“What have you two been doing all day? All the teachers who taught our class today had something to say. I seriously wanted to hide, I was so embarrassed!”

In a mouse hole!

Our homeroom teacher, pointing at the empty floor, stomped her foot.

The teacher was angry, but I was just dazed.

Seeing my homeroom teacher’s face again for the first time in 10 years, she looked exactly the same.

She was a fresh college graduate, a newbie to society who had just been appointed to our school this year and immediately became a homeroom teacher.

She wasn’t even ten years older than us, and still made plenty of mistakes.

It wasn’t just once or twice that I had seen her with slumped shoulders, saying, ‘The vice principal told me to finish this before I go home…’ when I asked, ‘Aren’t you leaving yet, teacher?’

She knew less about the inner workings of the school than we did, who had already been here for a year, and some of the boys even openly disrespected her.

Even so, in my eyes back then, she had seemed like a huge adult.

But seeing her again now, she’s a total baby, a baby.

Do you also boil spicy chicken noodles at home and rewatch ‘Infinite Challenge’ after work, teacher?

Anyway, right now, this very angry adult woman, who was 7 years older than me, was holding onto me and Jung Eun-seong amidst the kids rushing out for lunch.

“What on earth were you two doing today? What, did you conspire together? To get me in trouble?”

The homeroom teacher roared.

“The other teachers gave me such a hard time!”

“Teacher, that’s not it. Jung Eun-seong…!”

I really didn’t want to do this either!

I’m twenty-nine years old, and I spent the whole day raising my hand and calling for the teacher!

Some of the teachers I whined to today to punish Jung Eun-seong are even younger than me.

What is this!

“Jung Eun-seong started it!”

“No, I didn’t. I was just helping the music teacher.”

“Both of you, be quiet. One more time and you’ll both be staying behind together for punishment cleaning, you hear me?”

“Oh. I’m so jealous of Kang Da-hye.”

“Teacher, I want to stay behind with Eun-seong too!”

The kid who had chimed in from the side whimpered and backed down under the homeroom teacher’s glare.

“Please, just give me a break. As it is, our class has a lot of latecomers, so the head of our year is keeping a close eye on us. If you keep this up, I’m really going to get in trouble.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Alright. Hurry up and go get lunch. We’re having spicy stir-fried octopus today.”

The homeroom teacher, who had warned that ‘if you’re late, there won’t be any sauce left to mix with your rice,’ disappeared first, full of anticipation, wondering, ‘Will there be seaweed flakes too?’

…My plan to live as a model student… has gone awry on the very first day.

I glared at Jung Eun-seong.

Feeling my gaze, he looked down at me.

“What are you looking at?”

“…”

Ignore him.

I should just go get lunch. She said if I’m late, there won’t be any spicy stir-fried octopus sauce left.

I threw open the classroom door, from which all the kids had already cleared out.

The friend I used to eat lunch with at this time…

“Dahye!”

My friend, who couldn’t come into the classroom because of the <NO ENTRY FOR STUDENTS FROM OTHER CLASSES!!!!> sign and was waiting outside, smiled brightly and reached out to me.

“Han Jisoo!”

I ran and hugged my friend tightly.

“Jisoo! Waaah!”

“Uh-huh…? What’s wrong…?”

“Waaah… It’s really you, Jisoo…”

It’s really you, Jisoo. My friend, Han Jisoo.

The same tears that had welled up when I saw my younger mother this morning quickly filled my eyes again.

“Sob sob sniffle…”

Sniffling, I tightened my arms.

Han Jisoo.

My friend, whom I was seeing again for the first time in 10 years.

The person who had been my best friend in my 29 years of life.

We were in the same class for all three years of middle school, and in the same class in our first year of high school too.

We were close like that for six years, but we lost contact when I messed up my college entrance exam.

To be precise, I unilaterally cut off contact.

Out of a sense of inferiority.

Because I had messed up my exam, but Jisoo had done as well as usual and gotten into Hankuk University. Into the very department I had been aiming for.

Even after that, Jisoo hadn’t forgotten and had contacted me regularly, but when I ignored her, we lost touch after about a year.

Whenever life got hard, I would think of Jisoo, but I never dared to try and contact her again.

Because I was ashamed.

And because my life wasn’t going well enough to contact her again.

I regretted it a lot, thinking I should have never cut off contact in the first place.

So how could I not be happy to see her?

To see my friend’s face again.

“Hee-ing…”

“What’s wrong? Did you get scolded by the homeroom teacher?”

“Han Jisoo. I’m heading down first.”

