Human Trash Can't Be Recycled
—Rolling the clock back a little, to earlier.—
“…Hey, Hong Jihye. Are we seriously okay with doing this?”
“Honestly… we shouldn't follow them. But we're going anyway.”
After Suho and Min Sihyeon walked out of the Class 4 booth, I grabbed Eunha by the wrist and we started after them.
“What is that girl planning to pull on our Suho this time!”
“…Come with me.”
And so the three of us carefully tailed Suho and Min Sihyeon, then hid ourselves behind the pile of cleaning supplies and building materials stacked up behind the old building.
Voices carried over from just beyond the wall. At first, it was the girl doing the attacking—why was he avoiding her, why was he ostracizing her, why couldn't they clear up the misunderstanding and go back to how things used to be.
I couldn't believe my ears.
This was the person who'd walked into our maid café hand in hand with another man to eat pancakes, right in front of the guy she'd thrown away?
I was mid-snort, scoffing at her internally—when suddenly, I couldn't laugh anymore.
“I… liked you. Since elementary school. The whole time.”
It was Suho's voice.
…The truth is, I'd heard it before, secondhand. When Eunha once asked him how he got so good at cooking, Suho had gone on and on about how it was 'because of a girl who lived nearby'…
Even that alone didn't add up to me. It was only after Eunha filled in the rest of the story that I finally understood the whole situation.
…But hearing a situation summarized through someone else's mouth, and hearing the confession itself—straight from the person involved—were two entirely different things. And hearing it live, right there in front of the very people it was about? That was another world entirely.
Beside me, Eunha swallowed hard, and Arin said nothing, just stared down at the ground.
And then—those words came.
“For all this time—I'm sorry for harboring such disgusting feelings for you.”
…The phrasing was so suffocating that I couldn't say a single thing.
He'd only been silent on the outside, apparently. On the inside, Suho must have been completely shattered already.
When you can describe your own love for someone as disgusting…
“…Please, just stop now.”
Suho… was crying.
I could tell from his voice alone.
Eunha had both hands clamped over her mouth, tears streaming down her face one after another.
The voices beyond the wall kept going after that. That things couldn't go back to the way they were. That maybe there'd never been anything there to begin with…
Before long, the conversation ended,
and as footsteps drew near, we hunched down tight.
Suho… walked right past us.
With the gait of someone who'd finished everything. Wearing a face that didn't look relieved in the slightest…
And from beyond the wall—sobbing began to spill out.
Eunha half-rose to scramble over the wall, but Arin grabbed her arm and stopped her.
“…Let's go.”
Arin's voice was low.
“What exactly are we supposed to say to Min Sihyeon if we go over there right now?”
“Still…”
Right at that moment, a phone rang—apparently Min Sihyeon's.
…Looked like she was talking to Kim Minhyun.
Arin clicked her tongue once, turned away with an expression like she'd just eaten something sour that had gone cold, and walked off.
“…She'll be fine without us. She can have fun playing with Kim Minhyun. Come on.”
Eunha hesitated for a long while too, but in the end she turned her back without so much as a glance at Min Sihyeon…
And I did exactly the same.
…In the distance, the announcement of the festival's closing rang out, faint and far away.
Once the closing announcement finished, the after-party kicked off on the athletic field.
A huge campfire had been built in the middle of the field, and it looked like preparations for fireworks were underway up on the main building's rooftop.
Honestly, the after-party was the alpha and omega of the festival. It was the perfect hour for couples who'd spent the day together to get drunk on the romantic atmosphere.
And yet somehow… I found myself being dragged up to the annex rooftop of all places.
“Ta-da! The Cooking Research Club's very own private after-party campfire!”
A camping grill sat in the middle of the rooftop, firewood crackling and popping in the flames. Four camping chairs were arranged around it. …When on earth had she prepared all this?
“…Isn't this, like, a violation of school rules?”
Hong Jihye flashed a V-sign with her fingers and answered with her chest puffed out.
“How can you say such hurtful things! I got permission from Ms. Park Seung-ah for every last item! In exchange, if anything gets burned up, the club gets disbanded that very day!”
“…That's not permission, that's extortion, isn't it?”
Hong Jihye pulled cider and frozen chicken skewers out of a cooler, while Cha Eunha was lovingly threading marshmallows onto sticks.
The glow of the campfire and the sound of singing on the athletic field shimmered in the distance.
The four of us… had dropped straight out of all that commotion, huddled together up on the rooftop around a small fire of our own.
