Chapter 29
With a coffee in hand, Dain looked toward the café entrance. Suyeon had said on the phone earlier that she would be there in about five minutes, so it should have been about time for her to arrive. Sure enough, Suyeon opened the door and came in.
Judging by her somewhat blank—or maybe slightly pissed-off—expression…
“I sent you the address, right? Come here.”
“…Where is this?”
“A café.”
“No, coffee is coffee wherever you drink it. Is there any reason to crawl all the way up here just to have a cup?”
“They said it was good. And the view is nice.”
“Coffee is coffee wherever you go… Sigh… Fine, I’ll come for now.”
It seemed the feelings she'd had during their phone call earlier were still intact.
‘She’s changed so much…’
Where had the old Ha Suyeon gone—the one who used to race to a café the moment she heard that the view was nice or the desserts were delicious?
Dain recalled Suyeon’s reaction when she suggested going to Starbucks not long ago. Hadn't she said, “Coffee is all the same, so why don't we just go somewhere like Baekdabang or Ediya?”
Judging by the way she acted these days, she looked like someone who wouldn't drink anything except canned coffee or instant coffee mix. She used to refuse to touch anything but sweet coffee.
“You’re here?”
“Yeah. I am. Why did you call me all the way out here…”
Suyeon placed her phone on the table as though throwing it down, then sat down grumbling.
“Coffee is all the same. Why on earth do we have to come all the way up here to drink it?”
“Because it’s pretty. The view outside is nice, too. You can even look down on Gyeongbokgung over there…”
“I live nearby, so it doesn’t do anything for me. Gyeonghuigung is right next to my house.”
Having said that, Suyeon took off her long padded coat and tossed it onto the neighboring chair. The soft thump briefly interrupted their conversation.
‘Come to think of it…’
Looking at the long padded coat, Dain thought.
Since the accident, ‘Ha Suyeon’ had changed a lot. It wasn't just her attitude toward cafés; the way she used social media, the clothes she wore… It felt as though the person herself had changed.
To put it simply, the old Suyeon would never have worn something like that long padded coat.
‘She was the kind of girl who'd wear a coat even if she froze to death, or maybe a shearling jacket with skinny jeans or something… Anyway, clothes like that.’
But Suyeon’s outfit now consisted of a black Adidas long padded coat that reached her ankles, a black Adidas hoodie, and black Adidas jogger pants. She was dressed so completely in Adidas that it looked as though she'd gone to an Adidas outlet yesterday. They were clothes she wouldn't even have looked at before.
As for a café like this, if it had been the old Suyeon… wouldn't she have arrived before Dain? She would have taken a hundred pictures. Pictures of the desserts, pictures of the café scenery, pictures of her own selfies, and pictures with Dain herself. Then she would have uploaded them to Instagram while acting aloof and tagged everyone.
At the same time, she would have subtly uploaded something about what had happened with her seniors and underclassmen yesterday or the day before, just to play mind games. She would have replied to comments with things like, ‘Ah, I don't know, something like that happened,’ while giving the boys subtly sweet replies and ignoring the girls.
How about now?
It had been over a month since Suyeon’s Instagram had been updated. Even her last update was nothing more than a blurry photo taken at a coin karaoke room after Dain and her friends had nagged her to post something.
Had she changed into someone who only lurked? No, not even that. She didn't seem to check her DMs at all in the first place. In the past, she sometimes responded to Instagram DMs faster than KakaoTalk, but these days, she often didn't even check KakaoTalk until the next day.
‘It might be a positive change…’
Dain used to have to listen to the complaints of seniors and underclassmen who didn't have the courage to confront Suyeon directly, because Suyeon spent all day sending DMs to call people out and play mind games on Instagram. The fact that all those annoying problems had disappeared was certainly a positive change.
While she was thinking that, Suyeon brought back their coffee. One perfectly nondescript iced café latte and a couple of cookies.
“Eat this.”
“What’s gotten into you? Our Suyeon is buying me dessert, and Mom is about to cry…”
“Don’t say crazy things. Ms. Lee Hyein is perfectly fine at work right now, you know?”
“Your mom’s name is Lee Hyein?”
“Yeah.”
She used to hate even mentioning her family. What kind of change of heart had made her feel differently?
‘People really do change so easily… No, maybe not that easily.’
Did people really change like that after surviving a brush with death? Well, even someone like her might think she needed to live differently after drinking, riding a kick scooter, and cracking her skull open.
