Mina’s voice perceptively brightened.
[Wow, you really made my day, Donnie. I can’t thank you enough. Let me buy you something at the cafeteria next time.]
Having my phone between my shoulder and ear, I leaned myself toward the desk and wrote down the gathering time and place in the notebook: at noon, in front of Twosome Place near Wangsimni station. Suddenly, I came up with some silly thought.
‘Twosome Place? A place to have something going on between the two?’
Hmm… if Eun Jiho or other kids were beside me, they would have sighed upon my bad joke. Shaking my head, I put my phone down and opened the closet.
“Oh, lord!”
I didn’t have any suitable outfits for this event since I preferred just comfy clothes and had no place to dress up and attend. Home, school, library, home, school, and library… that was my everyday routine. Thus, only casual outfits like hoodies or t-shirts took up my closet.
Well, since the other side, who was joining this group hangout, were also high school students, they wouldn’t dress up too fancily too. Still, there was something called a ‘manner.’
Pressing my temples for a while, I finally decided to call a savior for this kind of situation. Instead of texting a message, I just gave a call. Within a few beeping, a clear voice came through the phone.
[Hello?]
Ban Yeo Ryung, she was indeed the most thorough morning person whom I had ever known. With an exclamation, I asked, “Yeo Ryung, do you have any suitable outfits to go outside? Not hoodies, but um… at least like a blouse or something like that.”
[Yeah, my auntie gave me a few outfits recently. Come over to my house and check if they’re okay.]
“Oh, sounds cool. I’ll come over right away.”
Making an immediate response, I went straight to the shoe rack and wore my flip flops. Her question returned.
[But why all of a sudden? If you’re going to the library, wouldn’t some comfy clothes more suitable?]
“Oh, that’s because… you know I told you about the group hangout thing in Eun Jiho’s car a few days ago.”
[Uh-huh.]
“I happened to join that event.”
At that moment, Ban Yeo Ryung seemed to breathe hard then suddenly the call got disconnected. Eh?
“Hello? Hello??”
Saying that on the phone for about a few times, I decided to give up since she was living next door.
I knocked a few times on the familiar sky-blue iron door, but for some reason, there wasn’t any response, so I decided to just enter the password to get in. Yeo Ryung’s family was already aware that I knew their entrance password. Besides, all the Bans were morning people; therefore, they would have all waken up from bed now.
Once I entered the password numbers, the door got unlocked with a cheerful beep. That was when I tried to pull the doorknob. The door didn’t get open.
Eh? I pulled the doorknob again with a frown. ‘Strange, I heard the unlocking sound just now,’ having that thought in mind, I suddenly uttered, “Ban Yeo Ryung… are you there?”
“No!!”
I gasped at her immediate response. Feeling bewildered, I replied, “Hey, who answers back, ‘No,’ when you aren’t there?!”
“I don’t care! Anyway, there’s no such person like that in here!!”
What the heck was she talking about?! I shouted back, “Open the door!”
“Liar! You said you wouldn’t join the group blind date!!”
“What?!”
My jaw dropped onto the floor while thinking, ‘Is that why you aren’t opening the door right now?’
However, I couldn’t show up at the group hangout with hoodies or t-shirts on. That was too sorry for Mina!
Meanwhile, the door got locked up again. My mind started racing that I knocked on the door and said, “Come on, Yeo Ryung! I wasn’t trying to join that thing, but they say they need someone to replace the person who canceled to show up! I was too sorry to tell someone on the opposite side to just go back home, so that’s why I decided to join that event! Please, open this door!”
“Sob, sob… No, you betrayer!”
“Oh, come on… you don’t have to call me a betrayer!”
Her argument kept on for a while but came to an end once her parents intervened in this situation. Losing strength to even cope with her, I just panted in perplexity while leaning on the iron door. Suddenly, the door opened with a beep. Taking a few steps back with the open door, I raised my head.
“… What are you guys doing here?”
Ban Yeo Ryung’s parents, who got interrupted their peace during the weekend, showed a look of bewilderment on their faces.
* * *
“You guys are now freshmen in high school, so no more fights!”
Scolding us that way, Ban Yeo Ryung’s parents barely understood what happened between us as we strictly denied that we weren’t fighting at all.
Her mother heaved a sigh while folding her arms.
“I thought you guys were having a big fight like back in the days. Yeo Ryung was clinging to the door like a cicada and wasn’t trying to get off.”
“Oh, I see, but we weren’t fighting at all,” I replied while glancing at Yeo Ryung in amazement.
The door didn’t move at all, so I wondered if I put in the wrong password or if the unlocking sound was a hallucination. However, that happened purely from Ban Yeo Ryung’s mighty force, right? Anyway, she was as strong as Hercules.
Being filled with admiration, I looked at her facial expression. My eyes widened. Yeo Ryung was just looking down at the floor while biting her lips tight out of the blue.
Wondering what was going on with her, I soon realized something.
Her mother just said, ‘I thought you guys were having a big fight like back in the days.’
That was when I came up with the memory of Yeo Ryung’s attitude, the way she treated me when I first fell into this world as a freshman in middle school.
Only Yeo Dan oppa knew about the incident with Baek Yeo Min, which happened around that time, so if we had a big fight that both of our parents remembered, it would be probably during that period.
While I was lost in thought, Yeo Ryung’s mother, who left us at the spot and headed to the kitchen, brought us some juice.
“Oh, thank you.”
As I replied that way and her mother left the space, the awkward silence surrounded us again. Ban Yeo Ryung, in front of me, was scowling at the cup of orange juice with a swollen face. I carefully detached my lips.
“Um, hey…”
Yeo Ryung suddenly opened her mouth.
“Which school are you hanging out with?”
“Huh? Oh, um, Nam Gye High School.”
Before I tried to ask her why, Yeo Ryung, who was fixing her gaze at the cup of orange juice for quite a while, showed a determined look then got up from her seat.
“Before this orange juice cools down, I’ll go get rid of them.”
“Chill, Ban Yeo Ryung, and this is a cold juice.”
If she was born during the Three Kingdoms Period, she would have defeated Guan Yu.
Anyway, after a series of conversations, Ban Yeo Ryung opened up her closet while pretending to weep. As expected, her closet was full of clothes that her relatives had given her. However, Ban Yeo Ryung wore only a few from the pile of outfits.
Ransacking her wardrobe, I opened my mouth as something flashed through my mind.
“Where’s Yeo Dan oppa? I don’t see him today. He usually doesn’t go outside during the weekend and isn’t even studying at the library.”
My voice was buried through the wooden wardrobe. Looking at me with her arms crossed, Yeo Ryung replied unhappily, “Oppa? He went outside early in the morning to help his friends with studying.”
“Really? How come?”
When thinking about his grades or test scores, it wasn’t surprising at all that he was helping his friends with studying. What mattered was his personality, which was far from taking care of others, even his friends.
Well, even I wondered if he would help me with some academic things when I asked him for that stuff. Besides, Yeo Dan oppa became more relentless to those who were close to him.
Ban Yeo Ryung replied, “He said he lost a bet.”
“Oh, so that’s what happened.”
Nodding my head, I picked up a checked blouse and put it under my face. Turning around, I asked, “Yeo Ryung, how does this one look?”
“You look too pretty.”
“Nah, only you’re thinking that way.”
Anyway, I tried wearing about five clothes and drew a conclusion, ‘Hmm, Ban Yeo Ryung… you aren’t helpful at all when choosing what to wear.’
I, eventually, took a picture and attached it to the text message.
