Her Bully | PURINZ

036

Y U N J I N
—

I swear, the capped girl beside the one who's covering herself with a newspaper awfully looks like Rei—but I haven't seen her since that night, so I could be wrong.

"Hey, can I ask you a question?" Ahyeon asks me, scooping a spoonful of rice as we happily eat our meals that are now free because of the accident.

Smirking, I giggle. "Isn't that what we've been doing for the past hour?" I fire back innocently, tilting my head as Ahyeon bites her lower lip.

"Touché, yunjin," she jokes back, and we laugh together.

"But, um, what did you do to Hanni to make her so mean to you all the time?" she asks, furrowing her eyebrows in wonder. "Like—from what I heard from Wonyoung—you never even had a minute-long conversation that didn't involve bullying with the Captain."

I smile weakly and tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. "I-I don't know, actually," I start, playing with my drink using my straw. "I've been asking myself the same thing for years."

"For years?" Ahyeon asks, sipping her cool iced tea.

Nodding my head, I sigh. "Yeah—ever since we met in kindergarten, she's been bullying me like there's no tomorrow." I joke, trying to make light of the conversation as images of a mini-Chaewon swirl through my head. "I just—I just said hi to her and asked if I could swing on the swing next to her, and before I knew it, she's pushing me into the sandbox."

Ahyeon's eyes widen in surprise. "She did that? In kindergarten?"

I laugh, amused as well. "Yeah," I mutter, shrugging my shoulders. "I just wanted to make friends with her and swing together, but she—she pushed me away."

Smiling sadly at me, Ahyeon reaches out to hold my hand. "I bet it was because she was a grumpy kid," she jokes, trying to lighten me up, but it's not even half-working because for years I've been asking—wondering—assuming—processing why Chaewon pushed me away.

Why she didn't want me to swing with her and why she didn't say hi back to me.

If she did all those things, I'm pretty sure our situation would be different now. And it doesn't hurt more than it already does when I remember Ryujin laughing at me as I lay flat in the sandbox beside Chaewon.

I guess it was always Ryujin from the very start.

"Still grumpy now," I comment, letting go of our hands as I wipe my sweaty digits on the sleeves of my sweater. "But enough of th—"

"It's a good thing you didn't sleep with her then," Ahyeon says, cutting off my words and my thoughts as I stare at her, agape. My jaw's nearly on the floor, and I'm pretty sure I'm as pale as a snowball as I let her words sink in.

What?

Ahyeon doesn't catch my blank-shocked face, though, as she laughs, rolls her eyes, and shuffles closer in her seat, flicking her hair to the side.

"Like, I'm honestly giving props to you for not sleeping with her," she goes on, chuckling with a wink as if to say, good job, girl.

Did Chaewon tell her something?

Why does it seem like she knows something I don't?

And what does she mean by me not going to sleep with her?

Ahyeon shouldn't know about that night. Heck, no one but Chaewon and I should know; she told me to keep it a secret.

"W-What are you talking about?" I ask, gulping hard as I feel my heart beating erratically out of my rib cage.