Though She Harbored Hatred, Envy, and Jealousy...
The day after Yoon Narae was discharged from the hospital, the incident erupted without warning.
Our homeroom teacher walked into the classroom and, instead of beginning morning assembly, suddenly announced a vote for class president and vice president. As the temporary class president, I naturally assumed I was free at last—but against my will, the teacher forced me onto the ballot. That left three candidates for president, myself included, and zero candidates for vice president.
True to form for a class with zero motivation.
In cases like this, the runner-up in the presidential vote becomes vice president by default. So I immediately declined the teacher’s nomination. She looked rather disappointed, but no amount of extra credit could make me accept a position that clashed with my principles.
That left the other two—
Jin Jo-hwa.
And Yoon Narae.
Both were popular in class, had plenty of friends, and commanded real trust.
But the landslide belonged to Jo-hwa.
Twenty votes to ten.
An overwhelming victory for Jo-hwa.
And so Jo-hwa became class president, Yoon Narae vice president.
Up to that point, nothing was wrong. Or rather—there was a problem of sorts, but it would be more accurate to say the real incident hadn’t exploded yet. Honestly, I still wonder whether it even deserved to be called a problem.
The explosion came at lunchtime.
I was gazing out the window as usual when a familiar voice—yet one I had never heard raised so loud or so sharp—cut through the air, thick with hatred, envy, and jealousy.
“You—you…! How much more do you have to take from me before you’re satisfied? What else do you want to steal from me?!”
The classroom fell silent in an instant.
Only Yoon Narae’s ragged, precarious breathing filled the space.
Having seized every eye in the room at once, Narae seemed lost in some private storm. But the harsh gasps and the way her whole body trembled made it clear she was still drowning in raw emotion.
People grow through fighting. So they raise their voices.
They can harbor hatred, envy, jealousy.
But the reason everyone except Narae herself was stunned was that the target of all that hatred, envy, and jealousy was none other than—
“Stop making me miserable! Stop making me anxious! Stop driving me to the edge of the cliff!!”
—Jo-hwa.
Jo-hwa was taking every ounce of Narae’s venom head-on.
From my seat I could see only Jo-hwa’s back and the sliver of Narae hidden behind her.
“……”
“I’m going crazy because of you! Every single day is hell because of you—why are you doing this to me? Huh?”
“……”
“Say something… ugh—!”
“Na-Narae!”
“Don’t touch me!”
“B-but…”
“Hah… hah… hah… hah… hah…”
Jo-hwa stood frozen, flustered, unable to do anything right.
I wanted to keep watching and piece the whole story together, but I had no choice—I stepped in.
When I rose and approached, the situation looked even worse.
Yoon Narae was on her knees, clutching her chest, gasping for air; Jo-hwa fretted helplessly in front of her; and the rest of the class simply watched in silence.
The moment Jo-hwa spotted me she latched on.
“Jo Yul! Do something. Please?”
“……”
She looked exactly like my sister used to—shouldering expectations and wounds far too heavy for a child, her frail body and heart crumbling a little more each day, curled up alone in a dark corner crying.
“……Yoon Narae.”
“Hah… hah… hah… Han Jo Yul…?”
“Calm down first. Can you walk?”
“Hah… hah… hah… if you help me… hah… hah…”
Without another word I supported Narae and guided her carefully out of the classroom, speaking over my shoulder to Jo-hwa.
“Stay here. Don’t worry. And don’t you dare follow us.”
“Okay…”
Even though Narae’s words must have cut her, worry rose in Jo-hwa before anger or loss. She knew she shouldn’t follow, yet her feet still fidgeted restlessly in place.
I looked at Narae as I half-carried her toward the nurse’s office.
Her condition was so wrecked I wondered how a person could fall apart this completely.
Body and soul both looked shattered.
I’d sensed something off ever since that first hospital visit. And now this had blown up.
The moment Narae vanished, every gaze in the room pinned itself on me.
Panic, fear, and anxiety left no room to care about their stares.
Narae had never once shown me a shred of complaint. And now she had screamed at me out of nowhere.
Not knowing why only made the dread worse.
You—you…! How much more do you have to take from me before you’re satisfied? What else do you want to steal from me?!
Stop making me miserable! Stop making me anxious! Stop driving me to the edge of the cliff!!
I’m going crazy because of you! Every single day is hell because of you—why are you doing this to me? Huh?
Narae’s wailing voice refused to leave my head.
Just how much of hers had I stolen?
How exactly had I made her miserable, made her anxious… driven her to the cliff’s edge?
All I could do was accept the reality in front of me; the reason stayed hidden. But I knew I had to uncover it no matter what.
Right. Stay calm. Keep your composure.
