.  “Who are you?”


  “Hold on, I know who he is.”


  Someone whispered in a low voice, ‘Isn’t he the boy who just returned from abroad? His name was Yi Ruda or something like that…’ Indeed, Yi Ruda seemed to be as famous as the Four Heavenly Kings also in other grades.

  Once they got to know his identity, the girls’ expressions changed. Laughing confidently, they leaned on the back door and uttered, “Ah, so there comes the owner of the last empty seat, huh? That means Ham Donnie is here now.”


  “Ham Donnie?”


  Yi Ruda immediately showed a threatening look on his face when my name slipped out from their mouths. However, the problem was that his ferocious look seemed to derive from my name itself rather than grasping the overall situation.

  I touched my aching temple while wondering, ‘Did I do something wrong to Ruda lately? The look on his face seems like… I’ve become his enemy… Let’s think upon what I have done wrong ASAP since Ruda is a terrifying kid…’ While I murmured to myself that way, one of the seniors flung a question to Ruda.

  “Ah, cool. Why don’t you bring her to us? Which one is Ham Donnie here?”


  That was when Ruda removed the bloodthirsty look from his eyes and flaunted a soft grin as if he was about to emit some floral scent. His change of expression was truly admirable at any time.

  “Why are you looking for Donnie?”


  They might have thought that their conversation was going well from Ruda’s bright smile. The girls also replied with a grin, “Oh, we have something to talk about the person whom she’s dating right now…”


  I closed my eyes tight at their response and breathed a deep sigh.

  ‘I knew it… It was indeed about Yeo Dan oppa. ‘Even though we’re seeing each other as to disguise his stalker, I must endure the situation to stay with him.’ That was when I tried to get up from my seat this time with that thought in mind.

  Ruda’s cold voice flew over to me and pierced through my ears. I blinked swiftly.

  “Even we are restraining our impatience although we have so much to talk further… but why and WHAT do you guys want to say to her?”


  A moment of silence swept the space. Once of the seniors then tossed a question as if she could hardly believe the situation while rubbing her ear.

  “… What did you just say?”


  “So many of us want to speak with her, but we’re holding ourselves back. If you want the join the queue, go all the way at the end of the line. Nah, don’t even think about it. You guys don’t even have the right to do that.”


  “W… hat is he talking about right now?”


  “I feel like sh*t right now, so stop messing with me anymore.”


  Ruda dropped those remarks while narrowing his gorgeous blue eyes. I gasped only in my thoughts. It was my first time to see Ruda talking that way to other people except for Jooin or Lucas. By the way…


  Did he just say he had things to speak further with me? I unfolded the thoughts that I had earlier. ‘If I did something wrong to him, I must bring it up as soon as possible. It will decide my fate…’


  Meanwhile, Ruda, who was scowling at the senior girls one after another, turned his mouth up slightly to resemble the hint of a smile.

  “See what happens if I hear you guys behaved this way in front of our class again.”


  “You… how dare you speak like that to the seniors!?”


  “There’s nothing I’m afraid of right now.”


  ‘Then were you afraid of something before?’ I wondered from the bottom of my heart. A noise then reached my ears from across the hallway. As if he had a conference or other meetings, our teacher, who was running a little late to class, was finally returning to the classroom.

  “Hey, it’s class time. What are you guys doing here in the hallway?”


  Once they heard the teacher’s angry voice, the girls quickly ran away while biting their lips. Watching them receding from the sight, Ruda then slowly walked into the classroom and sat on his seat. I stared blankly at the view of his back, but as soon as he turned his head to look in my direction, our eyes met.

  Ruda asked me with a warmhearted face as if nothing had happened, “Why?”


  “Uh…”


  Before I got to toss a suitable question, Ruda turned his head to the front and suddenly banged his head on the desk.

  ‘… What the…?’ I flinched my hand in surprise. As if slamming his head onto the desk just once wasn’t that satisfying, Ruda began to bang his head continuously, which made me break out in a cold sweat.

  Since Kim Hye Woo sat right beside Ruda, I thought he would stop him from doing that action, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Kim Hye Woo put his neck pillow, which he often used during the class, on Ruda’s desk and spoke in a sweet voice.

  “Bang as much as you can. They say it hurts because you’re young.”


  “Well said.”


  Once I got to know his true gender, Ruda’s voice sounded utterly like a boy. Replying that way with a masculine tone, Ruda began to bang his head on the desk again, and I was lost in a mystery at that sight.

  In front of the classroom, the teacher was proceeding with the class as usual. I murmured, ‘Today is really a weird day…’


  They said, ‘Once we start dating someone, the world looks different;’ however, the world looked not the same as usual to me in a different way somehow.

  Yoon Jung In returned to the classroom after an hour from that situation. Amid the kids asking him what had happened, Yoon Jung In brushed the barrage of questions aside, replying, “Fall Sports Day.”


  The kids grumbled immediately, “Argh, I knew it!”


  “Our schoolyard is too wide to do the long-distance race. Those who participate in that game would have to run their butts off.”


  “No individual race, huh? It must not happen!”


  Clapping his hand to draw their attention, Yoon Jung In uttered, “Hey hey hey, calm down folks, so during the Saturday class meeting, we’re gonna receive your opinions about any game ideas for the sports day. Have that in mind.”


  The sports day in our school had a unique system; unlike other schools, which usually began from choosing the people to participate in the fixed games or events, we started from brainstorming about what sports games we would like to have. Once the final game was chosen from those ideas, we had to prepare for the goods required for that game, which took way longer to get ready for the sports day than other schools.

  However, I seemed to hear that the entire event was more entertaining than our expectations. Last year, the entire audience broke into loud and uncontrolled laughter during the sports day since kids brought up so many mind-shattering ideas.

  I lifted my pencil and scratched my head with it. I wasn’t good at brainstorming these things, so I would have to plan something that made the students less difficult to join and enjoy the day.

  As soon as Yoon Jung In delivered the message and left to his seat, the kids took their textbooks out from their drawers and got up from their seats. Watching that sight, I quickly pulled myself together and took my textbook out too. Now I had come to think of it, the next was music class.

  As Kim Hye Hill and Lee Mina came toward me while holding their textbooks in their hands, we all bent our steps to the music room.

  The place was right beside Class 1-1 and we were Class 1-8, so when walking across the hallway straight, we often got to encounter one or two people we knew. We had the most greetings while walking past by Class 1-7, which was our next-door class, and it gradually decreased as we walked far away from our classroom. The farther the classrooms were, the less intimate we became with kids in other classes.

  However, when we were walking past Class 1-1, unexpectedly, a lot of kids had greetings with them. We had no choice but to get along with the kids in that class since we went through the courage test together in the past.

  As if we had never fought against each other, the kids soon befriended, which I thought we were indeed high school students. That was when I gently smiled at the heartwarming sight.

  I had eye contact with Yoo Chun Young, who just opened the front door and was stepping out of the classroom. Having the chocolate milk straw between his lips as usual, he soon opened his eyes wide in surprise when I came into his view.

  ‘Ah, it’s good that you’re here. I had something to ask you,’ with that thought in mind, I turned to look beside me and spoke to Kim Hye Hill and Lee Mina.

  “Let me stop by at Class 1-1 for a second.”


  “Okay, we’ll save a seat for you,” replied Lee Mina nonchalantly.

  Letting her leave ahead of me, I quickly walked toward Yoo Chun Young. However, something utterly unexpected took place. He might have definitely seen me, but with a moment of stiffened face, Yoo Chun Young went back to his classroom while taking backward steps as if someone had pressed a rewind button on him.