28. Relationship (5)
From the time I was a kid, all the way up to this moment — sitting blank-faced in the infirmary.
If I had to name one thing I disliked, it would be talking to men. Not hatred, exactly. Closer to simply not enjoying it. Drag a conversation out as long as you like and there was nothing in it for me, only the fatigue of having bothered to use my voice. That was why it had never interested me.
"Wild. So this is what it feels like~"
"..."
"Something warm keeps pricking its way in?"
"..."
"When you first grabbed my wrist it hurt a little, but I think it's already better?"
"..."
I might have heard his name once. Or maybe I'd only seen the face in passing. Either way, unlike me, this one seemed to genuinely enjoy talking to other men. I wasn't giving him a single answer, just treating him in silence, and he was still going. Watching that, it was stranger to claim he wasn't enjoying himself.
...If only he'd get treated quietly and leave, like the other boys.
Not that I could tell him to shut his mouth. Humor him with some pointless reply and the talking would only get longer. In the end, the best move was to ignore him until the treatment was finished. It wouldn't even take a minute. I swallowed a sigh and kept going, whatever the man in front of me had to say.
"Oh, right. Last time a senior told me to, so I read through some of the special-admission paperwork? Seo... Teacher Seo Woojin? Mm. Can't really see the name tag. Something's covering it."
"..."
"It was a pain at first, but then I got curious what kind of salary you'd even have to offer to keep a healing-type transcendent on as the school nurse, so I read the whole thing straight through."
"..."
"You're younger than you look, huh? I figured twenty-three, twenty-four, and you're twenty? Is it the styling?"
"..."
"And you're not even a health teacher to begin with. What was it — health committee? The title's weird, too."
"..."
"Anyway, what I really wanted to know was the pay, but all it said was that the whole thing's handled as a full scholarship..."
"Excuse me."
For a second I'd even wondered if this one was a spy, like Baek Seoyeon. That thought was long gone. I lifted my head and let the words out quietly, and my eyes met the face that had been smiling a moment ago. A small face. Eyes, nose, and mouth all large and sharp. What people called an idol's face. I was a man, so I couldn't be sure, but it was probably the sort of look women liked quite a lot. A strange irritation rose at that, and I went on.
"So you wanted to know what my salary is?"
"Ah, that wasn't really what I meant. I mean, if you felt like telling me, I'd love that. Does it actually hit nine figures? Those posts about what a healing-type is worth are insane. American billionaires throwing millions a year at them, scouting the whole world for—"
"What wasn't what you meant. You said yourself you read it because you were curious about the pay from the start."
"Aish. That was a joke. A joke. Why would you take it seriously?"
"...And what's the reason for a joke like that?"
"Since when do jokes need a reason? If I had to find one, I was trying to loosen the mood. Ice-breaking. You've heard of it, right?"
Was this how the popular kids talked? From where I stood he just looked like a rude little shit. Or closer to a clueless loner who'd never learned how to speak to people. I knit my brows and held his eyes for a moment. Then I let out a small sigh, huu, and dropped my gaze.
This person simply didn't mesh with me. Forcing myself to get used to him wouldn't make it any better, and there was no reason I had to. Seeing him go around with Baek Seoyeon, if he wasn't a spy, then they were probably something like friends...
"It runs into the hundred millions. Happy now?"
"Hah... So all of that comes out of Mister Seok Jaehwa's pocket. The costs didn't exactly explode compared to last year, though. Figures. Man's loaded."
"We're almost done, so would you hold still?"
"Yep, yep. It stopped hurting, so I thought you were finished."
That woman. Her taste really was uniquely foul.
An achievement with no one to brag to doesn't fill you with pride. It only drops you into misery. People are born already stuffed with the urge to be acknowledged by someone else. Dispose of another country's spy where no one is watching, and no one gives you credit. Pull an item with abysmal odds in the middle of a game, and if you've got no way to show it off, no one gives you credit. Flick a plastic bottle without a thought and land it perfectly upside down on a desk on the very first try — if you weren't recording from the start, no one gives you credit. In all the world, I was the only one who knew.
I'd realized how miserable that was because of one small thing. A scrap of chatter drifting over from beside me in the middle of practical class.
"That's NTR, right? What's NTL?"
We'd been in the middle of a low-rise rescue drill for a fire scenario... not that any of that mattered. I sat on the floor in my sweat-soaked gym clothes and rested for a moment. Afraid we might make eye contact, I turned my head a little, fiddling with the zipper so I'd look uninterested, and packed every word from the corner carefully into my ears.
