Looks Like You Forgot What My Temper Is Like
Haaah… why do you have to start this up again from the get-go?
"Hey, at least learn to speak a little nicer."
It seemed like this was a moment for me to step in.
"If he's your friend, that makes you responsible for him too, doesn't it? It's not like this is some fucking flea market."
Yeah, he's definitely come down with a full-blown case of middle-schooler syndrome.
Daehyun wasn't so much angry as he was wary, keeping a nervous eye on me the whole time, more worried I might do something rash than upset himself.
"Yeah, yeah, my bad. Guess I was getting too loud. I'll head back to class."
"Chanhyuk, let's meet up after class."
Just as I was turning to go, something muttered under his breath reached my ears — words I couldn't let slide.
"Fucking lackey bastard…"
I shot up from my seat, crossed over to the bastard still sitting there, seized him by the hair, and dragged his face up level with mine.
"Hey. What the fuck did you just say?"
The mood turned ugly and the air went rigid, and a student who'd been spectating from the hallway belatedly took off running for the teachers' office.
"AAAAAH! Ow, fuck — let go, come on!"
Even with his hair in a death grip, the guy still didn't seem to have come to his senses.
"The fuck? Say it again."
Only then did it dawn on him, and against a grip that showed no sign of loosening, his whole body began to tremble.
Still holding him by the hair, I locked eyes with him and repeated myself.
"Go on. Say it again."
A teacher arrived and things finally settled down, and in the end I wound up writing a witness statement. Thanks to my unblemished reputation as a studious model student, and after hearing the situation from the other kids who'd been there at the time, the teacher let it slide this once on the condition that I write a formal apology.
"Chanhyuk, you alright??"
Daehyun had been waiting out in the hallway the entire time I was filling out my statement and my apology letter.
"Hey, you held yourself back pretty maturely, though?"
"Well, it's true I was making a scene."
So this was what it would feel like, watching a kid you'd raised grow into a proper adult…
Snickering, Daehyun added, "Still, that was a bit much. The guy was trembling like a leaf — I saw it myself."
"Doesn't matter. There's a line, you know? If someone can't even keep that, they don't deserve to be treated like a person."
Daehyun shuddered as if a chill had swept through him, thinking, What if I'd spent all those years talking back to him like that, too…
And so the day drew to a close, and the next one arrived.
Screeeech—
I slid the classroom door open and stepped inside, and there that bastard was, waiting for me.
"What? Got something to say to me?"
Jolted by the cavernous depth of my voice, he hurried to get the words out.
"I-I'm sorry. I think I went too far."
"…"
Though only a heartbeat had passed, it felt like tens of minutes had crawled by, and then—
"Hey. Did you already apologize to Daehyun before coming to me?"
It seemed to hit him then, and despite our being the same age, he instinctively bent his back a little as he spoke.
"Ah… my bad. I'll go apologize to Daehyun first."
Judging from what the rest of the class had been saying, he clearly did understand he was in the wrong.
So he went, apologized to Daehyun, then came back and apologized to me as well — and just like that, the matter was settled.
"Hey, what's your name?"
"Me…? My name's Jang Byungjun."
"Right. Let's try to get along this year. I'm sorry, too."
Naturally, I'd thrown hands myself, so an apology was owed — and seemingly touched by how grown-up I'd been about it, Byungjun's heart softened in turn.
"Hey Daehyun, you got your gym clothes?"
"Dude, even if I did, they wouldn't fit you."
My height, which had already reached 180cm, had shot up to 184cm over the span of a single year, and I already knew I would hit 190cm in my first year of high school.
"Ah, I forgot my gym clothes. Guess I'm sitting out again."
Back in those days, anyone who showed up without their gym clothes got rounded up with the other uniform-clad offenders and made to do duck walks across the field.
Once the duck walk was over, I sat sweating on the steps by the playing field — and then a scent of lavender began drifting over from right beside me.
I turned my head toward the source of that lavender, and there she was, looking straight at me.
"Chanhyuk~ When are we gonna hang out sometime?"
Before my regression, I had never once gone anywhere special with friends during all my school years, straight through high school.
With the sole exception of this tiny thing standing before me right now.
"Hey, don't creep up on people, shorty."
She looked at me as if I'd lost my mind, then grinned and asked, "I'm a whole 165 centimeters tall??? I'm even one of the taller ones among my friends???"
Hmm… fair enough. Honestly, from where I stood, everyone looked exactly the same.
"Same difference."
"Ehhh?? So you're just bragging about being tall, is that it~"
"So when are we going out, then??"
Why is she so hung up on this? I wondered, and gave my answer.
"Today, I guess."
"Ehhh~~~ That's way too sudden~"
"What, then when do you want to go?"
