X
ā……Huh?”
I thought, no, why is she here.
They say that if you’re too surprised, your voice won’t come out, and that was exactly the case.
I was so shocked to find Aki through the slightly opened back door that I felt as if my breath was caught in my throat, and my whole body twitched.
“……!”
As soon as Aki met my gaze, she blushed slightly and took a step back.
Her actions were so shy that my head filled with all sorts of thoughts.
‘What, why is Aki in front of our classroom? Did she perhaps hear everything? Did she hear everything that Jae-hyun and I were talking about from start to finish? No, there’s no way she would have. The next class over had their end-of-day bell too, so she wouldn’t have heard everything. Yeah, that’s right. But even then, there’s a high chance that she heard it from the middle. Then, maybe she heard me shout that I was going to marry Aki too…’
Step.
Aki took another step back.
The sound of her slippers echoed through the eerily quiet hallway and snapped me back to reality. I clutched the mop and approached Aki.
“Aki, when did you come…?”
āW, wait a minute…!”
Aki held up her right hand and extended her palm, as if telling me not to come any closer.
“Um, Woo-ju~chan…?”
“What is it?”
“Watashi(I) and Woo-ju~chan are, we, we did promise to get married, but… how should I say it, I think it’s a little, no, not okay to shout it out so loudly in front of others…”
She heard everything.
I felt my hands and feet stiffen and stopped in my tracks.
Aki glanced at me, who was standing there awkwardly like a statue, then mumbled one more thing.
“W, when it’s just the two of us, it’s okay, but… when other people are watching, I hope you would be a little more reserved, or something.”
“……”
What is she even saying.
If Aki says it like that, it’ll seem like I do all sorts of love confessions when we’re alone.
“Wow….”
As if my premonition had come true, Jae-hyun, who had been caught in between us, was looking at me with a lukewarm gaze.
“Wait a minute, Jae-hyun, it seems like you’re misunderstanding something here….”
“Ah, whatever…”
Jae-hyun scratched his cheek awkwardly.
“Y, you kids, have a good relationship…?”
ā……No, that’s not it!”
Tap!
The moment I shouted at Jae-hyun for misunderstanding, Aki quickly took a step back and started running somewhere.
For some reason, the thought that I needed to catch Aki came to mind immediately, so I immediately threw the mop on the ground and shouted.
“Jae-hyun! I’m really sorry, but I’m going to go catch Aki!”
“Hey, wait a minute!”
Just as I was about to go out the back door and follow Aki, Jae-hyun took my bag from my desk and tossed it to me.
I quickly snatched my bag, and Jae-hyun waved his hand as if telling me to go quickly.
“Just take your bag. I’ll finish cleaning.”
“Huh? No….”
“It’s okay just go. But this makes us even for today. Okay?”
“Ah, okay! I understand!”
I didn’t know what he meant by being even, but I wasn’t in a position to be picky.
I said a quick goodbye to Jae-hyun, ran out into the hallway, and saw Aki’s back, who hadn’t gone far yet.
I immediately ran quickly and caught up with Aki in an instant.
“……Aki!”
“……!”
Aki’s running speed was faster than I thought, and I thought it would be difficult to catch her, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy.
But that’s not important right now, I caught my breath and led Aki to a corner of the hallway.
“Huff… Aki, why were you there? No, before that, why did you run away?”
I was out of breath because I ended up doing some unnecessary exercise.
Aki, who had been cornered, stared blankly at me as I was breathing heavily, then put her fingers together, wiggled them, and mumbled.
“I, I thought I should run away…?”
“…Huh?”
“That’s because, Woo-ju~chan’s face was too red. So I thought you were angry at Aki…?”
“Ah, was that so…?”
I couldn’t check what my face looked like because there was no mirror, but if Aki was saying that, I must have been red enough to be mistaken for being angry.
‘Well, I guess I could have been…’
It was the same as saying a promise that you would usually make when you were little in front of the person you made the promise with……
“I’m not angry, Aki.”
“Yeah, well, that’s good… Oh, right, Watashi(I) came to check because Woo-ju~chan wasn’t coming. I was wondering if something had happened.”
