.

Only the strange silence remained where the Four Heavenly Kings and Ban Yeo Ryung swept away like a storm. Feeling lonely, I stared at the empty living room, which never seemed crowded with any noise before. Then I plugged the USB into the side of the TV to play the video again.

I buried myself deep into the couch and stared at the screen with no movement. It was a way to engrave their smiles profoundly within my mind—only the noise I made while breathing permeated silently on the lonesome air.

My eyes then stopped at a scene I missed because of Yoo Chun Young.

“Can I square you~ Can we begin our love~.”

The Yoo Chun Young inside the screen stopped the movement of his pencil. He then sunk his head on his chest. From his gently shaking shoulders, I could tell that he was obviously suppressing a laugh. As if he couldn’t sustain the feelings he had been keeping bottled up within himself by just hanging his head down, Yoo Chun Young then covered his mouth and nose with his hand.

His smiling eyes were on the workbook for a while, and then he raised his head. His gaze was at my back. I thought he would be soon focusing on studying again; however, I was wrong.

As the long pause continued, the Yoo Chun Young inside the screen didn’t take his eyes off of me for quite a while. His smiling eyes seemed to twinkle with an unknown emotion. His lips that revealed through his long, white fingers collapsed softly.

Yoo Chun Young was sitting there with a face that I never saw before. Resting his chin on his hand, he was staring at my back.

“…”

‘Oh, so Yoo Chun Young has that kind of face when no one’s watching him,’ I thought. That face was what he tried to hide away from me. I felt a little strange.

“Are you an idiot? Are you blind? Does he care about you? Of course, he does so much! The cold bastard becomes so soft and gentle, but how come you don’t get it?”

‘He becomes soft and gentle,’ I repeated Eun Jiho’s remark within my head. I put my arms around my knees then fell into thought. My head went blank when Yoo Chun Young stared at me with those gentle eyes.

‘Maybe there’s no other meaning behind it other than just him caring about me,’ I thought while gazing at my knees. Yoo Chun Young and Yi Ruda were spinning inside my head.

It was a ludicrous, delightful, and again, lonely day. I raised my hand to grab my head. When I first fell into this world, it was outlandish, but now, I am pleased. Then I get afraid if they will eventually leave me in this solitary space again in my lonesome. This situation, therefore, seemed like seeing my last glimpse of them, which made me dizzied with an accompanying pang of pain.

Article 12. They Say It’s a Confession Trip Than a Retreat? (Part 1)

I dreamt again. While holding each other’s hands, Yi Ruda and Yoo Chun Young were spinning round and round inside a bright church where light endlessly poured. Having this dream over and over, I could notice that it was a dream just by seeing Yoo Chun Young and Yi Ruda appearing before my eyes. It felt too real like I had just reached the level of a lucid dream.

Sitting at the very front of the guest seat, I crossed my legs and watched their wedding apathetically. When I looked at the sky, a pair of white pigeons flew round and round as if they were blessing them.

From my longtime experience, I knew that Yi Ruda and Yoo Chun Young wouldn’t stop their dance unless I woke up from this dream. Instead of wasting my mind while looking at them, it seemed better to continue my concerns about the real world.

The midterm was over, and Ban Yeo Ryung won her fame again by being the top of the entire school with her excellent scores. Eun Jiho took second place, and Eun Hyung was the third. What surprised me was that Kim Hye Woo took the fourth-highest score, and Kim Hye Hill nabbed the fifth.

Ever since middle school, Woo Jooin had a weird hobby of mismarking the answers in a test, so he ranked about the 50th in the whole school this time as well. My rank was like that of Jooin, which prompted me to cease thinking about it.

Anyway, we could grasp a thing from these facts. It was that the highest to the fifth-highest scorers were all the Four Heavenly Kings.

‘Should I quit studying?’ I thought while looking at the sky. I could convince that I studied 50 times harder than Ban Yeo Ryung; however, why is this world giving me such an unfair ordeal? I looked in front of my eyes then.

Yoo Chun Young and Yi Ruda, who went through the wedding ceremony for, at least, 50 times inside my dream, was still spinning round and round with delighted expressions. ‘Gosh,’ I closed my lips firmly from feeling sick.

Yoo Chun Young and Yi Ruda getting married was also a rule this world had enacted so that it wouldn’t change. The chance of Yoo Chun Young and Yi Ruda not tying the knot would be the same as the chance of myself replacing Ban Yeo Ryung’s top student status of the school.

‘Okay, I got it,’ I lifted my hand to scratch my head. Honestly, the fact wasn’t that shocking since I imagined things when I was in middle school, as written below.

Eun Jiho: Ban Yeo Ryung… be my wife. Live with me until we turn 100.

Ban Yeo Ryung: Ok.

Kwon Eun Hyung: Yeo Ryung, then… when you turn 101, would you come to me?

Yoo Chun Young: Ban Yeo Ryung, who are you to keep glimmering in my eyes, so bothersome…

Woo Jooin: Aww… Yeo Ryung, I like you. Would you be my girlfriend? I’d be good for you, would you?

Ham Donnie: Can someone come to me?

However, for some unknown reasons, not only the entire Four Heavenly Kings, but Eun Jiho also didn’t show any signs of confessing his love to Ban Yeo Ryung until the end of our senior year. During the second semester of our senior year, Eun Jiho even committed an act of brutality by seeing many girlfriends. As far as I recollected, Eun Jiho, around that time, made new girlfriends every two months. For some reason, he dated a girl for a month then had a month break. He repeated that process for about four times.

‘Why is no one confessing their love to Ban Yeo Ryung?’ I wondered, but as I saw her face, I thought, ‘No, it can’t be. It’s impossible that she isn’t the female protagonist. If she isn’t the main role, someone else more marvelous may exist, but how can that happen? Ban Yeo Ryung is even beyond the level of an ordinary human being from the very beginning. If someone exceeded her, then wouldn’t that person be a 3rd species? Or a neoanthropinae?’

According to this reason, I believed Ban Yeo Ryung was the female protagonist so far.

I, however, tweaked my thought a little because the female crossdresser Yi Ruda, who would undeniably take the role of a protagonist in other novels, appeared.

In this regard, I imagined the further situation that could take place soon.

Eun Jiho: Ban Yeo Ryung, I like you.

Ban Yeo Ryung: I like you too.

Yoo Chun Young: Hold on, Ban Yeo Ryung, I also…

Yi Ruda: Yoo Chun Young, I hate you!

Yoo Chun Young: I hated you too… but now I like you.

Yi Ruda: I do too.

‘Indeed, a web novel should be like this,’ I nodded; however, this world could shock me more than I had initially thought. Otherwise, I would have figured out earlier why Yoo Chun Young and Yi Ruda was getting married over 50 times within my dreams. ‘Oh, I really want to wake up from this dream already. Let’s get up! Please!’

It was then when Yi Ruda suddenly took Yoo Chun Young’s hand away from her. She then ran toward me while waving her gold blond hair and a long white dress. She then slowly opened her mouth.

“Donnie! Wake up!”

“We are going to a retreat.”

At the very next moment, I rose out of the water as if I was caught in the net. My consciousness grew colder and clearer.

When I opened my eyes, Yi Ruda’s face was a few inches away from my ears. Although she was a girl, our distance was so close that it was enough to perplex me. The reason her voice seemed outstandingly loud was probably that she spoke close to my eyes.

As I barely nodded while moving my stiff neck, she removed her face above me so I could get up. I lifted my upper body to look around then had a puzzled face.