Chapter 4 part 1

As Go Yoo Han says the names of the colors one by one, I feel more and more immersed in pink and rose. The only pinks I’ve seen are carnation pink, salmon pink and baby pink.

Can I see all the tones of pink Go Yoo Han is talking about?

When his voice stops, I’m not feeling color rush, but somehow, I still feel breathless.

“Do people who see color know that many colors?”

Go Yoo Han, do you also know that many colors?

I have no choice but to turn this question around, my interest should be in the colors, not in Go Yoo Han, who is my probe. If not, then I’d be no different from the monos who commit crimes.

“No, some people just treat as pink, dark pink or light pink to what’s actually brick color.”

What about you?

I swallow that question. I’m afraid of what it could mean.

“What are you looking at me for with those cherry blossom colored eyes? My Yeon Woo, are you going to look at me so prettily and then knock me down?” *he knows him so well, I cri

“I’m not pretty.”

He looks really cool, but in the end, his habits cut that picture into pieces. Still, I wonder what kind of color cherry blossom is, what he says my eyes’ color is…

I feel the table vibrate and see it’s Go Yoo Han’s phone. On the screen it reads:

[Our Great Congressman* Jang Eung Kyung].

Go Yoo Han looks at it, exclaims a brief ‘ah’ and grabs the phone. Whether the call volume is set to low or the person on the other side speaks quietly, the contents of the call cannot be heard.

“Yes, yes, I understand, congressman. I’ll go home right away.”

Go Yoo Han answers over the phone and ends the call. His crinkling eyes and raised eyebrows are not good news, the teasing is coming.

“Thank you for asking me out on a date today, My Yeon Woo.”

“It’s not a date”

“They told me to come home… probably there will be a lot of talk about their career. If the congressman has time, maybe you can meet the people at home?”

“Who’s the congressman?”

“Didn’t I tell you?”

“You didn’t.”

“And Jung Joo Haeng?”

I don’t know why Jung Joo Haeng’s name comes up, but I shake my head. Go Yoo Han puts his cellphone in his pocket with a smile.

“My mom. She’s a politician**.”

*I translated it as congressman because in Korean there’s no gender distinction in words used to refer to a title, and at first it doesn’t specify who we’re talking about.

**From here onwards, I will use congresswoman to refer to Go Yoo Han’s mom’s title.

He smiles lightly under the mask, but then his eyes turn serious.

“Did you just inquire about my family status?”

“What?”

“The sort of inquiry you make when you intend to get married? Is that it? My Yeon Woo is so bold.”

“No, what on earth are you talking about?”

“It’s okay. I can run away from home at night. Love’s escape.” *wails

I wonder what’s inside Go Yoo Han’s head. Seeing his ability to speak such nonsense I muse if all the names the names of pink he said earlier are real.

“Don’t worry. I can forget the faces of my family as soon as they turn around, but Yeon Woo, I’ll try not to forget your face.” *wails harder

“No. I don’t need it.”

“I’m sad.”

He finally stops being serious and smiles again. I move the bowl to the tray and comment as if it’s unimportant:

“Be nice to your mother. Don’t say you will forget her face.”

“Already scoring points with your mother-in-law?” *covers face

“No.”

I turn the tray onto the shelf. Not letting Go Yoo Han see my expression.

“You have to treat her well while you have her.”

“Choi Yeon Woo.”

“What.”

I answer bluntly because I think he caught on what I said. Go Yoo Han grabs the handle of the store’s door and says:

“Let me take you home.”

“He doesn’t seem to notice much, in the end. *BUT HE DOES YEON WOO, HE DOES ** WAILS AGAIN

“No. Go home.”

“My house could be near yours, though?”

“You have to take the bus to get back.”

“You remember that?”

Ah. Too late. I only remembered he takes the bus home, but he becomes high tension* after that, and the nonsense gets even worse than usual. *Yeon Woo literally says ‘high tension’, also, LOL.

He says that at this point, since we already know our homes and our families, all we need is a meeting of the parents*. A small wedding will be good, also, since travelling is hard, how about we go to Africa**. *traditionally, in some Asian countries’ cultures, such as in Korea and in China, there’s a step in courting in which the parents of both the groom and the bride have a meeting, usually a dinner, to get to know the future family of their son/daughter. This is a tradition, not a rule or anything, and it’s not necessarily actual either. But it’s mega cute he brings it up. And also, the gall of this boy. I blush for you, Yeon Woo. **as in, for their honeymoon. Eye- live covering my face.

Even though I tell him he doesn’t need to walk me back from the bus stop, he keeps talking nonsense right up to the door of the apartment complex. I repeatedly answer ‘No’, ‘I don’t need it’, ‘No’, through all this. I think I will finally be free at the apartment door. I’m about to tell him to ‘Hurry up and go’ when he calls:

“Yeon Woo-yah.”

I can tell it apart a bit now. When he’s talking nonsense, his voice is a bit higher, but when he’s speaking seriously, his voice is calmer. This time, I turn to look at him because his voice is calm. I can see him rolling his eyes. Those eyes must be caramel color. Although I can’t picture caramel color now, I know. That’s their color.

“How do you know the colors?”

I don’t give a specific answer. I know the theory. An object receives light and reflects it in certain wavelengths. The sphincter of the eye is stimulated by the reflected light and three cone cells analyze the light and send signals to the brain.

“Because someone told me the names.”

In my case, my cell cones work hard, but my brain refuses to recognize color.

But Go Yoo Han is talking about something other than the theory. Maybe he’s right, too. I can distinguish between different levels of brightness, but I do so in ten colors. The ten colors my mom taught me.

Go Yoo Han’s dark hair shakes, showing a lighter color at the top of his head. It’s not because his scalp is exposed, it’s actually the chestnut color hair he told me has grown. I slowly look at Go Yoo Han’s face and our eyes meet. No. He’s been looking at me since the beginning. I look the other way because I feel suddenly pressured to accept that look. I avoid his eyes.

“I will tell you the names. I can’t distinguish as many shades of pink as you asked me. I can’t differentiate them. But at least I can tell the official colors apart now. Enough to let you know.”

Neither his eyes nor his voice seems to be joking. But it’s not the coldness I saw on the playground either. I feel as if I’m stuck in my seat, like I felt when Go Yoo Han was playing tricks on the bus. Like his eyes are keeping me trapped.

“You will let me see your face.”

I don’t know why he keeps asking me to let him see my face. Also, this time I want to know, is the colore moving that amazing? I can’t ask it as a joke or turn the question around, so I keep my mouth shut.

I don’t know what he makes of my silence. He turns his face and then looks at me again. His serious expression is gone, instead he smiles in a way I can’t see his eyes. I don’t think he’s really smiling. *keeps wailing

“See you tomorrow.”

I can’t answer as I watch him go down to the bust stop. He takes his mask off and puts it inside his pocket, then he massages his temples with his right hand as if he has a headache.

In other words, my eyes follow him as he walks away.

As though I can see the colors.

-

When I go through the front door, I look in the mirror attached to the wall. Amongst the many pinks Go Yoo Han mentioned, he said I have cherry blossom colored eyes. Of course, I can’t see the color, so I don’t know what color it is, and I don’t know what he meant with those words.

I was going to put the book Go Yoo Han bought me on the living room bookshelf, but I leave it on top of the desk in my room. I share the living room bookshelf with my aunt, so it’s mostly her books. This is my book, so I’ll keep it in my room. Maybe it’s something I collected as a clue in the search for mom. I’m a mess, still making excuses in my head. *You said it yourself, mister.

