Jingi carefully closed the door and waved at Baek Jaehui, who was still sitting inside, mouth agape and looking dazed.
Exactly three seconds.
After three seconds of being completely zoned out, Baek Jaehui finally jerked his body up.
Jingi turned his attention to his phone and showed the two of them the cafe he’d been frantically searching for.
“How about this place?”
“I’m down.”
“Oh, right. You said you wanted cake. I forgot and looked for a tart shop… hang on.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Wherever you go, Jingi, I’m happy with it.”
Joo Unyoung always spoke so softly and sweetly.
He was good at social maneuvering and had exactly the kind of personality adults loved.
Jingi thought, ‘Is that so?’ and searched for the cafe on his map.
That was when, along with the sound of the taxi pulling away, something massive came barreling toward him from behind and tackled him.
It was a force strong enough that he surely would have planted his nose in the ground if not for Go Yeol catching him.
“Ack! W-what the?”
“Hey! Since when do you go to cafes without me? Wow, seriously? I didn’t think you guys were like this—you’re just gonna leave me behind?”
“Did you not go home?”
It was Baek Jaehui. Unlike before, his eyes were wide and he was huffing with indignation.
Seeming frustrated that Go Yeol’s arm had blocked him, he reached out and poked Jingi’s shoulder—not hard, but firmly enough.
“Ow!”
“Stop pretending it hurts! Hey! I didn’t even put any force into it!”
“It did hurt! And why are you making a scene when you were the one sleeping and didn’t hear us?”
“You could’ve asked me! Is it really okay for you three to go hang out without me? Huh?”
Baek Jaehui was throwing a tantrum, but there wasn’t a single person there to agree with him.
Both Go Yeol and Joo Unyoung were firmly on Jingi’s side.
Jingi clicked his tongue, shook his head, and finished his search on the map app.
“I did ask.”
“Ah, well, I was out of it earlier… couldn’t you have, like, woken me up and asked? Would that have killed you?”
Finding no more room to argue, Baek Jaehui finally pouted and lowered his tail, mumbling.
He was such a handful.
Joo Unyoung, Baek Jaehui—they all clung to him like kids with abandonment issues.
Come to think of it, even Go Yeol, who only really opened up to me, wasn’t much different.
Jingi let out a deliberate sigh and shook his head again.
“Fine, fine. You come to the cafe, too.”
“…Okay.”
The development of the story had already veered far from the original.
Go Yeol, Baek Jaehui, and Joo Unyoung—all three, who were supposed to be enemies, had become precious friends to Jingi.
Right after possessing this body, my plan had been to distance myself from everyone except Go Yeol and avoid making any connections.
The first step was to firmly push Joo Unyoung away and keep my distance.
If everything went exactly according to plan, everyone in the world would be living exactly as they wanted.
But the results of my skewed plan weren’t half bad, either.
The four of us moved briskly toward the cafe.
Above us, impossibly white clouds floated in the blue sky.
Round clouds drifted and softened, stretching out like they were painting pictures in the air whenever the wind blew.
Perhaps someone in the sky had intended to make round, fluffy clouds.
But as the wind blew and the sun pierced through, the clouds likely ended up in shapes completely different from their beginnings.
Still, clouds are beautiful.
Like a painting created by someone trying to express beauty, they would be lovely in their own right, no matter what shape they took.
A week flew by.
Days filled with school and commuting, and Joo Unyoung’s cunning ‘fishing’ continued.
Even Jingi, who was cheering him on, couldn’t tell if he liked Go Yeol or Baek Jaehui more.
The classroom atmosphere was restless all week, probably because the school trip was coming up next week.
Everyone seemed to be willfully ignoring the fact that there were exams immediately following the trip.
Lately, the rumors were flying: ‘You’ll get caught if you put booze in water bottles,’ or ‘You have to wrap your cigarettes in your underwear to smuggle them in.’
There was also the constant, pointless anticipation from the guys who had zero chance—discussing which girls’ high school schedule overlapped with ours and how ‘pretty’ those girls supposedly were.
And, whether it was fortunate or not, there was no contact from Joo Hyeonje.
Whether Joo Unyoung’s warning worked, he was just busy, or he really did just want to treat us to one meal—Jingi had no way of knowing.
Jingi studied steadily for his exams and occasionally looked up colleges and majors he could get into with his grades.
Thanks to Choi Jingi, who never let his grades drop below the top tier, there was nowhere he couldn’t go as long as he did well on the CSATs.
The only problem was the major.
Like most people who had lived busy lives, he had spent 22 years rolling through life without ever wanting anything in particular.
He was certain about what he didn’t like, though.
His only real wish was to avoid back-breaking labor in the sweltering heat of summer or the bitter cold of winter.
Friday lunchtime. Jingi let out a huge yawn and slumped onto his desk.
