Chapter 20
Fifteen years old. A second-year middle schooler, by grade.
It felt surreal to realize that I’d been living in Kim Siyeon’s body for over ten years now, when I’d first possessed it at the age of five.
Back then, even using a computer was hard, never mind having a cellphone, but now I had an expensive computer and the latest phone…
‘…The more I think about it, doesn’t my family have a surprising amount of money?’
Starting with the fact that we lived in a two-story house in Seoul, Mom always replaced my phone with the latest model whenever one came out, even when I didn’t ask. I couldn’t help wondering where all that money came from.
It wasn’t as if I knew what Mom did for a living, either, so all I could think was that she must have an incredibly high-paying job.
Anyway.
[Han Seojin: I’m going to hang out with my friends today, so I don’t think I can walk home with you!]
“……”
Han Seojin’s message instantly put me in a bad mood. I was about to frown, but realized someone was nearby, quickly smoothed my expression, and tried to think of what to text him back.
…I was upset that I couldn’t go home with Han Seojin, but there was no need to let him know that.
That was how a good ‘friend’ should act.
‘…Friend.’
The word friend should have sounded nice, but somehow it struck me as a little bitter. I found that strange, but decided to put the thought aside and focus on replying to Han Seojin first.
“U-Um…”
Could one of those friends be a girl?
It wasn’t as if I knew all of Han Seojin’s friends. I barely talked to anyone else, so I didn’t know most of them.
Whenever I talked with Han Seojin, his friends would sometimes tag along, but I didn’t really like that, so I usually talked with him one-on-one. That was how this whole mess came about.
[Is there a girl among those friends?][Send]
Even though I’d heard something like that last year, I’d thought it was just a passing comment. I tapped out my message, then suddenly froze and quickly deleted it.
…Somehow, written like that, it made me sound like an incredibly clingy girlfriend.
Even if Han Seojin was my only friend and I spent all my time with him as if we lived together, we absolutely weren’t a couple, so I didn’t want to do something that would invite that kind of misunderstanding.
[][Send]
My chat box was blank again.
I was curious if he was hanging out with a girl, but if I asked outright, he might wonder why a friend would ask about something like that.
But I was dying to know if I didn’t ask.
“…Hey, Siyeon?”
What should I text…
“…Siyeon?”
I heard someone calling from nearby, but they might have been calling someone else. And figuring out what to text mattered more than answering whoever was calling me, so I completely ignored them and kept thinking about it.
“Kim Siyeon…?”
What?
I’d ignored them, but they kept calling my name. I swallowed my irritation, turned around, and glared at the boy who’d called me.
“S-Someone was calling you…”
The boy trembled as if startled when I looked at him, blurted that out, then ran off.
Someone was calling me… Huh?
I was about to look irritably at whoever had called me, but the moment I realized who it was, I quickly changed my expression and smiled awkwardly.
‘W-Why is Han Seojin suddenly here…!’
I’d never expected Han Seojin to come looking for me out of nowhere…!
I-I thought he said he was going to hang out with his friends?
Han Seojin suddenly appeared right in front of me, and I was so flustered that my earlier struggle to think of what to text him seemed ridiculous.
“I-Idiot. If you were coming, you should’ve told me…”
I edged toward Han Seojin, twisting my hair around my fingers.
“I just wanted to see you before I left.”
“…! I-Idiot! I told you not to say things like that so casually…!”
I scolded Han Seojin for saying something so embarrassing again, then glanced around to see if anyone had heard—
“…S-Say things like that when we’re alone.”
I buried my face against Han Seojin’s chest and spoke in a whisper, so quietly that only he could hear me.
Han Seojin hugged me tightly.
Maybe it was because we were in the middle of our growth spurts, but Han Seojin, who’d seemed to change so much just last year, had become incredibly manly.
It wasn’t that he’d stopped being cute, though. It was more like he’d gone from a cute boy to a cute young man.
His voice had changed, too. It was so soft and low now, the kind of voice that would sound amazing as ASMR—
“Really?”
“…H-Hng.”
So when he whispered right by my ear like this, I couldn’t help shivering.
“D-Don’t tease me. Let go already. Hurry up and go, idiot.”
“Pfft… Okay, I’m off!”
“…W-Wait!”
