Lunch Promise
Eunju's visit was the last thing I expected. And I responded in the absolute dumbest way possible—by rolling up the driver's side window.
As a result, I now had her in the passenger seat and was once again on my way to Singun Palace. The thing about Eunju, though, was that she had already more or less figured out how I'd prepared for that day's events.
"Did the teacher know everything?"
"Well... no matter what, how could I deceive the teacher? With two kids from my own class involved, I had to know at least that much, right?"
"You deliberately arranged for Harin's father to go, didn't you? Because it would be more persuasive if an adult stepped forward to speak?"
"That's... right."
Strictly speaking, it was because the me talking to her right now was a person who didn't actually exist. But since I'd been ambushed out of nowhere, there was no helping it.
High school boy cosplay: provisional return.
"Why did you do it?"
"Why? You already knew when you came, didn't you?"
"You didn't have to, though. Harin's father and you are both Harin's family. Taking the family's side would have been the normal thing. So why did you try to save me right to the end?"
"Hey, so you think socially annihilating a kid who didn't even do anything wrong is what a real 'adult' should do? Honestly, we should have just confessed everything we'd done, but we couldn't. That alone already disqualifies us as adults."
"Then things would have gotten even more complicated. You did your best in your own way. Even if Jihye unnie ended up quitting all of a sudden..."
"..."
I hadn't seen that coming at all. I'd been certain she still resented me for not showing up at the interview that day, but Eunju had long since figured out for herself what I'd been thinking when I said those things.
Screech...
In the meantime we arrived in front of Singun Palace. It was close enough that the drive hadn't even taken five minutes.
"Alright, Eunju, head on in and—"
"Can we talk a little?"
"H-here? That doesn't seem like a great idea..."
"Why not? It's quiet in the car. Perfect for talking, don't you think?"
"..."
Yeah, because anyone looking at this would know it wasn't normal. Carpooling with a coworker like Eom Chaewon was no problem at all.
But a man in his thirties and a teenage girl sitting in a car late at night having a private conversation? Who was going to take that at face value?
"By the way, whose car is this?"
"I guess you could call it an inheritance from my late father..."
"You haven't been around school lately. Have you been skipping and just driving around like this the whole time?"
"It's not that. The whole thing got resolved fine, actually. It's just... how do I put this... I've been thinking about quitting school."
"What do you mean!?"
It meant she should treat me like I didn't exist from now on and stop coming to find me. But from Eunju's perspective, a guy who'd only transferred a little while ago suddenly talking about dropping out must have been quite the shock.
"I mean... taking the GED would be enough, right? It's not like there's anything left for me to learn at school. I figured I might as well just work."
"That's ridiculous. There's not even a year left until graduation. Why make such a hasty decision?"
"I just got the feeling that school and I don't really fit."
"That's not true at all. At least everyone I know likes you. Sure, Wonhui's a little mad, but she'll probably cool off by next week and greet you cheerfully again."
A shiver ran through me. Was that real? Did her friends actually all like me?
I'd been feeling uncharacteristically lonely lately, so hearing that people here and there were looking for me made my shoulders lift a little.
Not that I had any intention of going back, of course.
"Anyway, I've had a lot on my mind lately. That aside—there was a confidence vote today, right? How did it turn out?"
"It passed. There were quite a few opposing votes, though..."
When there was only one candidate, winning with over ninety percent was normal. But the slight shadow on Eunju's face suggested the opposition had been stronger than expected.
"It was completely unprecedented, after all. One of the candidates dropped out four days before the election, so her hardcore supporters probably staged their own little boycott. Especially with the 'abolish graduation gifts' platform—the third-years might have voted against you in a bloc."
"I know. It's just... I wanted to win fairly, and I couldn't, so I guess I'm a little bummed."
"I'm sorry. It's all my fault."
"..."
Eunju didn't deny that part either. Things had worked out somehow in the end, but the fact remained that because of me alone, she hadn't gotten the best possible result.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel disappointed for a moment. But in the end you were trying to resolve things in your own way, right? And I was satisfied with the outcome. So right now I'm not resentful and I'm not disappointed. Please stop doing this out of guilt. The more you act like this, the more it just hurts me."
"R-really? But there's nothing I can do about it, is there? The water's already spilled, and time that passes never comes back. In the end our relationship can never go back to the way it was either..."
