SS Prologue

0. Prologue

Even though July was just around the corner, the school hadn’t turned on the air conditioning. Thanks to that, the indoor air was muggy even in the morning.

Usually, this would be the time when only the sound of pencils and the flipping of workbook pages could be heard in a senior high school classroom preparing for the college entrance exam. However, a restless atmosphere lingered in the air. The homeroom teacher had just briefly left his seat after turning on the television and confirming that the entire Monday morning assembly was broadcasting properly.

“That persistent bastard, really,”

 Eunho muttered, watching the back of the man’s jet-black head in the center of the screen. As expected of someone who used to play sports, his shoulders were broad, blocking the view. People said that the camera could make someone look a bit bigger, but perhaps that wasn’t always the case; the flat expanse of his school uniform back was particularly noticeable.

He was a head taller than the other students standing next to him, so his white nape was caught at the top of the screen. The neatly trimmed back hair, straight across above his shirt collar, looked impeccable. He looked like a male protagonist from a pure romance comic, without a single flaw.

“That Cha Dohyun jerk, wasn’t he originally someone who didn’t study?”

“Hey, didn’t he go to the Taekwondo competition as the city representative last year and win a medal? Amazing, really.”

Turning his head towards the sharp voice, the first things that caught his eye were the multiple, unattractive piercings dangling from both ears. Kids who probably had never exchanged a single word with Cha Dohyun were sitting in a slouched posture, sneering.

“I was in the same class as him last year, and the homeroom teacher blatantly favored him. What’s so great about that rude bastard?”

“Idiot, even if I were the teacher, I’d rather be the homeroom teacher of someone like him than someone like you. He studies well, listens well. Hey, forget everything else and look at his face, his face. What are you even going to use that thing on top of your neck for, carrying it around like that?”

“What the hell did you just say?”

At the small commotion, the class president turned around and glared. With a slightly furrowed brow, he scanned the group gathered at the back one by one before turning back around. He probably wanted to tell them to be quiet but knew they wouldn’t listen, so he chose to say nothing – that was the general look in his eyes.

Most of the words coming from the side were unreasonable criticisms of Cha Dohyun. They weren’t exactly wrong, but there was no way Cha Dohyun, who meticulously managed his image, would have shown his true colors in front of them. A faint sense of jealousy seemed to underlie their words, making Eunho snicker.

“Anyway, that guy’s life must be so easy. He’s good-looking, has a great body. For a guy who used to do sports to be good at studying too, isn’t that totally unfair?”

“That’s why all the girls are so crazy about him. Annoying bastard.”

This time, he felt a sidelong glance from the side. It was understandable, considering that apart from the principal’s droning voice reading out the award citations, all the loud noises coming from the classroom were from them.

Don’t these bastards know how to read the room? Didn’t they feel the sharp glares directed their way? Their nonsense just wouldn’t stop. Eunho’s brow furrowed involuntarily.

Students around their senior year no longer feared the swaggering delinquents who wore multiple piercings and boasted about their exploits with cigarettes and alcohol. Facing the huge wall that was the college entrance exam, what they feared most weren’t the wannabe third-rate thugs, but their own uncertain futures and their exam scores.

“Yeo Eunho, does he act rudely to you too? I heard you were close with Cha Dohyun since you were little.”

“Isn’t that guy seriously scary? Every time I run into him in the hallway, damn, he looks down at me like I’m some kind of bug. It’s not like I ever did anything wrong to him…”

“Idiot, that’s because it’s you. Would he act like that to his friends?”

“Who knows? Maybe he acts differently. Hey, Yeo Eunho, don’t you know anything?”

He had let them enjoy their excited giggling, and now the target had shifted to him. In fact, Cha Dohyun was the biggest topic of interest for both the delinquents and the well-behaved students, girls and boys alike, so it wasn’t anything new.

“What would I know? It’s the same as what you guys see, what else?”

“No, like he’s more sloppy than he looks, or messy. There must be things only you know. Even if it’s just that his thing is only as big as a finger.”

Seeing Geonwoo raise his pinky finger and make a low-quality joke, Jaewon giggled. Their excited laughter looked pathetic. Guys who would be busy sucking up to Cha Dohyun were only confident when the person wasn’t around. Eunho could almost understand why the class president had looked at them like that.

“I’m going to sleep, so be quiet and get lost, you bastards.”

He didn’t need to listen to any more of their nonsense. With a bored expression, he issued an eviction order, and the guys who had been leaning awkwardly against the surrounding desks returned to their seats. Turning his head, he saw Cha Dohyun still standing straight on the screen.

The term “childhood friend” felt closer to describing his relationship with Cha Dohyun than “my mom’s friend’s son.”

Cha Dohyun’s father and Eunho’s father, who were high school classmates, had started their married lives around the same time and settled down in the same neighborhood. As they repeatedly came home late after drinking together and suddenly left for fishing trips only to return at dawn the next day, their wives naturally became close as well. Eunho’s mother even had a prenatal dream about Cha Dohyun’s older sister, who was quite a bit older, so one could guess the extent of their friendship.

Anyway, they had been born and raised in the same neighborhood for 19 years already. They had never been apart since wearing diapers and taking their first steps.

And speaking from the perspective of someone who had watched that bastard from the side for 19 years, Cha Dohyun wasn’t amazing; he was persistent. Very, very persistent.

