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Episode 4
And with his long legs, he walked ahead of Yeon-jae. Still with the straw in his mouth.
But Hyun-oh’s cup, already empty except for ice, only made the sound of air being sucked through the straw each time he tried.
In the air carrying the scent of presummer, mixed with the pop songs drifting from the university street restaurants and the cheerful laughter of college students, the sound of air from Hyun-oh’s empty plastic cup echoed in her ears.
Snapping out of it belatedly, Yeon-jae hurried to catch up with Hyun-oh, and only then did he ask.
“So, why do you like Lee Dohan so much?”
To that, Yeon-jae also could not answer.
Third year of middle school. Yeon-jae spent the worst sixteen years of her life.
That summer, her parents, who had never gotten along well since she was young, finally decided to divorce.
It wasn’t something she had never imagined, but vaguely anticipating your parents’ divorce and being informed of their decision were worlds apart.
Her academic performance, which hadn’t been bad, plummeted, and her mother, who had been quite academically ambitious, used the dropped grades as an excuse to vent the stress of the divorce process on Yeon-jae.
Her father rarely came home.
He had already found another woman some time ago. He declared he would start a new household with her.
During an already sensitive puberty, her family situation compounded like a series of misfortunes.
Back then, if anyone had so much as tapped her, Yeon-jae would have had only one of two reactions.
Either explode in anger, or burst into tears.
But there was one fact Yeon-jae had overlooked. The fact that girls going through puberty are all a sensitive bunch.
Amidst her parents’ protracted fights, before she knew it, Shin Yeon-jae had become a sensitive, picky, somewhat insolent girl who looked down on friends and stared at them in an unpleasant way.
Looking back now, it was a kind of game back then.
Yesterday, Hyejin was the worst girl for ignoring friends because of her boyfriend; a few days later, Ji-won became the really bad girl who looked down on friends because she studied a bit well.
So, tracing back the beginning was actually quite meaningless.
In truth, Yeon-jae didn’t place much importance on the strained friendships. Even without school life, her mind was already full of other worries.
But when even Miyeon, her closest friend since elementary school, turned her back, Yeon-jae found it hard to bear.
“Miyeon, want to walk home together after school?”
“No. I… promised to play with Hyejin’s group first.”
“Oh, okay?”
From a distance, Hyejin’s group was staring intently at Yeon-jae and Mi-yeon. Hyejin’s group belonged to the side that had the loudest voice in class.
Miyeon, not even making eye contact with Yeon-jae properly, quickly slipped away and immediately joined Hyejin’s group.
She had roughly expected it.
And it wasn’t that she didn’t understand Miyeon either.
If Miyeon didn’t abandon her, Miyeon herself would become the target of this ostracism.
But she couldn’t help the bitter feeling.
Yeon-jae thought. If it were her, she would have held Miyeon’s hand no matter what.
Starting from the point her friends changed, the friends she ate lunch with also disappeared.
For a while, Yeon-jae skipped lunch repeatedly.
Then later, she just started eating lunch alone.
Then, those who had been friends just a few days ago whispered loud enough for Yeon-jae to hear.
“She has no pride, does she? Eating alone, shoveling it in. Ugh.”
“I knew it when she was looking down on kids, but she’s really a nasty one, I tell you.”
These were friends she had eaten lunch with just last week and gone to the academy with after school.
But now they treated her like a ghost.
Yeon-jae was also human, so at first she didn’t know what to do, but gradually she became indifferent.
‘I should consider it fortunate that there’s no physical violence.’
Unlike in dramas, they didn’t pour milk in her locker or deliberately bump shoulders while walking.
They just didn’t talk to her. As if looking at an invisible person.
During PE class, if she ended up paired with the only other person left without a partner, from a distance, the kids who were once her friends would snicker and whisper.
“Now the two losers can play together. Birds of a feather flock together, perfect.”
“Ugh, they smell. The smell of losers.”
Ignorant sixteen-year-old Perhaps that’s why it was a time when they could be endlessly cruel.
“Um, hey. Yeon-jae.”
A few weeks later, when Yeon-jae turned around, Miyeon was standing there.
All the kids’ gazes were also fixed on the two of them.
