SMW 32

「…Well, obviously. You stood out the most on the playground today, too.」

As I answered while gauging his reaction, Choi Seol wore a look of surprise.

「You watched?」

「From the classroom.」

「I thought you were reading.」

「…I like soccer too.」

「No, that’s not what I meant.」

Choi Seol waved his hand and spoke after a short pause.

「It’s just that whenever it’s break time, you’re [stolen content]completely immersed [stolen content]in your books. And when class starts, you look so disappointed. Since the next period was self-study, I figured you’d want to keep reading.」

「You… noticed that?」

「I noticed, that’s why I’m mentioning it.」

Suddenly, Gyeong-ho’s words, which I had let slip through one ear while reading, came back to me.

Hey, our team is exactly one person short. We can’t even play the match without you. Hey, Han Yeo-reum. Are you listening?

For some reason, there was something I wanted to ask.

「Why did you play soccer today? You don’t usually do things like that.」

「Well, just…」

Unlike before, Choi Seol trailed off mid-sentence. His gaze, which had been focused on me, wavered and eventually drifted toward the sky.

「…I just suddenly felt like doing it.」

The answer, drawn out so long it felt breathless, came out blandly. Choi Seol [stolen content]soon stood up. He grabbed the umbrella he had leaned beside visit our sitehim [stolen content]and reached out his hand to me, as I was still sitting.

「Let’s go. It looks like it’ll pour all night, so I’ll just walk you home now.」

The rain, which I thought had subsided, was growing heavy again. Just as Choi Seol said, it didn’t seem like the rain would stop today. I stood up following him. It was just as I instinctively reached for my umbrella leaning against the tree.

「Come here. Don’t covet something that already has an owner.」

Right. I’m supposed to have lost my umbrella right now. I startled and pulled my hand back, glancing at him, and Choi Seol held out his hand to me from a step away.

「…You want me to hold it?」

「In case you trip again.」

「Stop teasing me.」

I pushed away Choi Seol’s playful hand and stepped inside the open umbrella.

「Still, it’s a relief that you’re small. Even though the umbrella is big, I thought it would be a stretch for two guys, but this is just right.」

「I told you I’m not small. They say kids like me grow even more when they become adults.」

「Right, keep fighting.」

At the soulless encouragement, I glared at Choi Seol for a moment and matched my pace to his. There was certainly enough space inside the umbrella. However, because the other person was so large, I couldn’t help but be conscious of it.

Today, I had greeted Choi Seol. I was also holding onto his wristwatch at his request. We met again under my favorite tree and shared many conversations. I had even borrowed his clothes, and now we were sharing an umbrella. Perhaps that was why. The sky, which looked as if an apocalypse were about to be realized, felt incredibly beautiful. The sound of the rain, which had been gloomy while I was wandering around the school, now sounded almost cheerful.

I felt good being with Choi Seol. Perhaps because I was too excited, I accidentally bumped shoulders while moving.

「Sorry.」

As I apologized instinctively and tried to move away, Choi Seol wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close.

「Like I said before, if you don’t want to get wet, don’t move.」

Our shoulders touched again with a soft thud. My fluttering heart plummeted in an instant.

「Just bear with the discomfort. It’ll be much better than getting soaked and catching a cold.」

Could I bear it? Before that, I might suffocate or die from my heart bursting. My unauthorized copytension reached its peak in proportion to the area where stolen contentwe touched, and my unauthorized copybroken heart lost its rhythm once again.

Could this really be called admiration? This feeling, where the world turns upside down based on the words and actions of a single person, was difficult to define with the expressions I had known until now.

What is this? What on earth is this feeling?

It was then.

「Han Yeo-reum.」

Tap. The sound of a single droplet falling onto the umbrella created a gentle ripple in my chest. My noisy heart suddenly tightened. I looked at Choi Seol. At the same time, a hood was placed over my head, on top of my cap.

「If the cap isn’t enough, wear this too. This way, your face will be completely covered, so no one will know it’s you. So relax.」

So don’t worry, Choi Seol’s soothing voice echoed in my ears for a while.

Ah, I see.

Because the hood was so large it covered my eyes, I couldn’t see Choi Seol’s face properly. I thought it was a relief. Because he wouldn’t be able to see me either.

We walked again. My shoulders were free, [visit our site]but within the narrow [visit our site]umbrella, we still touched and drifted apart. After bumping into each other several times, when he finally reached my heart, I admitted it.

I like Choi Seol.

The moment I acknowledged for the first time in my life that another person was engraved in my heart, I wanted to cry.

Summer was already coming to an end.

Autumn

I grabbed a handful of waist-high weeds and snapped them. I hooked the sickle diagonally at the root, which finally became visible, and pulled with all my might, but the grass showed no sign of being cut.

“Tsk, that’s strange.”

The village head did it so easily, just swish swish. I put strength into my wrist and half-bent leg to try again. This time it did cut, but it looked more like it had been ripped out.