Fuchsia, French Rose, Dawn Pink, Strawberry, Reddish Pink, Magenta, Coral… I try to remember the colors Go Yoo Han told me. The names he said disappear one by one. I want to hear them again, those names. No. I want to know.

To keep my heart and my head away from unpleasant feelings and thoughts, I go check the information I crawled before. Just as I think it’d be of no use unless I talk to these people directly, I find a person who left online shopping details on an image attached to a post. The address and card number were neatly masked, but the customer’s name was clearly visible in the ‘My Page’ section on the top of the page. The name is common, but the last name is quite unusual. ‘Yeo’. The name seems familiar somehow.

At that moment, I put my hopes on my poor memory.

No way, is this the reason why aunt didn’t tell me?

I immediately log into the café for the families of the missing and search this person’s unusual name. He’s registered as a missing person. Disappeared two years ago. His online activities also ceased two years ago.

I begin to go through the data. Among the seven people who were cut off from their activities, excluding those who know my mom’s real name, is there a way to get the names or estimate the ages of the other five people? Sadly, I can only find the real name of one person who disappeared a year ago. And the name is too common, I look around to see if there is any way to find their age, but it doesn’t work. I search the missing person café just in case. This person is also registered as missing.

At least two of the seven people who were cut off are missing. Although this name is so common, it’s likely someone with the same name.

What if there’s a link between these disappearances?

I look at the missing information of the person with the common name, and see the face, name, age and place of disappearance. Adult disappearance is not considered very important. Particularly women in their 20s, they are often considered runaways. * shit-ass men-centric fucking assing society...ahem, sorry...

While slowly going through the information, I see something unusual. Mononervechromat. When I see those words, I’m certain this person out of activity was also a participant of the get-together.

I search using a different filter this time. How many people are listed as mononervechromats and monos in the missing person’s information and when they disappeared.

There are ten mononervechromats disappeared. Excluding four children, there’s a total of six. Apart from mom, the times of disappearance of the other five people were six years, five years, four years, four years, two years. The online activities for the get-together participants were cut off six years, five years, four years, four years, two years and two years ago.

There are two people whose names match. The time of disappearance and the cease of online activity is the same. What if the three of them, including mom, were part of the mononervechromat get-together?

I can’t ignore the people on this list. I save the information for the people listed as mononervechromats separately. I want to let the families of the missing know about this discovery. But it’s late on a Sunday, and the information is unclear. I know that too. How uncertain information can shake the families of missing people. Since long ago, there has been many propaganda from pseudo-religious groups targeting families of missing people.

How terrible it is to give false hope to those in despair.

I breathe a deep sigh; I hope that what I found is not the same aunt found. If the missing people disappeared on their own, it means there was something mom didn’t tell us, that was more important than our family. More important than me and my aunt. If it’s the other way… … *he means that if the disappearances are not by accident. As in, kidnapping.

I snap the laptop closed. I lower my head and cover my face with my hands as I try to breathe deeply. But my breath is coming in shallow bursts. I feel nauseous. I press my palms into my eyes and try to calm the rumbling in my mind, and the feeling that my head is about to fall apart.

It’s not something I’ve never imagined. Maybe she’s caught up in someone else’s malicious affairs.

However, imagination and speculation are different. Imagination is like a bitter taste you don’t want to eat spreading through your mouth, speculation is like someone squeezing down your throat. Even though I can’t stop following my mother’s clues, I regret that I dug into it for no reason, only because I reached this conjecture. You shouldn’t start something you can’t handle.

At that moment, my phone screen turns on.

(Aunt) > did you eat?] *same abbreviation as before.

It’s aunt. Did she also suffer when she reached this conclusion? She even said she went to the police station. How much does she know?

I look down at the phone for a moment.

(Choi Yeon Woo) > Mm]

I answer and put the phone aside.

It’s Sunday night, but I can’t sleep.

***

I can’t sleep well and when I go to school, I only see Kang Min Jae there. This time, he’s staring at the front door. I go to my seat and speak to him first.

“Hi.”

Then he looks at me. Until a moment ago he was staring fiercely at the door, but his expression relaxes a little and he softly answers.

“Hi.”

I feel the ridiculous impulse of asking Kang Min Jae where his mom is. No matter what, Jung Joo Haeng and Go Yoo Han say the grandfather answers instead. As I’m trying to rid myself of useless thoughts, Jung Joo Haeng arrives.

“Why is it Monday today?”

Instead of saying hello, he falls flat on his desk. Then he turns to look at me. His cheeks are crushed on his desk and his glasses are crooked away from his face.

“Go Yoo Han won’t come today.”

“Why? … are you telling me this?”

At first, I mean it as an honest question, then I add to it to make seem like I don’t want to know. Jung Joo Haeng just looks at me and rolls his eyes*, then closes them and says:

“He wanted me to tell you… I also didn’t want to say it. But he told me to tell you he won’t come today.”

*He doesn’t buy Yeon Woo’s bullshit.

Then he should’ve just contacted me, why tell me through Jung Joo Haeng? Jung Joo Haeng, who stills has his eyes closed, adds as if he could read my thoughts, with an ability like that of Kang Min Jae.

“I also didn’t want to know! But he said I’m the class president and it worked! I also didn’t want to know!”

He suddenly gets up as if angry, the picture is somewhat ridiculous, with the hair that was sticking up on one side slowly falling back down. I just nod quietly. But what is the connection between being class president and Go Yoo Han’s absence?

Just as I’m thinking this, Jung Joo Haeng says.

“Ah, shit. Life is really hard if you’re friends with one wrong person.”

And then takes out a cushion and a hoodie out of his bag. With an expression that he really doesn’t want to do it, he takes the cushion to Go Yoo Han’s seat and puts the hoodie on it. He even takes out long balloons and an air pump out of nowhere. With annoyed expression, he fills the balloons and this time, takes out gym clothes. He puts the balloons under the gym clothes and leaves them on Go Yoo Han’s chair. Finally, he takes off his sneakers, changes into slippers from his bag, and puts them under Go Yoo Han’s desk.

Maybe it’s because I saw the process of making it, but it’s a very sloppy camouflage. Who would think that is a student sleeping on his desk? As I think this, the kids start to arrive.

“What’s that?”

“Will this work?”

“Why do this if it’s not even April’s fools?”

As they review it, they start touching it one by one. A brush comes out and it’s placed as if the hair is sticking up from under the hood, someone puts tissue between the sneakers and the pants to make them look like socks. In additions, the books are meticulously arranged to keep it up so that it doesn’t look clumsy. When useless collective intelligence is being exercised in this place, the homeroom teacher comes in for ordinance. Jung Joo Haeng looks towards Goo Yoo Han’s seat with anxious eyes and does the formal ‘attention, salute’.

The homeroom teacher glances at Go Yoo Han’s place and says:

“That bastard didn’t even debut yet he sleeps every day.”

It’s better than what Jung Joo Haeng made on his own, but it’s amazing he still believes that is Go Yoo Han. The teacher raises his fingers to start counting the kids.

I didn’t do anything, but I’m nervous it will be discovered it’s a fake Goo Yoo Han. Jung Joo Haeng too, often looks at Go Yoo Han’s seat, where a fake Go Yoo Han made of cushions and balloons is flopped down.

When the teacher finishes counting the kids and closes the attendance books... PANG.

