Chapter 10 : 14 Years Old, We Slowly Begin to Realize Our Feelings for Each Other (1)

14 years old.

The time of being a purely young and innocent elementary school student had passed.

Now, Aki and I, who had become a bit more mature and shed our childishness, no longer spent time together as openly and intimately as we did when we were younger.

“Woo-juchan, ah”

“Huh? Here…?”

“Quickly, my arm is hurting~”

“Ah, okay….”

That wasn’t the case.

That was because all that had changed was that the clothes we wore to school had gone from casual wear to uniforms, and that we now took the bus instead of walking.

The relationship between Aki and I had not diminished at all in four years, and if anything, we were closer than we were when we were little. So, it didn’t make sense that we had become distant.

So much so that our parents, after seeing us play together, would say, “They’re like a married couple, aren’t they?” or “Yeah, sometimes I think they’re even closer than me and my husband.”

“How is it? Woo-ju~chan, is it tasty?”

“Yeah, it’s tasty. Thank you, Aki.”

However, the environment surrounding Aki and I had changed a little.

For example, the relationship between the parents.

More specifically, it was the relationship between our mom and dad and Aki’s mother. Our parents and Aki’s mother, who had only known of each other’s existence up until four years ago, became very close after Aki’s mother came to our house to give her thanks.

The reason they were able to do so was because their children were close to each other, and because our parents were very capable people who could speak more than three languages, enabling smooth communication. But besides that, they were also just really good people.

Our mom and dad were the type to be a little nosy, and Aki’s mother was French by birth, so her sociability was far beyond the norm.

A friendly and pretty person who liked to make friends, and a couple who liked to meddle in other people’s business, when they met and talked about their children,

How could they not become close? It would be stranger if they grew apart.

Anyway, our parents and Aki’s mother became closer little by little every time they met, and now, four years later, they were so comfortable with each other that they spoke informally.

“What, so you won’t ever go to Japan again? You’re just going to live in Korea now?”

“Yeah, I’ve earned enough money, and my husband has to keep helping my father-in-law, so I’m just going to stay in Korea and support him.”

“Ah, really? That’s great. Aki must be very happy.”

“She was happy when I told her yesterday. What did she say again? Ah, she said, ‘Really? Really really? Mom, I love you~!’ I thought she was all grown up now, but she’s still a kid, I guess.”

“Because she’s a daughter, she expresses her affection very well. I’m jealous. Our Woo-ju used to say that he loved his mom when he was little, but now that he’s grown up a bit, he’s too shy to say it. He doesn’t even hug me properly. Is it because he’s in puberty?”

“Yeah? Since Woo-ju and Aki are both fourteen now, they’re starting to get sensitive. And it’s said that boys are usually a bit stingy with those kinds of things, especially compared to daughters.”

“That’s why I should’ve had a daughter instead of a son. Sigh, I should’ve put in more effort and had another one when I had Woo-ju…”

And as our parents became closer, I also started visiting Aki’s house more often without feeling uncomfortable because it was a house where only her father lived.

If the frequency was about once every two months before I was 10, then after Aki started living with her mother, it gradually decreased to once a month, then once every two weeks, then once a week. And then further, I would drop by every three or four days as if it was my own house.

I went there so often that Aki’s mother even jokingly asked, “Woo-ju, why don’t you just become our son?” The frequency was, well, just that much.

“But Eun-hye, it seems like Woo-ju is really handsome.”

“Huh? Why, what happened?”

“I had some errands to run near the school that Aki and Woo-ju go to recently? I thought it would be over in about an hour, but it took longer than I thought and took about three hours. When I checked the time, it was 2:30 PM, and middle school usually ends around that time? So, I thought that since things have turned out this way, I would wait a little bit more and go home with Aki. But……”

“Oh, but?”

“I saw a boy who looked like Woo-ju coming out with a girl far away. I wasn’t sure, so I went a little closer and it really was Woo-ju. So, I thought that the girl next to him was Aki, but oh my. It wasn’t Aki, it was another girl?”

“……?!”

Aki’s eyes widened at Aki’s mother’s words, who was sitting on the living room sofa.

She opened her already big eyes as wide as saucers and stared at me, as if asking if that was true.

‘……No, when did she see that?’

I couldn’t deny it, so I was at a loss for words.

“Another girl? Who, who was it?”

“She had a pretty face, with hair that reached her waist. But I don’t know her name well. But she and Woo-ju looked very close? They were walking almost glued together. If someone didn’t know them, they would think that they were dating.”