Even if I’d just lost one vast oasis—
“……Hic…!”
—Jo Yul was still beside me.
I still had plenty of friends.
And I told myself I could find that lost oasis again.
So why were the tears trying to come?
“Hic…! Ugh…!”
I fought them with everything I had, but I couldn’t hold them back.
It felt as if another me lived inside me. No—there definitely was.
Two thoughts collided so hard the tears wouldn’t stop, and I bolted for the bathroom.
I collided with someone on the way but had no time to apologize; I dove into a stall.
And there I sobbed as quietly as I could, muffling every sound.
When the bridge of fate between Jo Yul and me reconnected, I had been so happy. It felt like I owned the whole world.
But now Narae was trying to leave me.
I was terrified.
My throat already felt scorched dry.
No matter how much I swallowed, it kept burning, cracking open with a dry snap.
It hurt.
I was scared.
I was thirsty.
I needed water. But there was none. No Jo Yul, no Narae!
The oasis that could quench my thirst was gone!
Even if I soaked my throat with water the thirst never left! I needed Jo Yul or Narae. But Narae had left me, and Jo Yul had gone after her. I was alone. Left alone.
The thirst was so fierce even my sobs seemed to die in my throat.
I forced strength into my unfocused, trembling eyes and tried to stand—
“Huh…?”
—and the thirst vanished.
In its place, guilt began to crawl up slowly.
“Guilt…?”
The moment I muttered it aloud, I understood.
Earlier I had felt as if another me lived inside me.
“Ha… hahaha…………”
There was the me who worried about Narae—
“……In this situation, I… I…………”
—and the me who worried about myself because Narae had left my side.
“You okay?”
“……”
Jo Yul seemed to be saying something, but I couldn’t answer.
Because the earlier scene, Jo-hwa’s face, kept flickering in front of me.
That pure, knowing-nothing smile of hers.
It only made me angrier.
After stealing everything from me…!
After shoving me to the edge of the cliff…!
I hated that innocent face smiling as if she understood nothing. I wanted it gone from my sight right now. That was why I had poured out every drop of rage.
Hatred!
Envy!
Jealousy!
And fury!
Yet I was still anxious, still restless. If anything, it felt worse.
Why?
What were these other feelings rising in one corner of my chest right now?
I hate Jo-hwa!
The envy and jealousy burn so hot the rage and hatred have no end.
But.
But still—
Why does that same innocent smiling face of Jo-hwa keep flickering before my eyes?
Looking at that face, I felt something else entirely.
Hatred and rage… mixed with guilt.
Envy and jealousy… mixed with joy.
I didn’t understand.
I hate Jo-hwa. So why—why—?!
At the same time I miss her, and feel sorry?
Humans really are greedy creatures. Even when they already have so much, they still try to own everything.
It was absurd.
I didn’t understand.
It was hard.
“Jo Yul…”
I opened my mouth weakly.
“Jo Yul…”
Yoon Narae’s voice drifted out as if her soul had already left her body.
It carried nothing but emptiness, the sound of someone whose entire world had collapsed, who had lost everything.
“You wouldn’t answer when I called you earlier. Feeling a little better now?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve still got plenty of time. Better to calm down a bit more.”
“Are you… worrying about me right now?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Anyone can see you’re worrying.”
“……Drop the teasing and just rest.”
“Oh, right. Could you go back to the classroom and grab my workbook for me?”
“……”
Exactly what Jo-hwa had told me.
Even in this state she still wanted to study. Something was definitely wrong. Something deeper was going on.
Her chronic illness had flared up, she’d just fought with her best friend, and she was still thinking about studying? What on earth had turned her into a monster so obsessed with studying?
“Think about your body and your mind.”
“?”
“Studying right now would just be inefficient. You won’t be able to concentrate. Don’t be stupid and—”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I have to cram one more thing, more, more, more, more into my head! I don’t have time to sit around like this! Hah… hah… hah… hah… hah! So please. Okay?”
“……”
I studied Narae as she gasped and shouted.
Her dead eyes kept darting as if someone were chasing her and she refused to stop; her nails were between her teeth; her legs trembled with mock-exam anxiety.
Was this really the Yoon Narae I knew…?
She was broken far past any reasonable limit.
Could a single mock exam destroy a person this thoroughly?
She looked so fragile that one light touch would make her collapse completely.
“?”
Suddenly Narae shot up from her seat and staggered toward the door of the counseling room. I had no choice but to block her path.
Why?
Because if she studied in that condition she would 100 percent collapse.
She had to know it would be bad for her and for everyone around her. The usual Yoon Narae would have known.
“Move…”
“No.”
“I said move…!”
“Not happening.”