“No, nothing happened. It’s just that I was late because I was cleaning the classroom…”
“Ah, I see…”
The misunderstanding that had built up was resolved with a few words, but as the excitement died down, a wave of embarrassment came over me.
Even if I had chased after Aki, who had suddenly run away, the words that had come out of my mouth wouldn’t disappear.
‘……I want to turn back time.’
I want to go back about 5 minutes and stop myself from saying those words.
No, I want to beat myself up to force my mouth to close.
If God were to tell me in my head, “I’ll turn back time by 5 minutes if you give up 10 years of your lifespan,” I would nod right away and ask him to do so.
However, such a miracle wasn’t going to happen in the reality I was living in.
“But……. Woo-ju~chan…?”
“……Yeah, why?”
“I thought you said you didn’t remember, but you actually remembered that promise, right…?”
“Huh? What promise?”
“The promise that Woo-ju~chan and I would get married later, when we grow up…”
Aki had brought up the very thing that I didn’t want to hear right now.
“……”
I closed my mouth.
I couldn’t think of anything to say back to Aki, who was smiling mischievously.
Actually, no matter what I said, it wouldn’t work.
“You know, Woo-ju~chan, do you want to marry me later…?”
“……”
A smile that clearly showed that she was trying to tease me.
My fist clenched without me realizing it.
I wanted to beat myself up for saying such a thing.
“Huh? Woo-ju~chan, say it. Do you want to marry Watashi? Huh, huh?”
“……Stop, Aki.”
“Whyyyy? I’m curious. Woo-ju~chan wants to marry Aki, right? Huh? Say it, do you want to marry me? Kiss too, huh? Huhh?”
“Stop it…! Please, stop ittttttt…!”
ā……and thatās what happened, Yoon-ah-ssam.ā
Slurp, slurp.
Aki sucked on her orange juice and slightly licked the corner of her lip.
“Hee, I see….”
Kim Yoon-ah, the university student who was Aki and Woo-ju’s tutor, who had heard the whole storyā which would probably become Joo Woo-ju’s dark historyā picked up a cookie that was placed as a snack and nodded her head.
“Woo-ju must like Aki a lot, huh?”
“……I guess? Woo-ju~chan does like me a lot.”
Aki coughed a little as if she was feigning disinterest.
Even if the person who was acting didn’t know it, everything was obvious to a third party. So, Kim Yoon-ah smiled and chuckled while looking at Aki.
‘……How cute.’
Because she was still just a 14-year-old, she started talking about it boastfully as soon as Woo-ju left to do an errand for his mother.
“Then what about Aki?”
“Huh?”
“Woo-ju said he likes Aki, but does Aki not like Woo-ju?”
Aki’s movement, who was about to reach for the orange juice, stopped right then and there.
“……Ah, well.”
Aki was silent with an expression that showed that she was flustered, and soon, she moved her body stiffly like a robot and picked up the orange juice glass.
“Well, if I were to categorize it into like or dislike, I would obviously say it’s on the like side, right?”
“Not like that, I mean romantically. Not like, but love. Ah, no. Aki is half-Japanese and half-French, so… um, (ģ¬ė)nya or Amour(ģ¬ė)?”
“Yoon-ah-ssam, the words you just said both mean love…?”
“Ah ha, really? Sorry~”
Kim Yoon-ah smiled kindly.
‘Ah, it doesn’t work.’
“Still, you understand the nuance, right? I won’t tell Woo-ju, okay? Which side are you on, Aki?”
“……love.”
“Oh my…!”
“closer to like, …?”
“…Huh? What does that mean? like like love love.”
“I, I don’t know either. I don’t really….”
Aki’s face was slightly red, and she was avoiding Kim Yoon-ah’s gaze.
Kim Yoon-ah looked at Aki, who was subtly avoiding the question, and suddenly felt mischievous.
“……Ah, really?”
Kim Yoon-ah put her arms on the low table, interlaced her fingers, and rested her chin on top of them.
“Teacher loves Woo-ju~?”
