Chapter 43

Lunchtime.

The three of us met in the same spot as always, but the mood was nothing like our usual cafeteria routine.

If you only looked at the fact we were being ignored, you might say the other students' reactions hadn't changed much from before.

Right. If you only looked at the fact we were being 'ignored.'

Everything else had.

Before, when we came ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the cafeteria, the other kids acted like we didn't exist, but they never went out of their way to avoid sitting near us.

That tracked. If 'no one was there,' why bother dodging the seats?

So the spots next to our table were never intentionally left empty. Kids just sat in the open seats around us without looking at us. Because even if they sat down, all they had to do was ignore the person right beside them—exactly like they did in the classroom.

Now it was different.

The students were still doing their best to avert their eyes from us, but the effort to ignore us 'at all costs' was painfully obvious.

Right then, the table next to ours was completely empty. One table would sit entirely vacant while the rest were packed with kids.

After my completely unhinged behavior all morning, they'd apparently decided that sitting next to me risked getting dragged into the mess and hurt.

"Hey, Sara."

Even Lee Su-a was looking at the two of us with a thoroughly flustered expression.

"......."

And Lee Su-a wasn't the only one who was flustered.

So was I.

"Here—say ah~"

Ha-neul was glued to my side, holding out a bite of food with her chopsticks.

And by glued to my side, I don't mean just sitting next to me. She was pressed right against my left arm. She was even using the chopsticks with her left hand. Did the original Yu Ha-neul have an ambidextrous trait?

Her right hand was linked around my left arm, so I couldn't pull free even if I wanted to. In terms of strength, Ha-neul was way stronger than me.

......Wait. Wasn't she the one who panicked when I showed her the article? The one who got horribly embarrassed after realizing the truth, right after she'd misjudged the distance between us and I'd taught her a lesson? Her face had gone bright red from shock.

"You said earlier you thought going with it might not be so bad."

As I hesitated in embarrassment with the food right in front of my face, Ha-neul leaned in close to my ear and whispered. Her breath tickled my earlobe.

"......."

Ah, this.

She's picking a fight.

Back during first period she'd been horribly mortified when I told her to sit on my lap, but she'd gotten over it fast and turned things around to semi-toy with me. Even after class ended, Ha-neul had been confidently lecturing me about personal space.

Does her personality fly out of control the moment her pride gets wounded?

......Thinking back to the original story, that might actually check out. She was the type of character who stubbornly, steadfastly pursued the ones who were prickly toward her.

That's how the Yoon Da-ho route went, too.

How did that end again? In the ending, Yoon Da-ho breaks free from worrying about his status and lives the life he wants, something along those lines, I think.

......No, wait.

......Am I being pursued right now?

Is Yu Ha-neul currently walking the Ye Sa-ra Route?

I found myself making that serious speculation for a moment.

Ha-neul clearly had no intention of pulling her hand back until I took the food from her.

Eventually I gave in and ate it, and that's when Lee Su-a, sitting directly across from us, suddenly caught my eye.

Her pupils were shaking violently as she watched us.

I could see why. Up until last week, the two of us hadn't stuck together like this during meals. Actually, even outside meals, we'd never sat squished together while eating.

"......Could you come over here a second?"

It looked like if I left things as they were, Lee Su-a was going to start forming the same misunderstanding as the other kids. I used my free right hand to gesture to the spot on my right.

Lee Su-a studied my face, then Ha-neul pressed flush against my other side, then the empty spot I was pointing at. She nodded, pulled over her chair, and came to sit next to me—plate in tow.

......Well, I did ask her to come over, but I didn't mean this close.

Lee Su-a, now beside me, hadn't quite reached Yu Ha-neul levels, but she sat close enough that our arms would brush with the slightest movement.......Still, since I was planning to speak quietly anyway, closeness wasn't a bad thing.

I angled my head slightly toward Lee Su-a and asked in a low voice.

"Did you see the article that went up online today?"

"Yeah. I saw it."

Then this'll be easy. Good.