“Ah, I don’t know anymore.”

I flung the sickle aside and flopped down onto the dirt ground, looking up at the sky. Was autumn the season of “high skies and plump horses”? Literally, the sky was high and blue, but instead of a fattening horse, there was only one current-day servant here, drying up from labor.

Above all, it was too hot.

The long summer had passed and autumn had finally arrived, but the change of seasons was always a fickle guest. Even after coming down from Seoul, the ground remained soft due to the continuous rain, and the heat persisted as if summer were still holding on, so I couldn’t even take out my long-sleeved clothes. In this situation, news of a typhoon arrived, unsettling the hearts of the villagers. Meanwhile, Chuseok was approaching.

“What are you doing there?”

The sky was blocked. As I stared blankly up at the owner of the face casting a shadow, something cold touched my cheek. Startled, I turned my head to find a bottle of frozen water.

“Huh? Oh… thanks.”

I awkwardly reached for the water. However, before my hand could touch it, the bottle was pulled back. What? Is he giving it and then taking it back? As I just stared without being able to protest, Choi Seol clicked his tongue and pointed to my hand.

“Take off your gloves first.”

“Ah.”

Only then did I look at the cotton gloves covered in dirt. They bore the marks of a fierce battle with the grass since early dawn. The mountain path, neglected throughout the summer, was truly a jungle.

“This is a scam. Who knew that weeding the graves was included in house management? I feel like my back is going to break.”

“Then why didn’t you say you hated it?”

Forgetting the previous awkwardness, I grumbled, and Choi Seol sat down beside me. Then, he opened the cap himself and handed it to me again. I took off the gloves and accepted the water instinctively, continuing my complaints.

“Do you think that would have made any difference? For a servant, room and board are what matter. Legally, this house belongs to my uncle, so at most, I’ll just be kicked out. Then you’ll have to leave too.”

“Then you can just come to my house.”

“Pfft!”

The sip of water I had just taken was sprayed back out of my mouth. As I coughed violently from choking, I felt a hand patting my back with a sigh. Because of that, I flinched and instinctively twisted my body away.

“…”

“Ah…”

I messed up. Somehow, it looked like I had brushed off Choi Seol’s hand. Looking at the hand that had lost its way in mid-air and his somewhat bewildered face, I desperately moved my mouth.

“Ah, ah… Hey. Forget it. It’s not thankful at all when a guy who was whining about being scared to go home says something like that.”

“I never whined.”

“Oh, really? Should I recite everything you said while tearing up in the hotel that night?”

“What did I say?”

“Huh?”

“What did I say ‘that day’?”

My mouth, which had been rambling over-the-top, snapped shut at Choi Seol’s question.

Surely, Choi Seol must be talking about that night in Seoul when it rained heavily, but why did I end up thinking of a different day? The day after the torrential rain stopped and the sky cleared. A day like that, where the sunlight broke dazzlingly through the leaves.

It seemed I had properly dug my own grave. However, it was too early to simply fall into it.

“What did you say… just… that’s how it is. Hey, anyway, did you finish your share of the weeding before coming here?”

I changed the subject so blatantly that anyone could tell it was awkward. Although my heart pounded in the process, I didn’t worry that Choi Seol would call me out on it. He would surely pretend not to notice. And he would accept my clumsy excuse without a word. Just like that day.

“I’m done. That’s why I came to you.”

As expected, Choi Seol calmly accepted my words. Then, he held out the water he had previously teased me with and added,

“Drink up. It looks like you haven’t even cut half the grass; shouldn’t you be moving quickly? Otherwise, the police might get angry.”

My maternal family’s mountain and the village head’s mountain were right next to each other, so the path up to the graves was the same. That’s why the two households had worked together on weeding every year. Until last year, my uncle had come and worked with the village head, but this year, Noona and I were the ones drafted to represent the family. I glanced at Noona, who was operating the brush cutter in the distance, and muttered indifferently.

“I know without you telling me. I’ll get up after drinking this.”

I knew. I knew, but… what on earth is this feeling that only makes me more frustrated? If I were to dig deeper, the answer would be easy to find, but instead, I pretended not to know and brought the water to my lips. The water was cool, but my thirst wouldn’t go away.

“And if that’s the setting, you’re not a servant. You’re a slave.”

After forcing down the bottle of water, I stared blankly at Choi Seol at the sound of his voice.

“What setting?”

“You said it. That for a servant, room and board are what matter.”

Only then did I remember the complaint I had made to Choi Seol a moment ago.

“Ah, that? But isn’t a slave or a servant basically the same thing?”

“A servant is employed, so they commute and receive wages. Their situation is a bit better than a slave who only gets room and board.”

“What? Wa-wait a minute. So… you’re saying we’re worse than servants?”

In that moment, my head, which had been complicated regarding Choi Seol, was cleared completely. In its place, anger quickly filled in.

“Noona!”

I jumped up from my seat as if I were about to bolt and shouted toward Hae-sook Noona in the distance.