As soon as the fourth period ended, the kids who had been chattering noisily shut their mouths the moment the homeroom teacher arrived.
The guys gave a small cheer when the teacher said he’d wrap up homeroom early so everyone could head out.
The teacher finished the brief meeting after announcing the materials to bring and a few final precautions, adding, “If you’re late, I’m leaving you behind.”
As a special amnesty of sorts, we were given the option of skipping night study tonight.
Jingi was ecstatic at the thought of going home to lie under the AC and eat ice cream without a second thought.
Returning from the school trip straight into exams was not his problem.
As soon as homeroom ended, the kids in the class shouted and sprinted toward the cafeteria.
Occasionally, you could hear someone grumbling that the teacher’s early departure was actually making them late for food.
“Going home today?”
“Hm? Yeah.”
“Then come with me somewhere today.”
‘I was planning on going home, lying under the AC, and eating ice cream.’
Jingi avoided Joo Unyoung’s gaze, propping his chin on his hand.
Joo Unyoung smiled affectionately, linked his arm through Jingi’s, and stuck to him like glue.
“Hm? Come on, Jingi.”
“Where are we going?”
“I need to buy something today.”
“Oh, really?”
I wanted to shoot him a look and say he could go alone, but I met his fluttering, smiling eyes.
Jingi tried to ignore his pounding heart and scowled.
‘If you look at it, maybe Joo Unyoung isn’t ‘fishing,’ maybe he just unintentionally keeps charming everyone around him. He might not be choosing between Go Yeol and Baek Jaehui—he might have already made his choice.’
“I think it’d be nice to have you see it with me. …I’m going to confess to someone I like.”
“Oh?”
Jingi’s eyes widened at the sudden statement.
‘Confess? Already? To whom?’
“Didn’t you say you’d be my cupid?”
“Oh, uh, right.”
“Then come with me.”
Jingi ended up nodding.
His head was a mess at the word ‘confess.’
It wasn’t the question of ‘to whom?’—it was the shock of ‘already?’
From his perspective, he couldn’t predict at all who Joo Unyoung liked or whose heart he’d captured.
Had Joo Unyoung, who decided to give up on me and stay friends, already found someone else to give his heart to?
A strange feeling washed over him.
The enthusiasm he’d felt while cheering him on died down in a weird way.
Just then, one of Baek Jaehui’s friends waved his hand.
“Hey, Choi Jingi! Come over here for a sec.”
“What?”
“I said come here!”
Jingi trotted over to the guy’s seat.
As he scrutinized the guy’s suspicious expression, the guy leaned in and whispered as if to keep it a secret.
“What is it?”
“You. Do you know that the Mokwha Girls’ High School is staying right next to our dorms on the school trip?”
“…How would I know something like that?”
“There’s a way to know everything, you jerk. You’re slow on the news. Anyway, we’re going to hang out with them at night in a 4-on-4, you want in?”
‘Suddenly?’
I’d hung out when Baek Jaehui was around, but we weren’t exactly close.
As Jingi tilted his head in thought, squinting, the guy slapped his shoulder.
“They’re gorgeous, man! Come on!”
“I don’t really feel like going just because you say you’ll ‘let’ me join.”
“No, hey, damn, I’m sorry. Please, just come.”
“Why?”
“Baek Jaehui said he’s suddenly dropping out. We need to fill the spot, and who else has a face that can keep up with us?”
Only after I played hard to get did he grovel.
In other words, they were one spot short and Baek Jaehui, their designated ‘visual,’ had bailed, so they needed someone to boost their street cred. Jingi rested his chin on his hand and thought.
Strangely, the word ‘confess’ that Joo Unyoung had just dropped scrambled his brain.
‘…Why am I even worrying about this? Right, just because I’m a cupid doesn’t mean I have to sit around doing nothing. If he’s going to date, shouldn’t I meet some good people, too?’
It was a BL-based novel, but he felt it would be a loss to live in a romance novel without ever having a fling himself.
When Jingi acted like he might be convinced, the guy tossed out one more piece of bait.
“We’re ordering chicken and pizza, I’ll just let you in for free.”
“Hmm.”
“Damn it, what do you want? I’ll do anything, anything!”
“Anything?”
“Yeah!”
There wasn’t anything he particularly needed.
“I’ll hook you up with the prettiest girl in their group, how about that? I heard they’re famous for being absolute beauties.”
“…Fine. I get it.”
He nodded after a brief hesitation.
It might be fun to hang out with friends other than those three, and while they were busy playing out their soap opera love triangle, he might as well enjoy himself.
If he met someone nice and formed a connection, that would be good, too.
He wasn’t particularly obsessed with romance, but Jingi decided this was part of the fun of a school trip, and accepted.
“Okay. You said you’re going. Don’t you dare flake out next week or you’re dead.”
“I said I got it.”
“Good. Now I’m going to get lunch.”