"Who says? You said it yourself—we never really knew each other that well or were that close to begin with. So there's nowhere lower for it to go, is there?"
"..."
Why had I said something so pointless? I'd been trying to cut things off early because it felt like Eunju was slowly trying to repair our relationship.
But Eunju apparently had zero intention of cutting me off. The problem was, now that I'd quit the high school boy cosplay, keeping in touch with her just wasn't realistic.
"Eunju, how long were you waiting for me, exactly?"
"Not that long. About two hours?"
"T-two hours? You didn't run into Harin in the middle of that, did you?"
"I did. We just said hi."
"..."
Stay calm. Just because Harin saw Eunju at the entrance didn't mean she'd immediately connect it to me.
She probably just figured Eunju had come to meet someone, same as me. Eunju tilted her head and asked,
"Is it a problem if I run into Harin?"
"No, it's just... you know as well as I do that the two teams got tangled up uncomfortably because of me. I figured there might still be some bad feelings left."
"I don't have any. And Harin didn't seem to hold any grudge against me either."
"Really? Doesn't that seem a little strange, though? Unlike you, who knew the whole story, from their side it really looked like plagiarism. They even dropped out of the race before the whole thing was properly resolved. And you're saying they have no complaints toward you?"
"Maybe they never took the election seriously in the first place?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Just... a feeling. If it had been me, or Jihye unnie, or Thuy, I don't think we would have given up that easily."
"..."
She had a point. Because last Tuesday, while explaining the process of dropping out, Harin had made one small slip.
According to her, Jihye's team never seriously intended to win this election. The moment controversy flared up they abandoned it right away, and they didn't even seem particularly disappointed.
If you stretched the thought a little, it almost felt like their goal from the beginning hadn't been winning—it had been dropping out.
"Thank you..."
Then Eunju suddenly said something that softened the whole atmosphere. Her quiet, trembling voice lingered in the still car.
She couldn't even look at me properly, her face flushed as she stared into empty space. Her fingers tightened slightly around the hem of her uniform skirt.
Gulp...
Why are you suddenly like this? Just having a private talk in a car at this hour with a girl of a certain age was already keeping my nerves on edge—why did she have to start creating this weird atmosphere...
I shook my head hard.
What the hell was I thinking? She was a minor. My daughter's classmate, no less.
I was simply a parent who'd walked a friend's daughter home late at night after finding her wandering the streets. Even continuing the conversation past that point was already bordering on attempted crime—how could a word like "weird" even enter the picture?
"W-what are you thanking me for?"
"Everything. Like I said earlier, you could have just taken your family's side. But you asked Harin's father and did everything you could to save me."
"Like I already told you, it was all mess I made in the first place..."
"And I want to apologize for what I said that day too. That line about how I never should have trusted A Team from the start—I never should have said that."
"..."
I was the one who screwed up, so why was she the one apologizing? If she kept this up I was going to feel so guilty I'd have no choice but to keep the relationship going.
"Haa... Eunju? You've probably already guessed, but the truth is I'm not A Team."
"What? But that day you clearly said you were A Team..."
"That was the first time I'd ever even heard the words 'A Team'—from you. I just wasn't wearing a name tag without thinking about it, and I figured if I said I was A Team I'd be able to talk to you. That was all."
"You wanted to talk to me?"
"W-well, I wanted to find out more about Harin, and you looked like you were close to her. You weren't, as it turned out."
"Ah... so that's what it was."
Eunju let out a light sigh, sounding a little disappointed. Fair enough—I was the one who'd changed her mind and gotten her to run again.
Finding out it had all been for my cousin's sake would take the wind out of anyone's sails.
"But you're pretty close with Hyeonji unnie, aren't you?"
"Not because of A Team. There's a story there too. Though if I start talking about Hyeonji to you freely she might get mad..."
"I won't tell anyone. If I was going to, I would have given them your name during the interview."
"..."
True—even when she was backed into a corner, she'd kept her promise to me to the end. And I wasn't exactly revealing Hyeonji's secrets, so this much should be fine.
"Harin's dad told me Harin was carrying cigarettes."
"I'm not super close with Harin, but I don't think she'd smoke or anything."
"Right. Harin's dad seemed to take it as an early sign of school violence. So he asked me to look into her relationships."
"I see..."