Then the three of them exchanged a furtive glance—and suddenly, Hong Jihye launched into a toast.
“Alright! To today's MVP, Head Chef Kang Suho—cheers!”
“Cheeeeers!”
“…Cheers.”
The sound of cider cans clinking rang out into the night sky.
And the marshmallows that Eunha had been toasting with all her heart and soul… were utterly annihilated.
I probably should've been the one to handle them.
“Fire!! My marshmallow's on fire!!”
“Don't wave it around! Waving makes it— ah… it flew off.”
“…Eunha's landed on my blanket.”
To Cha Eunha, sulking in front of her marshmallow turned charcoal briquette, I held out a fresh skewer.
“Don't hold it right in the flames… hold it above the fire and keep it turning. Slowly. Like this.”
“Ooooh… crispy on the outside, melted on the inside! What are you, a genius? …Ow ow, hot hot HOT…”
It was strange.
Just a few hours ago, I had… said the heaviest words of my life. My eyes should've been swollen to slits. …Honestly, they'd all probably noticed.
But nobody asked me anything. Not a single thing.
Hong Jihye was twice as loud as usual, and Cha Eunha fussed and fanned her mouth over a marshmallow that was fresh off the fire and far too hot,
while Bang Arin, without a word… placed the most perfectly toasted chicken skewer onto my plate.
Truthfully… it was obvious they were all pumping themselves up on purpose, forcing the energy. And it was painfully obvious that the girls who normally noticed nothing were sneaking glances at me, reading my every reaction.
…Thank you, you guys.
Those words, welling up to the back of my throat, I swallowed down along with a mouthful of cider.
Because if I said them now… I felt like I might just cry.
“Okay, okay! Speaking of which—”
Hong Jihye clapped her hands and flipped the topic.
“Let's all go somewhere fun together this weekend!”
“…This weekend?”
Hong Jihye shot a quick glance my way as she went on.
“Yep! To celebrate the festival's smash hit! And also… to recharge our hardworking Head Chef!”
Beside her, Cha Eunha was already beside herself with excitement, clapping along.
“Oh! Yes! Totally approve! Where are we going?!”
“…Leave it to me—when it's crunch time, I've already got it all decided, that's what I'm telling you.”
Hong Jihye pulled up a promotional video for Novel World, the amusement park that had just opened recently.
…It's a theme park, huh.
Come to think of it, I'd been a few times as a kid… but I didn't think I'd gone once since middle school.
And with that, Hong Jihye launched into a full-blown oration on all the reasons we simply had to visit a theme park this weekend.
“…And THAT is why we are going to the theme park, no arguments! Now, anyone opposed!?”
As expected, nobody raised an objection.
Besides, even if I argued with Hong Jihye at this point… she's not exactly the kind of girl who can be persuaded…
“Great! Then it's decided! Saturday morning, ten sharp! Meet in front of the station! Latecomers pay a fine!”
“Hey… who are you announcing that to?”
“…Cha Eunha. You. I'm talking to you.”
“Why me!?”
While Cha Eunha and Hong Jihye bickered back and forth, a thunderous boom began echoing from the main building rooftop. Colorful fireworks bloomed one after another across the sky.
“…Whoa.”
“…So pretty…”
For a while, all of us watched the fireworks in silence.
…A few hours ago, everything had been at its worst. And now… things were actually pretty all right.
All of it, thanks to these guys.
…I was so grateful that I thought, I have to pay this back. Whatever it takes, I won't forget it.
After the fireworks ended and we'd packed up everything laid out on the rooftop… we each headed our separate ways home.
Everyone except me.
I pretended to head home… and then circled back to school.
The truth is, while I'd been busy lecturing Suho on all the reasons we had to go to Novel World earlier, a missed call had come in.
It was a number I didn't recognize, so I'd wondered—who on earth calls at this hour? And on festival day, no less…
But the moment an Insta DM landed in my inbox, I understood.
Min Sihyeon.
She'd messaged me saying to meet at school for a bit once the festival wrapped up.
I glanced over at Eunha and Arin one after the other after reading the DM, but neither of them looked particularly off.
Given the circumstances, it seemed like she was going out of her way to DM me alone… to ask for a meeting.
What for, I wondered.
When I checked my watch, it was already a little past nine-thirty.
I went to the Class 4 classroom where Min Sihyeon had told me to meet, and there she was, waiting in an empty, deserted room.
“…Why did you call me here.”
Min Sihyeon spoke in a voice worn raw from crying.
