Twenty-Seven Fish

Yuel had only seen that provocative video for a second, but it was enough for his mind to fill in the gaps for how the rest of the scene went. He pictured the two lovers in bed, their arms wrapped around each other, legs intertwined, and lips locked in a passionate kiss. They closed their eyes to fully soak in the raw contact of their skin. Yuel closed his eyes, too. Upon reopening them, he saw Kyungwon exactly where the man had been on top of the woman. But the woman was gone as well, replaced by—

"Yuel?"

"H-Huh?" Yuel mumbled.

"Are you paying attention?" Kyungwon asked, tapping the English textbook.

Yuel looked down and realized he had daydreamed past five whole pages. And it hadn't been just any kind of daydream, either. Yuel blushed at the memory of what he had just imagined. It was problematic enough to have such indecent thoughts in the middle of class. But how could he have them about his teacher, who was literally right here next to him?

"Yuel?"

"Oh, uh, yeah..."

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The apartment door was unlocked and opened. Yuel's mom was home. Ever since Kyungwon started tutoring Yuel, she got off work early on Mondays and Wednesdays and let the assistant manager close up the hakwon. Her reason was that she wanted to have a bit of a break and that she should drive Kyungwon home since she felt bad about asking him to tutor her son on top of his existing job and school.

"I guess we should wrap up the lesson here," Kyungwon said, closing the textbook. "But let's try to focus a little more next class, okay?"

"Okay..."

While Kyungwon was hardly a strict teacher, Yuel felt like he had just gotten scolded by him. And almost like a punishment, Kyungwon was now leaving. Yuel quietly followed him out of his room, too embarrassed and ashamed to even properly say goodbye.

"I'll take Kyungwon home," Yuel's mom said, smiling. She always sounded uncharacteristically happy when she left with him.

. . .

"Hey, did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"There's this rumor about..."

"Oh, him?"

"Don't stare right at him...! But yeah, people have apparently spotted him hanging out with this older guy after school all the time. They seem really close, like a little too close, if you catch my drift."

"Oh my god!"

"Shh, shut up...!"

A strange rumor had begun to quietly spread around the school. No one would downright say who it was about, only ever using he and him. But while those pronouns applied to half of the students, it was very clear who the subject of the rumor was, especially to the subject himself.

From across the classroom, Yuel had his eyes on his textbook to study, but his ears were wide open, hearing everything his classmates were saying about him whether he wanted to or not.

"Yeah, so he's apparently... you know. He even puked when he saw straight porn."

Just as any game of telephone went, rumors were bound to get distorted as they passed from one mouth to another. But one detail of this rumor remained extremely consistent. Straight. Even if the noun that followed it varied depending on the speaker, that one adjective never changed.

Straight movie. Straight sex scene. Straight porn.

The word came like a knife that relentlessly stabbed at Yuel's heart. He felt even worse knowing the kinds of non-straight thoughts he had about Kyungwon. Of course, it wasn't that he didn't feel guilty about it prior to the rumor. But while the focus of that guilt before was on the fact that he had such indecent fantasies about his teacher, it had now shifted to simply the fact that it was a man.

Even as the days passed by, the rumor showed no signs of stopping. At least people didn't come up to Yuel and confront him about it, so he chose to completely ignore it. After all, addressing it would only confirm that the rumor was getting to him, which would consequently fuel everyone's suspicions about him.

But just as December rolled in and Yuel held on to the hope that the rumor would naturally die down with the year, Seong Hamin approached him out of the blue.

"Hey, Yuel," Hamin said, standing right in front of Yuel's desk during break time.

Yuel froze, immediately realizing why the boy was here. Why else would Hamin, someone he barely ever spoke to, suddenly come to him?

"What... do you want?" Yuel quietly asked.

He kept his head down, staring at the words in his textbook that had made sense just a second ago but were now incomprehensible. Everything just went blank.

"So, is it true that you're gay?" Hamin asked just as casually as when he asked his friends what was for lunch.

Yuel, on the other hand, might as well have received the most difficult question in the world. Gay was such a perplexing word to him. The first time he ever thought of it, it was like a breath of fresh air. But now, it came to him like a tornado that sucked all the oxygen out of his lungs.

"N-No..." Yuel mumbled, not even sounding convincing to himself.

"Huh? What was that?" Hamin asked. "I couldn't hear you."

"He said to fuck off, Ham," Euiheon stepped in. "Who cares if he's gay or not? Do you want to date him?"

"What? No, I was just curious!"

"Why would you be curious about that? Are you gay, too?"

"Aw, come on, Chewie! It's not like that!"

While Hamin and Euiheon bickered in front of him, Yuel just stayed quiet, having completely lost the will to speak, let alone do anything. It was only second period, but he wanted this day to be over already so he could get out of here. Unfortunately, time seemed to stand still, frozen under the cold gaze of all his classmates who were now sure that he was in fact gay.

Or maybe it wouldn't be good to have the school day end at all. It was Monday, meaning Kyungwon would come to pick Yuel up as always. People would see the two of them together again...

"They seem really close, like a little too close, if you catch my drift."

