By Zephyria 
“I asked Hae-jun. If he was upset.”
“You don’t need to answer this kind of trash, Seong Hae-jun.”
“What trash?”
The nightmare from the amusement park was repeating itself. Facing this childish power struggle, akin to “Do you like Mom or Dad?”, my head began to throb. I was like a shrimp caught between two whales, about to be crushed. If I sided with Do Yun-hyeok, I’d have to face Lee Beom’s glare, and if I ignored them, I’d have to face Do Yun-hyeok’s.
I just wanted to go home, so how did I end up stuck in the middle! But if I didn’t want to get crushed, I had to smooth things over. I awkwardly squeezed between the two glaring figures.
“The weather is so nice, why are you trying to fight? If someone has bruises like that on their face, and you’re not worried, are you even human? I was just surprised, thinking you were getting beaten up again like last time. More importantly, instead of doing this here…”
“Last time?”
As I was delivering a speech pleading for them not to fight, Lee Beom’s eyebrow shot up as he caught onto a strange word.
I cursed myself. Lee Beom didn’t know about the incident where Do Yun-hyeok was beaten up last time!
“I ran into Do Yun-hyeok before. He was really… injured. Uh.”
While I was making a clumsy explanation, Do Yun-hyeok pulled out a cigarette in the middle of the street. I frowned, thinking he was being inconsiderate by smoking in public, but he only looked at Lee Beom with the tip of the cigarette in his mouth. As if he thought the cigarette was candy or gum, he chewed on the tip, looking incredibly roguish.
Do Yun-hyeok flicked the tip of the cigarette he was chewing with his index finger. The white filter, which would have dropped ash if lit, dangled like a candy stick.
“Lee Beom. I have one question.”
“I have nothing to answer.”
“You will answer.”
“……”
Lee Beom turned his head away indifferently, clearly not wanting to continue the conversation. But Do Yun-hyeok didn’t care.
“Why do you like Hae-jun?”
…What kind of question is that?
More bewildering than Do Yun-hyeok’s inexplicable question was Lee Beom’s reaction.
“……”
I expected him to easily answer such a simple question and move on, but Lee Beom clamped his lips shut. Conflict seemed to flicker across his stern, closed mouth. But his refusal to answer seemed genuine, and only a staring contest ensued. The silence stretched, making my position in the middle increasingly awkward.
There was no other choice; I couldn’t let them glare at each other forever, so I decided I had to take the lead and resolve the situation.
“Why else? I’m Seong Hae-min’s twin, and Lee Beom is Seong Hae-min’s friend. What kind of question is that?”
Why were they having this power struggle on the street? Suppressing my annoyance, I tried to smooth things over with a forced smile. But Lee Beom, who had been silent until now, turned to me as soon as he heard my attempt to mediate. His dark eyes flashed.
“It’s not.”
“Huh? Um… it’s not? Well, if not, then not.”
His reaction was so sharp that I was taken aback.
“It’s not” – did that mean they weren’t friends? If so, it should have been welcome news. But it left me with a murky, unsettled feeling, like stirring up muddy water.
Lee Beom covered his mouth with his fist and cleared his throat.
“The fact that you’re Seong Hae-min’s twin doesn’t matter.”
“Uh… right.”
I nodded awkwardly, then easily identified the source of this unease. Didn’t he call me a friend at the hospital just earlier? Didn’t he say I was a precious friend and all that?
Even if I hadn’t drawn a line myself, why was he drawing one? Who was he to do that? Such dissatisfaction arose within me.
The unease was a different form of indignation and bewilderment. It felt like being told “I don’t want the rice cake” when I hadn’t even offered it. Emotions akin to irritation and displeasure stirred in my chest.
“Then what’s the reason?”
I wasn’t curious at all, but Do Yun-hyeok persistently questioned me. It seemed he thought he had caught a tail to attack Lee Beom with. With his arms crossed, his grip between his index and middle fingers, holding an unlit cigarette, looked practiced and skillful. His hair, dyed a dark wine red, seemed particularly vibrant today.
“……Just.”
Lee Beom, who had seemed intent on ignoring me, glanced at Do Yun-hyeok and murmured as if to explain.
“I want to protect Hae-jun. Is this not enough?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You should be the one to be clear.”
