TSESHR 05

Chapter : 05

“What were you even doing all day? Every teacher who came into our class today had something to say. I was so embarrassed I wanted to disappear!”

Into a mouse hole!

Our homeroom teacher stomped her foot as she pointed at the empty floor.

She was furious, but I just blanked out.

Her face looked exactly the same as ten years ago when I last saw her after graduation.

A rookie homeroom teacher fresh out of college, who came to our school this year and immediately got assigned a class.

She wasn’t even ten years older than us, still full of mistakes.

Whenever we asked, ‘Teacher, aren’t you going home?’ she’d slump her shoulders and moan, ‘The vice principal told me to finish this before leaving…….’
We’d seen that more than once.

She didn’t even know half as much as we did about how the school operated—we’d already spent a year here—so some of the boys openly ignored her.

But even that kind of teacher looked like a real adult to me, back then.

Now that I’m seeing her again—she’s a total baby. A baby!

Teacher, do you go home after work and cook instant spicy noodles and binge Infinite Challenge reruns too?

Anyway, right now she’s a furious, fully fled adult woman seven years older than me, grabbing me and Jung Eun-seong by the collars as all the kids scatter for lunch.

“What was that today? Did you plan it together? Trying to get me in trouble?”

She roared.

“All the teachers yelled at ME!”

“Teacher, that’s not it. It was Jung Eun-seong…!”

I swear I didn’t want this to happen!

I’m twenty-nine years old and spent the whole day raising my hand like a kid whining for the teacher!

One of the teachers I begged to scold Eun-seong is actually younger than I am.

What is my life!

“He started it!”

“Nope. I only tried to help the music teacher.”

“Both of you, enough. If you do it again, you’ll stay behind together and clean.”

“Ooh, Kang Da-hye, so lucky.”

“Teacher, I wanna stay after school with Eun-seong too!”

The kid who butted in shrank away when the teacher shot him a death glare.

“Please go easy on me, okay? Our class already has the most tardy kids in the grade and the head teacher is watching us. If you keep this up, I’m the one who gets chewed out.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry.”

“Sorry.”

“Alright, go eat. It’s stir-fried octopus today.”

She warned us that if we went late there wouldn’t be enough sauce to mix with our rice, then skipped off muttering, “They better have seaweed flakes too,” full of hope.

…So much for my plan to live like a model student.
Ruined on day one.

I glared at Jung Eun-seong.

He sensed it and glanced down at me.

“What are you staring at?”

“……”

Ignore him.

Food first. If we’re late, there won’t be octopus sauce left.

I pushed open the classroom door. Everyone else had already poured out.

The friend I used to eat lunch with at this time was…

“Da-hye!”

My friend, who’d been blocked outside the classroom by <No Students From Other Classes Allowed!!!!>, waved at me with a bright grin.

“Han Ji-su!”

I ran and threw my arms around her.

“Ji-su! Wahhh!”

“Uh…? What’s wrong?”

“Wahhh… You’re really Ji-su…”

She’s real. My friend Han Ji-su.

Tears welled up just like they had this morning when I saw my mom young again.

“Sobbb…”

I clung tighter.

Han Ji-su.

My friend I hadn’t seen in ten years.

The closest friend I had in my twenty-nine years.

Same class all three years of middle school, and even in first year of high school.

We stayed friends for six straight years, then I screwed up my college entrance exam and everything ended.

To be exact—I cut her off.

Inferiority.

I failed the CSAT, and Ji-su scored normally and got into Korea University.
Into the major I wanted.

Even after that, she kept texting me regularly, but when I ignored her long enough, a year later the contact stopped from both sides.

Whenever life got hard, I thought of her, but I couldn’t make myself reach out.

I was too ashamed.

And my life wasn’t going well enough to act like nothing happened.

I regretted cutting her off so many times.

So how could I not be thrilled, seeing her again?

Her face right in front of me.

“Heeing…”

“What happened? Did the homeroom teacher yell at you?”

