By Zephyria 
A glistening film of tears welled up in his eyes. As he blinked, droplets clung to his long eyelashes.
“I was never interested in acting from the start. The reason I became a child actor in the first place was to meet you, Hae-jun. I wanted to meet you, who was on TV, so I said I wanted to be an actor too. But now you’re not here. You left me there. So why should I stay there?”
In the midday sun, the droplets sparkled like gold. The sight was beautiful, incongruous with the situation. Tears rolled down his long, thick eyelashes and high nose bridge with a distinct plop.
“You can’t abandon me. I’ll die if you do.”
Lee A-gon knelt and grabbed Hae-jun’s leg.
“I love you. I love you more than my own life.”
“A-gon…”
His words stung Hae-jun’s heart. It felt bittersweet. His words were sweet to the ear, and therefore swayed him, but Hae-jun had to grit his teeth and pull Lee A-gon away.
“Go back. We broke up.”
Lee A-gon’s face, as he looked up at him, turned pale. Against the snowy backdrop, Lee A-gon’s ashen face, dark eyes, and red lips were starkly contrasted.
He slowly lowered his head, then raised it again. And in a very sad voice, he asked,
“Am I… ugly and stupid? Is that why you don’t like me?”
Clear tears welled up and streamed down his white cheeks.
“Is that… why it can’t be?”
Hae-jun couldn’t answer. The small, white face looking up at him so forlornly was heartbreaking. It was as if a red rose had bloomed in a white snowfield. This man, deeply saddened and yearning for love… for the first time, he felt so beautiful.
Hae-jun, who was about to answer that it wasn’t true, closed his mouth. He wanted to comfort him, hug him, and soothe him. He wanted to wipe away his tears and deny his words, saying it was absolutely not true.
But if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to break up with Lee A-gon. There was no way to break up without hurting his feelings. Hae-jun bit his lip tightly and released it.
“Yes.”
So Hae-jun affirmed Lee A-gon’s words.
“That’s right. I don’t like you because you’re ugly, stupid, and didn’t even finish middle school.”
He felt the words he spoke pierce his chest and lodge in his heart. Lee A-gon closed his eyes. He smelled blood. Lee A-gon’s soul was bleeding because of the words he had stabbed him with.
“Ah.”
In the low moan that Lee A-gon let out, Hae-jun sensed a helplessness that made him not know what to do. He hugged his chest with clumsy movements and hunched over.
“I… I’ll try. It’ll be hard to become handsome, but I’ll study harder instead. I’ll prepare for the middle school equivalency exam. And I’ll definitely go to college someday.”
“You think that’ll work?”
Hae-jun clenched his fist. He was tormented by the reality of having to be cruel to the person he loved.
“Even if you die and come back to life, you can’t. You’re stupid. I hate stupid men.”
A faint sob, like a resonance that arises spontaneously when wind blows through an old instrument, echoed. It was the sound of Lee A-gon crying, covering his face with both hands. A lonely… pathetic… sad cry scattered forlornly through the white snowflakes.
“Go back, Lee A-gon.”
Hae-jun moved away from Lee A-gon. He ran, leaving Lee A-gon crying alone in the distance. His heart was torn, torn into so many pieces that it hurt as if he would never be able to put it back together again.
∞ ∞ ∞
In the morning, Guides would test resonance rates in the science and research buildings or conduct experiments to develop Guide pills, and then receive military training.
Various self-defense techniques, jogging, drills, rifle handling, marksmanship, mental education, and so on. Among them, the most important was, of course, drills. They aligned in perfect rows and columns so as not to be ashamed anywhere in the world.
After dinner, free time was given, and there were many events to attend if one wished. These were events for free romance between Espers and Guides, part of a national effort to get Espers and Guides to fall in love under the guise of hobbies.
Reading discussion groups, technical certification clubs, folk dance competitions, handwriting contests, and so on. Of course, wherever you went, there were few Guides and only Espers overflowing.
Out of curiosity, Hae-jun had once gone to a folk dance competition preparation club.
There, Espers with rotten faces were holding each other’s hands and doing ‘Round and round we go!’, and when Hae-jun appeared, they rubbed their eyes as if they had seen something unreal and ran up, stomping their feet.
「It’s a Guide! A Guide has come for the first time!」
「Crazy! They’re going to hold my hand!」
「No, it’s me!」
「Guide, let’s go round and round together!」
「I’m handsome, right!”Was this what it was like to be a female singer on a military慰問 performance?”
