Mirror
“H-hey, Nariring!”
That was how I called out to her. Somehow… calling her Nari-sunbae still felt like we weren’t quite at that stage yet, so I went with the nickname we’d already exchanged so casually.
Whether that was only my one-sided take on things, I never found out—because she jumped like she’d been electrocuted and dragged me off at once.
“Are you crazy? What the hell are you doing calling me that all of a sudden?”
“Ah… th-then, is it okay if I call you Nari-sunbae?”
“Do whatever you want. More importantly, why did you even come looking for me all the way out here?”
Naturally, Nari-sunbae didn’t look the least bit pleased to see me like this.
Even so, I had to do it.
The old me would never have even tried something like this, but for some reason, the moment I thought of Sebin-noona, I found myself believing I could.
Yeah… maybe it was actually lucky that she’d hauled me off to a place this deserted.
Begging and pleading in front of a crowd would’ve been a little rough for me too.
“Could you… come back?”
“Hah? If that’s what this is about, I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“I know how shameless this is, but… could you at least stick with us until this competition is over? After that I really won’t bother you again. I just… don’t want to drag Sebin-noona into this any more than I already have…”
Nari-sunbae looked at me with a troubled expression. Then, as if my pathetic face had gotten to her a little, she started weighing something in her mind.
Maybe she, too, felt a twinge of guilt about causing trouble for Sebin-noona.
“I’ve got class first… We’ll talk later or something.”
“I’ll wait out front.”
“What? You don’t have class?”
“I do… but honestly, I haven’t been to class in a while.”
“Why?”
“Well… some stuff happened… That’s also why I missed the contest deadline…”
“Fine. We’ll talk after class.”
And so I waited while Nari-sunbae disappeared into the lecture hall.
A wave of relief washed over me. Finding even a sliver of possibility in a situation that had looked completely hopeless felt strangely proud.
I even thought I might already be most of the way there.
A little over an hour later I was still sitting on the cold steps outside that classroom.
Voices began to buzz and swell. That was probably the signal that class was over.
I stood up from the chilly stairs and hurried toward the lecture hall. Just in case… she might simply walk off and leave me hanging. Maybe she’d only said “later” to dodge an awkward moment and planned to ditch me the second she got the chance.
So I walked a little faster. But contrary to my worries, Nari-sunbae was already standing outside the classroom, glancing around as if she were looking for me.
“S-sunbae.”
“You actually waited…”
“I can’t give up on you. Ever.”
“Could you not say things that other people might take the wrong way?”
“Ah…”
Only after she pointed it out did my face heat up a little. It was true I couldn’t give up on her—but if anyone else overheard, it could easily sound like something else entirely.
Without another word she took the lead and started walking, pulling me along with her.
I had no idea where we were going… but I followed anyway.
“Nari-sunbae, where are we—”
“Noona, hi!”
“Yu Nari—! We’re drinking by the main gate later. You in?”
Walking behind her, I finally felt just how much of a social butterfly she really was. Almost every student we passed recognized her and called out; it made me wonder if I was the only person in the whole department who hadn’t known who she was.
Just as we were about to leave the engineering building, Seoa and her friends came up the stairs on their way to class.
Our eyes met.
Hers were full of pure bewilderment.
Why is Minjae with that person?—that kind of bewilderment.
And it turned out my guess wasn’t just imagination.
“Why’s Minjae with that sunbae?”
“Honestly, Minjae even being on campus is weird enough.”
“Right… when did he start coming back?”
Those were the words I caught from Seoa’s friends as they walked past us. She’d claimed her friends wanted to apologize to me… but hearing that, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
Well, walking up and apologizing while I was with someone else would’ve been a little awkward too.
Still, people who actually wanted to apologize probably wouldn’t be chatting like that in the first place.
I didn’t really care anymore.
Nari-sunbae led me to a café on campus.
Then, in a completely different tone from before, she said:
“Well, at least you didn’t kill yourself.”
“Huh?”
“I honestly thought you might’ve gone and done it.”
She was talking about the conversation we’d had over messenger.
Until that moment it still hadn’t fully sunk in that she was the same illustrator I’d worked with online. Hearing those exact words come out of her mouth finally made it real.
“Let’s hear it. Why are you so dead serious about this competition? The guy who bailed on the contest is suddenly working his ass off for this one—I want to know why.”
“Back then… I’m not trying to make excuses, but I really did have my reasons.”
“So what were those reasons? You wouldn’t tell me when I asked either.”
“Ah…”
Should I say it? That “reason”?
Was it even okay to say it? That it was something like that?
She might get even angrier, thinking I’d ruined the contest over something so stupid… Was it really all right to just spill everything?
I sat there wrestling with the thought for a long time.
“If you don’t talk, this conversation’s over. You came all the way here to drag me back and you’re still hiding stuff?”
She sounded fed up with me sitting there like a mute who’d swallowed honey.
So in the end I had to tell her.
The story I’d kept locked away even from Sebin-noona…
Of course I hadn’t planned to tell her everything from the start. I’d only meant to say that some nasty rumors had started and I’d been struggling for a while.
