I carried the tray with a sandwich and fried rice and headed toward Hayoon. Hayoon remained motionless and kept reading her book, even as I pushed the tray of food from below.
"Hup."
As I climbed up the ladder, Hayoon reached out and naturally grabbed the sandwich from the tray without even looking.
She seemed to know it was hers without me even telling her.
"....."
She quietly chewed while reading without saying a word, so I also silently picked up the fried rice bowl and started eating.
"....."
"....."
Like this, in the narrow upstairs room of the comic café.
Hayoon and I had a silent lunch date together.
Breakfast with Sunah, and now lunch with Hayoon.
'Is this a green flag?'
Fortunately, I had preserved my singlehood in the previous timeline.
Although I had been consumed by the
ghost story and my mind had been endlessly corrupted, it was a relief that
nothing much had happened when it came to romantic relationships.
'All I did was fight with the uncle-aged leader over the CSAT retaker girl.'
I was still an ordinary, lifelong bachelor.
There was no need to feel guilty toward either Sunah or Hayoon.
'Ah~ I'm building sand-castle...."
Just eating in silence with a girl made all sorts of thoughts run through my head.
I finished the uncomfortable meal like
that, lost in pointless worries all by myself.
We pushed the tray with the dishes aside and sat in silence again.
Hayoon was quietly reading a book, and I was sitting across from her, feeling awkward.
I glanced at the book to see what it was, and it was not a comic, but a regular novel.
The book was titled 'Invisible Man', so I quietly looked it up and found out it was about Black civil rights.
Reading something difficult.
In a comic café where couples laughed and chatted.
We sat in a small room on the second floor.
Looking at Hayoon, with her black hair flowing down as she read, seemed as if time had stopped only in our little space.
But I couldn't just sit there idly and waste my time with her any longer. Jinhee didn't send me back just to sit around like this.
'...How should I convince her to come with me?"'
Simply telling her we had been possessed by a ghost story and dragging her out, saying that we need to solve it quickly would be the worst approach.
After all, the reason we were divided in the first place was because of those uncompromising actions.
There must be a more natural way here, a way to ease the mood, share a laugh, and reconcile.
"What could that be?"
As I was pondering this, a familiar face happened to walk into the comic café.
'...Oh. Must have come to hang out.'
It was the CSAT retaker girl.
The girl I had spent time with, wasting our days, when I was caught up in the ghost story in the previous timeline.
I spent years locked in a petty rivalry with other guys over that girl.
'Her name was Subin, I think.'
Now it all felt like a dream, even the name of the girlI once chased after so eagerly was barely a blur in my mind.
Soon, the CSAT retaker girl slipped into a pair of slippers with a familiar gesture, picked up a few comic books, and headed up to the room across from Ours.
'.....I really went all out like an idiot just to get her attention.'
Even got into fights with the leader Over her.
And all the while, she had that subtle look in her eyes, like she was enjoying the attention.
What did I even see in that girl? Looking back now, I felt no emotion.
It's not that I'm trying to belittle her worth, it just means back then, I couldn't see anything clearly.
Back when I was a civil service exam taker in Noryangjin, wandering like an animal in the wild kingdom, losing sight of the girl in front of me felt like a huge disaster, and I even fought to cling to her. But now, looking back, it meant nothing.
It's just that, in that place, I was anxious and ended up clinging to the opposite sex for no good reason, constantly searching for anything that could distract me from studying.
'Even if there had been another girl in her place, the leader and I would have fought just the same.'
Games, gambling, relationships.. they are all the same.
They're just fleeting pleasures we chase to distract ourselves from the tasks we should be doing.
Those stimulating mental activities that make you forget your worries and anxieties....
"...."
Stimulating.
At that word, something seemed to flash through my mind in an instant.
Perhaps.
This could be it.
I quietly called out Hayoon's name.
"In Hayoon."
"....."
Hayoon glanced up from her book.
"Do you want to hear an interesting story?"
"....."
"It's a very thrilling story. You'll like it."
In an instant.
Her pupils dilated wide.
"What did you just say?"
