“What if we get caught?”
“I told you; we’re not gonna get caught. The teachers are all out drinking.”
“Teacher Park Han-jin stayed behind though.”
“Ah, we practiced what to do when that teacher stayed behind. It’s your phone. You decide.”
“... Let’s go.”
Seung-ho had handed his phone in, but seeing that none of his other friends had handed theirs in, he wanted to get his own back.
The three students - Chang-min, Sang-wook, and Seung-ho - sneakily approached the front of the teacher's’ cabin.
“It’s really here, right?”
“I told you that it is. I saw it. After you open the door, open where our class number is written, and it should be in the basket.”
“God, I’m really scared, though.”
Although he’d sometimes gone astray or did as he pleased, he hadn’t ever disobeyed a teacher’s orders and so was nervous. However, he couldn’t back down when his friends were helping him like this.
Knock knock knock
“Teacher!”
As Sang-wook knocked on the door and called the teacher, Teacher Park Han-jin opened the door from the inside with sleepy eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“I saw something strange over there.”
“Something strange?”
“Yes, sir. I thought it was suspicious and thought that I should look at it with you.”
“Where is it?”
“Over here.”
Chang-min and Seung-ho held their breath as they hid next to the wall. With a can’t-be-bothered expression on his face, Teacher Park Han-jin followed Sang-wook and walked in the opposite direction.
After checking that the teacher had rounded the corner of the hallway, Chang-min and Seung-ho hurriedly opened the door to the teacher's cabin.
“We won’t get caught, right?”
“Shush.”
As soon as Chang-min warily opened the door, they saw 10 lockers for the classes next to the shoe rack. It was as Sang-wook had said.
‘Please don’t be locked.’
As they carefully pulled on the 7th class’s locker door, it opened to their relief. Chang-min grinned, took the phone from the basket, and handed it to Seung-ho.
“Let’s go.”
They close the locker door silently, stealthily opened the cabin door, and left.
“Ah, it was there before, but now it’s gone.”
“It’s probably nothing, so go rest. And don’t go out.”
“Yes, sir~”
They could hear Sang-wook and the teacher conversing at the end of the hallway. Chang-min and Seung-ho hurriedly closed the door and hid next to the wall.
The teacher didn’t seem to have noticed them and went into the room as if nothing was wrong.
“Whew.”
“Woah, I was so nervous I thought I was going to die.”
As soon as he left the wall, Seung-ho made eye contact with Sangwook, who was approaching him. Sang-wook folded his hand into the shape of a phone and shook it next to his head.
Seung-ho grinned and waved his phone in the air.
“Ah, I really thought we were going to get caught.”
“Do you know how annoyed Teacher Park Han-jin got when I said it wasn’t there anymore?”
“Sorry. Hahaha.”
“Ice cream.”
“I’ll buy you a cone.”
“Alright.”
“I want the carp-shaped ice cream sandwich.”
“Sounds good!”
The three joked around as they light-heartedly returned to their lodging. Inside, the boys were chattering loudly as usually.
“Oh, are you back?”
“Success?”
With a proud expression, Seung-ho held up his phone.
“Keh, as expected.”
“Yeah, who hands in their phone these days?”
Bzz bzz bzz
As soon as he turned his phone one, it began to vibrate like crazy.
“You’re very popular.”
“It’s all spam.”
Making up a vague excuse, Seung-ho went into a corner and went into CoffeeTalk after unlocking his phone. Unlike before, not only Seul-hwa and So-hee but also kids in his class and those who’d gotten his number that day had all sent one or two messages each on CoffeeTalk.
‘Woah. Is this because it’s a school trip?’
Although it was embarrassing, he was even more happy that he’d gotten this many messages.
After answering every single message, which had totalled to be over 10, Seung-ho plunked down at his place. He’d hadn’t done much, but his legs had lost their strength due to being so nervous.
‘And, climbing up the mountain today was a bit hard, too.’
CoffeeTalk!