Whoever hears it would recognize the sound of a balloon bursting. Of course, the sound comes from Go Yoo Han’s seat. I look back and see fake Go Yoo Han’s left leg turned off.

Earlier it was folded to make it look as if it was crossed, but now it seems to have burst. I think we are definitely caught, but Jung Joo Haeng makes a face and covers his nose with his fingers.

“Ah, shit.”

He says to the homeroom teacher who is walking by. When you do something bad together, you become one. Another guy says:

“He even farts in his sleep.”

“Wah, both the sound and the smell are awful.”

Even if they say this, there is no smell. The homeroom teacher stares at Jung Joo Haeng for a while.

“Hey, you bastard.”

The words make all the kids go quiet. The homeroom teacher raises his upper lip and points at Jung Joo Haeng:

“You really seem to be cursed as a class president.”

Then he looks at fake Go Yoo Han, makes a sound, and comments:

“Do celebrities fart different, huh?”

And goes out. When it’s confirmed the teacher is gone, Jung Joo Haeng and the kids jump onto fake Go Yoo Han. He is reinforced and reinforced, and the balloons are wrapped with all sorts of tape.

“Why are you doing this?”

I ask Jung Joo Haeng, he looks at me and makes a sound similar to the one the teacher made and answers:

“This asshole missed classes so much in first year, if he misses any more, he will become our junior.”

“That’s why you help him?”

“No. If that idiot were to go down a year, I’d feel very sorry for the juniors. He puts on airs around you, but you don’t know how powerful his face is when he doesn’t like something.” *As in, he has a very strong character. I.E. If Yeon Woo got hit with that ball that time, someone would’ve died.

No, I think his face is more powerful to me than to others. He’s been bothering me with it since the very beginning.

“He used to say ‘Wow, so ugly’ right to people’s faces if he didn’t like something. If he goes down, I’ll feel sorry for the juniors. I can’t protect them, but I won’t let them lying down in their blood.” *gaming slang, I’m pretty sure.

When Jung Joo Haeng is making a left leg for fake Go Yoo Han again, Kang Min Jae quietly comments on the subject:

“They can’t handle it.”

Jung Joo Haeng looks at him as if satisfied with his summary. As I’ve felt so far, Jung Joo Haeng and Kang Min Jae are really Go Yoo Han’s friends.

They take care of him.

-

A day without Go Yoo Han is quiet and peaceful… in other words, it’s really boring. When Go Yoo Han is talking nonsense next to me, I wish he isn’t there, but now everything feels a bit empty because it’s too quiet. I am dumbfounded by my own whims. It feels particularly strange because it’s too peaceful when I go around the schoolyard for a walk alone after lunch. There’s something I have to do, but I put it off, so now I feel anxious. The scenery of the schoolyard is very plain. It’s just an ordinary schoolyard.

And when I go back to the classroom, it’s a very ordinary classroom. However, some classmates I don’t know come over and fiddle with fake Go Yoo Han, I think of what to do if it gets ruined, but as they keep decorating it looks more real. A wig has come out of somewhere, which looks more natural than the hair comb from earlier, and the fake hair settles down better.

The school is very ordinary*. *Ok, Yeon Woo, hi, this is your conscience, let me translate this for you in words of the not-in-denial: the world is colorless without Yoo Han. Both metaphorically and not. *weeps.

It takes longer to wait for the elevator to arrive than to walk to the apartment complex. When I get home, I start collecting information on the five missing persons. The best way is to contact the family, but if my aunt knows this far, she would have done it already. According to the reaction of monowife, Kim Hyun Joo, the least likely option is that she hasn’t contacted them.

There is nothing in common between the location and the timing of disappearance. It’s the same as when I was looking for people who has ceased online activity. There is nothing in common between the missing people except for the fact that they are mononervechromats, mono. I think for a long time after turning the crawl to the ID of the family of the missing and the real name of the person. Maybe I am focusing too much on my mom’s disappearance.

So, I use ‘missing’ as the common ground. It may be a coincidence that the offline time and the time of disappearance are similar.

Besides, the thing that bothers me the most is… the places of disappearance are so disperse. It’s not limited to Seoul or the metropolitan area. There are other places of rather than Seoul, going as far a Gyeongnam-do.

First of all, I had forgotten the worst-case scenario. I remember listening about the adult disappearance case in the past when I was looking for mom with my aunt.

Firstly, one is to get caught up in a pseudo-religion. In such a case, if a member is missing, the entire family are to preach together, in fact, they are highly recommended to do so.

However, if the mission fails, they may be forcibly retained. Since Mono can see the colors when they meet Probe, they are often tempted to replace Probe with God. There were many people who tried to take my weekend away with that, and they’re not even Mono themselves. If this is the case, even adults can suddenly disappear. Due to the nature of pseudo-religion, what happens inside is not often revealed to the public.

The religion of the five missing people is unknown. At least one is easy to guess because they consistently posted phrases from the Bible on their SNS, but there are no keywords to guess about the other four. My mom was a non-religious person, but she wasn’t an atheist who denied the existence of God. Since she disappeared, I’ve been closer to that term myself.

What if they’re missing because they were slowly approaching the term*? If so, the families of the missing could have been involved in religious missionary work before they went missing. My aunt and I don’t do anything of the sort. In this case, the only thing that can give some direction is the story of the families of the missing. Basically, there are no keywords related to religion in their online activity. *kidnapped to be converted.

The other possibility is when you run away urgently due to financial reasons. In this case, however, their families cannot not know. If you are being threatened for money, the blackmailer will surely visit your family.

Mom didn’t have any debts. She didn’t use a credit card, only her debit card. And there weren’t many things to pay since grandma’s rent came from her shop. And she didn’t invest much in anything. My aunt also said that as a mother, one cannot take a loan from the first financial sector, so one puts their hands on private loans. At the moment, I didn’t understand what she meant, but I remember nodding when she said it wasn’t because of a private loan. Financial reasons… no matter how much I think about it, were the most unlikely for my mom.

The last is run away from home. The reason why the disappearance of adults is not properly investigated is because they often run away from home. This is also what I heard when we asked the police to investigate the disappearance. They asked if she hadn’t met a guy and left her son and younger sister behind. Of course, through all the stories aunt had told me about mom and dad and their marriage, I could guess mom’s behavior is amazing and her driving force is magnificent. So, if mom had met someone, she would at least introduce them to me and to my aunt. Or maybe that’s just what we want to believe…

Asides from remembering the worst-case scenario, I’m back to square one.

Maybe the disappearances are a coincidence. First of all, the locations are not the same.

Even if it’s a religious mission, it is likely to be centered around a certain point. And if they were related to religion, it would also be specified in the missing person information as well.

Financial reasons are hard to figure out. The same goes for running away from home. In other words, there are things in common with the other five, except from my mom. And mom may be a unique case. After all, the most information I have is on her, so maybe I was trying to fit her in.

And if it’s the worst-case… I heard the area has never spread like this. I know there is a main activity zone.

I don’t want to see the crawled article, because I feel my head is full of complicated thoughts. I just fiddle uselessly with my phone.

I send a picture to see if my aunt uses me as a notepad again. It’s the original version. I’m at home, so I can see it, if I was out, I wouldn’t be able to see it because I don’t have enough data. I look through the pictures aunt sent me again. Beach… I quickly hit the sign in the picture. It’s Gyeongnam. I look for places to locate in the pictures she sent. Unfortunately, they are too common except for the Gyeongnam sign I found. Instead, I turn on street view focusing on the location of the disappearance.

