The Only Friend Left
I waited until Seo Jian’s face, flushed bright red, finally calmed down before she could return to the outdoor table.
“Here, yours.”
She handed me the chestnut-flavored ice cream. I whistled and immediately tore open the wrapper.
“How’d you know I like this one?”
“…What? You said you liked vanilla.”
“I like both, obviously.”
I bit straight into the hard shell. The rich, nutty aroma unique to chestnut (probably from added flavoring) flooded my mouth. Jian stared at my expression for a moment, then sat down across from me with a visibly annoyed look. She pulled out the vanilla ice cream she’d been hiding behind her back and shoved it toward me.
“What? This one’s mine too?”
“I knew the moment you suggested going to the gukbap place for lunch. This old man’s tastes. I was gonna show it off first and eat it myself, but you snatched it right up?”
“Then you should’ve said something sooner.”
“…….”
I grinned slyly and snapped off the top of the hard shell with a crisp crack. While letting the chestnut ice cream melt on my tongue, I kept talking.
“But if you bought it for yourself, doesn’t that mean you have the same tastes as this old man?”
“Shut. The fuck. Up.”
Jian shook her head vigorously and plopped down on the plastic chair across the table. She tore open the chocolate ice cream she was still holding and took a big bite. It must have been freezing because she immediately shivered all over.
“Ugh, so cold.”
“By the way, what took you so long to buy three ice creams? I peeked inside and it looked like you were staring at something else.”
“I-I was just taking my time picking, okay? There are so many kinds of vanilla ice cream!”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”
I just shrugged and didn’t press the issue. Meanwhile, Jian kept fidgeting with her pocket. The sharp corner of the condom box she’d just bought was clearly visible through the fabric.
…He’s not thinking about doing the bonus mission, right? He hasn’t brought it up even once so far. Maybe he’s completely forgotten about it.
Jian thought to herself. What on earth would Kim Hanbin say if she showed him the condoms? She’d die of embarrassment. Buying condoms carried a lot of implications on its own. She wasn’t an idiot. What else would a guy and a girl do with condoms? They weren’t going to blow them up like balloons. Obviously they were for contraception.
Thinking about it that way suddenly made the mission difficulty feel like it had skyrocketed. Up until now, the missions had been bearable if she just closed her eyes and endured the shame. But if the next mission told her to do something with Kim Hanbin using these condoms… could she really endure it just by closing her eyes?
Jian fell into complete confusion.
How the hell are friends supposed to do that?!
Of course she had somewhat expected that kind of mission would appear eventually, but wasn’t this way too soon?! She wished she had more time to mentally prepare.
…Well, surely it wouldn’t be that, right?
While she was lost in that whirlwind of inner turmoil, Kim Hanbin finished both his ice creams and stood up first.
“Jian. Your ice cream’s melting.”
“Huh?”
Drip. Drip. It ran down her fingers and stained her pants.
“Ah!”
Startled, Jian shoved the entire ice cream in her hand into her mouth at once. She took the tissue Hanbin offered, wiped at the dark stain, and grumbled.
“Ugh, this is so annoying.”
“You were just spacing out doing nothing, so I figured something was up.”
It was probably an unconscious action with no deeper meaning on his part, but Jian licked the sticky ice cream off her index finger with her tongue.
Slurp.
“…….”
“What are you looking at?”
When she snapped at him, Hanbin awkwardly turned his head away.
It had already been six days since we completed the last mission. Tomorrow was the day we’d promised to do the next one, yet I still hadn’t had a proper conversation with Seo Jian. Since the person involved wasn’t bringing it up, things just stayed exactly as they were.
In the middle of all that, I was meeting up with a high school friend for the first time in a while. Some might ask why a repeat examinee was already thinking about hanging out with friends… but when a friend who had just become a college freshman and received his first part-time paycheck offered to buy me a meal, how could I say no? Especially since he was even coming all the way to the reading room area.
> I'm nearby, but where the hell is this place? There's a reading room in a neighborhood like this?
> I'll be out soon, just wait a sec
After sending that message to Jo Woohyun, I quickly texted Seo Jian as well.
