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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 51
Chapter Title: Say You're Sorry
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A-jin called Jong-min.
"Jong-min, it's A-jin."
-What? What's up?
"I have something to ask."
-What is it?
"Do you remember when Cho-hee chewed you out, asking if you were sure she told those studio people to do it?"
-Yeah. Why?
"Did you hear it directly?"
-Yeah, I overheard her on the phone...
"Okay. Got it."
Jong-min had heard it clearly.
A-jin let out an involuntary hollow laugh.
-Um, A-jin?
"Yeah?"
Jong-min seemed to have caught on.
A-jin's listless voice sounded like that of someone who had figured everything out and was utterly dazed.
-Are you okay?
"What?"
-You... don't tell me.
"Sorry. I don't think I can talk long. See you at school."
A-jin didn't even have the energy to explain.
She hurriedly ended the call.
Right after hanging up, a message came from Jong-min.
[It must be really tough right now, but I figured it's better to know for sure.]
Along with the message, he sent a video.
In the video, Cho-hee pulled the rope, followed immediately by her own scream.
"Huh..."
It was the final nail in the coffin.
Even the person who hurt her was Cho-hee.
The puzzle pieces fell into place.
Could the toilet water prank have been Cho-hee too?
And the homework disappearing from her laptop?
Her head throbbed.
She couldn't bear to watch the video twice and flipped her phone over.
Just then, her phone buzzed again.
A-jin flipped it back over.
It was Cho-hee.
She was probably calling about the vest.
She couldn't bring herself to answer.
She was angry and disappointed, and didn't know what reaction she might have if she picked up.
When she kept ignoring the calls, a loud voice came from outside.
"Kang A-jin! A-jin!"
It was Cho-hee's voice.
She had come all the way to her house.
But A-jin didn't want to see her.
A-jin burrowed under the covers.
* * *
She had dozed off briefly.
She had fallen asleep crying, leaving wet stains on the pillow that had now dried.
Her nose was stuffy, her mouth was dry, and her eyes were puffy.
Checking her phone, there were over ten missed calls.
Ten from Cho-hee, four from Jun-woo.
Sorry, but she didn't want to call anyone back.
A-jin washed her messy face first.
Her headache persisted, though.
Just then, Mom came home from work.
"I'm home."
"Did you sleep and wake up?"
"Yeah. Mom, do you have any headache meds?"
"Should be in the medicine cabinet. Why? Headache?"
"A little?"
"I'll get them for you."
Mom went to fetch the medicine cabinet, and soon Dad came in.
"Dad's home."
"Yeah. Did you sleep and wake up?"
A-jin smiled at the same question from Dad.
"Yeah."
"So that's why he's waiting out there?"
"Who? Cho-hee?"
She wondered if Cho-hee was still waiting outside.
"No. The top student from before."
Jun-woo was waiting in front of the house.
A-jin asked in surprise.
"Jun-woo? He's outside?"
"Yeah. He asked if you were home."
A-jin checked her phone.
A long time had passed since his last missed call.
A-jin hurried outside.
* * *
He had rushed over to A-jin as soon as he heard from Jong-min.
He couldn't fathom the shock she must be feeling, which hurt his heart even more.
When he arrived at her house, he called her, but she didn't pick up.
Seeing her room light off, he wondered if she still wasn't home.
He decided to wait anyway.
He needed to see her face to feel relieved.
After a while, he ran into her father.
Jun-woo bowed at a 90-degree angle.
Her father recognized him and greeted him back.
Soon after her father went inside, she came out.
She must have rushed down, as her face was slightly flushed.
"What! How long have you been waiting?"
Maybe out of guilt, she snapped at him.
She could snap at him all she wanted.
He was just glad to see her face.
"I was worried about you."
Tears welled up in her eyes.
He had waited outside for hours, and it worried her.
Unable to wait for the elevator on the top floor, she had run down the stairs.
It was only the third floor, so it seemed faster.
After making him wait so long, the moment she saw his face, he smiled.
It seemed her emotions had been building since then.
Finally, his words that he was worried made tears overflow.
His voice had been too warm.
It had been a tough day.
The shock from Cho-hee was huge.
She still couldn't believe it; her mind felt adrift in the middle of space.
She was half out of it, not fully sane yet.
But he had come.
The one who had always been cold had come running to her first.
She had thought she meant nothing to him now.
Big teardrops fell.
The falling tears turned into sobs.
Forgetting her embarrassment, she cried like a child, heartbroken.
No words came out, and she couldn't say anything.
She just shed tears.
Crying wouldn't fix her heart, and it wouldn't mean Cho-hee hadn't betrayed her, but the tears came anyway.
His presence made her pent-up sorrow explode.
Jun-woo hesitated.
How could he comfort her?
Would his comfort even help?
After thinking, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her.
He patted her back, telling her not to cry.
With eyes more hurt than hers,
Apologizing that this was all he could do for her right now.
* * *
As soon as Cho-hee got to school, she looked for A-jin.
She seemed angry that they hadn't been in touch all weekend.
But in front of A-jin, she masked her anger with concern.
"A-jin! What happened? Was there some incident? Do you know how many times I called?"
Normally, at Cho-hee's machine-gun questions, A-jin would have smiled and told her to ask one at a time.
But A-jin kept her downcast eyes fixed on her desk, not looking at Cho-hee.
"......"
Cho-hee knocked on the desk a couple times with her fist, wondering if A-jin hadn't noticed her.
"Kang A-jin! Are you listening? Why didn't you pick up?"