“……?!”
Aki’s eyes widened.
“Wh, what did you say? Yoon-ah-ssam likes Woo-ju~chan…? Why, why…?!”
“Why, because Woo-ju is handsome? He’s also polite and cute, he’s diligent and studies well, he’s the perfect husband material, you know.”
“N, noooo…! B, but still. Yoon-ah-ssam is a university student. There’s a 7-year age difference…!”
“Yeah, so I’m not going to do anything right now.”
“Y, yeah, right?! Woo-ju~chan is too young for Yoon-ah-ssam. And Yoon-ah-ssam can meet many other boyfriends…”
“But, I think it would be fine in about 6 years, right? In 6 years, Woo-ju will be twenty and I’ll be twenty-seven. Then, there wouldn’t be any problems, right?”
“……Th, that’s not okay!”
Aki raised her voice without even realizing it.
Kim Yoon-ah, who seemed to have succeeded with her provocation, smiled inwardly, and on the outside, she tilted her head as if she didn’t know anything.
“Huh? What did you say?”
“N, no, I’m saying it’s not okay. Woo-ju~chan is… not the kind of boy that Yoon-ah-ssam is thinking about!”
“Not the kind of boy that I’m thinking about, what’s he like?”
“Woo-ju~chan is……. Um, first of all, he’s not polite at all! He’s not cute either! And he’s not diligent, so I have to wake him up every weekend, and, and…!”
While Aki, who had completely fallen for the shallow provocation, was squeezing her brains out and continuing her slander of Joo Woo-ju, who wasn’t even there,
Kim Yoon-ah was looking at Aki with a warm gaze, then she suddenly looked behind her and was startled.
“Oh my, Woo-ju…?”
“……!”
In a split second, Aki felt goosebumps on the back of her neck.
‘Oh, he clearly said he was going on an errand for his mother…?!’
He told me that he was going far away and that it would take about 20 minutes, so I could relax until he came back, and that was just 5 minutes ago, but he’s already back.
Aki quickly scrambled her brain to think of a way to resolve this situation. However, it was impossible to come up with a good excuse in that short time.
‘F, first, let’s apologize…’
I made up my mind to just apologize first without making any excuses.
“W, Woo-ju~chan! I’m sorry, Watashi was just ”
So, I quickly turned my head back.
“Huh…?”
But what, there was no one in the direction that Kim Yoon-ah was looking at.
“Sorry, I was just kidding~”
“……Ah.”
What, it was a joke.
Aki, who realized that there was no Woo-ju behind her, slumped down unknowingly.
“What was that, I was so surprised, Yoon-ah-ssam…”
“Sorry, sorry. But our Aki, it seems that you’re acting like you don’t care while caring about Woo-ju a lot?”
“Of course, I care about him!”
“Really? Why, why do you care?”
“Hmph, I don’t know. I’m not going to talk about these things with Yoon-ah-ssam anymore…!”
“Really? Then is it okay if I date Woo-ju later?”
“Th, that’s different! And I told you, Woo-ju~chan is more irresponsible than Yoon-ah-ssam thinks.”
“……Huh?”
At that moment, Kim Yoon-ah’s expression hardened.
Aki thought that Kim Yoon-ah was joking again and was about to snap back with, ‘Do you think I’ll fall for the same trick twice? Yoon-ah-ssam, I’m not stupid!’, but.
“Hey, Woo-ju. Don’t misunderstand, and listen to me. Aki didn’t say those things with sincerity, and I told her to say it, but she misunderstood me, okay? So, don’t get angry…”
Seeing Kim Yoon-ah who was looking at the door while stuttering with an expression of genuine panic, she could immediately sense it.
This time it wasn’t a joke.
“W, Woo-ju~chan…!”
Aki felt goosebumps on the back of her neck and quickly turned her body.
“……Huh?”
But this time too, there was no one there.
Aki reflexively looked at Kim Yoon-ah.
Kim Yoon-ah stuck her tongue out.
“Sorry, it’s a lieā””
“……Ah, really. Yoon-ah-ssaaaam!!”
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