.
I didn’t know why but Yoo Chun Young and Yi Ruda suddenly grabbed my hand. Yoo Chun Young then asked me with a serious look.
“What are you thinking about right now?”
“It’s not what you think, for real!”
“Okay, okay… I understand it’s not what I think. I just dwelled on something else.”
My words brightened Yi Ruda’s face at last.
She repeatedly asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, nothing’s going on between you guys.”
‘Not yet… because these guys were at a shifting stage, from quarreling to budding, strange chemistry,’ I thought with a nod.
Yi Ruda fetched a sigh then perched on the bed again. Beside him sat Yoo Chun Young, who crossed his arms for the whole time.
He asked me, “Did you meet Kwon Eun Hyung outside?”
“Yeah, Eun Hyung told me to go with you today. Are the kids going somewhere?”
“…”
“I got a message from Ban Yeo Ryung, and it’s kind of weird.”
I took out my phone from the pocket. At that moment, Yoo Chun Young suddenly stretched out his hand and grabbed my shoulder.
‘What the…’ When I blinked my eyes in surprise, Yoo Chun Young turned his head to Yi Ruda and spoke in his usual dry and flat tone.
“Hey.”
“Why?”
Taking a few band-aids from the desk, Yi Ruda turned to look at this side. Her bright blond hair dazzled my eyes. Yoo Chun Young, however, said in a calm voice that did not contain any agitated feelings.
“Leave the room. We have something to talk about.”
“Hmm, really?”
Yi Ruda’s blue eyes, that were wandering around Yoo Chun Young’s face, soon directed at me. It was somehow an odd glance that looked soft but blade-like sharp at the same time.
The moment I felt his gaze continued quite longer, she then took off her eyes from me and lifted her head. She stared at Yoo Chun Young and spoke.
“Think about who was the most desperate.”
“…”
Yoo Chun Young’s face turned serious, whereas Yi Ruda looked much more lighthearted than before. She raised her hand to tap his shoulder before leaving the room. I repeated Yi Ruda’s remark inside my head and stared at Yoo Chun Young’s profile face.
‘Did you… already become so desperate about Yi Ruda? Although it’s fate, aren’t you guys moving too fast?’
As if he noticed my gaze, Yoo Chun Young faced me in a flash then asked me, “What?”
“No,” I responded shortly while turning my head.
Perching on the bed, Yoo Chun Young stared at me while sitting on a chair across from him.
We remained silent for a while. ‘Hmm…’ I dropped my gaze on the floor. When I got to think about the current situation, I did something wrong anyway.
Didn’t Yoo Chun Young send me a threatening text of ‘dump truck’ when I hid the car accident that happened to me?
While I fixed my gaze at the floor out of embarrassment, Yoo Chun Young broke the ice.
“I believe in the words… ignorance is bliss.”
“What?”
“Sometimes, ignoring the truth becomes bliss, so… If it’s a problem that we can’t solve, then there’s no need to talk about it, but if we can, then tell it to us. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“…”
I clenched my fist tightly with no words. Chun Young and the other kids, who tried to share my concerns, were truly thankful. As much as I liked and cared about them, I didn’t want to bother them at the same time. That was why I couldn’t tell them the truth.
While I put a faint smile with a short sigh, Yoo Chun Young’s voice came over from across. Instead of talking to me, it sounded like he was murmuring to himself.
“Why was it supposed to be us?”
I raised my head in surprise. The gloomy energy that accompanied his voice was something out of the common. I never heard such a voice like that from him.
Yoo Chun Young heaved a sigh then lifted his eyes to see me. He didn’t look angry at all. It wasn’t that tearful, but he just looked at me with a melancholic face.
“Have you ever wondered why the people who vanish away from this world… is no one else but us?”
“…”
“Why is it so hard for us to live normally in this world? Why should it be us?”
As soon as he finished his speech, Yoo Chun Young slowly sighed. His blue eyes that were under his long lashes cooled off as low as it could get. I opened my mouth but closed it again.
