〈Chapter 4〉 

 

My Ex-Girlfriend Keeps Glaring at Me

* * *

‘See if I ever sleep in the same room with her again.’

Si-hyeon grumbled to himself as he got ready to head out.

When he’d opened his eyes this morning, he’d found Yerin—who had definitely fallen asleep on the bed—on the floor, clinging to him while she slept.

‘How on earth did she end up next to me? Did she roll off the bed or something?’

He shuddered at Yerin’s notoriously bad sleeping habits, which had been godawful since they were kids.

The culprit herself was currently humming a tune while using a curling iron, and Si-hyeon watched her with a hollow, dead-inside expression.

“Si-hyeon, you ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Then go put on your shoes and wait. I’ll be out in a sec.”

“Got it.”

By the time Si-hyeon had finished his shoes and read about two chapters of a daily webtoon, Yerin finally emerged from the room.

Her hair was tied in a ponytail, paired with a crisp white t-shirt and jeans that had a perfect fit.

Unlike her usual low-effort look, it was clear that Yerin had put a significant amount of work into her appearance today.

“Well? Does it look good?”

“It’s… alright, I guess.”

Her transformation from her usual “unpolished” self made her already striking beauty shine even brighter. It was enough to make even Si-hyeon—who had notoriously high standards—nod in involuntary approval.

“That reaction is pretty lackluster…”

Yerin checked herself in the full-length mirror by the shoe rack and started fussing with her hair again.

She’d fix a strand, then glanced at him, catching his indifferent expression, she tilted her head in confusion. She was about to head back into the room to change or fix more when Si-hyeon grabbed her.

“Where are you going? We don’t have time.”

“I saw myself in the mirror and there are a bunch of things bothering me, so I’m gonna fix my makeup a bit.”

If he let her go back in, who knew how long it would take? Deciding he couldn’t let that happen, Si-hyeon took her by the hand and said.

“You’re plenty pretty as you are right now, so let’s just go.”

“Really?”

A bright smile bloomed across Yerin’s face. Slipping her feet back into the shoes she had half-kicked off, she squeezed the hand that was holding hers.

“Well, if you say so, then I guess it must be true.”

With a satisfied look, she stepped out of the house with Si-hyeon.

* * *

Despite Si-hyeon insisting his leg was fine, Yerin dragged him to the hospital anyway.

She repeatedly questioned the doctor even after being told he was okay, only finally believing the diagnosis after seeing the X-ray results for herself. After picking up some scar-removal ointment at the pharmacy, the two of them boarded the bus to head to the university.

“Still twenty minutes until we arrive.”

It was an awkward amount of time to spend standing. Yerin scanned the bus for a seat to put Si-hyeon in, and as luck would have it, she spotted exactly one spot left.

“Si-hyeon, sit here.”

He shook his head at her bright suggestion.

“Forget it. It doesn’t take that long to get there; I can just stand.”

“What if your wound gets worse? Just sit down already.”

“You heard the doctor too. It’s just a scrape; there’s nothing wrong with my leg, okay?”

As he kept talking back, Yerin’s eyes began to narrow.

‘I’m seriously fine, why is she making such a damn fuss…?’

Perhaps she had been deeply traumatized by the wound she saw yesterday.

Today’s Yerin was like an overprotective parent fussing over their child.

‘I appreciate the concern, but if she keeps this up, it’s going to get burdensome.’

Si-hyeon tried his best to ignore her as she glared at him with her arms crossed. However, he couldn’t help the stinging sensation on the back of his head from her gaze. Unable to take it anymore, he let out a sigh and spoke.

“I am really okay, so if anyone’s going to sit, you sit.”

“…Really? Fine then.”

Yerin sat down just as Si-hyeon suggested. Why was she agreeing so easily for once? Just as Si-hyeon was tilting his head in confusion…

Squeeze.

Yerin wrapped her arms around Si-hyeon’s waist and pulled him down onto her lap.

A man sitting on top of a woman? Witnessing this, the other passengers exchanged looks of either utter contempt or sheer envy.

“What the hell are you doing?! Let go of me, right now!”

“If I don’t do this, you won’t sit. Since it’s come to this, let’s just stay like this the whole way.”

He tried his best to force himself up, but she held onto him with every ounce of her strength.

If he stayed like this, his full weight as a grown man would be resting on her slender lower body… and that might actually strain her legs.

“Fine! I’ll sit, just let go of me first!”

Finally surrendering to Yerin’s relentless stubbornness, Si-hyeon took the seat she had vacated.

“See? Everything would’ve been great if you’d just done this from the start.”

