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I Fell in Love With My Tomboy Friend’s Avatar

14

Chapter 14

“Ahhhh!” Jihoon’s eyes had gone wide and he’d bolted, falling spectacularly to the ground. One flailing hand had snagged a trash can on the way down, and garbage now cascaded across his back.

 

“What’s wrong with him?”

 

“I don’t know. He must be crazy.”

 

“That guy’s really lost it.”

 

Good eyesight, though, Eunho thought. He glanced at Jeongwon’s face as she came through the entrance. Jihoon was now so afraid of Jeongwon that he would flee in panic at the mere sight of her.

 

Was she really scary enough to make a grown man run for his life? Pathetic. Eunho felt refreshed. Although he couldn’t repay with his fists, Jeongwon had responded with a delightful shoulder throw, so he considered the debt repaid.

 

“Feels like I took about 5,000 antacids, ah, so satisfying.”

 

“I’m pretty sure that would kill you.”

 

“Seokjun, don’t interrupt my monologue.”

 

Seokjun, who was walking beside him, looked around and jabbed him in the side.

 

“Even if I cut into traffic, you should say ‘yes, please cut in,’ you know.”

 

“Why the hell would I do that, Seokjun? Did you win the lottery?”

 

“You should be grateful to me,” Seokjun said proudly, puffing out his chest. “I restored your honor. How about it? Didn’t people look at you differently today? Did anyone ask for your number? Was there a red carpet when you arrived?”

 

“You’re full of it,” Eunho snorted. “Are you drunk?”

 

“That moron, running away like that,” Seokjun said smugly. “It’s partly thanks to me.”

 

Eunho thought Jihoon might have seen his face just before toppling over. But since Eunho was the one who got hit, he didn’t think there was any reason for Jihoon to be alarmed by Eunho.

 

“What do you mean?” Eunho asked, bewildered.

 

“That guy got totally exposed and destroyed. He admitted that he was harassing Jeongwon and gaslighting her. I heard Jeongwon completely tore up the department room.”

 

“What?!” Eunho half-shouted. “Are you saying Jeongwon knows everything now?”

 

Seokjun snickered at his friend’s wide-eyed shock. “I just gave her a little hint and Jeongwon jumped into action. She went and confronted Jihoon, and he apparently begged for forgiveness in front of everyone in the department.”

 

“Gave her a hint?” Eunho asked suspiciously.

 

“She came and asked, so I told her.” Seokjun shrugged.

 

Everything seemed to spin before Eunho’s eyes. They all knew now? Not just Jeongwon, but everyone in the department? Eunho grabbed Seokjun’s collar and shook him furiously.

 

“Fuck, why did you tell her! Why did you tell her, you crazy bastard!”

 

“This is the first time I’ve seen someone get so angry about their reputation being restored,” Seokjun yelled. “Did someone force you to act like Jeongwon’s white knight?!”

 

Possibly hearing the commotion, Jeongwon walked over from a distance.

 

“Hey, Eun—”

 

“Wow, the weather’s fucking nice!” he shouted at no one in particular. “I’m cutting class!”

 

“It’s a major course, you crazy bastard!” Seokjun snapped, smoothing the front of his shirt

 

Eunho shoved Seokjun into the hallway and ran. Glancing back, he saw Jeongwon standing there with a bewildered face, but not following him.

 

I’m fucked, shit.

 

Jeongwon knew everything. She found out the fact that he fought with the Taekwondo department representative for her. She learned everything about how Eunho, who couldn’t even fight properly, threw the first punch in the name of defending Jeongwon.

 

So fucking embarrassing!

 

Even while running home, Eunho punched at the air. He felt like he was going crazy from embarrassment. Eunho couldn’t understand why he had done it to begin with.

 

How far would Jeongwon read into it? There was no particular reason he’d lashed out. He would have gotten angry if someone had talked about any other female student like that too. Yeah, that’s what it was. It wasn’t because of Jeongwon.

 

As if anyone would believe that!

 

Eunho unleashed a growl of frustration as he ran. His phone vibrated in his hand.

 

Jeongwon Yoo: Where are you?

 

Jeongwon Yoo: I have something to give you

 

Eunho felt like he was going to scream.

