Chapter 3

-03-

The track field smelled like flowers. There weren’t any flowers, though: it was just a trick of the season.

As Jin Nana’s arm was still injured he was exempt from physical activities. But he couldn’t be left alone in the classroom, so he was asked to be out in the field.

Nana didn’t want to associate with the smell of nonexistent flowers, the sunlight, nor the other students in his class. He didn’t have any particular reason to be angry but was still annoyed.

He wanted to get away from everything, but the classroom door had been locked when they headed out to P.E. Nana couldn’t go into the secluded gym storage room either: somebody could figure out where he was going. Even if the storage room wasn’t his private space, it was a place that only he knew. He wanted to keep it that way. Nana headed over to a bench under the shade.

It was pure coincidence that he chose to look up right then and there. Nana didn’t move his head for any particular reason, but his eyes caught Ha Yeonjae. Nana wasn’t too sure if their eyes had met, but he had seen Ha Yeonjae and Yeonjae had looked at Nana.

Yeonjae waved his hand from the classroom window on the second floor. It was the arm with the cast. When Nana didn’t respond to his wave, he mouthed,

“Hi.”

Nana refused to respond. Regardless of the fact that he wouldn’t hear it, Yeonjae was in the middle of class. Nana just looked at Yeonjae’s eyes, then turned around. Before Nana could look elsewhere, he waved again.

Nana sat down on the bench and looked at his arm.

But regardless of him coming home with his face beaten in, his father stopped coming home one day.

And instead, a strange boy came into his life.

xx