.

Anyway, there was another person who tried to remember me besides the Four Heavenly Kings. Thinking that way, I felt more thankful to Ruda.

Now I had come to think of it, I didn’t get to see what role Yi Ruda was playing in the novel, ‘Hae-garim: Eclipse of the Sun’ in the universe where I had returned to for a while.

However, the fact that he chose me to become friends with and remembered me in the end seemed very thankful and sorry at the same time. It felt like he was loaded with burdens that he didn’t have to deal with just because of me.

Hesitating shortly, I soon uttered, “Ruda.”

“Huh?”

“Then next time, I’ll reach out to you.”

As I got to recall the past, it was Ruda who always kept in touch first. Before I became aware of the truth, I just acted defensive and passive toward everybody including the Four Heavenly Kings and Ban Yeo Ryung.

Blinking swiftly at my remark, Ruda soon smiled with his blue eyes knitted into a crescent shape. It wasn’t as bright as the smile he showed during his self introduction time in freshman year; however, it was a more natural and cool grin.

“Okay,” he replied.

A few freshmen stared at Ruda as if they were captivated by him. Meanwhile, we arrived at the auditorium.

Since we had to gather in classes that we belonged to during our freshman year, I stepped toward Class 1-8. There were full of familiar faces standing in the spot. Yoon Jung In, the previous class president, went to the front naturally; Yi Ruda was called by his close male friends and was hanging around with them.

Being left alone, I turned around to look behind me. Kim Hye Woo’s face came into view while sticking out in the crowds since he was outstandingly tall.

Once I found Kim Hye Woo, it didn’t take long to find Kim Hye Hill. Showing a cold look on her face as always like her twin brother, Kim Hye Hill was watching other people from a step back.

“Hye Hill, Kim Hye Woo!”

As I shouted in delight to have seen them after a while, the Kim twins directed their eyes toward this side. A feeling of surprise arose on their faces. Both showed the same expressions like a mirror.

“You’re here?!”

It was Kim Hye Woo who suddenly asked me that way while I dashed to them in excitement. I slightly squinted my eyes.

“Huh? I’m here??” I added, “Of course, I am since today is the first day of the new school year.”

As soon as I replied that way, Kim Hye Woo opened his eyes to respond to me.

“Ah, that’s not what I’m trying to say…”

While he tried to speak like that, Kim Hye Hill blocked his words. Stretching out her hand to cover Kim Hye Woo’s mouth, which was way above her face, Kim Hye Hill said to me, “Uh, nothing. Welcome back.”

“Huh? Uh… yeah,” I replied.

Watching the weird atmosphere flowing between the two, I just smiled awkwardly.

The twins, who made a perfect team as if they were like one body, were on the rocks today for some reason. Since they had similar characters, they worked in perfect harmony even though they quarreled often. Thus, it was my first time to see them behaving that way.

Tilting my head in wonder, I soon organized my thoughts that whatever the situation was, Kim Hye Hill would handle it well. Thinking that way, I quickly changed the topic.

“How was the break?”

“Huh? Oh, we visited our hometown.”

“Hometown?”

Now that I come to think of it, I kind of heard that the twins had moved out of their house and were living together without their parents.

‘If other kids know that, our house would be their safehouse, so no.’

The twins whispered those words to me when we accidentally bumped into each other at Eun Jiho’s Hanwool Group party. Kim twins’ father ran a 100,000 pyeong-sized factory in the countryside, so their main family was staying there while the twins were sent to Seoul for education purposes.

Well, So Hyun High School was quite a selective private institution, so I heard that many kids had come to Seoul to go to this school. The Kim twins, however, spoke the standard language perfectly and had sophisticated appearances, which seemed very unexpected that they were actually from the countryside.

At that moment, I heard the announcement saying that we should sit down, so I perched on one of the chairs aligned in a row. Placing my hand on the back of the chair in front of me, I quietly listened to Kim Hye Hill’s words. Meanwhile, other students quickly took the seats around us, and the whole auditorium was getting arranged.

‘I guess all the freshmen this year are here,’ I thought to myself. The moment I glanced at the freshmen side, Kim Hye Hill flung a question as if something flashed through her mind.

“Now I come to think of it, what class are you in now as a sophomore?”

I replied, “Eh? Is that already announced?”

“Didn’t you know that? They sent us in text messages,” she added.

‘Oh, the text message!’ I shouted in my thoughts and opened my phone hurriedly. As soon as I did that, the status of my inbox came into view, which terrified me.

Sticking her head out to look at my phone, Kim Hye Hill asked, “Did you lose your phone?”

I couldn’t help but just show an awkward grin. ‘Ah, no, not that, but…’ Murmuring that way, I looked down at my phone again.

It did look like I had lost my phone since almost a hundred unread messages occupied my inbox. They seemed to be the texts that were sent while I was gone from this world. Maybe they surged into my phone at once. Receiving the ads automatically sent from cosmetic stores or groceries would become this many too. I heaved a sigh and began to read out all the messages one after another. Anyway, I would finish reading them until the end of the opening ceremony.

Around that time, our principal walked up to the podium and started the opening ceremony which was quite the same as that in other schools. Throwing a glance at the stage once in a while, I secretly checked my phone.

During the swearing-in ceremony, the senior representative was a stranger to me; the sophomore representative was Ban Yeo Ryung, as expected. Lastly, the freshman representative was a girl with glasses and pigtails.

If the incident that took place in the morning didn’t happen, I would think about the girl as, ‘Is she a beautiful female main character in this novel if she takes off her glasses?’ something like that. However, I was too busy checking my unread messages, so I didn’t look carefully at the stage. While I concentrated on reading my texts, all the representatives quickly went down from the podium.

The moment when it was the last segment of the opening ceremony, I could check which class I was assigned to. As soon as the result came into my sight, I shrieked in a small voice.

“I found it!”

A few students around me threw a glance toward this direction. Kim Hye Hill lowered her body to me.

“Which class are you in?” she asked.

I replied, “It isn’t written in class numbers, but it says 2-B.”

“Our school has a lot of kids from wealthy families, so if the school announces the class in advance, many parents would complain about the location of the hallway or school office. Maybe our school was concerned about that, right?” said Kim Hye Woo nonchalantly.

I was surprised at his remark while thinking, ‘Is that real? Wow, private school is so scary.’ Now that I came to think of it, the reason why the school announced our classes on the wall instead of letting us know in advance during our freshman year could be the same as what Kim Hye Woo just said.

Anyway, I checked out which class I was assigned to. With a nervous expression, I looked back and forth between the twins.

At that moment, Kim Hye Woo suddenly stretched out his palm. Not knowing why he was doing that, I just stuck out my palm and slapped his hand. There was a slight high five noise.

“Yay,” he exclaimed.

“Yay?” While I followed his words that sounded surprisingly crude, Kim Hye Hill also stretched out her palm beside mine. I slapped hers in wonder again, but it was then that I realized what that meant.

I murmured, “Are you guys…?”

“We’re also in Class 2-B,” replied the twins.

‘We also look forward to having fun in our sophomore year.’

Two voices that had a different pitch overlapped at the same time. When those words reached my ears, I nodded with a smile.

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As soon as the opening ceremony was over, we piled up the chairs and went straight out of the auditorium to head toward our class.

Climbing up the stairs with the twins, I asked, “Why were the other kids not talking about their classes? Since they remained too quiet, I thought the school didn’t announce which class we were assigned to.”

With a shrug, Kim Hye Woo replied, “That announcement was made a week before the school started, so we already finished talking about that. You know like who’s in which class with who… something like that.”