For an unknown reason, the principal of their school announced the lunch break today. He was an old man with eighty percent of his hair gone, and his body had lost twenty percent of its height due to the cruel nature of aging.

 

At least, that was what Jongdae had claimed to be true.

 

No matter how many pictures Baekhyun took and zoomed in, he couldn’t see where the alleged toupée started and ended.

 

The height thing might be true, Baekhyun mused. His grandmother herself, after all, had admitted that she used to be a hundred and sixty centimeters tall in her youthful days. She claimed she lost around fifteen centimeters over the years.

 

Then, if their principal was old enough to be losing his height, shouldn’t he be retired like Baekhyun’s grandmother was?

 

“Hey, hey, Jongdae,” Baekhyun said. “How old is the principal?”

 

Jongdae stared at the sky.

 

“Who knows.”

 

“Can’t even guess?”

 

“Well, I did hear that he fought in the second world war.”

 

Baekhyun was startled out of his peaceful cloud-gazing. “What?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Then,” Baekhyun said, “can’t you estimate his age from there?”

 

Jongdae shrugged. “Don’t know when the second world war was.”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to know, as an about-to-graduate senior of high school?”

 

“And I suppose you’re not my classmate?
 

Baekhyun decided to ignore that. They went back to gazing at the blue sky. They had finished up their lunch, faster than they would have liked. No matter how much he ate, Baekhyun always felt like eating more. 

 

They were lying on the gigantic bench on the school’s only accessible rooftop. Not unlike the ones you can find in the countryside, the bench was two hundred and fifty centimeters by two hundred and fifty centimeters, long made by the senior students three years prior as a punishment for getting into a group fight over spilled strawberry milk. Legend said a nose was bled.

 

“Just look it up,” Jongdae said, all of a sudden, startling Baekhyun.

 

“What?”

 

“When the second world war was. I swear I knew everything about it. But now that I’m done with the entrance exam, my brain did some cleaning up and threw out all the unwanted information I loaded myself with throughout the last twelve years. Also this heat is not helping.”

 

Baekhyun nodded. “Can’t.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Too much of a trouble.”

 

“Typing?”

 

“That, and getting my phone.”

 

“Where’s your phone?”

 

“In my back pocket.”

 

“Of your bag?”

 

“No, of my pants.”

 

“... that you’re wearing now.”

 

“... Yeah.”

 

“Oh,”

 

“Yeah,”

 

“I see,” Jongdae mused.

 

“Yeah,” Baekhyun answered.

 

“Isn’t it digging into your ?” 

 

“Not much, but I don’t wanna lift my up and use my hand to pull my phone out.”

 

“That does sound like a lot of work.” Jongdae agreed.

 

A minute passed by. A huge cloud was roaming over their heads, it was so big that Baekhyun, once again, wondered how there could not be something hidden behind, or inside, all that. When he was a kid, he always imagined a whole kingdom on the clouds. And the clouds looked soft and firm enough for him to jump on them.

 

His second grade science teacher had unnecessarily and cruelly informed him that the clouds would not catch him, and that he would just fall to his death. It was a traumatic memory for Baekhyun.

 

“Ah, I just remembered,” Jongdae said.

 

“What?”

 

“The second world war ended on September 1945, I believe. It started almost exactly six years prior, September 1939” Jongdae sighed heavily. “Other than that, my head is full of birthdates of dead people.”

 

“And then the Korean War started five years later, lasted for a bit over three years.” Baekhyun said. “My brain is baked but I still remember. Wow.”

 

“Why did we need to know these dates?” Jongdae said, yawning.

 

Baekhyun yawned too. “I don’t know. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Wars are depressing, and I want to forget everything I learned.”

 

“What did you do with your books?” Jongdae asked. “You have been saying it since we started school that you would burn them.”

 

Baekhyun tutted. “Don’t be an idiot. I was six back then — I recycled them.”

 

“All of them?”

 

“All of them. My room is all empty now. I’m gonna fill it up with story books. Do you know when was the last time I read for pleasure?”

 

“But what if you don’t get into a university this year? Those books were expensive.”

 

“I don’t care,” Baekhyun said firmly. “I’m done with school.”

 

“What about your parents?”

 

“I’ll kneel and beg them to let me live off their money until I die. They’ll probably let me, I’m their only child.”

 

Jongdae snorted in disgust. “You careless golden spoon.”

 

“Diamond, actually. Whichever one is more expensive. Wait, which one is more valuable?”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to know, as a sole inheritor of your rich parents?”

