First Story (2)
Damn it. I should have just held it in.
I was already fuming from a bunch of bratty little punks getting on my nerves, and then some insignificant nobodies picked a fight with me on top of it, so I lost my temper and roughed a few of them up. That was the seed of everything.
Part of me wondered what kind of adult throws hands with kindergarteners, but they were already flattened. What was I supposed to do about it?
Thanks to that, the teachers recoiled in horror, the parents of the kids I hit raised hell, and my own parents stumbled around apologizing to the preschool on a weekly basis. And even in the middle of all that, I still had to deal with punks going, "Did you really hit him over that?"—so-called "hyungs" of mine who needed a taste of their own medicine. I couldn't catch a single day of peace.
But fine. Up to that point, I could accept it. That much was part of the deal I'd signed up for. The problem was what came next. My head throbbed just trying to figure out how things had gone this wrong.
"Yi-seon! Jung Da-un badmouthed you and me!"
"So what am I supposed to do about it, Limbo?"
"I heard every word of her calling you a piece of trash, Yi-seon!"
"Was she wrong? You beat up kids and get scolded by the teachers every single day."
"See?! Look at that!"
Why on earth did I end up as the leader of some kindergarten faction war?
It started out simple enough. When word got around that I'd pummeled the seven-year-old king of the kindergarten—or the eight-year-olds still puffing their shoulders about having started elementary school—the boys who used to pick fights with me went quiet for a while.
That was the most positive outcome I could have hoped for, so naturally I welcomed it. But from that point on, things started getting strange.
"Hey, Yi-seon. Could I, uh, be your friend too?"
"Huh?"
"I saw it on TV. You're supposed to say 'Brother' at times like this."
It was an era still flush with romanticism—the days when dramas and movies glamorizing gangsters and crime were all the rage. Apparently the big boss types from those shows looked enough like me in the kids' eyes that, one by one, little disciples began swearing loyalty(?) to me.
And on top of that—maybe because this was the age of Hikaru Genji and all sorts of strange shoujo manga—I caught, with my razor-sharp instincts, the girls' gazes shifting into something oddly reminiscent of the way they looked at certain characters on a manga page.
Okay. Even up to there, I'd figured the odds were low, but it was still within the range of things I could have predicted. And then came the next stage.
"This is all Lee Ye-eun's fault!"
"Hey, why are you blaming Ye-eun? You're the one who did it. She never told you to!"
The kindergarten split in half. Into the kids who supported me, and the kids who supported Lee Ye-eun.
Since Ye-eun already had the whole place locked down through sheer connections anyway, even the kids who'd flocked to my side were former members of her entourage. And once they'd defected to the other side, that only made things worse.
Wasn't there a saying that the most aggressive person was never the original enemy, but the convert?
"Lee Ye-eun always promises stickers and erasers and pencils to kids, then only gives them to her favorites. She says she'll be your seat partner and never does it. Even during princess play, she never takes the bad role herself."
"She's a straight-up evil brat!"
"Hey! After everything Ye-eun's done for you, how can you say that?!"
"Traitor! You're the worst!"
It wasn't just a simple split anymore. Both sides had begun hurling hatred at each other with full force.
Even the teachers, clearly thrown by a situation they'd never seen before, could only flounder—doing nothing but flatly telling everyone it wasn't allowed, with no idea what else to do.
But since when did suppressing people's feelings actually solve anything? What began as a light scrape between the factions only deepened into a genuine emotional chasm as the days wore on.
And then, inevitably—
"...Hey. Are you sure you can just throw that?"
"Shut up...! We're supposed to do it in secret. If we get caught because of you, you're paying for it."
The bullying I'd once endured began creeping its way, sly and underhanded, toward the very center of it all: Lee Ye-eun.
Lee Ye-eun was aggrieved. Why do I have to suffer this humiliation?
Not once in her life had she ever directly earned anyone's hatred. Even if someone disliked her in secret, no one had ever been able to show it out loud.
"Ye-eun-ah. Aren't you going to look at Mom's face?"
"..."
And now even her own mother had started nagging her.
Ye-eun knew it too. She hadn't handled any of this well. But anyone could see Kim Yi-seon started it.
