Cooperative Relationship (1)
I let out a low groan. Jeong Se-a, a sophomore in the Korean Literature department. She was widely acknowledged as the person with the broadest network in her major. Not only did she get along well with pretty much everyone in her department, but even students from other majors knew her face. It wasn’t because she was exceptionally talented or anything. Sure, she was fairly pretty, but the real reason she knew so many people had more to do with her personality than her looks. She was a good listener, considerate, kind-hearted, and genuinely fun to be around. Naturally, Jeong Se-a had become everyone’s favorite.
She had great relationships with her seniors and juniors, was close with her professors, and there wasn’t a single classmate she wasn’t on good terms with.
‘He suddenly contacts me after so long just to ask weird questions… Did something happen to him…?’
What most people didn’t know was that she hadn’t always been like this. The reason Se-a had developed this personality was largely thanks to a friend she’d spent her middle and high school years with. More precisely, it was the result of that friend constantly thinking about how to stay close to her and keep their friendship going. Because more than anyone, she wanted to stay close to that friend and keep hanging out with him for a long time.
And it made sense. Even now, when their relationship had grown a bit distant, he was still a friend she liked. Back when they were even closer, he was the one person she wanted by her side more than anyone else. From the first year of middle school until the second year of high school, they had always been closer than anyone.
People often teased them, asking if they were dating. That was how close they were.
Their relationship started to drift a little when he suddenly went into hiding for a year after becoming a senior in high school. He still came to school, but he’d just sleep the whole time he was there, and as soon as classes ended, he’d head straight home. It was hard to tell if he was even studying… After the college entrance exam, she heard the rough story behind it, but honestly, it was so unbelievable at first that she thought he was messing with her. Later she had no choice but to believe it, but either way, what happened back then really did create some distance between them. And that distance had continued until now.
Lately, they barely even kept in touch. Two or three messages a year counted as frequent for them. Still, she had been trying to overcome the awkwardness that had built up and reach out to him more warmly. But right around then, he up and left for the military, so they ended up not seeing each other for nearly two more years. That’s how things had stayed until now.
So when he suddenly contacted her first, only to ask about some bad situation involving one of her classmates, she gave him a rough explanation of what he wanted to know. She wasn’t sure if she’d explained everything properly, though. She had no idea why he was even curious about it in the first place.
‘…Why did he read it and not reply?’
Especially that last message she’d sent. The number that refused to disappear was really bothering her. Maybe something had happened to him?
“I’m worried…”
Se-a couldn’t focus on the lecture at all. She kept fiddling with her phone. When the professor called her name, she didn’t even answer right away.
“Jeong Se-a.”
“…Yes?”
“Jeong Se-a, did you not sleep last night? This isn’t like you. You’re not paying attention at all.”
“Ah, um… I’m sorry, Professor. Hehe, I’ll focus now!”
Her cute apology made the professor let it slide, and the other students chuckled lightly, warming up the atmosphere in the classroom. Se-a tried to concentrate on the lecture after that, but she just couldn’t. By the time class ended, she hadn’t absorbed a single thing. She sighed and started packing her bag.
A group of female students approached her.
“Se-a! What are you doing after class today?”
“Hm? Why?”
“Let’s hang out! We’re meeting up with some English Literature kids for drinks. Come with us!”
“Drinks? Hmm…”
Normally she loved going out and enjoyed drinking, but today she just wasn’t feeling it. As she herself realized, her mind was somewhere else entirely.
“Sorry, I don’t think I can today. Let’s do it next time!”
“Ah, you have plans? Then there’s nothing we can do.”
Since Se-a was always getting invited everywhere, her friends assumed she had another commitment and understood. But then one of them spoke up.
“Oh, is it a boyfriend? You were staring at your phone the whole time during class too.”
“What? Se-a has a boyfriend!? We need to see what kind of guy he is!”
“N-no, what boyfriend? I don’t have one, I don’t!”
When Se-a waved her hands in denial, they actually looked disappointed. She had no idea why. She just smiled and sent them on their way.
After exchanging greetings with the people who called out to her as she left the classroom, she stayed behind alone for a moment. She seemed to be deep in thought. Then, deciding she couldn’t take it anymore, she picked up her phone and sent a message somewhere.
“…He’s just going to read and ignore this one too.”
The person Se-a had messaged was none other than Se-hwan. The last message still had that stubborn number next to it. And below it, a brand new message with its own persistent “1.”
Every second that number stayed there made her more anxious. But surprisingly, less than a minute after she sent the new message, the number disappeared. He had read it right away.
Se-a’s face brightened. And right after that, a reply from Se-hwan arrived.