 

“I’m gonna watch some many anime,” Baekhyun said excitedly. “For a year, even if I get into a university, my parents said I can take a year off and stay at home and do everything I wanted to do but couldn’t because of my busy school life. I’m gonna stay up late every night and order late night snacks. I swear I’ll try everything on the menu, even the gross stuff that adults eat when they drink. And I’m gonna play every game there is to play!”

 

“Dude,” Jongdae sounded slightly concerned. “You’ll gain so much weight. What about your heart?”

 

A fly tried to sit on Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun swatted it away. It came back again. Baekhyun moved his head left and right. It went away and then came back again. Baekhyun waved around with both his hands madly before finally smacking Jongdae’s big mouth with the back of his fingers. A bonus.

 

“Dude! Ow!”

 

“What about my heart? Baekhyun asked.
 

“Not just your heart, all of your organs will suffer if you get fat. It’s a very serious concern of modern age, you know: obesity.” Jongdae said, tenderly touching his lips. “But how would you know, you slept through all of the health classes.”

 

Baekhyun was offended.

 

“I’m offended,” he announced. “I’ll be working out as well. Our complex has a gym in every building, and I would have been getting more exercise if I didn’t have to drag my to school at the crack of dawn pretty much everyday. Now, I’ll have time. I’ll jog and swim whenever I want. And I can finally go play tennis with my mom every week, like we used to, when I was little and had no obligations about memorizing definitions of English words.”

 

“Yeah, your English ,”

 

“Not as bad as yours,”

 

“But why is it so hot anyway?” Jongdae whined. “Just yesterday, it was raining like hell and it was cold. I know it’s June, but it’s just beginning. Chill a bit, damn.”

 

“Must be global warming.”

 

“ Aaaaah ,”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Is the world ending?”

 

“Probably,”

 

“Ah,”

 

“Yeah,”

 

“So we might have put ourselves through hell when we might not live to see tomorrow,”

 

“Yeah, maybe,”

 

“Ah,”

 

Another minute passed by. Baekhyun and Jongdae continued to keep their comfortable positions on the bench, looking up at the sky, and listening to the roars of the boys playing football on the school field. Every once in a while, some girls would scream in delight when someone scored. It was probably Kim Jongin, the school’s rising heartthrob.

 

Baekhyun closed his eyes. “Hey,” he said. “Did Cupcake ask you to play football with him?”

 

Jongdae hummed yes in response. “He asked you too, eh?”

 

“He’s nuts, is what he is. What is he, heat resistant?”

 

“Hmmm, maybe he is actually a supernatural human with a special power to resist heat.” Jongdae said.

 

“Hmmm,” Baekhyun said, wanting to say more but he didn’t have any thoughts.

 

The girls made some scandalized sound and then exhaled in delight, all together, like they were one, or something. Must be Kim Jongin, or his friend, Oh Sehun, who was also a promising star in the visual department of their school. Maybe one of them took off their shirts.

 

“Ah, I just remembered,” Jongdae said.

 

“What did you remember?”

 

“Why we needed to know when the second world war happened.”

 

“Oh — and?”

 

“Our principal fought in it. We were trying to guess his name.”

 

“Age.”

 

“Yeah, age.”

 

Baekhyun’s eyes refused to open. They felt heavy and comfortable while closed, so he kept them closed. “So our principal is … how old do you think he was, during the war, I mean.”

 

“Twenty?” Jongdae suggested.

 

“Isn’t that too old for back then?”

 

“Then, ten?”

 

“Too young!”

 

“Let’s say he was fifteen.”

 

“Aren’t we being too carefree about this?” Baekhyun wondered aloud. “I mean, he is a national hero, if he fought in it.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Isn’t everyone who fought in the war a national hero?”

 

“Who knows. Depends on what they did during the war, I guess? And if their side won? I don’t know.”

 

“So, let’s say he was fifteen. That means he was born in … 1924 ? Is that correct?”

 

“Ng, I think so,”

 

“Twenty four?”

 

“Yeah. Thirty nine minus fifteen is definitely twenty four.”

 

“Then he’s now … how many years old?” Baekhyun tried to calculate it. Nothing came up.”

 

“At least ninety, I think.” said Jongdae.

 

So either their principal was the most badass ninety year old in the world, or he was just a regular old man in his sixties, doing his job.

 

Baekhyun cracked his eyes open and looked at his friend. Jongdae looked like he was in pain, which was good.

 

“Let’s never do math again.” Baekhyun suggested. “Other than basic calculations. No more logarithm, no more trigonometry, no more integral, and no more ing function. I actually used to enjoy math and geometry until these premium came to ruin my life and stop my growth.”

