.

The incident began when I encountered Baek Yeo Min in town last weekend. I mean, I just wanted to eat outside and went to Lotteria to grab something, and there I met Baek Yeo Min.

You know, that girl who asked me to become her friend, cursed Ban Yeo Ryung in front of me, and suggested not to get along with her. When I refused to do so, she also backbit me; therefore, she was the person who made me realize girls in this world were hardly believable.

Anyway, when I got closer to Baek Yeo Min during my freshman year in middle school, that was within a few months since I met Ban Yeo Ryung. At that time, I was thinking about getting away from Ban Yeo Ryung.

How could I not think that way when it was apparent how this world would proceed? How could I stand these guys? Of course, I had to get away from them; however, as I saw Baek Yeo Min cursing Ban Yeo Ryung, I could hardly see Ban Yeo Ryung as a girl who acted like an arrogant bitch in trust of her beauty.

As I got to thinking about it now, perhaps, that happening evoked my sympathy for her. When I found that Baek Yeo Min verbally abused Ban Yeo Ryung for no reason, she looked so miserable. If Baek Yeo Min wasn’t then, wouldn’t I push Ban Yeo Ryung away from me too? When I had those thoughts in mind, our eyes finally met.

With her decent, long, straight hair, Baek Yeo Min still looked pretty and slim like back then. ‘If Ban Yeo Ryung didn’t exist, Baek Yeo Min would have been the number one beauty in our class,’ as the thought came across my mind, our eyes met. I turned my head out of perplexity and thought that she would also ignore me soon.

Surprisingly, she strode toward me, then sat down right across. ‘What the…?’ I stared at her in surprise. We, eventually, had an unexpected meeting like that at the weekend. ‘Who do you think you are to sit across from me?’ I was about to ask her that; however, Baek Yeo Min initiated the conversation.

“Donnie.”

“Um, yeah?”

Her face and voice were too sad that I couldn’t ask her about what she was doing. While I stared at her bitterly, she opened her mouth again.

“How’s everything?”

“Huh? Good…”

“Oh, yeah? How’s Yeo Ryung?”

“She’s good too.”

‘Why? What else are you gonna do if she’s not fine?’ I tried to swallow those words. As I lifted my eyes to look at her, she still had a sad face. I thought, ‘Why does she have that look?’

That time Baek Yeo Min slandered Ban Yeo Ryung and I was so vivid in my head that it felt like it happened yesterday. She treated and condemned us so harshly that I clearly remembered what she had done. ‘Why is she about to cry?’ The more I saw her, the more I got annoyed.

I mean, now, I wasn’t just mad. That issue happened three years ago, and I wasn’t that narrow-minded to keep that anger until now. It’s just that her actions now were confusing me. As I felt tired, I decided to get up, then she called me urgently.

“Donnie!”

I turned back to see her at last. Rolling her eyeballs, Bae Yeo Min stammered as if she felt anxious.

“I… um… got to think about the things that happened in the past.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know why I did such a thing! When I got to thinking about it, Ban Yeo Ryung was just close to the four boys and did nothing wrong to me. She was always nice, sweet, supportive, and funny… but why did I hate her and spread bad rumors about her… I have no idea why I did that.”

As she finished her words, Baek Yeo Min looked at me with desperate eyes. ‘What is she on about?’ I blinked my eyes in wonder.

She continued, “So now I just want to say how very sorry I am to you and Ban Yeo Ryung. At that time, I thought Eun Hyung stood by your side because you were close to Ban Yeo Ryung; however, as I got to think about it, what he said was right. I was harsh… I know it’s useless to talk about it now, but I just wanted to apologize. I’m sorry.”

“…”

Her words flew like water, and that was when she stopped stammering. I looked at her while frowning. ‘What is she trying to pull off right now?’ Many people inside Lotteria started to look at us.

‘I’m tired, should I just leave?’ Wondering what to do, I finally sat back on the seat. Her face then turned a little brighter. I replied after a moment of hesitance.

