Chapter 321 (1/2)

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I asked hesitantly, “Oppa, do you know that story? You know the recent rumors about…”

“Huh?”

“… The nationwide Number 1.”

Yeo Dan oppa, who frowned for a moment, tossed a question with a strange look on his face.

“Are you talking about the Number 1 chef in a nationwide competition?”

“Um, sorry for asking, bro,” I replied with a calm look as possible.

I realized that if the nationwide ranking thing was a story about land animals, Yeo Dan oppa belonged to a group of whales. No, actually, most of the problems in this world were irrelevant to him since he always had been leading a free and quiet life as if he was floating in the ocean.

I turned my head to glance at Yeo Dan oppa’s profile face. He was walking down the hill beside me. The fall of the second year in high school… Yeo Dan oppa only had about a year and a few months until the College Scholastic Ability Test, but earlier, he told me apathetically that he skipped the after school self-studying session and was going back home.

‘I should live this way since we only live once…’ Harboring an impossible wish, I bent my steps. Anyway, I felt great to encounter Yeo Dan oppa after a long time.

The after school self-studying session in his school was until eleven-thirty at night, so it was already midnight when he came back home; thus, I could hardly encounter him during the weekdays. The only chance for me to see his face was during family dinner at the weekend, but once he turned second grade in high school, our parents felt sorry to call him for dinner.

However, whether it had been a long time to see him again or not, our conversation wasn’t working well.

“Yeo Dan oppa, how’s studying these days?”

“Good.”

“Only a year left until the college exam, right? Aren’t your feeling too pressured?”

“Not me.”

“Uh… yeah… anything going on?”

“…”

Instead of a conversation between a girl and a boy in the same age bracket, our dialog sounded like a talkative old lady, who was interested in others, talking unilaterally to a brusque young man. However, his face suddenly changed when I flung that meaningless question without any expectations.

He soon switched his gaze to somewhere else. Eh? I opened my eyes wide, thinking, ‘What’s the matter?’

While we were having that kind of conversation, we approached the elevator before I even knew. As I stretched out my hand to press the elevator button, he took his backpack forward and began to find something inside. He then asked me, “You still like chocolate milk, right?”

“Excuse me?”

Instead of a suggestion, it sounded like a request of ‘take this and please be quiet.’

That was when I squinted my eyes while wondering what was going on. There was something falling under the chocolate milk, which he took out from his bag unusually in a hurry. I directed my eyes on the milk in his hand then diverted them onto the ground.

There was a pink envelope dropped in front of the elevator door. It didn’t look like a report card at all.

“…”

A heavy silence hung between us.

I hesitated for a moment but soon bent myself forward to pick up the letter and handed it back to him. This time, of course, I didn’t say any bullshit like ‘I picked this up on the way over.’ He then gave me the chocolate milk, which felt like a barter scene in the New Stone Age.

During the whole time in the elevator to go up to our floor, there was a suffocating silence as if the world had ended. When I, at last, heard the bell ring sound of the arrival on our floor, Yeo Dan oppa’s mouth also opened together.

“It’s not what you think.”