Chapter 95
* * *
Several more days passed after that.
Once I spent a busy day at school, club time came around before I knew it.
Tap—rat-a-tat—
I tapped away at the keyboard, lightly pressing Enter as I asked over my shoulder.
“Like this?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
The club president patted my shoulder, saying I’d done well.
“It’s not too difficult, is it?”
“It’s definitely manageable once you try it yourself.”
They say seeing something for yourself is better than hearing about it a hundred times.
I was learning the duties I’d have to handle in the club from the president in advance.
The president flipped through the files, showing them to me.
“Gather the reports properly, then submit them on the last Wednesday of every month.”
“Hmm, but···”
As I listened, I voiced the small question I’d been holding back until now.
“···Why am I doing this···?”
“Huh? You’re going to be the club president.”
The president shook my shoulder as though it were obvious.
“Besides, who else would do it if not you?”
The president looked around the clubroom. I followed his gaze.
Ji Nuri was reading a comic, snickering, while Isol was practically half asleep.
“? What?”
Sensing my gaze, Ji Nuri stopped reading and raised the question.
“No.”
“···.”
Ji Nuri looked at me strangely.
— “Hey—if you want some, just say so. Is the kid shy or something?”
Her Minimi let out a derisive little “heh.”
Then it rummaged through the bag.
“Want one?”
She held out a snack.
I promptly accepted it and ate it.
I hadn’t meant to, but I’d managed to get a snack.
It was tasty, though.
“Oh, right.”
I remembered something I’d forgotten.
After swallowing the snack, I told the president,
“You know Shin Ayoung? She’s quitting the theater club and joining ours.”
Since Shin Ayoung wasn’t in the clubroom, I told him in advance.
She wasn’t there because she was wrapping things up with the theater club for the last time.
“Really?”
“She said she’ll submit the application today.”
“Tell her there’s no rush.”
The president’s reaction was calm, but—
“Huh? Really? She’s joining the counseling club?”
Ji Nuri, on the other hand, spun around in surprise.
That reaction was new to me.
Apparently, she hadn’t known at all.
“Wasn’t she hinting at it for a while?”
She had revealed her dissatisfaction with the theater club, however faintly, whenever she came and went from the clubroom.
She had been thinking of quitting someday.
“I just didn’t think she’d actually come.”
Ji Nuri shrugged.
She’d left to avoid a confession herself, yet apparently didn’t remember that.
— “At least the club won’t disappear next year even if there are no new students.”
Her reaction was more like she thought it was a good thing.
— “When she comes, I should ask her to play a game of chess with me.”
Her Minimi exhaled a pleased little “hmph.”
Ji Nuri welcomed Shin Ayoung joining because someone she was close to would be coming in.
“···.”
Isol’s reaction was unexpectedly calm.
She merely sat there quietly, without much of a reaction.
— “···What was bound to happen has happened.”
Her Minimi muttered softly.
That was the extent of her reaction.
She showed no sign of being particularly flustered, accepting it calmly.
“Seungho.”
Just then, the president called me.
“Yes?”
“You need to decide what you’ll do at the arts festival and submit it to the teacher by next week.”
Come to think of it, the arts festival was coming up.
It was an event scheduled for October.
I asked the two people sitting on the sofa,
“You heard him, right? What should we do?”
“Is it just the three of us?”
Ji Nuri turned her body.
“Yeah. The third-years won’t have time for that.”
The CSAT was just around the corner.
They would probably study in their classroom even on the day of the event.
“But is there anything we can do?”
Ji Nuri tilted her head.
She let out a faint groan, apparently unable to think of much.
We were the counseling club, after all.
The band and theater clubs could at least put on performances. We didn’t have any particular format.
It wasn’t as though we could actually counsel people, either.
“What did the counseling club do last year?”
“We sold cotton candy.”
It had been more popular than expected.
“Then we could do that again this year—”
“That ran a deficit.”
Renting the cotton-candy machine had cost more money than expected.
“We still have plenty of time, so let’s decide later···.”
I looked up at the clock. It was about time for the client to arrive.
Jeong Jaehun, that was.
“Are you really okay with this?”
I looked at Isol.
She tilted her head.
“···With what?”
“The counseling.”
“···.”
She still didn’t react.
Isol merely stared blankly up at me. She didn’t seem to have properly recalled it.
“That senior’s counseling session. I told you he requested you, remember?”
“Ah···.”
Isol slightly parted her lips.
“That happened, didn’t it? I’ve been forgetting things a lot lately.”
It seemed more like she hadn’t given it any thought at all.
“You’re really okay, right?”
“I’m fine.”
Isol nodded faintly.
She said it confidently, but something about her still seemed uneasy.
She looked like a child I’d sent down to the riverbank.
— “Besides, it could get dangerous if I don’t participate in activities soon···.”
Her Minimi broke out in a cold sweat.
Come to think of it, there was that issue, too.
Even if you belonged to a club, you would be warned if you didn’t participate in its activities.
That seemed to be the real reason Isol had accepted.
‘She really has been slacking off a lot.’
Since Isol hadn’t conducted a counseling session in a while, it was about time people started talking.
“Call me right away if anything happens.”
“···Yeah.”
Isol nodded faintly.