"......"
Only at the second question did A-jin look at Cho-hee.
Even then, she didn't hold the gaze long.
She quickly dropped her eyes back to the desk.
Cho-hee was momentarily flustered by this unfamiliar attitude from A-jin.
But soon she thought it was ridiculous, smirked subtly without showing it, and knocked on the desk again.
"What's with you? Something happen?"
Cho-hee never imagined A-jin could hold a grudge against her.
A-jin had always been kind to her.
Frustrated not knowing why, Cho-hee watched as A-jin suddenly stood up from her seat.
Her chair bumped into the desk behind, making a loud thud.
The kids' eyes turned to them.
Jong-min and Jun-woo, who had been watching, flinched.
Especially Jun-woo, who had been on high alert.
Ever since Cho-hee appeared.
In case something happened, he was ready to jump up, with his legs already out from under the desk.
A-jin, standing abruptly, opened her mouth with difficulty.
"Let's talk."
A-jin took the vest from her bag and headed out the back door first.
"Who's the one who should be mad right now?"
Cho-hee made a face like, what's her deal, and hurried after A-jin.
* * *
They went to the trash sorting area.
A-jin handed the vest to Cho-hee.
"You took it home? Then you could have at least told me. I got an earful from unnie."
Cho-hee made a irritated face, like she was the only one who got chewed out.
"......"
She had seen Cho-hee irritated plenty of times.
It was more like whining than real anger.
It was so cute that A-jin would play along and comfort her.
But was that irritation her true nature?
Had she always been so full of complaints, blaming everything on others?
Cho-hee looked different now.
A-jin said nothing, just stared blankly at Cho-hee's face.
"Okay, fine. I'll let that slide. It was my fault for not taking it in the first place. But why didn't you answer my calls?"
"......"
As A-jin kept silent, Cho-hee furrowed her brow more.
"Is something really wrong? I don't get your behavior right now. Are you mad at me? Or is it because something pissed you off?"
"......"
A-jin stayed silent to Cho-hee's question again.
She was at a loss where to even start.
Finally, fed up, Cho-hee yelled first.
"Ugh, seriously! Say something. Why are you clamming up like that? Honestly, shouldn't I be the one mad? You took the vest so I couldn't shoot, I got yelled at, you ignored me all weekend, ghosted my texts. What's your deal? Why? Did giving you the vest piss you off or something?"
She looked genuinely baffled.
A-jin could be slow to open up, but she wasn't the type to shut down completely, so this was new and just felt off to Cho-hee.
"I..."
No matter what Cho-hee said, A-jin was organizing her thoughts.
What to say first, how to lay it out.
Untangling the knotted words, erasing the wrong ones, lining up the order.
And finally, she spoke.
Words she had thought and rethought since last night.
"Yeah."
"I went to drop off the vest."
"What?"
"I went to the Cultural Gymnasium."
"Cultural Gymnasium?"
Cho-hee's eyes flickered for a moment.
Like a bad premonition had crossed her mind, her pupils trembled uneasily.
Seeing that, A-jin despaired.
She had still wanted to deny it.
"So? I didn't see you."
Cho-hee was trying to act unfazed.
"I saw you. I saw you with those studio guys I met."
"Studio guys? What do you mean? The film crew?"
"Don't play dumb."
Please, just say it now. Say you were wrong.
A-jin pleaded with her eyes.
If she said it now, apologized, A-jin would pretend to understand, even if forced.
"Hey. What am I playing dumb about? If it's the studio guys, it's those guys, right? The ones who put you in a tough spot."
"Cho-hee."
"Were those the guys filming for me? Gives me chills. I met the crew that day for the first time."
A-jin wished Cho-hee would stop lying.
Her head suddenly spun.
A-jin squeezed her eyes shut and opened them.
To keep her legs from buckling, she put more strength in them.
Her hands shook, so she clenched them into fists.
"I heard everything they said. They said you told them to."
"Told them to do what? Where'd you hear that nonsense?"
"Stop it!"
A-jin yelled.
It was close to a scream.
Startled by A-jin's loud voice, which she'd never heard before, Cho-hee flinched back.
"Don't make excuses. It was you. You told those guys. You told them to take weird pictures."
"You're just assuming it's me. You believe them over me. Is that what our friendship is worth? Am I crazy? Would I do something that scary to you?"
The words "Cultural Gymnasium" had made cold sweat trickle down her back.
She figured dumb A-jin would buy any sloppy excuse.
But this wasn't the usual A-jin.
She seemed prepared, not budging an inch.
Unlike her usual vagueness, slipperiness, and half-assedness, she pressed relentlessly and finally shoved evidence in her face.
"These are the texts between you and those guys."
They were texts between her and the studio guys.
Not about keeping A-jin there.
"What's this? Just asking about the shoot concept."
"Right. No mention of what you told them to do. But you said you met those guys for the first time this weekend. These texts are from way before. So you already knew them. Everything you just said was a lie."
"That was my mistake. I'd seen them once before..."
A-jin didn't miss a thing she said.
Why's she being so nitpicky today?
"Look at this too."
A-jin showed the video too.
It was the one of her tripping A-jin from inside the frame.
"Why'd you pull the rope here?"
As nonchalantly as possible,
As naturally as possible,
She couldn't panic.
"Oh, that? Teacher told us to clear it 'cause it was dangerous. No way, was that your scream? You fell because of that?"
"Cho-hee. Please."
"It's true. I didn't know someone was up there."
Just please let it go.
