I Picked Up My Female Friend's Remote (2)
The moment I said I'd dropped out of middle school.
"......."
The table went quiet.
An awkward silence.
In that brief span, my mind went into overdrive.
But instead of offering any solutions, my brain only churned out every possible worry about what would happen next.
'And Seongju hyung already saw my cover sticker — what the hell do I do?'
Were they going to see me as some kind of delinquent? Just when I thought I'd finally made some friends, were they going to distance themselves because I was a guy with issues?
College dropout, sure — but middle school.
In Korea, dropping out of middle school, which is mandatory education, was about as far from normal as you could get. Without a valid reason, people were bound to form a negative impression.
I had to make some kind of excuse, but my mouth wouldn't open. My reluctance to reveal my past had padlocked my lips shut.
A silence that couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds in reality stretched on unbearably long. The moment I thought, 'Someone, please break this silence—'
Ahn Seong-hyeon, sitting next to me, abruptly pointed at me and spoke.
"Him! Cheol-jin got really badly hurt back in the day!"
"...Huh?"
I let out a dumb, dazed sound without meaning to.
Ahn Seong-hyeon quickly pressed on.
"He was so badly hurt he was in the hospital for a long time. Bad enough that he would've been held back a grade if he'd gone back to school."
"Ahh. So that's why you dropped out?"
Pi Ah-reum clasped her hands together and nodded like it all made sense. Ahn Seong-hyeon jumped in fast.
"Right. So Cheol-jin took the GED. Yeah?"
Ahn Seong-hyeon turned to me and asked, while awkwardly winking at me, concealing it from the others.
I nodded right away.
"Y-yeah. I didn't want to be held back, so... I took the GED for both middle and high school."
"Whoa, so you studied for the CSAT on your own too?"
"Th-that's right. I got a lot of help from online lectures."
"That's amazing. Our school's cutoff is pretty high, honestly. I barely got in off the waitlist."
As Pi Ah-reum kept the conversation going.
"Ah-reum, what number on the waitlist were you? I got in off the waitlist too."
"You guys too? Me as well."
Lee Seo-jin and Park Mi-hyeon joined in too.
"Whoa, all three of us girls were on the waitlist?"
The table was suddenly buzzing with energy, as if the previous moment had never happened. The silence from moments ago felt like a lie.
I wiped my clammy, sweat-dampened hands on my pants and said,
"I-I was on the waitlist too. I was probably the very last one."
"Ahaha. All four of us were on the waitlist? Maybe all six?"
Maybe she'd felt a sense of kinship. Pi Ah-reum looked at Kim Seong-ju and Ahn Seong-hyeon with oddly expectant eyes.
But contrary to her expectations, both of them shook their heads.
"I got accepted right away."
"I got in on a scholarship......."
At the word "scholarship," everyone's eyes went wide.
"Scholarship? Seong-hyeon, you're top of the class?"
"No way. You look like the biggest meathead out of all of us! Total muscle macho man image!"
"...Ah-reum?"
"Traitor! Apologize!"
"Why me?!"
Ahn Seong-hyeon shot back with a look of utmost injustice on his face.
But honestly — Pi Ah-reum was just brutally blunt about it, but she wasn't exactly wrong. How should I put it — Ahn Seong-hyeon was handsome, sure, but he had a classic macho face. Even in a long-sleeved shirt, just looking at his prominent build, he gave off the image of a guy who was closer to iron than books.
I apparently wasn't the only one who thought so, because the others quietly nodded along. Ahn Seong-hyeon's face grew even more unfairly aggrieved. Seeing that expression on such a hard-featured face made it look comical.
...He was doing it on purpose.
I became sure of it when our eyes met briefly and Ahn Seong-hyeon flinched, averting his gaze. Even subtly dropping that he was the top incoming student had been a move to draw attention away from me.
Suddenly I recalled what Ahn Seong-hyeon had said at the subway station.
'Friends since we were three.'
Those words were true. Ahn Seong-hyeon and I were what you'd call childhood friends. Testicle buddies — friends since daycare, practically like brothers.
*
Bottles started piling up on the table.
Eight bottles of soju alone.
Even accounting for the guys drinking a bit more, we'd each put away at least a bottle.