“Oh my, oh my…!”

“……”

“Maybe Woo-ju is cheating?”

“Oh, come on? No, that can’t be the case. We all know that Woo-ju likes our Aki very much… Oh my, were you two there?”

“Woo-ju~chan.”

“Huh?”

“……Come with me for a moment.”

“O, okay…”

After school, after the end-of-day bell.

The kids in my class were all gathering in small groups and heading towards their own destinations. Today was the day that my and Jae-hyun, who had gotten caught talking together in class, were in charge of cleaning the classroom, so we were left behind to mop the floor.

“Hey Joo Woo-ju, let’s go to the coin karaoke after we’re done cleaning.”

“Sorry, I can’t today. I have to go for a tutoring session with Aki later.”

“Again? Hey, why do you always only hang out with Aki?”

“It’s not like I only hang out with Aki, I hang out with you and other friends too? And it’s not hanging out, I’m going to tutoring.”

“You’re going on a date instead of tutoring, aren’t you? You two are dating.”

We weren’t dating, we weren’t going on a date either. It was true that we were only going for tutoring, but I knew that it was no use if I spoke at length, so I just closed my mouth.

Jae-hyun had been watching me and Aki’s relationship for eight years now, so he had reached a point where he wouldn’t believe me no matter how much I said that we weren’t dating.

It was like a long and twisted relationship, and whether it was coincidence or fate, Jae-hyun and I ended up in the same class when we entered middle school, but I was separated from Aki.

Jae-hyun and I were in the 2nd class of the 1st grade, and Aki was in the 3rd class of the 1st grade.

It was just the next class over and we could see each other right away if we wanted to, but as everyone could agree, the difference between one class was huge. To exaggerate a bit, you could possibly not see the face of a student in the next class for an entire semester.

Of course, Aki and I met up regularly outside of school, so that wouldn’t happen. The point was that there was that much of a distance between the students of different classes.

“So when are you going, can’t you even go for a bit?”

“Tutoring starts in an hour, so I need to finish cleaning quickly, wait for the next class over to finish, and take her with me right away.”

“Hah, you’re abandoning your friend and going on a date with your girlfriend. Fine, go ahead. Go.”

Jae-hyun waved his hand dismissively, then suddenly paused as if he had thought of something.

“That’s right, Woo-ju. Did anything happen between you and Aki… no, Fujiwara-san?”

“I told you I’m okay with you calling her Aki when it’s just the two of us.”

“No, it’s okay. Your girlfriend is too scary…”

Jae-hyun shuddered as if he was really scared.

I tilted my head at that sight.

‘……What’s so scary about her?’

She was just cute, no matter how I looked at it.

“Really? Well, then, that can’t be helped. But why that all of a sudden?”

“The person who would come to our class every break hasn’t come at all today. When I saw you during our class move just now, you weren’t absent, so I thought that you must’ve had something happen between you… Wouldn’t that be what anyone would think?”

“……Ah.”

That’s true, I guess. Aki came to see me every day, and I would go to see Aki. So, I could guess that someone would deduce that something was going on between us.

“Tell me honestly, something happened, right? Did you two perhaps fight?”

“No, we didn’t fight….”

“Looking at how you’re not saying anything, I guess you did fight. You fought, didn’t you?”

“I’m saying we didn’t! We didn’t fight. It’s just, well…”

“You didn’t fight, but something did happen?”

I stopped mopping the floor because I was hit right on the nail.

Jae-hyun saw that and seemed to have realized something, as he moved closer to me with a sly smile.

“What is it, what happened?”

“….”

Should I say it or not?

As Jae-hyun said, something did happen. But, it didn’t seem like the kind of problem that I could talk about proudly in front of others, so I hesitated for a moment.

Jae-hyun patted my shoulder.

“I won’t tell other people, so tell me. I’m the best at listening to love stories, you know?”

“Love master my foot, you haven’t even dated anyone before…”

“Hey, when did I ever say I was a love master? I said I’m the best at listening to love stories.”

“I don’t believe you… What if you tell everyone if I say something?”

“Joo Woo-ju, have you ever seen me tell other people’s stories to others?”

“Well, no, I guess not…?”

“See, I absolutely don’t talk behind other people’s backs? And you wanted to tell someone, didn’t you? Your hesitation is proof of that.”

“……”

He was right on all accounts, so I couldn’t say anything back.