I stared blankly as Han Seojin immediately let go and started to leave. Then I hurriedly called after him to stop him and asked what I’d been wondering about ever since I got his message.
“…I-Is there a girl there?”
“…A girl?”
“Y-Yeah. I was just wondering if any of your friends are girls… I-I’m not worried about it or anything. I just thought I’d ask, idiot.”
Of course, the moment I asked, my mind went completely blank, and I hurriedly tacked on more words.
You idiot…! Why did I even bring that up…!
I was busy regretting what I’d said when Han Seojin listened for a moment, stared blankly at me, then let out a little laugh.
“I’m telling you, you’re the only one for me, Kim Siyeon.”
“…!!”
He tossed those words at me, smiled brightly, and walked off just like that.
…Th-That’s unfair.
‘Saying that with that face is totally unfair…!’
—Thump, thump.
The sound of my heart beating so hard it seemed like it would never stop was driving me even crazier.
And the murmurs around me made it seem like everyone had seen what Han Seojin and I had just done. It was so embarrassing that…
“……”
I stiffly made my way back to my seat, then buried my face in my desk, doing everything I could to keep anyone from seeing how red my face must be.
Seriously, seriously, that’s totally unfair…
Whispering in my ear, saying I’m the only one for him… All of that is unfair…!
‘…Should I change Han Seojin’s name on KakaoTalk?’
As I was dying of embarrassment, I remembered the message from a moment ago and turned my phone back on. Looking at it, I thought the name ‘Han Seojin’ felt too stiff.
I mean, for such close friends, writing out all three syllables of ‘Han Seojin’ looks way too formal.
“…”
But adding a ♡ or a ☆ was far too embarrassing, so I immediately dismissed those ideas and tried to think of a name that looked like it was for a close friend, but not a romantic partner.
[Han Seojin]
[]
[Seojin]
With that in mind, I deleted the stiff-looking name and changed it to something that felt more familiar. Smiling to myself, I thought again about what Han Seojin had just done.
==========
“…Kim Siyeon really changes that much?”
“What kind of person do you guys think Kim Siyeon is, anyway…?”
Han Seojin’s friends had just witnessed him and Kim Siyeon talking—or rather, being far too close to call it a conversation. They looked at Han Seojin as if they couldn’t believe what they’d just seen.
From Han Seojin’s perspective, Kim Siyeon had always been like that. But she’d never shown anyone else the side of herself that she showed him.
“When you talk about her… she gives off an ice-cold city-girl vibe.”
A cold city girl.
Kim Siyeon usually never showed any expression other than a blank one. When people talked to her, she barely reacted, or gave them one-word answers like “Yeah.” “No.” or “Why?”
Kim Siyeon blushing bright red, stammering, and burying her face against his chest was so different from the image the other students had of her.
“Really? She’s been like that since we were little.”
“Now that you mention it, you said you’d been close to Kim Siyeon since you were little, right?”
“Yeah, right? We’ve been close since daycare.”
Of course, from Han Seojin’s perspective, Kim Siyeon had been the same ever since they were little—since daycare, even—so it was hard for him to imagine her as an ice-cold city girl.
As Han Seojin said, “I see,” and raised his Coke to his lips—
“…Are you two dating?”
“Pfft?!”
At his friend’s sudden question, Han Seojin was so startled that he spat out the Coke he’d been drinking.
“Cough, cough!”
“You okay?”
“Cough… Uh, I’m okay now. What did you say?”
“I asked if you two were dating.”
After choking on his drink at the question, Han Seojin calmed down. When his friend asked again, he thought about it for a moment, then—
“No? Not yet.”
“…Not yet?”
He said they weren’t dating ‘yet’ and gave a bright smile.
“Well, we’re not dating right now, but I like Kim Siyeon.”
“……”
“So we’ll start dating eventually.”
At Han Seojin’s matter-of-fact announcement that he liked Kim Siyeon and would date her someday as if it were a foregone conclusion, his friend stared at him in disbelief, but—
Han Seojin just smiled as if it were nothing.
‘…And besides, I don’t want Kim Siyeon ending up with someone else.’
Of course, behind that carefree smile, Han Seojin’s thoughts were full of a possessive desire to keep anyone from taking Kim Siyeon away.