Chapter 97
* * *
The counseling clubroom was quieter than usual.
Shin Ayoung, sitting quietly on the sofa, raised her head at the rustling noise.
Isol, who had been dozing just moments ago, slowly sat up.
“Hmm…? Where’s Nuri?”
Isol slowly opened her mouth, rubbing her eyes as she stretched.
“Nuri?”
“Yeah. She was just here.”
Shin Ayoung tilted her head at the sudden question.
She must have come and left right away. Ayoung had probably missed her because she’d been nearly asleep.
“She said she was going to the school store.”
“Oh, really……?”
At Shin Ayoung’s words, Isol slowly nodded.
“Hmm.”
Shin Ayoung quietly rose from her seat.
Wondering if there was anything to eat, she looked through the snack drawer.
“Something……”
There was plenty of food, but nothing to eat.
Everything felt too heavy to eat after a meal.
Wasn’t there anything easy to eat in one bite? She rummaged through the snacks.
“……”
Clack—Her hand suddenly stopped.
Ah, not again.
Squeeze.
Shin Ayoung’s fingertips curled inward.
Maybe it was because she had just been confessed to.
The situation from moments ago kept flashing back to her.
She ended up putting herself in that situation.
What if the same thing happened to her? Anxiety creeping in unconsciously, she hardened her expression.
I don’t want to be rejected by Lee Seungho.
If she were rejected…….
“Ugh.”
Just imagining it made her feel as though one corner of her heart were being pressed down.
Had everyone she had rejected felt this way? She felt a little sorry for them.
Shin Ayoung firmly steeled herself.
‘Anyway, there’s only one way.’
To advance her relationship with Lee Seungho.
It was an intuitive, simple method.
That was precisely why it was difficult, but there was no other path.
“……”
Shin Ayoung put down the snack and returned to the sofa.
And when it came down to it, there was one person who was the biggest problem of all.
“Ahem……”
The one person right in front of her.
That little girl rolling around on the sofa while quietly humming to herself.
As Shin Ayoung watched her, Isol also turned her gaze this way.
Isol’s lips slowly parted.
“Ayoung, you….”
A small, humming question followed, flowing lazily from her lips.
“That senior confessed to you today, didn’t he?”
Flinch—
Shin Ayoung briefly stopped moving at the question.
It was sudden, and it was a difficult question to answer.
“……”
After a brief silence, Isol spoke first.
“Looks like you rejected them.”
“Mmm…… I did, right?”
When Shin Ayoung gave a small nod,
“Hmm.”
Isol let out a small nasal sound. Her reaction was matter-of-fact.
She didn’t seem particularly disappointed, and her expression naturally accepted the fact.
It was a reaction that said it didn’t matter either way.
Then.
“That senior asked me to help them confess to you.”
She brought it up.
“……”
This was already the second time.
Surprise returned to her face.
Shin Ayoung shook her head slightly to clear it, then asked again.
“……Really?”
“Yeah.”
A short, one-word answer.
From that, it was obvious how she had responded.
“So you rejected them.”
“Yeah.”
Another short answer.
Seeing Isol nod slightly, Shin Ayoung felt a little confused.
“……Why?”
The question came to mind.
She wondered why Isol had rejected them.
Honestly, it wouldn’t have been strange if she had accepted.
“Because I didn’t see the point.”
Isol answered the question that way.
“You didn’t see the point?”
“Yeah. Was there really any reason to go that far?”
“……”
Shin Ayoung immediately understood what she meant.
She wasn’t in such a difficult position that she needed to go that far. She wasn’t cornered.
She was doing fine without it.
“……Why.”
The word slipped from Isol’s small lips.
She stretched her upper body, then tilted her head to the side.
“Not confident?”
And then.
A faint curve appeared at the corners of her lips. It was an unmistakable provocation.
…I’m confident, though.
It even felt as though she could hear those unspoken words.
“Ha…….”
Shin Ayoung gave a hollow smile.
‘That’s why.’
That was why she stayed on guard.
Normally, Isol was languid by nature.
But the moment she decided something had to be done, there was no hesitation to be found in her anymore.
Once she made up her mind, she followed through.
That was Isol’s greatest strength.
“…No?”
Shin Ayoung raised her voice for no reason.
She could win through fair play alone. An unreasonable confidence welled up inside her.
She knew it was a provocation, but it was one she had no choice but to take.
* * *
“Noona’s here~”
Ji Nuri flung open the clubroom door and entered. I followed behind her.
“Huh?”
Ji Nuri looked around the clubroom.
“Where’s Minji noona? She hasn’t come yet?”
“What are you talking about? She went to study with the president. For the CSAT.”