I suddenly froze.
" I said it's a thrilling story. One you'd like."
"....."
"....."
At the same time, a message flashed before my eyes.
Pop-
[Your understanding of the character In Hayoon has increased by 10.]
"...."
Hayoon stared at me quietly.
With a face even more expressionless
than her usual blank one.
It was a hint, the same reaction she showed when she was caught in a ghost story.
On the first day I entered the boarding house, after I was suddenly swept up by gambling and romantic feelings; wasted my points, and grew restless around Sunah.
We had gathered on the rooftop for a brief meeting.
When I asked the others if they had felt anything strange, Hayoon had clearly answered like this.
"I think I suddenly became bored and thought about going home."
"....."
"...."
Of course, it was a thought probably distorted by the ghost story, but that didn't mean a completely new eccentricity appeared in her.
in my case, it was gambling, which had passed down through the bloodline from my paternal grandfather (though it manifested now as last-second cramming), and became strongly apparent.
In both Gyeongwon's Sunah's cases, it
seemed they had each become more driven by the desires they originally possessed.
And then, a rather old memory surfaced.
'....During the psychopath test.'
When Teacher Jang Hwaeun, wearing a trench coat, tried to kill my family.
Back then, on the apartment rooftop, under the moonlight, Hayoon laughed so wildly.
Saying we should stab everyone to death, just for fun.
"..Back then, I thought it was just an illusion, but it wasn't. It was, to some extent, a projection of her true self.'
And somehow, Hayoon herself also seemed to be aware of what had manifested within her that day.
Putting it all together, it ultimately means that Hayoon might actually like thrilling things.
It was just a thought I threw out there.
But my heart felt like it stopped.
Adding that to everything before, her
understanding level had suddenly reached 45.
Hayoon leaned against the wall across me and stared intently.
The atmosphere had completely changed after that one remark I threw Out.
Her expression was unreadable, face that gave no hint of what she was thinking.
It was as if some kind of chaos, not a person, Was sitting there.
Absolute nothingness.
A void.
Hayoon looked at me with a face that was completely blank. I swallowed hard and spoke.
"Hayoon."
She remained unresponsive.
Although my understanding had increased, it was only by 10 points, and the total still didn't even reach half.
Therefore, I continued the conversation without letting my guard down.
".It could've probably happened in about an hour."
"....."
"At the bowling alley downstairs here, I was going to meet a girl."
Hayoon stared at me silently.
No, I wasn't sure if she was even looking at me.
It felt as if the eyes, nose, and mouth had disappeared from her pale face. I clenched my fists tightly, feeling an inexplicable sense of unease.
'I should just keep pushing forward at times like this.'
It started off a bit haphazardly, but for now, I decided to just keep going.
The moment my lips stopped moving, it felt like the sound around us disappeared.
Like something bizarre and uncontrollable was about to happen.
"....To be exact, it was not quite a relationship. But still, while talking with the civil service exam taker sister, we became quite close. I even told her about our fight, and she comforted me."
"....."
"Then, at her suggestion, I ended up joining a study group and studying with her. You know, a sec-study group, right?"
"....."
"You know, right?"
Hayoon remained silent.
Unable to grasp the thread of the conversation, I shifted my gaze anxiously and asked again.
"...A sec-study study group. Don't you
know?"
She just looked at me silently.
Maybe she didn't know.
Or else... what?
I couldn't read her thoughts.
Anyway, it's an internet slang, and it was also the main point of the story.
Thinking that I should explain it if she didn't know, I swallowed dryly and continued the story.
"...That, a study group and, se... well. That 'sex- thing. You know...? It's a combination of those two words."
"...."
"U-usually, it refers to a situation where guys and girls hang out under the pretext of a small study group. You know, pretending to study for the TOEIC, or for civil service exams...They gather together pretending to be helpful, but studying takes a back seat, and they only flirt and fool around with each other.."
"....."
"They all just check each other out, constantly watching for cues about when to suggest going out for dinner...The group leaders spend all day just worrying about how to recruit pretty girls..."
