Yoo Si-eon shook his head frantically, as if his life depended on it.
“Just get rid of it already!”
Calling it a whimper would not have done him justice. Despite being a full head taller than me, Yoo Si-eon curled in on himself and hid behind my back. He clutched my shoulders tightly, as if letting go meant losing his precious human shield.
Han Tae-ryeong followed suit, slowly edging behind me as well.
“Han Tae-ryeong, are you scared of bugs too?”
Han Tae-ryeong did not answer.
He simply averted his sharp gaze, unable to hide his fear.
[Pfft! Ahaha!]
Min Yu-un seemed to find their flaws unbearably funny, but instead of amusement, I felt concern.
The three main characters usually spent their time together.
So what would happen if a bug suddenly appeared in front of all of them?
Lee Soo-hyeon… isn’t afraid of insects, right?
He had better not be.
I could not imagine three boys fleeing in total panic because of one insect.
Suppressing a weary sigh, I reached out without hesitation.
Even while seated, even with Yoo Si-eon clinging to me, the spider was well within reach. Carefully, I picked up the tiny creature scurrying along the window frame. I had to be careful—not so hard that I crushed it, but not so lightly that I dropped it.
The moment I caught it, Yoo Si-eon flinched and stumbled back.
His face went pale, as if he had seen a ghost.
“Min Yu-un! Get rid of it now!”
Yoo Si-eon raised both hands to shield his face.
“If you’re not going to kill it, at least throw it out the window!”
I could not understand why he was reacting like this.
I opened my other hand and let the spider crawl onto my palm. A faint shiver ran up my spine, but that was all. It did not bite me. It did not pinch me. It simply moved across my skin.
“How is this scary?”
I lifted my hand to show them the spider.
Han Tae-ryeong, who had been desperately trying to maintain his composure, sucked in a sharp breath and turned away.
A mischievous thought crossed my mind.
I was not usually the type to tease people like this, but their unexpected reactions sent a tiny spark of excitement through me.
I took one step forward.
Immediately, both of them recoiled two steps back.
“It’s not scary. Come look closer.”
“Ughhh…”
With a pathetic groan, Yoo Si-eon collapsed onto the floor.
“I-I don’t care anymore. If you bring that thing near me, I’ll never forgive you!”
Was that supposed to be a threat?
Seriously, these two…
I bit my lip, trying to hold it in.
“…Ahahaha!”
In the end, I could not stop myself from bursting into laughter.
I laughed and laughed until I could hardly breathe.
That was why I failed to notice.
The way the world around me suddenly fell into an eerie silence.
The way the spider stopped moving and simply stared at me.
The way Yoo Si-eon and Han Tae-ryeong, despite their fear, had fixed their eyes solely on me.
Once I finally calmed down, I flicked the spider out the window.
Han Tae-ryeong then checked every window in the classroom with painstaking care to make sure they were all firmly shut. That, too, was funny, but after laughing for several minutes straight, I had no strength left to keep going.
[Ah, even laughing takes effort.]
Min Yu-un was right.
“My stomach hurts.”
A dull ache throbbed in my sides, as if someone had jabbed needles into them.
I had laughed too much.
“Well, of course it hurts after laughing like that.”
Yoo Si-eon grumbled with a pout.
Still, perhaps because I had saved him from the bug, he did not openly mock me.
After confirming that every window was locked, Han Tae-ryeong approached us. He looked straight at me while faint traces of laughter still lingered on my face.
“Min Yu-un, you…”
Han Tae-ryeong trailed off, hesitating briefly before finishing.
“…You’re a psychopath.”
What? A psychopath? Just because I teased them with a bug?
My lips twitched again.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Muttering under his breath, Yoo Si-eon waved Han Tae-ryeong away.
“Weren’t you going to the nurse’s office? Go already. Stop bothering us.”
“When did I ever—”
“If you don’t, I’ll tell your parents you skipped class.”
Han Tae-ryeong obediently shut his mouth.
With a sour expression, he reluctantly turned to leave. But just before stepping out, he suddenly glanced back at us.
“You three always eat lunch together, right?”