"Ah, shit, don't talk so loud, you dumbass...! There are other people around. Over there — Han Sua, Lee Jiyoon..."
"My voice wasn't that loud. Quit being dramatic. They're not even looking this way. Anyway, it's NTR, right?"
"No. You only know the NTR that gets slapped on Hitomi tags, don't you?"
"Hitomi? I'm talking about the tag on porn."
"Ha, Christ... You act like you know, and you don't know a thing."
Yeah. That wasn't knowing. Not even a sort of knows level. Straight-up little-kid level. But I wasn't close enough to them to say anything myself. I hadn't exchanged a single word with them from enrollment until now. Stretch it as far as it would go and we were still strangers. So I stayed where I was, knees hugged to my chest, and only listened.
"NTR is getting it stolen. NTL is doing the stealing. Got it now?"
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"The one you're inserting yourself as is completely different. What are you even saying?"
"...You say self-insert and it sounds kinda weeb."
"If NTR got you off, it was probably NTL most of the time. Taking somebody else's girl. Simple, and it gets you hard."
"But I'd rather just—"
"......"
On the whole it was nothing but boys arguing which one got them harder, so if I had to sum it up: by the sheer flood of works, by the popularity polls, NTR. And among that, NTL was the hottest. No — rape stuff, loaded to the brim with a man's raw instinct, was the hottest...
...A truly dignified conversation. The sort of thread you'd see on a dead forum with nothing else going on. Normally I'd have thought what a bunch of idiots and just looked at my phone, but today I couldn't. Which made sense. I'd actually done it yesterday. Taken my sister's boyfriend, behind my sister's back.
Haah. Morons. Were they running their mouths after trying it for real? NTL... was so fucking hot. And they were comparing it to rape. Infuriating. That kind of thing was for Lee Hayun.
"......"
But of course I couldn't say a word. Two boys wedged in a corner, debating what got them harder — that was already funny enough, and a girl squeezes in? That would be nothing short of social suicide. I wanted to live comfortably, without burning energy on useless feelings. I did not want to live under everybody's weird stares.
...And suppose I did squeeze in and whisper some crap like ...tried it myself, and NTL is way hotter... What would I even get out of it? Vicious shame? They'd pick up a day or two of jerk-off material and start circling me, disgusting, angling for another dirty conversation. And me? Shame?
...Pfft.
Get lost. Not doing it. Who does that crap if they aren't a masochist.
Nnngh. Smothered under a frustration I couldn't say out loud, I squeezed my knees tight, then finally pulled my phone from my pocket. The moment I opened the chat app, what I saw was a game ad. KakaoPay. Stickers. Insurance. Above those, my sister. Above her, Seo Woojin. I set aside my sister's texts demanding to know when I was finally coming home, and carefully, carefully sent one to Seo Woojin.
I wanted to write idiot, but I held it in. I'd let that idiot finish inside me plenty. That made me the biggest idiot of all.
...The second I texted him, my heart started pounding. Like I was in some secret relationship with him. While I was twisting last night's Do you like me too? — heard from his own mouth — into whatever meaning I liked, the chat screen slid up a line.
Blunt. Even so, the way he quietly looked after me felt good. Honestly, set it side by side and it was the same as the texts he always sent. So why was it tickling me this much today of all days? Because he didn't deny being a pervert? Because he answered the moment I texted? Because infirmary put Seo Woojin in a white coat in my head?
"...Hehe."
...Crazy bitch. A complete, fucking crazy bitch. Those rose-tinted lenses are glued on tight, Lee Jiyoon.
I rubbed my face into the arm resting on my knee and kept texting. This way, if my cheeks were red, I could blame it on rubbing them against my arm.
11:20. A little short of lunch. An extremely awkward hour. A perfect hour to rest on the excuse that something hurt. I brushed my backside off and stood, still in my gym clothes, and walked over to the teacher in the corner.
"Hayun! You okay? You're not hurt? ...cough... God, the dust..."
"I'm aliiive..."
"Are you, cough, hurt bad?"
"..."
"Hayun?"
"I sprained my piiinky..."
"Oh for— then quit milking it and get out of there...!"
"Hehe... It feels nice, being worried over... I haven't really had a reason to get hurt lately, so I haven't been getting this kind of treatment..."
"And here I thought you were actually wrecked, the way Yoo Siwoo was pouting earlier over you messing up his wrist... You get down to the first-floor infirmary too."
"Okaaay..."