I answered as I placed the bag on the table.
“Ah……”
Ji Nuri let out a sigh.
“She probably won’t be coming to the clubroom much from now on.”
“……So it really is just us now.”
Perhaps the fact that the CSAT was just around the corner was finally sinking in. Ji Nuri made a somewhat complicated expression.
— “The clubroom already feels empty.”
Ji Nuri was becoming sentimental early over the fact that the two of them would soon graduate.
They would graduate in February, so it was still about half a year away by normal standards.
But we had more immediate things to worry about.
“More importantly.”
I dropped into the president’s chair, the president himself being absent.
“What are we going to do at the arts festival?”
We had to start deciding soon.
It would be the first event we had to run without any upperclassmen.
Back in middle school, school events had never been anything special.
This was the first time I had been entrusted with such an important responsibility.
So I didn’t want to just gloss over it.
“Hmm……”
Ji Nuri flopped down onto the sofa and asked,
“Were there some kind of rules? It was a year ago, so I don’t remember well.”
“Not exactly……”
There was an unspoken rule.
“Since it’s something the clubs do, we should probably do something that fits.”
Just as the band club played music and the theater club put on plays, it was customary to choose something that didn’t stray too far from that framework.
“Something fitting for the counseling club……”
Isol’s voice spread softly through the room. All of us fell into thought.
“……What does the counseling club even do?”
I muttered the words, and
Ji Nuri, Isol, and Shin Ayoung’s Minimi all voiced their thoughts at once.
— “Snacks?”
— “……Board games.”
— “I can’t think of anything but stuff to play….”
Every answer had nothing to do with the counseling club.
Well, we were that kind of club, so I couldn’t exactly deny it.
“This is so hard to decideee……”
“Yeah……”
Ji Nuri and Isol groaned.
“Ah.”
As if she had thought of something, Ji Nuri raised her voice.
“How about ‘Beat Lee Seungho’?”
“……Me?”
I looked at Ji Nuri with a questioning gaze.
Why was I suddenly involved? What was she planning to say this time?
“You’re really good at board games.”
“……”
“Something that ends quickly. Hmm…… Ah, right. We could play Indian poker.”
“……Indian poker?”
Isol tilted her head, looking as though she had no idea what kind of game that was.
“You know, the game where you stick a card to your forehead and compete to see whose number is higher.”
“Oh, that one.”
Isol nodded, and Ji Nuri continued.
“Charge a thousand won to enter, and give the winner a ten-thousand-won prize.”
“……But isn’t that relying too much on luck?”
Isol was worried that all the club’s money would be drained.
“……What are you talking about? Of course I’d secretly help from behind.”
Ji Nuri shook her head vigorously.
“Aren’t you trying to run this business too honestly?”
“……”
Isol’s eyes rolled around as she gave Ji Nuri an odd look.
I moved on to the next idea.
“Let’s put that on hold for now.”
“Huh? Isn’t it a good idea?”
Ji Nuri raised her voice as though she hadn’t expected to be rejected.
We should hear the other opinions, too.
Besides, wasn’t I the one who would have to keep working throughout it?
“Or…… how about we just open an ordinary snack stand?”
Shin Ayoung offered her opinion.
It was a fairly safe suggestion.
It was safe, but—
“Wouldn’t cooking be a little difficult?”
“We can just rent the kitchen.”
“The other students will want to rent it, too.”
“Ah……”
Opening a snack stand was also the simplest and easiest idea to come up with.
The kitchen had been in high demand last year, too, so this year probably wouldn’t be any different.
“I don’t think the teachers will let us use fire outside the kitchen.”
“Hmm……”
Shin Ayoung thought about it briefly, then
“Then we can sell snacks.”
offered another alternative.
“We can make them beforehand and sell them. We could just put snacks or something in cups.”
“And jack up the price way above cost.”
Ji Nuri added that it was a good idea, laughing heartily as she gave a thumbs-up.
……”
……
Shin Ayoung and I stared at Ji Nuri with lingering gazes. Neither of us could find the words.
“Why? Doesn’t everyone sell things like this at events?”
“It’s a school event……”
It wasn’t a university or a local festival. This really felt like doing business just to make money.
More importantly, it seemed like the teachers would put a stop to it.
— “No, I mean, you sell things to make money—”
Ji Nuri’s Minimi began grumbling that she was being unnecessarily picky with her.
“What about you, Isol?”
“……Hmm, should we do both?”
“Both?”
“Yeah.”
Isol nodded.
“Sell snacks and play board games.”
She said that sounded the most like something the counseling club would do.
“True.”
Board games and snacks.
Hearing it put that way, it did seem like a good fit.
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