004. Is This Guy Seriously Out of His Mind?
"……"
Night had fallen, the sun long since sunk below the horizon.
Both of my parents were working late today, so there would be no one home.
Woo-jin wasn't the type to head home early either, so after finishing our shopping and grabbing dinner, the two of us had ended up at the playground near his house for a while.
I sat in the gazebo waiting for Woo-jin, who'd gone to the convenience store, staring blankly out at the playground.
The empty playground felt oddly desolate, somehow.
The gazebo I was sitting in was roomy enough to seat five people comfortably, but right now it felt rather cramped.
Next to me were the shopping bags I'd accumulated today, and since Woo-jin had bought clothes along with me, there were a few of his bags as well.
After gazing at those bags for a moment, I raised a hand and ran it through my hair.
……This is pretty
weird.
I couldn't tell whether it suited me or not, but even just changing my hair and style after practically a lifetime of keeping them the same made me feel strangely awkward.
Well, seeing as Woo-jin hadn't said anything, it probably came out decent enough.
Then again, I have basically zero sense for this kind of thing, so I honestly couldn't tell if it turned out well or not.
"What are you thinking about?"
"……Just, this and that."
Woo-jin, who had approached without me noticing, asked as he rattled a plastic bag.
"Stop thinking about Baek Seol-ah so much. Your head's gonna actually explode at this rate."
It wasn't like I'd been thinking about her, but I kept my mouth shut.
Even if I told him I hadn't been thinking about her, I doubted he'd believe me.
"Drink up."
I took the can Woo-jin handed me, went to crack it open, then suddenly noticed something off and looked back down at it.
"……Hey."
"What?"
"This is beer."
"Then it's beer. What, were you expecting cola?"
His exasperated comeback left me exasperated instead, and I just stared at him.
An Woo-jin.
Truth be told, this guy wasn't exactly the diligent, model-student type. Not that anyone would mistake him for one just by looking.
He doesn't bully anyone, doesn't smoke, but he has that classic delinquent vibe about him.
These days kids would call him an iljin or something like that — but he's not the type to bother anyone else either.
If anything, those kinds of kids tend to follow An Woo-jin around, looking up to him.
Anyway, setting all that aside.
"Are you insane? We're minors."
"This is exactly the time you crack one open. It's the code."
"……Hey, says who? Have the weird kids you hang around with corrupted you or something?"
The only reason I'd never said anything was that Woo-jin never showed any signs of going off the rails — if anything, he seemed to be reforming the delinquents.
But if he's getting corrupted this badly, maybe I need to give him a sharp talking-to and pull him away from those people……
"My dad said—"
"Your dad's a man of understanding."
I knew Woo-jin's father too.
I'd met him several times, even eaten at their place more than once.
Woo-jin's father was, how should I put it… a fairly free-spirited man. It's not that he doesn't care about his son — he treats him well and keeps close tabs on him.
But when it comes to cigarettes and alcohol, he takes the view that a little is fine and lets it slide.
He's actually so open about it that he'll occasionally drink together with Woo-jin.
"Not drinking?"
"……Ha."
I scratched my head and looked at him.
Honestly, for someone on his second lap through life, I had no reason to refuse a little drink.
Smoking and drinking had been part of my past life, and even now, whenever stress built up, the urge for a cigarette would occasionally rise in me.
Still, no matter how you slice it, I'm a minor.
Even with a past life, this life is that of an underage kid, so this kind of thing really is……
Psshhh……!! Pop!!
"Khhahaha!!"
"Y-you lunatic. I told you not to drink it?"
While I was still wrestling with myself, Woo-jin had already cracked one open and was sending it down his throat.
When I gaped at him in horror, he just smirked, curling the corners of his mouth up, and brushed it off like it was nothing.
"Sigh."
Letting out a sigh at the sight of his carefree face, I rolled the can around in my hand — then a question suddenly occurred to me, and I threw it at him.
"Wait, how did you even buy this?"
"……Buy it? Didn't buy it. Dad got it for me."
"Huh?"
