Jae: to be. Won: flow of water.

Jae-won: A person in a flowing place.

Son Jae-won.

That was my name.

***

What is a father? Ordinary individuals would give different answers to this seemingly innocuous question. One might say that a father was the coolest person, a reliable person with broad shoulders, a silent person, a person who was shy but did not show it…

But Son Jae-won called his father a hero. He felt this way simply because, whenever he saw his father, he always thought his father was cool. His father was a Superman-like figure with broad shoulders who could do anything, even though his father sometimes showed weakness in front of his mother. Still, Jae-won thought his father was the greatest.

Probably due to this, from an early age, Son Jae-won used to follow his father, unlike other children who mainly followed their mothers.

“Ugh! Fine. In a household full of men, this mother is always getting bullied! Bullied!”

When Jae-won became old enough to understand his mother and father’s words and their meaning, he always tried to receive his mother’s complaints with grace and understanding. “M-M-Mom. It’s not that…”

“Forget it.”

“Wait, it’s really not like that. Aw.”

His mother’s reactions were often an opportunity for her to play around with her son’s cute and naïve reactions.

Anyway, Son Jae-won was an only child, and he grew up with a lot of love from his parents. There was nothing special about his upbringing. In Korea, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, a household like Jae-won’s could be easily and commonly found.

***

It was around the age of six that Son Jae-won realized that he was different from ordinary people. Until then, Son Jae-won had always thought he was no different from other children his age.

Although he was on the weaker side physically, Jae-won liked to play with his peers on the playground and preferred to run outside than study indoors. He often played late at a friend’s house and even ate dinner with his friend’s family, or, before that could happen, his mother would grab him by the collar and drag him back to their home.

However, at some point, Son Jae-won got tired of those things. No, a more exact expression was that he felt all those actions were childish. He was like a child who became an adult overnight.

Jae-won suddenly just felt like everything was useless. In the playground, he no longer climbed the jungle gym or played silly playground games. From a certain moment, he stopped playing outside and locked himself up in his room, concentrating on reading books.

Although he had only recently learned the Korean alphabet, Hangeul, Jae-won started voraciously reading various types of literature, from encyclopedias to the specialized subject books his parents had studied from in university. Even when his friends visited his house to play, they were essentially shunned and kicked out because Jae-won was too busy reading. In this way, Jae-won became bored and lost interest in everything.

Naturally, during this period, Son Jae-won’s parents became concerned. However, Son Jae-won did not even care about his parents’ concerns. It was as if he had fallen into a world of his own. At some point, Jae-won stopped smiling altogether and became as expressionless as a plastic doll.

“He has a fairly high mental IQ. Based on the Wexler evaluation, Jae-won would score in the top 0.1%... On the other hand, his emotional IQ is on the very low side. It seems that his emotional senses have become blunted as his mental faculties rapidly developed.”

At some point, desperate to fix the situation, his parents visited a hospital with Son Jae-won.

“There doesn’t seem to be any other abnormalities, so it’s difficult for me to say if it’s better to intervene or just let things naturally progress. I think it would be good for the development of the child if both parents spend more time doing fun things with Jae-won. Perhaps that will allow Jae-won to stimulate and regain his emotional senses.”

The one good thing was that Jae-won always smiled when he was with his parents. The doctor added that explanation at the end of his comments.

Thus, from then on, both of Jae-won’s parents tried to spend more time with Jae-won. Since both parents were working, they had busy schedules, but somehow, they made time for their child and tried to bring back the laughter that their child had lost. Ordinary parents would have probably made their child study more when they heard the word ‘gifted,’ but both of Jae-won’s parents did not care about such things. Perhaps thanks to such efforts, Son Jae-won was able to grow up, to some extent, as an ‘ordinary’ child.

***

By the time he was in high school, Son Jae-won had become a child no different from other children his age. The only difference was that, despite being at an age where conflicts with parents could be severe due to the raging hormones of puberty, Jae-won exhibited no signs of such rebelliousness. Perhaps this was thanks to his harmonious family environment.

Jae-won liked books and laughed a lot. Although he did not make many friends and was not at a level where one would say he was doing well in his studies, unlike when Jae-won was young and considered a mentally exceptional child, Jae-won was now much more honest in expressing his emotions.

One fateful day, a day not much different from any other day, it was the same daily routine of waking up early in the morning, eating a delicious breakfast prepared by his mother, and hitching a ride to school in his father’s car when his father went out to work. On that day, Jae-won arrived much earlier than his other classmates.

However, Jae-won did not really care, as this happened regularly. Moreover, he enjoyed reading quietly in the empty morning classroom. Originally, it was a bustling place where many students noisily gathered, but when Jae-won was alone in the classroom, he could enjoy the strange pleasure of occupying a large space by himself.

“… Huh?”

However, on that day, there was a classmate who had arrived earlier than Jae-won. The classmate was small and scrawny, always hunched over and seemed to always have a downcast shadow across her face. Jae-won recalled that this classmate was not able to make many friends. Son Jae-won was also somewhat of an outcast in the class, but this classmate was much further out on the outcast spectrum. He also recalled hearing that his classmate’s home environment was not favorable.

However, since he was young, Son Jae-won extremely disliked paying attention to others, so he exhibited no interest in this classmate. Why should Jae-won care about his classmate’s poor family circumstances? What did it have to do with him? Jae-won only regretted that he would not be able to enjoy his precious solitary reading time that morning.

“Hi.” At that moment, Jae-won met eyes with his classmate.

Instead of being alone in a classroom with no one around, when hearing a buzz early in the morning, Jae-won and his classmate had turned their heads reflexively. His classmate, whose face seemed darker than usual, became startled when their eyes met and hurriedly fixed her gaze to another place. Thanks to this, Son Jae-won was not able to say anything more than a greeting.

