Unrequited Love Thresher-Chapter 10: Yearning for Normalcy

“W-Wait, hold on...!”

Ha Giyeon’s body was helplessly pulled forward by the force tugging on his wrist. With the crowd of students blocking his view, he couldn’t tell who it was. It was only after being dragged out of the throng that he finally saw the person’s back. They were definitely wearing a school uniform, but he couldn’t quite place them.

“Um, excuse me...”

Before he could even speak, the person opened the door to an empty classroom and pushed him inside.

An art supply room?

There were plaster busts, desks, and chairs stacked in a ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) corner. In the empty space, Ha Giyeon glanced warily at the person who had brought him in.

“Hoo...”

Their broad back slowly rose and fell as they caught their breath.

The sight of someone so much bigger than him filled Giyeon with a wave of anxiety.

Is he going to hit me? On the first day?

People could absolutely beat you up just because they didn’t like your face. It was a knee-jerk fear born from experience. He’d been hit for no reason so many times that whenever something confusing happened, fear was his first reaction.

“......!”

The guy turned around.

Messy, curly black hair. Black-rimmed glasses.

He looked at Giyeon and muttered under his breath.

“Finally found you.”

Then he released his grip on Giyeon’s wrist.

Does he know me?

The way he acted made it seem like he recognized him. But Giyeon tilted his head in confusion—he couldn’t recall anyone like this among his parents’ or brother’s acquaintances.

But something about him...

The more closely he looked at the guy’s face, the more a strange sense of familiarity hit him. Before Giyeon could ask anything, the guy held out a paper bag.

“Gym uniform.”

“Huh...?”

“My phone broke, so I couldn’t contact you. Take it.”

Gym uniform? Phone?

“Oh...!”

That voice—he recognized it. It was the guy who’d promised to give him a gym uniform.

The glasses made his whole vibe totally different.

No—his features were hidden now, and seeing him in a school uniform at school made him feel like a completely different person.

Giyeon looked at the paper bag and asked,

“You’ve been walking around this whole time just to give me this?”

“I said I’d give it to you. But if you’d rather take cash now, just say so.”

“Ah—no! Thank you.”

Worried he’d take it back, Giyeon quickly accepted the bag.

Didn’t think he’d actually come find me just to give it to me...

There were so many people who broke promises without a second thought. He’d given up on this one completely—but this guy had gone out of his way to find him. Giyeon couldn’t help the way his lips curved upward.

Clutching the paper bag to his chest, he bowed.

“Thank you.”

“...Yeah.”

The guy gave a brief reply, then turned and left the supply room.

Giyeon pulled the gym uniform out of the bag and held it against his body.

“Fits perfectly.”

Not only was the size just right—it was practically brand new. No—it was new. It still had that distinct petroleum scent of freshly manufactured clothes.

“Did he buy this just for me?”

As Giyeon hugged the uniform to his chest, he felt an overwhelming rush of emotion threaten to bring tears to his eyes. It was silly, maybe even pathetic, to attach so much meaning to a gym uniform—but he couldn’t help it. He’d never been given clothes in his life.

Looking at the uniform, he thought of the guy again.

That black name tag on his chest.

So he’s a third-year upperclassman...

Ha Giyeon softly murmured the name:

“Son Suhyeon.”

It was a gentle-sounding name.

***

“Thank you.”

Son Suhyeon stared blankly at Ha Giyeon’s bright smile over something as simple as a gym uniform. Snapping out of it, he quickly left the supply room. Even as he walked down the hallway, the image of Giyeon’s smile lingered in his mind, and his brow twitched.

What the hell is he smiling about...

Son Suhyeon couldn’t understand it.

Not since the moment they’d exchanged uniforms.

Son Suhyeon.

At some point, he had realized he was alone.

He’d grown up in a worn-down, foul-smelling orphanage where cracked walls and hunger were normal. All the kids were like him—no parents, wearing the same threadbare clothes. But once he started elementary school, he realized just how far from “normal” he really was.

A warm house. Warm meals. A mom and a dad.

Every kid except him had all those things. Teachers always looked at him with pity and kept their distance. Watching them, Son Suhyeon began to question himself for the first time.

Maybe this life isn’t normal.

Bringing parents to open class, packing lunch for field trips, getting new clothes when old ones tore—those things that everyone else took for granted were all absent from his world. That was the moment he became the “abnormal” one.

Not just in school—but even at the orphanage.

“You little shit! Didn’t I tell you just one meal a day? Look at you putting on weight! Starve the brat!”

