Published at 4th of June 2021 3:01 am

Chapter 545

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They say everything is made up of light and shadow. In Ban Yeo Ryung’s memories, there would exist some moments of her being saved by me quite gloriously, but most of those would have stories behind them-too dark and painful for someone to even look at.

Being at a loss for words, I pounded my chest with my fist. That was when Ban Yeo Ryung opened her mouth again.

“It was about a month or two after that day that we fought. Probably in early February, when the admission letters of the middle school we had applied were delivered to us at the same time…”

Now we were getting to the point.

Maybe because it happened just a month before the time when ‘I’ in this world and the ‘actual me’ from the original world changed, I felt somehow close to that Donnie who originally belonged to this world. That’s why I became more nervous and tense.

“I guess there would have existed a sign of it,” uttered Ban Yeo Ryung in a subdued voice.

Tilting my head, I asked, “A sign?”

“Actually, I’ve thought about it since then… for years… but I still don’t get it. Since when did things begin to get distorted…? In fact, I’m not even sure what’s going wrong…”

Ban Yeo Ryung closed her eyes tightly. Her lashes trembled as if she was feeling pain.

“I get the end but not the beginning.”

“It’s fine. Just tell me anything that comes to your mind. Still, I have no idea about them, you know.” I added composedly, “And… you’re the only one who can tell me about those things. I’m gonna trust whatever you say.”

After I responded that way, Ban Yeo Ryung flickered her eyes, looking better, then slowly breathed in.

She carefully continued, “Well… I started to feel strange on the day before our graduation.”

“The day before graduation?”

“Uh-huh. There was a sign before that… like you showed this look to me in the classroom that you didn’t seem to get along with me anymore. Sometimes, you frowned when I came up to you. Perhaps, it wasn’t your intention to giving me the eye. Instead, you seemed to care how others were behaving…”

I quietly listened to her story, almost holding my breath.

“… Around that time, we’re willing to go to the same middle school together, and you’re nervous about your GPAs. That’s why I just tried to ignore you acting kind of strange to me, thinking that you’re just being sensitive. Above all, you came next to me after school, as usual, even though you behaved like someone else during the class. And that’s why I didn’t think too deeply about the situation.”

“…”

“Then one day… geez, but I still don’t get it. Though it was the day before our graduation, nothing was special, you know. All we did was just writing some yearbook messages…”

Giving a pause, Ban Yeo Ryung suddenly furrowed her brows. That was where I found a clue.

‘Writing some yearbook messages.’

To her, it wouldn’t be anything particular. However, as a person having a conflict with a kid in our class, it was a different story to me.

I asked her urgently, “Did you see my yearbook messages?”

She shook her head, replying, “No. You didn’t let me see it while pulling it tightly into your arms. Then you told me to hand mine over to you, so I did it right away, and…”

“Uh-huh,” I nodded.

Touching her chin with her finger, Ban Yeo Ryung was then lost in thought. After a moment, she opened her mouth again.

“And shortly after, the kids suggested to take a class picture, so we gathered around the teacher’s table, but one kid tried to pull my arm and bring me to the middle. She told me that I should be at the center because I’m pretty. Ah, it was her, the girl who had some issues with cheating on the test…”

“Oh…” I blurted out, almost like a sigh.

“I grabbed your arm since I didn’t want to stand in the middle…”

It seemed to be calm for a while, but the memories that didn’t belong to me flooded into my sight.

A few balloons that seemed to have been used during the graduation ceremony were hung on the blackboard, and some rolling around the floor. Empty coke bottles and pizza boxes were piled up in the corner of the classroom.

The moment when Ban Yeo Ryung with a bewildered look grabbed my arm tightly as if she was holding a rescue line, I almost shrieked in which I couldn’t even control.

‘If you have something to say, just do it yourself!’

‘… D… Donnie…’

‘I… I… am not your spokesperson, Ban Yeo Ryung…!’

“… That’s what you exactly said to me.”

What Ban Yeo Ryung just uttered and the words I blurted out to her in the past overlapped at the same time.

Even though the Donnie in that memory and myself right now were completely different people, plus I was also quite younger than now, the words I said to her at the time were sincerely unbelievable.

Those words left some weird lingering emotions, which soon prevailed in the entire living room. The space was then enveloped by a deafening silence.

Ban Yeo Ryung finally broke the ice, hesitatingly.

“That day, we returned home without saying anything. Honestly, I pulled an all-nighter, worrying if you don’t talk to me anymore, but you…”

Speaking to that extent, Ban Yeo Ryung paused, then suddenly stared at me with her eyes trying to suppress tears.

“… You… treated me so nicely, instead. And that’s why I forgot to ask you why, or perhaps, I was afraid to bring up the topic. Yeah, I might have feared screwing up the moment. Anyway, we took the admission exam for our middle school and stayed well until we received the results.”

Heaving a short sigh, she continued, “Not long after we took the admission exam, both our families had dinner at my house. We met quite often during the breaks, and around that time, we hung out more frequently than now. We had dinner together almost every day.”

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying,” I nodded.

Since our families also gathered on the day before our high school entrance ceremony and enjoyed grilling, things would have been the same at the time too. The scene seemed to appear in my mind.

Yeo Ryung’s voice turned deep as if she was tracing back the memories.

“During the dinner, our conversations covered much ground, as usual; neighborhood news, parents’ and their jobs, and our middle school admission. Of course, that was a topic since both of us took the exam and were waiting for the results.”

Ban Yeo Ryung’s face turned dark again.

“You looked grim all of a sudden probably when your parents began to guess whether you’d get into the school or not. They were saying something like, ‘Donnie can be rejected, but we understand that.’ Whenever they talked that way, you got annoyed, retorting, ‘Why are you so offensive?’ or ‘I don’t even look forward to getting in.’ That’s how it went that evening.”

I sighed deeply. Our parents still had some problems talking that way to me from time to time. Thus, those words could be sincerely unbearable to me in the past.

At the time when we weren’t assured of ourselves–our strengths, abilities, and achievements–those comments from the closest people could break our hearts.

Besides, I was too young back then, so even such trivial failures like singing out of tune during a class performance or stumbling down from a vaulting horse could become the gravest blunder in my life.

After a moment, Ban Yeo Ryung kept on speaking, “I guess I was very concerned at that time if we don’t get to go to the same school. As I mentioned earlier, I was a pathetic kid who couldn’t say anything without you. I mean, I did think about fixing my personality because of what happened on the day before our graduation, but I was doubtful whether I could actually do it or not. Amid the situation, it scared me to think about you and me splitting in middle school…”

I was then able to connect the dots on how the situation unfolded when Ban Yeo Ryung talked about the next part.

“I grabbed your sleeves and asked, ‘If you don’t go to the same school, should I not go there too?’ The look on your face then changed.”

Probably, I screamed at her. That’s what I thought. If the state of my mind was that much unstable to strike such a retort to Ban Yeo Ryung just because she pulled my arm, I would have definitely shouted at her in front of our parents during the dinner too.

However, it was quite different from what I’d had in my mind.

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