But once the words started coming out… I found myself laying out the whole thing, beginning to end, without even realizing it.
I don’t know why. Maybe some part of me just wanted someone—anyone—to know.
“What? So basically you did all that over one girl? You’re a real piece of work. Go ahead and kill yourself already.”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t want to tell you…”
Nari-sunbae had listened in silence, and even though the words that came out of her mouth were that harsh, the atmosphere somehow wasn’t hostile at all.
It felt more like the way friends trade vicious jokes with each other.
In a way, every conversation I’d ever had with her had felt a little like this. We’d never spent real time together offline, but maybe all those months of chatting online had left a faint sense of familiarity. She was still a little scary, though.
“Still, spreading weird rumors like that was pretty messed up. Yeah… that must’ve been rough.”
And just like that, the fear vanished.
Because for the first time it felt like someone was actually taking my side. Like someone finally understood what I’d been through.
Those words sent a deep ripple through me. Maybe she hadn’t meant them with her whole heart, but just hearing them was enough to make me feel comforted.
Yeah… maybe all I’d really wanted was for someone to comfort me.
“Thank you…”
“Huh? That doesn’t mean you did the right thing, you know.”
“Ah… I know that.”
“It was those kids, right? The ones we just passed.”
“Yeah…”
I wondered how she’d figured it out so fast, but people always say “a woman’s intuition” in situations like this, so I just let it go.
“And the one you like is her?”
“Who…?”
“The prettiest one. The girl who was flirting with Woo-bin-oppa.”
……What? She even knew about that?!
Well, if two people in the same department were walking around all lovey-dovey, the rumors would spread fast. Still… I never expected someone who seemed completely unrelated to know about it.
More surprising was that Nari-sunbae even knew who Woo-bin-sunbae was.
And… hearing that person’s name again made my chest ache a little.
“Want revenge?”
“N-no… I’ve never even thought about revenge.”
“Me, once someone screws me over, I always pay them back. I can’t just let it slide.”
She gave me a faintly meaningful smile.
I had no idea what that smile meant. What on earth was she thinking when she looked at me like that?
“Then at the very least you should show your face on campus without hanging your head. If you actually hole up just because of some rumor, you’re basically admitting it’s true.”
“Th-that’s true, but… it’s not as easy as it sounds.”
“Starting tomorrow, come to school. We’ll hang out together. Send me your schedule.”
“……What?”
“If you actually show up, it’ll be easier for you to come to the club room too. That’s how we get anything done together.”
What? What had Nari-sunbae just said?
Could I take that to mean she was agreeing to enter the competition with me?
“Y-you’re going to join with me?”
“Yeah. I’ll do it. It’s not like I had anything else lined up after that. Some idiot completely killed my motivation and I put my brush down for a while.”
“Ah… should I say thank you first, or sorry first?”
“Whatever.”
Yes! Yes!
I’d actually succeeded in bringing Nari-sunbae back!
A massive rush of joy exploded inside me. The clean, light feeling of a weight lifting off my chest. The pure achievement of having done it myself. My brain felt like it was dumping dopamine by the bucketful.
For the first time since everything started falling apart, something had actually gone right. Truly the first time.
It had felt almost too easy, but this wasn’t the moment to nitpick.
I’d succeeded. That alone was more than enough joy to drown in.
Finally I could look Sebin-noona in the eye again. And… finally I could focus on my real work again.
My heart lifted at the thought.
“Thank you. I really won’t waste this chance.”
“Just talk casually. It feels weird otherwise. We always talked casually online.”
Out of nowhere she told me to drop the formal speech.
She was still older than me, so dropping honorifics didn’t come easily… but hearing her reason, I could sort of understand.
Though, to be honest, even online I’d never really spoken casually. Nariring was the one who’d started using banmal on me first… but that didn’t matter now.
Alright. Let’s try it.
“O-okay, Nari.”
“You wanna die?”
“Huh? Wasn’t that what you meant?”
“When did I ever say you could call me by my name like that?”
Apparently I’d misunderstood. Suddenly she was threatening me again.
I shrank back for a second… but after some back-and-forth she finally just told me to do whatever I wanted.
So in the end I settled on calling her simply “Nari.”
But this whole dynamic of ours… it felt strangely familiar.
If I dug through my high-school memories, it was exactly like the tough noona and the loser she dragged around.
Not that I’d ever lived that myself.
Still, we were college students now, adults… so it probably wasn’t that. Even so, I couldn’t completely deny the resemblance.
And yet it didn’t feel bad at all. The Nari who’d seemed a little scary now somehow felt even more approachable. Maybe that, too, was thanks to all the time we’d already spent talking online.
She took my lame jokes in stride… and she was pretty good at teasing back, which only made me feel closer to her.
In a way, it also reminded me of how Seoa and I used to be.
Maybe I was just the kind of person who fell for people who pushed me around like this. Maybe I was a born loser. Being led instead of leading somehow felt safer.
Yeah. This felt exactly like a mirror reflecting a bitter past.