“Hey, heading home together for once?”
“Guess… that’s true.”
April spring.
Perfectly pleasant weather.
A feeling that blows a fresh breeze into your heart for no reason.
Yeah, it was that kind of spring where even standing still, a hum naturally slips out.
Or maybe it was because I was walking home with ‘Ahyeon’ right now that the air tasted so sweet.
“It’s been a while, so…! Wanna grab some tteokbokki together?!”
“Again?”
“‘Again’? What do you mean ‘again’?! My blood tteokbokki concentration is critically low right now.”
“Didn’t you… eat some with the others yesterday?”
“Yesterday was the place next door! Today I’ll get a different kind.”
I’m not sure what kind of logic that is…
But once the conversation’s already gone this far, refusing now would just wear out my own mouth.
“Okay. It has been a while, after all.”
It really had been a while, too.
Ever since we became high schoolers, she started hanging out with her new group of friends, and the time we spent walking home together like this had noticeably dropped off.
And… honestly, that seemed to fit the natural flow of things anyway.
“Hmm… what kind of tteokbokki should I get today.”
Ahyeon, picking her tteokbokki so carefreely beside me like that.
She’s been my childhood friend for ages, sure, but she’s not someone who shares the world I live in.
Honestly, it makes me wonder how someone like her ever ended up in such a special relationship with someone like me.
Well… for my part, it’s pure luck.
That a girl this pretty thinks of me as her closest person, just because we share a past together.
“Do you even have a tteokbokki you’d turn down?”
“Heh, of course not. Got a problem with that…?”
“No, not that. Just eat whatever. It’s all the same to me.”
Me, on the other hand, I was a pretty ordinary guy.
Nothing outstanding, but nothing particularly offbeat either.
“Oh, right. How do I look? Right now?”
Ahyeon suddenly stopped mid-step and planted herself right in front of me.
Staring blankly at me, like she was waiting for an answer.
“What…?”
“Do I look pretty right now? Did I gain weight? Ugh, I’ve been eating way too much with the others lately. Answer carefully? Unless you wanna die.”
The fact that someone like that is already thinking about eating tteokbokki again is a massive contradiction in itself.
But that didn’t mean she’d gained weight or gotten ugly.
Yeah, she looked just as pretty.
Pretty enough that it was hard to keep looking at her.
“I dunno… You’re just as pretty as always. And why would you worry about your looks anyway?”
“Put some soul into it, would you?! Whatever. Forget it. It’s not like you’d ever see me as a girl anyway. Piss off!”
Ahyeon said, all huffy.
“Yeah…”
And I gave a half-hearted reply.
Doesn’t see me as a girl… No, honestly, in my eyes, she’s very much a girl.
Isn’t that obvious?
With someone this obviously pretty, and she’s even aiming to be an actress right now.
Saying I don’t see her as a girl—it’s not like I’m her blood relative or something.
Just because we’ve known each other since we were kids… saying I don’t see a perfect beauty like her as a girl is just nonsense.
Yeah, if I’m being honest… I liked her.
If you’d call it a crush, it was a crush.
But expressing that feeling—the social wall between her and me was too high.
And I accepted that, never daring to peek over the line.
I chose to just stay as her closest friend.
Especially since Ahyeon doesn’t seem to see me as a guy either, so if I confessed now, it’d obviously shatter our relationship into pieces.
Besides, Ahyeon relied on me for a lot, knowingly and unknowingly.
“The audition’s… coming up soon, and I feel like I’ve put on so much weight. So depressing… I need an urgent tteokbokki transfusion.”
“Then, let’s start running again from today.”
“Ugh, here comes Jino’s hellish management again.”
“That’s what happens when you won’t do it on your own.”
“Yeah… let’s do that… So wise, Your Highness…”
From things like that, to the psychological side, and even the hands-on stuff.
If I suddenly smashed that relationship apart… it would probably hurt her because of my selfish feelings.
A fight I can’t win, just to ease my own heart—I’m scared of the regret and lingering what-ifs, like “maybe I should’ve confessed back then.”
I didn’t want to break this relationship over something so selfish and petty.
So I chose to kill my feelings.
To put it badly, or in others’ eyes, people might say I’m acting like a pushover.
But I don’t see it that way.
As the closest and oldest friends… isn’t it only right to help where I can?
Let good things be good.
If I’m okay with it, then it’s okay.
***
The next morning at 6 AM.
Too early to say I woke up for school.
Yeah, because we agreed to start running together today.
-Brrring♬
I call Ahyeon.
Because this girl never wakes up on her own.
Well, besides, it’s a tough time for any normal student to get up.
Same for me—it wasn’t easy—but I’m the one who suggested it, so I can’t screw this up.
-Brrring♬
After a few more rings, right before it cut off.
[Ughh, hello…?]
Just as expected, she sounded half-asleep, groggy.
Like she could barely get the words out.
Her voice was all raspy and thick.
[Get up. We’re running.]
[Ugh… I’m begging you, please…]
[Then, from now on, your name is Pig.]
[Aaagh…! Grk… ugh… You devil!! I wanna cry]
Ahyeon let out a terrible shriek mixed with a stretch.
She’s really struggling, huh.
I get it, though…
[I know it’s tough, but let’s do it together. You can do it. I’ll come to your place.]
[Mmkay…]
A little while later, in front of Ahyeon’s house.
I could see her coming out, all slumped and deflated.
“Hey…”
“Still, that’s impressive. You were whining so much, but you actually came out.”
