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CHAPTER 07
Kim Dohyun checked his wristwatch to see if he had a morning class, then waved his hand and opened the rear door of the car.
“Have a good class.”
“You too, Oppa.”
Before getting into the car, he turned his head and looked not at me, but at Kim Dohwan standing beside me.
“Dohwan, I’ll see you at home.”
“……”
“Answer me.”
“…Yeah.”
Only after hearing his younger brother’s tiny, barely audible response did Kim Dohyun wave at us and get into the car.
‘Well then. Should I bother him the same way?’
The moment the limousine carrying Kim Dohyun disappeared from sight, I threw the backpack I had been carrying over my shoulder at Kim Dohwan.
The moment I realized that our positions had been reversed, my previously cheerful smile instantly turned into a wicked grin.
Kim Dohwan caught my bag without realizing what was happening and looked at me as if asking what the hell I was doing.
I kindly folded down one finger at a time and began speaking.
“Running errands at the school store, carrying your bag, doing your homework. I’ve been doing all of that for a week, right?”
“So what?”
“You don’t seem to have any talent for studying, so I won’t make you do your homework anymore. For one week, you just have to run my errands and carry my bag.”
The image of that completely untouched, brand-new math textbook had apparently made quite an impression on me. I still couldn’t get it out of my head.
‘It would honestly be better if I just did his homework myself.’
Maybe he read something in my eyes, because Kim Dohwan let out a breathy sound of disbelief.
“What the hell is that look in your eyes?”
“You dressed up like a model student just because you’re coming to school with your older brother?”
“……”
Ever since I first got involved with him, he had always shown up wearing his school uniform shirt with a black hoodie over it.
But today, he was wearing the school uniform properly.
Seeing Kim Dohwan dressed in the ordinary school uniform everyone else wore felt so strange that it was almost unnatural.
“Wow, you’re even wearing your name tag. I think this is the first time I’ve seen you wearing one since I entered this school!”
“Shut up.”
“When you think of Kim Dohwan, you think of a black hoodie. When you think of a black hoodie, you think of Kim Dohwan.”
“Exactly, exactly. It’s basically our Dohwan’s true form.”
A white-haired male student who had somehow approached us chimed in with my words and casually draped an arm around Kim Dohwan’s shoulders.
Kim Dohwan was already in the high 170-cm range, but standing next to someone a head taller than him made him look surprisingly small.
“Ahh! Hey!”
It looked like they were just putting their arms around each other’s shoulders, but the white-haired guy was actually pressing down on Kim Dohwan’s shoulder with his own arm strength.
But that white-haired student looked strangely familiar.
“Huh? You…!”
I almost blurted out the painfully cliché internet-novel line, “Oh! You’re the guy from the infirmary!”
‘Since this is an internet novel, maybe I should actually say it?’
The student clinging to Kim Dohwan was none other than my favorite, Wi Jinha, the person who had hidden me in the infirmary.
He glanced at me as I trailed off and gave me a crescent-shaped smile.
‘As expected, I really can’t help but root for you as the male lead.’
Because I saw that crescent-shaped smile head-on without any warning, my heart began beating so insanely fast that it almost felt like it had stopped altogether.
He was so handsome that my heart didn’t just tingle.
It actually hurt.
“Hi. I’m Wi Jinha, Kim Dohwan’s friend. We’ve met before, right?”
“Uh, ah, h-hi.”
They say you become awkward and stiff when you’re standing in front of someone handsome or beautiful.
That was exactly what was happening to me.
It felt as though invisible strings had descended from the sky, tied up all my limbs, and were controlling me like a wooden puppet.
I happened to witness Kim Dohwan silently screaming under the merciless pressure right beside me, but I didn’t notice any of it.
‘Wow. I guess it’s really possible to charm someone with just one smile.’
That smile made me forget all the ridiculous things that had happened just moments ago.
In every possible way, this morning was completely impossible to make sense of.
‘Are protagonists naturally good at attracting people’s attention?’
When I ended up crossing the school field with them, I could feel people’s gazes prickling against my entire body from every direction.
‘Our classes are right next to each other. Wouldn’t it look strange if I walked separately from them?’
Despite my desire to run away, my body simply kept walking beside Kim Dohwan in silence, matching his pace.
Wi Jinha was still right beside Kim Dohwan with his arm around his shoulders.
“Dohwan, what should we do in P.E. today?”
“What do you mean? We should do P.E.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Wi Jinha stretched out his words as he shook the arm wrapped around Kim Dohwan’s shoulders in frustration.
“Then what?”
“The P.E. teacher told us to decide what we’re going to do next period. Should we play dodgeball or soccer?”
“You decide. You’re the head of the sports department, not me.”
“Aww, our Dohwan is so cold.”
Kim Dohwan kept making an annoyed face because Wi Jinha wouldn’t stop clinging to him, but he continued silently carrying the bag I had thrown at him.
‘My bag must be ridiculously heavy.’
It contained two math textbooks alone, and when I added the workbooks I needed to solve during every break, there were easily more than five books.