When Se-hwan readily agreed, Se-a’s face lit up completely. She couldn’t stop the silly grin from spreading across her lips. She quickly grabbed her bag and headed toward the engineering building.
I had just finished class and ran into someone unexpected. If we were only talking about how close we were, it wasn’t strange to meet up, but after starting college, she rarely came looking for me first like this. The person waiting for me in front of the engineering building was Jeong Se-a. With her eye-catching orange-pink two-tone dyed hair, she was my old friend who now lived in a slightly different world from mine.
“Hey, Se-a.”
“Oh, Jeong Se-a? Long time no see!”
Bae Ju-hyuk, who was walking beside me, recognized her too and greeted her cheerfully.
“Ju-hyuk, it’s been a while!”
“What brings you here? Don’t tell me you came to see this guy?”
When Bae Ju-hyuk started making his usual weird assumptions, I immediately shut it down.
“She said she had something to talk about.”
“What?”
But this delusional patient went off on another wild fantasy, suddenly yelling and grabbing my shoulder so hard it hurt.
“You, you’re really going to do this!? How could you do this to me!!”
“What the hell are you doing, you crazy bastard… that hurts, you idiot…!”
“Haha, Ju-hyuk. It’s not anything weird. We just have something to talk about.”
At Se-a’s explanation, Ju-hyuk finally let go of my shoulder. Then, with a much brighter expression, he patted me on the back.
“Aww, what the heck. I almost misunderstood~.”
“If I ever get a girlfriend, are you really going to kill me that day?”
“Obviously. No traitor deserves to live.”
Look who’s talking, when you try to get close to every girl you see…
“Then Ju-hyuk, I’ll borrow Se-hwan for a bit. Se-hwan, you don’t have any more classes, right? Let’s talk on the way to the main gate.”
“Yeah.”
I was supposed to meet Baek Seol-hwa after class, but just talking for a little while wouldn’t take long. Besides, the main gate was on the way anyway.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been alone like this, huh?”
“It really has.”
When was the last time? I think it was during winter break of our second year of high school, when we hung out in Seomyeon. After that, I had a lot going on, and once we got to college, we ended up living in completely different social circles. Walking side by side with Se-a like this felt pretty unfamiliar.
We used to have so much fun together back then.
There’s a saying that when a guy and a girl stay friends for too long, they eventually can’t maintain that relationship. But somehow, we had managed to keep our perfectly platonic friendship going. Despite what other people misunderstood.
In middle school, she was actually more comfortable around me than most of the other boys. That should say enough. Once we got to high school, we both matured a bit and became more careful, but we still stayed close. That’s why it didn’t feel awkward even now. We hadn’t talked much lately, but we still had years of friendship between us.
“Um, Se-hwan. Why did you ask about Jae-woong?”
“…Oh, that. Did he say it made him really uncomfortable?”
“Huh? No, not really.”
“Just tell him I’m sorry. I’ll buy him lunch tomorrow or whenever he has time.”
“Ah, okay. Got it. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about…”
“Yeah?”
Se-a asked carefully. It wasn’t that she found it awkward to say. She was being cautious because she was trying to be considerate of me.
“Was it related to your constitution?”
“…Whoa, Jeong Se-a.”
“What?”
“You’re smarter than I thought.”
“Of course I am! I’m pretty… wait, what the hell? Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey!”
Good reaction.
“I’m kidding. Yeah, that’s right.”
“…Didn’t they say they were stepping back from that?”
“They did. This time I just happened to see it.”
“Happened to see it?”
I told Se-a the story, leaving out the parts I needed to keep hidden. Since she already knew about my constitution and what I had been doing during my senior year of high school, it was fine to talk about it.
“An evil spirit…? That means a bad ghost, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That girl turned into an evil spirit?”
“Looks like she died alone.”
“Let’s… not talk about that. Jae-woong would be shocked if he heard.”
“I wasn’t planning to. That building was called Freedom Hall, right? Anyway, all the windows on the back side were shattered.”
“…Is that really okay?”
“I didn’t break them, so yeah.”
I’m not at fault here.
Se-a looked at me with a slightly sour expression, then let out a small laugh.
“You didn’t get hurt?”
“Do I look hurt?”
“No, not at all.”
Se-a, who had been smiling lightly, looked at me. Then her expression grew serious.
“You said it was a coincidence, so you’re not going to keep doing this, right?”
“…Well.”
“What do you mean, ‘well’?”
“I’ve been thinking differently lately.”
This time it had been like my usual exorcism work, taking down a hopeless evil spirit. But I had learned that exorcism wasn’t only about that. I now knew there were souls that could be saved through ascension, and even people who could be saved. My thoughts on exorcism had started to change. And most importantly, I had to help someone whose life was in danger because of me. Honestly, that was the biggest reason.
