.  ‘No,’ I murmured in my thoughts to brace myself. ‘Nothing happened to us yet in this world, so I can’t judge him right now by the situation at that time.’ Once I repeated those words in my head, I could barely say to him, “I’m quitting here soon.”


  The moment I was about to tell him that he didn’t have to try hard to get along with me for that reason, Chun Dong Ho spoke faster.

  “Really? Well, you’re good, so you don’t need this place no more.”


  Eh? I recently ranked 140th out of 200 students at the mock exam, which wasn’t even doing an average performance. Although I had no idea why he kept complimenting me that way, I didn’t want to even talk to him, so I decided to just become shameless. That was when I nodded and quickly turned around.

  “Then can I have your number……?” he asked.

  “Sorry,” I replied immediately then walked across the hallway of the cram school that began to get darken.

  Thankfully, the elevator arrived as soon as I pressed the button. There was, at least, ten students inside. Chun Dong Ho, who ran after me, just got on the elevator while not being able to say anything.

  However, he didn’t give up. As soon as I stepped outside the building, he grabbed me again. Shaking my arm that was in his hand, I uttered, “Uh, why?”


  “I didn’t ask you to do anything. All I asked for is just your number. Is that too much for you?”


  “I have a b……”


  I have a boyfriend––I stopped myself from blurting out those words, which had been very natural to speak that way over the last few months. When I raised my head, Chun Dong Ho was staring at me with stiffened eyes.

  Snowflakes began to fly all over between us. Looking up vacantly at his face sunk in the dark, I slowly dropped a remark.

  “.…… I have a crush on someone else,” I said while biting my lips. Right now, I couldn’t say that I was in a relationship with that person since Yeo Dan oppa didn’t exist anymore. Thus, it was a lie to say that he and I were together.

  Looking dumbfounded, Chun Dong Ho replied, “Come on, that means you aren’t still going out with someone anyway, are you?”


  “That’s true…… but……”


  “What do you mean then?” he suddenly asked offensively, which made me flinch in surprise. As if he felt bewildered, Chun Dong Ho disheveled his hair then turned on his heel and kicked an empty can rolling on the ground on his way.

  With a loud noise, the can flew away and struck the glass wall of the bus station. A few pedestrians turned to look in this direction after that noise and began to whisper, ‘What the hell? Are they insane? Maybe they are fighting’ Staying beside Chun Dong Ho, I was regarded as his company, which reddened my face.

  Paying no heed to my position, Chun Dong Ho kept disheveling his hair then left a word before he turned around.

  “Ah, so humiliating……!”


  He then slowly disappeared toward the cram school bus. Being left alone at the spot, I stared at the sight in a daze for a while then suddenly pulled myself together.

  “Oh, I should go home too,” I murmured and tried to walk toward the cram school bus but paused for a second. It was, of course, a waste of money to take public transportation when the cram school offered a free ride back home using their own bus. However, in this situation, it was like a suicidal explosion to take the same ride with Chun Dong Ho.

  In the end, I trudged toward the bus station. Those who looked at Chun Dong Ho kicking the empty can glanced at me in excitement, but I tried to ignore their attention. While I looked around to focus on something else, a huge bookstore nearby came into view.

  It was only about three to four meters away from here, so the advertisement poster on that place was very visible. As I became a person addicted to reading even the ingredients labeling on a pack of snack, I read the poster like crazily.

  ‘300 Days Between You and Me,’ the hottest web novel that reached 4M views!

  ‘.…… A web novel?’ I murmured instinctively, then I soon realized something. ‘Right! Web novels still exist in this world!’ Although I had gone back and forth between the two universes, it was such a short time that I didn’t have a chance to read a book, so I had never read any web novels after graduating elementary school.

  The bus I had to hop on arrived, at last. Taking a seat on the bus, I kept staring at the bookstore through the window. Something seemed to enter my head, but it didn’t.

  Once I stepped into the apartment, I smiled bitterly when I tried to press the elevator button.

  “Geez, it comes with all sorts of things……”


  Yeo Dan oppa and Yeo Ryung came into my mind when I opened the elevator door in this apartment; Yoo Chun Young flashed through my head while looking at the billboard on the department store; I recalled Eun Hyung when looking at the kitchen or hospital, and Jooin when watching TV shows while thinking that he would have won those games immediately.

  And whenever I stepped into the elevator, Eun Jiho popped into my head.

  From the moment I pressed the elevator button and went up to the floor I was living on, I just stood still inside the space while leaning my head against the wall. If I didn’t, I would seem to melt down onto the ground like a flimsy creature.

  ‘Come on, it’s fine. Everything’s over now,’ I said to myself.

  Yeah, the hard thing almost reached the end by today. I concluded something between Chun Dong Ho and me, so he would probably not talk to me anymore. Though it was a little scary, I dealt with it determinedly. ‘Good Job to me!’ I cheered up myself. Getting along with strangers in the cram school would be over by tomorrow.

  ‘After all, I don’t seem to fit into the curriculum in cram school though, so once the school starts, let’s study alone.’


  Bracing myself that way, I heard the elevator having arrived on my floor. The door then opened. The hallway to my house felt particularly long today. Taking each step forward with difficulty, I kept murmuring to myself, ‘It’s over. All over now!”


  At that moment, something that dashed toward this side at a full speed bumped into me behind my back. As I collapsed to the floor, I had a hunch that the sufferings of today were still ongoing.

  With a thud, I fell down on my face. To make matters worse, I banged my knees first against the floor. My vision was soon blurred out of pain. I groaned while crouching down, “Argh, ah. It really hurts……”


  I checked my knees. Wearing long pants and collapsing onto the smooth concrete surface didn’t make the wound visible. However, I would have a bruise sooner or later. Once I get back home, I would have to look it again thoroughly though.

  ‘Gosh, the school starts in two days. What the heck!’ I murmured and turned my head.

  A kid was standing behind me. He had curly brown hair; his wide-open eyes were also brown. Suddenly, the kid next-door that my mom talked about last week came into my head. I was sure since he was riding an electric scooter.

  ‘He was riding that device in the hallway even at night, and there he goes for the things he has done right now.’ Thinking that way, I felt my anger getting away at the same time. Perhaps it was a sense of closeness toward a person with lighter degrees of pigmentation whom I first encountered in this world.

  While I stood up with tottering steps, the kid just stared at me wordlessly. The moment I dusted off my knees, that was when he uttered a word.

  “Sorry……”


  It didn’t sound that clear since he lisped, but I could, at least, understand what he was trying to say.

  “Ah, it’s okay. I’m fine,” I replied with a clumsy smile while handling the pain on my knees.

  He was nicer than I thought. Well, this was a situation that even a bad kid couldn’t help but apologize though. Turning back toward the direction to my house, I thought to myself that way.

  However, once I began to move, the pain spreading around my knees was no joke. ‘Eek, he must have bumped into me very harshly. Are my bones broken?’ I wondered. Suppressing the anxiety welling up within me, I entered the keypad to open the door.

  That was when I suddenly felt that something was missing on my back. Eh? Shrugging my shoulders a few times, I soon looked back at the hallway that I just past by.

  Yikes…… my backpack slipped off me as I fell onto the floor; it might have been left on that spot. However, I had been too painful to think about it. The moment I frowned while looking at my bag in the middle of the hallway, the kid next-door ran toward the place with short and quick steps then picked up my bag.