She made a grand theatrical show of agonizing over it with her entire body, then declared, "Lemme ask my friend first!! You go ask Daehyun too~"
And with a wave of her hand, she was gone.
We barely talked for a minute — why am I so wiped out?
Even knowing full well that the bigger problem lay in my own head, I let out a sigh.
Today's going to be another long day.
The end-of-day bell rang, and—
"Chanhyuk!! Where are we going today??"
The me before regression never had a single idea.
Come to think of it, I'd never even bothered to come up with one, and I couldn't begin to imagine how suffocating that must have been for everyone else.
"Let's keep it simple today and hang out around Pusan National University."
And so the four of us — me and Daehyun, along with Dajeong and her inseparable friend Kim Se-ah — set off for PNU.
Once we arrived,
"Kyaaaa~~ Coming here like this, it feels just like a double date~"
Se-ah watched Dajeong shrieking like that and shut her down with a straight face. "Hey, what date? We're just hanging out."
Daehyun, who had been nervously gauging Dajeong's reaction, suddenly looked very awkward at Se-ah's remark.
"Hey, why'd you have to say it like that? Look at Daehyun, all wilted."
Hmm… catching words like those come out of my own mouth, I suppose I'm not entirely without feelings here either.
Shit, focus, idiot — she's a middle schooler.
We hit up a karaoke room, munched on the classic tteok-twi-sun combo — spicy rice cakes, crispy fritters, and blood sausage — at a snack shop, and finally made our way down to the Oncheoncheon stream at the bottom of PNU, where we traded stories while playing around on the public exercise machines you'd normally find up hiking trails.
"Hey hey!!! Kim Daehyun!! Did you see the huge-ass fish we just walked past??"
After Kim Se-ah finished raving about the giant fish she'd spotted in the Oncheoncheon, Lee Dajeong turned to me.
"Oh right, Chanhyuk~ You're tall and all — you any good at basketball too??"
Hmm… basketball was, in fact, one of the few things I had to be proud of.
Before my regression, I'd been on my high school's basketball team for all three years, spending the better part of my school days doing nothing but play. I served as class president through my second and third years, but aside from the actual duties, every spare hour went straight to the court.
Not that I minded getting to skip class, of course.
"Me?? I'm pretty good at basketball."
For some reason, I found myself wanting to show off my skills.
"Then how about this — I've seen people playing over~ there, under the bridge by Jangjeon Station. Can't you show us how you play??"
"Hey, that's right in front of my house. That's my turf."
Because that spot really was just outside our house, I used to play basketball at school, then get summoned by the older guys to play there again after classes ended.
Suddenly trembling at the pointless memory of how grueling that used to be, I hugged my arms around myself and said, "Let's go. I'll show you."
"You're not all talk, are you???"
The way Dajeong so transparently needled my pride made her seem as sly as a little fox.
When we got under the bridge by Jangjeon Station, swarms of bugs were fluttering around the streetlights glowing in the distance, and the sun-faded nets, the middle-aged men with bodies that had clearly never seen much exercise — everything was exactly as it had been before my regression.
I must have missed this place, huh.
After all, before I regressed, I hadn't come back here even once after our family moved away.
There were two basketball courts, and since even that wasn't many, people were playing half-court games.
Dajeong, urging me on—
"Chanhyuk, hurry up and go show us how good you are!!!"
—and Kim Se-ah, quizzing Daehyun.
"Hey, is he actually any good at basketball?"
"Huh?? This is the first time I've ever seen him play?"
And with the bewildered Kim Daehyun in tow, they all settled onto the benches beside the court and waited for me.
"Dude, those guys are in the middle of a game. You wait till it ends and ask nicely."
Yeah… that was just common courtesy.
Even before my regression, back in high school, I'd only barely managed to dunk a few times, squeezing everything I could out of my 192cm frame.
Can I pull it off now, though??
My body was a completely different machine from back then, after all.
While I was mulling it over, the game wrapped up, and I went over to ask.
"Hello. Mind if I join a game?"
I could see them giving me a quick once-over — the school uniform, the lack of basketball shoes — but the crowd gathered here didn't look like they were playing anything too serious anyway.
"Mm, sure, kid. Just one game."
"Then may I warm up a little first?"
"Yes, yes, go right ahead. I'll lend you my ball."
As I warmed up, one thing became clear: my body felt impossibly light.
The handle was crisp, my bounce seemed improved beyond any comparison…
Even after all that time off, I actually feel better now than I used to?
Normally, time away from basketball dulls the feel in your fingertips and your game falls off a cliff.
I'm 8cm shorter now, but this is more than workable??
Seized by a sudden what-if, I dribbled in and exploded toward the rim—
SLAM!!!
The middle-aged men warming up nearby and my friends alike whipped their heads around and stared at me, dumbstruck.
"So it does work."
Dunking had gotten way, way too easy.