“Please give me your bag.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“It’s heavy. And my hand doesn’t get uncomfortable.”
“…….”
She looked at me.
How should I describe it?
Those black pupils whose depth I could not read
were looking at me.
Eyes that I had never once directly met like this before—
her gaze was far beyond anything I had ever imagined.
The word “aristocratic” came to mind.
Inside this bus, she alone looked beautifully isolated.
Living in a small provincial city, her skin was like ivory-white porcelain that had never once been touched by sunlight.
Her eyes were large, and her slightly stiff ponytail hair shimmered with a sharp, clean gloss.
Her height was around 167 centimeters.
And the school uniform fit her as if it were tailored only for her.
All the male students were interested in her,
but none could approach.
I had once been one of them.
But today, for the first time, I spoke to her.
Only after dying did I understand.
Life is truly short and futile—
that is what it means.
Dugeun! Dugeun! Dugeun!
Why…… is my heart pounding like this?
Perhaps it was because she was my first love.
No matter how old a man gets,
when he meets his first love again he becomes a fool—
it must be like that.
After entering university I dated several girls,
yet none of those feelings ever surpassed what I felt when I thought of my first love—her.
Maybe the illusion grew because nothing had ever happened between us.
And the fact that she reigned alone over this bus
made it even more so.
The goddess of Bus No. 32.
Lee Ye-rin.
Her name was the same except for the surname as the heroine of <Cloud Warrior>.
“Thank you.”
My God! She spoke words of gratitude to me.
A faint smile that appeared slightly between her neat teeth.
A killing smile.
“In a harsh world, we should look out for one another.”
At my words, she smiled faintly.
The first step had succeeded.
It had taken me more than ten long years to move to the seat in front where she always stood.
“My name is Jang Tae-san.”
“Yes?”
“My name is Jang Tae-san.”
“……Yes.”
Awkwardly, but still, I revealed my name.
I did not want to foolishly lose my first love again.
To die without even letting her know my name would have been too wasteful for my second chance.
Bwoooooong.
The bus departed.
Today as well, five girls’ bags were placed on my lap.
And among them was the bag of my first love.
Someone once said that if a girl is beautiful, even her accessories look beautiful—one of my old university friends had said that.
Familiar melody flowed from my earphones.
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay…….”
Lyrics that, when listened to, make your eyes grow moist.
The Beatles were geniuses of emotion.
I looked outside the window.
Birds, which had somehow grown plump without my noticing, were perching along the electric wires.
The familiar but long-forgotten rural scenery cooled my heart.
My body was young, but my heart belonged to a youth who had lived through the bitter era.
Even now, I still carried the weariness I had felt on that day somewhere in 2020.
* * *
‘Jang Tae-san…….’
Ye-rin accepted her bag and looked out the window, carefully observing Tae-san as he listened to music.
The familiar notes of “Yesterday” leaking faintly from Tae-san’s earphones blended well with the scenery outside the window.
‘He’s changed. A lot…….’
Ye-rin, too, knew Tae-san.
He was the Jangju High School boy who had begun riding the same bus since last year—slightly tall, thin, always hunching his shoulders as if lacking confidence.
He had no special traits.
In personality he was kind, always taking the bags of the girl students.
He spoke very little.
Almost everything about him was simply a boy who looked out the window alone and listened to music.
He did know at least this much — that the gaze Tae-san cast at Ye-rin from time to time was different from how he looked at others.
But it had stopped exactly there.
Until the end of summer vacation, until the moment she met Tae-san again on the bus.
He had changed a lot.
His build had grown noticeably larger, and his eyes were filled with confidence.
Even his atmosphere was different from that of other high school boys his age.
He gave off a strangely stable feeling, almost like a father.
Such a person took her bag for the first time and even said his name.
He did not seem flustered while smiling, nor did he seem to be paying her any special attention.
The college entrance exam was now close.
And at the end of this year she would return to Seoul with her father.
But she did not feel bad.
Jang Tae-san, who had changed in an odd way.
Ye-rin glanced at him once more without even realizing it.
* * *
“You unlucky bastard, you have a test as soon as you come back. Keuh keuh keuh.”
“That psycho bastard. If I were you, I’d hole up in the hospital and only come back once exams were over.”
“What a shame…… Now this bastard has to say goodbye to the joy of stealing drinks from the hospital room.”