In his third year of middle school, Eunho had saved up his allowance to buy a popular video game console. At a time when online games involving wars between two opposing races were all the rage, they were hooked on console games. There was a unique pleasure in progressing through the tightly woven narratives using only their control skills.

Since it was a single-player game, whoever wasn’t playing had to lie down and read comic books, so who got home first after school was their biggest rivalry back then.

To cut a long story short, it was mostly Eunho’s lot to get tired of reading comic books and fall asleep.

After finishing supplementary classes and quickly cleaning up, he would often find Cha Dohyun lying on his bed, playing the game as if it were his own house. The same went for days when he skipped cleaning and pedaled his bicycle furiously to get home first.

One day, thinking that he would surely be first today, he even skipped his supplementary class and walked home leisurely. Little did he know that Cha Dohyun had already arrived home and changed into comfortable clothes.

He later found out that Cha Dohyun had negotiated with their homeroom teacher to only attend regular classes and leave school early. He had said that studying alone in the study room suited him better than attending supplementary classes.

It was a moment when his usual good behavior shone. If Eunho had said the same thing, he would have been dragged away by his ear while being told not to talk nonsense.

Cha Dohyun fully invested the extra hour or two he gained by leaving school early into the game. What was even more absurd was that he kept his promise to the homeroom teacher to improve his grades in the process. Even thinking about it now, Eunho wondered how that was possible. Back then, Cha Dohyun didn’t have enough physical time. The guy who ate and slept at their house five days a week – Eunho still couldn’t understand when he had studied.

Anyway, even the game they had played so diligently started to become boring after some time.

Especially when the point where the story’s progress started to slow down came, the game quickly became boring. No matter how many times we tried, we couldn’t clear the final page.

 Trying to challenge it with the mindset that it would be over if we cleared this was only good for a day or two, but after looking at the words “Game Over” for several days, even the most patient person would get angry. Moreover, I wasn’t the patient type either.

 As soon as I felt that the stress from the game had become greater than the enjoyment it gave, I immediately lost interest. Because my theory back then was that if something you do for fun only makes you angry, there’s no need to waste energy on it.

 However, it seemed that was just my own thought. Cha Dohyun didn’t know what giving up meant at all. He played the game even when I fell asleep next to him while using my phone, and when I went out for personal errands on weekends, he would come into the empty house and challenge the boss battle alone.

One day, he tried while looking at a strategy guide and alternating between looking at the screen, and sometimes he would stand up, and other times he would shake the joystick with his left hand. While simultaneously letting out sighs and curses, watching him press the retry button, I wondered what he was thinking.

 Saying it now, it looked close to an obsession. Anyway, Cha Dohyun succeeded in clearing the boss and seeing the ending of the game only after pouring in a month like that. And after that, I decided not to compete with Cha Dohyun over useless things anymore.

 I realized it while watching him shut himself up in his room for a month. Cha Dohyun is a crazy bastard. If I were to go up against such a lunatic, it was clear that I would always be the first to get exhausted and collapse.

Cha Dohyun had a definite personality since he was young. If he wanted something, he would get it no matter what, and whatever he set his mind to do, he saw it through to the end no matter what. He had the complete opposite personality to me, who easily got interested in things and easily got bored.

[The student above has achieved excellent results in the June mock exam, therefore this commendation is awarded….]

And just today, that tough personality of Cha Dohyun reached its peak. It was only last summer that the guy who used to be selected as a regional representative for the National Sports Festival had declared that he would quit Taekwondo due to injury and a slump.

 If he had continued as he was, he would have definitely gone to university as a special admission student and even aimed for a medal at the Olympics, but he suddenly changed his career path.

 It was a decision that would have earned him a good beating on the back from his mother if she had heard about it. At that time, my parents also tried to persuade Cha Dohyun several times, but Cha Dohyun, having already finished contemplating, was firm.

 After his surprise announcement, he started locking himself in the study room after school. Since he could no longer prepare for the special sports admissions, he was going to study to go to university.

 He didn’t even play his beloved soccer, and he stopped coming over to hang out for pointless things. It was as if he had never constantly gone in and out of my room and lazed around; he only came over for meals occasionally on weekends. At first, I wondered how long that bastard would last, but gradually it became harder to see his face, and at some point, it became natural for us to spend our own time.

 I started hanging out with a new group, and Cha Dohyun was busy living his own daily life in his own way. Anyway, having changed his goals so suddenly, Cha Dohyun was receiving an award there in the broadcasting room based on his mock exam scores, exactly one year after he started studying seriously.

Since he had an inherently diligent personality, it wasn’t like he had completely let go of studying even when he was doing sports, but still, was it okay for him to so easily take the top spot in the entire school like that? This was no different from insulting all the hardworking students in Korea.

Especially for me, whose parents thought that all high school students were like Cha Dohyun, it was even more maddening. As the principal’s mumbling voice ended, the students standing in a line on the screen all turned around at once. Among the faces standing in front of the camera to greet, Cha Dohyun’s stood out exceptionally.

 Because of his thick eyebrows and sharp eyes, his face could have easily looked cold, but even when expressionless, the upward curve of his lips softened his overall demeanor. That annoying guy, to be honest, was quite handsome. As Jaewon said, it was very unfair that a guy who was tall and had a good physique also had a decent face.

The one comforting fact was that Cha Dohyun was seriously a crazy bastard. Not just any crazy bastard, but a properly crazy bastard. Let me say it again, Cha Dohyun is a more persistent and tough bastard than you can imagine. In my entire 19 years of life, I had never seen such a tenacious human being.