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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“Hehe. In-wook. Hi!”
Ha-rin greeted me with a bright smile, no different from usual.
“Yeah. Ha-rin. Good morning.”
But there was one thing that seemed a bit strange.
Ha-rin. Why are you sitting next to me?
I was sure that until last week, the seat next to me belonged to Park Ha-min.
But for some reason, Ha-min was sitting in Ha-rin’s seat, and Ha-rin was sitting in Ha-min’s seat as if it were her own.
[T/N: these names are killing me…]
“Hey… Ha-rin.”
“Yeah?”
Ha-rin was taking out her belongings from her bag too naturally.
“That… this is Ha-min’s seat…”
Before I could even finish my sentence, Ha-rin suddenly held out a chocolate in front of my mouth.
“Here! Take this!”
The pungent caramel scent tickled my nose.
This was the chocolate I had been eating along with cigarettes until the day I died in my previous life.
I hadn’t eaten it once in this life…
“This is my favorite, so I wanted you to try it too! Hehe.”
I think Ha-rin used to enjoy it in my previous life as well.
Since she was someone who loved sweets, it wasn’t that strange to see chocolate coming out of her bag.
As I savored the taste melting in my mouth, I almost forgot the question I was originally going to ask.
“Ha-rin. But your seat… did you… move it?”
Generally, in the academy’s classroom, it was common to keep sitting in the seat you first sat in at the beginning of the semester.
It wasn’t impossible to change, but most people just got used to that seat and didn’t bother to change it.
“Ah. Yeah. Sitting by the window, I felt like my skin was getting a bit tanned because of the sunlight, so I asked Ha-min.”
But this seat wasn’t that far from the window either, so the bright sunlight still came in at certain times.
“I see. Then wouldn’t a seat further inside be better?”
Ha-rin waved her hands, indicating that she absolutely didn’t want that.
“No! Still, photosynthesis is important! In-wook!”
“…Humans don’t need photosynthesis, you know?”
Are you a plant, Yoon Ha-rin?
“That vitamin D, right? Anyway, that’s important too!”
Well. I didn’t dislike it though.
Rather, I felt like I could stare at Ha-rin sitting next to me for hours.
Because until I got my first divorce, I thought I would grow old by her side forever.
Memories of dating Ha-rin during our academy student days began to come back one by one.
So I silently watched Ha-rin taking out her books without saying anything for a while.
Did I stare at her too intently?
Ha-rin turned her head and looked at me.
Startled by her sudden action, I instinctively turned my head the other way.
“…In-wook.”
Her voice was full of playfulness.
It was her tone that seemed 200% intent on teasing me.
“Hm?”
“You were just looking at me, weren’t you?”
“No, no. I was just looking towards the window.”
“How about being a little more honest?”
She had an expression that seemed to already know the answer.
Unable to come up with a good excuse, I kept my mouth shut.
I could see the corners of Ha-rin’s mouth rising.
“Can I borrow your ear for a moment?”
Is she trying to say something that others shouldn’t hear?
I slightly lowered my body and leaned my head towards her.
“…I know too. That I’m pretty.”
“Pfft.”
I couldn’t hold back my laughter at her unexpected remark.
There were probably very few people who knew that Ha-rin was this kind of child.
From a distance, she gave off a pure and innocent impression.
But it was only after dating her for quite a while that I could see her true nature.
Ha-rin… was a woman whose confidence in her appearance pierced the sky.
I thought it made sense.
In fact, even before I confessed to her, she had already received countless confessions from many boys from the moment she entered the academy.
Her nickname was also ‘The Flower of the Academy,’ so no further explanation was needed.
“Hahaha. Ha-rin is good at joking too~”
Unable to say ‘That’s correct~’ here, I tried to brush it off lightly as a joke.
But… for some reason, Ha-rin’s expression turned sour.
“…In-wook.”
“…Yeah?”
Did I make a mistake? Did she feel bad that I was staring at her?
If she really felt bad, I thought she wouldn’t have joked like that.
“Am I really not pretty?”
For a moment, I felt like my brain had stopped.
I wondered why the person who knew better than anyone else that she was pretty was asking such a question.
“Of course…”
I was about to tell her that she was pretty, but another familiar voice called my name.
“Choi In-wook.”
