Beyond This Fucked Up World [choi yeonjun]

Chapter Forty - The Boy Who Is A Loser

[28. January 2022]

I sat at the end of a long dinner table. Left from me sat my mother, beside her my father. They were talking with our guests, also mother and father. I poked around in my food and didn't listen to their conversation.

Across the long table sat a boy, the son of the people sitting right of me. His black hair was covering half his eyes as he looked down at his food, also poking around in it but less energetically than I did.

My eyes were locked at him. His red, puffy eyes were the first thing that caught my attention. He looked as if he cried in the bathroom five minutes ago or as if he cried every night when going to bed. According to this occasion, and the fact that his parents didn't care a bit how he looked, I assumed that he looked so worn-down for a long time already.

His name was Sunoo. Sunoo looked more miserable than me. I didn't have red, puffy eyes, but I wasn't smiling either and I also couldn't swallow down any of the food plated before me. I watched as Sunoo lifted his head up to look at me.

"It was a good idea to meet up for dinner. Evolet and Sunoo have a lot of things in common. I believe they will get along just well." The mother of Sunoo said, whom I have never seen before. My mother and Sunoo's mother met at a blood donation center. I was still debating if it was a good thing that their chairs were directly beside each other.

"Of course! I think with a little more time, they could be good boyfriend and girlfriend to each other!" My mother replied.

So that's why I'm sitting at a table with complete strangers. I didn't know if my parents were pitying me or if they tried to be good parents. Either way, both would be absolute shit of them.

"I know that Evolet will be a good influence to my Sunoo. A good girlfriend is something he needs right now."

I didn't like her. Whatever the boy across from me did, that made him a possible bad son, I wasn't the one who could get him out of that status. Not to mention that I think this approach would do nothing to help fix his swollen eyes.

"Why don't you two go up to Sunoo's room and chat a little, hm?" Sunoo's mother spoke in my direction and I could only respond with a half kind smile that wasn't sincere at all.

I stood up from the table and Sunoo followed my action a little bit slower. We went up to his room and when Sunoo opened the door, I was greeted with the neatest cleaned teenage boy room I have ever seen. In my defense, I have never seen a teenage boy room up close.

The sad looking boy stood by the wall and didn't dare to interact with me in any way. He was either very shy or too sad to speak with me. It was probably both. I sat myself down on his bed and looked around the room. There was no single dust to be found on any of his furniture. It was weird. He was weird.

"Do you have like a cleaning mania?" He looked me in the eyes, confused.

"No." He answered, baffled. I felt like he saw me as weird, but he was the one radiating weirdness.

After a long minute of silence and awkward weirdness, Sunoo sat himself beside me, a big chunk of space between us. He fiddled with his fingers. Was he nervous?

"So." I leaned myself back on my hands and turned my head over to him.

"What did you do that made your parents talk about you like that?" He hesitated with his answer but he eventually opened up to me.

"It's not me who they think is the bad one."

"And who is it then?" He turned his head to me, pondering if to continue to talk. I didn't know if it was my presence that calmed him down enough to open up to me or if it wasn't even me who made him talk about it.