“Please just move, you bastard! Get out of the way! Why? Why are you blocking me too? Did Jo-hwa ask you to stop me from studying? Ha… hahaha! Do you want first place that badly? Jin Jo-hwa…!”
“……”
The Narae in front of me was nowhere near normal.
Like a split personality? Or a junkie in withdrawal who couldn’t get her next hit?
“Move right now.”
“You’re going to collapse again if you keep this up.”
“Don’t care! If I don’t get first place this time either… if I don’t…!”
First place? She meant the mock exams?
Come to think of it, she had been obsessing over first place the whole time.
She sank back down, clutching her head with both hands, imagining something, and the wrecked sight of her looked so pitiful it hurt.
My sister in the past had also been forced to carry a load she could never bear because of everyone’s endless expectations. And in the end she had started to burn. The crushing pressure and burden had eaten away at her body and mind.
I still remember it.
Waking to the sound of someone sobbing and finding my sister alone in a dark corner crying—that image overlapped perfectly with Yoon Narae sitting in front of me now, muttering to herself.
So I wanted to help.
Whether it was fondness or the opposite, I didn’t care; I refused to watch someone close to me turn to empty ash for nothing.
I hated receiving wounds, and I hated giving them.
That was why I couldn’t stand watching someone else get hurt, break apart, and scatter into the air.
That was why I kept my distance from others.
Even when they never wounded me, simply watching someone bound to me by fate get hurt and collapse felt like it would tear my chest open. I was afraid of that wound, certain I couldn’t bear it, so I tried never to form those bonds in the first place.
But at some point Yoon Narae and I had met on the single-log bridge called Jo-hwa and become connected.
And she kept making me remember my sister from the past.
Was that why?
Every time I saw a Yoon Narae different from usual, anxiety rose in me.
Maybe………… that was why I wanted to help her……?
“What’s the big deal about some mock exam? Why?! So what?!”
“!”
First place is a good thing.
But forcing someone to take first place is not.
I knew that from watching my sister. I could see it again looking at Yoon Narae now.
“Your life is yours. Don’t try to live for someone else! That’s slavery. Do you want to live as a slave? A life with every freedom stripped away, locked tight, unable to do anything—dull and suffocating like that?”
“……”
Narae only stared up at me blankly with trembling eyes.
But I didn’t stop talking.
The words were for Yoon Narae, yet maybe because of the unconscious guilt that I had never been able to say them to my sister in the past—or because of the apology I still owed—they were also words for that sister.
“What’s fun about a life like that? No—do you think it would be fun? If that’s the life you want, I won’t stop you anymore. I won’t say things like this again either.”
“……”
“Don’t live up to other people’s expectations! Break free from the curse of first place, please!”
“B-but! If I don’t get first place, Dad and Mom get scolded by Grandpa! It’s not just Mom and Dad—Grandpa and all the relatives are counting on me! So what am I supposed to do? Huh? Tell me. What should I do? For my parents to be happy I have no choice but to take first place, right? And first place isn’t even bad. I can get into a good university, get a good job. To do that I have to beat Jo-hwa! I have to surpass her! But no matter how hard I try I can’t catch up. When I take one step forward, Jo-hwa leaps five. It’s been like that the whole time. When I see her pulling so far ahead that just looking at her is hard, how can I not feel envy and jealousy? I’m sure I’m not the only one growing these feelings! I stake everything and sprint full speed, and then I look at Jo-hwa always smiling so innocently right in front of me—do you know what that does to me? It drives me insane! I start doubting myself, I get restless, I’m so anxious I can’t even sleep properly! That relaxed face of hers wouldn’t leave my head! For three whole years!”
“……”
Narae spoke without pause, possessed, every word soaked in raw emotion.
“I held it in for three years! Because she was the lifesaver who saved me! Because she was my friend! But you know what? Even patience has a limit. One day after hanging out with Jo-hwa, walking home alone, I thought—what am I even doing? Standing in front of my enemy laughing and chatting, wasting time—I felt so pathetic and stupid…! I was so ashamed…! So from that day I steeled my heart! I decided to show it through action, not words. I took the whip to myself, and that’s how I made it this far. But what? Break free from the curse of first place? What do you even know about me?! What do you know?!”
“……”
She was right. Just as Yoon Narae said, I knew nothing about her. Honestly I hadn’t wanted to know. Her family situation seemed buried far too deep.
You don’t touch other people’s family affairs.
“Everyone’s expectations are what got me this far! They’re what let me endure until now! Are you denying my effort too? Huh?”
“I’m not denying your effort.”
“?”
“I’m denying the tightrope walk where you’re strangling yourself with your own hands. I don’t have any expectations of you. No—I’m probably not the only one.”
“Huh…? What did you say?”