<Hubris>
-05-
Creak-.
The storage room door opened with a shiver-inducing sound. The dust floating in the air shimmered in the early morning light.
Ha Yeonjae naturally laid down on the mattress. When he spread his arm he touched something with his fingertips: he turned his head to the right and saw a few books. The worn out spines of the books seemed to be mostly comprised of poetry collections.
Yeonjae chose the most logic-driven book out of them. It was Aristotle’s <Poetics>. When he skimmed through the pages, he saw that bits and pieces of the book were underlined. He put down the book and looked at his surroundings.
The mattress that Jin Nana lay on every day was damp and so dusty that every movement made dust float in the air. There was a pile of trash in one corner, and broken sports equipment lay all around the room. There was even a spiderweb on the ceiling. It was an absolute mess than when he had last checked in the beginning of the semester.
Yeonjae slowly lifted himself off the mattress and exited the room.
“Ha-.”
He left the gymnasium and stood outside and breathed in. The early morning air was crisp.
He pushed up his sleeve and checked the time. It was 5:30AM. Summer was close, so the sky was pretty bright for early morning. When he turned to look at the entrance gate, there were a few students coming in. This was about the time when the sports team students were getting ready to do some early morning exercise, so these were very diligent students.
But unlike these students, Jin Nana was always coming into school right before the bell rang. He probably didn’t need to rush. Yeonjae leisurely collected some cleaning supplies and headed back to the storage room.
–
“You… Are you getting punished?”
Ha Yeonjae lifted his head towards the voice. There was a female student near the door. The sun was behind her so it was hard to see her face, but he was sure it wasn’t Jin Nana. She was much shorter than him.
“What did you do wrong to clean up this early?”
Tak-
The girl pressed the switch, and the light buzzed alive in the storage room.
“Turn off the lights. It’s inconvenient if others see.”
The girl tilted her head at Yeonjae’s words and pressed the switch again to turn off the lights.
“What’s inconvenient? Were you stealing something?”
“If you’ve heard stories about robbers cleaning before they escape, you’re free to assume whatever.”
“You’re not getting punished, nor are you stealing anything. I know. I was kidding! You’re the emperor Ha Yeonjae. But seriously, what are you doing here?”
Yeonjae really didn’t like the childish, immature nickname of his, but he showed none of his discomfort. He always had too many nicknames and rumors that surrounded him to care about each and every one.
“Just. I woke up too early today.”
“So you were cleaning? I heard you were mysophobic, is it true?”
There are some strange rumors floating around. But Yeonjae didn’t state the truth, either. Trying to explain and give excuses for each and every rumor was exhausting. That attitude of his may have just increased the rumors and made falsities into truths, but Yeonjae didn’t really care much about it. It would never end, otherwise.
“Should I help?”
Before Yeonjae could even respond, the girl grabbed the mop he had placed near the door. She must have found the bucket of water as well, because she skipped over towards Yeonjae. She looked to be around 150 cm and walked like an elementary student.
“Thanks, but you don’t really need to help.”
“Why? You said it’d be inconvenient if others saw. If you clean up alone, you might be late and get caught.”
When Yeonjae checked his wristwatch, it was only 6:10. School started at 7:30, so he still had an hour and twenty minutes left. Students usually started rushing in at around 7:00. There might be other students like this one. He had around fifty minutes left before the early students started rushing in.
The female student didn’t seem to care about his answer and started pushing the mop around.
“I’ll do the mopping. Can you wipe down those balls for me? The balls and rag are outside.”
Ha Yeonjae gently snatched the mop from her hands and pointed outside. The girl nodded and, again, skipped outside. He swept the dust balls and bits of trash into the trash bag.
And after a while of cleaning, Yeonjae had left the room to take the bag out of the room. He heard a huge crash and turned around.
It was a sight to behold. The balls that Yeonjae had painstakingly separated into different areas were spread around the entire gym and rolling around. The female student was running around to collect them all, but Central High was famous for having the biggest school gym in the area.
The female student saw Yeonjae and flinched.
“Pick it up. All of it. Until I’m done mopping.”
The girl nodded so furiously that it looked like her head would fall off. Ha Yeonjae headed back to the storage room, his grip tightening on the mop handle.
–
As soon as Jin Nana arrived at school, he threw his backpack on the desk next to his and layed down on the desk. It was almost summer, but his head throbbed as if he had a cold. He barely raised his head to check the time table.