‘She hadn’t even glanced my way for a while.’
Yeon-jae stared blankly at Miyeon without answering.
Miyeon, seemingly conscious of the stares directed at them, hesitated for a moment before continuing.
“…What are you doing after school?”
A much gentler tone compared to last time.
A flicker of hope began to rise in Yeon-jae’s heart, which had been pretending to be indifferent all along.
The hope that maybe she could become close with Miyeon again.
She didn’t need the other friends. They had only hung out together because they were in the same group anyway.
So no matter how much they tried to hurt Yeon-jae, she might have been upset, but it didn’t truly wound her heart.
But Miyeon was different. Even Miyeon turning her back on her had been hurtful to Yeon-jae.
Hiding such thoughts in her heart, Yeon-jae spoke.
“Why? I’m not doing anything.”
Even as she said that, Yeon-jae felt a little nervous.
“Then, do you want to talk for a bit after school?”
Feeling her heart swell involuntarily, Yeon-jae nodded.
After school ended, Yeon-jae waited in the classroom for the other kids to leave.
Miyeon too, after waving to friends who greeted her, didn’t follow them out but sat quietly in the classroom.
The classroom emptied, leaving only Miyeon and Yeon-jae. Only then did Miyeon get up from her seat and approach Yeon-jae.
Miyeon smiled awkwardly and fidgeted with her hands for a long time, a gesture that didn’t suit her.
Miyeon, after hemming and hawing for a while like that, opened her mouth.
“…You know the boys’ high school across the street? There’s a guy named Lee Do-han in the second year there.”
Saying that, Miyeon opened a social media app on her phone and showed her a picture.
It was a group photo. Miyeon zoomed in on the photo until only one person among what looked like at least ten boys filled the screen.
“You might know him too. He’s been famous around here for being handsome.”
But Yeon-jae didn’t know who Lee Dohan was.
That was understandable; Yeon-jae wasn’t even interested in the common male idols.
Only when someone in the group mentioned liking some male idol would she roughly look them up.
However, even for someone like Yeon-jae, without needing to zoom in, she could see at a glance which guy Miyeon was pointing to.
The guy in the photo looked like he had been accidentally caught by someone’s raised phone camera.
In his honest features and the unnatural way he averted his gaze, she couldn’t read any effort to look good for the picture.
Nevertheless, compared to others who were trying hard to look good, his face was so much more handsome that her gaze was instinctively drawn.
As Yeon-jae stared intently at the photo, Miyeon added one more thing.
“Hyejin said he lives in the same apartment as you.”
“…So?”
“Can you get me his number?”
“What?”
For a moment, not understanding what she meant, Yeon-jae was dumbfounded.
“Me? Why?”
A trembling voice came back in answer to her reflexive question.
“…Well, Hyejin likes him.”
When Yeon-jae looked at Miyeon belatedly, her face was nearly in tears.
“She said she’ll only keep hanging out with me if I get his number…”
After that day.
When school ended, Yeon-jae would sit on the swing at the playground and wait for Dohan until the sun set.
Her parents, on the verge of divorce, paid no attention to her, and even if she skipped academy and camped out at the playground, the only one worried about her was not her parents but the security guard.
“Why is the student from Building 107 sitting outside every day?”
Even to that worried question, Yeon-jae just smiled awkwardly.
As soon as the security guard walked away, Yeon-jae let out a soft sigh.
In truth, Yeon-jae also knew. She didn’t really have to grant that favor.
She could have said, ‘Now you know how it feels.’
But she didn’t.
Though she resented Miyeon, she was still Yeon-jae’s friend. Just because she was in trouble, Yeon-jae didn’t want Mi-yeon to suffer the same trouble.
She thought she’d run into Dohan quickly, but things didn’t go as easily as she thought.
Dohan rarely showed himself, making her doubt whether the information that he lived in the same apartment was even correct.
Nevertheless, Yeon-jae waited.
Fortunately, the information seemed true, because one day as the sun was setting, Dohan suddenly appeared around the corner of the apartment main gate she was absently staring at.
Yeonjae recognized Do-han instantly.
‘That’s him. The guy Sung Hye-jin likes.’