He was a little pretty, a little cute, and seemed just slightly different from the other shallow boys, so she'd only tried to get close to him. And wasn't it Kim Yi-seon who coldly shut her down without a single answer, first?
It was unfair. Why did she have to be treated like this? Why did she have to hear her mother tell her to make up? Kim Yi-seon was the one at fault first!
She didn't want to go to kindergarten. She didn't want to see Kim Yi-seon, didn't want to see the traitors who'd latched onto him, didn't want to see the so-called friends trading insults with those traitors.
And what she hated seeing most of all was herself, standing between them, feeling helpless.
She'd buried her face in the bed and was lying there when her mother, patience apparently exhausted, raised her voice.
"Lee Ye-eun! Are you planning to keep this up?! Get up. Right now!"
It was the first time she'd ever felt her mother's rough hands. Tears welled up as those hands grabbed her and forced her upright. And even then, she didn't cry—not because of some Santa Claus threat, but purely out of pride.
She was still locked in that struggle with her mother when—
"Ma'am. If she says she doesn't want to, there's no need to drag her out."
"No, no. Auntie misunderstood Yi-seon and said some awful things, so she has to apologize and clear the air. Sweetie, are you seriously not getting up?!"
From outside the door came a voice she least wanted to hear at that exact moment.
And then a boy's head poked through the doorway.
"Um... are you okay?"
It was Kim Yi-seon.
Let me make a confession. In my past life, I was a loner.
Complicated human relationships, faction warfare—didn't understand any of it, didn't want to. And even if it was all just doll-play-level squabbling between little kids, I didn't have the faintest idea how to resolve it.
Which is why, when the situation snowballed this far, I simply stood by, unable to act. I hadn't taken a single deliberate action. Not one.
"Hey, run! Quick!"
"Wait! Come with me!"
So naturally, I had absolutely no clue what to do about this either.
The two boys just now—once Ye-eun's devoted followers, if I remembered right. Wimpy types, always watching her mood.
The way I saw it, they were the last kids who should have been capable of something like this.
'CONFISCATED.'
All that remained was those words scrawled roughly in fat marker—on an item that should have been where it belonged: the bag Ye-eun treasured.
And when I turned to look out the window, I could see the kindergarten pond sitting close by the glass, a few odds and ends bobbing on its surface along with that bag.
Right. Maybe they'd simply had a lot built up. Watching someone's every mood couldn't have come only from liking her—there must have been a fair share of fear mixed in too.
They were kids, after all. Scold them, teach them, and maybe they'd grow out of it.
With that thought, I quietly reported the facts to the teacher and stepped back.
Stepped back through the moment Ye-eun saw the bag and her eyes went scarlet, tears brimming but stubbornly refusing to fall. Through the moment those two boys strutted back out, heads high, after getting their dressing-down from the teacher.
And then, the next day, when Ye-eun didn't show up at kindergarten, I understood it all in that instant.
"Did you see Ye-eun? She was all choked up."
"Yeah. She'd already cried her eyes out, but she pretended she hadn't. Kid's hilarious."
"Hm? Yi-seon-ah! What's going on..?"
"Bite down on this."
"Wha—?"
WHAM!
Kids, after all. If scolding and teaching could fix things, then that logic applied to Lee Ye-eun too.
Just because someone looked like a character out of a manga was no guarantee they'd grow up exactly like one. If a kid seemed headed down a bad path, the right thing was for an adult to step in and hold them steady—turning away from that was the true wrong.
Determined to put this revelation into immediate practice, I courteously delivered some fist-based education to the kids harboring the deviant fetish of making girls cry.
Along the way I once again had to face an earful from noisy adults and the whining of kids who "never expected us to betray them," but I ignored all of it.
"Ma'am. Could I see Ye-eun for a moment?"
No detours, no fuss—I went straight to Ye-eun's mother with my request.
Her parents were in the middle of agonizing over their daughter, who for the first time in her life was giving them grief. And into that moment walked the very boy their daughter had been feuding with—friend's son of her mother or not, the timing couldn't have been worse.
At first, their reaction was a touch chilly. Considering they might well assume I was the cause of the whole mess, it would have been hard to muster anything polite.
But I stood my ground.
"There's been a misunderstanding between Ye-eun and me. I'd like to apologize in person."
She stared me down, eyes full of doubt, but I was sincere. After a long stretch of sizing me up, Ye-eun's mother heaved a deep sigh and spoke.