First period was music, and second period was P.E.It was testing season, so both subjects were self-study. He could just sleep throughout both. Should I go to the nurse’s office? Is the nurse even here this early? If he headed over to the storage room, there would be nobody to wake him up even after second period was over. It had happened multiple times in the past.
Nana continued to think of different ways to rest.
Third period was math. How much of the content did they already cover? Our class was later than other classes. Oh, I need to submit my math performance assessment. I can’t skip math. But I can sleep for the next two hours from now.
“Ha…”
The student sitting next to him looked at Nana when he sighed. They bit their lips as if they wanted to say something.
“Um… Are you okay?”
There were a lot of people who tried to start conversations like this. They knew that Nana wouldn’t respond at all, but they had a bit of hope that they’d get a response.
It was like this in middle school. Until he had graduated, Nana had never had a full conversation with any other student in the school he had transferred to. There were even rumors that he was mute. Even with all those rumors though, there was one boy who always tried to talk to him. Nana ignored him every time, but he was insistent. Nana couldn’t even remember him at all after graduation. Well, Nana was too busy with Ha Yeonjae to care about other people back then.
His headache became worse. Nana could feel the sweat dripping down his neck. He took out a handkerchief and wiped it off.
“Ha Yeonjae isn’t in class.”
“What, he’s late?”
“No, his bag is here.”
“Ha Yeonjae, tardy? Isn’t he just at the office?
Ha Yeonjae. Ha Yeonjae. Ha Yeonjae. It felt like that name was binding him like a chain.
School was definitely Ha Yeonjae’s home ground. No matter where you were, you could always hear about him. When people talked about Nana they talked about Ha Yeonjae, and those who approached Nana asked about Yeonjae. And within this mass of people breathing in the same space, Ha Yeonjae was the only one who truly knew Nana.
Nana paused and looked at the handkerchief he was holding. No matter how many times he washed it, it smelled like Ha Yeonjae.
Was he still focused on Ha Yeonjae? Back then–and even now–Ha Yeonjae naturally embedded himself in his thoughts. Even if it was negative.
The boy sitting next to Nana kept looking at Nana. Do you still have something you want to say? Just say it. I might just answer if you do. The boy opened and closed his mouth a few times, and, as if giving up, turned his sight towards the open book on his desk.
“My head hurts.”
The boy turned to stare when Nana spoke. There were a few more people who turned to stare.
“When the teacher comes, tell them I went to the nurse’s office.”
“Uh, oh, okay.”
“And I might not be able to make it back before math…”
“Oh, the performance assessment! Leave it to me, I’ll turn it in for you.”
The boy enthusiastically nodded his head. When Nana handed him his notebook, he took it with both hands. Jin Nana smiled.
“Thanks.”
It didn’t hold any special meaning. He just didn’t like that every single conversation he had was only with him. Nana stood from his seat and headed out of the classroom.
–
That day, the retaliation was especially brutal. He was beat up so thoroughly that he thought he might die.
“Ugh…!”
A grunt left his mouth. Even when Nana cried out in pain, the punches didn’t know to stop. His left ankle twisted with a grinding noise. His head rang with pain as he lost consciousness.
When he briefly woke up, his body was shaking back and forth. The pain radiating from his ankle made it hard for him to figure out what was going on. Nana knew he was on someone’s back as they were running, but he couldn’t tell who it was. He just knew that whatever the person was wearing wasn’t a uniform.
As soon as they arrived at the nurse’s office, the person threw him on the bed and immediately left. He had no time to hold onto him. His entire body radiated in pain. His ankle hurt so much he couldn’t seem to feel anything.
Thankfully, the nurse arrived quickly. They immediately called for an ambulance and Nana was moved to a hospital. Even while he was being driven to the hospital, Nana didn’t think of the girl who caused the fight or the boy who had twisted his ankle. Who was it that came for him?
After he received treatment in the emergency room, he found familiar faces surrounding him. They were teachers and Gu Jungsoo. Gu Jungsoo was the person who had messed up Nana’s foot. He could tell what this situation was. This was the fault of the person who had thrown Nana onto the nurse’s office bed. Gu Jungsoo’s ankle was broken exactly like how Nana’s ankle was. And Nana had lost the opportunity to learn who the person was.
“Nana. Why are you acting like this these days?”
