Chapter 98 – June Mock Exam, And… (5)
Monday.
I opened my eyes to the morning sunlight and sighed deeply as soon as I woke up.
“Can I go pick you up?”
After what happened on Saturday, there was only one conversation between me and Yuri.
[Me]: I’m really sorry, Yuri
[Yuri]: Yes…
That was it.
The two of us had never stopped talking for a single day, but we stayed silent all weekend, which brought on a feeling of loneliness that was truly unpleasant.
I may have felt that way even more because I didn’t even talk to Suyeon out of guilt.
As I faced Monday in that state, I couldn’t figure out what kind of face I should look at Yuri.
What does Yuri think?
Should I smile and treat you like usual, or should I look at you with a cold expression and contempt?
Is it okay to go meet her as if nothing happened?
Or should she just avoid being seen like a criminal for the time being?
But even if that were the case, she would still be seen in the classroom the moment she arrived at the academy, right?
Are we… Becoming awkward?
After thinking for a long time from the moment I opened my eyes to the moment I walked out the front door, I finally made a decision.
I go in front of Yuri’s house.
Even if something like that had happened.
Even if what I do is so shameless that people who see it are dumbfounded.
The beginning of a man and woman becoming distant may be due to a very trivial reason.
For example, the possibility that Yuri might feel distant from me because I’m scared and don’t visit Yuri today.
Even if I was criticized and criticized, I decided to face it head on.
When she went to the front of Yuri’s house, she saw Yuri coming out earlier than usual and sitting on the bench in front of her house.
“Yuri, good… Morning…”
As I approached her, I was startled and hesitated.
Because there were two bandages on Yuri’s face.
When she saw me approaching, Yuri got up from her seat as if nothing had happened and came towards me.
“Good morning.”
“Yuri? That’s your face…”
“… I fell.”
Yuri is really bad at telling her lies.
As I watched her answer, rolling her eyes back and forth and finally avoiding her gaze, I knew right away that it was her lie.
No way, that wound…
“Yuri… Did you fight with your sister?”
“… No.”
It’s a lie again.
Doesn’t she know that she’s the type of person who gets noticed when she lies?
I put my hand on the bandage on Yuri’s cheek and gently traced it, apologizing in a trembling voice.
“… I’m sorry, Yuri. You didn’t do anything wrong, so why are you like this…”
“…”
“I’m really sorry…”
“My sister started the fight first. It’s okay.”
“It’s all my fault.”
I muttered in despair.
How did something like this happen because one of my former sex partners was my current girlfriend’s older sister?
No, even if those coincidences didn’t happen, the countless karma of the past would have eventually caught up with me one day.
‘It can’t go on like this.’
The idea that Han Seong-jin’s past is the past and that since I have decided to be rehabilitated, I can live like a normal person from now on.
I was too complacent.
Even if I live a normal life from now on, the things I did in the past will not disappear.
Even though Jeong Eun-ji had an enormous amount of hatred towards me because of that, I didn’t care because she was handling it well.
However, the past eventually caught up with me and caused my girlfriend Yuri, who had done nothing wrong, and her older sister to fight.
Even though I was the one who should have been hit.
This karma had to be cleared.
At least to prevent the same thing from happening again.
The walk to school that day between Yuri, and I was much more awkward than before we started dating, and the silence was quite long.
…
As soon as Yuri arrived at school with two bandages on her face, she caused concern among her classmates.
“Oh my, Yuri. What’s on her face? Are you hurt?”
“Oh, I slipped…”
Yuri lied to Tina again, but she accepted it, thinking that Yuri was just a kid who didn’t know her lying habits.
It was so hard for me to look at her because the two bandages on her face were like a symbol of my karma.
In the end, even though we were in the same class and taking the same classes, the amount of words we spoke to each other drastically decreased.
I don’t have the courage to look at glass.
And Yuri… I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I think her rejection of me has increased significantly.
“Seong~jin~seon~bae♥ came to visit today too… Huh?”
Suyeon, who had always seen Yuri sitting on my lap whenever she came to our class during recess, tilted her head when she saw the two of us standing quite far apart.
“Why is Yuri not on her senior’s lap?”
“It’s just… Something like that happened.”
“Hmm…”
Suyeon looked at me and Yuri, who were far away from her, and then she asked quietly.
“Senior, did you fight?”
“It wasn’t exactly a fight…”
“Senior, you sure didn’t hit Yuri?”
“I’m crazy. I won’t do something like that anymore, even if I die.”
“Looking at the atmosphere, I don’t think I should be too harsh on that senior. What should I do?”
Su-yeon was very quick to notice her and was excellent at understanding her mood.
She usually uses that ability to turn her glass upside down, but she is also a woman who knows when to fall.
“Suyeon, right now… No, I think it would be better to go back for a while today.”
“Hmph… I need to replenish the ingredients… Okay. See you later today at lunch.”
Su-yeon licked her lips and just lightly held my hand before leaving the classroom again.
Yuri seemed to be in a very sad mood, but since most of the cause was me, I didn’t dare to be the first to offer comfort.
