.
Even though people were involved in the same event, individual memories could vary such as the survivors of a terrorist attack testifying their experiences differently. Not only did it happen in big incidents but also in everyday events.
It could be a matter of perspective or simply the difference between having good memories or not, or… the problem could come from what had happened before and after the event.
Watching Yeo Ryung’s smiling face, I dropped my gaze at the floor with mixed feelings. I was confused. Putting aside the fact that a memory that couldn’t exist in my brain suddenly came to my mind, the emotion I had at that moment was so obvious and alive to consider it as false.
In other words, the memory felt so real as if I really went through it in the past.
While I was bewildered at the ironic situation taking place in my head, Yeo Ryung brought up another story of our childhood.
“There’s also something else. Maybe it happened when we were in sixth grade. There was a kid, loudest and tallest in our class, whom I was a little scared of. She always picked a fight with me such as I wasn’t doing my weekly duties properly or not cleaning the classroom after school. Whenever she did to me, you were there to help…”
Ban Yeo Ryung paused and put her hands down to clasp her fingers. She continued, “One day, we took a test. As soon as it was over, she came to me and asked a few questions. What did I respond to this and that… Then she suddenly told me I was wrong while bringing her workbook and showing it to me.”
I paid attention to her story with a stiff look on my face.
“So, I thanked her for telling me what I had done wrong. She said she got all the questions right, then stepped out in the hallway, yelling, ‘I won Ban Yeo Ryung!’ That moment, you grabbed my wrist and…”
Until just now, I thought the weird memory that popped into my head after listening to the class performance thing was perhaps just my misunderstanding or a matter of coincidence. However, soon as I heard about this new story, my vision began to get blurry again, and a vivid illusion appeared in front of my sight.
The exam was all over. The classroom was soon filled with noise. Some kids dashed outside to the hallway while some grabbed the smart kids in the class to ask a few things. One of them was Ban Yeo Ryung, still the brain in our high school and even in nationwide tests. So, it was inevitable for her to be also surrounded by other kids back then, asking questions and answers about the test.
A bunch of students and even kids from other classes grabbed little Yeo Ryung, showering things they wondered, but she calmly responded to them with no hesitation, which preoccupied me with doubts.
Hmm, was it also an illusion that my brain had created while putting Ban Yeo Ryung in between a familiar situation?
Then someone came into my view. A tall girl came up to Ban Yeo Ryung and asked a few questions. Shortly after, she took out a book from her desk, opened it up, and began to explain something. Ban Yeo Ryung nodded meekly without showing a sign of bewilderment on her face.
The girl then walked past me with a delighted expression. I had no idea whether she tapped me on the shoulder on purpose or not on her way out to the hallway. That was when I heard her screaming outside–
‘I won Ban Yeo Ryung! I won!’
Little Donnie rubbed her shoulders for a second, glancing around, then went outside to the hallway. I approached her and grabbed her wrist.
‘Hey, let’s talk for a sec.’
The girl looked at me in displeasure and asked, ‘Why?’
Anyway, that reminded me of our relationship–not close enough to spare time to talk for nothing.
I pointed at the front pocket on her hoodie then uttered, ‘Hey, take out the paper in your pocket.’
All eyes were now turned to us. The hallway was full of kids, walking around after the test, but the girl had shouted just now to boast off her test score, higher than Ban Yeo Ryung’s, so we were receiving more attention.
The whispers quickly spread through the crowds like fire. Amid the situation, the girl took off her hand from mine in perplexity.
She stammered, ‘… What… are you… talking… about…?’
‘During the exam, I saw you taking the paper in and out from your front pocket.’
My cold voice continued, ‘So, take it out and show us what’s written there. As long as it has nothing to do with the test, you’re fine, isn’t it?’
‘… That’s… bullsh*t…!’ shouted the girl, then she turned around out of the blue and tried to run away to the bathroom.
Clenching my teeth, I seized her on the hoodie. A few kids in front of her blocked her way out. When someone put their hand in her front pocket, the girl shrieked–
‘Ah, don’t! Stop! Why you trying to steal mine…?!’
‘You said you aren’t, didn’t you?’ asked the kids. They took her paper out and became astonished.
I also approached them and took a look at the paper while already expecting how this happening would end.
Most of the kids, trying to bring Ban Yeo Ryung down, were quite the same. They felt insulted that Ban Yeo Ryung was always being ahead of them without putting any effort into things. Thus, they couldn’t bear the fact until they could get over her.
On the piece of crumpled paper, there was a summarized note of the social studies exam that we just took such as the capitals of the three kingdoms period in Korean history, etc.
Heaving a small sigh, I grabbed her arm and pulled her somewhere.
The girl shrieked again, ‘Where are you bringing me?’
‘To the teacher’s office. You just cheated on the test, didn’t you?’
‘No! I just wrote it down while studying last night and forgot to take it out of my pocket before the exam. Can you prove that I’ve used it to cheat on the test?’
While the girl yelled with a reddened face, all I could do was just sigh, feeling dumbfounded. That was when a quiet, calm voice intervened in the situation.
‘Donnie, let’s stop here.’
‘What?’
‘I’m fine. Tests don’t matter to me you know.’
It was too ridiculous to hide my feelings on my face.
‘Come on, how can you be fine? Whether the test matters to you or not, this girl just cheated on the test since she can’t do better than you. And you know what she did in the hallway, shouting out loud that she won…’
‘I said, I didn’t cheat! Do you have any evidence?’
While I frowned at the girl shrieking to defend herself, Ban Yeo Ryung just shook her head from side to side and repeated that she was fine.
Ha, I sighed, then released her hand from my grip. Rubbing her arm, the girl grimaced at me.
Ban Yeo Ryung crossed her arms and pulled me into a secluded space. When we found that no one was around us, she leaned her cheek against my shoulder and whispered–
‘Her mother is close to my mom, and the lady’s also been very generous to me…’
‘Hey, what does that have to do with this?’
‘Her mother is gonna feel upset,’ replied Ban Yeo Ryung, close to a sigh.
As she looked up at me with sad eyes like those of a dog, I couldn’t do anything else but just gently disheveling her hair to stop arguing with her.
Then I returned to reality again. Ban Yeo Ryung was sighing in front of my sight.
She spoke in a slightly dark face, “That was probably during our final in sixth grade, so it’s about a month or two before our fight.”
Rubbing her hands, Ban Yeo Ryung closed her mouth hesitatingly for a moment. Shortly after, she uttered, “At that time, I never even imagined that we would have that much of a big fight.”
As she talked that way, I, again, so the illusion of a memory that just appeared in my mind.
The next day, all our test scores came out, and, of course, Ban Yeo Ryung was the best student in our class. When the teacher announced that she had achieved a perfect score on the exam, everyone applauded her. However, Yeo Ryung just looked composed and nonchalant, as usual.
I could hear the tall girl saying something about Yeo Ryung.
‘Bummer, I thought I could really have better scores than her this time…’
The girl behaved childishly. It was a familiar sight since I had seen many kids being jealous of Yeo Ryung just like her.
What they did was something like this–acting confidently, instead, to stop people’s doubt and make them think, ‘Did she really did it to act so self-assured?’