"Guys, sorry — I'm gonna step out for a smoke."
"Huh? Hyung, you smoke?"
I looked at Kim Seong-ju in surprise and asked. I hadn't seen him smoke so far, so I'd assumed there were no smokers among us.
But as it turned out, Kim Seong-ju wasn't the only smoker.
"Oppa, let's go together."
"Mi-hyeon, you're a smoker too?"
Park Mi-hyeon pulled out her cigarettes with a sheepish face.
"Yeah. I was holding back because everyone seemed like non-smokers."
"Looks like we were both reading the room. Let's go."
Kim Seong-ju stood up with a noticeably brighter expression. Whether he was happy to have a fellow smoker, or happy to finally smoke after holding back for hours — either way, it was the most excited I'd seen him all day.
"I'm going to the bathroom. Ah-reum, wanna come?"
"Yeah!"
Lee Seo-jin and Pi Ah-reum linked arms and headed for the bathroom. Why did girls always have to go to the bathroom together?
...I tried to kill time with pointless thoughts like that, but I couldn't just sit there spacing out until they got back.
The two people left awkwardly at the table were me and Ahn Seong-hyeon.
Out of the six of us, we were the only two who already knew each other — but the reality was, we were the most awkward pair.
I fidgeted with my shot glass for no reason before letting out a small sigh and filling it with soju. Mine to the brim, and then Ahn Seong-hyeon's to the brim too.
He looked at me with surprised eyes, but I held out my glass. He silently held his out too, and we clinked them together with a crisp ching.
Without a single word, Ahn Seong-hyeon and I traded three straight shots back and forth. It was an attempt to dissolve the awkward atmosphere with alcohol.
"Hoo."
A subtle sweetness mixed with a prickly burn lingered in my mouth. What had tasted only bitter the first time I drank it was now going down with no trouble at all.
Apparently, I had a pretty strong tolerance for alcohol. I'd already gone well past one bottle, and I still felt perfectly clear-headed.
But that didn't mean I wasn't buzzed at all.
Truthfully, for someone who'd spent five years as a hikikomori, the very act of being out and about was unfamiliar. So I had no choice but to be more on edge than usual, and today, with one unexpected thing after another piling up, that was especially true.
But after drinking, that tension had loosened up a little. Instead of getting tangled up in complicated worries, I started acting with simple clarity. My earlier slip of the tongue had been in the same vein.
And now was no different.
"Seong-hyeon."
"Y-yeah?"
"Thanks."
"...Huh?"
"I said thanks. For earlier."
I pushed aside the knotted-up feelings in my chest and expressed my gratitude. I'd received help, so I said thank you. I did it because it was the natural thing to do.
Ahn Seong-hyeon opened and closed his mouth, trying to respond to my thanks, then abruptly hung his head.
"...I'm sorry."
An apology came back in response to my thanks.
It was a sudden apology, but I stayed quiet. Because I knew what he was apologizing for.
"I'm sorry I pretended not to know you back then, Cheol-jin......."
"......."
Wordlessly, I filled our glasses. Then I clinked with Ahn Seong-hyeon again and downed the shot. Along with the intoxication, Ahn Seong-hyeon's words — 'back then' — flickered through my head.
Back then, I'd been half-stripped and sprawled face-down. Bruises covered my body here and there, my hair was stained with pale grey cigarette ash.
'Hey, aren't you close with this little shit? Right?'
'.......'
'Ahn Seong-hyeon, you not gonna answer? I'm asking if you're close with this little shit.'
'N-no. We're not close.'
That was when I lost my closest friend — someone I'd considered practically a brother. Ahn Seong-hyeon pretending not to know me cut deeper than anything the so-called bullies ever did to me.
Rationally, I could easily understand it.
Because he was scared. Because he was terrified of ending up like me.
We were only 15 back then.
An age where fists were closer than the law, where the classmates and upperclassmen right beside you were more frightening than adults. And the gang that tormented me were particularly rotten, even among delinquents.
So even while I was being bullied, I never sought out Ahn Seong-hyeon. At school, I deliberately pretended not to know him. Because I'd already been declared the school-wide outcast. I didn't want my best friend to take collateral damage because of me.
