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A few days before the New Year… as I looked over the steamy window inside the heated classroom, people were busily walking on the streets. Near the bus station, students wearing school uniforms and some office workers were letting out misty breaths while waiting for the bus…
Then at the moment, someone called my name; I stopped reminiscing the scene and returned to reality.
“Donnie?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah,” I replied.
Eun Hyung was asking me concernedly, “You don’t look good. Is everything okay?” He then added, “Did we tease you too much?”
I quickly shook my head, replying, “Ah, no, it’s nothing like that.” Grabbing the tip of my nose with my hands, I slowly continued, “You’ve been thinking the exact same thing as I’ve had, which seems very interesting.”
“Huh?”
“You know during the winter break when the New Year was just around the corner…”
As I spoke that way, Eun Hyung immediately grasped when it was; his face turned dark.
Back then, after we grew apart, it was, eventually, on the first day of the new year that I barely took the courage to reach out and try to send my greetings to them. Around that time, we were spending such days as if we were complete strangers.
Even at the festival, so-called the biggest freshmen event, we were kind of acting nonchalant and didn’t even go hang out in each other’s classroom.
It was, of course, a lie if I didn’t miss them or want to see them again. However, I hated to realize that we became unfamiliar more than we had thought and could no longer feel close to each other. It was painful to become aware of those facts especially at school of all occasions, which was the place that we had spent the most time together and expected to share our teenage life afterward.
Once the semester was over and I got to escape from school during the break, I felt so delighted as if I got released from prison. Not only that there weren’t any more classes but I also didn’t have to become nervous about those kids suddenly popping out from somewhere.
Thinking to that extent, I cast down my eyes and touched my fingertips. I uttered, “You know it was my first time to spend the break without you guys. It was also my first time staying at cram school all day from morning to night. Prep schools are crazy; they are dreadful.”
Adding that way, I showed a timid smile. That was when Eun Hyung loosened up the strained look on his face. He tosses a question.
“Dreadful? What made you think that way?”
I replied, “Well, at first, I’ve just thought that there are so many kids studying so hard since the place isn’t a mandatory institute like regular schools. It’s where strongly motivated kids come to focus on studying and achieve their goals. Of course, some kids are there because their parents force them into studying…” then I quietly continued with downcast eyes, “But I became to think that I should be like these kids… no, do better and harder than them so that I could barely become something, but suddenly…”
“Uh-huh.”
Lifting my head abruptly, I spoke with a smile, “I don’t know… why did it feel that sad to me?”
I tried to show a smile, but my voice was deeply subsided. Concluding my words, I raised my head and touched my throat for a second. Yoo Chun Young, beside me, seemed to stare at me.
‘Geez, why’s my throat choked with tears when I’m saying nothing special…?’ I thought while smirking at myself.
Meanwhile, not only Eun Hyung and Yoo Chun Young but other kids were also looking at me with subdued expression. Amid the situation, I caught my breath and opened my mouth again.
“I have no idea why I’ve had those thoughts at that time, but I just… felt that a person like me is everywhere. Well, that’s what I always feel but I was unusually desperate at that time. I asked myself so many times, ‘What makes me special to assure that I am what I am?’ but no matter how much I wondered about those didn’t exist. I was just one of the millions on millions of people…”
“Why do you have such thoughts?” asked Eun Hyung while stretching out his hand through the desk.
Smiling softly, I grabbed his hand and detached my lips again.
“I don’t know but ever since I’ve had those thoughts in mind, I looked out the window, and you know that the place was in the middle of Gangnam, right? So many people were walking around the streets…”
Eun Hyung replied, “Uh-huh.”
“All those people walking by the streets seemed to be like me. I don’t know… why did I think that way?”
“…”
“But that was what I really felt. When someone takes a close look at those people, he or she can easily find someone like me among them…”
I reminisced for a second. I went to cram school just a month ago; however, the memories in that place was already faded like a dream.
Since the windows were closed and the heater was overheating the space, the classroom seemed to be lacking oxygen. Having a thick blanket around my shoulders, I felt drowsy; my brain kept befogging by lassitude. Although I wasn’t a sleepyhead, the cram school classroom always made me fall asleep.
The dreams I, eventually, had at those times were mostly about the things in the past. When I suddenly woke up from sleep while dreaming about being together with the Four Heavenly Kings and Ban Yeo Ryung, the reality felt like a world in the dreamland instead.
Recalling those times, I uttered, “At that moment, I suddenly thought that there will be no place for me even if I go to you guys…”
I shook my head then took off my hands covering the bottom of my face. Smiling again, I kept on speaking, “Ah, I don’t know. Why did I have such thoughts back then? Maybe I was a little depressed at that time. It was quite exciting to see my classmates in cram school, but aside from that, something was just…”
I continued speaking that way as if I was making an excuse.
Actually, it was true that I did think so many times in cram school about the things that I never did when I was with them.
I myself inside the people…
I myself in a world where nothing happens…
Never did I have felt so big about other people’s existence as it was then; never did my existence seems that small as it was then.
Then I raised my head out of the blue. The overall atmosphere turned incomparably heavy than when I first brought out the topic.
‘Eh? What the heck? Is this my fault?’ While I was in a fluster thinking that way, the front door suddenly opened; the math teacher stepped inside.
‘Argh, I didn’t even open the book!’ Quickly peeping at Eun Hyung’s textbook right behind me, I barely got to flip through the pages and found the part that we’d be learning today. I was then able to heave a sigh of relief and look in the front.
On the other hand, I kind of thought that it was rather fortunate to have the teacher starting the class right now and intervening in our conversation. Scratching my forehead, I thought, ‘It seems to be my fault to bring up a story about the time when we were out of touch. I ruined our vibe…’
I just wanted to say that I also had the same feelings as them when we didn’t keep in touch. It was such a coincidence that I tried to say a few things about it, but…
Rubbing my cheeks nervously, I heard something gently falling onto my desk. Lowering my head, I found two folded papers in front of me.
‘What are they?’ I opened the papers doubtfully.
[I’ll do private tutoring for you, so don’t go to cram school anymore;; Why did you return while having some weird thoughts? Did you go to prison? Did you, huh? If you’d been there longer, you might have written and published some jail diaries.]
The decent and vertically long handwriting would definitely belong to Eun Jiho.
The next message on the unfolded paper looked round and cute like a jelly, which Jooin would have definitely sent me. Still feeling suspicious, I read down the note.
[Don’t go there, mama^^ The place might be at a bad site.]
‘Um, Jooin, that cram school is in the heart of Gangnam, considered the national capital of education…’
While I blankly murmured that way, someone suddenly patted my head from behind me. It was such a humanly impossible timing. I couldn’t believe that he would do such a thing like this during the class, but there was only one person sitting behind my seat. My brows met in the middle.