"My hyung told me to bring him a textbook."
Between the dark brown school uniform, a pale ivory knit peeked out.
Because the crowd was so thick, the boy’s face wasn’t clear, but to Kim Jaeuk the build and the voice were familiar.
"So cute! He says he came on an errand for his hyung!"
"Huh? If he has a hyung, then he goes here, right? Then he could just tell his hyung to come get it himself."
At that, the boy spoke in a slightly downcast tone.
"My hyung is sick, so he couldn’t come to school."
"Sick? Who could it be? Who was absent today... huh!"
"Don’t tell me your hyung is..."
When everyone pictured the same face,
the boy drove in the wedge.
"Yes. Third-year Geonho Baek is my hyung."
"...!"
After a brief hush,
everyone nodded as if it all made sense.
"Wow, no wonder."
"With a face like that, for sure."
An astonishingly beautiful look, pretty yet striking.
Even if the features weren’t the same, the soft expression that contrasted with sharp eyes was exactly like student council president Geonho Baek.
"Should I show you the way? The president’s class is, like, three doors down from mine!"
"Hey, then it makes sense for me to go. I’m in the next class over. What’s your name?"
"Want me to buy you snacks on the way?"
While students gathered in curious little clusters, only Kim Jaeuk stood off at a distance.
Frozen in place by an unexpected face, Kim Jaeuk reopened his phone screen first.
Then, instead of the message he’d meant to send, he typed something new.
[Me: Hey, did you send your little brother on an errand]
[Geonho: ?]
The guy who usually replied every other day shot back instantly when the word little brother appeared.
Kim Jaeuk felt a surge of feeling, but now wasn’t the time to scold.
[Me: He’s at our school right now]
Kim Jaeuk waited for a reply, but even after quite a while the phone stayed quiet.
No way. Is he on his way here, that jerk?
Kim Jaeuk scratched his head, thinking back to elementary school. He was probably still suffering from those motion-sickness-like symptoms.
"Forget it. Whatever."
Only when he lifted his eyes from the phone did he realize Seolheon Baek was standing right in front of him.
"Jaeuk-hyung. Hello."
"...Oh. Oh, right, you came to find Geonho’s textbook?"
Steadying his startled heart, Kim Jaeuk edged a half step back.
He and Seolheon had crossed paths a few times. After years of being friends with Geonho Baek, there was no way not to know the little brother he always talked about.
A good, gentle, smart kid, exactly like Geonho Baek’s little brother.
Even so, Kim Jaeuk didn’t much like Seolheon Baek.
He didn’t know the exact reason himself. Every time he tried to chew on why, no proper explanation came to mind.
"Thank you for looking after my hyung yesterday."
"If your friend collapses, of course you do that."
"It’s a relief that my hyung has a close friend like you, Jaeuk-hyung."
As if he had no idea what Kim Jaeuk was thinking, Seolheon’s eyes curved and he smiled brightly.
Then, in a voice small enough that the other students wouldn’t hear, he whispered.
"Thank you for always keeping my hyung’s constitution a secret."
The childish lilt at the end tickled his ear.
Kim Jaeuk drew his brows together.
The reason he didn’t like Seolheon Baek.
He hadn’t known it when he was young, but now there was one thing he could point to for certain.
A sense of dissonance.
Like a child in an adult’s suit, like an adult in a school uniform.
A strange feeling, as if something didn’t match the clothes it wore.
Even that smile felt like a mask you could put on and take off, floating over his expression.
"Please keep taking care of my hyung."
"...Yeah. But did Geonho really tell you to come get the book? Then I can just—"
"No."
Cutting him off, Seolheon started walking.
"I want to go get it."
As he brushed past on the right, Kim Jaeuk saw it.
The innocent smile on the boy’s face vanished without a trace.
Clutching a textbook tight against his chest, Seolheon smiled.
"Hyung, noonas. Thank you. Thanks to you I found the textbook my hyung mentioned right away."
"Wow, Geonho’s incredible. Trying to study even when he’s sick."
"Do you think kids at the top of the school think like we do."
Before he knew it, students had gathered in Geonho’s class, dying to talk to the student council president’s little brother.
"Do you need anything else?"
"I’m fine now. Thanks for buying me juice too."
"This kid is so nice."
Everyone kept saying cute, nice, as expected of the president’s brother, then lifted their heads at the school bell.
"Ah, break’s over."
"Then I’ll get going."
"Too bad. I wanted to know what it’s like at the president’s house."
"Tell Geonho to get well soon."
