GBH 124

The second-year students were busy talking about a male student running around the playground.

“Who’s that guy running during the person-finding game earlier? He’s so good!”

“I heard he transferred to Class 5 today.”

“No, I saw him running with Class 2 earlier.”

“I heard he’s from Class 3. There’s a student in Class 3 who got injured and went to the hospital. He’s running as a substitute. The teacher allowed it.”

No one knew which class the transfer student belonged to, as he joined any class that had an empty spot. He was like Waldo from “Where’s Waldo?”, existing everywhere in the bustling crowd, but no one knew his name.

Meanwhile, Doyoung, the only person who knew Song Yi-heon’s true identity, was sitting in the shade of a tent, sucking on an ice pop like he was living the life of leisure.

Doyoung had the same shoe size as Song Yi-heon, so when he lent him his sneakers, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Now, he felt lucky to be able to lend his shoes. Although Doyoung hated physical education and the sports festival was usually a ordeal for him, this year he could enjoy the cool shade thanks to Song Yi-heon.

Doyoung wasn’t the only one helping Song Yi-heon during the sports festival.

“Oh? Is that Yi-heon oppa? Is it really Yi-heon oppa?”

Occasionally, students from the manga club recognized Song Yi-heon and looked at him with wide eyes. Their main question was, ‘Why is a senior who should be studying at school here?’ Some third-year manga club seniors even had Song Yi-heon’s name on the list for chocolate gifts they were planning to buy as encouragement for the college entrance exam, so they couldn’t believe he was at the sports festival.

“Is there an empty spot in your class?”

Song Yi-heon first hushed them by putting his index finger to his lips, then abruptly asked for an empty spot, just as he had done with Doyoung. The bewildered manga club students led Song Yi-heon to their class.

Every class has students who dislike sports. With the help of the manga club students, Song Yi-heon joined the second-year students’ games regardless of class.

He kept his eyes open for injured students or those reluctant to participate, and substituted for them. However, he cheered for Class 5, Doyoung’s class, out of loyalty to Doyoung who had first included him.

Classes 5 and 6 used adjacent tents, leading to a competition during cheering. Class 6, running out of cheers, even started singing songs they had memorized for music performance assessments. Pitch and rhythm didn’t matter here. It was about who could shout the loudest. Believing everyone would know the lyrics from their singing assessments, they created noise pollution, screeching to intimidate their competitors.

“Que bella cosa! Na jorn e na ta e sole!”

However, their morale was crushed in front of Song Yi-heon’s impressively waving flag. The flag waved majestically under the dazzling sunlight. As if his flag-waving skills from his days of gang fights hadn’t faded, the flag drew perfect figure-eights as it waved. After hearing the students’ cheers a few times, Song Yi-heon quickly learned them and loudly sang a medley of cheer songs.

“That bastard…”

The Class 6 cheer captain, burning with competitiveness, glared at Song Yi-heon before suddenly stepping forward with his phone held high above his head. Curious eyes fixed on the Class 6 cheer captain’s back. As the number one dance song on the music charts played from his phone, his waist began to sway gracefully to the intense beat.

The students, mesmerized by the flashy dance moves and performance, waved their cheer sticks and responded with wild enthusiasm.

“Wow! Kim! Ji! Won! Kim! Ji! Won!”

Even the Class 5 students couldn’t take their eyes off the Class 6 cheer captain’s dance. The hot atmosphere and attention shifted from Class 5 to Class 6. The older man, unable to keep up with the trends of today’s youth, couldn’t follow the dance and gritted his teeth in frustration. He couldn’t lose like this. He might lose in studies, but his pride wouldn’t allow him to lose in having fun.

The older man who had been gritting his teeth soon waved the flag pole as if he had made up his mind. He began to sing a classic song he used to sing in bars while tapping chopsticks on the table. It was a song his subordinates would automatically join in singing when he started.

“Let’s go~ To the East Sea~!”