Although the location of the photos is different, the buildings and landscapes look similar.

I’m convinced my aunt and I are chasing the same thing. I’m organizing the pictures sent by my aunt and tying the pictures and the locations that look similar in several screens when my aunt sends another picture.

I open it in a hurry. She sent a picture of seafood ramen with a large abalone and a shrimp sticking out.

At least I can be sure of one thing. My aunt likes to tease me.

***

The more time mom is missing, the more aunt and I fall into a routine. Our daily life should never have collapsed. At first, we were both so embarrassed that we lived in such a mess. Yesterday I held back the urge to sear further. The missing person’s family ID crawl is over, but because there are many people with the same name, it took a long time to crawl the right information. Among that, I wonder if there is any meaningful information. There’s no way to tell the difference. I get distracted from preparing for school, thinking of a way to extract important keywords. I’m thinking on how to draw more specifically, rather than just going through every article of interest of anyone who was remotely active.

I’m about to stand in the entrance and look in the mirror for no reason, when I remember Go Yoo Han said I have cherry blossom colored eyes. If he doesn’t come anyways, I think I can come up with something peaceful to do in the evening. But as soon as I get on the elevator, I think of what kind of answer I can expect if I ask Go Yoo Han about other colors rather than pink. Pathetic! I have to stop being consumed by curiosity. That’s not important right now.

Aunt said it would take a month, so there are less than three weeks left to find out what she knows about mom’s disappearance. Yet, on the short way to school, I start to wonder I I would be able to see the cherry blossoms when the bloom in April. I’m not supposed to be in this school in April! I have to ask her to transfer as soon as she gets back! It’s what’s best for me and for Go Yoo Han. There are more bad things than good things when Mono and Probe are together!

My heart is beating differently than during the investigation yesterday. When I meet Go Yoo Han, I’ll be able to see the colors, when I see the colors, yesterday’s classroom will definitely look different. Then, I’ll see the kids wearing watermelon color school uniforms, and a dark green chalkboard rather than a dark grey one. What color is the sand in the schoolyard? Is sand color a color? I memorized before that sand is yellow, but is it the same bright yellow I saw in the color chart? For some reason, I can’t open the classroom’s backdoor.

“Huh…”

I breathe out a deep sigh. When my head is filling with useless thoughts about opening this door, a hand comes from behind me and grabs the door handle first. I turn my head in surprise and see Goo Yoo Han wearing a black mask.

“Hi, Yeon Woo-yah.”

After saying so, he opens the door. I can’t answer naturally because I feel like I was caught thinking about him. Maybe that’s way he stands there blinking at me without going in. Those big caramel eyes with no double eyelids… caramel is also a shade of yellow, so is sand color similar to it? Is it that I can’t get that color unless I get dirt into my eyes? * ????

Why is my head connecting things in such a weird way? * so we wonder…

No, I learned dirt is dirt color, also, the brightness itself is different from the one of sand, as I’m pondering this, I can no longer see Go Yoo Han’s eyes.

He’s smiling in the way I can’t see his eyes, so the nonsense is underway.

“If you’re perhaps using that pretty face to pull a beauty trap* this early in the morning, I can move on.” *it’s a sort of extortion in which you use beauty to trick someone.

“I’m not pretty.”

“It is My Yeon Woo, I was just making sure.”

After answering to Go Yoo Han’s nonsense, I feel the sudden stiffness go away. I go to my seat and leave my bag, fake Go Yoo Han is still in the seat behind.

When Go Yoo Han is appreciating fake Go Yoo Han, some kids come over to explain how it was made. As soon as he arrives, Jung Joo Haeng takes the cushion, which is the head of fake Goo Yoo Han, and puts the hoodie and the gym clothes inside his bag.

“I have a hard time because I picked the wrong friend.”

He throws the words at Go Yoo Han either to scold him, to complain or because he’s embarrassed. Go Yoo Han shrugs and speaks to him in a clear tone.

“I couldn’t help it yesterday, I was kneeling in front of the congresswoman’s office and doing a one-man protest.”

“So, did the demonstration work?”

“Partly…?”

The congresswoman Go Yoo Han is talking about is his mother. Jung Joo Haeng shakes his head, then he looks at me with pity. I’m sitting still, though? I didn’t even talk?

“If he had gone down, we’d feel sorry for the juniors, but at least Yeon Woo would’ve been released.”

“I would be released?”

Jung Joo Haeng points to Go Yoo Han and then takes out a workbook. When I turn to look at Go Yoo Han, he frowns his right eye. It must be a deliberate wink. Maybe yesterday’s boring calm is better than the colors next to Go Yoo Han. Humans know precious things only when they lose them. Yes, I am realizing the importance of yesterday’s peace again.

“My Yeon Woo, were you bored without me~?”

Nope.

“Why didn’t you worry about me~?”

Because you told Jung Joo Haeng to let me know.

“I worried about My Yeon Woo so much~”.

Thanks. A. lot.

“Seeing your face, it’s worth worrying about.”

He scratches people’s temper like this and then laughs lightly under the mask. Besides, he taps my cheek with the back of his index fingernail. While standing next to me, looking down at me. *he missed you, okay?

It’s not enough to do it while sitting behind me, now he also does it during my dear break time.

“What is it? You’re going to be this pretty when I look at you today too?”

“I’m not pretty.”

“Mm, it is My Yeon Woo.”

Then he puts his hand on my head and messes it up. Why is he so high tension now? I know he’s like this, but he’s too carelessly acting close right now. I’m about to tell him not to touch me, but I hesitate because he looks so happy, and I don’t want to ruin his mood. *That’s my boy.

In the meantime, he goes out the back door, comes in from the front door, looks at me, goes back out the front door, comes in from the back door and looks at me again. He does this over and over again.

What the hell happened yesterday that made him go crazy?

***

Today’s lunch menu is sundae soup with stir-fried tteokbokki. Why does it have to be sundae? It makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m eating the tteokbokki when Go Yoo Han gets up from his chair. When I look his way, he’s wearing his mask. His plate is clean and empty.

“I’m leaving first because I have some business to do!”

He says that and goes out. Usually he finishes eating quickly, but fiddles with his phone or does something else, but now he left.

“If it’s that kind of business he’d usually wait.”

Says Jung Joo Haeng wonderingly while looking at the place Go Yoo Han just left, and then continues eating. Until a moment ago, I missed the peace without Go Yoo Han, but without him the silence makes me feel awkward.

Kang Min Jae and Jung Joo Haeng go to the school library, and I go to the schoolyard. I’m slowly walking around alone when I feel like I can hear my name somewhere. I think my last name is quite common, and my name is not very rare, but I look at the side of the building anyways, because I can see other kids looking that way too.

“Choi Yeon Woo!”

I can see someone on the fourth floor with his upper body out of a window. It looks small, but I can see hair fluttering in the wind and his right hand waving energetically.

It’s Go Yoo Han.

As soon as I realize that, I get so much light I can see the color of the building shining with a silver gray glow. It looks similar to the color of the back of my hand, but it’s foggy as a mixture of dust, and the first and second floors are light grey. The sand on the schoolyard is yellowish, some places are brighter and some places dark as death*. I see kids throwing sand up in the wind and making it scatter around. *he literally says this.

As my legs give in, I can see the sky. Looking at the sky dotted with white clouds, I think a question that children would ask…

‘Why is the sky blue?”

