Chapter 99
* * *
After finishing elective class, Shin Ayoung left the classroom, fanning herself as she walked down the hallway.
‘Phew…….’
Had the late-summer heat returned? Even though autumn was just around the corner, it was impossible to change into the autumn uniform.
The weather kept fluctuating so much that she had even undone the buttons of her dress shirt, which she normally never did.
‘Should I stop by the clubroom and sneak an ice cream…….’
She found herself seriously considering it.
The school store would be crowded. And wouldn’t it be too late if she went there now?
‘Ah.’
As she entered the bathroom, she spotted a female senior she had worked with in the theater club.
Shin Ayoung dipped her head in greeting.
“Hello—”
As the senior turned her back and shook the water from her hands, droplets splashed lightly onto Ayoung’s face. It was an unpleasantly refreshing sensation.
Without even acknowledging her, the senior swept out of the bathroom, chatting animatedly with her friends.
Perhaps she hadn’t seen Ayoung.
But Ayoung could instinctively tell that the act had been deliberate.
It was the kind of subtle atmosphere only another girl could sense.
There was no shortage of likely causes.
‘That senior. She seemed to have feelings for Jeong Jaehun…….’
Apparently, Ayoung had fallen out of favor.
“……”
She tried to grow accustomed to such looks. But it was true that they inevitably put her in a bad mood.
‘It’s not like I reject people because I want to.’
This wasn’t a situation she had wanted, either. Those who called her out during every break to ask how they could phrase things so she would be hurt as little as possible didn’t seem to care about her position at all.
There were confessions she would have liked to accept, too.
…If Lee Seungho ever did that.
“……Eek.”
She bit down on her lip with an excited breath.
It was nothing more than something she had imagined.
But even that alone made Shin Ayoung feel her spirits rise.
‘Ah.’
It was Lee Seungho.
She spotted his back at the far end of the hallway. Was he returning to his classroom after finishing an elective class?
Shin Ayoung quickly headed in his direction.
“……”
Perhaps because they were on different floors, there wasn’t anyone she knew nearby. They were all first-years.
As long as they didn’t make too much of a fuss, it was practically the same as being alone together.
“……Hehe.”
A ticklish, mischievous impulse quietly raised its head.
If she snuck up and startled him, what kind of reaction would Lee Seungho have?
He might grumble, or he might laugh it off.
Either way, Shin Ayoung wanted his attention. Even if only for a brief moment, she wanted his gaze to rest entirely on her.
Tiptoe, tiptoe—
Shin Ayoung carefully moved toward his back. With her heels slightly raised, she approached him quickly and stealthily.
Just as she was about to tap his shoulder and raise her voice—
“Whoa—”
“Waaah!”
Lee Seungho spun around and shouted.
Gasp!
Shin Ayoung’s shoulders jerked upward. Her youthful voice rang out.
“H, huhhh…….”
Shin Ayoung clutched her chest and drew in a breath.
Her eyes trembled.
She had really been startled.
It was an unexpected counterattack. Her heart was pounding wildly.
Even her eyelashes trembled, but—
“……”
Amid it all, she felt a different kind of flutter in her heart.
“……W-what? How did you know?”
Shin Ayoung calmed her breathing and gave him a silly smile.
“I could hear you walking over. You were reflected in the window, too.”
Lee Seungho replied with a light jerk of his chin.
She had thought she was walking quietly enough, but he seemed to have heard everything.
“Were you on your way back from elective class?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Shin Ayoung naturally fell into step beside Lee Seungho.
She poked him lightly in the side several times.
“……Duo for old times’ sake?”
“Duo? The game?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She nodded vigorously.
Come to think of it, hadn’t it been quite a while since they had played?
“Hmm…….”
Lee Seungho looked thoughtful.
“Play with me just once, okay? Hmm?”
Shin Ayoung spoke to him with an earnest expression. She raised her index finger and widened her sparkling eyes.
“If not now, when? Exams are coming up soon, and we won’t have any time to play anymore.”
“That’s true.”
Lee Seungho nodded as though he agreed, and Shin Ayoung’s face brightened.
“After we’re done?”
“Yeah, yeah. Right afterward.”
“All right.”
Seeing Lee Seungho nod that a few quick rounds would be fine, Shin Ayoung let out a pleased little snort.
“You’ll be shocked when you see how good I am. I saw something new on NewTube.”
“……You’re not doing something weird again, are you?”
“I told you, it’s really good this time!”
“Last time—”
“No, no. That was just practice…!”
Shin Ayoung chatted with Lee Seungho, the corners of her mouth naturally lifting despite her efforts not to show it.
