Just to Try
"Let's make some friends."
On the school rooftop under the high midday sun, I rose from my seat after emptying my lunchbox and spoke those words.
"...Friends, is it."
Seol-hwa, who had been quietly nibbling on a red bean bun, looked up at me and answered.
"They say the more friends you have, the better, right?"
What an utterly mismatched thing for me to be saying. ...Even I thought so myself, but since that was the conventional wisdom, there was no helping it.
After all, you had to take the first step before anything could begin. If I wanted to broaden Seol-hwa's circle of relationships, this was something close to essential, whether I liked it or not. Spending time talking with me had probably given her some experience when it came to interacting with other people.
...Given who her conversation partner was, I couldn't be certain it had actually helped—but I had no choice except to believe it was better than nothing at all. If only to keep Seol-hwa from taking the fall for my reputation, which was less low than practically nonexistent.
Getting her to like school overnight would be hard, but I decided to leave some room for improvement, at least to a degree. Nothing changed in an instant, though. This was a problem that would take a fair amount of time. Until then, I planned for us to go to and from school separately, and not do anything that would make our relationship too obvious anywhere other than the rooftop.
I had properly explained this to Seol-hwa on the way to school and gotten her agreement. But if we did that, then outside of home or the rooftop—in all those places where I wasn't around—Seol-hwa would end up spending her time alone after all. To prevent that, I had begun to feel the genuine need for proper friends, and that was why I had brought it up.
But... how am I supposed to go about this?
I had said the words, but I had no decent method in mind. Neither she nor I had anything resembling a social circle... No—"pitiful" might have been the more accurate word.
As I crossed my arms and turned the problem over in my head, my eyes met Seol-hwa's. She seemed to have been glancing my way now and then.
"...Yun Seol-hwa?"
When I called her name, she answered quickly and fixed her expression, but I didn't miss the dark look that had crossed her face for a moment.
"What's wrong?"
If something was worrying her, it was better to resolve it quickly. Thinking that, I asked if there was some kind of problem—but Seol-hwa only kept repeating that she was fine, her expression ambiguous. It bothered me, but I had no choice but to let it go.
"Well then, for starters... how about we try introducing ourselves?"
Not long after sinking back into thought, I lightly clapped my hands and spoke up to change the mood.
"Introducing ourselves...?"
"Don't overthink it. Start with your name, then hobbies or special skills, things you like—bring up something that can lead into conversation, and finish with 'Nice to meet you,' and it should work out somehow, right?"
There was that saying about a journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step, wasn't there? The start of a relationship was first impressions... or rather, a greeting, wasn't it? There were plenty of angles to pick at—was this a job interview or something, how cliché—but since no better idea was coming to me, I urged Seol-hwa to just give it a try.
"Y-Yun Seol... hwa, hwa... is my name!"
"...Stop. You're stuttering twice as much as usual."
I spoke while trying to calm Seol-hwa, who had gone stiff as a board and was expressing her nervousness with her entire body.
"...I'm sorry. I got nervous without meaning to."
I was gradually getting used to the way Seol-hwa would bow her head and waist at the same time while apologizing, so I waved it off and said it was fine.
"It's not like I don't understand, so it's okay. In your case, it's even more understandable. But you... when you first transferred here, you talked with the other kids quite a bit, didn't you?"
Seol-hwa looked too drained to keep practicing, so thinking we still had a long way to go, I sprawled out on the floor and brought up something that had suddenly occurred to me. I remembered that when Seol-hwa first transferred, she had been fairly popular. A girl from a good family with a nice face—most of the guys who flocked to her were probably after that. Even so, the way Seol-hwa had smiled and answered every little question had left something of an impression on me.
"At the time, I thought I'd try my best... but before I knew it, I was alone, as if it were only natural... Pretty stupid, right?"
Seol-hwa answered in a voice tinged with melancholy, sitting down beside me and drawing her knees up to her chest. Looking at her like that, I wondered if melancholy was contagious... Feeling as though I might catch it myself, I shifted my gaze toward the sky.