“Why?”
Yoo Si-eon asked in my place.
Han Tae-ryeong did not answer. He simply walked out of the classroom.
The door began to close, only for his face to pop back in at the very last second.
“I’ll come by at lunchtime.”
“What? Why would you?”
Leaving Yoo Si-eon behind in shock, Han Tae-ryeong strolled away at an easy pace.
Yoo Si-eon smacked his own forehead with a loud slap. Then he clenched his teeth, lowered his head for a moment, and suddenly strode toward me.
“Min Yu-un. You. Did you say something weird to him too?”
“Something weird?”
Our foreheads bumped together with a dull thud, and a shallow pain spread across my forehead.
“I feel like you did.”
“What exactly counts as ‘something weird’?”
“You called my hair coral. That kind of thing.”
I rolled my eyes slightly.
Calling Yoo Si-eon’s pink hair “like coral” had been a purely spur-of-the-moment observation.
If it was something I had blurted out in passing, then I would not necessarily remember whether I had said it or not.
“Nothing really comes to mind.”
That was not a lie.
Even if I had said something similar to Han Tae-ryeong, if I could not recall it now, then I had already forgotten.
Technically, saying nothing came to mind was not lying.
Yoo Si-eon slowly stepped away from me, his gaze shifting toward the hallway where Han Tae-ryeong had disappeared.
“Then why is he acting like that?”
How would I know?
I dismissed the thought and began forming a plan.
The moment the lunch bell rang, I had to escape the classroom without anyone noticing.
I had to keep my distance from them.
That resolve had not changed.
First, I need to avoid eating lunch with them today.
Maybe I should run to the snack shop.
If I dashed out of the classroom the moment the bell rang, sprinted down the hallway without hesitation, and hid in an empty classroom in some secluded corner, I would be fine.
It was not a bad plan.
At least, it did not seem like one that would fail.
*****
And I failed spectacularly.
At first, everything went smoothly.
The moment the end-of-class bell rang, I shot up from my seat and left the classroom. No obstacles blocked my way.
Yoo Si-eon noticed my sudden movement and sprang up too, but I already had a head start.
“Yu-un?”
Lee Soo-hyeon, who had been approaching my classroom, stopped in surprise.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I sprinted past him without a word.
Behind me, I heard my name being called again.
I opened my eyes when I reached the end of the hallway.
If I went up the stairs, I could reach the fourth floor, where plenty of empty classrooms were waiting.
[Why are you running away? This is your chance to get closer to them!]
“That’s your job, not mine, Min Yu-un.”
I had already apologized, so that should have been enough effort toward reconciliation.
Besides, if someone wanted to be liked, they had to make the effort themselves.
Catching my breath, I stepped onto the stairs.
Even if my thighs burned, I had to keep moving. Any hesitation would give away my location.
That was when a firm hand clamped around my wrist.
“Min Yu-un.”
A grip too strong to shake off spun me around against my will.
“So I take it you were running away from me?”
Han Tae-ryeong’s face filled my vision.
“That’s what this is, right?”
He pressed me for an answer, but I could not respond.
I had not expected to be caught like this.
Maybe if I had forced myself to run straight up to the fourth floor instead of stopping to catch my breath, I would not have been found.
But more than anything—
I glanced around resentfully, searching for a certain presence.
Spirit-form Min Yu-un must have seen Han Tae-ryeong approaching from behind. He had known, and yet he had stayed silent, letting me get caught.
[That’s what I’m saying. Wouldn’t it have been nice if you’d just quietly eaten with them from the beginning?]
You can do that yourself after I’m gone.
I swallowed the words before they slipped out.
I could not talk to empty air in front of Han Tae-ryeong.
So the words I failed to say sat heavily in my throat, clogging my breath.
“Hey, Min Yu-un.”
A rough grip seized my chin.
Han Tae-ryeong’s hand pressed into my jaw with enough force to feel like it might crush bone. A sharp pain shot through my swollen cheek.
“Ugh.”
It hurts.
The little sun embedded in Tae-ryeong’s eyes gleamed coldly.
“Answer me. Were you running away?”