Chapter 45: Do I really need to prepare for the midterm exam? (4)

I instinctively took a step back. It was the survival instinct of a small animal trying to survive.

But Yejin calmly pressured me as if to say, “Try and escape if you can.”

“Jia, where are you going?”

“W-Wait a minute.”

“Wait for what? Did I ask a difficult question?”

That’s what I want to ask.

I just asked where Jihyun was since she was here with us, so why are you reacting like this?

No matter how I think about it, it’s not something to react this way to.

But looking at Yejin’s expression, I didn’t know what would happen to me if I said what was on my mind, so I kept my mouth shut and shook my head.

“Then why are you running away…?”

Because it feels like I’m about to be eaten.

I need to find a way to escape quickly…

Uh.

It’s blocked here?

I slowly looked back. A wall greeted me as if to say there was nowhere else to go.

When I turned my head back, Yejin was already right in front of me, unfortunately.

“Wow! Our Jia has nowhere to run now? You’re like a cornered mouse.”

Yejin said that with a chuckle.

“Uh… I… Ah…?”

They say that in moments of crisis, your mind goes blank, and is that ever true.

Unlike the thought that I should say something, unintelligible sounds came out of my mouth.

All I could do was stare at Yejin with a terrified expression.

As a last resort, I pressed my back against the wall and curled up.

“Ahaha. Jia.”

?

Hearing her call my name, I slowly looked up at Yejin.

Yejin’s dead eyes had returned to normal.

Her voice wasn’t scary anymore either.

Yejin said with a playful expression.

“I was just joking around, but if your reactions are this good, I want to keep doing it.”

“It…

“It was a joke?”

That expression and those eyes could never come from just a joke.

If she could do that, she should have gone into acting.

But seeing Yejin return to normal so quickly, I was confused again.

Was it really a joke?

I blinked.

“Of course! I heard that yan… something was popular in webtoons these days, so I wanted to try it out.”

“Yandere?”

“Huh. I think it was something like that, Jia knows about it?”

Of course.

As a professional shut-in, I’ve mastered all kinds of internet jargon.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I knew about yandere even before it became popular.

But even though that genre has spread quite a bit recently.

It’s not to the point of being talked about in the mainstream.

Doubts started to form.

Hmm. I don’t know.

Recently, so many things that shouldn’t be possible by my standards have been happening, so these kinds of inferences are meaningless.

I decided to let it go, thinking that maybe yandere is mainstream in this world.

It’s not like Yejin would lie.

Anyway, I’m glad it was just a joke.

I really thought something was going to happen to me.

It wasn’t for nothing that they say someone’s heart can drop.

My body relaxed, and I slid down the wall, slumping to the floor.

I earnestly pleaded with Yejin.

“Please… don’t make jokes like that. I was really scared.”

“It wasn’t a joke, though?”

Yejin was about to make that scary face again, but I won’t be fooled anymore.

“I know it’s a joke now, so let’s stop…”

“Hehe. If Jia says so, I’ll try to restrain myself.”

“Can’t you just not do it at all instead of restraining yourself?”

“But it’s so much fun.”

This devil.

Yejin’s smile, which had seemed so innocent before, now felt wicked.

Yejin, who had become addicted to teasing me, kept saying mean things, then held out her hand.

“Here. You can’t just sit there forever.”

“Thank you….”

I took Yejin’s hand and stood up.

Is this what they call giving with one hand and taking with the other?

I felt like I was being trained.

What’s irritating is that this doesn’t feel bad.

The annoyance I felt from the mischievous joke just a moment ago melted away.

Yejin came closer and gently patted me.

And then she kissed my cheek.

Smooch-

“Eh…?”

My mind went blank. I looked at Yejin in confusion.

Yejin was smiling.

Was that a kiss, just now?

No, no.

So suddenly?

A kiss is something… that people in love do.

But why….

I looked at her with a gaze that asked for an explanation, but Yejin just kept smiling without saying anything.

Her smile was so innocent that I naturally thought it might be an extension of the joke.

Now I don’t know what’s what.

I gave up thinking.

