The Centipede Incident
"Hey, which one's better, this one or this one?"
"The first one."
"...Could you at least look at the screen while you're picking for me?"
I shot back a reply at Noh Bihyeok, who'd been pestering me from the side, but my eyes never left the spot I'd been staring at for a while now.
"Ugh, but this one has a lame pocket. Doesn't really seem like my style... How about this one?"
"......."
"Lee Yeonjae?"
The weight leaning against my shoulder suddenly vanished, and only then did I snap out of it. Noh Bihyeok tilted his head up at me, puzzled.
"Oh, sorry. What did you say?"
"You're acting weird today. Did something happen?"
Something had happened, all right.
But it wasn't the kind of thing I could tell someone who knew nothing about it, so I just shook my head.
How was I supposed to explain that I'd heard from the fog in my dream that Oh Seunghyun was planning to torment me all day long?
"Yeonjae! You have to be extra careful tomorrow!! He's going to mess with you!"
The moment I opened my eyes, that was the first thing out of Angae's mouth as he came bounding over, looking uncharacteristically worked up.
Seeing the boy who was always beaming with that sunny smile of his actually angry was startling in its intensity.
Angae had taken on Oh Seunghyun's form at first, but apparently he couldn't stand wearing that face for long, because he'd quickly shifted into another one.
Even after transforming into Seong Ijun, he kept pacing and stamping his feet, still fuming, and it took me a while to talk him down.
I stroked his hair for a long stretch, and only then did his muttered grumbling begin to settle.
"How can a human that young be that rotten on the inside..."
"What's he planning to do tomorrow?"
It caught me off guard, since I hadn't crossed paths with Oh Seunghyun lately, but thinking about it, it wasn't exactly a shock.
The eyes that still watched me were brimming with resentment, after all.
Still, he'd lasted a few months. Impressive persistence.
"First, at 10:26, he's going to slip a bug into your clothes!"
"...Slip in a what?"
I'd been mulling things over with complete indifference, so the words were so far beyond what I'd expected that I faltered. Angae sprang up as if my reaction had reignited his fury and shouted, "That really is an awful human being!"
When I asked what kind of bug, the answer was a centipede. Where on earth was he getting one of those?
No wait—what was the point of putting it inside my clothes?
"The person sitting next to you hates bugs, right? So when she sees one crawl out of your body, she's going to cry her eyes out! And then you have to apologize!"
"...Ah. I see."
"And at 12:24 he's going to knock you over in the cafeteria, and at 2:08—"
Angae poured out the words without taking a breath.
I hadn't known the kid had a talent for rap.
After sitting through the entire uninterrupted monologue, I patted his back and told him to calm down.
"Aren't you mad, Yeonjae?! Why are you so calm?! I'm the only one getting angry here!"
"Because you're getting angry on my behalf."
When I laughed and tapped his shoulder, he flopped back down over my knees with a sulk on his face, grumbling that Yeonjae knew nothing. Know nothing? Please.
As I gently smoothed Angae's hair, I thought it over.
He's changed his strategy.
Oh Seunghyun's old methods of tormenting me had been more direct—inflicting pain or injury, things aimed squarely at making me suffer.
But the actions he'd supposedly take tomorrow, as Angae described them, were different.
The cafeteria incident alone made that clear.
Supposedly, I'd trip over his foot by accident, sending the lunch tray in my hands flying. The food on that tray would have no choice but to scatter over the kids sitting nearby.
How irritated would they be, getting doused mid-meal like they usually did in some drama skit?
And how would the girl forced to watch a centipede crawl out of her desk partner's body react?
In the end, the point wasn't that I suffered something unfortunate—it was that the other kids would suffer misfortune because of Lee Yeonjae.
Kim Heeyeon really is terrified of bugs.
My desk partner once told me a cockroach had shown up at her place, kept her up all night unable to sleep, and sent her to school the next morning on zero rest. Even now, in winter, when things were manageable, she'd trembled violently at the sound of cicadas outside the window in the summer.
