.
However, Ruda gave no attention to my reaction but just turned his head away from me with his arms crossed. When he sent a kind smile, which he would never show to his enemy, Hwang Siwoo responded in a very surprising way.
He didn’t budge an eye at all when his clique tried to stop him from acting aggressively; however, instead of asking Ruda to not intervene as he dropped some careless words, Hwang Siwoo just replied sulkily, “Didn’t you hear that bit… you heard what she said to me…”
I became speechless at his attitude pointing his finger at me like a tattling child. He even filtered his words.
Leaning deeply against the gym wall, Ruda replied in a low and chill voice.
“Yes, I heard that.”
Hwang Siwoo’s face brightened as Ruda agreed to him without hesitation. He uttered, “Right? You’ll know why I’m so angry right now since you’ve heard that, so…”
While those words slipped out of Hwang Siwoo’s mouth in excitement, Ruda cut him off again.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re gonna see each other for a year, does it?”
“…”
While Hwang Siwoo shut his mouth with a grimace, Ruda pointed his finger at me, the Kim twins, and the rest of the class, sitting through the discord situation, histrionically. He added, “If someone keeps behaving irritatingly, we can make the person transfer to another school, but what are you gonna do to antagonize all these kids?”
“That won’t affect me. What are they gonna do? Ants just end up into a swarm of ants,” argued Hwang Siwoo.
“What matters is that they are humans, not ants. Besides, if they try to witness this situation as a group, are you really able to handle that? No matter how much your ‘back-ups’ support you, it’ll be impossible to deflect what you did.”
‘Back-ups?’ I tilted my head upon the particularly emphasized word.
Ruda continued, “Besides if you can’t even conquer such an ordinary high school class fight and go ask your back-ups for help, I wonder how they’ll see you… Didn’t you tell me that you want to succeed Eun Kyum sunbae?”
As Yi Ruda dropped those words while twisting his blond hair with his finger, Hwang Siwoo just bit his lips wordlessly. Considering his reaction when the name, ‘Eun Kyum,’ popped out earlier, Hwang Siwoo was, right now, acting so astoundingly.
He, at last, uttered, “What do you think I should do?”
Hwang Siwoo’s subsided tone surprised me again. His voice sounded, of course, furious at some point, but he was definitely ‘asking Ruda’s opinion’ cautiously, not ‘giving an order’ to him.
That might have finally pleased Ruda. With a grin, he returned a response, which made me blink.
“Let’s do it right now, the thing we couldn’t do it at the beginning of the semester.”
“The thing we couldn’t… at the beginning of the semester?” asked Hwang Siwoo.
Ruda replied, “A brawl.”
WHAT? Once I heard that word, my brain fell into confusion. Since it came out from his mouth in an everyday tone like ‘studying for test’ or ‘listening to music,’ I wasn’t able to grasp the meaning immediately.
While my brows quickly met in the middle as I barely learned what it indicated, Ruda glanced at me as if he was checking my reaction.
He continued speaking, “In fact, you and Yoon Jung In ran up against each other in every way from the beginning of the semester. That means you two have had utterly different styles, but it became a problem since you guys tried to ignore it and remain together that way.”
“So,” asked Hwang Siwoo.
Ruda replied, “What if we divide into groups and have a real fight? The group that defeated the other will have the right to control the entire class. How’s that? We should be using the same classroom for a year, so that will make us comfortable, eventually.”
Hwang Siwoo rubbed his chin as if he was putting on his thinking cap.
“Hmm…”
Ruda spoke yet in a sweet voice, “Of course, the defeated will become uncomfortable, but it’s their fault to be weak, isn’t it?”
Yi Ruda’s way of speaking sounded like he was assured that he and Hwang Siwoo would already win the fight. Actually, if Ban Hwee Hyul didn’t make up his mind to show his true ability, I was aware that things would turn out that way, so I just bit my lips.