"......The photo was taken last Saturday. It seems like whoever took it, and the newspaper, wanted to write the article from that...... well, that angle."

When I emphasized the word 'that,' Lee Su-a nodded with a serious look. She'd picked up on it right away—the dating rumors and all that.

"But it's not like that, okay? We just met up as friends and hung out."

"......Just as friends?"

Lee Su-a asked it back, verifying.

I nodded, and as if double-checking, Lee Su-a tilted her head slightly to look at Ha-neul on my left.

"......."

Ha-neul, who'd been dodging Lee Su-a's gaze with shifty eyes, eventually gave an admitting nod.

"Oh, I see."

Lee Su-a nodded like she understood.

"But I figured it might be good to just use that article as-is. I've already been thinking about ways to shift the situation around me a bit. So I decided to ride the current circumstances. That's why we were...... pretty stuck together during first period, too."

I couldn't quite bring myself to say that at one point I'd been positioned on top of Ha-neul from all sorts of angles. Even if I started it and did it on purpose, that was way too embarrassing.

"Ah, so that's why......."

Lee Su-a nodded, apparently recalling my sudden appearance in her classroom.

"I did hear about it. Not directly, but one of the kids from Class 1 was telling someone in my class during the last break. That the two of you in class...... um, did that kind of thing."

Hey, if you say it like that, it sounds like we actually did something.

I mean, we did do something!

If someone really wanted to interpret it that way, it could pass as a sexual gesture!

Actually, since I was deliberately acting so it would look that way, that interpretation isn't wrong, honestly!

"I see. So that's why the kids were sneaking glances at me like that."

Lee Su-a muttered to herself and seemed to accept it.

"But if people really misunderstand......."

"I'm acting like that so they will misunderstand. If someone actually talks to me about it later...... well, I'm doing this because I want them to talk to me, so when it happens I'll get to tease them for falling for it. No idea who it'll be, though."

"I see......."

Lee Su-a nodded like she was working through it.

For reference, Ha-neul, who'd been feeding me until just moments ago, now had her head bowed low, mortified by something. She still hadn't pulled away from my side, but apparently hearing that our first-period antics had already spread through the entire school was finally bringing the wave of shame crashing in.

I felt like I was starting to figure out her pattern. A personality that, when the blood rushes to her head, just barrels ahead to resolve things first, and only gets embarrassed about it afterward.

How to put it—it's very protagonist-like. The type to deliver an intensely cringey famous line and then die of embarrassment when someone brings it up later.

"Then I'll cooperate with that plan."

Lee Su-a, who'd been gathering her thoughts for a moment, declared that.

"That would be grea—"

Before I could finish the word, something soft pressed against my right arm.

"......."

I looked down. Lee Su-a's, well...... her chest was touching me.

The kind of chest that, in a school uniform, pulls the pocket taut so it's hard to put anything inside and forces the name tag to tilt upward—that chest was now flush against my right arm.

And as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Lee Su-a's left arm had wrapped around my right arm.

"Anyway, you're saying it just has to become an issue big enough that people can't keep ignoring it, right?"

"Uh, I, h-hold on, I mean, yeah, but......."

Once I'd grasped the situation, my mind blanked for a second and I couldn't speak properly.

"In that case...... what if, just hypothetically."

Lee Su-a brought her face a little closer to mine.

"If it involved two people...... wouldn't even more people find themselves unable to resist looking......?"

Huh?

*

When I first saw the article, I was a little shocked.

The article on the portal site's main page featured a large photo of the two people who'd been glued together all last week.

At school the three of us always went around together, and we even left school together, deliberately going over the wall. One more person had joined us after school, and Lee Su-a had thought that was a good thing. She didn't think that person, So-hee, was a bad person.

She'd thought that maybe they could all keep going around together, just like that, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠until graduation. Lee Su-a had that kind of experience before. In middle school she'd stuck with friends from the same class starting in first year, all the way to graduation.

Though now she was in a state where they barely spoke anymore.