“So, why did you want to meet today? It doesn’t seem like you asked me out to have fun.”
“There’s something I want to ask your advice about.”
At Dain’s question, Suyeon tilted her head slightly, as if choosing her words. After a brief silence, she began to speak.
“Dain, you heard that I play guitar, right?”
“Huh? Uh… I heard.”
Dain recalled the shocking video Kang Chaerin had sent her over KakaoTalk a few days ago, along with the message, [Breaking news!!].
It was a video of the festival at Seoul Jungang High School in the neighboring area, and Dain had been shocked three times while watching it. First, the band was far too good for a group of high school students. Second, they were performing with Japanese songs—so-called ‘otaku’ songs. Third, the guitarist in that band was Suyeon.
The first two things were, well, whatever. You saw all kinds of things in life. But the fact that Suyeon was the guitarist in that band playing those ‘otaku’ songs incredibly well was an entirely different matter.
“Actually, I wasn't thinking much about it. I was just planning to keep guitar as a hobby. But now, um… Mom is telling me to try going on television.”
“Huh? Television?”
Dain couldn't understand why Suyeon had stumbled slightly over the word ‘Mom,’ but she ignored it and asked again.
“Television. So, when I thought about it, I realized that I don't remember much myself, but… there are the things I did in the past. I hear I bullied some kids and things like that.”
“Mm… You did.”
Dain nodded. Suyeon fidgeted with her hands as though her throat were dry, gulped down her coffee, and continued.
“This might sound like I'm only saying this because I have to go on television… but that's not it. Anyway, even if I don't remember, those are still things I did in the past.”
“So I want to apologize to the kids I bullied, but how should I do that?”
“…Huh?”
For a moment, Dain thought there had been something wrong with her ears. It was a combination of words that didn't suit Suyeon at all: ‘to the kids I bullied,’ and ‘apologize.’ ‘Ha Suyeon’ and ‘apology.’ They were an impossible combination.
“I don't really remember what I did before, so it's hard to know what to do. Since you and I were close, I thought maybe you could help me with that… That’s why I asked you to meet me this time. I felt like this was something we needed to talk about face-to-face.”
At Suyeon’s words, Dain was left speechless.
How could a person change this much?
What would the old Suyeon have been like?
For one thing, she never would have made a request like this. Suyeon had been extremely wary of revealing her weaknesses. So, with no intention whatsoever of apologizing for the past… she would have intimidated students in her year or younger, while manipulating male upperclassmen into somehow shutting them up.
Even if she had asked for a favor, she wouldn't have gone about it this way. She would have found fault with Dain using things she'd said or done in the past, forcing her to cooperate with whatever Suyeon wanted.
‘And if she later appeared on television, she'd probably expose everyone else as school-violence perpetrators… Maybe I would have been the first person she exposed.’
Because ultimately, the knife was in the hands of the kids Suyeon had bullied. Suyeon hadn't mobilized some organized crime group to take over all of Jongno District. No matter how frighteningly she acted, she was still just one student without any backing or influence. How could she silence those kids?
But now?
Of course, there was a certain amount of self-interest in wanting to apologize for what she'd done because she was going to appear on television… But even so, the mere fact that she wanted to apologize first was astonishing when compared to the Suyeon of the past.
‘I should help her, right?’
Dain was friends with Suyeon. But if she had to be precise, Dain herself was closer to being a victim.
That was because there wasn't a single one of Suyeon's friends who had escaped being treated like shit or bullied by her at least once.
Dain herself had never been targeted, but many of her friends had been called out by seniors for no reason, chewed out and cursed at, or made to suffer because of completely baseless rumors.
And most of those things, as it turned out, had been caused by Suyeon.
Suyeon did those things simply because she disliked someone or thought she needed to teach them a lesson, always taking care to leave no evidence behind. As those incidents piled up, Suyeon’s reputation grew more infamous, and eventually she became someone nobody dared to touch.
But what about the Suyeon now? Her personality had become considerably more vacant, and she no longer treated her seniors, underclassmen, or friends as she had before. Even when other kids did things that seemed to cross a line, she simply let them go.
Suyeon herself wasn't causing any trouble, either. She was just living like an ordinary student.
Therefore, Dain decided to help her.
For the sake of her changed friend.
