The Best of Tomorrow

Chapter 2

I lay on my bed, staring blankly at the wall. Photographs of seon-jae filled all the walls of the room. My favorite person died, and not a single person asked me if I was okay.

Because you didn’t show it. I was a very successful public cosplayer. No one really knew me. You completely deceived them all. Thinking about all those things made me tear up and cry.

At that moment, I heard a buzzing sound next door. I wondered how much the volume was tuned up, a voice saying, ‘Happy New Year! Viewers, Whishing Happy new year to everyone’ came across the wall. I jumped up, clenched my fist, and pounded on the wall.

“Stop making the TV sound!”

Then came the sound of banging from the next door, and hitting the wall louder.

“Stop making a ghost wailing!”

“Ghost wailing…”

The lower lip puffed out. Then my nostrils got bigger. Tears filled my eyes again.

I covered myself with a blanket and cried out aloud. January 1st, the New Year has come. However, the new year has not passed for Seon-jae. And, a New Year’s day without Seon-jae.

I buried my face in my pillow and cried, then I turned around and crouched. I buried my face in the pulled quilt.

“Hughhhhh.”

A weeping sound leaked from the tight teeth.

Please give me back my seon-jae. Give me my seon-jae, you damn world.

Wiping my tears, I tossed and turned. Something pressed my buttocks and made a quackling. What is it, a cell phone?

Putting the blanket in my hand, I fumbled over the mattress. When I lowered my gaze because I felt the light was filling under the blanket, the light, which started from my buttocks, was gradually expanding its scope.

“Huh… what is this…….”

Light from beneath the buttocks suddenly spread all over the place, filling my vision. I closed my eyes tightly and screamed at the brightness that seemed to blind me.

“Ahhhh!”

The glow that bursts out disappeared in a flash. Her eyelids were closed, but she could feel it.

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“sol, Im-sol.”

Someone grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me violently. Uh, what is it? I raised my head, and my eyes met with black eyes. The familiar face winked upward with a perplexed look. When I looked there, a woman with a very disapproving face looked at me with her arms folded.

……uh,huh?

“It’s not enough for you to sleep in class, now you’re even talking in your sleep. What, now, do you want to go around the playground?”

My mouth was wide open. Why is the ethics teacher here?

As I lowered my gaze, I found a drooling textbook spread out on a square desk. A blue jacket, a blue vest, a red tie.

I’m wearing a school uniform… I turned and checked again the face I saw earlier. It was a familiar face. It was Eun-hee, who was in the same class when she was in the second year of high school. Oh, my God, what is this? A dream?

The ethics teacher hit me lightly on the head with his fists.

It hurts.

“Take your textbook and listen to the class from back.”

Looking at me sitting still with a blank face, the teacher raised his voice at me to hurry out. I closed my eyes tightly and opened them. The teacher frowned. What is with this actual-like atmosphere?

“……yes.”

Oh, my. My voice, is coming out.

I packed my textbook and pushed my chair back. I went to the back of the classroom and stood. Looking at the classroom scenery from behind, I felt like I was going crazy. What the heck? What is this?

Holding the textbook in one hand, I tried to put my hand in the pocket and caught the watch.

It’s the watch that I picked up on the street earlier, with the rhyme to move. Roman numerals from 1 to 12 embedded, but the directions of the hour and minute hands were different from when I picked up. 12 o’clock? I turned my head and looked at the clock hanging on the classroom wall. It was 3 p.m. Is it a broken watch? No, it can be possible since it’s a dream.

Then there was a knock, and the front door of the classroom opened. A hair tied up tightly, coupled with a rimless glass, could be seen. It was a health teacher.

“Ah, sorry for the interruption during class. I came because of the medical check-up results. Student im-sol, can I see you for a minute?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to me, who was standing in the back. When I just stood there, blinking my eyes, the ethics teacher made a gesture to go out. I put the textbook on my side and opened the back door, and went out into the hallway. I took a few steps and stood in front of the health teacher.