“Me? I like everything about Hae-jun.”
“Shut up.”
“Why are you telling me to shut up after asking?”
I had no idea what they were even talking about, nor what their objective was.
I wished they would refrain from fighting using me as an excuse, but their staring contest grew more intense. It felt like they might start fighting each other, ignoring the presence of a nobody like me standing beside them.
Everything was starting to feel like a chore. They’d have a standoff, I’d mediate, then a new standoff, I’d mediate again, then they’d fight, then I’d mediate. How many times had this same pattern repeated?
The one who is thirsty digs the well. The one who wants to go home quickly must resolve the situation. I waved my hands, separating the two of them. Their gazes shifted to me.
“Stop fighting. Lee Beom is right. It’s because my body is weak. He says I keep collapsing. Do you understand now? Then the conversation is over, right? Let’s go home. I’m tired.”
I ended the situation with a long sigh. But after my words, a chilling silence followed.
I blinked awkwardly. Did I say something wrong? The red-haired and black-haired men looked down at me with strange expressions, neither smiling nor frowning.
…Did I overstep?
As if a crack had formed in the wall, Do Yun-hyeok’s lips twitched for a moment.
“Puhaha!”
And then he burst into laughter.
He clutched his stomach, wiping away tears, looking just like Ban Seo-yi, as if they were friends. His laughter was so refreshing, as if a decade of pent-up frustration had been released.
“What are you going to do? Just stay like that forever.”
Do Yun-hyeok playfully put his hand on Lee Beom’s shoulder. They were similar in height. Lee Beom irritably swatted the hand away. Even after being hit on the back of his hand, Do Yun-hyeok showed no displeasure, just continued to chuckle.
I couldn’t keep up with what they were saying at all. I was tired of listening to their cryptic conversation. At this point, it was a matter of stamina. I wanted to escape and rest!
“Everyone, stop fighting. Stop the nonsense too. Let’s go now.”
“Ahaha!”
I didn’t care anymore. As I was about to leave with Lee Beom, leaving the roaringly laughing Do Yun-hyeok behind, my mobile phone vibrated right on time. I fumbled in my pocket and checked the call. It was from Seong Hae-min.
As I pressed the call button to answer, my eyes met Do Yun-hyeok’s, who had stopped laughing and was staring intently at my mobile phone. A sense of crisis washed over me. Was he going to ask for my number?
“Uh… Hae-min is calling, so I have to go quickly! We’re leaving then, bye!”
Without taking a breath, I finished speaking and dragged Lee Beom away, hurrying off. It looked like Do Yun-hyeok was waving goodbye, telling me to go safely, but I didn’t look back.
I should have done this sooner. I just ended up listening to them bicker pointlessly. I deleted their incomprehensible and uninformative conversation from my brain.
Meanwhile, the call from Seong Hae-min had ended. I quickly pressed the redial button. This old phone could call the most recent contact with just one button press. In an era before smartphones, let alone KakaoTalk, this was a surprisingly useful feature.
“Uh, Hae-min. Did you call?”
[Hae-jun-ah! Why didn’t you answer? What happened? Where are you now? Are you at the hospital?]
Seong Hae-min, who answered the phone with lightning speed before the first ring even finished, bombarded me with questions. I calmed Seong Hae-min down and explained step-by-step that Lee Beom and I had gone downtown and were on our way back to the hospital. Of course, I completely omitted the part about running into Do Yun-hyeok. However, I couldn’t avoid the torrent of worry and scolding that poured out of him.
After a good while of sweating, I finally hung up the phone when we were near the hospital. I closed the flip phone and looked down at the now silent mobile. It was all for Hae-min’s sake…
More importantly, this wouldn’t have happened if Lee Beom hadn’t asked me to go downtown. I unfairly blamed Lee Beom and glared at his back. Noticing my gaze, Lee Beom looked back. I pretended to be oblivious and casually averted my eyes.
❖ ❖ ❖
As May ended and June began, the school events that had continued throughout May were mostly over. And welcoming the new month of June was the nationwide joint academic assessment, a mock exam.
The sudden news of the mock exam made the class students scratch their heads and groan, but I calmly nodded.
Yes, a student should take the national joint academic assessment, not talk about some national ranking competition!