An Yumin's Room (2)
"The panic disorder... it's all because of me, isn't it?"
Lately her mind had been overflowing with thoughts of Lee Junwoo — but of everything she'd learned, one fact still hit her hardest.
Lee Junwoo had developed a panic disorder.
If that's true... then I... I have to apologize...
A doctor wasn't supposed to discuss a patient's condition with anyone else — but An Yumin and Lee Junwoo had both been close with the school nurse.
"I really didn't want to say this, Yumin. What did you do to Junwoo?"
The nurse who had always been so kind had scolded her.
That was it. The cause of Junwoo's panic attacks was unmistakable — it had to be his exile from Aegis.
......
Nearly three months had passed since she'd cast him out, and yet the feelings from that day remained perfectly intact.
Back then, An Yumin had hated Lee Junwoo. She had despised him.
He said he liked me... he said he liked me.
The confession had come during winter break, right after their second year of high school. But she couldn't accept it. She had to become a hero — she had to restore her mother's honor.
In that moment of confession, she'd known instinctively: if she took his feelings as they were, she would have been incapable of doing anything except thinking about Lee Junwoo.
No. Even so... even so, I should have said yes.
She hugged the teddy bear tighter.
She still hadn't forgotten the words he'd left her with when she turned him down.
"Not while we're still in high school? Well, that's fine. So once we graduate, I get another shot, right?"
Rejected — and still he'd smiled. He'd said he would wait.
An Yumin had been happy to hear it.
Over two years she had slowly opened her heart to him. Because of her father — no, because of that vile villain — she had loathed men. So when Junwoo kept approaching her, trying again and again to get close, it had grated on her. But the way he always, unfailingly, helped with her training had gradually changed how she saw him.
Even when he'd proposed founding the hero club Aegis...
Song Sia... Ha Yeeun...
Those two had ruined everything. She should have opposed recruiting them from the start.
The countless things that had happened in Aegis flooded the mind of a girl who, once again, could not sleep.
It may have only been a high-school club, but hero work still required dungeon raids and villain suppression. Aegis needed an official license from the Association.
So Lee Junwoo had recruited Song Sia and Ha Yeeun.
"I'm not strong enough. We need other party members."
An Yumin had insisted the two of them would be fine on their own. Junwoo, who usually listened to her without complaint, had dug in his heels over those two alone.
And then came Aegis's first year. An Yumin's skill as an Awakened had risen so sharply it surprised even her. She completed her 2nd Awakening. As party leader of Aegis, she earned honors no high-school student should have been able to claim.
But while she was growing, the distance between her and Lee Junwoo only widened.
The boy who had never left her side somehow began spending more and more of his time with Song Sia and Ha Yeeun.
"......"
The memories rose again.
Song Sia treated people with a coldness anyone could see — and yet Junwoo was always gentle with her. Whether something good or bad happened during Aegis activities, he always put her feelings first.
"See? Hanging out with our classmates like this is pretty fun, right? When that happens, you just smile."
And then...
Ha Yeeun had been streaming privately long before she joined Aegis. Junwoo had grown that channel dramatically. In the process, he started skipping the physical training the two of them had done together for two years. He claimed it was for the stream — but An Yumin had watched him buy snacks for Yeeun all the time.
......
She hadn't wanted to doubt him. But it was strange. Every time she saw Junwoo with those two, something twisted unpleasantly in her chest. She came to dislike Song Sia and Ha Yeeun. And toward the Junwoo who no longer looked her way, she began to feel something she couldn't explain at all.
She was grateful for everything he had done for her. At the same time, the Junwoo who took better care of other girls left her feeling slighted.
And then came the decisive blow.
Last autumn, the female admin of Ha Yeeun's fan café had sought her out.
"I honestly don't want to say this, but... that Lee Junwoo keeps trying to make a move on Yeeun. According to her, even when she says no, he keeps pushing her to go out with him..."
The words were devastating.
She'd been favorable toward Song Sia and Ha Yeeun, but only for the sake of club activities — Junwoo himself had said as much, and she'd tried to believe him. But it seemed he'd long since forgotten whatever feelings he'd had for her.