— “···It feels kind of nice that he’s looking out for me.”
Her Minimi let out a silly laugh.
Knock, knock—!
Just then, a knock came from beyond the door.
Apparently, the client had arrived.
“Yes, come in—”
* * *
“Make yourself comfortable.”
Saying that, Isol herself leaned back comfortably in the chair inside the private counseling room.
Coming in here alone made her feel as though she were something important.
She felt almost like an adult.
Ahem—She let out a false cough.
“Let’s see···.”
Isol scanned the application he had filled out.
“Uh···.”
Isol expressed her confusion.
“You didn’t write anything else···?”
The contents were completely blank.
He had only written that it was romantic counseling; there was nothing else.
“Oh, I wanted to talk about it in person, so I didn’t write down the details.”
“Ah, I see?”
Tap—
Isol promptly covered the paper.
“···.”
Jeong Jaehun’s expression grew complicated.
He looked as though he was wondering whether it had really been all right to summon her.
“Please speak comfortably.”
Isol waved her hand casually.
“···I’ll get straight to the point.”
He cleared his throat slightly, then—
“The thing is··· there’s someone I like.”
“Mmm. Yees, and?”
Isol nodded along appropriately.
It was romantic counseling, after all. The person he liked was naturally going to come up.
“It’s Ayoung.”
At the name being stated so bluntly, Isol drew in a short breath.
“···Hmm.”
I hadn’t known that.
Even so, it wasn’t anything to be particularly surprised about.
Shin Ayoung was popular, after all.
“I don’t know why, but I heard Ayoung is leaving the club soon.”
That was right.
This was information I had just heard moments ago.
“Lately, she seems to have gotten close to that guy from the counseling club, too···.”
“···.”
If he meant that guy, was he talking about Seungho?
Given the context, that seemed like the right conclusion. After all, the only man in the counseling club besides Seungho was the president.
“So, could you help me confess to Ayoung?”
“Hmm··· Are you planning to confess?”
“I’m graduating soon, after all. I want to do it before it’s too late.”
And on top of that, she was changing clubs, so perhaps he had grown impatient.
Jeong Jaehun wore a fairly determined expression.
“···But why ask me?”
Isol was curious about that.
With so many other people, why was he asking her in particular?
“You’re close to Ayoung, aren’t you?”
“···Yeees, I suppose we are···?”
Isol nodded with an ambiguous expression.
They were close.
If her relationship with Shin Ayoung couldn’t be called friendship, there was no one else who could be called her friend, either.
There was only one problem.
“···If that’s the case, couldn’t you just tell her yourself instead of making it counseling?”
“I don’t think she’d come if I simply called her.”
“···.”
Isol understood.
That was true.
It didn’t seem like she would readily come out just because this man called her. She’d ignore him, if anything.
“And···.”
Jeong Jaehun trailed off, then asked her outright,
“You like that person, don’t you?”
“···.”
Isol silently tilted her chin.
“···How did you know?”
“So it really is true.”
Jeong Jaehun looked surprised.
He hadn’t been certain; apparently, he had just been testing the waters.
“When you walk around school, you run into each other now and then. I just got that feeling.”
“···.”
Isol lightly rubbed the corner of her mouth.
She wasn’t exactly trying hard to hide it, but she was embarrassed that someone had noticed, even indirectly.
Didn’t that mean other people could notice, too?
‘No···. Wouldn’t it actually be better if fewer girls went after Seungho···?’
If this was a way to draw a clear line in advance against the foxes who might approach Lee Seungho,
perhaps she should actually make it more obvious.
“So, can you help me?”
Perhaps he naturally assumed she would agree.
Jeong Jaehun continued in a strangely confident tone,
“If things work out for me, it’ll be good for you, too—”
“I don’t want to.”
“Huh?”
Jeong Jaehun’s face was colored with surprise for an instant.
“I don’t think I can.”
Isol repeated herself, wondering if he hadn’t heard properly.
“···Why?”
Why, indeed?
Even if she agreed to help, it didn’t seem like his confession would succeed.
She didn’t want to get dragged into a bothersome task with no hope of success.
Besides, as Seungho had said before,
her role was to counsel people, not solve their problems.
But explaining all of that from the start felt tiresome.
“Just because.”
She reduced the reason to a short answer.
“All I can tell you is to give it your best shot.”
With that, Isol rose from her seat.
“···Counseling. It was short, but shall we end it here?”
There didn’t seem to be any reason for them to meet beyond this.
Jeong Jaehun nodded silently, his expression somewhat stiff.
Clack—
He opened the counseling room door first and went outside.
“···.”
Isol leaned back lazily in the chair for a moment.
···This person and that person, everyone had something to say.
Why were there so many people meddling in her affairs?
Isol was troubled by how many people kept involving themselves in her love life.
‘Ayoung must be pretty tired, too.’
Isol prided herself on being fairly good at reading people’s eyes.
In that respect, he was no good.
That man was definitely not it.
He was the type brimming with pointless self-esteem, subtly looking down on others.
So.
She wasn’t so lacking in confidence about her own love life that she needed Jeong Jaehun’s help.
Isol wasn’t that unsure of herself romantically.
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(!Sign!)
(There’s an AI illustration if you scroll down!)
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Isol likes hoodies