.  As if he was talking while asleep, Jooin’s voice seemed to float in the air. His eyes were open toward the empty space like they were inside a dream.

  “Different?” asked Eun Hyung.

  “Me saying to myself that I am not a weirdo and someone else telling me the same thing. The two are different.”


  “…”


  Only then did Eun Hyung realize why Woo Jooin’s mood had changed. He kind of thought that the air around Jooin seemed to alter at some point after the courage test. Jooin didn’t sharpen his attitude toward his closest people as well as conceal his true color than before. As if looking at a child who first took off a baby step, Eun Hyung even felt a heart-tugging impression from him.

  Woo Jooin continued with a smile, “No one… said to me like that until now, so I never knew that they could be this much different.”


  “Then―.”


  “And on the other hand, I came across this thought that I should be a better person. That’s the only way to make a return for those words.”


  “…”


  “Isn’t it quite amazing that a person can change by another person?”


  Woo Jooin then cast down his eyes and directed them on Yoo Chun Young who was asleep. Under the calm library air, his figure was as solid as a stuffed still life painting. If Jooin didn’t hear Yoo Chun Young’s faint breath, he might have thought the time had stopped. Still looking at Yoo Chun Young, Woo Jooin detached his lips.

  “And I think the change is enough for now.”


  Kwon Eun Hyung was at a loss of words again as he noticed how unusually forlorn Woo Jooin looked right now. His words kept on like a murmur.

  “… because I’m happy to the fullest right now.”


  That was when Kwon Eun Hyung tried to respond to his remark. Woo Jooin suddenly turned bright as if he took his mask off. ‘Though he has got no qualms anymore about revealing his true self, he should do something with that sudden change on his face…’ Just when Eun Hyung had that thought in mind, Woo Jooin waved his hand to those who were in a distance.

  “Hey!”


  As Kwon Eun Hyung turned his head, he found the faces of those whom he anticipated. Carrying their bags in each of their shoulders, Eun Jiho and Ham Donnie was walking toward this direction.

  * * *

  “How can he sleep so well?”


  I was staring at Yoo Chun Young, deeply in his dreamland, in awe. Eun Jiho, beside me, added a few words too.

  “Is he here to sleep? He’s been a Sleeping Beauty these days.”


  Instead of Yoo Chun Young, it was Eun Hyung, sitting next to him, who looked bothered by Eun Jiho’s remark. ‘Eh? Why is Eun Hyung having that look?’ Putting my bag down, I took a seat and flung a question.

  “Did Yoo Chun Young have another shoot yesterday? Being dead asleep like that looks as though he is…”


  For some reason, Eun Hyung turned a little bright from my words.

  He replied, “Oh, he had a family gathering yesterday. The number seems to increase as it’s the break.”


  “Then why didn’t you tell him to just stay home and sleep all day?” asked Eun Jiho, putting his bag down and sitting next to me naturally.

  ‘Yeah, that makes sense,’ I nodded to his words. The look on Eun Hyung’s face, however, changed somehow. He turned apparently stiff than when he was talking to me earlier. ‘I mean, rather than turning stiff, should I say he looks as if he’s in an awkward situation…?’ The moment I furthered my thought, Yoo Chun Young suddenly opened his eyes. His long thick lashes slowly went up; his blue eyes moved to glance at me and Eun Jiho one after another. He then raised his body.

  While Eun Jiho and I looked at what he was doing bitterly, Yoo Chun Young touched his forehead in silence as if he had a headache. ‘Makes me feel sorry about him…’ I murmured to myself, ‘I mean, it seems that we blamed the sick kid to wake up and study…’ Waving my hand, I dropped my words.

  “I just said so as I felt sorry to see you in fatigue lately… I really don’t care whether you sleep or not, so…”


  In the meantime, Yoo Chun Young just stared at me with unreadable eyes, and before I completed my sentence, he opened his mouth.

  “I’m gonna study.”


  “Huh?”


  “That’s why I’m here.”