The eternal cheer song “Whale Hunting” echoed. The solemnity of the waving flag and the graveness of the song about catching whales combined to make hearts pound like drum beats. The Class 5 students, their hearts swelling, soon joined Song Yi-heon, and Class 6 cheered back, not wanting to lose.

Amidst the chaotic cheering, the vibration of Song Yi-heon’s phone, carelessly stuffed in a pile of belongings, went unnoticed. The ringing phone eventually stopped. There were 72 missed calls.

* * *

No answer. Se-kyung removed the phone from his ear as it went to voicemail, forcibly smoothing out his furrowed brow. 

Beside him, Jung Eun-chae asked with a sliver of hope, “Is Yi-heon still not answering?”

“No.”

“They said he’s not at home either. Where on earth did he go?”

She bit her thumb, wracking her brain to think of places Song Yi-heon might have gone, but nothing special came to mind. Home, the study room he said he went to with Se-kyung, PC bang, jjimjilbang, cafe, billiard hall… 

They had searched all the places he might go near the school, but not a hair of Song Yi-heon was to be found.

“Ms. Jung, no one has seen him in the vicinity either.” A teacher who had searched the area opposite to Jung Eun-chae said as he entered the staff room. 

He had taken Song Yi-heon’s attendance photo and shown it to nearby store owners, asking if they had seen such a student, but everyone shook their heads.

“He’s not in the school, and he wasn’t caught on the CCTV at the main gate or back gate…”

The teacher who had checked the CCTV said, recalling in his mind the footage where no one had left except for the tour buses carrying the first and second-year students.

“Did he really climb over the fence? But it’s so high, it would be difficult to climb over.”

The current third-year teachers’ office was in a state of emergency.

It would be a problem even if an ordinary student had disappeared, but the fact that the missing student was a victim of school violence made the situation even more serious. A victim who has been exposed to danger once is at risk of secondary victimization.

Although Hong Jae-min’s gang, the perpetrators of school violence, were not left at school, you never know. There was a possibility that delinquents friendly with Hong Jae-min might harm Song Yi-heon as retaliation.

As these concerns arose, Jung Eun-chae collapsed into a chair, unable to control her trembling limbs. As the image of Song Yi-heon being beaten in a secluded alley played like a movie in her mind, Jung Eun-chae found herself pressing 112 with shaking hands without realizing it.

“Oh my, Ms. Jung, let’s look a bit more.” The grade head teacher, who had been wiping sweat with a handkerchief until even his smooth scalp was damp, stopped Jung Eun-chae.

“We’re sure he came to school and disappeared from inside. It hasn’t even been half a day yet, they won’t accept the report.”

While that was true, it was separate from whether it was comforting. The harsh reality was of no help at all. Jung Eun-chae muttered, pressing her tightly clasped hands holding her phone to her forehead as if in prayer.

“Yi-heon, where on earth did you go? Please, at least answer the phone…”

Jung Eun-chae wasn’t the only one with a pitch-black, burning insides. Se-kyung’s insides, burned to ashes, were beyond words. The wound from experiencing Song Yi-heon’s disappearance once before had not yet healed. The guilt of searching for the real Song Yi-heon while getting soaked in cold rain was something he had buried. Until the real Song Yi-heon returned.

In this situation, the fake Song Yi-heon had gone missing. His disappearance triggered the wounds Se-kyung had been living with, buried, to surface.

“Hoo.”

Se-kyung consciously took a breath, trying to endure his tightening chest. Whether he had left temporarily due to unavoidable circumstances, whether something urgent had come up that he couldn’t even say goodbye, whether they would never see him again like this, or whether when he returned, it would be with the real Song Yi-heon’s soul… 

The range of anxiety multiplied indefinitely, easily reaching the worst-case scenario.

The feelings of cherishing Song Yi-heon became poison at this moment. Se-kyung stroked his pale face.

Many worries, resentments, and anger flashed by, but in the end, he only wished for Song Yi-heon’s safety.