But in my eyes, the sky isn’t blue, it’s a color that looks like deep water to a degree I can’t know how deep it is.

***

When I open my eyes, I see the playground again. I’m wondering why it isn’t the nurse’s office, but there’s something on my head and my back is stiff. I’m lying on my side, and when I look to the right, I see watermelon color.

“Oh, Yeon Woo, you’re awake?”

When I hear Go Yoo Han’s voice I realize that I fainted in the schoolyard because of the color rush. That’s pathetic. It’s not like I got sunstroke, but I fainted. When I look up, he’s wearing his mask.

“Don’t frown your pretty face.”

“I’m not pretty!”

I’m annoyed so I answer sharply. I try to get up because It’s like he’s patting my head, but it’s the opposite, I can’t get up because he’s holding my head. I think about pinching his thigh. *WAIT. HE’S LEANING ON HIS SHOULDER ASFDGSFSAG.

“I didn’t know you’d faint from a distance.”

Don’t make excuses. I’m about to say that, but suddenly Go Yoo Han’s hand appears in my sight. There’s a baby pink fingernail at the end of the extended index finger, and a crescent-shaped white fingernail grew a little after it.

“Don’t make excuses.”

At the moment I got confused by Go Yoo Han’s pointing so the timing for answering was delayed.

“Mustard color.”

I look up at Go Yoo Han, but his left hand is still holding my head and his right hand is pointing forwards. Towards the schoolyard.

“It’s not sand color?”

“Mm, you can also call it sand color. But there’s no sand color in the KS 0011.”

“That it’s not there doesn’t mean that it’s not a color name.”

At those words his left hand moves slowly on my head. It feels like he’s petting a puppy, so I grab his left hand thinking that I really should erase it this time.

“But I think I should teach My Yeon Woo about colors properly, so I will only teach you the official colors.”

I hesitate a bit at those words. I grab his left hand and get up. We’re sitting on the stairs of the schoolyard, so I sit like Go Yoo Han.

I have long arms, so I don’t seem to be hurt anywhere from the fainting. As I confirm my injuries, I think about Go Yoo Han’s left arm.

“Does your arm hurt?”

“My Yeon Woo, are you worried about me?”

I shouldn’t have asked. This is why people don’t have to worry about others. Still, he lifts his arm. Everything that looked like bruises last time is gone. He looks at me with twinkling eyes, so I look back to the schoolyard in case he asks me to do ho~ for him again.

“Everything I was gifted with when I was born is fine and it healed well.”

“What were you gifted with?”

“Face, body, aegyo!”

And then he pokes my right cheek. When I turn to look at him, he winks his left eye at me. I don’t need a demonstration of something I don’t want to see*. *the aegyo. Also, trust me Yeon Woo, you want to see the body.

“Isn’t the old saying that the youngest of three siblings will be taken without even seeing his face?”

Wasn’t it about the younger of three daughters, though? And what’s the meaning of taking someone else’s kid?

Unbelievably, he makes a V sign with both hands and aligns the tips of his fingers to the tips of the eyebrows and the tips of the cheekbones. If you want to lock your eyes in between the fingers, it really serves the purpose, otherwise it’s useless.

“Aren’t you going to ask about me being the youngest of three siblings now?”

He introduces the topic himself and then demands questions about it. Still, I like the endless blue color of the sky, so I turn my eyes towards the sky and indulge him.

“Ah… three siblings?”

“Mm. Hyung, nuna, me.” *Hyung, a male’s older brother. Nuna, a male’s older sister.

“Mm.”

“… is that it?”

“What else am I supposed to be curious about?”

“Hey, age difference, for hyung, nuna, what does she do?”

Why should I be curious about that? *Because the person you’re talking to is already planning your wedding, baby.

There is something I am curious about.

“Is the sky’s color sky blue?”

“Mm. There’s sky blue, but right now I’d say it’s more of a deep water color than sky blue.”

There’s really a color called deep water, and it feels like that too?

I’m surprised at the words and look at Go Yoo Han.

“My Yeon Woo, you’re not curious about me at all, but you’re curious about the colors?” *pout alert!

I can’t answer or nod my head at those words. During the day Go Yoo Han was not around, I thought quite seriously about accepting his deal. I can leave when my aunt comes back anyways. In the meantime, I wondered what’s wrong with learning some colors, but I also thought it’s following in the steps of people who do stupid things.

Go Yoo Han stares right through me with his caramel eyes. I drop my eyes and then look back at the sky. When I dropped my eyes, I got offended because I saw Go Yoo Han’s legs stretch down a step further than mine. While looking at the sky, which he said is a deep water color, I ask the question that came to mind before I fainted.

“Why is the sky blue?”

When I was younger, I learned things about scattering and whatever.

“Because blue is the most popular color.”

“What?”

I thought there would definitely be an explanation about scattering or light visibility, but he comes up with something else entirely. I don’t understand so I look up at Go Yoo Han, and turn my eyes away again. I know it’s because of the iris’ pattern, but it’s hard to look into Go Yoo Han’s eyes because the caramel color mixes with a bit of a darker color and a bit of a shiny glow. I have no choice but to look at the watermelon color school pants.

“You’re a science major, right?”

“Finally, My Yeon Woo! Are you curious about me~?”

“Not curious, doubtful.”

I’m suspicious of what he’s saying. Does it make sense that the sky is blue because it is a color that people like? *Honestly? Best explanation I’ve ever seen on the subject.

“I came to science because the kids from liberal arts smoke a lot, and Jung Joo Haeng said he was coming to science, so I followed him.”

The first reason is just an excuse, the second seems real. So, I’m a little bit nervous. No, isn’t it unfair to follow other people’s path and make it your own? Besides of how close he is with Jung Joo Haeng and how he covered for him yesterday… But I don’t translate these thoughts into words. Go Yoo Han likes me to be interested in him, and he likes to know about me. Well, maybe it’s okay if it’s not me? He did say he’s a former attention seeker…

“My aunt smokes.”

“And you?”

“I don’t like it. We live together, so the smell is inevitable sometimes.”

I feel Go Yoo Han leaning towards me. He puts his nose on my right shoulder, breathes in slowly and exhales. I can feel his warm breath over my shoulder. It feels as if the spot he breathed in is wet. It can’t be that wet that I feel it. * O/////////O

“There’s no smell.”

“If there was, you wouldn’t like me?” *Hello, Yeon Woo, it’s me again, YOU’RE FLIRTING.

Since he said he doesn’t like cigarettes, I thought that if I smell like cigarettes, he would go away from me. It’s a way of distancing myself, but, on the other hand, since I don’t intend on doing it… I shouldn’t have asked.

“Ah…” *ah…

Go Yoo Han looks up. His smiling face is a little stiff. The moment I see it, I’m sure I made a useless question. I uselessly wiggle my fingers.

“I’ll overcome it with affection!”

Yet, he answers that way with a bright voice soon, so I think I have no reason to worry. While I can see the colors, my emotions are sensitive. And Go Yoo Han’s emotions change rapidly according to each action. Or that’s what I think.

“Asides from your aunt, who else lives with you?”

He asks just as I was thinking how to tell him I only live with my aunt. I don’t know if Go Yoo Han spread the word that I’m mono or not. I don’t know why my mouth is heavy.

And the hardest part is, my dad is dead, but mom is not with me now. I think I should explain everything in detail. I… don’t know how that will turn out.

“No one.”

I snap at Go Yoo Han. There’s no one but my aunt who lives with me.