At the voice coming from behind my seat, both Ha-rin and I turned our bodies in that direction.
And the owner of the voice was Si-hwa, neatly dressed in her uniform as always.
“Oh… Oh! Si-hwa.”
Seeing her come to our class in the morning even though she was clearly in a different class, I thought she must have something to do.
“What’s up?”
“The interview content from the school newspaper. I think it would be good to coordinate a bit.”
“Didn’t we already do that?”
“This time, it’s not just for the school. They said it’s a version that will be published outside the school as well.”
Ah… This is why I didn’t want to join places like the student council, to be honest.
Inevitably, it was a group that attracted the attention of others.
“Then can’t we talk about it here?”
Si-hwa glanced at Ha-rin sitting next to me and opened her mouth.
“I think it would be better for us to be alone.”
Hmm… I don’t really mind, but I wonder why she’s enunciating the word ‘alone’ like that.
Just as I was about to answer that I understood, someone else answered before me.
“…Can’t you see In-wook is busy right now?”
Ha-rin, who had been listening to our conversation, retorted to her words with an unpleasant expression.
“…I don’t think I asked you.”
Si-hwa countered her words with an indifferent expression.
“No. I have the right to answer.”
I don’t remember giving you that right, Ms. Ha-rin.
“Who are you to him?”
Si-hwa snorted as if it was absurd.
“Me? I’m In-wook’s pair. Translated into Korean, it means a couple. We are two halves of a whole. Got it?”
[T/N: yes that is what she said it isn’t a mistake]
Ahem.
I couldn’t help but cough at her embarrassing pair introduction.
Ms. Ha-rin. That only lasts for one semester, you know…?
Is it something to be so immersed in the pair?
“A first-year first-semester pair. Why are you acting so high and mighty with a position that doesn’t help at all in life?”
It was a fair point.
Especially since the grades in the first semester of the first year seemed completely unrelated to the final evaluation and results at graduation.
But still, the way you say it… Si-hwa…
Si-hwa had always been the type to say whatever she wanted to say, but today’s level seemed stronger than usual.
I thought I should slowly intervene…
“You think being in the student council means you can say whatever you want?”
Ha-rin’s eyes seemed to be burning with flames.
Come to think of it. This was a scene I couldn’t even imagine in my previous life.
Si-hwa and Ha-rin bickering over me in the academy…
I felt dizzy.
“You can’t even say what you want to say, can you?”
“Hey!”
Sensing the emotions escalating, I abruptly stood up from my seat.
“Enough. Si-hwa, you should stop there too. Ha-rin, you calm down too.”
I volunteered to play the role of a firefighter to put out the fire, but instead, the flames engulfed me.
“Yeah. In-wook, you should clearly tell her. We’re busy right now.”
“Choi In-wook. Let’s go quickly. Don’t waste time with someone like her.”
I instinctively felt it.
If I chose one of them here, it would become uncontrollably difficult to clean up the aftermath.
Ha-rin would probably puff her cheeks all day long, and Si-hwa would create an atmosphere where even the people next to her would be walking on eggshells.
“I…”
After trailing off for a moment, I chose the third option after all.
“I need to go get my notebook that I left in the club room before class starts!”
Of course, such a notebook didn’t even exist, but I blurted out something.
I’m glad I joined the club.
I never imagined that the day when that clumsy club would be helpful would come so soon.
“There are only 10 minutes left. Ha-rin! I’ll be right back! Si-hwa, let’s talk again after class!”
“Hey! Choi In-wook!”
“In-wook!”
Ignoring their answers, I hurriedly ran out into the corridor.
Wasn’t this the best choice I could make right now?
I went to the bathroom for a moment to catch my breath and stayed there until it was a close call for class to start.
* * *
After Choi In-wook hurriedly left the classroom.
A strange silence fell between me and Yoon Ha-rin.
Perhaps because she was heated by my words, her face was flushed red.
“…As if you would have had a chance if it weren’t for me…”
Yoon Ha-rin muttered in a small voice.
It was a very small monologue, so she probably thought I hadn’t heard it.
But the moment I heard her words.
I understood too naturally why she said such a thing.
The stigma engraved on me in my previous life that I so desperately wanted to deny.
The sense of defeat that I had buried in a corner of my heart even on the day I married Choi In-wook.
She was telling me.
That I was second.
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