As the students scattered back to their classes, Seolheon also set off.
The gentle expression he’d worn in front of the middle schoolers was gone. In its place was a face as cold as ice.
"...My hyung was right. It’s easier when I smile."
At the elementary school he attended, he often drew needless misunderstandings because of his chilly impression.
But after listening to his hyung’s advice, those incidents had clearly dropped.
Seolheon. You’re not wrong. But people can get hurt even by the truth.
For a moment, his hyung’s face rose in his mind.
I’ll help you make up with your friend. So first let’s apologize with a smile. Everyone likes a smiling face.
His voice had been stern, but the warmth of the two hands on his shoulders had been gentle.
So Seolheon couldn’t help but smile.
Whether others liked his smile or not wasn’t Seolheon’s concern.
"..."
He paused in the middle of the now quiet hall.
He closed his eyes, opened them, drew a light breath, and started forward again.
"Where would it be..."
Then an unpleasant smell and color began to warp his vision.
Red, blue, cold light, hot light.
A realm that a child that age, one who hadn’t even reached Manifestation, could never perceive flooded the world with varicolored hues and patterns.
Like pigment spreading in water, colors bled, mixed, and surged.
Sweeping those waves with his eyes, Seolheon quickened his pace without hesitation.
No.
Clusters of color that gathered and scattered like smoke.
The boy’s steps did not falter for an instant.
Not this either.
The moment he reached the aerial passage that connected one building to another outside the main building...
At last, one color snagged in his field of view.
"Found you."
The most unpleasant color, the one that had drawn him here.
Grabbing the collar of the student connected to that color, he said,
"Hello."
The male student, seized without knowing why, flinched and hunched his shoulders.
"Uh, you, you’re..."
"Where are you going?"
As if the other’s reaction meant nothing, Seolheon kept smiling and asked.
The student’s arm trembled as his lips parted.
"I, I have class, so to the music room..."
"Geonho Baek."
He jolted hard.
"The moment I said that name, you suddenly turned around."
"...!"
"As if you were running away."
"N, no. What are you talking about."
"The thing you hid inside. That’s my hyung’s medicine, right."
At Seolheon’s pressing, the student reflexively shoved his hand deeper into the inside of his uniform jacket.
"Are you going to hide it somewhere else? Or throw it away?"
Bull’s-eye.
The student had been about to stash the pill bottle from his bag somewhere no one would find it.
Originally, he’d planned to return the medicine to Geonho Baek today and apologize... he’d never imagined he would be absent. Let alone that it would be that serious.
He wanted to yank free and blurt out excuses on the spot, but his body was frozen and wouldn’t move.
"Are you sure you want to do this."
A much younger elementary schooler was drilling him with sharp questions.
There wasn’t a trace of laughter in the smile at his lips.
"That’s expensive. Very."
A meltingly warm expression and a sweet voice.
Opposite them, eyes the deep navy of settled night.
The contradiction felt chilling.
"N, no. T, this is just."
"Just what."
Nodding as if willing to listen, Seolheon waited.
Crushed by a nameless pressure, the student burst out reflexively.
"A, a suppressant. An Omega pheromone suppressant."
"Is that so."
"S, stop saying weird stuff. This was mine from the start. I didn’t steal it."
He flung his arm hard, and the young boy’s body reeled.
But Seolheon showed no surprise, only letting the corners of his eyes dip slightly.
"Then your hyung’s name."
"M, my name? Why would you..."
"You’re holding the same medicine my hyung takes."
Seolheon pointed to the student’s right hand.
A brown pill bottle that had slipped out from the uniform caught the sunlight and gleamed.
A handwritten English label was stuck on the bottle.
"A not-yet-released trial drug developed by a tiny team at Baekil Pharmaceuticals."
"B, Baekil... Pharmaceuticals?"
The student’s face went white in an instant.
Baekil Pharmaceuticals.
The nation’s largest drugmaker and a world-class pharmaceutical company.
A trial drug under development there? What was even more shocking...
Geonho, aren’t you a chaebol silver spoon
Haha. If you have time to bring nonsense like that, do your English homework
Baekil Group, the parent company of Baekil Pharmaceuticals.
There had been a time when rumors swirled that Geonho Baek was part of that Baekil Group.
But the person concerned always brushed it off, and the rumor died as baseless talk.
"So I’m going to ask my mom. Whether your name is on the list for the test group."
At Seolheon’s next words, the student sensed the rumor hadn’t been mere gossip.
"Though I doubt it."