“What about pets? Dog, cat, hamster?”

“We don’t have any.”

“Then I have to be fourth closest to My Yeon Woo!”

“Why the fourth?”

“Because, I can’t beat your parents or the aunt you live with. We’ll be the closest after that.”

“No, we don’t need to be that close…”

“That way My Yeon Woo won’t faint.”

“Then all you have to do is keep your mask on.”

“When Mono and Probe get close, the fainting stops.”

When he says that, I can’t answer. It’s ambiguous. The fact that mono is exposed to probe itself is ambiguous. Is it okay if they get close without seeing probe’s face? That doesn’t mean I want to fall down in the schoolyard like I did earlier.

More than that, I’m looking for my mom, so I have no one but my aunt. He is already the third closest person I have after mom and aunt, but when he said he would go to the fourth place, it made me wonder what I should fill the third spot with… Still, I don’t want to tell him my personal situation.

“Does blue also have a lot of names?”

I want to change the subject. And I’m actually curious because of the blue sky behind the white clouds. Also, I want to hear Go Yoo Han naming colors like he did with pink.

“Blue is the most popular color, so it has the most names. Those officially registered are Blue, Blue Green, Deep Water Blue, Sky Blue, Cyan, Cerulean Blue, Pastel Blue, Powder Blue, Sky Gray, Sea Color, Mint Color, Prussian Blue, Indigo Blue, Cobalt Blue, Sapphire Blue, Southern Blue. Other colors include Azurite Blue, Ultramarine, Azure, Delft Blue, Royal Blue, French Turquoise, Turquoise, Empire Blue, Indian Blue, Aqua Blue, Marine Blue, Lavender Blue, Prussian Blue, Egyptian Blue, Matisse Blue, Lapis Lazuli, Nattier Blue, Picasso Blue, Vermeer Blue, Klein Blue, Murillo Blue, Jasper Blue, Jiang Blue, Medici Blue, Azulejo Blue, Majorica Blue, Copenhagen Blue, Sport Blue, Saxe Blue, Versailles, Tulli.”

“Oh?”

At that moment I feel I can hear a word that should not be a color a color name. Go Yoo Han stops talking at my reaction, opens his eyes wide, blinks, and asks without hiding his smile.

His eyes are full of laughter.

“What? What sounded weird? There’s still a lot of names for blue.”

“No, that.”

No, of course there are many names for blue. I’ve heard some of them when Go Yoo Han studies them one by one, but there are also many names I heard for the first time. I felt good because he was telling me the names of the colors, so I was tapping my foot at the rhythm of the names, but stopped at one particular word. Ah, that’s not what I’m trying to do. No, one word came in weirdly.

“That… there’s a word in blue that doesn’t fit.”

“Which one? Color names are derived from people, from regions, and from countries. I don’t know what’s wrong…?”

He totally knows. He knows but is pretending not to know. I say the words directly thinking he’s teasing me.

“You said sex blue.” *They are homonyms and homographs in Korean, sex and Saxe 섹스 (블루), so no faulties on Yeon Woo here.

“Mm.”

I’m embarrassed because Go Yoo Han nods his head so calmly. No, well, that word doesn’t necessarily mean that, it can also refer to a simple gender.

“Is that really a color name?”

“The name comes from a southern Germany state near the Elbe River. S.A.X.E. B.L.U.E.”

I knew he was fooling around! That’s not at all how he pronounced it before! He set a trap and hoped I’d get caught. My face feels feverish. I shouldn’t have asked! Today is a day when I ask a lot of useless questions!

Go Yoo Han leans his head against my shoulder, I can feel him shaking with laughter. The more he holds it in, the more I feel my face heat up.

“Ah, Yeon Woo, you’re so cute.”

“Go ahead and laugh.”

“No, it’s actually a rather good approach. In the seven deathly sins, lust is represented by blue. So, it could be sex blue.”

Then he raises his head and puts his chin on my shoulder. I’d rather he just laugh out loud, but I can hear him better now because he’s leaning on my shoulder and talking right next to my ear. I feel my ears getting hot.

“Chartre Blue, Majorelle Blue, Louis Philippe, Pompadour, Madonna Blue, Napoleon Blue, Marie Louise Blue, Amish Blue, Tiffany Blue, Guimet Blue, Millory Blue, Thenard Blue, Ceylon Blue, Ward, Electric Blue, Baby Blue, Cambridge Blue, Candy Blue, Celest, Cerulean Blue, Cornflower Blue, Enamel Blue, Dock Blue, Fog Blue, Fogget Minat, Frosty Blue, Garter Blue, Gentian Blue, Horizon Blue, Hyacinth, Hydrangea Blue, Ink Blue, Iron Blue, Jay Blue, Lapis Lazuli, Majorica Blue, Midnight Blue, Moonlight Blue, Navy Blue, Nile Blue, Oriental Blue, Old Blue, Porcelain Blue, Peacock Blue, Salvia Blue, Slate Blue, Supreme, Smalt, Teal Blue, Wedgewood Blue, Janice Blue.”

Go Yoo Han lifts his chin and sits up. His head is still turned towards me. The blue colors Go Yoo Han was talking about are over, but there were so many I can’t remember much. In addition, I forgot everything because he teased me in the middle of it.

“Is that all?”

“If we search, there will be more, but this is all I can remember now.”

“…mm. Thanks.”

“Thanks for telling you the colors?”

I wonder whether to shake my head or nod at those words. While listening to the names of blue, decoloring came, and Go Yoo Han’s eyes are no longer caramel. The sky is also colorless, and judging from the number of kids in the schoolyard, there’s not much lunch time left. I get up from my seat.

“We should go. We’ll be late.”

“Yeon Woo-yah.”

Go Yoo Han is still sitting down. He stretches both arms towards me.

“I can’t get up, help me up.”

As I reach for his hands, thinking it will be difficult to pull him up since he’s taller than me, he adds his remark. With very playful eyes.

“I was trying so hard to say all the names of blue, and then Saxe, but you said sex. It surprised me so much, I can’t get up.”

I turn around with my hands straight up. I leave Go Yoo Han sitting alone and head towards the classroom. He gets up right away and follows behind me, saying nonsense all the way.

“My Yeon Woo’s face and ears are coral color right now.”

What color is coral?! I ignore him and he calls ‘Yeon Woo’ several times, but I don’t look back. My face, ears and neck have become feverish. It’s only mid-March but it’s too hot for spring.

It’s all Go Yoo Han’s fault.

-

Go Yoo Han pushes his face in front of mine for no reason. He seems to want to say something, but doesn’t, so Jung Joo Haeng asks instead:

“Ah, what is it?”

Go Yoo Han looks directly at him at this.

“Ah, My Yeon Woo is a minor, so I can’t say it.”

He says I’m a minor and his birthday is less likely to be earlier than mine. Jung Joo Haeng looks at me as if he feels sorry for me. He knows I’m being teased a lot.

“What kind of mistake he made by chance.”

Fortunately, Jung Joo Haeng doesn’t show curiosity and moves his eyes to the workbook.

“I think that from today onwards my favorite color will be blue. Thanks to My Yeon Woo.”

I try to ignore him because he’s talking nonsense, but my face heats up again. Break times come too often and last too long.

Finally, it’s time to leave school, but strangely, Go Yoo Han is mingling. Only last week he acted as if he was afraid I would disappear in a moment, though?

“Get home safely.”

