7. A Boy Out Of Reach
Y unho thinks he’s forgotten something, but he has no idea what it could be, when it could’ve happened, or if it happened at all. A memory that was never there in the first place, now unfolding. The Mandela effect.
“Oh my God, he stabbed him!” A girl shrieks, shaking Yunho out of his daze.
“Wooju!” Fear lays behind Yunho’s widening eyes as he sees the blood pooling from Wooju’s hands, dripping onto the floor and tainting his long white sleeves red.
The level of shock etched on Wooju’s face seems so intense that it renders both of them speechless.
Taehwan seems just as surprised as he retreats, his legs wobbling. Yunho decides to worry about him later. Wooju needs him right here, right now.
“Yunho, we need to take him to the clinic,” Hana urges.
“Hey, Wooju, are you okay?” Yunho asks, his forehead tensing and lips pursing as if suppressing a cry of panic. He unbuttons his outer shirt and binds it around Wooju’s injured hand, ignoring the spectators around them.
After securing the wrap, Yunho tugs Wooju out of the classroom and into the infirmary on the first floor.
As they enter, a female nurse with her hair pulled back in a neat bun greets them at the door. She wears a white coat over a silky green dress and a silver stethoscope around her neck. As soon as she spots the bloody shirt wrapped around Wooju’s hand, she guides them to an empty bed tucked in the corner before scurrying into the supply room.
Despite losing blood, Wooju’s puzzled gaze remains steady. Yunho can tell how much Wooju wants to pepper him with questions, but he wants to do the same. His mind is bustling with curiosity. Unsure of where to begin, Yunho chooses to help the nurse gather her treatment supplies first.
Meanwhile, Wooju lies still on the bed, applying pressure on the wound with his other hand.
A fleeting moment of silence envelops them.
Yunho drifts, his thoughts swirling in a spiral. He doesn’t realize the nurse has already finished bandaging Wooju’s wound until he hears his name.
“Ri Yunho,” Wooju mutters.
When Yunho jolts back to reality, the nurse is no longer in the room. It’s just him and Wooju.
Face to face.
Yunho’s face crinkles. “You know my name?”
Wooju doesn’t answer right away, and now Yunho can’t tell what’s going on in the boy’s mind. Not when Wooju is suddenly stoic, refusing to show the slightest bit of emotion. It’s like standing before a different person. It’s like the Wooju he once knew is long gone, erased from existence.
Who is this boy before him?
“Of course,” Wooju replies, his eyes vacant. “We’re in the same class, aren’t we?”
Yunho holds back a scoff. “So? Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
Why did you frame me? is what Yunho really wants to know. As if past Wooju would know what the future Wooju did to him. But he can’t get the words out of his mouth. Instead, Yunho asks, “Why did you block a box cutter with your hand knowing you’d get hurt?”
“I could ask you the same,” says Wooju. “Didn’t you save two of our classmates?”
“That’s different. Taehwan wasn’t holding a blade then,” Yunho retorts. “Unlike you, my arm’s fine.”
“It’s not a big deal.” Wooju ducks his head as he stares at his bandaged hand. “I’ve had worse.”
“You’ve had worse?” Yunho clenches his jaw as he fights a tear from materializing. “Well, you know what? I don’t give a damn what you think. This is a big deal for me,” he confesses, unable to comprehend why his mind and heart contradict each other so much it hurts.
He’s supposed to stay away from him.
Yunho screws his eyes shut and begs his tongue not to utter words he would later regret. He pleads with himself not to care about this boy anymore. But he cares too much, and it scares him because he doesn’t want Wooju to see through him. Yunho knows all too well that he is an easy man to read. He doesn’t know how to hide his emotions, let alone keep himself from crumbling.
“Just be honest with me,” Yunho demands. “Are you really okay? Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”
“I’m fine.” Wooju’s response is abrupt, toneless.
Yunho flutters his eyes open and draws his gaze back to Wooju, who’s neither smiling nor frowning.
“By the way,” Wooju adds, “thank you.”
Wooju doesn’t bow or smile with his eyes, like most thankful people do. He ambles past Yunho instead, his head hung low. His lips are as pale as the moon as he keeps his mouth shut, saying no more.
“Wait,” Yunho croaks. He swerves around to catch a final glimpse of Wooju’s face and calls his name. A plea.
“Wooju, wait.”
Wooju comes to a halt but doesn’t look back.
“Please avoid Taehwan and Jihoon,” Yunho manages to give a soft warning, antsy for a response.
A simple nod will do, he thinks to himself.
Yet Wooju gives him nothing.
Wooju simply stalks away from him and out the glass door without looking back. And the longer he watches Wooju, the farther Wooju retreats out of his reach.
So, Yunho runs after him.
As Yunho emerges from the infirmary, he spots Wooju by the corridor conversing with a taller man who appears to be in his late twenties, dressed sharply in a tieless black suit and impeccably styled side-swept hair.
It takes a few moments for Yunho to recognize the man: Wooju’s manager, Noh Jaehee.
“Didn’t I tell you to just skip school today?” Jaehee asks with a hint of irritation in his voice, then he tucks his hands in his pockets and studies his little star from head to toe. “What happened to your hand?”
“I’m sorry,” Wooju apologizes, eyes downcast.
“Are you?” Jaehee asks before lifting his gaze to meet Yunho’s. “I see you’ve made a friend. What’s his name?”
“Friend?” Wooju perks up, his eyes doubling in size before he looks over his shoulder to find Yunho standing a few feet away from them. “Oh, him?”
Silence hangs heavy between the three of them.
But even as Wooju turns away, Yunho trains his gaze on the boy. He wants to hear what the blue-eyed boy has to say, what he is to him: a stranger or an enemy?
He has to hear it to remind himself of what Wooju will do to him in the future.
“He’s just a classmate,” Wooju tells his manager briskly before heading out with Jaehee in tow.
Yunho expected this from the moment he dragged Wooju out of the classroom, but his chest still tightens when he hears Wooju’s answer.
No, it doesn’t get better.
It only gets worse from here.