 

Eunho Ju: gtfo

 

***

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Jeongwon. Just please don’t spread rumors. I must have been too drunk or something, okay?”

 

“I don’t particularly want to spread rumors either, but you seem to be hellbent on doing it yourself.”

 

“Uh, what?”

 

“You do realize this is the department room…”

 

What an idiot.

 

Jihoon had been on his knees begging in front of her, but the moment he realized what she was saying, ran straight out of the department room, wailing. Seokjun was right. She understood now why Eunho had been so angry with her. Jihoon was truly a piece of trash worse than an insect, and Eunho had indeed fought and gotten beaten up for her.

 

Regardless, did she expect the whole world to suddenly appear pink and beautiful, as if through a camera filter?

 

What am I even thinking?

 

That wasn’t the whole of it. The one who had been tormenting her for 15 years was none other than Eunho himself. It wasn’t just simple bullying. Eunho had mocked and belittled her for all of her individuality and preferences, no matter what she did.

 

For 15 years, Jeongwon led a miserable existence without knowing what she wanted to do. Of course she’d expected him to be the villain in the story.

 

“But why did you help me?”

 

She couldn’t understand what Eunho was thinking. She would feel more comfortable if she knew what his intentions were. She also wanted to apologize for mistreating and not trusting him.

 

So she tried to go talk to Eunho, but…

 

“Hey, Eun—”

 

“I don’t believe in fortune-telling.”

 

When she tried to greet him, he pretended he didn’t hear her. When she tried to give him a gift, he rejected that too.

 

“Eunho, this gift card—”

 

“You got scammed by voice phishing, right?” he asked, glancing at the card. “Go back and get a refund.”

 

Even if she tried to offer something truly valuable, he refused to accept it.

 

“You—You don’t have old exam papers, right?” Jeongwon asked. “I brought your department’s old exams.”

 

“How do you have our department’s old exams?”

 

“He gave them to me.”

 

Jeongwon pointed at the upperclassman from Eunho’s department, standing behind her. He was trembling.

 

“Did you threaten him?”

 

“We came to an agreement.”

 

When the man barely managed to nod, Eunho sighed.

 

“I don’t use extorted exam papers,” he said dismissively. He gathered his things and left.

 

This isn’t working. Jeongwon gritted her teeth and handed the papers back to the older student. Next, she tried the universal gift of food.

 

“Hey, Eunho! You must be hungry since it’s the first class of the day? You’re hungry, right?”

 

“What’s wrong with you, fuck!”

 

“I—I didn’t exactly buy this for you but I’ll give it to you. While I’m at it, I’m training to reduce my running time from here to the store. I managed to do a round trip in 5 minutes.”

 

“You did that when it’s from one end of the school to the other?”

 

As Eunho stared at the bread and milk with a dumbfounded face, Jeongwon jabbed his side and said, “So about last time—”

 

“I’m allergic to flour,” he interrupted.

 

“Stop lying!”

 

Whenever she tried to bring up that day, Eunho would run away no matter what was in his hands, and skip class. He even climbed walls to escape when she cornered him.

 

“Why didn’t this bastard join the physical education department? He’s so good at running away…”

 

Today too, Jeongwon sat on the ground catching her breath after another failed attempt. It seemed Eunho had the talent to outrun even Jeongwon, despite her position as top runner in the department.

 

Jeongwon huffed in irritation, then tilted her head back and looked at the sky.

 

“You’re seriously going to pretend you don’t know anything ? If you want to act like nothing happened that badly, fine! I won’t apologize!”

 

Jeongwon leaned her head against the wall and let out a big sigh. An apology only works if the person accepts it. If Eunho kept refusing, there was no point in forcing an apology.

 

It might even be better. Following him around, showing kindness like this was fairly exhausting for Jeongwon too.

 

She should feel relieved, but something felt off.

 

“Why am I like this.”

 

Jeongwon slapped her cheeks and went home. Even as she showered, changed clothes, and tried to sleep, she kept thinking about Eunho.

 

“This is really unsettling.”

 

Like everyone else, when Jeongwon looked at the ceiling with her blanket pulled up to her neck, memories of the past kept coming back. For example, one of the many instances Eunho had viciously made fun of her.

