.

When the bell rang to announce the break after the 4th class, Lee Mina came toward us and perched on the chair. Before I was about to say something, Kim Hye Hill opened her mouth.

“Hey, when she passed the senior stairway, some sunbaes cursed at her in the morning.”

“Gosh, what did they say?” asked Lee Mina, frowning her eyes.

Kim Hye Woo, sitting behind us, also tilted his head toward this side as if he was about to listen to our conversation.

Kim Hye Hill asked, “Yeah, why did they say?”

“Um, they asked me why I don’t kill myself.”

Lee Mina then replied immediately with a grimace.

“Oh, shiitake mushrooms! What a son of a buffalo chip!”

“Hold on, what did you say?”

It was Yoon Jung In who reacted to her words while walking past by us. Refusing his steps, he flung that question to Lee Mina with a blank face. Lee Mina then replied to him with a shrug.

“Some seniors said to Donnie why isn’t she committing suicide!”

“Oh, really? What the… but you said something afterward.”

“You mean, shiitake mushrooms! What a son of a buffalo chip?!”

“Geez, so clever. Are you a genius?”

After his remark, Yoon Jung In suddenly collapsed into a fit of giggles. Lee Mina’s voice was so loud that other kids around us also burst into laughter while looking at us. Burying their faces onto their desks, some were at a loss of words.

A moment after, Yoon Jung In, who barely suppressed his laughter, twitched his lips and tapped my shoulder. ‘What the heck is this,’ I thought. Frowning my eyes, I looked up at him.

Yoon Jung was stilling smiling against the backdrop of the bright classroom in the summer sun. He continued while holding my shoulder.

“Hey, don’t mind that rumor.”

His unusually serious voice made me put a sad face. How hard did I try to not think about it?

People usually believed what they heard, and among them, there would be people who would deliver Choi Yuri’s words carelessly.

Being aware of those facts, I tried to ignore and move on; however, I couldn’t help myself from feeling stuffy and awful. Like swallowing pills without water, these emotions were stuck on my throat and never went down. You would never know how much I tried to get over it…

My face turned dark helplessly. As if he read my feelings from my look, Yoon Jung In held my shoulder in perplexity.

He said, “Hey, no. I wasn’t try to say that those things were nothing. I’m not telling you to resist it too. Come on, what did you do wrong? The rumors don’t have any proof. They are all just false and subjective. Choi Yuri is the one who must be blamed for talking about untruthful things. I wasn’t trying to say just ignore them and move on.”

“…”

When I just looked up at Yoon Jung In speechlessly with my eyes round opened, his hold on my shoulder tightened. He then released me while frowning his dark brows and tilted his face a bit toward me with his usual smile.

While the kids in our class all focused on us, he kept on his words.

“You went to school today with Ban Yeo Ryung, huh? That means you both spoke well anyway. What did she say?”

I replied with a shrug, “She doesn’t believe it at all.”

“What about others? Such as the kids from your middle school who know about this or so?”

Yoon Jung In seemed to talk less obviously about the Four Heavenly Kings. Most of the kids in our class didn’t know that the Four Heavenly Kings and I were close. Rolling my eyes, I answered back to his question.

“They just asked me if I were ok. They also told me not to worry about the rumors.”

‘Although Eun Jiho and Woo Jooin didn’t reach me out yet,’ I thought. I had no idea why they kept their silence for this long.

Yoon Jung In put a full smile as if my response was enough. He then said to me while lifting his body.

“Look.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did any of the guys you knew well trust that rumor and tell you something?”

“No, but…”

‘Strangers said to me…’ instead of adding those words, I just bit my lips.

Yoon Jung In’s remark relieved myself, at last, from those that distressed me until now, the negative feelings that I had from others’ redefining who I was.

When I closed my mouth in the middle of my words, Yoon Jung In put a confident smile on his face then spoke to me.

“Do you think I never went through any rumors about myself? Most of the people have a similar experience like this.”

“…”

“And from these happenings, I learned something, you know. Those who trust the rumors and curse you have no idea who you are. Think about it. There is no proof and even some wouldn’t have listened to it whatsoever. Most of the people who curse you are just following others.”

“Then, what should I do? Should I explain that I’m innocent? What else I can do?”

I wanted to ask him what I could do to stop others from talking about me. Yoon Jung In, however, shook his head with a shrug.

“No matter how many times you explain, it’s useless. Believers will believe anyway. Did you explain everything to each of your friends, Ban Yeo Ryung and the other boys? Did they say, now that they could trust you?”

I shook my head.

No. As soon as Ban Yeo Ryung saw me, she hung drops of tears in her jet-black eyes. Before I was about to explain something, she said to me that she trusts me. Her voice sounded so desperate as if she spoke with a feeling rising from her toe to the head. It showed how sincere she was to me. Thus, I didn’t have to take those words out to explain, which I picked out many times inside my head but lost their shapes at the end.

Yeah, I didn’t have a conversation with Ban Yeo Ryung to ask her for trust or something like that. We didn’t need to say such things regardless. What about Kwon Eun Young or Yoo Chun Young?

I shook my head.

Yoon Jung In then said, “Yeah, that’s how it goes. The reason why they trust you no matter what is that they know you aren’t a person to do such things. You proved yourself from your actions over the time you spent with them. Don’t mind what the strangers say. Those aren’t your people. If you care every single thing, only you’ll feel pain in your heart.”

“…”

“There’s one thing good when this kind of thing happens. You get to know who your real people are. That’s it.”

The wind blow through the opened window waved my hair. In the middle, there stood Yoon Jung In crossing his arms while looking faded and vivid at the same time. Feeling a little far away, I narrowed my eyes.

Yoon Jung In usually joked around or talked funnily in a light tone. His voice and words, however, cooled down the heated air and the fuss around our classroom. Like a cold water drop, his last words lingered around us then permeated into the air.

Someone then said, “Yoon Jung In… dude, so cool.”

And at the same time, another boy spoke in a husky voice.

“Holy cow, my heart was about to pound. It’s dangerous, right?”

He then grabbed his chest, which made Yoon Jung In jump up with fear in his usual, exaggerated look on his face.

“Huh, what did you say? Oh, shoot, don’t come close to me.”

“Yoon Jung In, hold on! Once I hug you, I can see what this feeling is.”

“What the hell!”

Yoon Jung In spoke while laughing to death, he then soon jumped over two chairs and ran out of the backdoor. Following him, the boy who grabbed his pounding chest and a few kids who gathered up to make their love come true dashed out of the classroom. Only a frosted silence left inside the space.

The wind blow through the opened window shook the gray rollup blinds again then scattered around us. It flipped the pages of my textbook on the desk. Kim Hye Hill, then burst out laughing.

“Yoon Jung In, how can he never act cool till the end?”

Lee Mina, beside us, was laughing out loud. Most of the boys went out after Yoon Jung In, so there were only girls inside the classroom.