time.

There’s this guy I used to go around with, and he always gave me the meat off his tray, so if I keep eating that stuff and then vanish without a word, that’s kind of... I should at least show my face once before I go... If it were greens, maybe, but it was meat....

Jeongju had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Wearing a blank expression, Jeongju slowly raised a hand and asked, as if checking to make sure he’d heard right,

“So you’re going to say goodbye to the meat?”

“What? Why would I say goodbye to the meat?”

“Isn’t that what you just said?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, idiot!”

“Why are you cursing all of a sudden...?”

After talking a while longer, the two of them had finally managed to clear up the misunderstanding, and Jeongju at last understood why Jaegyeom wanted to go to school. Then Jeongju had agonized over it for quite some time. He was worried Jaegyeom might run into Yoon Taehee. In the end, though, he had no choice but to back down.

“You had a friend that nice? You should’ve said so earlier.”

Right. Like Jaegyeom had said, there was no point worrying about something that hadn’t even happened yet. Jaegyeom would have his own thoughts. He’d handle it himself. Thinking that, Jeongju had decided to trust him. He told Jaegyeom to buy Youngwoo a good dinner, then emptied every bit of cash he had into Jaegyeom’s wallet.

In exchange, Jeongju insisted that he take a cell phone with him, just in case. Jaegyeom clearly disliked the idea, but he had no real way to refuse. And so he ended up carrying one of Jeongju’s spare phones.

In short, this phone was the product of compromise.

Holding it awkwardly, Jaegyeom brought the device up near his face and poked at the screen with his index finger. Poke, poke. It looked less like he was touching a screen and more like he was jabbing at a rice cake. His hands were stiff, but fortunately the touch registered properly. The black screen lit up.

What did he say I was supposed to do next....

He tried to remember what Jeongju had told him. Jeongju had sat him down and given him a crash-course lecture on how to use a smartphone. He’d taught him how to answer calls, make them, check messages, and send them. They were the most basic things imaginable, but for Jaegyeom, who had never used a cell phone before, it had been an enormous ordeal.

With an uncertain look, Jaegyeom tapped the notification banner. The phone immediately switched to the message screen. The very first thing he saw was the sender’s name.

Most-Handsome-Ever Jeongju.

Since Jaegyeom didn’t know how to save contacts, Jeongju had entered it beforehand. Jaegyeom’s expression turned grave.

What did “most handsome ever” mean?

No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t figure it out, so he just tapped the message. Two speech bubbles were already sitting in the chat window. Stretching his neck out, Jaegyeom peered intently at the screen. He could have just brought the phone closer instead of bringing his face closer, but Jaegyeom did not seem to realize that fact.

“Jaegyeom~~ did you get off the bussie???”

“Did you make it to schoolie??”

Frowning, Jaegyeom read the words out loud.

“Got off the bus... sie. Made it to school... ie.”

Another message came in before he finished.

“You have to text back the second you see this TT I’m nervous TT”

Recalling what he had been taught, Jaegyeom floundered and moved his fingers around. When he tapped the input box, a keyboard popped up. Consonants and vowels crowded the screen. The sight alone made him feel faint.

I’m at school. Stop talking.

That was what he wanted to send. Carefully, pressing one key at a time, he started putting the letters together. He managed to get as far as I’m at sch—. Judging from the intensity of his stare, it looked like he was having an actual showdown with the phone.

“Stop talking. ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) Stop talking. Stop talking....”

Absorbed in composing the message, he mumbled the words aloud under his breath. Students passed him whispering among themselves. A boy standing in the middle of the street with a cell phone in his hand, repeating the same phrase over and over with wild eyes, was drawing plenty of attention.

But Jaegyeom, alone in a world of his own, noticed none of it. Naturally, he failed to notice that someone had stopped directly behind him to watch, too. The more the message neared completion, the more Jaegyeom’s upper body folded toward the screen as if he were about to crawl into it. The onlooker behind him gradually bent over with him.

“imat schoo stop talik”

After a fierce struggle, he managed to finish the message at last. He hit send. Reply complete.

The moment he did, as if it had been waiting for exactly that instant, a hand shot out from behind him. A neat hand neatly plucked the phone right out of Jaegyeom’s grasp. It happened in an instant. Jaegyeom turned around at once.

“Oh, you’ve got a phone now?”

The spectator greeted him brightly. The moment their eyes met, that familiar cologne scent reached him. He had been so preoccupied with the message that he hadn’t noticed it earlier. Jaegyeom’s face went blank in an instant.

“......”

The spectator was wearing a short-sleeved navy shirt. His right hand was still in a half cast, and there was a square bandage stuck near the edge of his forehead. Every last one of those injuries had been inflicted by Jaegyeom.

“Give it.”

Jaegyeom’s voice was icy.

Yoon Taehee was holding the phone in his left hand instead of his injured right. He touched the screen as casually as if it were his own, then smiled and handed it back without protest.

“Here.”