As if it wasn’t only me who thought that way, the clique, who stood behind Hwang Siwoo as in the famous tactic, Hakikjin, the crane wing formation during the historical naval battle in the 16th century, also babbled to each other noisily.
“Hwang Siwoo plus Yi Ruda?”
“No one can beat them, never…”
“As long as Yi Ruda is on our side…”
That was when Ruda stared at me again. When we almost had eye contact, I turned my head away from him so obviously. He would feel hurt, but it was me who thought that there was nothing more to be disappointed in him now.
When I completely turned myself away from him, I kind of felt a stinging gaze on my cheek. However, I rather decided to just neglect Ruda.
At that moment, I heard Hwang Siwoo’s voice.
“Cool, let’s do that.”
It sounded too apathetic to tell that he had come up with a critical decision. Well, since he had nothing to lose, for now, that was natural somehow.
It was, of course, us who was in urgent need of help. Hwang Siwoo would indeed know how to fight, but even Yi Ruda was about to support him. However, in this case, Yi Ruda could become an object of concern rather than Hwang Siwoo and his boys.
Looking at our side, Yi Ruda spoke calmly, “Then let’s not provoke each other until we decide the numbers of the participants, date, and time. Things will be sorted out after the fight, so we don’t need to behave impetuously, right?”
He didn’t even ask our opinions. Ruda’s attitude looked very convinced as if we would definitely accept his suggestion, or perhaps, according to his view, weakness was the fault, so we might have no right to assert our opinions. Whatever it was, we couldn’t help but feel very upset.
As soon as Yi Ruda finished speaking, Lee Mina helped Yoon Jung In to stand up as if they had promised to do so. Hwang Siwoo, who acted like a mad dog until just now, raised both hands like a surrender and watched the two walk past by him. It seemed like he was about to follow Yi Ruda’s suggestion, not provoking the other group.
Once the two came within a few steps away from me, I lowered my voice and asked, “Are you okay?”
Yoon Jung In looked better than I thought. Unlike Ban Hwee Hyul, he didn’t lose consciousness.
“Uh-huh, I’m just bleeding,” he replied and wiped out under his nose with the back of his palm.
Looking at Yoon Jung In with reddened eyes, Lee Mina urged, “Let’s go. He grabbed you by the collar as soon as you’re bleeding. They say we must now raise our head after a nosebleed…”
“Ah, I’m really fine. It was just a few seconds,” said Yoon Jung In.
Despite his response, Lee Mina became close to tears again and finally moved her shoulders up and down. Looking bewildered, Yoon Jung In pulled her in his arms in the end.
We left the gym in shreds that way like remnants of a defeated troop. It was still pouring severely outside. Since it seemed like a prediction of our future, I felt heavy on my chest.
There was no one in the nurse’s office. The nurse and the music teacher were famous best friends, so they might be having tea time in the empty music room that had no class inside.
“The nurse is always not in the office every time we come.”
“Exactly, I want to ask her if her conscience is okay while receiving all her salary.”
While Yoon Jung In and Kim Hye Woo grumbled one after another, a cotton swab applied with disinfectant touched their cheeks.
URGH!! Yoon Jung In soon burst into a painful moan. Kim Hye Woo then tossed a question in perplexity.
“Hey, Kim Hye Hill, I got hit nowhere?!”
Pretending to be surprised, Kim Hye Hill covered her mouth and replied, “But your face looks like this even when no one smacked you?”
“Hey…”
“Never mind. If you didn’t get beaten, move. Why are you occupying the bed when you didn’t get any attack?”
As Kim Hye Hill kicked Kim Hye Woo on his thigh, he pouted his mouth and left the bed. He knew it very well that there was a more urgent patient than him.
“You and I look quite much the same, so do you know that what you just said is cutting off the nose to spite your face?”
Kim Hye Woo kept grumbling even after he left the bed. Utterly ignoring him, Kim Hye Hill grabbed Ban Hwee Hyul’s chin and turned it carefully in every direction.
As if I was a patient’s family waiting for the result of a surgery, I watched the sight nervously.
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