.  Casting a furtive glance at Kim Hye Hill, I asked cautiously, “Is he okay?”


  Kim Hye Hill released Ban Hwee Hyul’s chin from her hand. Switching her gaze to me, Kim Hye Hill replied, “Nothing’s visible at this point. He better go see the doctor then.”


  As soon as Kim Hye Hill uttered that way, Ban Hwee Hyul’s low voice intervened between us.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Where are you trying to go?”


  “He was struck on the pressure point, right?”


  Once we blurted out those questions simultaneously while turning our heads toward him, Ban Hwee Hyul’s attitude subsided.

  ‘So, what’s the point of speaking such nonsense?’ I thought while clicking my tongue. Beside me, there was Yoon Jung In, pointing at himself.

  “Hey, Ban Hwee Hyul, you don’t have to push yourself. I have to go see the doctor anyway because of this face. Let’s use the public phone or ask someone in the school office to call us a cab.”


  As Yoon Jung In suggested even to that extent, Ban Hwee Hyul nodded as if there was nothing he could do anymore.

  The room was enveloped by a deafening silence. The overall atmosphere in the nurse’s office quickly cooled down as if we were inside a fridge. Biting my lips tightly, I glanced around and found all their faces looking pale like ghosts against the white curtain. Well, I did understand what they had in their minds.

  Yoon Jung In, who couldn’t bear the situation anymore, tapped Lee Mina on her arm and said, “Honey, go demand those bastards compensation. My face is yours, but this is what they’ve done to me.”


  Lee Mina replied still in a tearful voice, “They say it’s better to demolish thoroughly and rebuild things that aren’t fully broken.”


  Her words sounded utterly different from her voice, which made Yoon Jung In’s face turn green.

  “What? My face?” he stammered.

  Regardless of his reaction, Lee Mina repeated the words, ‘Demolish? Did I say demolish?’ quickly to herself with glaring eyes. Scowling at the floor shortly after, she began to have red veins in her eyes.

  While we stared at her breathlessly, Lee Mina stamped out of her seat, at last, and shouted, “URGH!!!! So annoying!! I wish I can demolish that mo

  er!!” Raising her head at the moment, she thrust her finger back to Yoon Jung In.

  “Ah, he made this poor little face look more miserable! Oh, what are we gonna do now?!” she yelled. In the end, Mina lifted up the chair upside down and shrieked like a pterosaur, “URGHHHHHH!!!”


  Having her in the background, Yoon Jung In diverted his gaze onto us. Pointing at himself with a pale face, he mouthed, ‘Do I look miserable?’


  We shook our heads at the same time. Yoon Jung In had masculine facial features and almond-shaped eyes that never went along with the word ‘miserable.’


  Putting on my thinking cap, I carefully uttered, “Uh…… maybe that means you have those ‘big eyes’ appeal that makes her want to do everything for you. Don’t you think so?”


  “Right? That’s what she means, huh?”


  The moment when Yoon Jung In asked back desperately, Lee Mina threw the chair she was holding just now to the floor with a loud thud.

  Being surprised in a flinch, I, on the other hand, checked the floor instinctively if there were any cracks. That was an inevitable reaction after being close to people, who could break things with bare hands, for a long time.

  Then, all of a sudden, something flashed through my head. My face looked depressed. Ruda was once one of those people. Coincidentally, that name slipped out of Lee Mina’s mouth out of the blue.

  “Not only Hwang Siwoo but Ruda that bastard……!! I’m gonna break him into pieces as well.”


  “.……”


  While there was another moment of silence, I looked at Lee Mina with subsided eyes. Her face was turning redder and more heated than her rosy cheeks. Raising her hand, she wiped out the tears in her eyes then blurted out again, “Not kidding. He’s really……”


  “.……”


  “I’m so disappointed at him…… and confused…… Everything I’ve seen so far doesn’t seem to be his true color,” she uttered heavily.

  The air around us became solemn. I had to admit that Lee Mina had finally brought out the subject that we had been thinking about, and at the same time, didn’t dare to voice it out until now.

  Now I had come to think of it, the object that enraged me was not Hwang Siwoo, who blurted such abusive remarks that made me shudder, but actually Ruda.

  Recalling the words and attitude he had shown us today, I couldn’t help but look back at the things we had gone through together. It felt like I should ask myself in the past smiling with him, ‘How are you assured of yourself knowing so well about the person beside you?’