“You’re thinking of doing it again?… Exorcism work.”
“…Well, moderately?”
“Can’t you just not do it?”
Huh? When I turned to look at Se-a, her expression had hardened. I was a little surprised by her sudden reaction.
“What do you mean, can’t I? Why are you saying that?”
“…It was dangerous back then. That time too.”
“That time?”
“You don’t remember? You got really badly hurt during your senior year of high school…”
…I didn’t think she would still remember that.
What Se-a was talking about was the time during my third year of high school when my parents dragged me around doing exorcisms because I was supposedly the chosen one. I had gotten pretty badly injured while fighting a yokai. Back then, we had covered it up by saying it was just an accident. It wasn’t until after the college entrance exam, when I quit that life, that I finally told her the truth. And since I only told her after I had fully recovered, I thought she would have forgotten about it by now. It had already been five years…
“What are you going to do if something like that happens again?”
“…As long as I don’t die, it should be fine, right?”
“I’m not joking right now! I’m being serious!”
I was a bit puzzled. It was nice that she was worried, but I didn’t think it was something she needed to get this involved in. We weren’t as close as we used to be, and while we kept in touch occasionally, we weren’t exactly texting every day. I lived a quiet college life, while Se-a was fully enjoying campus life, so it was natural that our contact had slowed down. I wasn’t upset about it. It was only natural. That’s why her reaction confused me even more. Even though we had been that close before, we weren’t at the level where she needed to worry about me this much anymore.
“Se-a, I don’t think this is something you need to worry about.”
“How can I not worry? You were so badly hurt back then that you couldn’t even come to school for a whole month…!”
“That’s not what I… Never mind.”
It didn’t seem right to say that out loud. After all, she was worrying about me right now, not anyone else.
“I know you’re worried, but there won’t be any problems. I’m not doing the hardcore stuff like before.”
When I went with my parents, we really did run into a lot of nasty creatures. It wouldn’t be like that anymore. My daily life wouldn’t change much either. I’d just help Baek Seol-hwa gather spiritual energy when needed and pay a bit of attention to anything strange I happened to see around me.
“You don’t have to worry so much. I won’t get hurt like that again.”
“…You’re still so stubborn.”
“You’re one to talk. Once you make up your mind about something, you never back down. That’s why you’re even at this school.”
Se-a had never been particularly good at studying. We hung out together, but while I had a talent for it, she didn’t. You could even say she had no aptitude for studying at all. She hadn’t been great at it since middle school, and in her first mock exam as a high school freshman, she somehow scored a miraculous 787 in Korean, Math, and English. The fact that someone like her still got into one of Busan’s top universities, and one of the most prestigious national universities in the Yeongnam region, through regular admission… showed just how strong her determination was. At the same time, it also meant that because I hadn’t prepared properly, I ended up at the same school as her. It really was a long, unbreakable connection.
Se-a let out a sigh but didn’t try to stop me any further. Since we both knew how stubborn the other could be, it seemed we understood each other.
“So you’re doing it alone this time?”
“Huh? No, not alone…”
“Ah, then are you working with your parents again like before?”
“…Not with my parents either.”
“What? What do you mean?”
…How am I supposed to explain this?
“You lied when you said you weren’t doing it alone?”
“No, there is someone I’m working with…”
“Then who are you doing it with?”
I probably shouldn’t have phrased it like I had a partner.
“Uh…”
“Why can’t you answer, Se-hwan?”
How the hell am I supposed to answer this!!
I was struggling to figure out what to say when I suddenly realized we had already reached the main gate. And there, standing in a spot where she was drawing the eyes of every passerby, was a yokai. With her pure white hair, exotic blue eyes, and tight jeans that showed off her figure, she had an appearance that was bound to attract attention.
…Please don’t look this way.
But as if my wish meant nothing, this idiot yokai—who somehow had great senses—turned her head toward us and shouted.
“Hey, Yoo Se-hwan, you’re late!”
Ah… damn it. I still hadn’t come up with an excuse.
“You’re ten minutes late!”
I couldn’t exactly introduce her as an exorcist, and I had no idea what to do. Right at that moment, Se-a, who was standing next to me, suddenly grabbed my sleeve.
“……Se-hwan.”
“Yeah?”
“Who is that woman? Don’t tell me… is she your girlfriend?”
“……Huh?”
“She’s not, right? It’s not like that, right?”
Se-a was asking with a desperate look on her face, practically begging for a denial. This… it seemed like she was completely misunderstanding the situation in an entirely different direction.
“She’s not your girlfriend, right!?”