Those sweet afternoon trips home together were over now. Yuel wouldn't ever be caught with Kyungwon out in public again. It was just a matter of how he was supposed to tell Kyungwon this. There were still three weeks left of school until the long winter break. Six days of needing an excuse.

Yuel thought of everything from being sick to having to stay late and talk to his teacher to classmates suddenly asking him to hang out. But no matter what, he wouldn't dare to tell Kyungwon it was because he didn't want to go home with him anymore. That would surely hurt his feelings given how close the two of them had grown in the past few months.

But by the end of the day, it seemed Yuel's excuse wouldn't be needed after all.

[Kyungwon Hyung: I'm sorry, Yuel, but something came up, so we'll have to stop our classes from now on. Good luck with your final exams.]

Yuel stared at the message as he left the school by himself. He couldn't believe his eyes at first. It was so sudden.

[Ye Yuel: Oh, I see... Okay. Thank you.]

Just as Yuel sent that reply, a chilling breeze swished passed him. The weather felt particularly colder today as he made his way home all alone on an empty stomach. As relieved as he was about not needing to walk home with Kyungwon anymore, this wasn't the kind of solution he had wanted. Just because he didn't want to be seen with Kyungwon by other people didn't mean he wanted their interactions to stop permanently.

Yuel wondered just what could have come up for Kyungwon to suddenly put an end to their classes. He hoped it wasn't anything serious. Perhaps a good opportunity came to him at his university. Kyungwon did mention wanting to go to graduate school.

"I hope that's the case, Hyung..."

But as if Yuel had jinxed himself by saying that, he came home to utter chaos.

"Did you ever even love me at all?!" Yuel's mom screamed so loudly that it drowned out the sound of Yuel entering the apartment.

"Why are you bringing that up all of a sudden?" Yuel's dad replied with the same level of anger.

"Look, this is exactly what I'm talking about! You don't love me! You never did!"

"Ha! And you did? You never once looked happy to be with me! And in the end, you cheated on me!"

Cheated? Yuel thought, freezing in his tracks. He felt like he should turn around and leave the house. This clearly wasn't a conversation he should be hearing. But just as he started making his way back to the door, he froze once more at his dad's next words.

"As if sleeping with the bastard wasn't enough, you even let him into our house and got him to tutor our son! What is wrong with you?!"

"I was already thinking of divorcing you and remarrying him a while ago. I just wanted to give Yuel time to grow closer to him before—"

"Mom?" Yuel said, walking into the living room.

His mom gasped. "Yuel..."

Even though the mood was completely different, Yuel was getting déjà vu. He recalled the day he walked in on his mom and Kyungwon in this same room all those months ago. So then, they were already together that early on? Long before Yuel ever realized his first crush?

Yuel was beginning to feel sick, even sicker than when Hamin asked him that devastating question in the morning. Now he knew exactly why Kyungwon had to stop their classes. How could he possibly continue when the husband of the woman he had been having an affair with found out about them?

"Are you... getting a divorce?" Yuel asked his mom. But in reality, what he wanted to know was, Are you really going to remarry Kyungwon?

Yuel's mom turned her head away from him, not having expected to drop the news on her son this quickly. She was hoping to tell him with Kyungwon after she started the divorce procedures with her husband. But now that the cat was out of the bag, it seemed pointless to delay things any further.

"Yes," she replied. "So you need to make a choice, Yuel. Do you want to stay here and live with your dad? Or do you want to leave and live with me and..."

. . .

Present day

"...Hyung," Yuel mumbled just before opening his eyes to another morning.

He groaned, his body heavy as if he had just woken up from a year-long dream. Instead of feeling refreshed to start a new day, he was already exhausted. It didn't help that today was the start of his midterm week.

After checking the time, Yuel decided to lie in bed for a few extra minutes. But instead of getting a little more sleep, he thought back to the day he had just dreamt about.

He wondered how things might have been different had he chosen to stay with his dad four years ago. At the time, the rumor about him at school and the thought of never being able to see Kyungwon again convinced him that the only right option was to go live with his mom. But through his dream, he gained an outside perspective of the entire situation back then.

First of all, he couldn't believe he never realized his mom and Kyungwon were together prior to that day. The signs were all there, but Yuel was too blinded by his crush to see them. If he had just figured it out sooner, perhaps he wouldn't have fallen for Kyungwon as hard and would've quickly given up on him.

But even if his feelings didn't change, at least if he had stayed with his dad, the distance would have helped him move on eventually. He had to learn the hard way just how painful it was to live in the same house as your unrequited crush. It was simply impossible to forget about someone you saw every single day.

Not to mention, if he had stayed, he could have attended his current high school since freshman year. Sure, he would have had to continue being around people who knew about the rumor, but there was a chance he could have met Edin much earlier on.

Perhaps the boy would have fallen for him at first sight just the same. Perhaps he would have taught Yuel to disregard the rumor and embrace who he truly was instead of habitually denying and shunning it. Perhaps Yuel would have accepted Edin's feelings pretty quickly.

In that case, they could have been rather happy together by now.