“Ji-su, I’m going down first.”

Seo Jae-gyum, who’d been with Ji-su until I showed up, glanced between me and Jung Eun-seong walking out behind me, then waved.

“Enjoy your lunch.”

“You too.”

He glanced at me once before turning away, but I only had eyes for Ji-su.

Who cares about Seo Jae-gyum? HAN JI-SU is right here.

“You’re sure nothing’s wrong?”

“Yeah. I’m just hungry.”

“What the heck. Let’s go then.”

“Yup.”

“Blow your nose first.”

“Do I look ugly?”

“Yeah. Totally.”

“Hwiiiing.”

I ducked into the bathroom to wipe my face with toilet paper while Ji-su giggled.

Then I looped my arm through hers—she didn’t complain even though I was wasting precious lunchtime.

My friend.

“I actually went to your class this morning.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But you weren’t there.”

“Oh, that must’ve been when I went to the snack shop.”

“Guess so.”

“Why? Did you wanna say something?”

“Not really. I just… wanted to see you.”

“Why are you talking like that all of a sudden? You’re freaking me out……”

“Hehe. I’ll be really good to you from now on, okay?”

Regression is amazing.

I can see my friend again.

This time I’ll never cut her off. We’ll stay friends forever.

Dear GodBuddhaAncestorsWhoever.

Thanks for sending me back. I’ll be good.

I stuffed the used tissue into Ji-su’s pocket as a joke, and suddenly Jung Eun-seong appeared behind us and walked past.

Even from the back of his head you could tell he was good-looking.
Ji-su whispered,

“That’s Jung Eun-seong?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you two close?”

“No?!!”

How could she say something THAT offensive?!

“He’s a total weirdo!”

“Really? I kinda thought you guys looked close earlier.”

“We were telling each other to get lost.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. We do NOT ‘talk.’ Because he has the worst vibe.”

“But how can someone who looks like that have bad vibes.”

“Right? And yet somehow he manages.”

“Haha, why? What’s he like?”

“I’ll explain while we eat.”

Because I’m starving.

Thanks to being scolded, we didn’t have to stand in line.

I tagged my student ID and read the menu board:

-Brown rice
-Beef radish soup
-Stir-fried octopus * pickled radish slices
-Mung bean jelly salad
-Kimchi
-Red bean butter walnut cake

“Red bean butter walnut cake?!”

Are they insane?!

“That’s gonna be so good.”

Is life allowed to be this satisfying?

I practically skipped as I got my tray.

Instead of seaweed flakes, the topping was chives.
No one else wanted them, so there was a mountain left.
I piled all the extras onto my tray.

“You’ve always liked chives?”

“Probably not as a kid… but I like them now. They’re good for your liver.”

“Your… liver?”

“Mhm. And after we eat, let’s walk a lap around the field. Gotta manage our blood sugar.”

“Whaaat…?”

“You don’t get it yet. But health needs to be taken care of early.”

And YOU should eat chives too.
I dumped a mountain onto Ji-su’s tray and turned.

The cafeteria was packed, but strangely quiet…

“…What’s with the mood?”

So many people, yet weirdly silent.

A hush—muffled giggling, people watching without looking.

I searched around, puzzled—and found the source.

At the center table, an eight-seater, a short-haired girl was eating alone.

Every other table was crammed, yet that one was empty except for her.

Everyone pretended not to see her, but their awareness was laser-focused on her.

The kids at the table next to hers snickered.

A voice, loud on purpose, hit my ears.

“Wow. How can someone eat alone?”

“If that were me, I wouldn’t eat. I’d just starve.”

“I’d drop out.”

“I mean you gotta have a thick face like that to hook up with the geography teach—.”

“Oh please, it wasn’t just geography! She did it with the history teacher too. Don’t bring up geography or Do-yeon gets all salty.”

Trashy gossip dripping everywhere—aimed straight at the girl—yet she kept eating, back straight, alone.

Ah…

How did I forget about this.