Kim Hajun

With a week left before midterms, Jisu Seonbae had completely cut contact with me. The last message he sent was on Sunday night, in which he told me not to wait for him anymore and to study hard for the exams. He hadn’t been checking his messages ever since.

The morning commutes to school felt much longer without him, and it took a lot of self-control not to leave the house at night to go kiss him. It took even more self-control in school, though. Jisu Seonbae was just one floor above me, yet I was forbidden to see him. From how our class numbers were the same, he was literally right on top of me.

Jisu Seonbae on top of me… Yum.

I needed to stop staring up at the ceiling and look back down at my math problems. Even though the sight of numbers mixed in with alphabets made me sick, Jisu Seonbae had made his deal. It was one I couldn’t refuse. I’d raise my math score no matter what!

“What’s with you studying math all of a sudden? I thought you’d given that shit up,” Hyunwoo said, sipping the soda he’d just gotten out of a vending machine. “Not to mention, dude, you’re studying during break time. It’s called a break for a reason, you know. Seriously, what’s with you?”

I ignored him long enough for me to find the value of this damn X. Once I got a number, I immediately checked the answer key. It was correct, and this was supposed to be a harder problem.

Smirking, I said, “I’m just trying to raise my average this semester. Everything’s fine except for math. Even I know a thirty is embarrassing.”

“Yeah, you do suck at math.”

“Did,” I corrected, circling the number I had just gotten right. That made five problems in a row now. The little bit of tutoring Jisu Seonbae had done for me was actually paying off. Perhaps I was a bit of a fast learner myself.

Even Hyunwoo was surprised. “Did, indeed. Anyway, Hajun, you’d better leave your schedule open after the exams.”

I immediately thought of how busy I was going to be with Jisu Seonbae, especially once I won his deal. There were so many things I wanted to do with him—so many things I wanted to do to him.

“And if I don’t?” I asked.

“Then, you’re going to miss out on the chance to hang out with a bunch of pretty seonbaes.”

“Have you finally moved on from Jiwoo Seonbae?”

“No way! It’s Jiwoo Noonim and her friends that I’m talking about! When I ran into her in the halls earlier, she asked if you and I wanted to hang out after the exams.” Hyunwoo nudged me, grinning. “I think you left quite the impression on one of them last time. And it’s not Jiwoo Noonim.”

“How can you be so sure?” I joked.

“Ha! Because she already has my heart.”

Jiyoung briefly turned around at us with a disturbed look. “I almost puked for a second there. So, are you two done being all gay together now?”

Hyunwoo put an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. “Nah, our love is eternal, man.”

“I’m actually going to puke now.”

I pushed Hyunwoo away and went back to my math problems. If only he knew that there was some truth to Jiyoung’s lightly thrown remarks.

It was strange. Even though coming out felt so freeing whenever I was with Jisu Seonbae, the rest of the time, it felt more like this flaw I was trying not to show. I expected to be much more confident and open about it, especially to my friends. But I knew now that that confidence only came with Jisu Seonbae’s presence. Despite what he might think of me, I wasn’t really that brave at all.

The bell rang for the next period.

Walking back to his seat, Hyunwoo said, “Free up your schedule, Hajun!”

This wasn’t the first time I was asked to join a friend for a gathering like this. Even before, I never got as excited about it as my friends did. But ironically, now that I knew the reason for my indifference, it became harder to refuse. I wished Jisu Seonbae could be here with me right now to give me strength.

In a low voice, I said, “Yeah, okay.”

Hyunwoo was all smiles. “Alright! You promised!”

. . .

Han Jisu

 “Jisu, it’s lunchtime,” Jiwoo said, walking over to my desk.

It was a few minutes into the hour, but Jiwoo had been waiting for me to finish this page of math problems before talking to me. I always ate lunch with her. The entire class knew the two of us had been friends since middle school. And there might have been a rumor or two of us dating, which Jiwoo was always quick to shoot down.

I never understood that, how a boy and a girl being friends always seemed to entail the idea that they could be dating. No one assumed so when it came to friends of the same gender. Or perhaps I should’ve been glad things were like that. Because of it, no one would ever expect me to be going out with a boy, not that Hajun did anything that could even remotely give off that kind of impression anyway. No, he never saw me at school.

Even though I was the one who told him not to talk to me at all until the exams were over, I didn’t think it’d be this hard not seeing him for days. That was why I was studying even more crazily than usual. I wouldn’t allow myself even a second to think about anything other than midterms because the moment I let my mind wander, it automatically went to the thought of him and what he might do to me after the exams were over.

I still couldn’t believe I made that deal with him. The old me—the less honest me—would’ve never had the guts to propose something like that. I would’ve just kept it to myself, along with all the other countless thoughts I couldn’t dare to spill out. But for some reason, I became honest whenever Hajun was with me, sometimes dangerously honest like with this recent case.

And so, I caught my mind wandering again…

“You done?” Jiwoo asked.

I shut my textbook and stood up. “Yeah, let’s go eat.”

“About time. I’m starving.” When the two of us were out in the hallway to head down to the cafeteria, Jiwoo briefly stopped to take a good look at me.

“…What?” I asked.

“Something about you feels different these days.”

“H-Huh?”

Was there really no fooling your best friend? But despite all our years of friendship, Jiwoo didn’t know I was gay. I could never tell her, at least not now anyway. And I was always super careful not to drop any hints. She could not know about this. I didn’t know how she would react…

I realized I was frowning. Well, it was more like pretending to frown while panicking on the inside.

Jiwoo grinned as she nudged my side. “You’re still pissed off about coming in second place last semester, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Oh, come on. Why else would you be studying even more than usual?”

“Ah, hahaha…” All I could do was laugh out of relief. She really didn’t have a clue.

“Want me to go sabotage Kang Taeyun in class one? I could make one of his textbooks go missing.”

Kang Taeyun was the student who came in first last semester, and this was far from the first time Jiwoo offered her assistance.

“Don’t,” I replied sternly. “If I get first place this time, I’d like to do so fairly.”

Jiwoo rolled her eyes. “Ugh, Han Jisu. You’re too nice for your own good.”

Too nice for my own good. Jiwoo might’ve been right there, considering the lengths I was willing to go to get Hajun’s math grade up…