> Stepping out for a bit to meet a friend. He's already out front. Go ahead and eat lunch without me today.
The moment I sent it, I heard the sound of a chair scraping back violently from the seat across from me—less than three seconds later. Then came the sound of quick, heavy footsteps. Seo Jian suddenly poked her head into my space and whispered urgently.
“Hey, w-who is it?”
“What?”
“It’s someone from our high school, right? Who’s coming?”
Oh, right. She had said she cut off all contact with everyone from high school. It made sense that she’d look this anxious. I made a calming gesture with both hands and spoke to her.
“Don’t worry. It’s not someone who was close to you.”
“Then who is it?”
“Jo Woohyun… you remember him, right? The guy I used to hang out with.”
“……Ah, that short kid who only ever talked about games.”
“Yeah, uh. Anyway, he said he’d buy me lunch and he’s already out front, so I’m just stepping out for a bit.”
But even after I said that, she glared at me fiercely. That made sense too. Back then, Seo Jiwon had been a massive topic at our school. Jo Woohyun would definitely still remember Seo Jian now. They were even in the same class—there was no way he wouldn’t know. Obviously I had no intention of letting this guy meet her.
“Seriously. Just try bringing him in here.”
I nodded repeatedly, calmed her down, and promised to grant her one request later before I could finally leave the reading room.
He was standing in front of the convenience store across the street. Jo Woohyun. His hair was neatly styled, and his outfit looked brand new. He was looking around at the neighborhood with his mouth hanging open. When I walked up and tapped his shoulder, he jumped and spun around.
“Whoa.”
“What’s with the reaction the second you see me?”
“Are you actually planning to study for the retake?”
“Out of nowhere? What the hell, dude.”
He gestured at the surroundings and continued.
“There’s motorcycle noise everywhere, no academies in sight. All I see is that one run-down reading room. You’re seriously studying here?”
“Don’t you know it’s easier to focus when it’s quiet? It’s noisy as hell. Let’s just go eat. I’m starving.”
Before he could get any more interested in the reading room, I dragged Jo Woohyun to the nearby gukbap restaurant. These days, saying a hearty bowl of gukbap was better value than a hearty burger set felt outdated, but unfortunately there were no burger chains around here. By the way, this was the same place I’d come to with Seo Jian last time.
Jo Woohyun sat down, set his phone on the table, and stared at my face intently.
“Looking at you now, you really do look like a repeat examinee. How many days have you been wearing that tracksuit? And you haven’t even cut your hair.”
“Are you my mom? Nagging the second you see me.”
Nagging right off the bat. I organized the side dishes that had been set out, placed the water cup and spoon in front of him, and answered calmly.
“I’ve just been busy studying lately. There’s never been a better time for me to focus. Gotta do it while I can.”
“Are your scores going up?”
“My exploration subjects are solid.”
“…Do people usually grind exploration subjects this hard at this stage?”
I chose to ignore Jo Woohyun’s last comment. It wasn’t good for a repeat examinee’s mentality when a current college student showed too much curiosity about their situation. The person in question would only feel miserable hearing stories about college MTs, club sign-ups, and all that. To change the subject, I took a bite of the bright red cabbage kimchi. The gukbap here was decent, but this kimchi was genuinely delicious. It was good enough to call this place a kimchi restaurant. Seeing that, Jo Woohyun also took a bite of kimchi.
“This kimchi is good.”
“That’s why I suggested this place. The kimchi here is great.”
“Honestly, when you said let’s go eat gukbap, I thought, ‘Wow, Kim Hanbin, you actually have a conscience as a friend.’ I was ready to buy you something more expensive.”
“Want to leave now?”
“It’s good here. No reason to leave.”
Jo Woohyun then held up two fingers and continued.
“Just kidding. I started two tutoring jobs this month. So I’ve got some extra cash.”
“You’re tutoring?”
I stared at Jo Woohyun blankly. It was true—he had changed quite a bit in just a month or two. His hairstyle clearly came from a proper salon visit, and like I’d noticed earlier, all his clothes were new. Considering we used to eat instant ramen together at the PC bang every day, it hit me again that I was the only one left behind as a repeat examinee.