  With that said, Yoo Chun Young stretched his hand to take out a book from his cross-body bag hung on the chair beside him. A sense of tiredness resonated around his overall moves. Observing Yoo Chun Young in perplexity for a second, I slowly moved my eyeballs and exchanged eye contact with Eun Jiho who was next to me. He also looked bewildered. Jooin, who somehow gave a wise man look for the whole time, said with a swiveling smile.

  “Mama, what’s the problem? Chun Young says that he decided to study, so let’s cheer him up.”


  “Um, I mean… but…”


  Yoo Chun Young, who took his books out and was building a tower with them until now, suddenly lifted his eyes and diverted them onto me.

  “Why?” he asked.

  His blue eyes turned unusually serious that I felt a little uncomfortable. My voice was involuntarily trembling.

  “Um… uh… um… I mean, let’s study hard.”


  “Yeah.”


  He then switched his gaze to the workbook. I, again, turned around to look at Eun Jiho, sitting next to me. He, however, seemed to be aware of something. His black eyes, directing at Yoo Chun Young, looked heavy and quite subdued.

  Hmm… looking at his side face, I suddenly turned my head back as we were about to have eye contact. I then fell into thought, gazing at the mountain of mathematics in front of me. ‘I have a long way to go yet, so who should I be worried about? Honestly, Yoo Chun Young has brains. He just doesn’t have enough time to study because he’s busy. Haha, I’ll let everyone know about you once I get back to the real world.’ Then I thought about myself back in the world where I originally belonged.

  I’ll write a self-help book with a title of ‘How to Survive Among the Four Heavenly Kings.’ How will it be if the book addresses, ‘Guys, let’s study hard. The Four Heavenly Kings and the heroine are such monsters bullshitting about how easy to get the nation’s first place test results just by taking the three core subject classes in school?’ My silly thoughts didn’t last long. I quickly grabbed my pencil and began to focus on my studies.

  The library at noon was very quiet. I wish I could say it like that, but unfortunately, it wasn’t. The smell of the book that tried to doze me off and the warmness from the straight sunlight heating the air-conditioned space felt cozy, but…


  The problem was that those, who were sitting next to me, were the Four Heavenly Kings. People’s attention was inevitable, therefore. The seats around us seemed to be packed with people as time went by. Every eye was bent on our direction that my cheeks felt like stinging. As they say that humans may be the most adaptive species, I was just solving the questions in my workbook hectically at some point. After a while, I suddenly raised my eyes to look across. There I saw Yoo Chun Young leaning his forehead onto the tip of his pencil with a furrow. His downcast lashes were so long that they looked like those from a doll. Then I frowned my brows as the happening that took place a few days ago came across my head.

  The unexplainable, supernatural things that happened on the day we had the courage test… The faceless man, who turned off the switch while walking around the hallway only with his footsteps, scared me so much that he sometimes appeared in my dreams. The thing that made a deep impression on my mind was, however, none other than the short illusion I had encountered when opening the classroom door. The scenery of the clean classroom filled with a sunset, Yoo Chun Young’s broad shoulders sitting against me, the memory of myself taking his earphone from him to put in into my ear, and the music playing through it…


  I stared at Yoo Chun Young. The most unforgettable thing was his painfully contorted face and the stuttering voice that sounded like a broken recording machine, which made me unbearable without asking what has happened.

  ‘It was you.’


  ‘It was snowing, but I stood right there and thought about why I was standing here…”


  ‘No matter how hard I tried to think about it, I couldn’t find out for whom and for what reason am I here waiting…’


  ‘It was you.’


  It was you… I murmured those words in my mouth, but it just hasn’t hit me yet. How could that Yoo Chun Young say such words to no one else but me with a painful look? I rubbed my pencil. Instead of moving further to answer the questions on the paper, I was just drawing meaningless circles on the numbers, thinking, ‘It was just a dream. Those couldn’t happen unless inside a dream. Even the space was too surreal…’


  However, I couldn’t deny that in the innermost recesses of my heart, there was me wishing that it wasn’t just a dream. Yoo Chun Young having that look on his face just because he forgot me or I didn’t come back seemed like… I was being a very special person to him.