Me? I had no particular feelings about bugs. Whatever crawled out of me, the worst I'd get was a momentary shiver down my spine.
But for Kim Heeyeon, it would be a different story entirely.
"First things first—as soon as you wake up tomorrow, you act! Three hours! No, actually, just skip school tomorrow!"
"Angae, breathe. Even if I skip tomorrow, I'll have to go the day after. He's not going anywhere."
I pressed him firmly back down and patted his chest as he tried to rise again.
Thankfully, nothing on the scale of threatening my life—but avoiding it outright still wasn't the answer.
Oh Seunghyun would know that too. One or two incidents like this wouldn't instantly flip everyone's opinion of me.
In the end, it was a war of attrition.
It was unlikely he'd started this planning to harass me for just a day or two.
And the time left before winter break was exactly one month.
There seemed to be almost no chance Oh Seunghyun would transfer to an arts middle school, so if I could just endure that one month...
I was actually considering toughing it out when I pictured Kim Heeyeon tearing up with those big, brimming eyes, and let out a sigh.
If I were the only one suffering, fine. But I couldn't just stand by and watch the other kids be miserable for a month because of me.
"Fine. Like you said, I'll act the moment I wake up tomorrow."
"Just in case, check your surroundings and keep an eye on the clock too!"
"Yeah. I will."
Once the Misfortune Factors were expelled through acting, the events scheduled for that day either vanished entirely or changed shape.
If the misfortune on the books was getting conked on the head by a falling flowerpot, the pot would land right behind me instead—or not fall at all.
It adjusted itself without my having to lift a finger, which meant that as long as I acted enough, there was really no need to worry about the details.
And besides, there was no way I could refuse after seeing him that worked up.
So that was last night. And now, before first period, here I was, studying Oh Seunghyun intently.
"Seriously, what's going on with you? Talk to me."
"Nothing's going on. And that one's ugly."
"...Dude, the first one you told me to pick was this one?"
Noh Bihyeok grumbled under his breath, swiping through his phone screen.
He'd look decent in anything—why was he being so picky?
I caught a glimpse of his puffed-out cheek, so much like Angae's, swallowed a sigh, and asked what other candidates he had.
In the end, I didn't earn my freedom until we'd gone through every single category on the shopping site.
It was only after the first-period bell rang and I watched Noh Bihyeok finally trudge back to his own seat that my mind snapped back into focus.
Right. Oh Seunghyun.
I turned my head hastily and found him sitting in exactly the same posture as before, not changed in the slightest.
He seemed remarkably calm today, of all days.
Knowing what he had planned made it all the more unsettling.
I have no idea what's going through his head.
For now, there was an hour left until the first scheduled misfortune.
I'd acted for over two hours this morning, so nothing should go wrong.
Lately I'd been pushing my wake-up time up to five while making sure I was in bed before ten. I was keeping my sleep schedule solidly, so I could say I was building a decent system for myself.
Get through this incident cleanly, and things would stabilize even further.
Depending on how this goes, I should try talking to him at some point this week.
I stole a glance at Oh Seunghyun, sitting quietly at his desk.
Whether the words would actually reach him was another question entirely.
10:25.
One minute left until the moment Oh Seunghyun was supposed to slip the bug into my clothes.
I was staring at him in bewilderment, sitting there at his desk as demure as could be.
When exactly is he going to move? Shouldn't he be getting up about now?
Had my acting actually erased Oh Seunghyun's will to do it at all?
I was in the middle of that aimless line of thought when it happened.
A sudden stiffness crept into my back, and without thinking, I peeled it away from the chair back to stretch.
As I slid the chair backward, it crashed hard into something, and someone let out a sharp yelp.
The sound was loud enough that I, Noh Bihyeok beside me, and Kim Heeyeon, my desk partner, all whipped around.
