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“Hey Vernon, guess what I’m doing!?” Seungkwan asked his best friend excitedly as the two walked home from school one afternoon.
“Um, I don’t know? Breathing? Existing? Walking too slowly?”
Seungkwan laughed. “No- not what I’m doing now, but what I’ll be doing soon!”
“Crying over the trig assignment that Mr. Park just gave us?”
Seungkwan rolled his eyes. “That only happened once, and I still think it’s ridiculous how you just happened to be looking through the window at that exact time.” He sighed, before remembering the exciting news he had to give. “And no, that’s not it— I’m going to be running for secretary!”
Vernon froze mid-step, turning to him with a blank stare. “What?”
“You know, they’re having elections! For class president, vice president, all that! You heard the announcement about it, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I heard. Joshua told me this morning…” Vernon winced. “And he’s running for secretary too. I promised that I’d help with his campaign.”
Seungkwan’s face instantly fell. Joshua was Vernon’s other best friend, and while he was a perfectly nice guy, Seungkwan was never very fond of him, his heart aching whenever he looked through the window and saw the two hanging out together in Vernon’s room.
“Sorry.” Vernon said, and Seungkwan shrugged.
“It’s fine.” To an extent that was the truth. Seungkwan had always felt like he was competing against Joshua; this time it would simply be for a position rather than a person.
As campaign week started, Seungkwan and Vernon’s usual lunches together in the music room were traded for time spent passing out flyers and talking to students. Vernon’s bedroom after school stopped being a place of laughter and soft music, blanket forts and cuddles. Instead, the scent of markers lingered in the air as “Vote for Joshua” posters began to fill the space. When Seungkwan gave his campaign speech at the school assembly, his eyes searched through the crowd looking for Vernon’s encouraging smile. But once he found it, he saw it was directed towards the other candidate on the stage, a realization which caused him to stumble over the next few words of his speech.
The only conversation they had that week came the day before the election. The bell had just rung, ending the last class of the day, and all the students began to shuffle out of the door.
“Vernon, wait!” Seungkwan shouted, and Vernon slowly turned around.
“What is it?” Vernon asked after a moment or two of awkward silence, which was almost enough to make Seungkwan abandon his question.
“Oh, I just… wanted to ask. Who are you voting for tomorrow?”
Vernon’s eyes widened.
“I’m sorry, i know it’s stupid of me to ask, since you’ve been helping Joshua with his campaign all week. I just thought, since we’re friends too, maybe you’d vote for me so you could sort of help both me and him a bit, but if you—“
“Alright, Boo.” Vernon said with mild amusement. “I suppose I can give you my vote.” He chuckled to himself before turning back around and heading out the door.
The vote was carried out the next morning, during the first class of the day. Seungkwan tried to stay calm and not think much about the results, but everywhere he looked, he saw posters on the walls for one candidate or another. A few hours later, he finally heard the crackle of the loudspeaker as it turned on. The principal began congratulating all the candidates for “trying their best”, while Seungkwan tried his best to stop his hands from shaking.
The first announcement was the winner of the treasurer position, a boy named Chan who Seungkwan vaguely remembered having seen at the candidate assembly. He clapped politely a few times along with his classmates, as the principal moved on.
“Now for secretary— this one was a very close race, with a difference of a single vote having determined the winner...”
Seungkwan’s chest tightened.
“Joshua Hong.”
More polite claps filled the room, and the principal moved on to announce the winners of the vice president and president positions. A few minutes later, the bell rang again, and his classmates all left the room. Seungkwan remained frozen in his seat, as the realization slowly set in: He had lost. By one vote.
As he made his way into the hallway, a mass of voices surrounded him, with everyone talking about the results of the election. But rather than leaving through the main exit to begin his walk home, Seungkwan made his way to the office, and slowly knocked on the principal’s door. After a moment, he was told to come in, and he took a deep breath before beginning to speak.
“Principal Kim, are you sure the votes for secretary were counted closely? If there was only one vote of difference, isn’t it possible the result could be wrong?”
“We already did a recount, and the result was the same.” The principal adjusted her glasses and took a closer look at Seungkwan. “But if you’d like, you can count them again yourself.”
Seungkwan nodded, and the principal retrieved a small box of paper ballots from her desk, placing it on the table in front of him.
Halfway through his recount, Seungkwan pulled another ballot from the box, and suddenly froze upon seeing his best friend’s handwriting on it, a style he knew by heart. The smiley face drawn in the corner was another giveaway, one which Seungkwan recognized from all the notes Vernon had not-so-secretly slipped in his backpack during the walk home on days when he could tell Seungkwan was sad. But there wouldn’t be any notes in his backpack this time, realized Seungkwan as his eyes began to fill with tears, reading over the vote written on the ballot:
Secretary: Joshua Hong.