Only now did Eunju fully understand why I'd been so obsessively focused on her. If I'd known she was trustworthy from the start, I probably would have just told her this from the beginning.
"Then I found out the cigarettes Hyeonji smoked were the exact same brand Harin was carrying around. So I approached Hyeonji too, and we ended up as the kind of acquaintances who at least say hello when we run into each other."
"I had no idea. But is Hyeonji unnie really bullying Harin? Her reputation's not great, but she doesn't seem like the type..."
"I know. That's why I think the owner of the cigarettes isn't Hyeonji—it's Harin's boyfriend."
"So that's why you kept asking about nothing but that, even making up excuses about friends? Wonhui had no choice but to misunderstand that part."
While she was at it, couldn't she also clear up the misunderstanding Wonhui had about "you and me"? Anyway, getting it all off my chest felt refreshing.
"So did you find anything out?"
"Nothing. I could tail Harin myself, but I decided to just drop it. Harin's dad said he'd handle it, so I don't plan on asking around anymore. What do you think?"
"I think Harin's father is worrying too much. Sure, he might not like his daughter's boyfriend smoking, but assuming that whoever Harin's seeing is automatically going to bully her is a little too paranoid, isn't it?"
"..."
Sorry for being a paranoid wreck. Just wait until you have a daughter of your own someday.
Especially if she inherited every last scrap of high-school-parent DNA—then you'd end up doing the exact same thing I did.
...
A brief silence settled over us. Eunju had said everything she'd come to say, and I'd offered my own apology and explanation, so there was nothing left.
"Eunju? Then maybe we should—"
"What are you doing tomorrow, sunbae?"
But Eunju seemed to break out in hives if she didn't cut me off. And the intent behind that question ran deep.
"Tomorrow? I don't really have anything planned."
"Is that so?"
"..."
That was it? Usually when someone asked about your schedule there was some kind of follow-up, right?
Was this how Eom Chaewon felt whenever she talked to me? Or had she genuinely just been curious about tomorrow's schedule?
"Hmm... Originally, once the election was over, win or lose, I was going to throw a little party for everyone who'd worked so hard. Of course, once Jihye unnie withdrew and the mood got weird, we just ended up having a simple dinner tonight."
"Yeah, that makes sense. If you made too big a deal of it, Jihye's supporters might have taken it the wrong way."
"But... I couldn't get a hold of you, so I couldn't invite you."
"Uh... sorry about that. But it's fine! Honestly, with all the sins I've committed, I had no business being there anyway."
"But in the end I'm going to be running the student council for a whole year based on the platform you put together. So I want to repay you somehow. Which is why..."
"..."
Please don't let it be what I think it is. All of Eunju's usual steel-spined confidence had vanished; she spoke in a voice that lacked any real conviction.
"If it's okay with you... I'll buy you lunch tomorrow."
"Uh... you don't have to, Eunju. If anything I should be the one treating you. What kind of guy freeloads lunch off a kid like you..."
"I don't think I'll feel right unless I do. So can't you just accept it?"
"..."
No. Eunju showing up to apologize had been an unexpected variable, sure, but separate from that, I'd already decided to quit the high school boy cosplay for good.
If I ate lunch with her tomorrow, that would extend it by one more day. Pretending to be a high schooler for just one day wasn't hard—but the first time is always the hardest; after that it gets easy.
If I simply stopped showing up at school and gradually cut off contact, the relationship with Eunju would sort itself out. So I had to refuse here, no matter what.
"Sorry, Eunju. Actually, I just remembered I already—"
"Really? Then I guess it can't be helped. I'll just eat with Teacher Lee Jubin instead."
"What time and where should I meet you?"
"Huh? Weren't you about to refuse?"
"Me? Someone's offering free food and I'm going to turn it down? So tomorrow—what time and where?"
Was she kidding me right now? I'd agonized over that refusal, and now she was casually dropping that she was going to eat with that guy?
Absolutely not. I'd said I was quitting the high school boy cosplay—I never said I was quitting being a parent.
My daughter's friend was about to have a private meal with that deranged future criminal, and I was just going to let it happen? Tomorrow was booked solid for an all-day lecture.
"Tomorrow at twelve, near the academy. I'll head in now."
With that, Eunju got out of the car. Was it just my imagination, or was there a faint smile on her lips as she walked toward home?
Had I... just been played?