"And he kept sending me private DMs too... A little while ago he called me out alone and even grabbed my hand..."
If that were true, then Lee Junwoo was a womanizer beyond anything she could have imagined.
She couldn't hold back any longer. She went straight to Ha Yeeun and asked.
"It's all true! That Lee Junwoo is completely obsessed with me! Of course I have zero interest in him, but he just keeps coming on to me..."
"Even if it's for the stream, every time Junwoo comes to my house... the way he looks at me is a little much!"
A nun like Ha Yeeun wouldn't lie.
"He's been going to Ha Yeeun's house... privately?"
In that late autumn, An Yumin felt the world collapse beneath her.
Graduation wasn't far off. Once the ceremony was over, she'd planned to ask him again — whether he still liked her. And if he did, she would have said she wanted to be with him too.
But he had crossed the line.
"It's over."
Blonde-tanned punk Lee Junwoo. She had denied every rumor about him — and every last one of those ugly rumors had been true.
She never wanted to look at him again. So An Yumin resolved to exile him.
If none of those feelings had remained, she could have left him as Aegis's operator and manager without a second thought. But even watching him chase after so many other girls, something of her heart was still there. She couldn't forget the gentleness of those earlier days — the warmth of that Lee Junwoo.
"I have to let go. He left me a long time ago."
So she cast him out, intending to steel her heart anew. She was going to graduate from the Academy and become a hero, no matter what.
But now An Yumin was in chaos. Every premise she had built was coming apart.
"What are you talking about? Even when Junwoo came to me about the panic disorder, he was more worried about you."
She couldn't believe the nurse's words — that the panic disorder had started because she was the one who led his exile. That even in the moment he was being cast out, he had still liked her.
"He stopped by the nurse's office a lot near the end of second semester, too. His fatigue and stress were off the charts."
The three of them in Aegis, all past their 2nd Awakening, could never have known — but as an Awakened, Junwoo's ability was critically lacking. He had an ordinary person's body.
"He was only sleeping four hours a night?"
The nurse said the extreme fatigue had piled up from Aegis activities. Late in their third year of high school, the constant lateness to hero work — it must have been the limit of caring for three people at once while keeping up with his own studies.
Why... why didn't I see any of that...
She had made a terrible mistake with Lee Junwoo. The truth behind the scandals with those girls was still unknown — but if he had still had feelings for her, she should at least have talked to him before the exile.
It might already be too late. Even so, she had to apologize now.
......
But An Yumin was uneasy. The news of his panic disorder had been so shocking precisely because she remembered his eyes — from the several times she'd run into him after he left.
In February, when they'd tried to arrest Dark Snake. At the entrance ceremony. Junwoo's gaze had been clear and calm.
The nurse had said she was the trigger for his panic attacks. But the Junwoo she saw was the same boy she'd first known — the gentle, kind-eyed Junwoo from before the rumors about other girls.
And then, just recently, the day of the class placement evaluation had been decisive. Junwoo seemed to have overcome the panic disorder. And at his side was Choi Hana.
Choi Hana...
Not either of the two from Aegis — Choi Hana, the girl An Yumin had always considered her rival, was standing beside Lee Junwoo. And as a woman, An Yumin had felt it clearly in that moment: Choi Hana was wary of her, of the girl trying to speak to him.
The reason for that wariness was obvious. She'd confirmed it again that very morning at Rain Weapons. So she hadn't been able to say the apology she owed him.
Don't tell me Choi Hana is interested in Lee Junwoo?
And that possibility was more shocking than any other truth.
"Why... why does it have to be Choi Hana... hic..."
Tears began to fall before she even realized it.
As a single mother — and as someone who had once been a hero and lost that honor — her mother had never once shown her hardship. So An Yumin had never cried in front of her either.
But now, clutching the teddy bear Lee Junwoo had given her, the tears poured out beyond any control.
"Hic... hh..."
The feelings were too tangled to explain, but one thing was certain: her chest felt like it was being torn open. It hurt. It was unbearable.
And once again that scene rose in her mind — Lee Junwoo and Choi Hana leaving Rain Weapons, the two of them out on a date in the shopping district.