.

“Just smashed me a few times. She told me that her heart almost fell off and never say such a joke like that… My heart was about to fall off.”

Eun Jiho ended his story there then shoved his face into the arms placed on the balustrade. As his silver hair swept down, he revealed his white neck under the moonlight. He was like that for a while.

Yoo Chun Young didn’t know what to say. He also had no idea why Eun Jiho opened this story up. It was then when Yoo Chun Young tried to figure out the reason while throwing his glance at the sea far apart.

“It would be tough.”

“What?”

Eun Jiho’s voice turned a little different from when he poured out his past in a lamentable tone. His deeper and darker voice made Yoo Chun Young turn his head to see him.

Eun Jiho was now looking at him. His face was as dark as ever with the moonlight giving him a vivid shade; however, he was still smiling.

“Having a crush on Ham Donnie. It’d be tough,” he said.

“What the…”

Yoo Chun Young tried to ask what the heck he was talking about, but as he saw Eun Jiho’s face, he closed his mouth. Just by looking at his dark face, Yoo Chun Young couldn’t fling a question like that.

Eun Jiho smirked, “Did you think we had no idea? Eun Hyung and Woo Jooin… they might have already noticed from earlier. Ban Yeo Ryung is slow at this kind of thing, so she may not know though. If we had no idea, we would’ve bounced off the wall when we saw your gaze at Donnie inside the video that we watched at her house.”

“…”

“Those things are hard to hide, you know…”

Eun Jiho then gave a pause. When he opened his mouth again, his voice turned lower and darker.

“I don’t know why but she doesn’t see us as guys at all. I really have no idea what kind of special reason lies inside her, but she doesn’t seem to believe that we’ll ever like her. Luckily, she applies that rule or standard to those who are handsome or unusual. For instance, Yi Ruda.”

“Then the reason Ham Donnie doesn’t respond at all when Yi Ruda hugs her is…”

“She doesn’t see him as a guy at all. I only looked at Donnie for a year and a half, so wouldn’t I become less upset to gain insight like this?”

“…”

While Yoo Chun Young remained silent, Eun Jiho slowly dropped his gaze at the floor and sighed.

“Mind control isn’t easy. After that happened, I decided to give up but still had a crush on her for over half a year. Woo Jooin hugging Donnie while calling her mama… Kwon Eun Hyung patting Ham Donnie’s head… and you gazing serenely at her sometimes when no one’s watching… Do you know how much I hate and get irritated to death when you guys act like that?”

Eun Jiho quietly smiled after his remark, but Yoo Chun Young hardly could. Eun Jiho continued in a low and calm voice.

“If having a crush on her took place suddenly, my feelings should cool down quickly or so, but it doesn’t work like that. I was so annoyed at first but the only thing that comforted me was this. No matter how many times you guys act like that to Donnie, she will never see you all as a guy. This… only this comforted me. I hate myself being such a loser relying on that to console myself, but you guys acting like that is even worse, so I guess I’ve gone through my stormy period of adolescence quite enough.”

“…”

“You, right now, and I, back then, wouldn’t be so different. You should get yourself well together.”

“What are you talking about?” Yoo Chun Young, at last, moved his lips quietly.

Eun Jiho smiled with a shrug then kept on.

“Ham Donnie wouldn’t see you as a guy at all too.”

“…”

Although it was expected, listening to those words coming directly from Eun Jiho felt quite different. As Yoo Chun Young frowned his forehead, Eun Jiho, beside him, stood up straight.

Something like tobacco smelled through the breeze. Maybe someone was smoking. Well, there were always some high school students who smoked. Eun Jiho continued his talk.

“Why does she strongly believe that we won’t like her as a girl… I don’t know since I’ve never seen anyone among us break that wall. As a person who had a crush on her, I just wanted to say that be prepared to experience your inner struggles.”

“That means…”

“Dude, but do you know what’s really funny?”

Eun Jiho interfered Yoo Chun Young’s words with a grin. Yoo Chun Young lifted his blue eyes to look at him. Eun Jiho was still smiling.

“I was confused about whether I still like her or not, so one day in the morning I went into her room and found her asleep. I grabbed her hand and… I really thought I gave up all my feelings on her but…”

“…”

“My heart was still pounding fast and hard… you know what I mean? I’m still like that… I don’t know. Maybe my body seems to remember what I felt about her as I lived like that for so long.”

Yoo Chun Young didn’t respond. Eun Jiho put a smile on his face again.

“Dreadful, it is. What’s so special about a person falling into a person? How can I be so miserable like this even after I tried to give up my feelings for half a year?”

Eun Jiho, who spoke like that in a faster tone than earlier, turned back to open the terrace door and went back inside before Yoo Chun Young tried to respond. Yoo Chun Young, standing alone in the terrace, wondered whether he should follow him to go inside or not. He, however, closed the terrace door then leaned against the balustrade.

He had a lot in his mind. It felt like he happened to open a drawer and discovered an enormous secret kept inside. Although he didn’t mean to find such a thing.

He heard Woo Jooin and Eun Jiho laughing about something in the room. Kwon Eun Hyung was stepping out of the bathroom just now with a towel on his wet hair. Watching them from the terrace, Yoo Chun Young shoved his hand inside the pocket and took his phone out. He pressed the button firmly to find Ham Donnie’s number from the contacts. His finger was on the send button for a while. He then murmured, ‘I like you.’

‘Those things are hard to hide, you know… They might have already noticed from earlier,’ Yoo Chun Young repeated Eun Jiho’s words in his mind.

He also hated when Yi Ruda talked like he knew everything about Donnie, when he found only the two being together inside the empty classroom, and when he saw Yi Ruda holding hands with Donnie.

Everything annoyed him. Just like Eun Jiho, Yoo Chung Young hated those things badly and got irritated to death. The reason why he, who seldom used violence and was aware of the upcoming photo shoot scheduled that day, picked a fight with Yi Ruda was that he really disliked Yi Ruda behaving that way. Yoo Chun Young raised his hand and slowly swept his hair back.

Yi Ruda, whom he met again at the nurse’s office, put a twisted smile on his face. So many conversations took place in a day, which seemed hardly memorable for every detail; however, only the talk he had with Yi Ruda came across his head clearly.

“What you said sounds like you have a crush on Ham Donnie.”

“You have some sense compared to how you look, but isn’t it also you who’s being desperate about her? Who’s the guy constantly sticking up for the person who never opened her heart for the last two years?”

Sticking up… Yoo Chun Young reiterated the words. What Yi Ruda said wasn’t wrong. Yoo Chun Young’s gaze wandered at the nine letters, ‘Ham Donnie,’ on his call list.

Pressing the call button was nothing but an impulsive action. He just wanted to hear her voice while looking at the cold ripples on the night sea. It was strange that his action wasn’t new to him.

He slowly burned up and gradually cooled down. It applied to everything. Sometimes, the process took too slow that he didn’t perceive that from time to time.

Yoo Chun Young, at last, recognized that every action he had done to her involved a certain degree of impulsiveness. It always did. At least for Ham Donnie, he behaved on a whim. Things with her always made him that way.

Quite a time passed after pressing the button. Yoo Chun Young then regretted what he had done. It was over 2 in the morning, which was enough for her to be deeply asleep.

However, it was then when he just tried to press the end button. The dial tone got disconnected, and at the same time, Ham Donnie’s voice came over the phone. It sounded half-awake as if she just got up from sleep.

What’s up? Why are you not sleeping?