.

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Then Eun Jiho can’t

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talk anymore.

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;

Dope Silver Hair:

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Yoo Chun Young POWER trolling

Half-crazy Ban:

YOO CHUN YOUNNNNNGGGGGG LOLOLOLOL NICE SHOT!!!

Woo Joo Explore the Universe:

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Dope Silver Hair:

You all DEAD MEAT

The Burning Newbie:

HAHAHAHA What’s wrong with you guys lololol

Typing in chat like crazy while moving my shoulders up and down, I found Eun Hyung looking in this direction, so I turned myself to face him.

“Oh, Eun Hyung.”

“What are you so excited about?”

“Look, Yoo Chun Young is talking so bluntly again.”

Scrolling up the chat log, Eun Hyung soon burst into laughter. He replied while wiping out the tears in his eyes.

“There’s really a bite in Chun Young’s words whenever he drops something.”

“If he was talkative I would have feared to live.”

I then switched my gaze to his computer screen.

“What are you doing?”

“Me? Tetris. This game feels more comfortable to play,” replied Eun Hyung.

Watching him controlling the keyboard nonchalantly, I could tell the difference between his game and mine, which was in the chaos of players bombarding all kinds of skills and easily facing death upon getting distracted even just for a second.

I sucked at playing the game for the whole time, so I closed the game screen to stop causing harm to other kids. Putting my chair closer to Eun Hyung’s, I then asked, “How do we play Tetris?”

“Just sign up. That’s it. It’s really simple. To start the game…”

Just when Eun Hyung tried to teach me how to control the keyboards to play Tetris, the game he started playing since elementary school, Yeo Ryung uttered, ‘Eun Jiho sucks. I’m so done with this game.’ She then came closer to us, which we happened to team up in a flash. As soon as Jooin also joined us, Eun Jiho betted on Tetris while bragging that he could win against Yoo Chun Young in this game.

Eun Jiho finally achieved a victory over Yoo Chun Young, but Ban Yeo Ryung and Woo Jooin cleaned him out, which made him turn off the computer with a worn-out look. Outside the PC bang, it was late in the evening.

Lastly, we had dinner in a family restaurant nearby then bid farewell to get back home.

Walking side by side with Ban Yeo Ryung, I recalled Yi Ruda out of the blue. Now I came to think of it, I never hung out with her in the town. All we did was being engaged in a chase.

Well, Ruda herself gathered dangerous situations around her that she decided to stay alone. That reminded me of something. Even though Ruda was close to all our classmates, I never heard of any of them having met Yi Ruda outside the school.

‘I don’t belong with you guys. I will put you all in danger.’

Thinking about what she said to us, I felt a tug at my heart.

‘However, what could I do when Yi Ruda had already left?’ Shoving my hands into the pockets, I tried to murmur as calmly as possible. However, I felt that I had been forgetting about something significant since this morning. The thought was poking inside my head. In such a mood, I came to my house.

Maybe because I didn’t wander around that much during the latter half of the break and had such a fun time today after a long time, as soon as I changed my clothes, I collapsed on the bed and fell deeply asleep.

A dream is an extension of unconsciousness. Even the trivial facts in our real life seem to be overstated like a huge elephant inside a dream.

That’s not all. A dream can also compile and restructure the facts that we haven’t even think about connecting them. Likewise, such puzzle pieces that are scattered separately are so simply gathered in a dream.

What I first saw was Yi Ruda.

‘Where is this place?’ I glanced around. Between the dark buildings in the red night sky covered with smoky dust, the store signs were emitting pale neon lights.

When I lifted my head, a sound of the whistle pierced through the night air.

––FWEET!

I turned around. Big old ventilation fans were spinning dizzily between the terraces, which looked like a scene of Hong Kong red light district. Through that nightscape, a bright blond hair with a hoodie over her head came running toward this direction.

There might be so many people out there with that radiant hair, but at that moment, I ran after her as if she was the only blonde in this world.

“Ruda!” I shouted.

Yi Ruda, however, didn’t stop running. A moment after, some men in black suits rushed out of every corner of the alleys and dashed into Yi Ruda like demons. I started running after them, but couldn’t catch up at all.

While I put my hands on my knees to get my breath back from gasping, Yi Ruda and the men in black narrowed their gaps at a slow pace in the distance. I had no idea what would happen to her if she got caught, but I yelled desperately.

“Ruda!!!”

At that very moment, the scene suddenly changed.

We were now at the library out of the blue. The men in black didn’t stop chasing after Yi Ruda even in this place. Passing between the unrealistically gigantic shelves that looked like whales, I screamed, “Ruda, don’t go that way! Turn right, no, left!”

Yelling frantically at Ruda, who was having a chase with the men in black, I, again, was drawn into a whirlpool.

This time, I was standing on a soft crimson carpet. Since the scene suddenly switched from the library to a strange venue, I was puzzled at the situation while scratching my head, but I soon raised my head.

Glancing around, I quickly realized that I was at Hanwool Group’s party hall. To be specific, I was standing in the hallway upstairs where the private rooms were located.

I, who was wearing pajamas just now, was now dressed up with a white dress and even had a cubic hairpin on my hair. Being dumbfounded for a while, I suddenly heard a voice coming over from the corner of the hallway. I crawled slowly along the carpet.

As soon as I turned the corner, I found a human figure, so I attached myself quickly to the wall. The person who was speaking was none other than Yoo Gun.

His outfit and voice definitely belonged to Yoo Gun, but, no matter what had happened, the part where his face should exist had a face of an alligator. Despite his appearance, I realized it was Yoo Gun because of what he was talking about.

“Do you think you can run away from Jenny forever?”

It was the same conversation that I eavesdropped on them. Yi Ruda, who was dressed up in the same outfit on the day of the party, replied shortly while gnashing her teeth.

“Shut up.”

“Why are you here in the first place when the securities are everywhere here. How many of them do you think are out of the reach of Reed Enterprises?”

Around that time, I hid behind the corner again and spoke to myself in a low voice.

‘Yeah, I did hear this conversation before.’ However, I was too surprised when Yoo Gun showed up and Yi Ruda appeared with the female outfit, so I didn’t have much time to consider the meaning of their conversations. Besides, I was kidnapped right after the situation, and therefore, it was true that I had no time to reflect on this conversation.

I then thought about the weird feeling I had since yesterday morning. ‘Is this what I have been forgetting about? But what’s up with that conversation?’ While I rambled those thoughts in my head, the conversation stopped and Yi Ruda dropped a remark out of the blue, which made me raise my head again.

“Mother?”

‘Mother?’ Turning my head around the corner, I, once again, was struck dumb.

Before I even knew, more than half of the hotel was torn out. Under the destroyed concrete floor and the steel frame structure, I could see some parts of the city landscape. It was a scenery that could be seen on a disaster movie poster. Yi Ruda was there standing on the remaining floor, barely holding out.

There was a helicopter flying in front of him. The fiercely whirring blades blew stone dust in this direction. Coughing hard, I covered my nose and mouth with my clutch and lowered my body more to stand against the wind.

Yi Ruda’s mother, Yi Jenny was stretching out her hand to Yi Ruda while hanging on the helicopter door. Her tight black updo and black eyes… She then asked in a low and sweet voice that I had heard one day.

“Should we go, son?”

Opening my eyes wide, I straightened my skirt and stood up, then I walked staggeringly up the wind caused by the helicopter.

“Wait, Ruda! Hold on for a second,” I shouted, but it wasn’t reaching to that direction due to the loud propeller noise, or they might have heard me yelling those words but would be pretending as if they didn’t hear anything. Neither Yi Ruda nor Yi Jenny even threw a glance at me.