Chapter 89: Chapter 89

“….Or maybe not.”

There was nothing to prove that he had had such a good sense of smell. It wasn’t like he’d smelled something special or something that others couldn’t detect. He whimpered and frowned. Then he put his face right at Myohan’s neck, making Shihuang frown a little.

“What are you doing?”

“Just give me a minute.”

Myohan didn’t push him away. He took all the time he wanted then he frowned.

Myohan asked, “Can you smell anything?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

Shihuang’s eyes flashed for a second. Sinsul looked at those black eyes and said grimly, “Fabric softener.”

Heavy silence fell. Myohan looked like he had just heard the corniest joke ever. Sinsul turned to Shihuang and sniffed. He didn’t push him away either.

Shihuang asked with a smile, “Well, what do I smell like?”

“Hmm…”

Sinsul rubbed on his chin and tilted his head. Then, he smiled. He clapped and said, “You smell just like Myohan! You two must use the same fabric softener!”

He reached the simplest conclusion possible. Shihuang looked down and smiled with amusement.

If anyone asked Sinsul how he and Myohan had become friends, he would say he couldn’t remember. There was literally nothing in common about their personalities. They had been in the same homeroom for three years in a row, but that was all. Well, it would be enough for almost anyone to be friends, but they had become friends early in their freshman year.

At the time, Myohan spent almost all of his time sleeping. He came to school and fell asleep immediately. He slept through classes and slept through lunchtime. He just kept sleeping in his seat, so of course he had no friends. Sinsul was the first to speak to him.

‘Would you like to play soccer?’

He thought he was deep in sleep, but to his surprise, he immediately got up when spoken to. The moment Sinsul saw his face, he couldn’t help gaping.

‘No, I don’t want to.’

Really, he was pretty. His skin was tender unlike other boys. His hair and eyes were light-colored. His lips were rosy and a bored but charming voice came out from them. He was so pretty that even his bored look was quite pleasant to look at. He tidied his hair with his delicate fingers. He looked away and Sinsul spoke to him, looking at his soft eyelashes.

‘Wow, you’re really good-looking.’

At first, it was out of curiosity. He had never seen such a handsome boy, so he kept nagging him. It ended up with him becoming a ‘really bothering kid’, but he was content with it. Myohan always sounded irritated, but he could never really push him away. It was quite cute.

And then they went on a field trip. Sinsul was excited about it as it could be a chance for him to be closer to Myohan, but Myohan wasn’t there. He had a cold and was sick often. When they met at school again a few days later, Myohan smelled differently than usual. But what kind of smell had it been?

“So, have you gotten closer to your classmates?”

Chookjae nodded at Sinsul’s question. Chookjae was the only one among them who was in another homeroom, so Sinsul kept visiting him during breaktime lest he might feel lonely. Fortunately, Chookjae seemed to be fitting in just fine. He had been elected the class president.

“I can’t smell well these days!”

He had tried to talk to Myohan about it earlier, but it had led to nowhere. Unlike Myohan, Chookjae paid attention to what he said. Sinsul sniffed on him and complained.

“See? I can’t smell a thing on you!”

“…I used to smell?”

Chookjae asked, a little surprised. Sinsul told him that he didn’t say that to make him nervous.

“But what did I used to smell like?”

Sinsul frowned hard. It was really hard to explain. What he had smelled on Myohan, what he had smelled on Chookjae, he couldn’t smell it anymore. He didn’t even know what kind of smells they had been. So he just smiled sheepishly.

“I don’t know….”

He felt so lonely on his way home. He always went home alone, so he didn’t know why he was feeling like that. He felt like there had been more crowded and happier memories, but he couldn’t recall them. He just walked, spinning his soccer ball in his hands, but then he turned to hear a sudden sound.

“Meow.”

There was a cat sitting in the middle of an alley. The cat with yellowish brown fur didn’t run away when he drew closer. It just looked up at him with its yellow eyes.

“Are you a stray cat?”

That cat seemed strangely familiar. Sinsul crouched down to take a closer look.

“You really look like Myohan.”

Its long tail moved gently. Sinsul tried to pat it, but he changed his mind and put his face out to smell it. It smelled of nothing.

“You’re quite clean for a stray cat…”

But then he stopped. Those yellow eyes were still looking at him.

‘This cat…’

He recalled what he had said once. The cat had been staring at him from within someone’s arms. He frowned hard to recall who it had been. He blinked.

A series of images rushed through his head. All those smells he had detected, Myohan’s smell and another smell he’d never felt before then, and those yellow eyes flashing in warning. He grinned.

“I knew it.”

Then he said with confidence, what he had pretended to be ignorant of because he didn’t want to tell Myohan about it.

“You’re not a cat.”

Chookjae had been living with his grandmother for more than a decade. They didn’t have much money and had to get the government’s help, but he was still happy. His grandmother loved him and he loved her back. With her, he would be happy even in much poorer conditions.

“I’m home.”

He went home right after classes. Sinsul asked him to play soccer, but he turned him down flat because his grandmother was waiting for him.

‘I should massage her shoulders after we have dinner.’

He thought so as he entered his home, but it was too quiet there.

“Granny?”

His gaze went from the empty living room to his grandmother’s bedroom that was half open. He knew her. She never took a nap at that hour. It didn’t feel good, but he tried to dismiss the feeling as he went into his grandmother’s room.

“Why are you…”

What he saw first was his grandmother on the floor. Her face was deadly pale.

“Granny…”

Chookjae quickly went to her. He turned her with shaking hands. Her hands drooped. He took a deep breath as he held his unconscious grandmother. It felt like the world was crumbling from under him.

Only a few students were left in the classroom. Myohan and Shihuang never went down for lunch, and Yuja and Sinsul were listening in worry.

“So?” Yuja asked as he raised his glasses. They could hear Sinsul gulping hard. Chookjae had come to visit Class 1. He answered as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“I brought her home early in the morning.”

Three people let out a sigh of relief at the same time. One was from Yuja, another from Sinsul.

“What, Myohan?”

“….What?”

The last sigh had come from Myohan who had been listening to everything while pretending not to pay attention. Yuja looked like he couldn’t believe it, so he snorted. Myohan didn’t seem to care at all that he’d just been busted while eavesdropping.

“She just had a high fever because of a cold. She’ll be fine.”

He had been so surprised when he saw her unconscious. He thought she had passed away. It took him a little time to calm down and notice she was feverish. He called 119 and broke into tears. He wailed and wailed, and by the time the medical team got there, it looked like he was the patient.

She was his parent, guardian, and his only family. She had never been sick. He was sometimes scared of her and had never thought of her as weak. So now, the image of her pale face was embedded in his mind. He just couldn’t forget it.

“Well, that’s good.”

“Yes.”

Just thinking about it again made his heart beat faster. He had to take a deep breath. He hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep last night, and now the stress was coming to him.

“Then let’s go to your place and hang out!”

“Sinsul, sit.”

Sinsul got up with twinkling eyes, but Yuja made him sit down again and scolded him.

“She just left the hospital this morning, how can you be so rude?”

He sounded cold, but he was right. Chookjae scratched his cheek as he thought of how his grandmother had been perfectly fine by the time she got home. Nevertheless, she needed to rest. Sinsul quickly waved his hands.

“No, no! I didn’t mean…”

“Tomorrow.”

The three all turned at the quiet voice.

“Tomorrow, I’ll go with you.”

It was Myohan. He had gotten rid of his uninterested look and was looking straight at Chookjae. Chookjae looked at those twinkling eyes and nodded. He just couldn’t refuse.