By Zephyria 
15 years ago.
Song Yi-ho, a second-year high school student, finished school early after taking a mock exam.
He was able to finish grading and checking his wrong answers in the corner of a toast shop while polishing off two menu items. His grades weren’t bad. He let out a long sigh of relief.
Yi-ho folded the exam papers into his bag and stepped outside. A neighborhood appeared where old buildings and newly constructed commercial complexes were haphazardly mixed. Adults divided the area into the “Old Downtown” and the “New Downtown,” separated by a department store built a few years prior. Yi-ho, who had lived here since birth, lived in the Old Downtown, but since his school and cram schools were located in the New Downtown, he passed through this boundary every day.
Walking toward the Old Downtown, Yi-ho went up to the second floor of a commercial building. At the top of the stairs stood a sign that read:
Having been advised that it was good to maintain at least one steady exercise routine to survive the exam period until senior year, a gym where his parents had some acquaintance was chosen. His body felt stiff after a week of missing workouts to prepare for the mock exam. He stepped toward the gym, determined to move his body frantically for about two hours before leaving, but he hesitated in front of the door.
He heard dozens of voices that could best be described as chattering. Yi-ho peeked through the glass door. The gym was packed with elementary school students.
“Oh, Yi-ho? Ah, you didn’t see the notice, did you?”
The gym owner approached Yi-ho, who was standing awkwardly in front of the glass door.
“Notice?”
Belatedly, an A4 sheet of paper stuck to the door caught his eye. It stated that adult classes would be suspended for two days to prepare for an elementary school competition. It seemed he had missed it because it was posted while he couldn’t visit the gym. There was also likely some negligence on the owner’s part for posting the notice only when the week had already arrived.
“Then I’ll come back next week.”
“Uh, no. Since you’re already here, why don’t you work out a bit and then help me watch the kids’ sparring for a while? It’ll be good practice for them when they face a larger opponent. That friend over there also came today not knowing it was a special lecture, and he said he’d help.”
The owner pointed to a boy his age standing in front of a punching bag. It was a face he had never seen before. Noticing the gaze, the boy glanced at Yi-ho and then went back to hitting the punching bag with his gloves. Yi-ho soon lost interest, grabbed the provided short-sleeved shirt and shorts, and entered the locker room.
Forearms as thin as the pencil case in Yi-ho’s backpack threw a punch forward with all his might.
“Hyah!”
“…….”
“Eiyaaa!”
“…….”
There was no way this was a workout.
The punch landing on the stomach felt like nothing. Yi-ho lightly tapped the elementary student’s headgear. He was asked to be a sparring partner… but since the child had a match this weekend, he couldn’t even attack for fear of hurting him.
Thirty minutes after stepping into the gym, not a single drop of sweat had formed. The same went for the peer he had glimpsed earlier.
No, that guy wasn’t even practicing; he was just standing there cracking jokes with the kids. Perhaps too lazy to face them one by one, he let himself be ganged up on by the children, and then he’d wander around pretending to chase them like a game of tag—he was practically a daycare teacher.
“Kihahaha!”
“Aaaagh!”
The children seemed to find it fun, mingling with excited screams. The child in front of Yi-ho also glanced over there and slinked away.
“Whew.”
After playing with the children for a while, the boy let out a short sigh and looked up. For a moment, Yi-ho saw his gaze shift toward the gym owner. The look was sunken, almost cold. Then, it vanished without a trace as he went back to dealing with the children swarming him.
Then again, since he had come to work out only to have his time and labor stolen, he probably wasn’t in a good mood.
‘He looks like a new member; he might not come back after today…’
Fortunately, the boring time soon ended. Since it was an elementary class, the session was shorter than other time slots.
“Min-gyu, Yi-ho, take a drink each on your way out!”
The owner shouted while leading the children toward the academy bus. On the desk sat several trays of cafe drinks he had ordered for the kids. The problem was, after one round of raiding, all that remained were one strawberry latte and one iced americano. Only two in total.
Faced with such meager options, someone with a considerate personality would hesitate while observing the other person. After standing in silence for a moment, a shoulder was tapped slowly.
“Want to decide with a round of sparring?”
Hearing the voice up close for the first time, it was low, like an adult man’s. Turning around, the guy he had seen from a distance was standing there. He was slightly taller than Yi-ho, and the smile on his sleek jawline was refreshing. His thumb pointed toward the ring.
“You probably didn’t get a proper workout either.”
His accent seemed slightly unique. The important thing was that the proposal sounded incredibly attractive to Yi-ho, whose body had become even stiffer rather than worked out.
“…Sure.”
Deciding who would drink what had now become a mere excuse. Yi-ho tossed his backpack in front of the desk and unbuttoned his school shirt. The opponent also strode toward the ring.