Hae-jun stared in dismay at the men trying to hold his hand somehow and backed away, running away, and after that, he never looked at clubs again.
There was a reason why the senior Guides didn’t want to do anything with the Espers. Hae-jun, who had dipped his toes in out of curiosity and only seen bad things, ended up hanging out only with Heo Sun-woo, Jo Eun-gyu, and Kim Joo-chan and Jeong Han-sol, who came to hang out with them.
“Looking for something?”
While going to dinner, Hae-jun looked around. Heo Sun-woo, who was walking ahead, turned around and asked. Hae-jun shook his head. No, I’m not looking for anything. But after that day, Hae-jun’s actions of looking around became more frequent.
It was four days later that Lee A-gon reappeared in front of Hae-jun. His face was gaunt, and his eyes were dark.
“Hello, Hae-jun.”
Lee A-gon, who had walked up, spoke to Hae-jun. Hae-jun only stared at Lee A-gon without answering.
“Hae-jun, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to study properly.”
“……”
“I’m going to complete high school and then go to college. Soldiers get scholarships too.”
“……”
“And if possible.”
Lee A-gon lowered his eyes. His voice trembled faintly.
“I want to go to graduate school too. If possible.”
“……”
“I want to get a master’s degree and even a doctorate. If I’m not too stupid, I want to do that.”
“……”
“Then, Hae-jun, will you acknowledge me?”
Lee A-gon asked, slowly raising his lowered eyes. Hae-jun still showed no reaction. He treated Lee A-gon as if he were an invisible person, and in the end, he brushed past him without saying anything.
Lee A-gon stood in the place where he was left, his head bowed.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but isn’t that person an actor? I think I’ve seen him somewhere. He’s not an easy face to forget. Ah, where did I see him?”
Heo Sun-woo muttered. Hae-jun ignored Heo Sun-woo’s words as well.
After that day, Lee A-gon appeared sporadically within Hae-jun’s sight. He could be seen often, especially in the library reading room, always with a middle school textbook open and solving workbooks.
The required subjects for the middle school equivalency exam were Korean, math, English, social studies, and science.
Lee A-gon studied alone while listening to online lectures. He seemed to be keeping up with the math and science parts, but he seemed to have difficulty with the Korean, English, and social studies subjects.
“Predicate verb, indirect object, direct object.”
Sometimes, when he passed by him, he could hear Lee A-gon muttering while studying grammar.
“4th form predicate verb… auxiliary verb… Have to……”
Is that guy really studying middle school material? Heo Sun-woo asked in an amazed tone. There are still people who only graduated elementary school these days. That guy must have been really poor.
“Let’s not pay attention.”
Hae-jun grabbed Heo Sun-woo’s arm and pulled him away. He had nothing to say in response.
Rumors circulated that an Esper who only graduated elementary school was preparing for the middle school equivalency exam. Rumors also circulated that the Esper was only twenty-one years old and was an actor.
Perhaps because of his unusual background, even Espers who didn’t pay attention to each other glanced at Lee A-gon. A young friend who studies hard is likable everywhere.
It wasn’t just the Espers who showed interest. Even the Guides showed interest in Lee A-gon.
Among the Guides who avoided Espers in general, some began to approach Lee A-gon. Some of them were female Guides.
The sight of Yoon Se-rim, the most popular of the only 20 female Guides out of 301 people, sitting side by side with Lee A-gon and looking at textbooks, left the Espers in shock. Their goddess was teaching this new Esper.
“Goddess.”
“The goddess……”
“My Se-rim.”
The Espers who saw Lee A-gon studying and the popular top female Guide bit their lips in jealousy. Lee A-gon didn’t seem interested in her, but just the fact that he was sitting next to Yoon Se-rim made him the target of jealousy.
“I was a student teacher outside.”
Yoon Se-rim answered when asked why she was teaching an Esper.
“I even went to do student teaching. I was caught because someone reported me, but I originally wanted to be a teacher. I just helped because I met a student who needed help here.”
The Espers who heard that suddenly went into study mode. They confessed that they were actually middle school dropouts and asked Yoon Se-rim for help.
Espers who wanted to go to college at a late age also appeared one after another. They suddenly said crazy things like they couldn’t even read Korean, even though they had clearly heard that they had graduated from college.
Of course, Yoon Se-rim ignored them. Yoon Se-rim didn’t help any Espers other than Lee A-gon, the first student she had accepted.