Twenty-Four Fish

Euiheon's lunches were very quiet these days. The second the lunch bell rang, he took his English vocabulary notebook and headed to the cafeteria to memorize fifty words while having lunch.

"Frugal, careful with spending money. Obstinate, refusing to change one's mind. Viscous, having a thick consistency..."

After having lunch, he headed out to walk around the school soccer field to memorize another fifty words before returning to the classroom. With no one bothering him, he was able to memorize quite a lot of words until now. But it also made him realize that he really didn't have any friends besides Hamin and Edin who could bother him in the first place.

Well, it was only Edin now. Euiheon was sure that he and Hamin couldn't be friends anymore, not with these non-friendly feelings he had toward him. At the same time, it wasn't like Euiheon talked to Edin much, either.

Edin had been giving too much of his attention to Yuel lately to spend any time with his friends. It was clear that he really liked the boy. And from what Euiheon observed, it didn't seem one-sided, either. He was envious of Edin, who sure got lucky with his first crush. If only it could've been that easy for him, too—

SLAP!

The sharp stinging on Euiheon's right cheek snapped him back to his senses. But he slapped himself one more time for good measure. He reminded himself to forget all about that idiot.

Yes, Seong Hamin was an idiot. A big, clueless idiot.

But lately, that idiot had been looking at books more than his cellphone. He was studying practically every minute he was at school. Euiheon couldn't understand what had gotten into him. Actually, he almost felt angry about it. Hamin never picked up a single textbook during all the times Euiheon nagged him. But now that Euiheon was leaving him alone, he had suddenly become a study addict.

"Am I the problem?"

"Hey, watch out!"

"Huh—"

As if to remind him that he was thinking about the idiot again, Euiheon received another hard hit to the face. But this time, it didn't come in the form of a slap. A soccer ball crashed straight into his nose.

"Motherfucker..." Euiheon groaned, feeling like his nose had gotten broken.

"Sorry! Are you okay?" said the boy who had asked him to watch out. Upon running to check on him, he saw that the victim of the ball he had kicked was not okay at all. "Do you want me to help you to the nurse's office?"

Euiheon felt something drip down to his lips. He tapped the area and saw the blood on his fingertips. He immediately tilted his head back to keep his nose from dripping any blood onto his uniform.

"No, I can get there by myself," Euiheon said.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You can go back to your game or whatever. Don't worry about me."

Euiheon shooed the boy away, too embarrassed about his nosebleed to accept any kind of attention from anyone right now. He rushed inside the school building before more people could see him. Thankfully, the nurse's office was on the first floor and not too far from the main entrance.

"Oh, what happened to you?" the nurse said, getting up from her desk to check on Euiheon's nose.

"I got hit by a soccer ball."

"Tsk, you should've been more careful while playing with your friends."

Euiheon didn't bother correcting her. It seemed easier to go along with the most likely story rather than explain how he randomly got smacked by a flying ball because he was too lost in his thoughts about his friend—ex-friend.

"There," the nurse said after plugging Euiheon's right nostril with a tight roll of gauze. "The bleeding should stop in a couple of minutes. You can rest on one of the beds for the rest of lunch if you're feeling dizzy at all. But don't lie down."

Besides the throbbing of his nose and the lingering sting on his cheek, Euiheon felt fine. But he took the offer anyway. Out of the three beds in the office, he chose the one by the wall, appreciating the privacy offered by the white partition like the ones often found in hospitals. Even the nurse couldn't see him from her desk. He sat down and opened his vocabulary notebook. Bloody nose or not, he still had 30 more words to memorize by the end of the hour.

"Venerate, to show deep respect. Sublime, of great excellence. Complacent, unconcerned and satisfied..."

Euiheon soon glanced at the wall clock that showed there were only ten minutes left of lunchtime now. He took the gauze out of his nose, feeling the bleeding had stopped. Tossing the gauze out in the trash can, he said goodbye to the nurse and left.

When he returned to his classroom, he immediately spotted Hamin at his desk. The boy was studying hard, underlining important facts in his textbook and organizing them in his notebook. Judging by the fact that he was making a timeline, Euiheon assumed he was working on history.

Euiheon's eyes focused on Hamin's long and slender fingers that effortlessly twirled his pencil in between taking notes. His gaze then swept up to the boy's lips, which were mumbling various historical dates to try and memorize them. Euiheon noticed that Hamin had a habit of biting his lower lip whenever he got stuck. Seeing that, Euiheon bit his own lip without a second thought.

Hamin raised his head. "Chewie?"

Euiheon froze, realizing what he had just done. He wanted to run out of the classroom right this second, but his feet were glued to the floor.

"Woah, are you okay?" Hamin said, jumping out of his seat to rush over to his friend.

"Huh?"

Euiheon looked down as a drop of blood streamed down the lip he had just bitten and fell onto his navy vest. So much for trying to keep his uniform clean...

"Your nose is bleeding!"

Completely forgetting that the two of them were supposed to be awkward right now, Hamin grabbed Euiheon's hand and pulled him along to the bathroom. They entered a stall, and Hamin yanked out way too much toilet paper to fit in Euiheon's bleeding nose.

While Hamin was utterly oblivious, Euiheon quickly grew conscious of how close they were in this small, confined space. It didn't help that Hamin was touching his face and looking straight at him—well, at his nose, anyway­. Given their height difference, Euiheon's line of sight naturally met Hamin's lips. More specifically, his lower lip—

"Ow!" Euiheon yelped when Hamin stuffed a thick wad of toilet paper up his nose.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to shove it in so hard." Hamin paused as his face got bright red. He turned his head away, finally realizing all the things Euiheon already had from the moment they entered the stall. "Shit, that came out really wrong. I mean, I didn't mean to put it in your hole— Fuck, your nostril! Jesus, I'm gonna go now!"

Hamin pushed the stall door wide open, sending it crashing into the one next to it with a Bang! The boy was gone the next second, leaving Euiheon all alone in the awkward silence.

Feeling oddly violated, Euiheon plucked the tissues out of his nose hole and flushed them down the toilet. Hamin had done a horrible job with rolling them up, so Euiheon would've had to redo everything anyway. It seemed there wasn't a single thing the boy could do right. And yet, why didn't that frustrate Euiheon in the slightest?