"Sit down, please."
"I, I'm..."
I could see her hesitant expression.
It was clear she hadn't calmed down yet. As she wiped her tears away, shoulders shaking, she looked a little like a young child.
In the first place, she was an ordinary 21-year-old girl.
She had never experienced such a situation before, so it was no wonder she was like that.
I couldn't fully comprehend exactly what it was that she was feeling, but it seemed like she hadn't really understood what had happened yet nor come to terms with the situation at hand.
"I'm, hic... I'm sorry."
"I'm not sure what you are apologising for."
"But I'm the one who, hic... who."
"Hayan-ssi didn't do anything wrong. Of course, I didn't see what happened, but... For now, could you go through what happened?"
"I, I didn't mean it that way. J-just..."
"I know. Please, just tell me what you can. Take your time."
As I smiled and spoke to her, she slowly began to speak.
In fact, I already had a rough idea of how the story went, and it was rather predictable.
The problem was that I couldn't understand her words at all.
It was hard for me to figure out what she was saying through all the sobbing and tears
Thanks to the system, I knew her level of intelligence wasn't low, but perhaps it wasn't based on simple thinking capability.
"S-so Seokwoo-ssi suddenly..."
"Yes... yes... I see."
"H-he grabbed my hand and I screamed."
"Ah..."
But it didn't matter whether I could understand her or not.
It was more important to empathise with her.
It was more important to listen to her reasons, why she was crying and why she was upset, than to judge who was at fault.
'I'm on your side.'
I didn't say it out loud, but she probably thought that way.
"Th-that's what happened... A-and all of a sudden, Deokgu-ssi came, and... he hit him, and then Jihye-ssi..."
"I see."
"A-and at that moment, Kiyoung-ssi came..."
"Yes."
The issue was that this lamentation of hers was taking quite a long time.
Finally, after a few more minutes, her tedious story came to an end.
"It must have been difficult."
"N-no. I-I'm a little better now."
It definitely seemed like she was a little calmer now.
Her shoulders which had trembled occasionally were set back in their original place, and her tearful expression was replaced with a slight smile.
She had regained some composure.
"Thank you, Kiyoung-ssi."
"You don't have to thank me. It's just the circumstances..."
"N-no. I mean, you said you believed in me before..."
