GBH 123

The spacious stadium with large tents set up along the edges for students to rest had artificial turf swaying gently green. The weather conditions, neither cold nor hot, were perfect for a fall sports day. After the principal’s speech from the platform ended and the sports day officially began, the atmosphere was lively as students scattered by class to prepare for cheering.

Unable to blend in with the groups of students walking around in twos and threes, Song Yi-heon fidgeted with his pants to neutralize the awkwardness of having nowhere to go. He had hidden his uniform pants in the supply closet of the bathroom he had fled to as soon as he got off the bus, so now he was wearing comfortable gym pants.

Song Yi-heon’s grade level looked ambiguous, wearing a first-year gym top and second-year gym pants. Though his appearance was suspicious, passing students only gave him strange looks without trying to confirm which grade or class he was in, since he was an unfamiliar face.

Song Yi-heon wandered around alone like that. At least in the classroom there was a place to sit, but the stadium was literally a vast sea. The awkwardness of being alone, unable to mix with the bustling crowds of students, was indescribable.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!”

Despite the greeting used to stop a stranger, Song Yi-heon turned around happily when he was called.

The person who stopped him was the female student who had bumped into him at the school store and gone to wash his uniform. Not expecting to run into the senior who had disappeared with her gym clothes here, she hurried over, afraid of losing sight of Song Yi-heon.

“Please give me back my gym clothes!”

She held out Song Yi-heon’s uniform shirt, which she had brought along having nowhere else to put it. Though the front was still damp and couldn’t be worn right away, the stain had been cleanly removed.

“Oh? Ah… Here.”

Song Yi-heon took off the gym top and returned it to the girl, receiving his uniform shirt in return. The girl who got her gym clothes back seemed suspicious that Song Yi-heon, whom she thought was a third-year, was at the sports day, but didn’t inquire further since he was wearing second-year gym pants.

“What now?”

Left alone, he scratched the back of his head. With the first-year gym top gone, Song Yi-heon in his white t-shirt and second-year gym pants looked exactly like a second-year student. He gazed with envious eyes at the students on the field clustering tightly with their classmates.

“I’m good at that kind of thing too.”

‘But I have no one to cluster with…’ 

As if frustrated, Song Yi-heon’s head was turning to follow the groups of students when:

“Yi-heon hyung?”

The tone was uncertain, as if doubting what he was seeing even as he called out. Though the voice was small and muffled, as if calling out on the off chance, to Song Yi-heon it couldn’t have been brighter. He recognized immediately who it was just from the voice calling from behind.

“Doyoung!”

“Hyung!”

It was the second-year boy from the manga club with whom he had become friends during the festival. Eyes widening as he confirmed it really was Song Yi-heon, the boy, more surprised than Song Yi-heon, fired questions like a machine gun.

“Is it really you, Yi-heon hyung? Why are you here? How did you come? What about school? Do the teachers know you’re here?”

Though grateful for the concern as he clasped his hand tightly, unfortunately Doyoung’s worries were not Song Yi-heon’s concern. He put his arm around Doyoung’s shoulders and pulled him to a secluded shady spot. Though it looked similar to a delinquent luring someone into an alley to extort money, Doyoung naively worried about Song Yi-heon, oblivious.

“Shouldn’t you not be here, hyung?”

“We’ll talk about that slowly.”

Pulling Doyoung to a shaded area by the bathroom building, Song Yi-heon turned his back to the field and asked secretively, like someone doing something bad, “Is there an extra spot in your class?”

“An extra spot? How can there be an extra spot in a class?”

That wasn’t Song Yi-heon’s concern. Doyoung’s appearance was a golden opportunity for Song Yi-heon to blend in among the children enjoying the sports day.

* * *

The school grounds, which should have been quiet with the first and second years gone for the sports day, erupted in unexpected commotion. The third-year class 1 students, searching the school for the missing Song Yi-heon, visited the school store where he was last seen.

“Auntie, hasn’t Song Yi-heon come?”

“Yi-heon? He came in the morning, but hasn’t been back since.”

With his delicate yet temperamental appearance, and an indifferent yet subtly affectionate side, Song Yi-heon was a beloved VIP of the school store auntie. If Song Yi-heon had come to the store again after the morning, there’s no way she wouldn’t have known. If even she didn’t know, it was safe to assume Song Yi-heon’s trail had vanished at the store after the morning assembly.

Song Yi-heon had disappeared as if someone had used correction tape on space-time. The white blank left behind stimulated extreme imagination. The children gathered in front of the store rolled their anxious eyes.

“Where did he…”

The rest of the sentence was too terrible, so Kim Yeon-ji covered her own mouth with her palm. The other children who came with her seemed to be thinking similarly, turning pale. Someone brave spoke out loud. It was the guy who always sassed Song Yi-heon and got kicked each time.

“You don’t think he’s beating someone up?”

The children who had experienced the changed Song Yi-heon couldn’t deny it and remained silent. If there was any consolation, it was that they no longer had to worry about him getting beaten up.

* * *

“Wooooah!”

The flags of all nations crossing the vast sky shook with the fierce cheers. As the sun grew brighter, the students’ dormant fighting spirit gradually awakened. The competitive spirit and combativeness bottled up in the confined space of school flowed with hot blood and was released along with beads of sweat.

The wide field was hotly shaken by the students’ athletic competitions.

“Win! Win!”

The classics were eternal. Though times have changed and the world has rapidly transformed, the charm of sports day remained unchanged. Even as times changed and some new events that didn’t exist in the old days appeared, the highlight events remained the same. Most of the games were easy and popular, with rules known even to the uneducated, like relay races, tug-of-war, and stepping on bridges.

Currently, the spirited stadium was in the midst of the second-year bridge-stepping game. The students ran so vigorously that if it weren’t for the grass field, white dust would have risen.

“Faster! Faster!”

Like a living centipede, the students moved continuously forward, bending their waists like sickles to make a path, while the girl on top rushed forward stepping on their backs. They urged each other on and increased their speed to claim victory.

“Ah!”

Kicked by a classmate speeding ahead, one girl fell. Unable to get up again, perhaps having twisted her ankle, other students running and shouting “Faster! Faster!” were about to step on her as they passed. The frightened girl covered her head with her arms. But no matter how long she waited, the impact didn’t come. A black shadow fell over her head and someone grabbed her arm to pull her up, then put an arm around her shoulders and ran. It was a short-haired, thin but sturdy boy.

“W-who?”

The girl asked the boy who had helped her up, but there was no answer. Before she knew it, she had joined the bridge-stepping line with the boy, bending at the waist. Bare feet stepped across their bent backs. The prone girl once again got up as the boy led her and put his arm around her shoulders.

“Hey, lean your weight on me.”

Saying that, the boy pulled the girl close and ran as if they were one body. His sweaty body heat transmitted through their bare skin. The boy protected the girl, covering her with his body from other students pushing past on both sides. The vibrations from the well-built high school students rushing by transmitted through their touching bodies.

The girl stole glances at the boy running while practically embracing her. Though she couldn’t see his face as they were pressed so tightly together, his short brown hair ending above his nape, the bluish veins visible on his neck, all stimulated the girl’s heartbeat.

She desperately tried to suppress her pounding heart as she matched the boy’s pace in the bridge-stepping game.

“Wooooah!”

At last, when her class won first place, shouts of victory erupted. The girl, filled with elation, scanned her cheering classmates before turning to look at the boy who had come with her.

“Thank you. But who are you… huh?”

But there was no one beside the girl. The brown-haired boy, Song Yi-heon, who had run with her throughout the bridge-stepping game, had already disappeared.