"Honestly. You're exactly like someone I know, down to the bone. I'm sorry, sweetie. I suppose I jumped to conclusions."
"It's fine. So, should I wait out here?"
"No, come on in. I'll bring Ye-eun down myself—go sit at the table over there."
Apparently sincerity had gotten through. The lady ushered me inside.
Following her in, I stepped into the house, and—
"Um... are you okay?"
—sticking my head up carefully, I managed to steal a look at how Lee Ye-eun was doing.
Kim Yi-seon kept fidgeting, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
How bad do I look? She stole a glance at the mirror hanging on the wall—hair a wild tangle, eyes swollen into puffs. Dreadful.
Normally she'd never have let anyone see her like this, but the current Lee Ye-eun was halfway past caring. She couldn't muster the energy to worry about what anyone thought; she'd simply come to hate everything.
The reason she hadn't yelled at Kim Yi-seon or told him to get lost was much the same. She didn't have the will for that kind of violent emotional display.
That was how enormous this whole ordeal had been for Lee Ye-eun, who'd coasted through five comfortable years of life. So enormous she could barely bear the aftershocks.
Kim Yi-seon gathered himself a little, and finally opened his mouth.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
That was all he said. And then—unbelievably—he went back to agonizing for another long stretch.
Slowly, anger began to rise in Ye-eun too. Watching that lump fidget and hem in front of her brought something bubbling up from the very bottom of her, and at last she lost it, showing him a ferocity she'd never once let anyone see.
"Sorry for what?! You awful brat! Idiot, dummy! You ignored me every single time I talked to you—I've got nothing to say to someone like you!"
And having no desire to talk further, she was about to bury her face back in the bed and just sleep—
"I'm sorry for ignoring you back then. I'm sorry I didn't stop the kids when they did those awful things to you."
"Now, of all times?"
She didn't want to answer, but every word made something lurch in her chest, and before she knew it, she was snapping back sulkily.
You ignored me when I first spoke to you. You stayed off on your own even when I made it clear I'd let it slide if you'd just hang out with me like everyone else—and now, at this exact moment when those rotten kids are tormenting me, you want to apologize?
But Kim Yi-seon, apparently oblivious to the fury threaded through her voice, just kept up his clueless replies.
"At first, it was because I had no intention of getting close to you. After that, it was because it made me angry when people came at you. It was my fault."
"You didn't want to get close? Then what were Jisu and Arin, exactly?"
The natural question here would have been a simple why? But the question Ye-eun asked was: The other girls are fine, but not me?
At the time she couldn't understand why she was even asking it, only that a strange feeling came with it. Now, of course, she knew exactly what it was. Jealousy, and shame.
"Jisu? Arin? Who are they supposed to be?"
But Kim Yi-seon just kept spouting clueless nonsense. Is he serious? No—they're in my class. Both of them.
Wondering if he truly meant it, she looked into his eyes again—and it was real. Lee Ye-eun, better than anyone at reading people's feelings, could not have misread that.
And in that moment, everything just felt absurdly hollow.
"...Forget it. Just go."
"Ye-eun-ah. Let's be friends now."
"I said get out."
"You're coming to kindergarten tomorrow, right? I'll talk to the kids."
With that, Kim Yi-seon slunk back out the door. Truly, the most baffling, ridiculous creature alive.
Cursing him out in her head, Lee Ye-eun was nevertheless up the next morning—ready for kindergarten before her mother even came to wake her—and marched off to school with her head held high.
What awaited Lee Ye-eun when she returned to kindergarten was almost too absurd to process.
"...Yi-seon-ah, are you and Ye-eun dating?"
"No. We're friends."
"Ohh..."
The boy acted so simple-minded you had to wonder if he had a single thought in his head.
He strode into kindergarten holding Ye-eun's hand, stuck to her side, and—wouldn't you know it—started dragging his classmates over one by one and making them apologize.
"Hey. You know what to say."
"...I'm sorry."
"I'll never throw your bag again."
Not just the two boys still looking faintly bruised, but the girls who'd betrayed Ye-eun and talked behind her back, the girls who'd picked fights to her face, even the girls who'd been fluttering their lashes at Kim Yi-seon—he hauled every last one of them up for an apology.
