I blinked my eyes.

‘What, why is he here?’

It was a face I never expected to see.

I really didn’t think he would come, even if others might.

Seon Woo Jin frowned and waved his hands back and forth. It seemed to be because of the dust in the gym storage.

“You… how did you get here?”

Seon Woo Jin replied nonchalantly.

“Yoo Hee Na told me to come here.”

Huh?

It was a name I totally didn’t anticipate.

‘Yoo Hee Na did?’

I thought she didn’t even look my way earlier, so she wouldn’t know.

‘But if she knew I was here, why didn’t she come help me directly?’

I had thought Yoo Hee Na was unaware of my situation.

Or that she knew but had no intention of helping.

But listening to Seon Woo Jin, it seemed to be neither.

Then why did she send Seon Woo Jin instead of coming herself?

At that moment, Yoo Hee Na’s voice suddenly flashed through my mind.

〈Then I’ll help you from now on!〉

Could it be…

I had a bad feeling about this.

‘She didn’t send Seon Woo Jin because of that, right?’

Yoo Hee Na had misunderstood that I liked Seon Woo Jin.

So she said as a fellow one-sided love comrade, she hoped things would work out between me and Seon Woo Jin. She also said she would help me herself.

‘……’

…It seemed this was that ‘help’.

‘Should I be grateful for this or not.’

Ugh.

What is this feeling of being both grateful and not grateful?

I sighed deeply, looking at Seon Woo Jin who was staring at me blankly.

I felt bad just looking at his face for no reason.

He skipped school and went to the hospital, only to come back to school because of me.

Coming to school on his day off. If it were me, I would have sent someone else.

But seeing as he deliberately came all the way here for me, Seon Woo Jin must be a surprisingly decent guy. I should treat him well from now on.

But what should I really do about Yoo Hee Na?

‘…For now, I should express my gratitude.’

Because the fact remains that she did help me.

The problem was her help went overboard.

‘I’ll have to talk about Seon Woo Jin with her again later.’

If I left this misunderstanding alone, something big was bound to happen someday. To be honest, I felt anxious just thinking about Yoo Hee Na’s face. Who knew what nonsense she might pull again.

Anyway, that was for later.

‘Yeah, let’s get out of here first and talk.’

Having made up my mind, I got up to go outside.

“Ah!”

“Why?”

“I got a leg cramp.”

Seon Woo Jin looked at me like I was really something else.

“Help me up?”

“No, it’s fine. By the way…”

At that moment, Seon Woo Jin thoughtlessly let go of the handle to come towards me.

I hurriedly said,

“Hey, if you close that…”

Creak. Bang!

“…it won’t open from the inside.”

The gym storage door had completely closed.

“……”

“……”

And so, this time two people were trapped.

“…I’ll at least say thank you.”

I said glumly.

“Even though you didn’t think it through, you still came to save me. You didn’t think it through though.”

“You don’t look grateful at all.”

Ignoring Seon Woo Jin’s words, I let out a deep sigh.

‘I can’t believe I got trapped again like this.’

Even when Seon Woo Jin opened the door and came in earlier, I never imagined this would happen.

Having hope appear and then vanish felt twice as hopeless. I gloomily hugged my knees.

‘We won’t have to stay like this until tomorrow, right?’

If only Seon Woo Jin wasn’t here, I could have pretended to be crazy and gotten help from the system. But with him here, I couldn’t do this or that. I might be regarded with strange suspicion.

‘Well, at least it won’t be boring.’

In my mind, I weighed who would be the better conversation partner between the system and Seon Woo Jin. Seon Woo Jin narrowly won.

‘No, that’s not what’s important right now.’

In the first place, why am I in this situation? I originally got along well with my classmates. I wasn’t close with everyone, but our relationship wasn’t bad enough for me to get locked in the gym storage.

…Was it ultimately because of Ban Ha Min?

‘I’m really going to beat up Ban Ha Min when I get out of here.’

As I was working up my fighting spirit alone, Seon Woo Jin rummaged through his pocket and handed me something.

It was my cell phone.

“Wow, thanks!”

“Now you look really grateful.”

Ignoring him again, I excitedly turned on the phone.

“Huh, what?”

It’s not working?

The phone turned on for a moment then shut off, maybe because the battery was dead.

I looked at Seon Woo Jin with eyes demanding an explanation. Seon Woo Jin said indifferently,

“How would I know.”

If Seon Woo Jin doesn’t know, then the culprit must be Ban Ha Min after all.

My determination to beat up Ban Ha Min intensified.

“But seriously, how do we get out of here?”

The number of trapped people increased to two, but in the end, we were back to square one.

“Don’t you have your phone?”

Then Seon Woo Jin readily took out his phone.

Oh, what. I worried for nothing.

“If you had your phone, why didn’t you take it out sooner?”

Seon Woo Jin glanced at me and said,

“Your reaction was funny, so I just.”

“……”

I take back what I said about him being a decent guy.

Seon Woo Jin pressed a few buttons on the keypad and brought the phone to his ear. The dial tone rang a few times and the call connected.

Who did he call?

− Hello?

The voice on the call leaked out in the quiet gym storage.

Seon Woo Jin got straight to the point without any greeting.

“Sung Ji Chan, where are you.”

− At school.