Satisfied with the outcome, Yerin patted his head as if she were praising a well-behaved pet.

* * *

Slide

Si-hyeon and Yerin, both tourism management majors, entered the lecture hall right on time for class.

The room was structured with four large windows lining the back, allowing the sunlight streaming in from behind to illuminate the front of the hall.

Since the air conditioning was blasting quite hard, the two of them took seats in the back row—the perfect spot for a little “photosynthesis.”

“It’s been ages since we sat together like this. Hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Up Until Si-hyeon started dating Chae-yeon, the two of them had always been inseparable.

But once he got into a relationship…

Chae-yeon had strictly warned him not to get close to other girls. So naturally, the distance between him and Yerin had grown wider.

‘Why the hell was she so defensive about me being around other women, if she didn’t even like me?’

Was it just the classic case of “I don’t want him, but I don’t want anyone else to have him either”?

As Si-hyeon was racking his brain over Chae-yeon’s incomprehensible, selfish psyche…

Slide…BAM!

The door flew open with a violent thud, drawing the eyes of every student in the room, Si-hyeon included.

Standing there with an air of bold defiance was Chae-yeon. Behind her, Sohee looked sullen, fidgeting restlessly.

‘Anyone watching would think Sohee was the one who cheated.’

Unlike Sohee, who was desperately reading the room, Chae-yeon let out a scoff the moment she spotted Si-hyeon sitting with Yerin.

She made a move to head toward the side of the room exactly opposite of where Si-hyeon was sitting, but…

“Chae-yeon, where are you going…? Not that way, you have to come over here.”

Sohee grabbed her by the arm and dragged her right in front of Si-hyeon.

Glance. Glance.

Sohee stared fixedly at the seat next to Si-hyeon—meaning the one Yerin was sitting in—then spoke awkwardly.

“Um… Yerin? Would you mind giving up your seat for us?”

Yerin, who had been busy tapping away on her laptop, asked back in a cold, indifferent tone.

“And why would I do that?”

“There’s been a bit of a… misunderstanding between Chae-yeon and Si-hyeon. I’m trying to help them clear it up, so… could you help us out?”

Stopping her typing, Yerin shot Sohee a piercing glare and answered.

“Nope. Not happening.”

“Huh…?”

Perhaps she never expected to be flat-out rejected. Sohee froze for a moment before stammering out a follow-up.

“I-I’ll talk to the other students and find you another spot in the back. So, just this once…”

“If you’re that desperate to sit here, ask Si-hyeon. If he tells me to move, I’ll give up the seat.”

Resting her chin on her hand, Yerin turned to Si-hyeon as if demanding an answer.

At the same time, Sohee looked at him with pleading eyes… but Si-hyeon had no intention of meeting her expectations.

“I have nothing to say to you guys.”

“You heard the man.”

At Si-hyeon’s response, the corners of Yerin’s mouth curled up as she chimed in.

Then, Sohee began to plead in a tearful voice.

“Si-hyeon, don’t be like this… just talk to Chae-yeon for a bit. What happened yesterday was really just a misunderstanding…”

Why the hell was Sohee the one trying to clear up a “misunderstanding” instead of Chae-yeon?

And why was Chae-yeon, the actual party involved, just standing there watching her best friend act so pathetic and groveling?

His stomach turning at the sight, Si-hyeon asked in an irritated tone.

“Lim Chae-yeon. Do you have something to say to me?”

He deliberately dropped any trace of gentleness and spoke bluntly.

Chaeyeon, arms crossed, narrowed her eyes sharply and replied,

“No. Not a thing.”

“Chae-yeon!”

At her flat response, Sohee let out a frustrated cry.

‘Of course. Our “Queen” is so wrapped up in her own pride that she won’t even make an attempt to clear the air.’

Her reaction was exactly as he had expected. Seeing this, Si-hyeon waved his hand dismissively, signaling for them to beat it.

“Is that so? Then take your friend and go. Stop trying to get tangled up with me for no reason.”

“Si-hyeon, don’t be like this, let’s just…”

Chae-yeon grabbed Sohee by the wrist just as she was trying to plead with him again.

“Fine.”

She turned to find another spot with Sohee, but then stopped in her tracks.

Si-hyeon glanced around and realized that, except for the seats directly in front of him, there were no other spots left where two people could sit together.

Is that why?

Chae-yeon clicked her tongue and sat down right in front of him with a thud.

Watching this, Sohee stood there for a moment, glancing back and forth at Si-hyeon, before finally taking the seat next to Chae-yeon.

Slide

Not long after, the professor entered, and class began with the roll call.

