Honbul: Flame of the Soul

Right after fifth period ended, Jaegyeom followed Jo Youngwoo, who was packing up his bag to leave early, all the way down to the first floor. The place he led him to was the school store. Leaving Youngwoo standing outside, Jaegyeom went in and came back out carrying an armful of bread, bagged snacks, and every kind of junk food he could get his hands on, as if he had nearly swept the shelves clean.

All of it was for Youngwoo.

Youngwoo looked completely baffled and asked what all this was supposed to be, but Jaegyeom shoved the snacks into his arms and made up a strange excuse.

“I’ve got money to burn.”

A brief struggle followed over whether he would take them or not. But once Youngwoo spotted his mother’s car waiting out front by the main gate, he had no choice but to accept the snacks and flap a hand in farewell.

“Jaegyeom, I’ll enjoy these. See you tomorrow!”

“Yeah. Get home safe. Stay healthy, and...”

Jaegyeom nodded as he answered.

Youngwoo smiled softly, then ran toward the school gate.

For just a moment, Jaegyeom had considered something. Since he had a cell phone now, maybe he should at least give him his number so they could keep in touch. But he quickly decided there was no point. Youngwoo’s time and Jaegyeom’s time were different. A relationship where he could reveal nothing and say nothing honestly—one month was about right for something like that.

“Stay healthy, and...”

Murmuring the words to himself, Jaegyeom went back to Class 2-3 without Jo Youngwoo.

At last, the day’s classes were over. Jaegyeom packed the few things worth taking into his bag, said goodbye to the others, ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ then started up the stairs at an almost absurdly slow pace. He had come here to see Youngwoo, so why was he on his way to the library? No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense. Luck, timing, the ties between people—it was ridiculous how perverse they could be.

When he opened the door and stepped into the library, the first place he looked was the desk right beside the entrance. The moment their eyes met, the young librarian, instead of greeting him with the old You came? or We meet again, shaped silent words with his mouth.

Sit there for a minute.

Jaegyeom did not answer at all. He wandered through the library instead, drifting from shelf to shelf and looking over the books. Since he had already come in and out of the place several times under the excuse of campus service, it no longer felt unfamiliar or awkward. As always, the library was peaceful and drowsy.

Yoon Taehee was seated in front of the monitor, helping students check out books. Maybe because his right hand was still in a half cast, his movements looked rather awkward.

“Sir, sir, have you read ‘Night in the Afternoon’?”

“Ah, you mean the one by Dane Scofield.”

“Wow! Yes, that one. The new release from last month.”

“Yeah, I read it. Mm. It was pretty entertaining.”

Jaegyeom, who had pulled out a book and was skimming through it, unconsciously pricked up his ears. Taehee and the students were chatting with one another with surprising ease, and the atmosphere was warm and lively. For a man who had snuck into a school hiding his real motives, he really did seem like an actual librarian. And on top of that, he seemed fairly close with the kids.

“Sir, though, how did you even fall down the stairs? You should’ve been more careful....”

Stairs?

Half listening without meaning to, Jaegyeom blinked.

“Me? I didn’t fall down the stairs. Who told you that?”

Taehee answered with an amused laugh.

“Seriously? Junhyuk from Class 8 said so.”

“Huh? I heard it from our homeroom teacher. Wasn’t that it?”

“Seriously? Then how did you get hurt like that?”

Just as the kids were getting confused over the hopelessly tangled source of the rumor—

“Oh, I got into a brawl.”

The hand that had been sliding a book back onto the shelf slipped.

At the same moment, the students burst into laughter. They were far too old to believe a boast like that from their librarian at face value. His joke landed beautifully.

“Oh my god, that was not what I was expecting.”

“Ha! Sir, what was it, how many against how many?!”

Closing his eyes, Taehee pretended to count back through it.

“How many was it again... ah. Six to one.”

“You alone against six? Wow, no wonder you got hurt like that!”

“Whoa. So did you win? What, barehanded?”

“No, no. I was the six.”

Laughing, Taehee corrected the story.

“Sir, you’re hilarious!”

The boys in their late teens were practically clapping as they laughed.