“Then come out for a bit. I’m trapped.”

− Trapped? Where?

“Gym storage.”

− Yeah? Figure it out yourself.

Heartless bastard.

A vein popped slightly on Seon Woo Jin’s forehead.

“I’m not joking.”

− I’m busy.

“Do you want to die?”

− Yup, I’ll die. Good luck.

Click. The call ended.

“……”

Seon Woo Jin cursed savagely.

“That XXX XXX. I’m really going to kill him. XX.”

I tried hard to pretend I didn’t see.

In the end, Seon Woo Jin made another call. This time, the other party was Lee Yeon Ho. Lee Yeon Ho fortunately agreed to come readily.

After ending the call, Seon Woo Jin said,

“He said to wait a bit.”

No matter how far it was from the infirmary to here, it was within the same school.

He would come within 10 minutes at the latest.

I finally let out a sigh of relief.

“That’s a relief. I really thought we’d be here until tomorrow.”

Seon Woo Jin seemed to have quelled his anger towards Sung Ji Chan, as he had returned to his usual indifferent expression.

The gym storage quieted down as the problem was resolved.

“……”

“……”

We’ve run out of things to say again.

I attempted small talk to liven up the awkward atmosphere.

“Did you go to the hospital and come back?”

Seon Woo Jin nodded while playing a game on his phone.

“Yeah.”

“Did you come here directly from the hospital?”

“No. I went home first.”

Ah, right, seeing as he brought my phone, he must have stopped by home.

I wasn’t really curious anyway, so it didn’t matter either way. I just asked because I was bored.

I spoke without much thought.

“But it’s kind of unexpected. I thought you wouldn’t come.”

“Why.”

“You always say it’s a hassle.”

“I wasn’t going to come.”

Seon Woo Jin said, still focused on his phone.

“But Yoo Hee Na kept whining that it had to be me. It was more of a hassle to keep listening to her, so I came.”

I flinched for a moment.

‘What?’

I hastily asked again.

“W-w-what exactly did Yoo Hee Na say?”

“Why?”

‘It had to be you’?

She couldn’t have said anything weird, right?

I rolled my eyes and said,

“No… You said you weren’t going to come but did because of Yoo Hee Na. What on earth did Yoo Hee Na say to make you…”

Then Seon Woo Jin frowned for a moment as if thinking, then opened his mouth.

“She didn’t say much.”

Then what is that ‘not much’!

I studied Seon Woo Jin’s face.

Looking at his expression, it does seem like there wasn’t much to it… No, but he always has this expression.

His poker face made it impossible to tell what he was thinking just by looking at his face. Wait. Poker face? The world’s rank 0 poker face Ban Hwi Hyeol?

Ah, no. This isn’t the time for that.

I shook my head violently to set my constantly wandering thoughts straight.

‘Come to think of it, it’s strange.’

The guy who can barely be bothered to eat because it’s a hassle came to save me? Why? What exactly did Yoo Hee Na say?

‘She didn’t say anything weird, did she?!’

Normally, the flow of my consciousness would never go this way, but I was already out of it due to the consecutively occurring in-so events.

In the end, I came to a conclusion.

This won’t do.

I have to take it.

I need to check for myself what Yoo Hee Na said.

I said with crazed eyes,

“Let me see your phone for a sec!”

I reached out my hand urgently to snatch the phone. However, Seon Woo Jin wouldn’t yield easily.

“Why all of a sudden?”

Seon Woo Jin stood up from his spot with a rare flustered expression and moved away from me.

Not backing down, I also got up and kept trying to take the phone. Then Seon Woo Jin stretched his arm far in the opposite direction to keep the phone away from me.

He was already tall with long arms, so when he deliberately reached out, there was no way I could win.

“I have something I need to do!”

“Do it with your phone!”

“It’s dead!”

I hopped up and down toward the phone. While doing so, I stumbled and my body swayed greatly.

‘Oh no!’

I squeezed my eyes shut in anticipation of the impending disaster.

However, contrary to what I had braced myself for, I felt no pain in my body.

Instead…

“…Huh?”

What I saw in front of my eyes was Seon Woo Jin’s face.

A sturdy arm around my waist. The shortened distance between us. Only then could I figure out what happened. Seon Woo Jin had caught me as I was about to fall.

I blinked. Our gazes met, and a subtle tension was palpable in the strange atmosphere.

That’s when it happened.

Creak.

“Um… Is anyone inside?”

Suddenly, the storage door opened.

‘Huh?’

I turned my head reflexively.

Surprisingly, the one who entered this time was Seol Yu Bin.

My eyes met Seol Yu Bin’s, who had carefully opened the door.

In the same pose as earlier.

“……”

“……”

Silence flowed for a moment.

“S-sorry!”

The startled Seol Yu Bin closed the door again.

Bang!

…What just happened?

Turning my head again, my eyes met Seon Woo Jin’s. This time too, Seon Woo Jin only stared at me blankly.

All sorts of thoughts rapidly passed through my head.

What. Was that Seol Yu Bin just now? Why did Seol Yu Bin come here? Did Lee Yeon Ho send her? To open the door?

Ah.

Coming to my senses belatedly, I quickly got up and ran to urgently knock on the gym storage door.

“No! Don’t go!”

My cry echoed inside the storage.