If it was just a mistake, it would have been okay to go and apologize, but she turned her real sister into a pillar sister, and they even started fighting because of me.
In the end, I couldn’t make Yuri feel better that day and had to spend another day.
And the next day, the June mock exam began.
Yuri, who was still in a very down mood, took the test in that state, and when the first period Korean ended, her expression became even worse than before.
After completing English, math… And the last subject, Yuri sighed and buried her face on the desk.
“Yuri, are you okay?”
“Huhhh… Slurp…”
In the end, Yuri couldn’t control her emotions and started crying.
Three subjects scored in the mid 80s.
This was her worst performance ever as she had done all her homework and had never missed a 1st grade in any of her mock exams.
If ordinary students heard it, they would get angry and ask who they are kidding, but this was also evidence that Yuri was severely shaken mentally.
It seemed like it was my responsibility too. She didn’t even dare to look at her glass face.
‘It’s about who makes whom happy, you idiot…’
The reason I decided to take Yuri, Su-yeon, and even Jeong Eun-ji was because I thought that their feelings for Gong Young-bae were not reciprocated in the end.
I wanted to find their lost happiness.
If they could be happy together with Gong Young-bae, I would have tried to connect all three of them with Gong Young-bae.
I knew that wasn’t the case, so I tried to give him the happiness that Gong Young-bae couldn’t give.
But what is this?
Yuri accepted me even though she knew that my past was messy and that we were going to meet each other at the same time. In the end, she was hurt by my past and fought with her older sister, which broke her mentality and ruined her grades.
Still, do I have the right to say that I am making Yuri happy?
I…
Knock.
As I was holding her head, someone knocked on my desk.
When I raised my head, I saw Gong Young-bae standing in front of my seat.
“Han Seong-jin, please talk to me for a moment.”
#####
Rooftop of the academy building.
It used to be a kind of hideout where gangsters would gather after skipping classes, but now there was no one there.
Gong Young-bae and I were there alone.
It was Gong Young-bae who spoke first.
“What did you do to Yuri?”
“What?”
“Why is there a scar on Yuri’s face? What did he do to sigh like that and ruin the test like that?”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“Why doesn’t it matter? Yuri…”
“She’s my girlfriend. I have nothing to do with you.”
Gong Young-bae’s eyes twitched greatly at my words.
But he mustered up his courage and confronted me.
“You hit the glass, right?”
“Don’t be damned.”
“There’s been a rumor like that since a long time ago. Do you think I don’t know? He took Yuri’s girlfriend with her, gaslighted her, and made her child strange-“
“I told you not to be a dick.”
“Aren’t you sorry Yuri!? If I had met a proper man instead of you, it wouldn’t have been so weird… Wow!”
I can’t listen anymore.
While I was already very distraught and in a bad mood, when I heard Gong Young-bae’s bullshit, I exploded with anger and lifted him up by the collar with one hand.
“That’s why you’re such a fucking bastard. Are you saying it would have been different if you were Yuri’s boyfriend instead of me? Are you the bastard who knew the feelings of Yuri, Suyeon, and Eunji and then played with them and weighed their affections?”
“Kek… Keuk…”
“Am I hitting Yuri? Gaslighting me? How much do I try to make Yuri happy-“
For a moment, I stopped talking.
Right now, I couldn’t say for sure whether Yuri was really happy because of me.
I felt sorry for Yuri and was annoyed at the idiot who was messing around with me, and I growled as I almost threw Gong Young-bae against the wall.
“Don’t let me see you in front of me. If you go around acting arrogantly, then I’ll be behind you.”
“…”
Annoyed by everything, I slammed the rooftop door and went down.
#####
“Fuck… Fuck… Han Seong-jin, that bastard… As if being tall and strong means anything…”
Gong Young-bae did not come down from the rooftop, but continued mumbling and swearing at Han Seong-jin.
Meanwhile, the rooftop door opened again, and this time a much larger number of footsteps were heard.
“Ah, how the fuck are we going to get this bastard Han Seong-jin out?”
“Really, should I just close my eyes and say this once? I can’t see an answer other than that. This bastard’s facial expression was such a mess yesterday and today, so if I say the wrong thing, I’ll be screwed.”
“Really, we just have to trick them once and that’s it, but if we tell them, they’ll get suspicious, haha…”
There were some voices that were slightly familiar to me and some that were not.
Gong Young-bae, who was at the back of the structure where the door to the rooftop was opened, walked toward the sound of the voice and appeared.
“Over there.”
“!!!”
“What, what!”
The group, who had not expected anyone to be there, were startled and put themselves on guard, but then sighed in relief when they confirmed that the enemy was nothing serious.
“Oh fuck, someone did it. I thought you were screwed. What are you?”
“You guys talked about Han Seong-jin earlier.”
“Hey, don’t fuss and just get out of here, okay?”
“I can help you.”
“…?”
Gong Young-bae continued speaking as he took a step closer to the group of soldiers.
“I have a favor to ask of you.”
“This guy is funny. What is it? Let’s see.”
“I will try to bring out Han Seong-jin somehow. So…”
Although it was only for a moment, there was a terrifying silence.
“Please kill that bastard Han Seong-jin.”