“……”
“Just…it just looks like you’re not getting attacked for no reason…”
After his transfer was agreed upon, his mom asked this question with a worried expression. Nana couldn’t say anything. His mom was right. He wasn’t being attacked without reason. But he couldn’t exactly tell his mom that he was getting beat up because he was playing around with girls.
Even if it wasn’t that, Nana couldn’t explain why he had become like this in the first place.
“When your father comes back, how am I going to explain this… Your mother is so sad, Nana…”
His dad had left after saying that he wanted to concentrate on his writing. His mom assumed that he had gone into the mountains or something, but Nana knew that this wasn’t true.
Nana’s mother, Na Mari, was born as the youngest daughter of a rich household and was raised without a single hardship in her life. She was thrust with a family after meeting a writer. Thankfully, Jin Minjae was a pretty successful writer. Even if she wasn’t as rich as before, she still had a happy married life.
Nana had grown up listening to his parents’ dating life to their marriage. How could he tell his mother the truth when he was raised listening to their love story?
The father he wanted to thrust all this pain on was nowhere to be found. It infuriated him that everyone else was getting hurt instead. Nana found everything infuriating. The excitement he felt when he made others miserable was slowly dulling too. He was sick of his self-harm that was masked behind violence.
Nana decided to shut himself away from the world. In his new school, he chose to close his eyes and his ears and his mouth. He didn’t look at anything, didn’t hear anything, and didn’t say anything. He didn’t do anything at all, and didn’t care about anything. It was around this time.
“Hey.”
No wonder people were talking around the school entrance. There was a boy wearing another school’s uniform waving at him.
“Wow, you went really far. It took forty minutes by car to get here from my school. There was a ton of traffic too, so I was worried that you weren’t taking remedial classes. Thank god.”
Should I ignore him? Or should I beat him up again? But Nana was already so sick of anything. He decided to ignore Ha Yeonjae and pass him by.
But Ha Yeonjae didn’t let him go so easily. He grabbed Nana’s hand as he was passing him by. And again, he dragged Nana out of school.
“I heard that the school food here sucks. Did you eat properly?”
What is he trying to do?
“Let’s go eat something. I’ve never been here before. Where’s a good place to eat?”
Nana was baffled. Again with the food. He snatched his wrist back.
“Why are you here again?”
It had been a while since he had last spoken. Nana was pissed off that it was because of him. Yeonjae watched Nana’s expression and grinned. Nana was sure that smiling was a bad habit of his.
“Are you a stalker?”
“If I’m a stalker with this face, that’d be a waste.”
Ha Yeonjae really said that with a straight face.
“Or is your mom making you do this? To observe me?”
“What’d be the use of observing you? Mother’s not interested in that.”
Nana flushed with anger. It sounded like he was saying, ‘You might be interested in my mom, but you’re nothing to my mom.’ He knew he was grasping at straws, but he was still angry.
“I’m not interested in you, either. So fuck off.”
But Yeonjae wasn’t listening to Nana. He looked around and pointed at a store that was filled with students.
“What’s that?”
“A snack shop.”
“What do they sell?”
“Stuff like tteokbokki and soondae.”
Nana found himself annoyed at Ha Yeonjae and the situation he was in, but for some strange reason found himself responding. Words just kept coming out after he opened his mouth.
“I’ve never gone to a snack shop.”
Yeonjae took hold of Nana’s hand again and started dragging him towards the snack shop. He said he was raised carefully, why’s he so strong?
Splat-
His body was still recovering, and the crutches weren’t helping, either. It hurt whenever Yeonjae dragged him along like that. He tripped.
Son of a bitch. I’m not letting this go.
Nana promised himself that he’d land a hit on his face as soon as he got up. But when he looked up, Yeonjae looked just as befuddled as him.
“Oh, hospital.”
I just tripped. Why would I go to a hospital? Nana found this laughable. He tripped, but he didn’t get hurt.
But Yeonjae carefully lifted Nana up and put him on his back, and ran. Nana didn’t even get a chance to get back up and was surprised by these turn of events. Yeonjae changed directions when he saw something. Considering that Nana had on his backpack as well, he was running really well.
This back felt familiar. Oh, it was you. You piece of shit stalker.
“Hey.”
When Yeonjae had stopped, they were in front of a hospital. Of a sort.
“This is a dentist office, dumbass.”