“…Hong Jihye… that's your name, right? Do you have some kind of grudge against me?”
Absurd. That was the only word for it.
You summon someone out in the middle of the night and start whining about grudges that don't even matter?
I'd never once exchanged a private word with you in my life.
“What are you on about? Talk so I can understand. Min Sihyeon.”
“…You took Kang Suho away. Ever since then… all my friends have gone over to your side too.”
“I didn't take anyone. Suho came to 'our' club on his own.”
“Liar. You coaxed and begged him until he joined… that's the only reason he did. …Isn't it?”
…It's true that I did ask him to join, I'll admit that much.
“…What exactly are you trying to say, Min Sihyeon? …Just get to the point.”
“…Give them back. My friends. All of them.”
It was so ridiculous that a hollow laugh escaped me.
…What kind of girl even is this.
Min Sihyeon just kept hammering away at her own argument.
“Kang Suho and I were close friends, and you drove a wedge between us and stole him. …Isn't that right? Because otherwise, there's no reason Kang Suho would suddenly leave me and start hanging around with someone he doesn't even know—”
…Does she think people are idiots?
“Hey. Min Sihyeon.”
“…You think I don't know anything?”
“—You're the one who rejected him. Kang Suho.”
“And today, you came strolling into our maid café hand in hand with another guy, enjoying your little date on top of everything else.”
“Why are you cosplaying as the victim? It's disgusting. Genuinely.”
Min Sihyeon's face had drained chalk-white, and no words came out of her.
“…You… how did you even know th… a… and I wasn't doing any victim cospl—”
Whatever else Min Sihyeon tried to say, I cut her off and shrugged.
“That little conversation you had behind the old building this afternoon… I heard all of it.”
“…But man, you are really selfish.”
“What, feeling lonely now that you've lost Kang Suho? …Sad that there's no live-in cook making you meals every time you go over to his place?”
“No, wait—that was never it, was it. This was always how you felt. You didn't want to date him and have him belong to you—and you didn't want to hand him over to anyone else either. A truly filthy, repulsive… fishpond mentality. …Am I wrong?”
Min Sihyeon was trembling.
Even under the moonlight, I could see her shoulders shaking, clear as day.
“The really unforgivable part is that you knew full well Kang Suho was in love with you, and you still went around gushing about how you liked Kim Minhyun and this and that.”
And then, at last, she began to scream.
“That's not true!!!!!! It's NOT!!!!!!!!”
“I really… I really didn't know. I didn't know he liked me… I thought we were just friends…”
“…Hey, Min Sihyeon. Is your head a flower garden? Seriously. Where on earth does a friendship like that exist. Between a guy and a girl, no less.”
“Fine… let's say, giving you a hundred times the benefit of the doubt, that you really didn't know.”
“…But by the time you started developing feelings for Kim Minhyun, you should have settled things with Kang Suho first.”
“You milked Kang Suho for everything he was worth… and you wanted to do the romance part with Kim Minhyun, huh? What, was there some grand master plan to marry Kim Minhyun and then keep Kang Suho on as your housekeeper—”
“SHUT UP!!!! SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!!!”
“Shut my mouth, huh…”
Min Sihyeon's face burned scarlet as she thrashed against her tears, straining with everything she had.
…There was nothing left worth saying.
That girl was just… trash.
The kind of human being who treasures her own feelings and doesn't spare a single glance for anyone else's.
Regular trash can at least be recycled—but human trash can't be recycled at all.
And here she was, still peddling excuses like 'I didn't know Suho was in love with me, sob sob.'
God… the sheer caliber of these excuses is nauseating.
…You came into our maid café this morning holding hands with Kim Minhyun and scratched at Suho right out in the open,
so that means… I'm free to scratch back at you a little on Suho's behalf, doesn't it.
As I walked out of the classroom, I tossed one last thing over my shoulder at Min Sihyeon.
“…I've said everything I came to say, and there's nothing left I want to hear. If I'd known it'd be this kind of conversation, I'd have just gone home. …I really don't get what you expect me to do on a precious Friday night, wasting it on a girl having a tantrum…”
“I'll head out first. Tomorrow—I've got a date with Suho, so I need to sleep early.”
And with that, I closed the classroom door behind me.
From beyond the door came the sound of her sobbing—ah… ahk——but I decided to ignore it.
…If you drive a nail into someone else's heart,
then you deserve to hurt exactly that much yourself. There's no need… for pity.
Time to forget all of it now.
Tomorrow—just think about going to the theme park, Hong Jihye.