"Be, Because studying alone here gets lonely, you know... And since almost
everyone in Noryangjin lives alone, like solo... so it even leads to live-in relationship...."
"So sometimes, if you listen closely in the rooms, you can even hear moaning sounds...."
Hayoon looked like she was not even human anymore.
Cold sweat running down my back, I went on to describe the moaning sounds in detail.
"Like the bed's creaking, making all these weird noises,..... so I went to check it out, and found out it was the senior sister who invited me to join the study group was making the sound....."
Drenched in cold sweat, I put extra effort into describing that part in detail.
"Like this, like this. Suddenly, thump, thump, then shaking and creaking. Then I heard those sounds, like those kind of sound ah—"
"You don't have to explain any further, Joon."
A gentle voice, spoken without any
intonation.
I quickly nodded five times in a hurry.
Thank goodness, at least she got angry.
"A-anyway. So I ended up joining that group, right? That study group. And then what happened after that. The first night, we all went out for drinks together. Of course, that wasn't the original plan. It started with just
grabbing dinner and heading back,
but...."
While I continued, she sat there like a
faceless, featureless entity all along. but
seem a bit more human.
So, once again, I forced myself to keep
the conversation going.
"But when we actually got there, whether it was their usual way or not, they naturally started ordering drinks and pouring for each other."
"I ended up having a few drinks too, and that girl over there was seated next to me, and we got closer, you know? See-see her? That girl over there."
I raised my hand and pointed toward the unlucky CSAT retaker girl in the room across from us.
Unlike the frozen atmosphere here, she was comfortably lying on her stomach, eating potato chips.
"That's her. She, she's from the same boarding house."
"....."
"..Ca, can you see her?"
Hayoon stared at me, motionless.
When I floundered as if pleading for help, Hayoon, who had been staring blankly for a while, finally turned her head slowly, following my pointing finger.
"That's her. The one lying down eating
potato chips."
"....."
"Well, technically, she's older than me.
But since she's 20, she just naturally
thought of me as her senior... so I started giving her advice on her worries and things like that, and we became close. We'd drink together and stuff...."
"....."
"But that day, after the gathering ended, we were heading back up to the boarding house, but she was still drunk and wobbling on her feet, so the leader guy rushed over and said hed take her away. He said he'd sober her up and bring her back upstairs. But honestly, his intentions were obvious,
right? I could tell he was going to do
this or that, so I immediately stepped in and stopped him. Of course, I also had ulterior motives toward that girl."
"..."
"So we got into a fight. Cursing at each other, demanding to hand over the girl."
I threw a few punches into the air, mimicking the fight.
But Hayoon wasn't looking at me.
She was still just staring at the retaker girl I pointed out earlier.
Was she even listening?
"Um, um. You can look at me now."
"....."
Hayoon slowly turned her head back and stared intently at me.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants.
And the conversation gradually headed toward the main point.
"When I woke up the next day, it was already evening. The competition had already ended. So I thought I should just give up on going to school and straight start preparing for the 9th-grade civil service exam. And
then. "
I avoided her gaze and lowered my head, diligently continuing with what I had to say.
Hayoon had been sitting with her legs
stretched out from the start, so my slightly lowered gaze naturally fell on her socks.
In the end, it looked like I was earnestly talking to Hayoon's socks.
"And then...."
After that, my story went on for quite a while.
Stories about fiercely fighting over the girl, about skipping out on responsibilities and going to the internet café under the excuse of self-care.
Storie about how I wailed over failing to reach Diamond rank in LoL, how I banded together with other boarding house residents to scare away the manager, and how we engaged in political fights within the study group.
'L-let's skip the boring study stuff and focus on the most provocative parts.'
Little by little, the strategy started to work.
Hayoon, who had been giving off an unreadable vibe, gradually began to return to her usual expression as time went on.
Though her expression remained blank, whenever I mentioned parts where I'd acted like an idiot, she would lower her eyelashes and narrow her eyes slightly.
"And I was standing there with a knife,
but he couldn't see me....'
"....."
The story reached its second half, and I recounted in detail how I personally wieldeda knife and stabbed the new manager, as well as how each of our
club members died one by one.