I leave the classroom with that farewell. Go Yoo Han doesn’t follow, so I think something might be amiss. I hurry back home thinking I had a hard time all afternoon due to my curiosity. I turn on the computer after sending a message to my aunt telling her I’m home.

I look at the crawled activity again, but I can’t find any clues. I keep wondering if everything is a coincidence. I get tired of looking over and over again at the posts of those who stopped being online, so I skim through the recent posts of those who haven’t. There’s something that catches my eye.

A daily post thread about raising a saving account for a probe surgery.

Probe surgery… The stimulation that seeing the probe’s face causes the brain can actually be mimicked with surgery, making mono able to see colors. It’s not an easy operation because it’s brain surgery and electrical stimulation devices need to be inserted. The biggest problem is that it’s not covered by health insurance. Since it’s non-insurance, the surgery itself is a lucrative operation like Lasik and Lasek, but due to the difficulty level, there is a limited number of places where it’s actually performed.

There’s also the problem of the surgical environment. And it has quite a number of side effects, so probe surgery it’s not performed unless the case is really extreme.

This person says they’re preparing for the surgery anyways because “I still want to see the colors.”

I was so jealous when other monos told me about color rush! It motivates me to save money!

Looking at this person saving money like that, even my color rush, which is surrounded by worries, would make them envious. But if you get the probe surgery, you don’t get obsessed with probe.

While thinking this, I come up with a point of distinction for the disappearances. It’s not known whether there is a probe, whether they have experienced color rush, or if they are still with their probe. It will show up if it’s mentioned.

The term probe itself is too common to find the word mono linked to it in a simple search. I look mainly through the posts of people who are not missing, I start checking the nuance of never have been exposed to a probe.

Nine out of ten people who are online, except for the one raising money for probe surgery.

Until now, I had thought about separating only interests, ages and regions. I didn’t think monos could have a difference amongst themselves. The biggest difference is between those who have met probe and experienced color rush, and those who haven’t.

One person wrote that a friend teased him with black-and-white and original-colored pictures and pointed out that the two looked different. He teased that he had never seen colors, but he could see more diverse tones.

I’m a little angry at the moment. I look at the cover “Do you like circles?” on top of my desk with disgust… I try to console myself with the fact that Go Yoo Han showed me the colors and told me the names. This is the worst consolation. A comforting method of saying one’s condition is a little better compared to others.

But what I can see it’s better than what I can’t see. There’s still a long way to go to get what people call a sense of color, but Go Yoo Han will show me. What kind of names people say after seeing a color? How do you call the colors? How does Go Yoo Han calls them?

… I am thinking too much about nothing. I take out ‘Do you like circles?’ and look at the cover with only nine circles. No matter how much I look at it, I can’t see the colors I saw at the bookstore. In addition, I am caught up in other thoughts, so it gets late.

There’s still a lot of people to check.

***

“Yeon Woo-yah.”

“What.”

“Why is even your name, Choi Yeon Woo, so pretty?”

Go Yoo Han starts a quarrel since the morning. He even trips over a person’s name.

“My Yeon Woo, do you have claustrophobia?”

I wonder why he’s asking that, but I nod anxiously because I see he’s smiling so hard his eyes are not visible. Then his smiling eyes loosen and he looks at me with round eyes.

“You have claustrophobia?”

Jung Joo Haeng asks while solving a workbook next to me. I shake my head at the question.

“I don’t. But I think I might If I’m with Go Yoo Han.”

“Ah, ah.”

Jung Joo Haeng nods as if he understands and turns his eyes back to the workbook. Go Yoo Han makes a ‘Hiing’ sound and folds his index finger under his eye. I can see his mouth pouting under the mask. Where did you lose your tongue that you talk like a kid now?

“Yoo Han-ie will stay with Yeon Woo because he’s scared.”

Don’t you think the scariest person right now is you? Or you don’t think I’m someone who can do something scary myself? I’m the mono, you’re the probe here.

“As I said before…”

I try to explain it again, but I shut my mouth. There are other kids in the classroom. I don’t need to say that I’m mono and he’s my probe. There’s no need to promote it on purpose.

I feel sorry for Jung Joo Haeng, who is solving the workbook. Whenever something happens, he tries to fix it.

“Don’t look at Joo Haeng, look at me!”

The burden that Goo Yoo Han and the homeroom teacher threw away, I don’t even think about how they must have whined at Jung Joo Haeng to help me. I can’t help but to look away.

Then, although it’s spring with a lot of traces of winter yet, I feel sorry for Go Yoo Han who has to wear a mask all the time. I’m really going to transfer when my aunt comes back.

“Let’s go to the science lab today during lunch!”

“Why the science lab?”

As I ask this question, the physics teacher comes in. It’s obvious to anyone watching that he’s a 'I like hero movies’ teacher. Right now, there’s a hero movie poster on the t-shirt he’s wearing. It’s strange that when Go Yoo Han sees the teacher he smiles and waves, the teacher makes a “Ho!” sound and smiles, then begins class. It’s very suspicious.

***

Today’s lunch is hamburger steak with seaweed soup. But surprisingly, the perilla leaf that comes with it is delicious. I wonder what kind of combination this is.

“Don’t you have to give more soup if I don’t want steak?”

Kang Min Jae gets up slowly as Jung Joo Haeng grumbles a little. When Kang Min Jae came out with an eco-bag, I thought it would be to go to the library and study, but he actually takes out a cup noodle from the eco-bag. I only realize it when I see him getting hot water and stirring it, and then giving it to Jung Joo Haeng. Cup soup. He looks at Kang Min Jae in surprise. Kang Min Jae blows on the soup and slowly places it next to Jung Joo Haeng with a relaxed expression.

“Yesterday, the grandpa said you would want to eat soup.”

When I first transferred, the grandpa’s cold eyes when he said he didn’t see me at graduation gave me goosebumps. No, he probably just guessed Jung Joo Haeng would want to eat soup? Or he just saw the meal ticket and knew Jung Joo Haeng would want to eat soup? No, that’s more likely that the grandpa knowing, right?

Jung Joo Haeng’s eyes look bigger because he’s surprised. But it’s not noticeable because

of the thick lenses.

“Oh, thanks.”

Then he grabs the soup and eats it, but his glasses fog up, so he takes them off. I feel again that his lenses really are very thick. I can see his eyes and his nose now, and he doesn’t even look surprised.

I stopped eating out of surprise during all this, but I see Go Yoo Han ate everything and has his mask back on.

“And mine?”

Kang Min Jae says nothing while drinking his seaweed soup.

“It would be good if this was cucumber soup.”

“Is only Jung Joo Haeng your friend?! What about me? Why don’t you look after me too? Or are you getting close to Jung Joo Haeng because he’s the class president?”

Jung Joo Haeng looks at Go Yoo Han as if dumbfounded.

“You. We’ve been friends since elementary school, and you’ve known Min Jae since last year, but you only ever take care of Yeon Woo.”

“Ah, Yeon Woo is very special. It’s different, different.”

“But I’d rather stop being your friend than wait for you to take care of me.”

Jung Joo Haeng says this while gulping down the soup and Kang Min Jae nods. Go Yoo Han looks directly at me and shakes his finger in denial.

“You’re pretty when you feel wronged, too.”

“I’m not pretty.”

During lunch, I am a little surprised by the soup incident and slightly upset by Go Yoo Han’s nonsense. After lunch, Jung Joo Haeng and Kang Min Jae head towards the library, and Go Yoo Han leads me to the science lab. I’m a little nervous. Why do we have to go to the science lab? Besides, what is the meaning of that interaction with the teacher during physics class?