 

Jongdae giggled. Baekhyun would have smacked him again if the task didn’t require him to physically lift his hand again.

 

The rooftop door opened up with a loud bang. Jongdae and Baekhyun both flinched but did not care enough, nor had the energy, to get up and look.

 

Footsteps hurriedly came at them. They were loud and clacky. Heels? So, a teacher? 

 

“What are you dips doing in my favorite spot?”

 

It was Kyungsoo. Baekhyun recognized his voice, also nobody in the entire school had the balls — nor the needless urge to be so mean — to talk like that to the seniors.

 

Jongdae made an angry hissing sound from the back of his throat. “Kid, for the last time — since I will literally never take a step in this school after tomorrow — respect your elders!”

 

“I do.” Kyungsoo said, nudging Baekhyun’s feet. “I just don’t respect you, besides we’re practically the same age.”

 

Baekhyun lifted his feet up and Kyungsoo sat down. Baekhyun put down his feet on Kyungsoo’s lap.

 

“Aren’t you sad that we’re leaving?” Jongdae said. “I know I never really did a , but Baekhyun’s been really good at running and keeping this school nice and respectful. You should thank him. Formally bow to him and give him all the money you have.”

 

“Don’t look down on yourself,” Baekhyun said halfheartedly, because he knew Jongdae expected him to say something. “You did plenty. You helped that girl get up one time, after you accidentally tripped her and made her drop her phone — which was brand new, did she tell you? — through the staircase’s gap.”

 

“I didn’t hear about this,” Kyungsoo said, sounding curious.

 

Baekhyun heard him take off his shoes, and there was some rustle. He was probably changing his shoes.

 

“Did you go to your tap class lessons? You guys danced in this heat? And of course you didn’t hear about it cause it happened during our first year, when you were just a snot-eating middle schooler.”

 

Jongdae laughed gleefully.

 

“I stopped eating my snot when I was exactly ten.” Kyungsoo said. “My mom showed me a video of what we would see if all the germs were visible to eyes. Traumatised me. But, to be fair, I wouldn’t listen no matter how many times she explained it to me, begged me to stop, bribed me to evolve, threatened to take away my stick.”

 

Baekhyun chuckled.

 

“Your stick?” Jongdae asked.

 

“I picked up a random stick when I was coming home from kindergarten one day, and it became my best friend. I thought it was a mighty sword I could use to protect myself from the bullies.”

 

Baekhyun opened his eyes. He squinted at Kyungsoo. “People bullied you?”

 

“No,” Kyungsoo said calmly. “I was, like, five. Bullies came up in story books and stuff. I just figured I should be ready.”

 

Baekhyun closed his eyes back again.

 

“Wait, you could read when you were five?”

 

“Yeah, my brother taught me how to read when I was three,”

 

Jongdae whistled. “Holy .”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“So, did you see Cupcake on the field?” Jongdae said. “That bastard is gonna die of heatstroke, it’s gonna be a shame.”

 

“Why?” said Baekhyun and Kyungsoo at the same time. 

 

With a mighty effort, Baekhyun raised his hand, Kyungsoo high-fived it.

 

It took a moment for Jongdae to stop laughing, then he started coughing and wheezing. Baekhyun had almost fallen asleep when Jongdae spoke again.

 

“Do you wanna come over to my place today? My parents said I should invite some of my friends and order some pizza. I’ll even let you into my room.”

 

“I’ll come if you buy me food,” Kyungsoo said. “And only if I get to not go into your room.”

 

Jongdae chuckled. “Bastard.” he nudged Baekhyun with his elbow. “I like this kid.”

 

“Me too. Can you let Cupcake know? And Kyungsoo, you can bring some friends too, if you want.”

 

“Ya, it’s my home!” Jongdae yawned again. “But yeah, you can bring friends. No more than two though. Because we need five people to play my favorite,”

 

“What do you mean? Is it a game? What is it?” Kyungsoo sounded suspicious, which he had earned the rights to. Jongdae had smuggled kittens into the school at the start of the year and had stolen Kyungsoo’s lunch to feed them for almost two weeks, resulting in everyone believing that someone was passive aggressively bullying Kyungsoo.

 

“You’ll see,” Jongdae put simply. “So, I believe you have two friends? Don't feel bad if you don't. Hyung will find you some.”

 

Kyungsoo huffed. “I have plenty. I think I’ll ask Jongin and Sehun,”

 

Baekhyun’s antennas went up. He opened up his eyes and sat up quickly, wiggling his eyebrows.

 

“You know them? You know Kim Jongin?"
 

Beside him, Jongdae gasped and whispered in horror, "Oh my god, no!"