In fact, she hadn’t even realized she was smiling until she saw her reflection in the glass.
This was the part she liked.
* * *
All the classes ended, and after-school hours began.
Scratch, scratch—
The sound of writing quietly filled the clubroom. I was teaching Isol in preparation for the exams.
It was earlier than usual, but Isol had asked me first, too.
— “If you substitute this equation here…….”
Isol’s Minimi struggled as it waved its pencil around.
“It’s better to calculate it another way than to do it like that.”
I watched Isol’s solution process in real time and suggested a better approach.
“Like this?”
“That’s right.”
Isol straightened up proudly, lifting her chin.
Meanwhile, the other two had slightly different expressions.
Perhaps they had been swept up by the atmosphere and unintentionally started studying for the exams early.
— “Boooring…….”
— “Boooring…….”
The two Minimis put their arms around each other’s shoulders and swayed listlessly.
It was an unusual sight.
Minimis normally acted individually, but when their thoughts overlapped, they sometimes moved together like that.
That was how boring studying must have been.
— “Ughhh……when is the club over…….”
Shin Ayoung endured it while listlessly waiting for the upcoming trip to the PC bang.
— “I should’ve said I was going to practice…….”
Ji Nuri regretted skipping band practice to come hang out.
— “Hmm…….”
Shin Ayoung’s Minimi quietly watched me teach Isol.
I could feel that gaze.
— “I can’t exactly pretend not to know something I know…….”
Perhaps she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt someone who was working so hard.
— “……Uh, I really don’t know this one.”
As Shin Ayoung flipped through her test paper, she found a difficult question.
She approached me with the corners of her mouth lifted, as though she had found a good excuse.
“Seungho—do you know how to solve this?”
I looked down at the problem Shin Ayoung held out.
At first, I tried to solve it, but—
“……It’s hard. I really don’t know.”
There was no way I could easily solve a problem that Shin Ayoung herself found difficult.
Shin Ayoung grew dejected and returned to her seat.
— “Right. I need to tell him about that in advance….”
The eyes of Isol’s Minimi widened.
As though it had just remembered something it had forgotten, it sprang up from its seat.
“Seunghooo.”
It tugged repeatedly at my collar.
Its voice called my name in a drawn-out tone.
When I turned my gaze in that direction, Isol had quietly approached my side.
“Is there something you don’t know?”
“Mmm, no, it’s not that—”
Isol shook her head from side to side.
“Um……you know the appointment. The one I mentioned last time.”
“Oh, the appointment with your mother?”
There was only one appointment she could mean: the one Isol’s mother had asked me about.
“……”
But for some reason, Isol flinched at those words, her shoulder trembling briefly.
— “Mother……”
Isol’s Minimi blushed slightly.
It stroked its chin, saying the word had a nice ring to it.
— “Mother……”
Shin Ayoung’s Minimi, which had been listening to the conversation, murmured the word in a slightly different tone.
— “……I’m jealous you get to eat something delicious.”
Ji Nuri wasn’t interested at all.
She merely expressed her envy. Anyway, she was jealous.
“Hmm.”
I cleared my throat softly and began to speak.
“Anyway, why……?”
“It kept getting pushed back.”
“Oh, right.”
I nodded.
We had originally planned to meet during vacation, but Isol’s mother had suddenly gotten busy, so we postponed it once.
After that, the appointment kept getting pushed back until the start of the new term was almost upon us.
Then our schedules kept failing to line up for various reasons.
Isol’s mother had work, and I was going back and forth between school and my part-time job.
“How about next Thursday?”
“Next week, so right after the arts festival ends?”
“Yeah, Mom said she’d have time then.”
“Just a momeeent……?”
I opened my phone. I couldn’t have a part-time shift scheduled that day.
— “……”
Isol’s Minimi swallowed. It crawled up my shoulder and looked down at my phone with a tense expression.
Of course, if the real Isol couldn’t see it, her Minimi wouldn’t be able to, either.
“Yeah, that works for me, too.”
I swiped through my phone and nodded. Looking at my schedule, I didn’t have a shift that day.
— “!”
The Minimi’s expression brightened at once.
“…Yeah, got it. I’ll tell Mom that.”
Isol smiled and plopped down in the seat beside me.
— “Making plans like this…… I’m kind of nervous……”
At the quiet words of Isol’s Minimi, I rested my chin in my hand and empathized.
Right.
Now that we had set an exact date, I felt a little restless, too.
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(!Signboard!)
(There’s an AI illustration if you scroll down!)
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Shin Ayoung, startled.