Seo Jae-gyeom, who had been with Jisoo until I came out, looked back and forth between me and Jung Eun-seong as we came out of the classroom, and then waved at Jisoo.

“Enjoy your lunch.”

“You too, Seo Jae-gyeom.”

Before he turned away, Seo Jae-gyeom’s gaze briefly landed on me, but I only had eyes for Jisoo.

Who cares about Seo Jae-gyeom? Han Jisoo is right here in front of me.

“Kangda, are you really sure nothing’s wrong?”

“Yeah. I’m just hungry.”

“What the heck. Let’s go down too.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s wipe your nose before we go.”

“Do I look hideous?”

“Yeah. Totally.”

“Hee-ing.”

Leaving a giggling Jisoo behind, I went to the bathroom, tore off some tissue, and wiped my face.

I linked arms with Jisoo, who didn’t complain one bit about me wasting our precious lunch time.

My friend.

“I went to your class this morning.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But you weren’t there.”

“Ah, you must have come when I was at the school store.”

“I guess so.”

“Why? Did you have something to say?”

“Not really. I just missed you.”

“Why are you being like this all of a sudden? You’re scaring me…”

“Hehe. I’ll be really good to you from now on, okay?”

Regression is a good thing.

I can meet my friends again like this.

This time, I’ll never cut off contact and we’ll be friends for a long, long time, forever.

God, Buddha, ancestors.

I don’t know who you are, but thank you for letting me regress. I’ll live a good life from now on.

I was playfully stuffing the tissue I had used to wipe my face into Jisoo’s uniform pocket when Jung Eun-seong, who had appeared from behind, strode past us.

Watching Jung Eun-seong’s back, which you could tell was handsome even just from behind, Jisoo whispered.

“Is that Jung Eun-seong?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you close with him?”

“No?!”

What a rude thing to say!

“He’s a total weirdo!”

“Really? From outside, it looked like you two were talking friendly.”

“We were telling each other to get lost.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He and I are not on speaking terms. Because he’s a jerk.”

“How can he be a jerk when he looks like that?”

“I know, right? Jung Eun-seong manages to pull off that difficult feat.”

“Why, why? What’s he like?”

“I’ll tell you the details while we eat.”

Because I’m hungry.

Because we were late from being scolded by the homeroom teacher, we didn’t have to stand in line at the cafeteria.

Tagging my student ID at the entrance, I read today’s menu written on the board.

-Brown Rice
-Beef and Radish Soup
-Spicy Stir-fried Octopus with Pickled Radish Wraps
-Mung Bean Jelly with Seasoned Seaweed
-Kimchi
-Red Bean Butter Walnut Cakes

“Red Bean Butter Walnut Cakes?!”

Are you kidding me?!

“That sounds delicious.”

Is it okay for life to be this satisfying?

Humming with joy, I got my food.

Instead of seaweed flakes, they had chives as a topping for the spicy stir-fried octopus, and since the other kids weren’t taking any, there was a lot left, so I took all of that too.

“Did you always like chives, Kangda?”

“I don’t think I liked them before… but I like them now. They’re good for your liver.”

“Liver health…?”

“Yeah. Let’s walk a lap around the track after we eat. Post-meal blood sugar management is important.”

“U-huh…?”

“It’s a fact that doesn’t really hit home when you’re a teenager. But you have to take care of your health while you still have it.”

So, telling Jisoo that she should get some chives too, I piled a mountain of them onto her tray and turned around.

I was wandering around the cafeteria, which was already full of students, looking for a seat…

“…Why is the atmosphere like this?”

It’s so crowded, yet strangely quiet.

An atmosphere of secretive giggling, or of watching with bated breath.

My bewildered eyes soon found the source.

At an eight-person table in the center, a girl with a bob cut was eating alone.

The area around her was bustling, but that table was empty, as if by design.

Everyone was treating the girl as if she were invisible, but at the same time, I could feel that all their attention was focused on her.

The group sitting at the table right next to the girl’s snickered.

A voice, raised as if to be heard, pierced my ears.

“Wow. How can someone eat alone?”

“If it were me, I wouldn’t eat. I’d just starve.”

“If it were me, I’d just drop out.”

“True. You’d have to be that thick-skinned to… with Jiri.”

“Ah, it wasn’t just with Jiri! She also… with Guksa. Our Doyeon gets so upset if you only mention Jiri.”

The girl who was sitting steadfastly and eating alone, even as the cheap, vulgar conversation was aimed at her.

Ah…

How could I have forgotten this.