The image of Go Yoo Han telling him brightly “I have a Mono, I am Probe, let me do a biological experiment!”, pops into my head. No way, it can’t be like that. When we enter the empty science lab Go Yoo Han looks at me again.

“Do you have claustrophobia?”

“I do.”

“You didn’t in the morning!”

“I’ve told you before.”

I check that there’s no one in the science lab or the hallways to listen to us, and continue.

“I’m a Mono. A lot of monos obsess with probes. Think about it… you don’t know what is going to happen if we stay together in a closed space.”

“That, now…” Go Yoo Han covers his cheeks with both hands and blinks deliberately. I think I flipped the nonsense switch on. “Are you saying you’re going to eat me?”

“… no, it’s just that I’m nervous when I’m in a closed space with you.”

“Because I’m your probe?”

“No, because you’ll say something meaningless again.”

“I’ve never said anything meaningless, I’m serious all the time.”

Then he winks his right eye and I automatically hold my forehead. He grabs my wrist and heads for one of the doors of the science lab.

“Are you afraid of the dark?”

“No.”

“Then come here.”

Inside the door, there are a lot of science supplies, as if it is a warehouse of sorts. He goes in first and drags my wrist. When I come in, Go Yoo Han closes the door and there’s no space to move around. There’s no window, and no light comes through the door. I can’t move because it’s so dark, there’s a rustling sound and then a cellphone flash is lit towards the floor.

“Ah, I really can’t see.”

He looks for something with the light turned towards the floor so it won’t be blinding. He grabs my shoulders and pushes me back slowly. My legs touch a chair and I sit down awkwardly.

“Sit here for a second and look at me.”

He tells me this and then comes into my sight. I can see his eyes and the outline of his face without a mask. The light is weak, so there’s little color around it. I didn’t think color rush would happen, but I feel it sink in as my body gradually loosens. Go Yoo Han extends the hand not holding the cellphone and wraps it around the back of my head. Since it’s a stool, I must have been gradually laying back. I thought there was no color rush, but I can see Go Yoo Han’s bangs that look extremely black, the straight forehead beneath them, neat eyebrows and caramel colored eyes. And then I notice a reddish membrane between his eyes and his eyelashes, is that cherry blossom color? That’s what I think. Or I think I do. The boundary of consciousness is gradually blurring. When I lower my eyes some more, I think I see something redder, but Go Yoo Han’s face looks like a brief illusion before I faint and it disappears.

When I slowly open my eyes, my neck is tilted to one side, and I can feel my head and my body leaning to the left. I slowly raise my head to the feeling of cloth touching my cheek.

“Did you wake up?”

I quickly get used to the darkness, maybe because I fainted and woke up. I feel like I can see a person’s face.

“I wanted to show My Yeon Woo a rainbow, but it hasn’t rained lately.”

I can hear Go Yoo Han’s voice close to me, I guess I’m leaning on him while sitting side by side. As I try to raise my body, a light shoots up from the floor, it’s not like a cellphone flash, it’s more like a laser. I move my eyes as the light moves, as soon as it comes up and touches something like glass, light spreads on the opposite wall.

“Prism.”

The spread of light creates a spectrum of colors on the opposite wall. One end is red and the other is purple. It’s different from any color I’ve ever seen. Without realizing it, I get up from the chair and approach the wall.

“Uh, uh.”

With that sound, Go Yoo Han catches the stand that holds the prism to spread the light, I must have touched it when I got up. But it was soon adjusted again. I stop moving and look at Go Yoo Han, the wall is overflowing with the reflected colors, and they are also reflected on his side. Go Yoo Han, wearing a mask, looks at me with a long pen like a laser point in his left hand.

“Can I touch?”

“Me?”

Not that. I make a face and point to the wall with the colors.

“Mm. Everything is yours.”

I feel my heart pounding at those words. It’s different from the colors I’ve seen so far. It’s color made out of pure light. I know the theory, if you reflect only visible light in an area of a particular color, it will appear to be the color of that visible light. But it’s completely different. As the light disperses, the original color comes out.

When I go behind the prism, shadow falls and the color is covered. I look forwards and see the light immediately poured out on me. I shade my eyes with my right hand and look at the colors reflected on my body. I know it from memory, and I have seen a rainbow in gray, however, this is the first time I have seen it so closely, and with colors.

When I reach out my hand, it’s covered with a band of color, I grab the air because I want to somehow catch the color, but it’s only projected on it.

I say the names one by one while pointing at them. Every time I learned, every time I heard them, I didn’t know them, but I memorized them because I didn’t want to fall behind.

“Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Purple.”

Among these names, colors that are difficult to define as simple names are stacked one on top of the other. Furthermore, the colors shown here are different from the intense tones of the ones Go Yoo Han showed me on the color chart. It makes me feel excited that there really is light energy.

I fiddle with my hands and touch the prism; it only feels like glass.

“If you change the angle of the prism, the refraction changes, so one side looks longer.”

He tilts the prism slightly at his own words. As light passes to the narrow side, the rainbow narrows overall, and as it is turned to the thicker side, it spreads widely. This is why people like rainbows. It’s just floating on the sky, but it’s so pretty. It would have been prettier in the sky, not in the dark science lab warehouse. Of course, it’s beautiful when it’s in front of you like this. Like you can breathe it in.

When I’m playing with the rainbow colors, Go Yoo Han turns off the light. Suddenly the light disappears and everything stops there. And I’m embarrassed because I’m angry, and I’m also angry at myself.

I get that I’m angry because he got rid of it when I was in the rainbow. But I also understand that I wasn’t the one who prepared this rainbow, it was Go Yoo Han, so he can stop showing it. However, understanding it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt my feelings.

Go Yoo Han switches on the incandescent ceiling light of the warehouse. I can’t see around the sudden light, and maybe because I’m so angry, once my eyes get used to the light, I’m in the world of gray again. Seeing a rainbow just now feels like a dream.

“Let’s go back to class.”

“Show me again.”

I point to the wall where the rainbow was, and to the prism in its stand. Go Yoo Han doesn’t even wear a watch, but he taps his wrist and says:

“Lunch time is almost over”

I don’t even want to go to class, but I can’t just skip because I want to. I’m about to open the door to the warehouse, but Go Yoo Han grabs the handle first and looks at me. I’m more disappointed that I can’t see the rainbow any more than I am grateful to Go Yoo Han who showed it to me in the first place. I myself think it’s very ugly to think like this. I want to grab him by the collar, even though he only tried to show me the colors earlier, even though I know I shouldn’t be greedy.

“Yeon Woo-yah.”

“You said let’s go to class.”

“I’ll only wait until this week.”

I’m about to ask ‘what?’, but stop. Even this rainbow was part of his tutoring demonstrations. I still don’t understand why he wants such an exchange. If it’s my face, he’s already been looking at it enough in the classroom. I can’t easily answer to tell me the colors.

“As I said before, all the colors in the world are yours. But I’m the one to show them to you. That’s why…”

He puts the laser point and the prism in my hand.

“Answer me by this week.”

As he opens the door, I can’t answer the subject that keeps being brought up by him, because I’m still scared. I’m afraid that if I do that, I would keep Go Yoo Han and the prism in this room, and obsess over the color.

I’m embarrassed by the fact that I’m angry, but I can’t control my anger.

***