He never focused well in class to begin with, but maybe because the two of them were sitting right in front of him, absolutely nothing was registering in Si-hyeon’s ears.

‘Is she… really just fine?’

Unlike Si-hyeon, who couldn’t focus on anything, Chae-yeon was listening intently to the lecture and busily taking notes.

Seeing that, it hit Si-hyeon all over again—he really had meant nothing to her.

“…Haah.”

Maybe it was time to focus on his studies as much as he had wasted time on romance.

Resolving to finally get his head in the game, Si-hyeon forced his pen to move across the paper.

Scribble, scribble…

In the middle of filling his notebook with notes like that…

Tap, tap.

Yerin nudged him.

“What.”

“Check this out.”

What she held out was a yellow Post-it note.

Looking closely at the corner of the last page, there was a drawing of a woman wearing a skirt.

‘Talk about a blast from the past.’

Drawing on the edges of a textbook and flipping the pages to make it look like an animation—it was a game Yerin and Si-hyeon used to play all the time back in middle school.

Flip-frrrip!

Sure enough, as Yerin flipped through the Post-it notes, the character began to move.

The female character, who had been standing still, suddenly grabbed the hem of her skirt.

Bit by bit… slowly… she began to lift it up.

“How bored do you have to be to draw something like this…?”

“Why? It’s fun. I did a really good job on this one, so watch until the very end.”

Even if it was just a drawing, she was a woman herself—didn’t she feel any embarrassment?

While that thought crossed his mind, Si-hyeon’s eyes were uncontrollably drawn to the Post-it notes. He was a guy, after all; it was only natural to be curious about what happened next in the animation.

Flip-flip-flip!

Noticing that Si-hyeon was watching, Yerin snickered and started flipping the pages again from where she’d stopped.

The drawn character gradually began to blush as she lifted her skirt higher.

The quality was unnecessarily high, making the “immersion” incredibly intense.

The character’s smooth thighs were revealed.

And just as the Post-it manga reached its very end…

“Huh?”

The character, who turned out to be wearing safety shorts under her skirt, stuck her tongue out at Si-hyeon.

WHACK!

The instant he realized the comic’s punchline, a sharp pain shot across his forehead.

The sound of the flick Yerin delivered was so loud and intense that it actually made several students turn around.

Si-hyeon barely managed to suppress a scream by biting his lip.

“Pfft…!”

Clearly delighted that he’d fallen for her trap, Yerin struggled to stifle her laughter so the professor wouldn’t hear.

His fist clenched instinctively; Si-hyeon briefly considered giving her a retaliatory “honey-punch” to the head, figuring it would only escalate things.

“You’re seriously…”

“It’s your fault for staring at it like your life depended on it… pfft…”

Yerin couldn’t even finish her sentence before bursting into laughter again. Wondering what was so damn funny, Si-hyeon rubbed his forehead only to find a bump already protruding from the edge.

‘How the hell can a single flick be this strong?’

To leave a bump with just one hit—he couldn’t believe that kind of power came from such slender hands.

“You… you want a taste of a honey-punch too?”

Si-hyeon held up his fist, trembling with mock (and slightly real) rage.

“Ugh, no. Your punches hurt like crazy.”

“I’ll go easy on you. Just one hit.”

“How am I supposed to believe that?”

Even though they kept their voices low, the bickering between the two continued.

While Si-hyeon was swinging his fist through the air in a “whoosh-whoosh” motion and Yerin was playfully whining…

“Ha… for fuck’s sake, you guys are so noisy.”

Accompanied by a voice dripping with irritation, Chae-yeon whipped around with a ferocious glare.

While Si-hyeon froze under that all-too-familiar gaze, Yerin shot back with a tone full of mischief.

“Sorry. Playing with Si-hyeon is just so much fun, I couldn’t help but laugh.”

It looked like an apology, but her tone was clearly one of mockery. Curious to see how Chae-yeon would react, Si-hyeon turned his gaze away from Yerin.

Whoosh.

As a result, he saw Chae-yeon glaring intently at him before she whipped her head back toward the front.

‘That look of hers is goddamn terrifying.’

Just as people in the old days were said to be paralyzed just by locking eyes with a tiger, Si-hyeon’s body also stiffened instinctively whenever he saw Chae-yeon’s eyes.

“Hoo..”

Telling himself that even this weak habit of his would fade time, he tried to calm his shrinking heart.

Then, he looked over at the now quiet Yerin.

Tap. Tap-tap.

She had started taking notes on her laptop again, wearing a deeply satisfied smile.

“Pfft…”

Covering her mouth, her body trembled slightly. To Si-hyeon, she looked like she was thoroughly enjoying her petty victory.

* * *