I suddenly remembered the time when Kim Dohwan had carried my bag for me.
‘What? Why is it so light?’
‘What is?’
‘Your bag. Is there even anything inside it?’
‘…There might be a ballpoint pen in the front pocket.’
Remembering how unbelievably light his bag had been made me feel uncomfortable by comparison.
I finally managed to speak when we entered the school entrance, where members of the student guidance committee were standing.
“Give me the bag. I’ll carry it from here.”
“Forget it. Doesn’t everyone in the school know how weak you are?”
If my bag had been light, I would never have said anything like that.
‘What did you just say? Weak? Weeeak? Who are you calling weak?’
A sudden headache came over me, and I frowned.
This was all because he kept saying things that got on my nerves without caring about other people’s feelings.
Whether subjectively or objectively, I once again realized that Kim Dohwan was practically the definition of being annoying.
‘I wonder if the whole school is going to ostracize me for making one of the Three Kings carry my bag.’
The student council members and passing students kept peeking over at us.
They couldn’t possibly be staring just because the three of them were handsome and interesting.
Before we encountered even more students, I quickly grabbed the straps of the bag that was still in his arms.
“I won’t tell Dohyun Oppa, so just give it to me.”
“I’ll carry it for you.”
“That’s right. Just leave it. It’s one of the few chances you’ll ever get to boss around the great Kim Dohwan.”
At some point, Wi Jinha had come to stand beside me.
He was watching our argument over the bag with an amused smile.
When I saw his smiling face up close, I hurriedly looked away and stared at the completely innocent bag instead.
“I’m doing this because I feel guilty.”
“……”
“I’ll carry it.”
“…You asked for it first, remember?”
I nodded once.
He returned the bag he had been holding.
It was too heavy to carry in my arms, so I put it on my back and walked up the stairs.
The kind protagonists waited for me until I had fully put my bag on.
‘Was my bag always this heavy?’
At first, I thought it only felt heavier because I had just put it back on after having someone else carry it.
But when we reached the second floor, I realized that wasn’t the case.
“It’s so depressing that our classroom is on the third floor.”
“Is it heavy?”
“…Yeah.”
“See? I told you I’d carry it.”
Seeing me panting and struggling to breathe, Kim Dohwan clicked his tongue and took my bag away from me again.
The weight pressing down on both my shoulders disappeared, but my heavy breathing continued.
It was accurate to say that I was completely out of breath.
‘Was my physical stamina really this bad?’
Yesterday, I had run nonstop from the first floor of the annex to the fifth floor of the main building without even getting out of breath.
Just as I began to wonder about it, another short headache came over me, and a memory from the past flashed through my mind.
“Ugh…”
The muffled sound, as though I were hearing it underwater.
A blurry view, like a faded photograph.
It was similar to what had happened after I met Dohyun Oppa.
I expected to see another fancy party like the one from earlier.
But what appeared before my eyes was a hospital.
‘Dr. Kim, just now…’
‘Your daughter doesn’t have any particular chronic illness, but she is unusually… physically weak.’
‘…She’s only five years old.’
I couldn’t hear the earlier part because it was too muffled, but I heard the latter part clearly.
Five years old.
I had wondered why my field of vision was so low even though I was sitting on a chair at the same height as the doctor.
Apparently, it was because I was still so young.
‘Will she have to live like this for the rest of her life…?’
‘I… I don’t even know what to say, Director Kang.’
‘……’
The voices became muffled and difficult to hear, and then the background suddenly changed.
‘Just a moment ago I was in an emergency room, and now I’m on a school field.’
Students who looked younger than I was now were wearing gym clothes and kicking a rolling ball around.
Judging by their formation, they seemed to be playing kickball.
The design of their gym clothes was different from Hwachog High School’s, so they seemed to be from my middle school days.
‘Haaah. I hate P.E.’
My younger self sighed as she walked up to the batter’s box.
Unlike the determined appearance created by her long light-pink hair tied tightly into a ponytail, her eyes were filled with irritation.
‘Isn’t it enough for a student to be good at studying? Why do I even need to move my body…?’
There was no one nearby to hear my muttering.
A short whistle sounded.
At the P.E. teacher’s signal, a girl standing at the pitcher’s position rolled the ball toward me.
As the ball in my memory came closer, I unconsciously kicked at the air in reality.
“…Huh.”
I had been so focused on examining the newly overlaid memories that I had temporarily forgotten I was currently walking on a staircase.
My foot slipped, and my body tilted backward.
The reality in front of me suddenly came into view.
Unfortunately, I had stepped on the very top of the staircase, with only the final step behind me.
‘Oh, I’m falling.’
My field of vision gradually moved upward until I was looking toward the ceiling.
While I had been lost in thought, my pace had apparently slowed, causing me to fall behind the others.
Kim Dohwan was standing in front of me, just out of reach even if I stretched out my arm.
He was holding my bag and staring at me with his eyes wide in surprise.
And then…