But there was a world of difference between me choosing to keep my distance and being abandoned by a friend. Maybe the reason I became a hikikomori who never left the house — more than the trauma of the bullying — was the distrust in people that took root.
Distrust in people — it sounded grand, but the story was simple.
The person I thought was my closest friend, the person I felt closest to, had turned his back on me. So I became unable to trust people. No, to be more precise, I became unable to approach people out of fear of being betrayed again.
...And yet, I'd come out to this gathering today.
The reason I'd come was because I didn't want to become a loner again. Because I wanted to make friends. And because I wanted to live up to my parents' expectations.
Being alone is lonely.
Even if now I was someone who constantly watched for others' reactions, I'd originally been a person who liked being around people. Even if I'd acted like I was fine, the past five years had been an incredibly lonely time.
And so, I wanted to make friends again.
I might get betrayed again. But while I'd been holed up in my room, I'd learned about the world through online communities. They were full of every kind of idiot and every kind of story. Enough to make me think that maybe my stuff wasn't that big a deal after all.
More than anything, I didn't want to make my parents worry.
They were two people who hadn't given up on me, who'd believed in me, for five whole years. I couldn't keep making parents like that worry forever.
"I'm sorry, Cheol-jin. I'm sorry......."
Maybe it was because I'd plied him with drinks without even giving him a chance to snack.
Ahn Seong-hyeon, his face flushed bright red, started shedding tears the size of chicken droppings, plop plop. Maybe I wasn't the only one for whom the memory of that day had remained a festering knot.
I filled our glasses again. And his too, of course.
And another toast.
Ching.
But this time, instead of drinking right away, I fixed my gaze on Ahn Seong-hyeon. Our eyes met, and he flinched, offering up yet another apology.
"I'm sorry......."
I'd heard enough apologies.
Going on like this forever was a shitty thing to do. The others were going to be back soon, and it felt like people around us were starting to stare too. Well, it'd be weirder if they didn't, with a big hulking guy sniveling like that.
I quietly took a deep breath. And then I finally spat out the words that had been circling around inside my mouth for what felt like forever.
"From now on... don't pretend you don't know me."
I forgave Ahn Seong-hyeon.
If I were to explain every single reason, it would be endless. The biggest reason, really — it just felt like this would be easier on my heart. So I decided to forgive him.
*
In less than ten minutes, Ahn Seong-hyeon and I downed more than a bottle of soju between us.
I was pretty buzzed.
But I wasn't completely wasted.
I wasn't staggering around, and I wasn't dropping things, so I figured I was fine.
On the other hand, Ahn Seong-hyeon seemed pretty drunk — he couldn't keep his body still. The others looked at him with worried faces.
"Seong-hyeon looks really drunk."
"How much did you guys drink while we were gone?"
"Seong-hyeon, you okay?"
We were heading to a noraebang as the final stop. Pi Ah-reum had pushed for it enthusiastically, saying she wanted to sing.
I patted the staggering Ahn Seong-hyeon on the back.
"You good?"
"Y-yeah! 'Course I'm fine! I'm totally fine!"
"If it's too much, just go home."
"No way! I'm fine! If you're here, I'm staying no matter what! I won't betray you!"
Having said that, Ahn Seong-hyeon smacked his own cheeks with full force. So hard his face turned red from it.
*
So you could order alcohol at a noraebang too.
I learned that for the first time.
We ordered drinks and snacks and proceeded to have a full-on revelry of song and booze. For the record, Ahn Seong-hyeon sang one song, then passed out drunk in the corner.
"Weak-ass punk."
Throwing a pointless jab at him, I reserved a song too.
But apparently I was pretty drunk myself. Without thinking, I'd reserved a song I just listened to casually.
Most of the songs I usually listened to were J-POP.
"Whoa... Cheol-jin's actually good."
"...Yonezu Kkangsi is insane. I thought he was doing a Korea tour."
A string of awkward compliments from the others followed.
That was when I realized my attempt at keeping up my normal-person front had utterly failed.
"I-I'm gonna hit the bathroom."
I left the room and fled to the bathroom.
This was all Ahn Seong-hyeon's fault. It was because my heart had been so shaken up over that bastard that I'd ended up drinking like a fish even after coming to the noraebang.
"Ah, I'm screwed. How do you fail at hiding your otaku side on day one......."
