.  I looked at the teacher in wonder.

  He then said, “Oh, take these and hand them out to your classmates. One is a milk meal application, and the other is a class address book. In the address book, tell them to fill in their parents’ contacts and especially their occupations as specific as possible.”


  “Okay.”


  Then why did he ask me to sit down? When I looked up to see him with bewildered eyes, he then pulled out another paper and placed it on the desk.

  What was it? As I lowered my head to have a good look at the paper, a light-yellow hair fell onto my shoulder.

  I slowly turned back to glance who it was. There I saw Yi Ruda’s unbelievably pretty face right beside me. She bent her waist with her head right beside my left shoulder to view the paper properly.

  The golden peach buzz on her face was shining under the sunlight. Her soft honey-like hair color and her smooth white forehead came into my eyes. I gazed at her gorgeous appearance for a while but turned my head nonchalantly thereafter. If she was a boy, I would have freaked out, but fortunately, she was a girl.

  Regardless of our postures, the teacher just pointed the empty paper and continued his words.

  “So, the next is about our classroom seating arrangement. What do you guys think? Should we rearrange the whole seats or just remain as it is right now for a month?”


  “…”


  I could barely respond. It would be better to ask the kids what their opinions were. Before I was about to reply, I glimpsed at Yi Ruda.

  Coincidentally, her head was also facing me.

  I got surprised to see her face that close. The distance between us was less than 10 cm.

  At that very moment, a high-pitched scream broke the silence from the corner of the office.

  “Excuse me!”


  I was so startled that I almost fell from the chair. My hips were about to slip from the seat which made me reeled from it, but a slim hand came out from the side and propped me up. The fingers were obviously slender but quite strong enough.

  Holy Christ! I shouted out to myself and lifted my head. Yi Ruda’s shiny, blue eyes dropped on me with concern.

  She moved her lips to ask, “Are you okay, Donnie?”


  “Umm, yeah.”


  I responded shortly and turned my head to look at the origin of the scream.

  Everyone in the office was looking at the same direction, so it was easy to find out who made that noise. When I identified the ‘who,’ I could not help my mouth from being wide-opened.

  All the people had their eyes on Ban Yeo Ryung, who was fiercely scowling at me. I thought Eun Hyung would look puzzled to be in an awkward situation; however, I was completely wrong. He also gazed at my direction with a serious look on his face.

  I raised my fingers involuntarily and pointed at my face.

  Me? What did I do? Eun Hyung, however, shook his head and said with a smile to the teacher sitting right in front of him.

  “Sir, I think Yeo Ryung has a splinter on her foot.”


  “Oh, really…?”


  The teacher also sounded unclear of Eun Hyung’s remark as he was probably thinking that a scream of that magnitude would not burst out from a tiny splinter. I also thought the same way.

  I mean, why did she yell out like that? My eyes grew bleary looking at her, then Ruda called me.

  “Donnie.”


  “Huh?”


  “What do you think about the seating arrangement?”


  Her sunny voice reverted my head back to her. She had an innocent look upon me as if she did not understand what all the fuss was about.

  My eyes were on her for a moment. Then I shrugged as I said to the teacher.

  “Sir, what if we ask the kids about how they wanted to deal with the rearrangements first? If more than a half agrees about something, we could then decide by lots?”


  “Oh, then go to the classroom and see what they prefer. Then hand out the address book and the milk meal application as well.”


  “Yes, sir.”


  Ruda replied, stretching out her hands to gather the scattered papers on the desk.

  Then she said to me, “Let’s go.”


  “Oh, ok.”


  Soon as I responded, I stood up from my seat. As I walked toward the door, I felt something stinging on my side. I turned around to see what it was and found Ban Yeo Ryung still scowling at me. Her face told me that the reason why she made that noise earlier was definitely not because of the splinter.

  I glimpsed around and realized that no one was looking at this side. Then I pulled out my phone from the pocket to leave a message: text me if you have something to say.

  Ban Yeo Ryung puffed out her cheeks looking displeased. She then turned back.

  Eun Hyung, who sat next to her, was staring not at me, but at Yi Ruda, who was walking like a feather in front of me. Her bright golden hair was hiding a few crevices of her eyes.

  Wow, the female crossdresser was surely amazing. How could she draw Eun Hyung’s attraction at once? I followed Yi Ruda with that thought, but she turned back to look at me, stopping herself to open the door.

  I stood still as she did and it surprised me when I looked at her eyes. Where Yi Ruda was standing was a spot where the gleaming light shone directly, and from that space, her lustrous eyes did not look blue.

  At a glance, it was an obvious blue color, but as the lights shed on her pupils, they were beaming like emerald-colored gems. They looked so wonderful that all I could do was just to exclaim.

  “Wow.”


  “…?”


  Yi Ruda looked confused for a second then slowly swept her face with her hand. It was a gesture to check if something was on her face, so I just shook my head. Then at some point, she might have realized it was because of her eyes. Soon something strange happened.

  Why was she having that bitter smile? I was at a loss of words at this sudden development.

  There would not be such situations for someone in real life to have that bitter smile. If one was feeling sad, a person could reduce to tears, but who would have such a bitter expression?

  A face like that belonged to a character inside a TV drama as one character would attempt to address their painful past.

  I suddenly felt the anxiety emerging inside me. When I glanced back, Ban Yeo Ryung and Eun Hyung were still staring at us.

  Yi Ruda began speaking at last. Her eyes were trembling pathetically.

  “My eyes… they look so monstrous.”


  “…?”


  I looked up blankly at Yi Ruda’s bittersweet smile. The way her eyes trembled indicated that she was not joking.

  As I realized that she was not playing me around, the next I wanted to do was to applaud her performance. It was surely admirable.

  Come on… How could she say such a word like ‘they look monstrous’ to herself with no hesitance?

  Well, characters having complexes about their appearance or capability had been an attractive subject, especially in fantasy novels. For instance, something like the following:

  There was this male protagonist who was mighty enough to kill all 10,000 attackers in his lonesome. When he stepped forward to the pale-looking female protagonist with blood all over him, a bitter smile runs on his face.

  He then said, “Don’t come close to me.”


  “…”


  “Nothing good would ever happen to you if you approach a monster like me.”


  Another example would be something like this: A world where the people were regarding black hair to be the instrument of the devil, a black-haired guy then said to a girl.

  “Don’t you see my jet-black hair? I… I’m a devil! I’m a monster! A monster who will ruin you!”


  What’s important here was how these characters all should have a bitter smile on their face after yelling. I had all these stories in mind when looking at Yi Ruda’s bitter smile.

  The blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair-white skin were all bright enough for me to believe that the darkened expression of hers didn’t belong to her.

  She dropped her blue eyes at me as if waiting for my response.

  Eun Hyung and Ban Yeo Ryung also stared at us, looking as focused as ever, which might have shown that our conversation also reached their ears. I then fell into a difficult situation.