  The moment I bit my lips with a grimace, the door flung open.

  We turned our heads apathetically in that direction while regarding that it’d be, of course, a student looking for the nurse, but as if the clouds had cleared, our facial expressions soon brightened.

  “Shin Suh Hyun!”


  Like we had finally met a savior after wandering around the fields, we reacted enthusiastically, which startled Shin Suh Hyun and made him step back into the sunny hallway. However, he walked back into the nurse’s office and closed the door as if he had braced himself.

  “What the heck is going on? The kids in our class were behaving this way earlier, and you guys……” Slurring the end of his sentence, Shin Suh Hyun suddenly stiffened as Yoon Jung In’s face came into view. “What the hell? I’ve heard that you and Hwang Siwoo had a fight.”


  “Hey, Shin Suh Hyun……”


  Watching Yoon Jung In’s eyes filling with tears, I tried to alert Shin Suh Hyun. That was when he took a step closer to Yoon Jung In and frowned at his best friend’s face.

  “I, of course, thought you might have won, but seriously, did he hit you in the face? That fu*king douchebag?”


  As soon as Shin Suh Hyun asked that way frigidly, Yoon Jung In burst out crying that sounded oddly tearful. He then threw himself in Shin Suh Hyun’s arms. Having quite a robust physique, Yoon Jung In’s action pushed Shin Suh Hyun a few steps backward.

  Despite the situation, Shin Suh Hyun reacted unexpectedly calm, instead of throwing an uppercut, as usual. Perhaps, it was in consideration of not punching the person who had already got terribly attacked. Instead, he dropped a question rarely in bewilderment.

  “Dude, what’s wrong……?”


  Hugging Shin Suh Hyun, Yoon Jung In wept like he was gonna die. Shin Suh Hyun stood there clumsily in bewilderment while being unable to either push Yoon Jung In away or hug him back.

  I asked abruptly, “Now I come to think of it, Shin Suh Hyun, why are you here? What happened to the training? You left for it as soon as the performance assessment was over since you had to train for the competition tomorrow.”


  Holding back an urge to push Yoon Jung In’s head away from his tummy, Shin Suh Hyun replied, “Oh, I just stopped by at the classroom to pick up something for a second, but no one was there; even the classroom door was closed. Though you guys had PE class, it seemed too late to have not returned.

  “Oh.”


  “I kept waiting for you guys while wondering if you were being punished as a group, but across the hallway, kids were walking toward the classroom totteringly, which looked quite weird like zombies. Then when they found me, they were dashing to me like agitated zombies,” said Shin Suh Hyun.

  He added, “I’ve wondered whether I should run away or not.”


  Watching him talking severely that way, I gently giggled. Just having a conversation with him brought the feelings drowned deeply on the bottom up to the surface of the water. It seemed like, unexpectedly, someone threw me a life vest with a splash out of the blue.

  Shin Suh Hyun continued, “As I stayed patient, suppressing my urge to escape, the kids surrounded me in the blink of an eye then started to babble that there was a brawl with Hwang Siwoo and Yi Ruda something like that, but honestly, things weren’t clearly graspable. Amid the situation, the one who supposed to be the noisiest wasn’t there, so I asked where he was. They told me he fought with Hwang Siwoo and was now in the nurse’s office.”


  Speaking that way, Shin Suh Hyun suddenly dropped his gaze at Yoon Jung In’s face shoved onto his tummy.

  “But, no way, I never thought you would have got beaten up……” uttered Shin Suh Hyun. Barely having escaped from Yoon Jung In, he pulled a chair from the bed and sat down.

  “So, did you put up a fight then got beaten?” asked Shin Suh Hyun calmly.

  Rubbing his bruised cheek, Yoon Jung In slurred his response.

  “Uh……”


  “Dude, you aren’t that weak.”


  On behalf of Yoon Jung In, who didn’t seem to respond properly, I replied, “He wasn’t beaten during a fair and square fight. Hwang Siwoo committed a sudden attack, which made him that way.”


  With that response, I, on the other hand, wondered, ‘As far as I know about Shin Suh Hyun’s personality, it wouldn’t matter that Yoon Jung In ended up getting beaten due to his weakness or not, but why is he asking that way? Am I wrong?’