If I remember it correctly, he will probably say, ‘The blood collection test results are acute anemia, so get a prescription for iron pills.’

“Student Im-sol, the last examination showed that the anemia level was a very low acute anemia, and if left untreated, it would be dangerous so prescription for iron pills are necessary.”

I was right.

“Have you ever had a blurred vision or stumbled when you sat down or stood up?”

Standing in a daze, I looked at the health teacher like he was strange.

“Im-sol student?”

“……yes?”

“Are you all right?”

I can’t be alright in this situation.

I turned my gaze and scanned the playground through the hallway window. The maple trees planted outside the playground were reddish. At the left end of the playground, a construction screen was installed due to the cafeteria’s reconstruction.

School cafeteria reconstruction.

If students complained about construction noise, the student-supervisor would say that you guys with bad grades even dare to complain and shout, ‘you guys don’t even take classes anyway!’.

As if to destroy my miscellaneous thoughts, dust flew over the curtain with the noise of building debris falling.

I know this scenery.

Because this was my past.

***

Sitting on the bus, I shook my legs with nervousness. I bit my thumbnail and chewed it with my teeth.

– This stop is Jagam High School. The next stop is Jagam Street.

I looked out of the window with my face facing my knees. A long road was lined with Ginkgo trees, and when I passed a pedestrian, a road that I had once walked unfolded.

I had come here once when I wanted to step on the school ground where Seonjae attended. I misread the map and kept hovering near this overpass.

I pressed the exit bell and stood in front of the back door. My heart was pounding. A steady flow of time, a heartbeat felt throughout the body. Is this called a lucid dream? Is it supposed to be this vivid?

I left my health teacher, who kept asking me if I was okay and ran out of school. This past was six years ago.

I wondered if it was possible to reproduce things from six years ago in this order.

But if this is a dream of the past, if I’m rewinding the past regardless of my will, maybe I’ll be able to meet a Seonjae I didn’t know at this time.

A while ago, I came out of school and tried to reach out like a habit to catch a taxi, but there was not a single note in my goddamn wallet.

My dream was so solid that even my wallet at the time remained the same. So I had no choice but to take the bus.

On the way to Jagamgo, the glass door of the commercial building reflected my appearance. Short bangs, hair tied back, and pink knit socks, which were worn out over stockings. It was six years ago.

Awesome, the sound just came out.

I strode along and ran at high speed. With some expectation, my heart was about to burst with the earnest wind.

Since it’s a dream, I wanted to let Sun-jae know something if I met him. There are so many people in this world who love you, but they just weren’t as loud as I am. You’re such a lovely person.

When I breathed with my chin raised down, my side ached, and my back bent. As I exhaled and raised my head, I could see a signboard inscribed with “Jagam High School.”

Wow, this is something crazy.

Slowly I crossed the school gate of Jagam High School. It was a dream, and even though I thought there was no need to be scary, my heart fluttered.

Crossing the playground, I saw a student standing in front of the sink in distance.

Gray pants, white shirt, beige knit vest.

No matter how much she blinked and squinted at him, he was standing alive, right before her.

Oh, my God.

“Seon-jae!”

She ran at full speed toward’s Seon-jae.

His head, accustomed to my loud, resonant voice on the playground, turned to my direction.

I can see a face clearly looking at me. It’s Seon-jae.

Seon-jae, a high school student who she only saw in pictures.

In an instant, she crossed the playground and hugged seon-jae.

Did I run too fast?

Only

Well, sometimes you can even fly in your dreams. Seon-jae was pushed back because I could not slow down.

I burst into tears with my face buried in Seonjae’s vest.

“Seon-jae, that’s Seon-jae. Ah, it’s him. He’s real.”

“What, what?”

Seon-jae’s surprised voice came out, and someone pulled me and grabbed my shoulder.

When I looked at Seon-jae with a tearful face, I saw the owner of the hand that grabbed my shoulder.

It was Baek In Hyuk.