“Ah, damn! I didn’t even get the number of that special-room nurse! Why the hell is this bastard coming to school instead of staying there!”
The moment I entered the classroom, my friends swarmed in.
Dae-seon, Jong-seok, Hyeong-cheol, Do-jong, Bong-seok, and Hee-cheol surrounded me like hyenas that had found prey.
In the past, those four who always smacked the back of my head would have done the same, but because of the “concussion” diagnosis they were careful.
No — it was because the scene of me smashing the bullies to pieces was still vivid in their memory.
Whatever anyone said, I was now the top dog of Jangju High School.
Even guys I wasn’t close with showed friendliness with their eyes.
A gratitude for cleaning out the trash.
The air at school had become clean.
With the trash gone, the school atmosphere was different.
The scummy kids in each class would now hold their breath.
They must have clearly seen what happened to Hong Seong-hyun.
The scent of freedom filled the school.
Ah! Good.
“Nothing happened, right?”
“There was something.”
Hee-cheol answered my question.
Maybe he hadn’t brushed his teeth; red chili flakes were stuck between them.
Disgusting bastard.
His hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in days, clumped together.
“What happened?”
I asked Hee-cheol as I sat down.
I wasn’t expecting much.
“School without you was heaven.”
“Bullshit~.”
“Hehehe.”
Hee-cheol burst out laughing even though he didn’t know why this kind of conversation was funny.
At this age, you had to curse each other out to show affection and overflowing friendship.
For someone mentally in their thirties, this was hard to understand.
But at this age, if there was no swearing, conversations didn’t flow.
Words starting with “ssi” or “gae” evolved into prefixes, suffixes, exclamations, and were used in every possible way.
Crazy.
“Hey! Shut up and study a little! Today’s the midterm exam, you idiots!”
Someone who was sensitive about midterms yelled.
“You idiot. It’s too late to start now. Just give up and play like Tae-san.”
In the past, I had hung around the rank formed by adding together the number of toes and fingers.
But from today on, the word “give up” no longer applied to me.
Saying I wasn’t the same person as before would just make my mouth hurt.
Showing results was the end of it.
Ignoring my friends, I sat down and looked out the window.
The schoolyard, colored with deepening tones, was as beautiful as the school’s long history.
Even the school had entered autumn.
Drrr rrr rrrrk.
The front door opened with force.
With clattering sounds, the kids rushed to their seats.
“My beloved brats~. You’re all done studying for the exam, right?”
Our homeroom teacher, Jjippa-teacher, entered with a bright grin.
Among the five second-year humanities classes, ours was the very bottom.
Hong Seong-hyun’s violence had badly ruined the academic atmosphere.
“…….”
The kids answered the teacher’s question with silence.
“Yeah, yeah. This time, let’s see which of you is going to smear shit on this homeroom teacher’s face. And don’t forget to send me a wedding invitation later. I’ll pay 30,000 won just to check what your wife looks like!”
The teacher said with a laugh, stabbing guilt into the chests of half the class.
Even a renowned school of the region revealed its superiority only within this boundary.
No matter how much they bragged, going to a provincial university was the extent of their abilities.
But for the sake of the school’s reputation, an “In-Seoul,” and even then a handful of students accepted to Hanguk University, Goyoung University, or Yonsei University, were necessary.
“Is Tae-san okay?”
“Yes! Thanks to you, teacher, I’m perfectly fine!”
“Good. You did well, my brat.”
That was enough.
He was the kind of teacher who had visited me at the hospital several times and apologized, saying he was sorry for not being able to protect me. A weak and exhausted teacher.
Such was the position of a teacher at a private high school.
Once you left the chairman’s line of sight, it was a lifetime of unstable, exhausting non-permanent employment.
“Everyone. Do well on the exam. Don’t regret later that you failed to realize how precious this time is.”
“Yes, sir!!”
The kids shouted back.
But among them, not a single person besides me and the teacher understood the true meaning of those words.
The moment you step out into society, you are judged by a mercilessly cold ruler.
Your hometown, your origin school, your “specs,” even your appearance—all of it becomes material for comparison.
That is why this period of learning is even more precious and beautiful.
When I died, the friends who would definitely come to find me would be none other than these few kids sitting here.
The midterm exam began.
‘Huh, this is totally a freebie.’
The moment I received the math exam paper for the first period, I laughed.
Another day different from my past had begun.
I quickly solved the math problems.