.

Heaving a sigh, Jooin turned his head. Lowering his voice, he said, “Okay, mama. Let’s look for her together.”

“Uh, good, but Jooin…” I hesitated for a second since Jooin seemed to react unusually.

It was strange. If Jooin noticed that I was hiding something from him, he would just generously move on rather than revealing his upset feelings. The only time he sensitively reacted was when something’s related to my safety, but right now, it wasn’t that kind of situation. So, why was he behaving this way?

We didn’t have time to further our conversation though. Meanwhile, the girl was already gone all the way at the end of the hallway.

Jooin uttered, “Mama, I’ll go in a different direction.”

“Huh? Uh, okay…”

“There won’t be many places to hide in our school.”

Leaving those words, Jooin swerved and disappeared downstairs. I scratched my head for a moment then ran after the girl.

Only a few people wore thick jackets like her in this season, so ironically, her hoodie became a clear indicator to locate where the girl was right now. No matter how chaotic the situation was, I could always chase her again as long as that hoodie was in my view.

But at the same time, I also wanted her to take off that thing so that I could, at least, remember her face properly. If I failed to find her, I should, again, just live in a vain hope of encountering her someday by coincidence.

When I came downstairs with that thought in my mind, the crowds of people blocking us like obstacles were, thankfully, all gone.

While the girl became bewildered at the empty hallway, I began to speed up. She freaked out as my footsteps got closer to her. Then she started to run away again.

‘Just an inch…!’ I said to myself desperately. However, the girl eluded my grasp.

Her hoodie then got off her head and swayed in my sight, almost teasing me. She quickly pulled it back over her head, partly covering her face, then swerved at the staircase.

“So, you’re going down another floor?!” I shouted at the girl descending the staircase.

‘Please, let’s end our fight now!’ I added, but of course, no response returned. In the end, I had to run downstairs, gasping for breath. Feeling exhausted, I almost slipped in the middle and started running a little behind her again.

When I finally arrived downstairs, no one came into view.

Did I fail to catch her? Struggling to control my blurry vision, I rubbed my eyes and tried to look around in search of the girl. All that came into my sight was just the broadcasting room, library, science lab, and storage room. A-ha, so this was the floor where the school clubs had their special activities ongoing.

The entire floor was silent. I didn’t know where to go in front of the number of doors, so I was lost in thought, rubbing my chin.

Since the girl was a member of the writing club, should I go check the library first? But, isn’t that too obvious? Hiding at the library would be the last bastion for a person who belonged to a relevant field because it’s too predictable. Above all, it took too much time for me to search for her in that large space.

Then should I go look inside the broadcasting room? Having that thought, I flung the door open. As soon as I took that action, I encountered a number of kids, widening their eyes at my sudden appearance. I stepped back in surprise. The movie club students, who just got denied by Ban Yeo Ryung, were gathered in that room.

I hesitated for a second then carefully asked, “Did anyone come here?”

“No,” the girl named Soobin or so replied apathetically as if I was asking something too obvious.

‘Isn’t she an upper-grade student?’ I wondered but quickly gave her a slight nod.

“Thanks,” I uttered then fell back into thought. Since I decided to skip the library, only one place was left to search for the girl–the science lab.

Swinging the door open, I quickly covered my face at the sight in front of me. Taking a step back, I stammered, “Uh… um…”

Yikes, what the heck!

“I’m sorry,” I said to the girl and boy making out in the lab.

Geez, I did hear that some couples shared their acts of physical intimacy in quiet and secluded places in school, but I never knew that I would witness those things in person today!

“What the f**K!”

“Shut the damn door!!”

Nodding, I quickly closed the door at the showering complaints. Being completely out of my mind, I even forgot to ask them if anybody had entered the lab.

Plopping down in the hallway, I scratched my head with a deep sigh.

“Gosh, what should I do? I’m gonna fail to chase down her again…”

In the end, I opened the library door just in case, but the space inside was enveloped by a deafening silence. The librarian, who was drinking a cup of coffee, told me that no one was here, so I didn’t have to look further inside.

Leaving a word of appreciation, I stepped outside the library and heaved a deep sigh.

“Phew…” Sweeping back my disheveled hair in annoyance, I thought, ‘It was so close this time. I almost got her… but once again, I made a mistake and lost her right under my nose!’

I stared at the staircase where we just had a chase. The girl might have descended another floor while I tried to adjust my balance from slipping on the stairs. What an idiot! I spent all my time searching for her on the wrong floor. Even if I went downstairs, she would have already fled away.

As of now, I could just go ask the writing club members about the girl, but in fact, I wasn’t sure if she was an official member of the club. Earlier, when the club leader tried to persuade Yeo Ryung to join their club, the girl just stood quietly behind her for the whole time.

I just bit my lips, being lost in thought, then I disheveled my hair again.

“Urgh, how can I miss that chance!”

The girl was truly significant–she seemed to have some supernatural abilities in this universe that could be hardly explained in common sense. Perhaps, she was someone who could give me a clue about this world.

I scowled at the floor with piercing eyes. Something strange suddenly came into my sight. Narrowing my eyes, I blinked a couple of times then quietly bent my steps toward it to pick it up.

“A note?”

It was a folded piece of paper. Back then in middle school, we often wrote messages on a small piece of paper and sent them back and forth between our friends. Even now, we enjoyed sending messages this way during class.

But usually, a note that was already read would remain unfolded; this one here was neatly bent over on itself as if no one had received and opened it up. I hesitated for a second but soon unfolded it.

My brows then met in the middle as I carefully scanned the words written on the crumpled paper.

“What is this…?”

Ban Yeo Ryung recovers her memories.

Who would have left this kind of note?

Besides, it didn’t sound like a usual tone of a sentence spoken in everyday conversation. Instead, it seemed like a command or some kind of a prophecy.

Then my mind blanked out for a moment as soon as I recalled Eun Jiho’s remark I heard outside the class earlier.

‘Hey, what is that in your hand?’

Looking across the hallway, I blurted out in a daze, “… Oh my god… Is this…?”

Was this the thing the girl had in her hand when she tried to handshake Ban Yeo Ryung?

All the mysteries that happened around the girl flashed through my mind and suddenly seemed to get connected one after another. My mind was then blown as if I got hit hard by a hammer.

Both Yoo Chun Young and Eun Hyung’s fathers had woken from a coma simultaneously as if they had promised to do so. Although one had been sitting on the driver’s seat while the other was sitting behind, and therefore, both had different levels of injuries in which the surgeons also had to perform a longer surgery on Yoo Chun Young’s father, the two gentlemen finally came out of a coma at the same time. It made no sense at all.

Then I bumped into the girl again at the Ranking Battle where I was almost forced to attend while being involved with Ban Hwee Hyul. Since the series of events had occurred in different places, I wasn’t able to link between the two–the girl came to see Ban Hwee Hyul, and his brother suddenly recovered his consciousness right after. They seemed to have no connection until I finally noticed that the girl was involved in those things.

And now…

I looked back at the note in my hand.

What would have happened if the girl’s plan proceeded as expected and Ban Yeo Ryung, eventually, had a handshake with her holding this note? What if this was how the girl saved those people in a coma?

When I looked that far ahead, my heart began to pound so heavily that I wasn’t able to stand still on the spot.