“Dude, tutoring is all about connections. And I was pretty good at Korean, wasn’t I?”
“You were absolute trash at math though.”
“…Ahem. That’s separate.”
But life is seventy percent luck, thirty percent skill. Thanks to luckily guessing two multiple-choice questions correctly in the math section, getting one written question right by chance, and scoring surprisingly well in the Korean section (which he was actually good at), he managed to get into a mid-to-upper tier engineering department at a Seoul university—unlike me. I remember his exploration subjects were a disaster though. Of course, the Korean score was genuinely his skill, so it wasn’t all luck.
Anyway, when a friend with a fat wallet came all the way here to buy me lunch, it was only natural for me to pick the most expensive item on the menu. Since he himself had said anywhere more expensive was fine, I wasn’t going to hold back out of consideration. Soon after, two special mixed gukbap bowls arrived at the table.
“I’m taking all the kkakdugi broth, okay?”
“You can just get a refill anyway, so go ahead.”
At my words, Jo Woohyun immediately poured the kkakdugi broth straight into his gukbap. It wasn’t my preference, but I wasn’t about to complain when someone else was buying. I simply added a spoonful of spicy sauce to mine according to my own taste. After eating in silence for a while, Jo Woohyun suddenly spoke while crunching on the kkakdugi.
“So, have you been in touch with the other guys much?”
“…Nah, not really that often. Hearing you all went to college and hung out somewhere just messes with my head, you know? Like I’m the only one stuck here… that kind of feeling.”
“Heh heh. I knew you’d end up like this the moment you chose to retake the exam and suffer.”
“I don’t want to hear that from someone who got lucky on the CSAT.”
I scooped up a big spoonful of gukbap and shoved it in my mouth. Then, out of nowhere, Jo Woohyun dropped a name I never expected.
“By the way, I wonder what Seo Jiwon is up to these days?”
“Pfft!”
The entire contents of my mouth sprayed out.
“Dude! You got it all over me?! These are the clothes I bought last week after thinking really hard about it…”
I hurriedly pulled out some tissues and handed them to him.
“Sorry. I’m really sorry. That name came out of nowhere and I got startled.”
“…Ha. Well, at least it was just rice grains. Anyway, where was I?”
“You were about to talk about Seo Jiwon.”
Jo Woohyun wiped his clothes roughly with the tissue and continued.
“That guy studied like crazy in high school but still didn’t get into college in the end. Because of that whole thing.”
“…….”
“Is he retaking the exam now too?”
“I-I don’t know.”
He had probably brought it up without thinking, so there shouldn’t be any problem. I looked away and answered as casually as I could.
“The kids who were actually close to him would probably know. Weren’t you pretty tight with Park Hojun back in high school?”
“Oh, yeah. Actually we played ranked games together just last week.”
Wait, they’re still gaming together? I had just casually mentioned a name that popped into my head—I had no idea Jo Woohyun and Park Hojun were still in contact. Jo Woohyun nodded as he stirred his gukbap and said,
“But even they said they have no idea what happened to Seo Jiwon. He left all the group chats and cut off contact with everyone. They never went to his house so they couldn’t visit.”
“…….”
I suddenly understood why Jian had freaked out so badly. Even Jo Woohyun, who wasn’t close to her, would bring up Seo Jian the moment high school came up. That’s how big of a topic Seo Jiwon’s incident had been at our school.
“Now that I think about it, Park Hojun and the guys said they’re going back to school on Teacher’s Day to see the teachers. They asked if I wanted to come. Do you… wanna go?”
“No way. Well, if I pass the retake, maybe next year.”
“We could casually ask the teachers about Seo Jian while we’re there.”
“You think they’d tell us?”
“Probably not, right?”
“Why are you even curious?”
“It’s just interesting, that’s all.”
That was probably how most students felt about Seo Jian—about Seo Jiwon. It hit me again that she didn’t have a single friend left. Not one… No, I really had become her only friend.