I knew better than anyone that Jae-hyun was surprisingly quiet when it came to secrets because I had seen it for the past eight years. And it was also true that I wanted to tell someone my concerns.

I hesitated for a moment, and then started mopping again slowly and opened my mouth.

“Hey, Jae-hyun. You really can’t tell anyone else about this, okay? You know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I absolutely won’t tell anyone. What is it?”

“Well, what happened was…”

I explained the whole story to Jae-hyun.

It was long, but to summarize it as much as possible, [About a week ago, I saw the class president carrying heavy things in the hallway, so I helped her. The class president said she would repay me for that and asked to hang out after school, but I refused, saying that Aki was waiting for me. Even after I refused, the class president kept saying, “If you do this, I won’t feel comfortable.” So I couldn’t help but agree to have some tteokbokki with her. And Aki happened to find out about all that.] That was it.

“That’s how it is.”

“Hmm.”

Jae-hyun nodded and listened to my story. Then, he summed it up in just one sentence.

“What, you’re trash? You went to play with another girl while having a girlfriend.”

“No, I didn’t play! We just had tteokbokki and then went our separate ways. Really.”

“You didn’t say that to her too, did you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Wow…. This guy is serious.”

Jae-hyun rested his chin on the handle of the mop.

“Hey, Joo Woo-ju. What if Fujiwara-san had plans to hang out with you? But before meeting up with you, she met up with another boy and went to eat something together?”

“What? Who’s that boy, is it you perhaps?”

Before I realized it, I was staring at Jae-hyun with a serious expression.

“What are you talking about? I said what if. I didn’t say that it actually happened. I’m asking you what you would think if that happened.”

“First, I’d find out who that boy is and warn him not to think about doing anything with Aki ever again. And then…”

“I thought only Fujiwara was weird, but he’s a little weird too.”

“Huh? What did you say?”

“No, it’s nothing. Never mind. But how did she find out about it?”

“To be accurate, it wasn’t that she found out about it herself. Aki’s mother must have seen me going to eat tteokbokki with the class president. I was hanging out at Aki’s house the other day, and she was telling me about it.”

“Wow, you got caught by her mother? Then, it must be impossible to deny it to your girlfriend, saying that you were mistaken.”

“Yeah, isn’t it? But even if I could deny it, I probably wouldn’t have. I promised Aki that I’d never lie to her.”

“Oh, really? Then how come such a romantic guy went to eat tteokbokki with another girl?”

“…No, that’s.”

It was my fault, so I had nothing to say.

“I’m just joking. Anyway, I think I figured out the answer. Just go apologize first. Say you’re sorry, and that you won’t eat anything together with other girls ever again.”

“I did apologize. But it doesn’t seem like she’ll easily accept it. What did she say again? ‘I trusted you Woo-ju~chan! Uragirimono(Traitor)!’ I think she said that….”

“Hey, you got caught cheating and if she accepts you with just one apology, then she’d be a saint. Isn’t it normal to keep apologizing until she accepts? Put yourself in her shoes. Can you forgive Aki immediately if she apologizes after she got caught hanging out with another boy?”

Aki gets caught hanging out with another boy, and she comes to apologize to me.

I have never imagined such a thing even once, but if that thing that I don’t want to even imagine were to happen in reality.

If it were to happen………

“……”

“See, you can’t, can you?”

Jae-hyun chuckled as if he knew it all along and looked at me.

For some reason, I didn’t like that smile, so I slightly pursed my lips and moved my hand.

“What are you talking about? Aki would never do that.”

“Why would she never do that? You never know what might happen.”

“Oh, no, she won’t.”

“So why won’t she? Maybe Aki also wants to hang out with other boys besides you. But she’s bothered by you sticking so close to her, but she has no choice but to deal with you…”

“……Hey!”

I raised my voice without realizing it.

“That’s not true, Aki and I are going to get married!”

And right after that, I realized that my voice was too loud.

“Ah, sorry. I got a little worked up, I’m really sorry.”

So, I quickly apologized, but Jae-hyun was just looking at me and didn’t say anything.

I wondered if I had shouted too loud and made Jae-hyun angry, so I hesitantly took a step closer.

“……Jae-hyun?”

Jae-hyun gestured with his eyes towards me.

More precisely, he was pointing at the back door of the classroom behind my shoulder.

I reflexively turned around.

Then, there,

“……Huh?”

Partially hidden behind the slightly open back door,

“……!”

Aki was there……!