“Headgear is a hassle, right?”
“Yeah.”
The velcro of the gloves was tightened firmly around the wrists. Then, the opponent held out both fists. A pair of glossy gloves, like two steamed buns on display, stopped in front of Yi-ho’s chest.
“What’s this?”
“A greeting. Don’t you guys do this?”
“Ah….”
He knew about it, but doing something so cringeworthy between guys… Yi-ho bumped his own two fists against the ones the other boy offered. A dry thud echoed.
The two took their stances, facing each other in the center of the ring. Instead of saying “start,” the boy moved first and swung a glove.
Yi-ho thought the impact on his arm was weaker than it looked, but—
Smack!
When the immediately following attack slammed into the gloves guarding his face, he realized the first hit had been a mercy blow because it was a preemptive strike.
The boy’s every attack was fast and precise. After blocking the next attack, Yi-ho immediately twisted his waist and threw a hook, and the opponent, who blocked it with his arm, extended the opposite fist. In the close-quarters space, a flurry of thud, thud exchanges occurred before distance opened up again.
Smack! Smack!!
“Ha…!”
“…Whew, ugh!”
The sparring, which he thought would be light exercise, continued until the owner returned and started giving pointers— “Hey, Yi-ho, you have to hit and run from there! Yeah, like that! Min-gyu, step one foot deeper!”—and until both their heads were drenched in sweat. It only stopped when the owner finally said, “Kids, stop it, you won’t even be able to go to school tomorrow!”
Panting for breath, the boy smiled with satisfaction and held out both fists again.
“You have to greet at the end, too.”
“…….”
Thud.
“It’s a draw,” the opponent said.
Yi-ho thought differently. To anyone watching, it was the other guy’s victory. Still, he didn’t decline the consideration of such a comment and simply nodded.
Since his goal from the start had been to move his body to death rather than winning, it was a sufficiently satisfying time. Seeing the corners of the boy’s mouth continue to curl up, fueled by adrenaline as he shook his hair with a towel, made Yi-ho feel a bit proud.
“Your name is Song Yi-ho, right?”
As he picked up his tossed backpack, he heard him call. The boy picked up the iced americano from the two drink cups.
“You drink the tasty one.”
Before he could even answer, the boy stepped out through the glass door. Yi-ho could only watch his back as he ran down the stairs of the old commercial building. The owner handed over the remaining strawberry latte and said,
“Wow, Min-gyu is not only handsome but cool, too.”
“Yes, …I guess.”
It was an assessment that couldn’t be denied. The sharp, angular name ‘Min-gyu’ suited him well. Yi-ho took the strawberry latte and walked through the city toward the Old Downtown.
As he crossed the street, the height of the buildings gradually decreased. Passing by a commercial area with dark brown bricks covered in remnants of flyers, a two-story building with a blue tin roof appeared. A large sign that attracted all sorts of flying insects by never turning off its lights even at night read
“I’m home.”
“Are you back from the academy?”
His parents, who were sitting in the shop packing rice cakes, greeted Yi-ho by raising their hands clad in plastic gloves. Yi-ho shifted his bag to one shoulder.
“No. I worked out after the mock exam. Did any orders for thank-you rice cakes come in? Is there anything I can help with?”
“No, no. Why would you do this, Yi-ho? Go upstairs, wash up, and rest. Studying hard is how you help us.”
“Right. Your father is correct. Hey, Yi-ho. Gi-seok’s mother came by today and was making a fuss, saying the rolling stone pushed out the embedded stone. She said a transfer student in the humanities class swept all the first-place spots in the performance evaluation.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. She always comes here and says nothing but that her son, not you, should get the principal’s recommendation for Hankuk University, but I could tell she was secretly gloating.”
The mother let out a groan as she straightened her shoulders, which had been hunched from packing rice cakes.
“Anyway, we don’t have much to say to a child who’s already doing well on his own, but don’t worry about anything else and just study. Got it?”
“…If you’re really busy, I can help. I have that much time.”
“Now, I said it’s fine. Just go upstairs.”
In the end, he was practically pushed upstairs. Climbing the stairs next to the kitchen filled with various rice cake machines led to the home where the three family members—his parents and Yi-ho—lived. Yi-ho went straight to the kitchen and poured the strawberry latte he had been holding into the sink. Then he opened the refrigerator.
Half of the beverage section of the fridge was filled with sikhye in plastic bottles. Having grown up as the son of a rice cake shop for 18 years, regardless of his love for his parents who sold rice cakes, Song Yi-ho was sick and tired of sweet things. He took out the barley tea sitting lonely at the edge of the sikhye and gulped it down.
He had intended to go to bed early because his body was tired from the first intense workout in a long time, but he figured he should study a bit more before sleeping.