But that didn't last long either. When I rolled my eyes back to look at Seol-hwa again, her expression was as dark as when I first saw her—her eyes like a night sea.
"It happens all the time."
As if trying to vent the hopeless feeling, I let out a heavy sigh and answered.
"Just because you try hard doesn't mean the results are always good."
Had the melancholy rubbed off on me after all? Before I knew it, that same quality had mixed into my own voice. From the start, Seol-hwa and I were no different when it came to the level of our human relationships. No—if anything, my side was worse in quality, the way I had willfully isolated myself. For someone like that to go around telling others to make friends... I couldn't help but sneer at myself for offering such worthless advice.
But even so... I wanted people to recognize that this girl was a good person. She was just a little lacking in social skills—I wanted at least one more person to understand that she was kind and good.
"If it's Yurim..."
Just as my head was starting to throb from all these thoughts, a name suddenly crossed my mind.
"...You mean the class president?" Seol-hwa asked, and I answered with a nod.
To me she was a delinquent girl who would send a person to the afterlife with a wasp-sting of a kick at any moment, but that was purely because I was the problem child. Aside from that, she was someone with a good reputation among others and solid social skills—the complete opposite of someone like her, a diligent sort. She might be just the right person for a friend. And she happened to be in the same class, too.
"Then I'll go..."
Strike while the iron is hot—having decided, I tried to send Seol-hwa off the rooftop right away... but she grabbed the hem of my school uniform with a look that said she wanted to say something.
"...What's wrong?"
When I asked the same question as before, Seol-hwa answered with a somehow hesitant attitude.
"Um, well... could you come with me?"
"...I told you there was nothing in it for either of us."
The only places we could talk like this were home and this spot, out of other people's sight. Anywhere else still needed more time, no matter how I looked at it. I couldn't have Seol-hwa hearing unnecessary things because of me. So I waved my hand and indirectly expressed my refusal.
At that, Seol-hwa said, "That's right..." and hung her head listlessly, like a child who had asked for a toy and been turned down.
"...Honestly."
Looking at her like that, something like guilt I couldn't put into words welled up... and my resolve weakened. She might do foolish things sometimes, but that was only because she inevitably lacked the common sense that was natural to others—aside from that, I thought she was a clever girl. It wasn't as if she didn't understand what I meant, and she had experienced firsthand what could happen, yet she was still asking.
"...You want me to come with you?"
She wanted to be together. This girl who overthought everything, who felt guilt over the smallest things and bowed her head as a matter of course... had mustered the courage to ask, hadn't she?
When I said that, Seol-hwa looked up at me with an expression mixed with anxiety and carefully answered, "...Is it okay?"
"We're friends, aren't we?"
If we were friends, then granting a request like that was... fine, wasn't it? As I said that and stroked her head as if to reassure her, Seol-hwa finally seemed to relax and offered a small smile.
...What am I supposed to say to Yurim?
Leading the way down the stairs, I was muttering to myself, fretting inwardly. To that kicking girl, I was no friend—just a troublesome problem child, nothing more and nothing less.
...Come to think of it, isn't this a net negative for me?
A sense of hopelessness began to wash over me. If I thought about this one piece at a time, wasn't I just an obstacle? I couldn't think of a single good thing that would come from me inserting myself between the two of them. I even started to wonder if it might have better odds all around if Seol-hwa just went alone and threw herself at it.
Should I send her alone even now...
As I was listing these self-deprecating complaints in my head and about to sigh—that was when it happened.
"She's not here again today."
"Well, isn't it better without a gloomy loser like that?"
"Ah, that's true~"
At the voices I heard, I stopped mid-step on the stairs, pressed myself tight against the corner wall, and peered ahead. Glancing toward the hallway, I saw a group of two or three girls chatting... no, badmouthing someone.
If it had been gossip about me, it would have been ordinary. I would have ignored it and walked past. But... it wasn't.
"Seol-hwa's been hanging around with Yu-seong lately, right? Ju-hee said she saw them just last evening, didn't she?"
