Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can - Chapter 76.2
I raised a hand and brushed Kwon Jayoon’s hands off my shoulders. His hands fell away from me absurdly easily. I can’t believe something like this shook me.
“Why are you dressed so lightly-. It’s cold, let’s go inside.”
“Hey, Baek Hanrim.”
I heard Kwon Jayoon call me from behind.
At the sound, I breathed steadily and calmed myself. I was fine now. If something like this happened again, I felt like I could handle it. Thinking of it as having learned how to deal with situations like this made it seem like it wouldn’t remain such a bad memory.
So I could turn around toward Kwon Jayoon like this, completely unaffected, and smile like usual.
“Jayoon-ah, I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
Leaving Kwon Jayoon behind in the dark alley, I went back into the barbecue restaurant with Kim Jihwan. After that, we finished the rest of the meal with our families and left the restaurant. Kwon Jayoon didn’t show himself again throughout the entire process.
Maybe it was better that I didn’t see him.
Let’s not think about it.
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The second-semester final exams began.
Normally, I would have gone to see Kim Jihwan during every break, but this time I didn’t. I just sat at my desk and studied. It was because Kim Jihwan had told me to study harder.
During exam periods, I behaved like an ordinary student. When I arrived at school in the morning, I reviewed the subjects we would be tested on that day, and during breaks, I checked the material for the next subject.
And after school.
“Guys, doesn’t this look like a flawed question?”
“I think it is. The teacher already went home, so it probably hasn’t been corrected yet.”
“Fuck… that’s annoying.”
We all gathered at a café and graded our tests together.
As expected, Cha Gwonhyeok was near the top of the class, and Kim Jihwan had now moved beyond the upper-middle ranks and was entering the top ranks too.
“Baek Hanrim, how many did you get wrong?”
Kim Jihwan openly compared his score to mine and weighed the difference. He didn’t hide how happy he was when I got something wrong or how dejected he became when he got something wrong. He wanted to beat me, but even when he lost, he didn’t stay depressed for long and recovered quickly.
“Still, Jihwan’s the best at Korean and social studies.”
Cha Gwonhyeok tactfully praised Kim Jihwan for improving his grades. I hadn’t told Cha Gwonhyeok about the argument Kim Jihwan and I had on the street, but he had read the subtle atmosphere between us and acted accordingly.
“I seriously can’t keep up with Jihwan in Korean. My eyes hurt as soon as I see a long passage.”
“Stop exaggerating, Baek Hanrim.”
Kim Jihwan awkwardly pouted at the praise.
“Don’t read the whole thing. Just read the important passages.”
Then, apparently in a good mood, he gave me a tip. I had worried that suddenly showing myself putting in effort might bruise his pride, but he didn’t react much at all. Apparently, that hadn’t been the main point behind why he got angry.
“Ha, what do I have to do to raise my math score…. Rational functions and irrational functions are seriously driving me insane.”
“Jihwan-ah, you need to check the asymptotes first. Here, the point where the denominator becomes zero….”
Kim Jihwan and Cha Gwonhyeok sat close together and looked over the test paper.
At this point, anyone passing by would have called them close friends.
“Do you get it?”
“…One more time.”
If their relationship stayed like this, it seemed unlikely to develop into the hostile relationship they had in the original novel.
But how did their hostile relationship get resolved in the original novel again? It definitely had a happy ending, but there had been a clear love-hate dynamic between them?
.
.
.
Jihwan pulled him into his arms and brought everything to a stop.
No matter what they did or what they thought, in the end, they had always wanted to be in each other’s arms like this. All hatred and anger, sorrow and love were things that scattered without form inside this embrace.
Then what was left for them? Why had they spent all those long years trying so hard to become the most painful thing in each other’s lives?
“Why was it me?”
At Jihwan’s dry murmur, he answered.
“Does the reason matter anymore?”
The two of them, entangled in a relationship of love and hate, had already come too far to discuss reasons now.
“Do you even feel sorry for what you did to me?”
Fire spread easily through Jihwan’s dry reed field. No matter how still and peaceful it appeared, it was precarious and defenseless, as though it could erupt into a blazing inferno at any moment.
“If you’re human… you shouldn’t have done that to me.”
He regretted it. Ruining Jihwan, and still wanting Jihwan despite that. They never should have met in the first place. They never should have even begun.
He thought that now, he no longer knew whether the person he hated enough to want dead was Jihwan or himself.
“Should I disappear from your life?”
Then the endless waves of self-loathing, and the disgusting, selfish impulses he felt toward you, would all disappear too.
Holding Jihwan in his arms, he thought about how he could get as far away from Jihwan as possible. But every thought was useless. Because Jihwan, the one who could answer his question, had fallen silent.
“Answer me….”
At the low, emotionless voice that followed, Jihwan hugged him even tighter.
“Please answer me….”
Jihwan’s arms constricted around him like a snake crushing its prey. To keep his hatred and obsession in his arms for a long time, and to look more closely at the love smaller than his palm hidden inside those twisted emotions.
That was the price they had to pay.
.
.
.
Even vaguely recalling the contents of the novel, I still couldn’t really remember.
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