The reason those who vanish away from this world was no one else but these guys, the Four Heavenly Kings and Ban Yeo Ryung… I knew why.
Because they were all characters inside a novel, those who shouldn’t exist in my reality; however, I couldn’t confess this to them. The moment I shut my mouth tightly, Yoo Chun Young continued his words.
“They say ignorance is bliss, so I just said that because I’m feeling stuffy.”
“…”
“Why is everything so difficult for us?”
When Yoo Chun Young smiled after that, I could hardly smile back.
* * *
As Yi Ruda and Ham Donnie left the space one after another, the whole nurse’s office submerged into dark silence. Yoo Chun Young, whom they left alone, sat on the bed and fell into thought then he took out the phone from his pocket.
He opened the flip phone and checked his inbox. There he saw the texts he shared with Woo Jooin in the middle of the night a few days ago.
Sent by: Woo Jooin
When Yeo Ryung disappeared, mama said she checked her phone. Nothing was changed. Yeo Ryung’s name was there, so was her phone number, but why did Donnie try to call us immediately for a confirmation? She never said she did that to others.
Sent by: Woo Jooin
Because we are the closest around? When she said that Yeo Ryung slept in Donnie’s living room, it means her parents weren’t at home. Instead of calling her parents, why did Donnie think about us and make a call? It’s strange.
Sent by: Woo Jooin
Mama knows something, a common ground that ties Ban Yeo Ryung and us.
Yoo Chun Young dropped his gaze at the floor for quite a while. He heaved a sigh and closed the phone with a slam. He then put it back into his pocket.
Ignorance is bliss… Chun Young knew what it meant from his experience; however, he couldn’t bear the anxiety inside him.
‘I failed to find out the answer from Ham Donnie, eventually…’ Yoo Chun Young murmured with his eyes dropped to the floor. He didn’t expect her to respond easily. Another sigh burst out through his lips.
The truth that Ham Donnie was hiding… maybe everything existed behind that. The reason the world changed and why they were vanishing away… The answers might be hiding inside the truth that Donnie tried to conceal.
Yoo Chun Young swept back his blue-black hair with a short sigh. He only hoped for just one thing. That the world would remain as it is, with no changes and no disappearances. This was all he wished for now.
Article 10. That Person Is Perhaps… the Legendary Number 0?
Sun Jin High School was famous for its large schoolyard and the empty lot, larger than the schoolyard, behind it. Surprisingly, this school had a large vacant lot covered with gray concrete, way bigger than the artificially turfed schoolyard. High walls, which were useful to have in a group fight, surrounded the lot.
When people asked the students for the reason why the empty lot existed, a few kids replied, “Well, maybe the board president made it for them to have a group fight?” asserting the board president as a devotee of group fights. Other kids addressed, “The school doesn’t have specific plans. They might have just bought the property and built the buildings roughly,” claiming that the founder had no idea.
For whatever reason it was, Sun Jin High School’s empty lot achieved fame for a group fight-attraction. Those who walked across the lot, with heroic looks on their faces as the dusk deepened, were indeed the ones getting ready for a fight.
Three shadows stretched long over the burning sun. It was Woo San, who was walking in the middle with a naughty face, and his right-hand man and left hand-man, Hwang Hae and Suh Jin Woon.
The kids leaving the school glanced at them in fear and admiration. Woo San was, however, absorbed in his phone call. To be precise, he was sending a lovely gaze at the phone he was speaking over. As the call kept on, Hwang Hae and Suh Jin Woon’s faces showed a sign of annoyance.
“Yeah, Jooin. Don’t worry. Bro is with you and will handle everything for ya~”
As soon as he put a silly accent at the end of the sentence, he received some reactions from both sides.
Hwang Hae said while covering his mouth, “Yuck, sh*t!”
“Eww!” Suh Jin Woon retched in disgust. Both looked pale, which made them think they could die before the fight by consuming their strengths from having the dry heaves. It turned out that it was not so different in real life.