* * *
If he dug through Myeongjeon’s memories of the past, the things ‘Ha Suyeon’ had done weren't even remotely bullying. How was calling kids out, chewing them out, and saying a few things to them school violence or bullying?
To Myeongjeon, who had lived through a barbaric age, it was all just children's make-believe.
By rights, for something to count as violence, someone's limbs had to be broken or they had to be crippled before you could say, ‘Ah, that was violence. The bullying must have been severe~’ Just cursing at someone and harassing them didn't even qualify as violence. It was on the level of children's play.
The student patrol backed by teachers smashing in the heads of kids who wouldn't listen, killing anyone who wouldn't hand over their belongings (actually killing them), people dying in gang fights, and organized groups extorting money and valuables—that was the sort of thing that could be called school violence. (Of course, Myeongjeon hadn't done any of that.)
But that had been back when Myeongjeon was in high school.
It was 2023 now, an era vastly different from that one.
Therefore, regardless of how he felt about it, Myeongjeon decided to settle Ha Suyeon’s past.
‘Will this girl help me?’
Myeongjeon anxiously clenched his hand. The memories of ‘Ha Suyeon’ were growing fainter, and… if he couldn't gain this girl's cooperation, cleaning up the past would be extremely difficult.
But in the memories of ‘Ha Suyeon’ that he'd dug through for the first time in a while, there were traces that even this girl had been bullied by the old Suyeon without realizing it.
‘What kind of mind did this girl live with? I really can't understand her.’
Dain’s answer brought Myeongjeon out of his thoughts.
“Okay.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll help.”
“…Thank you!”
Myeongjeon let out a sigh of relief.
He didn't know how much help she'd actually be, but it was better than having nothing. Even if she only told him about the incidents Ha Suyeon had caused, that would be a huge help when it came time to apologize.
“But, Suyeon. If you’re going to apologize, how are you planning to do it?”
“I don't know…”
So that was another problem. Myeongjeon hadn't thought that far ahead. He'd simply thought, Can't I just go and apologize? It had seemed that simple.
But now that he thought about it, things probably wouldn't be so easy. If it were that easy, why would celebrities take time off or retire over school-violence scandals? They could just apologize and be done with it.
But Dain seemed to have a somewhat different opinion.
“I think apologizing to your friends and underclassmen won't be a big problem.”
“Why?”
“It wasn't that serious. You did bully some kids, but you never singled out one particular target and tormented them until they didn't want to come to school.”
As far as Dain remembered, Suyeon had caused a great many incidents… but among the things she'd done to underclassmen and classmates, there were only a few that left behind evidence or witnesses. Suyeon had been a very crafty girl, so she generally avoided doing anything that would leave either.
The examples that came to mind were going over to intimidate people and tell them not to act up, telling them to keep their eyes down if they wanted to have an easy time at school, and teasing weaker-looking kids by their nicknames. That was about it—actions that would certainly become a problem if someone chose to make an issue of them.
But Dain thought that if Suyeon honestly said, ‘I don't properly remember what happened before, but I think I did something wrong, so I want to apologize,’ it was something they could somehow smooth over.
Because Suyeon’s reputation had changed so dramatically.
The old Suyeon wouldn't even speak to students low in the school hierarchy. Whatever she did, she went around with contempt and mockery as her default attitude.
But these days… she greeted her classmates as a matter of course. She asked how they were doing, brought snacks to share with them, and even bought and handed out gifts during the end-of-term ceremony. A lot of the students responded positively to that.
From that perspective, Dain thought the problems with the other kids might surprisingly pass without much trouble.
“Of course, you’ll have to buy them gifts as a gesture of apology, or provide some kind of compensation no matter what. But that isn't the big problem. The other thing is.”
“The other thing?”
At Suyeon’s question, Dain recalled the incident from a year ago that had made Suyeon’s name notorious throughout Jongno.
“You don't remember? Last year, at that drinking gathering with the seniors, you slapped a second-year high school girl in the face and got into a huge fight. The two of you were grabbing each other by the hair and going at it… I wasn't there, so I don't know the details, but I heard you even knocked that senior unconscious by beating her up. That’s what they said.
So that girl was so humiliated that she dropped out, and apparently she’s doing something weird these days. That’s probably the biggest problem, isn’t it? You were in your third year of middle school, but you drank, smoked, got boys involved, and even fought with an upperclassman. On top of that, I heard that senior is sharpening her knife these days, trying to get back at you somehow.”