‘Wow. If she ignores me like that, no matter how much I don’t mind what others think or do, I’d get my feelings hurt.’ Son Jae-won grumbled as he sat down in his seat in the farthest corner at the back of the classroom. The classmate, who came first, was seated so far in front of the classroom that Jae-won could only see her back.

‘By the way, she’s…pretty, isn’t she? I recall others sneaking glances at her. Well, she’s still not as pretty as my mother.’ Son Jae-won was thinking about this and that before placing his earphones in his ear. Whether he should pretend to be wounded by such an unfriendly response was just something he thought about. Once Jae-won opened his book, he forgot about his classmate. Perhaps because of that, he was unaware that his classmate turned her head and secretly spied on him.

***

Min Chae-young seemed to be her name, but Jae-won did not really care to know. After that morning, Jae-won found that she was always present in the classroom before he arrived, so he was essentially forced to memorize her name. If one could not memorize a classmate’s name after seeing their nameplate on their uniform every day, then one was not just an idiot but a being that lacked intelligence.

Son Jae-won’s grades put him in the middle of his class, but he was proud that he was judged as gifted when he was young. However, he did not have any friends to brag about this fact to.

Anyway, every morning, Son Jae-won greeted Min Chae-young with a hello or hi. Whenever that happened, Min Chae-young would always be startled and turn her head away or lower her line of sight. She never properly responded to Jae-won’s greeting.

‘If you don’t accept my greeting, I’m going to just do it until you accept it.’ At a certain point, Son Jae-won became fixated on this pursuit of getting a response. He continued to greet his classmate with the singular thought that she would have to receive his greeting at some point.

Min Chae-young, too, was dumbfounded at first by Jae-won’s persistence, but after a month passed, and after two or three months, she felt that she needed to respond in some fashion. Thus, she started lightly tilting her head or replying with an acknowledging glance. However, Jae-won never received a ‘hello’ or ‘hi’ back from her.

Even so, it could be said that this simple exchange alone was a great step forward in their relationship. Son Jae-won thought that, one day, he would be able to get a response back from her. In addition, his initial thought that he was deprived of his ‘empty morning classroom’ gradually took on the interpretation that he was in ‘a classroom with Min Chae-young but empty otherwise’. At a certain point, Jae-won got used to the situation.

“…”

“…”

At seven in the morning, with no one yet at school, an empty and cold classroom, Room 1-7, was occupied by two students. At that moment, Min Chae-young lifted her head high for the first time and glanced at Son Jae-won, who was concentrating on his reading.

***

‘She’s not here today? Where did she go?’ Son Jae-won tilted his head as soon as he opened the classroom door. Min Chae-young, who he expected to be present, was not there. He looked at her desk, wondering if she had gone to the restroom, but there was no sign that she had come to school.

When Min Chae-young took over his spot as the first person in their classroom, Jae-won had tried to get to school before her, but every time, he failed. Thus, Son Jae-won was thrown off by her absence today. ‘Well, I guess she must have overslept today.’

In fact, if one viewed this scenario objectively, it was weird that Son Jae-won and Min Chae-young arrived at school before seven in the morning every school day.

Son Jae-won thought that Chae-young missing one day was understandable. In fact, at least once or twice a month, Son Jae-won would oversleep and not arrive at school during his usual time. He thought that today was such a day for Min Chae-young. On the one hand, Jae-won thought this was a good opportunity to enjoy his morning alone time in a leisurely manner. But soon…

‘It’s…a little boring being all alone.’ Son Jae-won did not open his book but rather, unknowingly, glanced at Min Chae-young’s seat and the entrance to the classroom alternately. He could not concentrate on reading. Min Chae-young had already become a part of his morning routine.

***

However, Min Chae-young did not attend school that day. She was absent. Moreover, her absences continued. She was not in the classroom in the morning, nor did she ever show up to school.

So, Son Jae-won started worrying. Even when people ditched school, even if a victim reported bullying and school violence to the police…he had never shown interest in any major incidents at school. But for some reason, he found it too difficult to get Min Chae-young out of his mind. So, he asked Min Chae-young’s seat partner and the other classmates who sat around her if they heard about her whereabouts.

“Chae-young? I don’t know either.”

“Well, something must have come up at home.”

The answers that came back every time were different versions of ‘I don’t know’. No one knew Min Chae-young’s contact information or address, and there were even students in the classroom who did not even know her name. To the class, Min Chae-young had a pretty face, but her visage was always too dark for anyone to approach and get close to her.

And when a month had passed…

“Chae-young has transferred to a completely different school. Just so you all know.” That was the extent of what the homeroom teacher said. Although Jae-won’s homeroom teacher was known as someone who did not have much affection for his students and was relatively unpopular, Jae-won found it hard to accept this simple, uncaring explanation.

However…

“I don’t know. All I know is that it’s some personal circumstance.” The homeroom teacher gave a brief answer to Jae-won’s question. The homeroom teacher apparently knew more, but he seemed unwilling to say anything further.

Additionally, Son Jae-won felt a chill run down his spine after hearing his homeroom teacher’s cool response. He couldn’t articulate the reason for his response, but intuitively, he understood.

However…

‘Well…whatever. It’s not like something majorly bad happened to her.’ Son Jae-won forcibly squashed his rising anxiety. He had never been interested in other people so far, and he found it strange for him to suddenly be interested in another. He had met her every morning, but the conversations they had throughout that entire time would not have exceeded ten words. He was not even close friends with her.

She was a simple classmate, and Jae-won thought that this was all. He had no reason to dig further. It was not as if he could bring her back to school, and even if he did, he would only be seeing her in the mornings.

Thus, Son Jae-won just put all his thoughts about Min Chae-young out of his mind. At least, until he started hearing some strange rumors.