From Lee Su-a's perspective, Sara was showing courage right now. Instead of simply ignoring back the people who ignored ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her, she was taking action to try and fix their attitudes somehow. She talked confidently to people she didn't know, and she spoke without being intimidated. She didn't push away the people who came near her. She simply called right things right, and wrong things wrong.

Even though the people around Sara still kept ignoring her.

Lee Su-a thought that was dazzling.

So she tried to act that way, too.

She didn't hide what she was doing. She tried talking about Sara to other people, and she tried to maintain her original friendships.

But every time she brought up Sara, every time she revealed she was spending time with Sara, her friendships rapidly grew more distant.

So, to put the conclusion simply: it hadn't gone well.

Maybe that's why she'd clung to Sara even more.

Because when those relationships hit a snag, the other kids cut all contact, but she thought Sara wouldn't do that.

But the article she saw this morning had a photo of Sara and Yu Ha-neul pressed close together.

Lee Su-a wasn't in it. Lee Su-a had never met up with Sara one-on-one.

After seeing that picture, she'd spent the whole morning sitting at her desk with a dazed look.

Had their relationship...... already gone beyond friendship? She'd had that thought. Of course, it wasn't rational. They'd barely known each other for any time at all. There was no way they could suddenly become lovers without any of the in-between stages.

Even when Sara strode confidently into the classroom during class, even when Sara smiled at her, she'd had the thought that maybe the two of them had become a couple and were leaving her behind, drifting far away.

Though she'd nearly burst out laughing right after at what Sara did next.

"I'm acting like that so they will misunderstand. If someone actually talks to me about it later...... well, I'm doing this because I want them to talk to me, so when it happens I'll get to tease them for falling for it. No idea who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it'll be, though."

"......."

During lunch, after hearing that from Sara, Lee Su-a looked intently at Yu Ha-neul. Yu Ha-neul did a very thorough job of avoiding Lee Su-a's eyes.

......So that's how it was. So that's how it went.

Probably the one who'd gone to find the other first over the weekend was Yu Ha-neul. And the one who'd somehow coaxed Sara into coming outside was Yu Ha-neul, too.

And, probably, because she had...... at least a little of that sort of feeling for Sara, they'd ended up pressed together like that.

And that was the photo they ended up taking.

So that's how it was.

So that's what it was.

On one hand, she felt relieved. At least for the time being, Lee Su-a had no reason to be abandoned alone. She wouldn't end up ostracized like she'd been when she was little.

But.......

That didn't mean she felt no jealousy.

Because Lee Su-a was the one who'd first taken a photo with Sara.

Because among the friends around Sara now, Lee Su-a was the one who'd spoken to her first.

And because, maybe, there could come a moment when this so-called 'plan' of theirs stopped being just a 'plan.'

"In that case...... what if, just hypothetically."

After all those thoughts had piled up, she'd impulsively said it.

"If it involved two people...... wouldn't even more people find themselves unable to resist looking......?"

As she spoke, she pressed herself right up against Sara's right arm.

It was embarrassing. Incredibly embarrassing. Honestly, even between close friends, you don't normally stick this close.

But Yu Ha-neul, sitting on Sara's other side, was already this close.

"Oh, ah, that, w-well, that's fine, but......."

Sara's face flushed red as she fumbled her words.

"If you're both hanging on me like this, I can't exactly eat."

There's no need to worry about that.

Lee Su-a picked up her chopsticks. And she lifted a small piece of cut meat.

Sara's eyes shook violently as she realized what that gesture meant.

It was still horribly embarrassing. If Lee Su-a could see her own face right now, she was sure it would be bright red.

But she didn't want to fall behind in Sara's attention.

......Up until now she'd acted a little timid in front of Sara, but originally Lee Su-a had been the type of kid who bustled around between tons of friends, chatting and laughing. Even if most people pretended not to know her now, originally she'd been the type to push through her embarrassment and talk first to kids she didn't know.

If she set her mind to it, she could endure a little embarrassment.

At least as much as Yu Ha-neul could.