 

“That bastard.”

 

She recalled the times when Eunho had ridiculed her ceaselessly. But strangely, Jeongwon’s recollections kept shifting to the perspective of other students.

 

“…Why did he act like that back then?”

 

They were in middle school, ninth grade. Eunho was busy deriding Jeongwon when a male student next to him started joining in.

 

When he went beyond merely joining in and started spouting crueler things than Eunho, a fist suddenly flew.

 

“What the hell is Eunho doing?!”

 

“Fuck you, I just repeated exactly what you said! Why are you doing this, fuck!”

 

Eunho’s fists pounded into the boy who’d spoken in the middle of the classroom. Jeongwon was too stunned to stop them, and she suddenly remembered how the teacher had come running from far away, screaming to stop.

 

“Is it like ‘only I can hit her’ or something? Am I his personal punching bag?”

 

Why did Eunho defend her from others while being the cause of her suffering himself? Was it okay for him to mock her, but not others? But didn’t he know that when he started ridiculing her, other people would do the same?

 

A humorless laugh escaped her lips. “I really can’t fathom what that bastard is thinking.”

 

Why did he do that then, and why is he doing this now? Honestly, in ninth grade, she thought maybe he had developed some kind of pathetic hero complex. It was that kind of age. Maybe he wanted to act cool. Though Jeongwon couldn’t see the appeal.

 

But now it was different. They were already adults, and Jeongwon and Eunho weren’t in a relationship where they insulted each other back and forth like when they were kids. They were just distant, with lingering negative feelings toward each other.

 

Then why did Eunho fling his fists at Jihoon, as if protecting her? Had he just randomly wanted to hit someone? He didn’t seem thoughtless enough to try and beat up a Taekwondo student just for fun.

 

“Are you really going to avoid me to this extent when I just want to ask this one thing?”

 

It was frustrating and annoying. She felt like she couldn’t sleep without hearing the reason.

 

“I guess there’s no choice.”

 

Jeongwon stretched her hands toward the ceiling and cracked her fingers with a popping sound.

 

***

 

“Hey, Eunho.”

 

At the increasingly familiar sound of Jeongwon’s voice, Eunho quickly stuffed his things into his bag. When it was bursting at the seams, Eunho roughly picked it up with one hand and stood up.

 

“Eunho Ju!”

 

Jeongwon grabbed Eunho by the shoulder as he tried to pass by without speaking. Eunho, at last, looked at Jeongwon’s face.

 

…This asshole’s eyes look crazy.

 

But it wasn’t the first time Jeongwon had lost it. Thinking this time would be the same, Eunho shook her off. Or at least, he thought he shook her off.

 

“Aaaaaargh!”

 

His arm was now bent behind him and Jeongwon seemed to be hanging upside down from the ceiling.

 

“Ow, ahh, that hurts!”

 

No—he was the one upside down. Eunho felt his body slam to the floor, and he barely managed to turn his head to peer at Jeongwon’s face as she sat on top of him, keeping his arm wrenched behind his back.

 

“You fucking psycho,” he screeched. “You’re using force?! Violence?! You call yourself a Taekwondo department student?!”

 

“This wouldn’t have happened if you had just listened to me earlier!” she snapped, not a hint of remorse in her tone. “Tell me the truth, why did you punch Jihoon—Ah, wait.”

 

Jeongwon suddenly clapped as if remembering something. Even though his arm was now free, he couldn’t escape from Jeongwon’s body weight.

 

“First, take this,” she said. “It’s a gift. I’m sorry for believing the rumors without listening to your side of the story.”

 

From her position on top of him, she handed him a gaming mouse..

 

“Take it, okay? Can you see it?”

 

Jeongwon waved the mouse box in front of Eunho’s face. Eunho groaned.

 

“Fuuuuck! You lunatic! What do you think you’re doing?! Is this how rational adults behave?!”

 

In what world was it appropriate to talk about gifts and questions while pinning someone to the floor like this? Is this what they taught in the Taekwondo department?

 

He could feel a glimmer of the pain Jihoon must have felt when he passed out, face-down in a garbage bag.

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