What is this? Is he an idiot? Does he think they'll never do it again just because they said sorry?
But Kim Yi-seon's campaign didn't end there. This time, he made her apologize too.
"Ye-eun-ah."
"Fine, fine, I'll do it... I'm sorry."
"Huh? Oh, uh..."
The kids who'd taken sides in this whole affair and caught unfair abuse from Ye-eun's friends. The boys who'd trailed after Kim Yi-seon like lackeys for a while there and gotten smacked around by the girls on Ye-eun's side. And plenty of others besides.
He gathered up every child who'd clashed with anyone over this mess and made them take turns trading apologies, one-on-one, all the way around.
Ye-eun went along in a daze; the boys complied because Kim Yi-seon was both terrifying and cool; the girls mostly played ball because Ye-eun and Kim Yi-seon were standing there together.
An atmosphere of awkwardness with a faint residue of old grudges hanging over the kindergarten. Ye-eun found it so ridiculous that she couldn't help asking.
"Do you actually think this is going to work?"
"Obviously not."
His sheer, unblinking confidence left her speechless.
"But if people apologize, that's the start of things changing. That's enough for me."
And he said it with a bright smile he'd never once shown her before.
Truly, she thought from that day on—Kim Yi-seon was, without question, the biggest blockhead under heaven. What was she supposed to do with a guy this oblivious, this thoughtless?
Probably the way he'd ignored her advances at their first meeting had been over something just as dumb and trivial. Thinking that, everything that had happened up to now turned foolish and pointless all at once.
And whatever it was about the sight of her sighing that pleased him, Kim Yi-seon grinned and told her to wait just a second.
"Ta-da. Present time."
Then he rummaged through his bag, pulled something out, and held it out to her.
The sun.
The sun?
Wait. No? Wasn't he supposed to give me white chocolate right about now?
And he'd said something like, don't you love these?—which made her wonder how he could possibly know she liked white chocolate, and just like that the mood between them had started warming up, hadn't it?
Thrown by the situation, she protested—but Kim Yi-seon just pushed the sun at her, urging her to try it.
Eat this? Is this even edible?
Under the weight of his insistence, she accepted the sun. And then had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do with it.
Honestly. Kim Yi-seon had been handing her nothing but bewilderment ever since they were little, all the way into adulthood.
It was unfair. Why did she alone have to be the one knocked off balance by Kim Yi-seon, every single time?
Well then, let's see you get shaken up by someone like yourself for once. With that spite in her heart, she forced the sun down.
And the sun, as it turned out, wasn't hot at all—it felt warm and cozy.
"Mmmh..."
When she opened her eyes, a groan slipped out of Lee Ye-eun entirely against her will.
She turned her head toward the window—the sun was only just barely rising.
And Kim Yi-seon lay sprawled next to her, completely knocked out.
On any ordinary morning the sight would have left her heart fluttering with satisfaction, but today he looked unbearably smug somehow, even fast asleep.
She pinched his cheek, more out of spite than anything, and rose slowly from the bed. He slept like the dead—one decent pinch should have gotten a reaction, but not a twitch. Typical.
The moment she stood, an all-over ache crashed through her body. Well, fair—after last night's exertion, it would have been strange to feel fine.
She'd been trying to build up her stamina with exercise and all, but how was anyone supposed to outlast that stamina monster? And on top of that, he was the type to be surprisingly domineering in bed while still being hopelessly clingy—no mercy, no breaks, just relentless.
With a sigh, she minded her sore spots and shuffled slowly toward the bathroom.
Come to think of it, the pharmacist had said the test had to be done with first morning urine.
She fished the test kit out of the bathroom cabinet with practiced ease, used it according to the instructions, and set it down in the corner.
Then, brushing her teeth and staring at her face in the mirror above the sink, she thought:
What a bizarre dream. The day she first met Kim Yi-seon as a kid, surfacing in a dream out of nowhere was strange enough—but for the most important part at the end to be twisted all wrong? It was her own subconscious, and she still couldn't make sense of it.
Still mulling that over, she rinsed her mouth, finished washing her face, and picked up the test kit without much expectation.
"...Two lines."
And then, her thoughts stopped entirely.
It would take Lee Ye-eun a full day to figure out what that dream had actually meant.