JKA 25

Tens of students were leaving the lecture hall, just like me. The lecture hall was large, so there were doors at both the front and back, and Jiwoon headed for the back door. What was the next class, did Hanbyeol also take that class? The moment he had that thought, someone called him from the front of the classroom.

“Jiwoon, Myeong Jiwoon!”

Surprised, he turned his head, and there was Hanbyeol. It seemed he had come looking for him. No, how did he know I was taking this liberal arts class? Jiwoon thought this and hesitated, then promptly bolted out the back door of the lecture hall and started to run.

‘Psychology theories are all useless!’

Throughout the class, he had tried to apply the situations the professor gave as examples and the theories to his situation with Hanbyeol, but he couldn’t come to a proper conclusion. In the midst of that, when he came face to face with Hanbyeol, even the things he had thought he would say if they did meet were completely gone.

He still wasn’t confident. Until a moment ago, he had thought that if they did end up talking, it would be best to talk only from here to here. If a deeper question came up, he wanted to say that he wanted to talk about that part another day, that this was his limit for today.

But the moment he saw his face, Jiwoon had already reached his limit. It’s been so long since the telephone was invented, which allows you to talk without seeing each other’s faces, and it’s even become a world where you can have real-time conversations with just text, not even voice! Why did Hanbyeol keep coming to find him and try to talk to him?

As he was running away, pushing through the crowd of people, he felt something catch and stopped in his tracks.

“Ugh!”

“S-sorry!”

Jiwoon landed right on his b**t on the floor and let out a groan. Then he fumbled with his neck. It was because he felt a slight choking sensation in his throat. The voice that was repeatedly apologizing was Hanbyeol’s. With this body, he really couldn’t run far.

Hanbyeol wouldn’t have chased him with a lasso, so the choking feeling was probably because of the hoodie. The moment he had that thought, Jiwoon was surprised and raised both hands to fumble with his head. What he felt under his hands was not cloth, but his own hair.

Episode 16

“Huh, huh?”

Jiwoon fumbled with his hair and then turned his head with a surprised expression. There stood Hanbyeol, blinking his eyes with them wide open, just like him. At this, Jiwoon hurriedly got up and pulled his hood back on.

At the sudden commotion in the hallway, many of the students who were moving about stopped in their tracks and looked at Jiwoon and Hanbyeol. Jiwoon’s face turned beet red from all the stares. It was hard enough to talk to Hanbyeol alone, but receiving the gazes of so many people was even harder.

Moreover, perhaps because he had suddenly sat down with a thud, there were people who just passed by, but one or two also started to whisper among themselves. The only fortunate thing was that he couldn’t hear them.

“Myeong Jiwoon… right?”

Hanbyeol asked, somehow cautiously, and Jiwoon nodded his head. He wondered why he was asking such a question, but then he thought that it was possible since he had cut his hair.

“…You cut your hair? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

The sight of Jiwoon with his hair cut was so unfamiliar that he thought he might not have found him if he hadn’t turned around when he called his name in the classroom. Should he say his image was so different that he could be considered a completely different person? In any case, it wasn’t in a bad sense.

Even then, he had chased after him based on a momentary judgment after seeing the back of his hoodie. But the moment the hood came off and their eyes met, he felt a sense of dismay. It was because he wondered if he had pulled the hood of a stranger. Besides, it wasn’t even intentional. He had just tried to grab his shoulder to stop him, but reaching out his hand incorrectly had been the problem.

“Ah, uh. It… it kept poking my eyes.”

Jiwoon answered in a voice that was barely audible, but that was a lie. Jiwoon’s bangs had long since passed the length of poking his eyes. They had grown to the point of being almost like a mask, and he had gone around without even properly parting them, looking like a ghost, so it was a lie that was too insincere.

“A-anyway, why, why?”

Jiwoon, not content with just pulling his hood down low, spoke with his head completely turned away. However, Hanbyeol was silent for a moment and then suddenly gave a completely different answer.

“It looks good on you.”

“…Huh?”

“It’s much better. To the point where it’s really surprising… No, that’s not what I was trying to say.”

As if the shock hadn’t worn off, Hanbyeol muttered to himself, forgetting the fact that Jiwoon had desperately run away from his call. Seeing that strange sight, Jiwoon turned his head and looked at Hanbyeol. At that, this time Hanbyeol avoided his gaze first.

“Wh-why are you being like that?”

But that wasn’t a very good reaction. At least, not for Jiwoon. It looks good, it’s much better. If he said such things and then turned his face away, it was enough to be interpreted in a different way.

‘I guess it’s not good after all.’

Jiwoon thought this and lowered his head. What’s the big deal about looking at each other’s faces, what’s so important about expressions? It was obvious that his expression would be awkward without even looking, and his face was far inferior compared to Hanbyeol’s. It might be better than the gloomy sight of him with his hair grown out like a ghost, but in Jiwoon’s opinion, it was all the same.

As Jiwoon kept his mouth firmly shut and said nothing, Hanbyeol finally came to his senses. The people who had gathered due to the sudden commotion still showed no signs of dispersing, and in that case, the only way to get out of this situation was to leave this spot for now.