“To be honest, I don’t really care about it anymore. I’ll let Ban Yeo Ryung know what you said. Anyway… thanks… for your apologies.”

“Yeah… please deliver it to Yeo Ryung too.”

Baek Yeo Min somehow answered back in a bit hasty voice. I didn’t care about it that much but just lowered my head to look at the vibrating bell. I stood up before saying to Baek Yeo Min.

“Then, maybe we should say hi to her next time.”

In the end, I awkwardly put a perfunctory smile on my face. Shen then blushed and nodded, which wasn’t a terrible sight to behold.

“Yes, I’d love to!” she said.

I received a bag of my order then pushed the glass door of Lotteria to head back home. As soon as I came back, I ate a burger for lunch. It all happened just at the weekend, but how did it become perverted like this? I grimaced.

When I arrived at school, Lee Soo Yeon provoked me by saying, “See? There’s no smoke without fire.” That was how my day began. I was about to ask her, ‘What did you say, bitch? There’s no smoke without fire?’ but then I heard apathetic voices popping out from here and there.

“Hey, ey, ey, Lee Soo Yeon, what’s wrong with you? Why do you want to initiate a fight again?”

“Yeah, you believed some bull** before, and now you’re trusting another one?”

There’s no smoke without fire… it seemed to direct what Lee Soo Yeon did to me. She pushed me into a corner since she believed some rumor before. That was why the other kids were now reacting annoyingly like that. I was, however, wondering about why Lee Soo Yeon said such a thing to me just now.

The air inside the classroom was damp. It smelled like rain too. Without thinking of hanging my umbrella, I flung a question in wonder.

“Why? What kind of rumor?”

“Oh, did you meet a friend from your middle school?” Yoon Jung In, who perched on his seat all the way in the back, questioned me.

‘A friend?’ With that thought in mind, I rolled my eyes. ‘She might be a friend, but… it was hard to say, yes.’

I replied, “You mean, a person I once called a friend, but someone I later fought with? I did see her, but hey, how did you know that?”

Pausing my words, my face stiffened as an assumption came across my mind. ‘Come on, no…’ I murmured to myself, ‘What’s so special about running into middle school alumni at Lotteria in front of my apartment and chit-chatting with her for about five minutes?’

The response that came back, however, rang in my head. I touched my forehead with a frown.

“Someone took a photo of you talking to a girl in Lotteria, but she was said to be the girl who backbit Ban Yeo Ryung so harshly. Don’t you know that? People have been talking about it so far.”

‘What the hell? Someone took a photo of Baek Yeo Min and I talking to each other? For god’s sake! Who knows how our conversation went?’ I thought. Besides, the one who took a photo of us would have seen the overall situation, known that we just bumped into each other, and found out that we only spoke for about a few minutes. Despite all that, it seemed that only a photo was out there without any explanation.

‘Holy crap,’ I touched my forehead again. ‘What’s going on these days?’

However, the overall atmosphere was, fortunately, not that bad. A similar thing happened before, so the kids in our class seemed to remain aloof after hearing such rumors. Instead, they even cheered me.

“Dude, don’t mind that.”

“Who’s keep doing such things? Hey, did you hurt someone enough to make them target you like this?”

Listening to the story, Shin Suh Hyun, who sat straight like a classical scholar, threw a question.

“Yoon Jung In, but the photo… who took that?”

“The photo?”

“The photo of Donnie and her middle school alumni talking in Lotteria… The person who took that seems to know the relationship between Donnie and the girl. Maybe that person would also know that the girl and Ban Yeo Ryung fought in middle school?”

“Whoa, dude! How clever you are! Reading so many mystery novels made you smart.”

Covering his mouth, Yoo Jung In responded in astonishment. Shin Suh Hyun tried to add but just swallowed a groan since Yoon Jung In didn’t show any reactions further.