One thing’s for sure, I’ve never even kissed the opposite s*x, let alone had a first kiss, and today was my first.

I carefully rubbed my cheek.

Since it was a sudden first, the feeling was strange.

It’s not that I didn’t feel anything, but it was hard to describe.

As I was feeling complicated, Yejin said.

“I’m glad you didn’t hate it!”

What is she glad about?

I had no idea.

Just as I was about to ask her what she meant, someone called us.

“What are you two doing standing there?”

It was Jihyun.

Where on earth were you and why are you here now.

I glared at her with that thought, and she said she was just in the bathroom.

Come to think of it, if Jihyun had just told me she was going to the bathroom, this wouldn’t have happened.

She was the cause of the incident.

At that moment, the doorbell rang.

“Ah! The food must be here.”

“I’ll get it, so you two clean up the table.”

I nodded. Food is innocent.

Let’s eat first and think later.

“Wow….”

The delivered tteokbokki came in a large plastic container, and the portion looked huge.

Enough to make me wonder if the three of us could finish it.

With an excited heart, I opened the lid, and the visuals were even more amazing.

A huge amount of tteokbokki and fish cakes.

There are sausages too.

And white cheese covering the top.

Just looking at the food made my mouth water.

It wasn’t like any tteokbokki I had ever known. I couldn’t stop exclaiming.

“

Wow….”

“Jia, it looks good, but is it really that amazing?”

“At this point, isn’t she like someone who was frozen for thousands of years, just woke up, and is experiencing civilization for the first time?”

I could hear them talking beside me, but I didn’t care.

The food was, how should I put it. It kept tempting me?

My eyes sparkled.

“Let’s eat quickly!”

“Uh… yeah, let’s.”

If I hadn’t heard someone calling me, I would have started eating with the wooden chopsticks that came in the delivery bag.

“Kim Jia.”

“Yeah… what?”

I was dissatisfied with the interruption of my meal. I looked at Jihyun with a pouty face.

“That’s pretty spicy, are you okay?”

Oh.

Was she worried?

If that’s the case, I can forgive her.

I relaxed my expression.

But there’s no need to worry, because when I was a man, I was a spice fanatic who would stack and eat Buldak.

So there’s no need for such trivial worries.

I puffed out my chest and proudly declared.

“I’m really good at eating spicy food!”

“Yeah!

“Really?”

”

“You don’t look like you can handle spice at all.”

No way. I’m really good at it.

But they didn’t seem to believe me.

Feeling wronged, I shouted.

“Then do you want to bet?”

“A bet?”

“Yeah. On whether I’m good at eating spicy food or not.”

At that, Yejin and Jihyun looked at me with slightly intrigued expressions.

“What will you do if you lose?”

Jihyun asked me.

Hmm… I basically have to decide on a penalty…

But I can’t think of anything.

It’s not like I have money.

Ah, no. I just thought of something simple I can bet.

“How about the loser grants the winner a wish?”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“

They both exclaimed at the same time.

Their eyes looked like they had found something they liked.

There’s not much you can do with a wish, though.

Why are they so excited.

Feeling uneasy, I added a condition.

“Instead, no monetary or practically impossible conditions!”

“Psh. That’s obvious.”

Even though I got their agreement, I still felt uneasy for some reason.

Sigh.

Friends shouldn’t doubt each other.

I shook my head and set the rules for the bet again.

“If I drink a beverage, then I lose.”

“Then I won’t give you a drink until you say you lost?”

I scoffed at that. There’s no way I’ll need a drink.

I was confident.

What should I do with their wish coupons to make it worthwhile?

With that thought.

“Haa… Haa…! Wa… Water….”

“Jia, did you lose

the bet?”

“I lost, so please give me some water….”

The tteokbokki was much spicier than I thought.

It felt like my throat was burning.

The two who ate it with me didn’t seem to be affected much, though.

I practically begged Jihyun and Yejin.

“Yes! Then I get to use… get a wish coupon?”

“But what did she say were the

impossible conditions for the wish?”

“Ah, that’s monetary and….”

Forget the bet, just give me some water quickly….