Jaegyeom shoved the phone into his pocket and walked straight past him. His stride was neither particularly fast nor particularly slow. Taehee fell into step beside him at once. For a little while, the two walked in silence.

“It’s been a while.”

Taehee was the one who spoke first.

“Has been.”

Still facing forward, Jaegyeom answered with a short reply.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

The answer could hardly have been more perfunctory.

“I’m not.”

“You look it.”

After the same kind of answer came back again, Taehee let out a brief laugh.

“I waited all day yesterday.”

When Taehee murmured that quietly, Jaegyeom only cast him a sidelong glance and said nothing.

Jeongju thought Taehee had been completely silent all this time, but that wasn’t true. Two days ago, Jaegyeom had spotted a small bird by the window. At first he’d assumed it was one of the mountain birds that came and went around the house, but the bird had been carrying something in its beak.

A scrap of paper.

It dropped the note onto the windowsill and flew away without a shred of attachment. There was only a single line written on the mysterious note.

The café at the intersection, Sunday, 1:00 p.m.

When Jaegyeom saw the neat handwriting, he’d been dumbfounded.

Is this bastard insane? Even if he came in person, I wouldn’t have seen him. Who does he think he is, ordering me around....

A crazy bastard. Or rather, the sender’s identity had been obvious as daylight. The café at the intersection near the school was a place Jaegyeom passed every day on the way in, so it would have been easy enough for him to find. The choice of location had been almost considerate.

And Sunday, at one in the afternoon.

At that exact time, Jaegyeom had been at home watching that singing show....

“Why did you stand me up?”

Turning his head, Taehee peered into Jaegyeom’s face as he asked.

“Because you’d done enough to deserve getting hit.”

Without giving Taehee even a grain of his gaze, Jaegyeom answered indifferently.

“......”

That answer had a distinctly pointed edge to it. Hearing such an ominously double-edged reply, Taehee quietly touched the end of his brow.

“Want to have dinner with me tonight?”

After a brief silence, Taehee abruptly changed the track of the conversation.

At that, Jaegyeom’s brows twitched. He was supposed to eat dinner with Jo Youngwoo. Even setting that aside, though...

“Why would I do that?”

Wearing a bored expression, Jaegyeom threw the question right back.

“Isn’t it about time?”

Taehee tilted his head as he asked it.

“I don’t think we’re close enough to share a table.”

“Then if not a meal, are we at least on tea-drinking terms?”

Taehee answered blandly, and Jaegyeom suddenly stopped walking.

“......”

He looked around for a moment. Since it was the morning school rush, there were plenty of watching eyes and listening ears around them. On top of that, a few students passed by and greeted Taehee with, “Good morning, librarian!” which only made Jaegyeom more aware of the situation.

Avoiding other people’s eyes, he walked off toward a secluded corner. It was behind the roadside tree where Taehee had once fixed his tie for him.

“Come here a second.”

When Jaegyeom crooked a finger, Taehee trailed after him obediently. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The two of them stopped behind the tree and faced each other.

With a strange look on his face, Taehee asked, “What?”

Standing this close, the cologne scent was stronger than before.

“You,” Jaegyeom began slowly.

“Yeah.”

Taehee nodded.

“Why do you keep talking to me like we’re friends?”

“What...?”

The question was so unexpected that Taehee could only stare blankly.

“I said, why the fuck are you talking to me like that?”

Smack!

Jaegyeom kicked him straight in the shin. Caught by a sudden blow to the leg, Taehee bent at the waist without making a sound, then squinted up at him.

“Am I your friend? You keep using my name however you want, and who the hell gave you permission to talk to me like that....”

Jaegyeom folded his arms and glared down at him with a vicious look.

Back when he hadn’t known, that was one thing. But now that he knew exactly who Taehee was, the fact that he still spoke to him so casually suddenly felt infuriating. Looking back, it had actually been the other way around. When Jaegyeom hadn’t known the truth, Taehee had spoken politely. It was only after Jaegyeom found out who he really was that he dropped into casual speech. His manners were growing backwards.

“And you seem to be under some kind of misunderstanding.”

Jaegyeom narrowed his eyes and went on.

“You think that because I let you off once, everything that happened just disappears?”

Nothing had changed. Yoon Taehee was still someone he could not trust, and whatever else had happened, the resentment from before remained as vivid as ever. Jaegyeom had only shown him the smallest bit of mercy because he had assumed it would be the last time.

“No matter what your reasons were, what you did doesn’t go away. I’m not forgetting it later, either. So don’t think I’m just going to let it slide. Got it?”

After finishing in a firm voice, Jaegyeom turned on his heel without a trace of hesitation and left.

Still bent slightly at the knees, Taehee watched the boy’s retreating back in a daze as he hurried away.

“......”

A gust of wind came from somewhere. Leaves rustled overhead, then a few drifted down from the rippling branches.

Left alone beneath the tree, Yoon Taehee rubbed the shin Jaegyeom had kicked, replayed the whole exchange in his head, and let out a short laugh.

“Not easy....”