I muttered as I pissed, banging my head against the wall, and added a pointless 'Ahn Seong-hyeon, you son of a bitch' under my breath as a bonus.
...Wait, what the fuck, wasn't it fine because I sang well? Back when I was in school, I used to get told I was a good singer. Maybe the compliments weren't forced — maybe they were actually genuinely impressed.
Maybe it was the liquid courage. Instead of getting buried in negative thoughts, a positive boldness welled up. Yeah, fuck it. I'm Yonezu Kkangsi.
Armed with confidence, I was on my way back to the room when—
"Oh, right."
I suddenly remembered and pulled out the object.
An acrylic plate with a hamster and a cat drawn on it.
Probably the rotor remote.
"How am I supposed to give this back?"
I'd completely forgotten about it.
I felt like I needed to secretly return it somehow, but no method came to mind.
The light on the remote was still on.
"But seriously, what the hell is the power button on this thing......."
There were only number buttons, no power button in sight. Did it not have an on/off function? Which meant it had been on this whole time — that battery life was insane. It'd been on since the bowling alley, so well over five hours by now.
Trying to somehow turn it off, I pressed the number pad. Beep beep.
In order: 1, 2, 3, 4... 5.
Ttak.
"Hnngh?!"
A woman's voice, mingled with a nasal gasp.
I didn't even need to turn around to know whose voice it was.
On pure reflex, I dialed the output back to 1 and shoved the remote into my pocket.
'Ah-reum, why did you put it back in.......'
Didn't she definitely take it out?
Or no, wait — don't tell me she'd been wearing it the whole time......?
I couldn't bring myself to turn around, so I pretended I hadn't noticed and walked back into the room.
*
The drinking was over.
"Ugh, barely any time left before the last train."
"Me too. Unni, which way are you headed?"
Lee Seo-jin and Park Mi-hyeon were going the same direction.
"Kkangcheol and Seong-ju oppa, you both said you live alone, right?"
"Yeah. So I'm gonna take this guy — Seong-hyeon — back to my place and let him crash."
Kim Seong-ju said, propping Ahn Seong-hyeon up.
"Huh? Kkangcheol also said he lives alone, so wouldn't it make more sense to let him crash at Kkangcheol's place? You two are super old friends."
Lee Seo-jin said that, which threw me off a little, but—
"Ah, it's just that my place is bigger. I've got a two-room."
"Whoa, two-room? Oppa, are you rich?"
"Rich, my ass. I'm just a bit older than you guys. I poured all the money I'd saved up into finding a place to live alone."
Because his place was bigger. It didn't look like that was the only reason.
Kim Seong-ju, meeting my eyes, gave a wide grin and patted me on the back. He didn't say anything, but he seemed to have guessed that the relationship between me and Ahn Seong-hyeon wasn't so simple.
I laughed awkwardly and conveyed my thanks with a look. Though we'd smoothed things over a bit while drinking earlier, bringing him home still felt a little uncomfortable. How awkward was it going to be waking up sober in the morning?
'He's even perceptive, this hyung.'
Good-looking, obviously. Had leadership skills. Sang well... It'd almost be annoying how one person could hog everything, but he was even perceptive on top of it. He was a hyung I wanted to get close with.
"Alright, I'll take Seong-hyeon with me. Today was really fun, everyone. See you when the semester starts."
"It was fun! Everyone get home safe!"
Kim Seong-ju and Ahn Seong-hyeon walked off.
Park Mi-hyeon and Lee Seo-jin went down into the subway station.
The ones left were me and Pi Ah-reum.
I asked Pi Ah-reum, who was just standing there blankly.
"Ah-reum, you're not going? You said you have a friend living nearby."
Pi Ah-reum had said she was going to crash at a friend's place nearby.
"Want me to walk you there?"
I surprised myself saying it. Wow, this assertiveness from me? Maybe I really had gotten a lot more comfortable drinking with everyone today. Especially with Pi Ah-reum, who basically had no sense of personal space whatsoever, it was even more so.
But Pi Ah-reum just stared up at me intently and spoke.
"When are you going to give it back?"
"...Huh?"
My thoughts ground to a halt for a moment.
But Pi Ah-reum didn't give me any time to collect myself.
"My remote. You have it."