"Ran into him at the convenience store."
So Woo-jin's father got off work early today.
With that thought, I let out a sigh, cracked the beer open, and started gulping it down without delay.
"Khh."
"You drink pretty well."
Watching me, Woo-jin snickered and muttered under his breath.
It had been a while.
No — this was the first beer I'd tasted in this life, and I let out a small sound of satisfaction, shaking my head side to side.
That's the stuff.
"But don't go drinking whenever you feel like it, alright? My dad keeps hammering it in that even he only drinks when it's really called for."
"……Look who's talking. Like I'd end up like you."
I grumbled back at him.
I'm hardly an alcoholic, and I had zero intention of drowning myself in booze over something like this.
"First-timers mostly do, though. They think it makes them look cool. Not you, of course."
Woo-jin nodded along casually to my words.
Of course, there could come a time when I lean on alcohol. The world is a harsh place, and people need something to lean on.
But not me.
I know full well that leaning on things like that is the one thing I must not do.
"Baek Seol-ah. Is it completely over with her?"
"……Well, yeah. It's not like I can do anything about it."
Why is he bringing up what he already said earlier?
It was hard enough as it was — every time the thought of her crossed my mind, my chest felt like it was tearing open — and he keeps making me think about her.
"Come on, you two really loved each other."
"It was never…… mutual."
I was the only one who loved her. One-sided, that's all it ever was.
Baek Seol-ah simply liked me as a friend.
And knowing that full well, I was just too foolish to let go.
"……Is that so?"
Hearing my answer, Woo-jin nodded, though he wore the expression of someone who couldn't quite wrap his head around it.
"If you say so, then that's how it is."
At how readily he accepted it, I burst out laughing.
He watched me for a moment, then — as if something had just come to mind — dug into his pocket and pulled something out.
"Oh right, here, take this."
"……What is it?"
What he handed over was a pair of wireless earbuds.
Nestled snugly in a box, they looked brand new at a glance.
When I frowned at the sight of them, Woo-jin grinned goofily and went on.
"A gift."
"……A gift?"
"A breakup gift. Just take it. You don't own a single pair, do you?"
He was right.
Not just wireless earbuds — I didn't even own regular ones.
I'd never been one to walk around with things plugged into my phone in the first place.
After all, I'd spent precious little time with earbuds in, alone with my own thoughts.
Baek Seol-ah was always by my side, and just listening to her chattering voice took up all the time I had.
I never even thought of wearing wireless earbuds at home either.
Not when I was on the phone with her, not when we were texting back and forth.
"Isn't this expensive?"
These cost a few hundred thousand won, don't they?
And it didn't look like some old model, either.
"Don't worry about it. What's mine is yours between us."
At his wave of dismissal, I quietly studied him for a moment — then something clicked, and I asked.
"Hey. You got this as a gift, didn't you."
"……"
At my pointed question, he awkwardly averted his eyes.
Gotcha.
"You absolute lunatic. Someone gave you a gift, and you're passing it off like you bought it for me?"
"Hey, a gift I received is mine. If I give you my own thing, that's a gift. What's the problem?"
One look and it's obvious — some girl gave him this, and now he's dumping it off on me.
"This guy is seriously out of his mind?"
You insane alpha-male bastard.
"……!!"
An alarm went off loud enough to burst my eardrums, and I sat up with a scowl.
I sat there for a moment, groggily shaking off the fog of sleep — then realized something and let out a long, deep breath.
"It's the first day of school."
The two weeks that had remained flew by faster than I expected.
I'd spent much of that time hanging out with Woo-jin and the others, but thoughts of Baek Seol-ah still lingered in my chest.
Then again.
If I claimed to have forgotten a girl I'd loved in less than a month, that would be the more unbelievable thing.
Two years I'd spent with her.
And the years before that, loving her — those weren't the kind of things that fade away so easily, so fast.
"Time to go. Time to go."
Steadying my breath, I got out of bed and slowly made my way across the room.
High school. And the entrance ceremony.
Starting today, a new everyday life begins.
And also.
So does the original novel.