Facing Each Other (4)
“I have no intention of walking home with you.”
“…….”
Seoa hesitated for a moment after hearing that, as if she were about to say something and then thought better of it.
Then she parted her lips, which had been hovering in uncertainty.
“Ah! Now that I think about it… I actually had plans after school today. Too bad, but I guess we can’t walk home together…”
I knew exactly what that kind of line meant. With my long career as a total loser, there was no way I could miss the situations in which people said things like that.
When the other person rejects you flat-out, you get flustered and embarrassed… so you pretend you never really cared that much to begin with. That was the whole point of the line.
A kind of self-defense lie, basically.
Well… it was still better than her stubbornly insisting she was going to walk home with me no matter what. That would have put me in a genuinely awkward position.
After that we headed to the lecture hall like normal. Seoa didn’t bring anything else up, and neither did I.
We were walking side by side, yet it didn’t feel like we were occupying the same space at all.
Once we entered the classroom, Seoa sat far away from me. She was putting distance between us again, just like she had when we were in the middle of fighting. In the end we really had gone right back to square one.
I only glanced over to confirm it and didn’t particularly care. Right now I had something far more important to worry about.
I pulled out my phone and started tapping the keys quickly. I was composing a message to Nari, trying to clear up the misunderstanding.
After that the professor started class, so we couldn’t keep texting.
Judging by the tone of the messages, Nari didn’t seem to be as angry as I’d been worried she was. That was a relief, at least.
But… earlier she’d clearly said she wasn’t planning on going to club, and now she was saying she was. I had no idea which one was the truth.
Seoa was like that, and Nari was like that too. Why did they keep changing what they said and did at the drop of a hat?
I’d already thought their images were similar, but I never expected them to be alike even in this. Or maybe girls were just like that by nature?
There was that saying, after all… a woman’s heart is like a reed.
Anyway, if Nari was planning on going to club, then I was planning on going too. It wasn’t as if I’d been going to walk home with Seoa in the first place. And when it came to the competition, I was the one who needed to take the most responsibility. It would be a problem if that person just quietly skipped out.
No—thinking about it carefully, I didn’t even need that kind of reason. There was no reason for me not to go to club in the first place, was there?
Without realizing it, I’d been swept up by Seoa’s words and started thinking as if I really was skipping club just because I was walking home with her.
Some time passed, and all the classes finally ended.
The moment the last lecture finished, Seoa shot out of the classroom like someone who genuinely had somewhere to be. She cut right across in front of me, so even without me deliberately watching, I naturally saw her back as she left.
Looking at her, I figured she was putting on that show to prove to me that the “I have plans” line earlier hadn’t been a lie. According to my loser experience, that was the full, completed design of the act.
And then I headed for the club room.
Even if Nari didn’t actually show up… Sebin unnie would be there. Thinking about the competition, I absolutely had to attend.
I walked over and stepped into the club room.
“What the… you actually came?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“What about her?”
“I told you, I never made any promise like that in the first place…”
“I’ll believe you now.”
Just like that, I seemed to have proven my innocence to Nari.
But… a strange awkwardness hung thick over the club room. What was this unidentifiable sense of wrongness?
The strong feeling of dissonance kept pressing in, so I looked around, trying to find the reason for it.
And only belatedly did I realize what it was.
“Where’s Unnie…?”
“Right? I tried messaging her, but she still hasn’t replied.”
Yeah. Sebin unnie, who always greeted me here with a smiling face, was nowhere to be found. That was the identity of the awkwardness I’d been feeling this whole time.
There had been times when I didn’t show up… but Unnie had always been in the club room. And now she wasn’t here.
What was the reason? Why hadn’t Unnie come to the club she always attended?
I didn’t know…
Come to think of it, yesterday when everyone suggested drinking together she’d said she had to get home early and didn’t come. It was hard to say for sure that that and her absence from club today were connected… but remembering yesterday made me start to worry a little.
Somehow, ever since yesterday, she’d been giving off a slightly strange vibe…
I really hoped nothing bad had happened.
“Ah! This is bad!!”
I’d been fretting alone inside my head, so when Nari suddenly shouted I couldn’t help jumping.
Something bad… was it about Unnie?!
“Why? What happened? Did something bad happen to Unnie?”
“No… I left my bag in the department room.”
“Haa… and here I thought it was something serious.”
That wasn’t exactly the kind of emergency that warranted yelling.
And what? She’d left her bag in the department room? Was she trying to set up some kind of punchline for me right now?
The oddly perfect rhyme made me briefly suspect that.