Yeah, let’s start with a compliment.
“If you hadn’t been hounding me so hard… I probably would’ve given up.”
“What do you mean hounding you that hard.”
“Anyway… thanks. Let’s go. We’re going!!”
Ahyeon was trying to force her energy up late, attempting to wake herself up.
She was completely bare-faced, so plain and natural.
Even having just rolled out of bed… the word “clean” never suited anyone better.
“5k today?”
I offered today’s goal first.
“Easy. Totally easy.”
Ahyeon showed confidence in my suggestion.
Besides, whenever it was time for us to run like this, we always kept that pace.
.
.
.
“Hah, hah, huff… uh.”
We finished our run, all of us gasping for breath without exception.
“Whoa, holy crap. I think I’m gonna puke…”
“Drink some water. Here.”
I handed the water I’d prepared to Ahyeon, who was bent over with both hands on her knees, saying she might throw up.
“Oh, thanks. Nice touch.”
“More than a nice touch… you should’ve brought your own.”
“Kyah— Jino’s water just tastes better.”
She always weasels her way out of it.
“Do I look thinner now?!”
Then Ahyeon looked at me and asked again.
It’s not like she lost weight instantly—it’s probably just the puffiness going down.
“At least wipe your sweat first, then talk.”
“Huh? You saying I look funny all sweaty right now?! You wanna die?”
“When did I ever say that?!”
“Gah-!!!”
With that, Ahyeon wiped her sweat-soaked forehead with her own hand, then immediately rubbed it on my arm.
She was probably trying to mess with me, but…
“Ah!! What the… She’s got more sweat on her arm than I do!!! Gross!!”
Yeah, I guess she didn’t realize I was just as drenched.
“Anyway… good work. Let’s give it our all during the audition period. Got it?”
“Okay. No big deal! Proud of me!”
“You got everything else ready?”
“Of course.”
“Got enough food at home?”
“Hmm… I still have some of what you gave me before. Why?! Gonna cook for me?”
Somewhere along the way, the arts high school Ahyeon wanted to attend turned out to be far away.
And to make things worse, she didn’t get into the dorms… so she had no choice but to live alone.
Of course, that was the same for me.
Anyway, because of that, I’d sometimes go over to her place and cook for her.
I’d also share food I got from my parents with her.
Because if you leave her alone… she’d just make do with delivery food or convenience store stuff.
“I’ll do it next time. For now, eat what’s left. Don’t leave it too long or it’ll go bad.”
“Okay. Then… see you at school later!”
***
Lunchtime at school.
“Hey, Choi Ahyeon’s trying out for that web drama audition too?”
“Yeah… I think so.”
“She’s probably gonna get it. Dude… so does that mean you’re gonna have an actor friend?”
“Hey, what’s the big deal…? It’s not like this place is short on actors and trainees and influencers.”
“Still… dude. You’re super close with her. Lucky, so lucky.”
It was a friend in my class named Junyong.
Honestly, at school… I never really made it known that Ahyeon and I were that close.
Except to this guy Junyong, who sat right behind me.
The reason being…
Like I said before, our social levels were pretty different.
Yeah, we lived in different worlds.
Sure, I was also a student at the same arts high school, but even then, the tiers were all over the place.
I figured I didn’t need to force my way into Ahyeon’s circle.
It wasn’t like she wanted that either, so I just chose to keep that line at school.
Maybe… it was my own insecurity, not wanting to feel inadequate around all those talented, pretty people gathered around Ahyeon.
And besides, we were in different classes anyway. We applied to different departments.
“If… Ahyeon gets famous, you better not ditch me, you hear?”
“What does that have to do with anything…?!”
“We’re… part of the same inferior student group. Got it? If you betray me, I swear…”
That kind of vibe.
Yeah, it was the same arts high school, but there was clearly an invisible class system even inside it.
And this school had a particularly weird streak to it.
“I heard from second year on, they do career-specialized education.”
“Oh yeah?”
“But seriously… what did you even get in here for?”
“Me… you can tell. I’m in the practical music department.”
“Bullshit… that’s exactly what I’m saying. Your vocal test last time was absolute garbage.”
“Vocals aren’t everything in music, you know!? Wanna die? You want me to pull up that god-awful dance video from your phone?”
The hilarious thing about this guy is that he wanted to be a dancer, but even with a whole dance department right there, he enrolled in the practical music department.
“That’s… just a realm you can’t comprehend yet.”
While I was chatting with Junyong, my only real buddy at school…
I felt the air around us suddenly shift.
Yeah, weirdly enough, I could feel it on my skin.
That strange dissonance.
“Oh, it’s Choi Ahyeon. Looks like she’s here for you.”
“Her? No reason for her to do that.”
As I said that, I followed Junyong’s gaze with my own.
Sure enough, there was Ahyeon, striding through the front door into our classroom.
“Oh, Jinho! Hey.”
Ahyeon gave a somewhat awkward greeting, scanning the room with a quick glance.
With it being lunchtime, the classroom looked pretty empty.
A few people were even asleep at their desks.
Anyway, so it’s Jinho at school, not Jino.
“Uh… yeah.”
Seeing her like that, my first thought was that something must have happened.
Ahyeon paused in front of me, trying to steady her breathing.
She gave off a heavy sense of awkwardness.
Her gaze kept darting around uneasily, and her lips kept fumbling without a sound.
What… is she trying to say.
Then, squeezing her eyes shut… she finally spoke.
“Hey, do you wanna… go out with me?!”
.
.
.