"Right, right. Walking together late at night, she said?"
"A perfect pair of gloomy idiots, aren't they? Wow, they match so well~ Think they'll last?"
The target of their malice had clearly expanded to include Seol-hwa.
"Doesn't she always say she's going to the rooftop? According to the duty roster."
"Huh. Come to think of it, that guy's the rooftop cleaner, isn't he?"
"Now I get it—lovey-dovey on the rooftop too, and at night as well?"
"Ugh, the worst~ Should we just go tell a teacher? Abuse of authority, public indecency, that kind of thing? 'They're doing things they shouldn't on the rooftop~' Wouldn't that be fun?"
"Or maybe the two of them should just hold hands and jump from up there? Don't you think that would be even funnier?"
These bastards...!
The intensity was growing past the point of no return, far past any line. Furious enough that my nails dug into my skin, I was about to leap out among them with a string of curses—when Seol-hwa, gripping the hem of my uniform, stopped me.
"This..."
I turned my head to tell her to let go... and lost my words. Seeing Seol-hwa, on the verge of tears, weakly shaking her head, I went hollow, all the strength draining out of me. In place of fierce rage, an extreme emptiness crashed over me.
Whether the timing was good or bad, the preliminary bell for class rang, and the girls returned to the classroom. Of course, even then, the slander didn't stop.
...After that, until school ended, I couldn't manage a single word with Seol-hwa. Even if we had talked, what... what was I supposed to say to her? Throughout class, Seol-hwa's small back looked so pitiful and so small.
"...Are you okay?"
Berating myself for being able to say nothing more than this—Do I look okay to you?—I carefully spoke to Seol-hwa, who was walking the way home with me, clearly drained of energy.
"...I don't know."
In a voice as small and unstable as an ant's... but one that conveyed sadness with absolute clarity, Seol-hwa opened her heavy mouth.
"Whether I'm angry, or sad, or what kind of feeling this even is... I just don't know."
In the end, the dam of her tear ducts seemed to break, and a voice beginning to mix with sobs... I listened to in silence.
"Dealing with someone... scared me. My father, my older brothers, the people at my old school... But still, still, I thought maybe here it would be okay. If I was a good kid that everyone would like, if I just did the same things I'd always done, then I could make friends... That's what I thought.
On the first day I transferred, just like you said, Yu-seong, everyone came up to me... but I couldn't even seize that chance. I smiled hard, answered carefully... And even so, from one corner of my heart, I couldn't erase the feeling that I was so, so scared.
Looking someone straight in the eye was terrifying. Even while having an ordinary conversation, I end up thinking it can't possibly go well. That there must be some ulterior motive, that there's no way anyone would like a girl like me..."
Seol-hwa covered her face with both palms and began to sob. Overflowing tears leaked out between her hands and wet the asphalt.
"You came to me, Yu-seong... but I haven't changed at all. Even though you're so kind to me, I end up thinking, what if, someday... That a girl like me could be abandoned at any time... Something wells up in my chest, and I hate that so much... but more than that, I hate myself even more for thinking these things... and I don't know what to do...!
The word 'friend'... was too much for me. A girl like me should be alone..."
"Don't be ridiculous."
I roughly grabbed the arms of Seol-hwa, who was covering her face with both palms and sobbing, and pulled her toward me. It ended up looking like I was embracing her, but I didn't care in the slightest. More than that, I only thought that I had to keep her from finishing those words.
"You told me I was a good person... That goes for you too."
I understood now. On that rainy night, the reason I had held out my hand to Seol-hwa... the reason I couldn't leave her alone. She was the same as me, this girl. But fundamentally different, this girl.
"There's no such thing as a person who has to be alone...!"
I had to be alone. I had lived thinking that way too. But looking back now, I had only wanted to think that way. Whenever I looked at someone, I would decide they were too good for the likes of me. That we didn't match. Even with this girl, I had thought over and over that there were plenty of people better than the likes of me.