And we saw it—the clear plastic container clutched in the hands of the boy who'd yelped.
Or rather, the centipede inside it.
I heard someone beside me draw in a sharp breath, and exactly two seconds later, a scream erupted loud enough to turn the classroom upside down.
"What is that?!!"
"N-no, I—"
"Get it out of here right now?! Are you insane?!"
Flustered by Kim Heeyeon's shrieking, the boy fumbled and dropped the container on the floor.
Through the gap of the already-open lid, the bug slid out with horrifying ease.
The kids who grasped what was happening recoiled in horror, the panic rippling outward through the room like a wave.
I sent Kim Heeyeon back behind me first, then walked over to the boy, who was shaking all over with a bloodless face, and asked,
"Can I kill it?"
"Wh-what?"
"I wasn't sure if it was a pet or something. It'd be easiest to just squash it, but I thought I should ask first."
I doubted anyone kept a centipede as a pet, but you never knew.
He just kept repeating huh? like he hadn't understood a word, and as I made to ask again, Noh Bihyeok—who'd been scowling from behind—shouted,
"Who on earth keeps a centipede as a pet?!"
"You never know."
"Know what?! Whatever, just—ugh, kill it first! Quick!"
For some reason, Noh Bihyeok looked at me with an oddly moved expression, then made a gagging noise at the sight of the bug scuttling around. A big guy built like him carrying on like that was honestly pretty funny.
Still, plenty of people seemed to be suffering because of the thing, so I grabbed a book without hesitation and brought it down.
With a dull thwack, the bug disappeared beneath the book—and the chaotic classroom fell, for one instant, into perfect stillness.
"...It's dead, right?"
"Yeah."
I answered Noh Bihyeok, who was asking with a face drained white, and fished a plastic bag out of my pocket.
Everyone was still too dazed to process anything, so thankfully no one asked why I was carrying around a plastic bag.
gingerly lifted the book, eased it over the bag, and gave it a gentle shake until I felt something drop inside.
The book had something smeared on it, but it still looked usable, so I wiped it down thoroughly, then tied the bag shut and dumped it in the trash can in the bathroom.
By the time I came back, the whole class had swarmed around the boy who'd brought the bug, angrily tearing into him.
"Look, we get it, your dad's a researcher, but why would you bring a bug to school?!"
"I-I'm sorry."
"Don't just stand there apologizing! If you were going to bring it, you should've kept it contained! Why is the lid even open?!!"
There was nothing performative about Kim Heeyeon's expression as she screamed—the fury had completely blown past any sense of proportion. She was so far gone that even Noh Bihyeok, who'd been yelling alongside her, grew flustered and tried to calm her down.
I turned my head and looked at the boy observing the whole scene quietly from a distance.
Oh Seunghyun, standing far away, as though he had absolutely nothing to do with any of it.
It wasn't Oh Seunghyun who put it in?
That was what Angae had said, wasn't it?
...Or was it not? Casting my mind back, I realized Oh Seunghyun had never actually said he'd put the bug in my clothes himself.
There was no way this trembling, ghost-pale boy was the mastermind behind all this.
And indeed, his shaking eyes kept drifting toward one place—toward Oh Seunghyun.
pieced together from all the evidence, Oh Seunghyun was the most likely instigator.
So did Angae know all the way down to the part where Oh Seunghyun had ordered this boy to do it, when he told me all that?
Half of me marveled that he could perceive so much, and half of me swallowed a sigh of relief that this at least seemed to be wrapping up.
By then the bell had apparently rung, because the teacher came walking into the classroom only to stop short, puzzled by the excessively chaotic atmosphere.
The tension broke, and Kim Heeyeon burst into loud sobs, while the boy too sniffled and stammered out how truly sorry he was.
Watching the pandemonium—which was enough to make my eyes ache—an odd unease settled over me.
He isn't planning to keep this up all day, is he?
And my grim premonition was not wrong.