But leaving her bag in the department room must have been real, because Nari scrambled up from her seat as if she were about to go fetch it.
She didn’t seem to have any intention of going alone, though.
“Come with me. It’s not like you’ve got anything to do here by yourself anyway.”
“Yeah…”
I only grumbled on the inside. In reality I just obediently followed. But seriously, why did she have to drag me along?
So I trailed after Nari toward the department room. I’d only ever known it existed; I’d never actually seen it or gone inside.
That was a place for people who had tons of friends at school. What business would someone like me have going there?
“I did leave it in the department room, right…? It should still be there…”
“You should’ve just kept track of it properly from the start.”
“People can forget things!”
“Yeah…”
While we were talking like that, we somehow arrived in front of the department room.
So this was our department’s room. I didn’t know if the door was usually left open, but right now it stood wide open. Because of that, the noisy voices of the students chatting inside echoed loudly down the hallway.
Just hearing that sound was enough to confirm it: the department room really wasn’t a place for me.
“But… that Yu Nari girl kind of goes around flirting with the guys, doesn’t she?”
“Agreed. She knows she’s pretty, that’s all. Fox-like bitch.”
“Lately she’s been dragging around some innocent freshman, right?”
“She’s the one everyone said was a delinquent back in high school. She probably still needs a shuttle like she did back then.”
Huh…
The conversation they were having right now…
It was about Nari, who was standing right next to me… wasn’t it?
I tried hard to tell myself it wasn’t, that maybe there was some other person with the same name I didn’t know… but seeing Nari’s body go stiff made it clear the talk really was about the Nari beside me.
Which meant the “innocent freshman” they were talking about was me.
Why of all times… did they have to be saying that right now.
Nari had always been so popular that I’d never even imagined people would talk about her like this behind her back. Human relationships really were hard. Maybe this scene was just proof of how popular she actually was. Most of the time talk like that started from envy and jealousy, after all. So I didn’t particularly think much of it when I heard it. I had no intention of taking it seriously.
But Nari seemed pretty shaken. She couldn’t take another step past the doorway of the department room and just stood there frozen.
Looking at her like that, it seemed impossible for her to walk in and get the bag herself, so I figured I should go in and bring it out.
“I’ll go in and get it.”
“…….”
With that I walked into the department room as if nothing were wrong. The students who’d been chatting inside spotted me and made startled faces.
Even with their awkward reactions, I focused only on finding Nari’s bag.
Maybe because I’d been hanging around with her so often, it was familiar to my eyes; I spotted Nari’s bag inside the room easily.
Then, without saying a single word from start to finish, I picked up the bag and walked back out.
“Here… next time try to keep better track of it.”
“Yeah… th-thanks.”
Hearing that conversation by accident had made the atmosphere between us a little awkward.
Honestly I didn’t care much so it didn’t matter to me, but Nari seemed to be dwelling on it quite a bit.
She could just get mad like usual… or get annoyed.
Why was she watching my face like that… it was making me feel awkward too.
“About what those kids just said…”
“I don’t really care. I don’t care whether it’s true or not either. And even if it were true… I’m not exactly a proper person myself, so who am I to say anything about anyone else. Everyone’s got that side to them.”
“Yeah…”
“And to me, Nari’s a good person… so isn’t that enough?”
I said it to clear the awkward air. Of course, it wasn’t a lie I’d made up. Everything I’d said was true.
At the very least, the fact that Nari was a good person to me was something I couldn’t deny.
I’d received help from her any number of times. If anything, I’d been the one who committed a huge wrong first, and she was the one who’d forgiven me for it. After that, how could I possibly say anything against her? I didn’t even have the right.
“Do you really think that?”
“Yeah. I can’t exactly deny the shuttle part all that strongly… but I’m not complaining about it.”
As I was talking, though, it started to feel a little embarrassing… so belatedly I added a bit of joking so it wouldn’t sound too serious.
And intentionally saying something she could pick a fight with was also on purpose.
I just wanted Nari to go back to normal as soon as possible…
“Idiot. I’ve never thought of you as a shuttle.”
But Nari answered in a way completely different from what I’d expected. I’d thought she’d get worked up or angry like usual and we’d start bickering again…
She said it in a soft voice. She didn’t even look me straight in the eye while she said it. No—it looked more like she was deliberately avoiding my eyes.
It was a side of Nari I’d never seen before. Looking at her like that, I had no choice but to admit that my heart had fluttered just a little.
What the hell… if she suddenly acts like that, of course I’m going to get the wrong idea…