I was scared. Being with someone... Somewhere along the way, I had become a pathetic person who concluded that getting along with people was a foolish thing to do. So I gave up. In the form Seol-hwa would have spoken if I hadn't stopped her. I said I had gotten used to it, rationalized my solitude, and lived until now. Sadness was familiar, and pain was only natural.
...It had to be that way. Otherwise I would end up thinking I was lonely. I would end up buried under that thing called loneliness...
But this girl had told me that even someone like me was okay. She had called me a good person. She had made me realize once again that being together, being with someone, was good. She had made me want to try moving forward again...
That was why I could say it with certainty. That this girl was far... far better than me, a stronger person—I could say that with confidence. A life that anyone else would have given up on long ago, despaired of and thrown away. A life that might have led to extreme choices. This girl had lived that life. No matter what anyone said, without running away, she had desperately lived. I couldn't let a girl like that walk the same path as me, at least not in front of my eyes.
The moment I thought that, my body and mouth moved on their own.
"It's okay to be scared. That's only natural."
I had lived constantly concluding that connections were unnecessary, that behind people's eyes there was only falsehood and pretense.
"But don't deny your own strength."
Until I met this girl... until I met the person named Yun Seol-hwa. Even if her body was weak, her heart was strong. I recalled the words Seol-hwa had said to me on that night street. Seol-hwa was living exactly as those words said. I had been drawn to that. I had admired her, thinking she was strong, that she was cool.
"If other people say anything, I'll deny it just as much for you."
Like soothing a child... I carefully patted Seol-hwa's back as I spoke. She was small-framed to begin with, so the body I held fit snugly into my arms. This Seol-hwa who had carried every kind of suffering in this small body... who was sometimes dense and foolish, but how kind and considerate of others she was. No one else, but at least I alone knew that.
"If someone as good as you—far better than the likes of me, who gave up long ago out of fear—has to be alone... then who in the world can be together with anyone?"
She had lived this hard. If the reality was that a girl like this had to live alone, then that kind of reality deserved to go to hell.
"It's okay to break. You can cry, you can struggle."
That kind of life, Seol-hwa had endured until now without anyone's help, alone—she had lived. So—
"If you start to waver, I'll prop you up. Use me as much as you want."
If they tore her down, I would push back as many times as it took. If she was about to fall, I would catch her as many times as it took. Thinking that, I poured the overflowing resolve into words.
"...But is it really okay?"
Along with the feeling of arms wrapping around my waist, Seol-hwa answered from within my arms in a tearful voice.
"Of course."
To a voice so mixed with anxiety, pain, and loneliness that it felt turbid, I answered as if it were only natural.
"I... I'm not good at anything..."
"You're good at studying, though. And your cleaning could put a housekeeper to shame."
"I'm always passive, clumsy, and I can't read the room..."
"It's kind of fun in its own way. I've gotten used to it... It's fine."
"My body is weak, and... I'm always anxious. Even now, I end up thinking on my own that you might start hating me any moment..."
"I'll treasure you so you don't have to think that way."
"Is it... really okay?"
"If you still can't trust me that much, then I guess there's no helping it."
When I deliberately spoke in a tone of giving up, Seol-hwa flinched, and I let out a small laugh as I pulled her out of my arms. Then I carefully wiped the corners of her eyes with my hand. Facing her this close, I thought she truly had a lovely face—and at the same time, it was simply heartbreaking that such a face had been stained with tears.
After brushing away her tears, I silently held out my pinky finger.
"Just as a trial—try relying on me."
A person who had lived in solitude, unable to rely on family or anyone else. Someone like me. I knew that. But...
(To me, you're already a good person.)
If even someone like me was okay. If she called me a friend... then at least I wanted to indulge a little of her dependence. That was what I was thinking.
There was no answer coming back. There wasn't... but instead, Seol-hwa's finger carefully hooked onto the one I held out.
"It's... really okay, right?"
"We're friends."
As if to say this much was only natural, as if to reassure her... I put on a smile I had rarely ever consciously made. Only then did Seol-hwa answer, "Thank you...!" with a brighter smile than ever before.