“Uh, can you talk to me for a moment? I want to finish our conversation from yesterday…”

“My next lecture…”

“I’m in that one too.”

With those words, Hanbyeol lightly patted Jiwoon’s shoulder. It was a sign to go to the next lecture hall together. At this, Jiwoon hesitantly stood next to Hanbyeol and started walking in the same direction with him. As the two left, the people who had gathered finally dispersed one by one, checking their cell phones.

As they headed to the next lecture hall, Hanbyeol was silent. For someone who had initiated the conversation, he was excessively quiet. And Jiwoon found that silence uncomfortable.

How much time passed like that? When they arrived at the lecture hall, Hanbyeol headed to a rather corner seat and put down his bag, then looked at Jiwoon, who was standing a little distance away, and said.

“Let’s sit down first. We still have some time until the lecture starts.”

At Hanbyeol’s words, Jiwoon hesitated a little but eventually sat down next to him. If they were using the same lecture hall anyway, there was no point in sitting at a distance in this situation. Jiwoon, who had reluctantly approached Hanbyeol, put down his bag just like him and sat down.

“When did you cut your hair? Yesterday?”

As if to lighten the somewhat tense atmosphere, Hanbyeol deliberately brought up a different topic first. Jiwoon’s lips moved as if he were hesitating for a moment, then he just shook his head.

“Today?”

This time, he nodded his head. At that, Hanbyeol propped his chin on his hand as if he were thinking about something and just blinked his eyes. Jiwoon lifted his head and glanced at Hanbyeol’s side profile. Seeing his somewhat heavy expression, Jiwoon felt his heart become uncomfortable again. It was because he felt like he was constantly complicating Hanbyeol’s thoughts.

“…Sorry.”

Jiwoon managed to offer an apology. He himself wasn’t sure exactly what he was apologizing for. But he was aware that because of him, who always created a situation and then ran away, he was creating a situation where Hanbyeol had no choice but to keep talking to him.

He was probably busy with this and that as it was, and just a moment ago, he had even run away. He thought Hanbyeol, who was persistently asking for a conversation from someone like him, was amazing and at the same time felt sorry. At Jiwoon’s apology, Hanbyeol let out a light laugh and said.

“I was going to be the one to apologize, but being apologized to first makes me feel even more sorry.”

“Huh?”

“That guy from yesterday, I mean the blond-haired man who’s attached to you. I did some reflecting after hearing what he said.”

“…”

“I don’t really know anything about you. But it seems like yesterday I just thought whatever I wanted and came to my own conclusions.”

At Hanbyeol’s words, Jiwoon narrowed his brow. It wasn’t something Hanbyeol should feel sorry for at all. Of course, he had been a little shocked, but it was something that could understandably make one think that way. If there’s something like a demon in front of you, and suddenly someone you thought of as a friend confesses to you with words close to sexual harassment, isn’t it a natural flow of thought to suspect that he’s been possessed by a demon?

“I said I would think about it seriously, and I said I thought about it that way, but in the end, I couldn’t.”

“…B-because it wasn’t something to think about seriously.”

“…”

“No, I mean. I’m not saying you did something useless. It’s just that I wasn’t thinking about you when I said those things.”

Jiwoon, who suddenly made eye contact with Hanbyeol, was so surprised that he felt like his throat was closing up, but he forced himself to squeeze out the words, stammering.

“I, I hurt you. Regardless of what kind of feelings they were, in, in a selfish and really ba-bad way.”

“…”

“I, I knew that too, so I thought you wouldn’t talk to me, but. It was a situation where you could have hit me and cu-cursed at me. That was.”

You thought of me as a friend and took good care of me. Jiwoon added in a small voice and gulped. Then he made eye contact with the silent Hanbyeol.

‘He might die if you leave him alone.’

Jiwoon recalled 1129’s words. The one who came to find him was the angel 1129, but the one who came to find Hanbyeol was a demon. So he was in a completely different situation from himself, who only received help from one to ten. And he would probably be the only person who could share this unbelievable situation.

Perhaps he could help Hanbyeol. Even if Hanbyeol wasn’t willing, Jiwoon really wanted to help him. He had received a lot of help from Hanbyeol. The person who constantly talked to him, who had the most difficulty talking to people, was Hanbyeol.

That was the reason Jiwoon first felt a liking for Hanbyeol. At the same time, he also came to respect him as a person. If Hanbyeol still considered him a friend, as he had said at the cafeteria, he couldn’t run away from here, if only to repay that sentiment. Jiwoon didn’t care if he died, but he hated the idea of someone precious dying more than anything.

“…Still, th-thank you for still calling me a friend. I know you said that for my sake yesterday too.”

Hanbyeol listened intently to Jiwoon’s words, which he spoke slowly and haltingly. Then, after a while, he asked.

“That man I met yesterday, is he really a demon?”

As students began to gather in the classroom little by little, Hanbyeol lowered his voice as much as possible and asked quietly. At this, Hanbyeol shook his head.

“N-not a demon. He’s an angel.”

“…An angel?”

“Yeah. H-he has wings too. I saw them.”

“He has wings too…”