Of course, the one boy standing apart behind the shelves was the sole exception.

Is he actually insane? What the hell is he talking about? And what is so funny to you idiots....

Biting his lip, Jaegyeom slowly stuck his head out from beside the shelf. All he could see was the back of Taehee’s head, perched against one side of the desk. The deeply moving true story of how six people had jumped one man and gotten beaten half to death was rapidly approaching its climax.

“I almost died. But that person was kind enough...”

That bastard is doing this on purpose, isn’t he?

Forcing himself to stay calm, Jaegyeom turned another page.

*****

“Have a good evening.”

Clutching their borrowed books to their chests, the students finally trickled out of the library after quite some time. Taehee immediately rose from the desk and went straight to the library door to lock it. Click. After hearing the heavy metallic sound, he quietly turned around.

“You there, kind-hearted one?”

Jaegyeom stepped out from behind the shelves.

“......”

Their eyes met.

As expected, it seemed that had indeed all been said for Jaegyeom’s benefit.

I should’ve put the arrow through that mouth that night....

“Looks like you’re doing well enough, seeing how you keep earning yourself a beating with that mouth of yours.”

Jaegyeom glared at Taehee with open displeasure.

“I think it’s thanks to the kind-hearted person who let me off.”

“You’d do well not to get too cocky.”

At the flat warning, Taehee only smiled in silence.

Left alone together, the library was utterly quiet. In that stillness, a strange tension filled the air. With his bag still slung over one shoulder, Jaegyeom sat down awkwardly in the seat he usually used. The posture radiated a firm resolve: the moment this business was over, he was leaving.

“Thank you for coming, my lord.”

Taehee pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.

Still sitting there with a sullen face, Jaegyeom snapped irritably,

“Why am I your lord? Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? I like calling you my lord.”

If you like it, that’s exactly why I hate it.

The corners of Jaegyeom’s eyes sharpened.

“It pisses me off. It sounds like you’re making fun of me.”

“Me? There’s no way....”

Resting his chin lazily on one hand, Taehee pretended to think it over.

“Then what should I call you instead of my lord? Elder, maybe?”

What?

The moment he heard the word elder, Jaegyeom’s expression froze in a peculiar way. He did not look angry so much as blindsided, like someone who had just been struck unexpectedly at the back of the head.

“El— elder. Elder....”

The strange impact of it made him stammer.

The truth was, Jaegyeom had never really felt himself to be old, or especially aged. To begin with, his appearance itself did not age. Rather than thinking of himself as old, he thought of himself as stopped in place. Whenever he looked in the mirror, the same face was always looking back at him, and Mesan and Jeongju, who lived with him, also stood outside the normal human current of time and had long remained just as they were. That made it hard to feel change in any immediate way. The awareness of having lived a very long time was not quite the same as the awareness of having grown old.

“Why am I an elder? You look older than I do.”

Without thinking, Jaegyeom clenched his fist as he spoke.

“What? I’m not sure why my face suddenly entered the conversation. Then what exactly am I supposed to do? If you hate this and hate that too....”

Rubbing at his chin, Taehee muttered to himself.

The reason Jaegyeom had told him not to speak casually was because it irritated him to see Taehee acting all familiar, and also—well, anyway, it was irritating. But now that he was getting formal speech, this felt bad in its own way too. It was the same polite register as before, but it felt slightly different now. In the end, it was not really the tone of speech that was the problem. It was the attitude. The more refined and courteous the wording, the more insolent it somehow felt. The exact same respectfulness sounded even more obnoxious because of it.

“No matter what you do, you irritate me anyway, so just talk the way you used to.”

After a brief pause, Taehee asked with a serious face,

“Can I? Compared to my lord, how could a brat like me barely dry behind the ears dare go around talking so casually....”

That was the last straw.

Jaegyeom lunged forward, hand shooting out as if he were about to grab him by the collar. Taehee leaned his upper body back a beat faster and gave in at once.

“Right. I should.”

Half-lidded eyes fixed on him, Jaegyeom stared.

Then Taehee turned his gaze toward the wall and abruptly pretended to check the time.