The director would deliberately starve some of the kids or put them in ragged clothes to appear more pitiful and rake in more donations. Not that there were any decent clothes to begin with.

The director always reeked of booze and cigarettes. Watching him, Son Suhyeon swore to himself that if that was what being an adult meant, he’d never become one. But you couldn’t avoid it—adulthood came whether you wanted it or not.

To escape the director’s fists, which flew every time he got drunk, Son Suhyeon left the orphanage the day he graduated middle school. He started working to survive.

“Hey! Stop dawdling and get a move on!”

Working at that age was never easy.

But he gritted his teeth and endured it. He had no intention of going back to that orphanage. Some adults refused to pay him. Others hit him. Some were even worse than the director. But all of them were seen as “normal.”

“Daddy!”

“You’re home, sweetheart?”

Those same hands that had hit him moments earlier now gently stroked their child’s hair. At least they had families. Families that Son Suhyeon could never have.

“I’m taking a year off.”

At the end of his second year in high school, he didn’t advance to third year.

After school, he worked. After work, he studied. At school, he endured subtle bullying. People rejected him for being “abnormal.” He’d endured it for two years, but eventually, he collapsed from exhaustion and woke up in the ER. That’s when he decided to take a break.

It gave him more time to earn money—but something felt off.

Once I graduate and become a real adult... is this all there is?

Is “abnormal” all I’ll ever be? Is this how my life ends?

One evening, walking home from a shift, he stood on an overpass watching the fading sunset and asked himself:

Why am I alive?

Not in a suicidal way. Just an honest question.

He earned money. Paid bills. Survived.

Then earned more, paid more, and survived again.

Is my goal in life just... survival?

Why was he so desperate to keep living?

Other people had goals—being good to their parents, achieving dreams, finding happiness. But Son Suhyeon didn’t even want happiness. He didn’t know what it felt like.

What have I been living for this whole time? freeωebnovēl.c૦m

His mind was full of emptiness and exhaustion. But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t find an answer.

If it’s just going to repeat forever... then maybe...

Down below, cars zipped past at dizzying speed. His vision blurred. His body sagged.

Thud.

Something landed at his feet.

A flyer. For a cram school, with “CSAT” and “University” printed in bold letters.

He picked it up.

“...College.”

College.

He’d never even considered it. Just graduating high school would be a miracle.

But maybe...

Maybe college could make him look a little more “normal.” Maybe he’d see things he’d never seen before. He had nowhere further to fall, so there was no harm in stepping forward.

Son Suhyeon thought about what he could realistically achieve—without parents, without money—just by his own effort. Studying. He couldn’t outpace the kids who had tutors and prep schools, but maybe... he could at least get close.

High scores or low—he’d try anyway.

If I study, maybe something will change...

At the very least, studying wouldn’t make things worse.

Hoping to soften the scornful gazes of “normal people” who looked down on him for working instead of going to school, Son Suhyeon picked up a pen again after a year.

He returned to studying—something he had set aside for a while. He hadn’t planned to go back to school, but decided to do it for the sake of college.

When he became a third-year student, he was already legally an adult—but being a “high school student” felt like a kind of grace period. It made him feel less like an adult. That was oddly comforting.

“You’ve shrunk.”

With the new semester approaching, he pulled his old uniform out from the corner of his drawer. But he’d grown a lot over the past year—the buttons wouldn’t even close.

Would be a waste to buy a new one.

He applied for the school’s uniform exchange program. He didn’t expect much. He’d applied before entering high school but ended up buying a new one because there were no other participants.

This time, though—there was one other applicant.

When he arrived at school, there was a small kid waiting.

“Try them on in the changing room if you want.”

The boy looked to be about 20 centimeters shorter than him.

Clearly a freshman.

He stood there, holding a donation-bound uniform with a sulky face, staring up at him.

Looks like it’ll fit.

Suhyeon quickly scanned him—his old body type from before the growth spurt. He handed over his uniform and received the other’s in return. As he casually unfolded it—

“...!”

It was way too big for the kid’s frame. Which meant... it would fit him perfectly.

Why does he have something this big?

And it looked brand new.

The uniform was unwrinkled, still smelled like petroleum—fresh from the factory.

Suhyeon turned toward the boy behind him, who was fumbling with the shirt.

...Fits well.

Wearing the well-fitting shirt, the boy had a small, blooming smile on his face.

That was how Son Suhyeon met Ha Giyeon for the first time.