Especially during the part about the members' suicides, I could finally feel her listening intently, so I made sure to elaborate on that section as vividly and in as much detail as possible.
"Gyeongwon hanged himself, Sunah slit her wrist in the bathroom...."
"...."
That's how it happened."
I finished my story and nodded to myself.
"I'm done."
I was done. Telling everything.
..C, crazy.
Why, all of a sudden?
Why was she angry?
...No, saying she was angry was an understatement.
There was a terrifying aura that constantly radiated from her.
For 30 minutes, I couldn't even breathe.
I did everything I could.
'.. I'll leave the rest to heaven.'
I finally took my eyes off Hayoon's white socks, where I'd been staring at with my neck buried like a turtle for over half an hour, and leaned back against the wall.
'i'm done. For real this time.'
I deliberately told it in a very provocative way.
Especially the parts where people were dying, I added extra detail to those.
I glanced subtly at Hayoon.
Fortunately, she had returned to her usual expressionless face.
And, like me, her posture was slightly bowed.
From a quick guess, it seemed that at some point she had also stopped looking at me, absorbed in listening to the story.
We were both looking at her white
socks, one talking and the other listening.
After a moment of silence, Hayoon,
who had been staring at her toes,
finally spoke.
"Good job."
"It was fun, you know."
Hayoon straightened her feet and wiggled them.
The white socks hugged the feminine curves of her feet, which stretched out straight and tapped gently in my direction.
I sighed in relief as I looked at Hayoon's socks.
"... I'm glad you found it enjoyable."
Fortunately, my guess was correct.
I wasn't sure what the specific emotion was, but Hayoon was interested in this kind of thing.
For instance, during the Fourincess incident, she laughed happily in Teacher Hwaeun's car as it speed along wildly; and during the Kim Eunjung incident, when I told her the story about the mother ghost, she laughed and enjoyed it too.
'..But is it just about being thrilling?'
It was hard to lump it all together under the simple adjective of thrilling.
And it's not like the understanding had
skyrocketed by that wild guess, it had
only gone up by a mere 10 points.
There was something more to Hayoon's strange aura.
'..Anyway, if I raise it by another 10 and reach 50, I'll be able to figure out what it really is.'
When the understan ding level hits 50, her Quirk would be revealed.
Then I would have a clearer idea about her.
Time to start wrapping things up.
I called out to Hayoon, who was leaning against the opposite wall.
"In Hayoon."
She slowly lifted her head, lost in thought.
I deliberately avoided looking at her and said casually.
"I'm planning to do something really fun tonight."
As if tossing out a casual remark, I indifferently looked only at her socks.
"Those people who made a fuss because we were being loud in the boarding house. I'm planning to deliberately provoke them more and make them completely explode."
"...."
"We're going to shout, cause a ruckus,
and sing songs. We'll stir up every kind of chaos imaginable. What do you think?"
Then, Hayoon, who had been staring at me, stayed still for a moment before lowering her gaze just like I did, staring at the tips of her own feet, and spoke casually.
"I wish you'd be a little clever rather than just going ahead doing it."
"....."
"It would be fun if they misunderstand each other and fight. Grabbing each other by the collar over mistaken assumptions."
"....."
"What do you think, Joon?"
A tone where we both speak as if just casually passing a remark.
Acting as if we were just trying out the words, while similarly avoiding making eye contact.
Our gazes both settled on her outstretched toes, wrapped in white socks.
I nodded while looking at her socks.
" I'll do that. I'll give it a try."
"Thanks, Joon. If you do it well, I'll give you these socks. "
Leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, Hayoon stretched out her feet wrapped in socks, showing them off to me like a proud display.
I nodded as I looked at the soles of Hayoon's white socks, slightly stained from wearing them half a day.
"If you give them to me, I'll wear them to school."
At that, she finally let out a small chuckle and lowered her head slightly.
Then Hayoon raised her head again, running her hand through her black hair, a bright smile on her face.
"Joon, you pervert."
It was over. Reconciliation with Hayoon.