He’d wanted to rest a bit, but replies to his messages were coming one or two at a time. When he answered one person, another two sent messages; when he answered them, other female students sent messages. When he answered the new CoffeeTalk messages, the female students who had first sent messages replied, and the cycle repeated itself.
“Hey, your phone’s going to catch on fire.”
“Who are you CoffeeTalk-ing with?”
“I think it’s a girl, no?”
At the word ‘girl’, the five friends rushed toward Seung-ho. Taken aback, Seung-ho clutched his phone close to his chest.
“W-what are you looking at?”
As Seung-ho got flustered and tried to hide the phone, the guys approached him even more stubbornly.
“It must be a girl since you’re hiding it!”
“Yeah. Guys! Seung-ho is CoffeeTalk-ing with a girl! And not just one, but several of them!”
As Chang-min shouted those words, all of the male students in the class rushed toward Seung-ho.
“A-are you crazy? What are you doing?”
“Hey, I asked who it was!”
“Are you dating?”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“Awesome!”
He was terrified of the guys who suddenly swarmed him. Even if he almost made a mistake, it felt as if the guys would pass the phone along and look at it.
“You guys are weird!”
Seung-ho yelled as he urgently wore his shoes and left the lodge. As the guys tried to follow him out, he hurriedly ran toward the gym.
“Woah, are guys usually like this amongst themselves?”
Although he’d run away, he now didn’t have a place to go. Since the campsite was halfway up the mountain, there was nothing to do even if he left; it was also cold because the wind was blowing quite strongly.
There was nothing he could do but sit on a bench in the corner of the gym and wait for the kids in the lodge to calm down.
Without anything to do, Seung-ho just kept tapping in CoffeeTalk. After having done it for a while, conversing with several people was harder than he’d expected.
‘I could take it easy when it was one or two people, but now I have to keep tapping without a rest.’
CoffeeTalk!
‘Huh?’
Seul-hwa had sent a CoffeeTalk that said that though she’d come outside to take in some fresh air, it was cold.
[I’m also outside.]
[Ah, really? Where are you?]
[I’m near the gym.]
[You’re on the complete opposite side from me. I’m behind the building. XD ]
Since he’d been about to move anyway because staying still was making him cold, he thought that it was a good idea. At the thought that it’d be better to meet up and talk with her, Seung-ho stood up from his seat.
Of course, he didn’t tell Seul-hwa that he was going over to her. He thought that he’d just surprise her when he got there.
‘If it were like before, I’d run away because I didn’t like her.’
He didn’t like her now either, but he didn’t feel repulsed as he did before. When he’d asked her for the curry recipe a while ago, he didn’t have the chance to properly thank her, so he was planning on telling her in person.
Since she’d said that she would go back after breathing some fresh air for a bit, he ran toward the back of the building without even looking at his CoffeeTalk.
Underneath the street lamp in the distance, a female student was standing with her back to him. Seeing as her hair reached her waist, it had to be Choi Seul-hwa.
‘She’s standing still even though she said that she was going to breathe some fresh air. She must be cold.’
As Seung-ho approached Seul-hwa, he called her with a loud voice.
“Seul-hwa!”
Surprised at Seung-ho’s calling, Seul-hwa turned around after tossing something in the rubbish bin. From a distance, Seung-ho was smiling and waving his hand.
“Hi, Seung-ho.”
Flustered, Seul-hwa took in a few deep breaths through her mouth before Seung-ho approached her.
“What were you doing?”
“N-nothing. I was just enjoying the cool air.”
Seul-hwa spoke vaguely with an awkward smile on her face.
“But why did you suddenly come here?”
“Ah, I came because you said you were here.”
After hearing Seung-ho’s words, Seul-hwa’s face brightened.
“You came to see me?”
“Yeah.”
Just as he’d said, Seung-ho was there because he had to tell her something, but Seul-hwa pulled a timid expression as if she’d misunderstood something.
“What is it?
As soon as Seul-hwa spoke, he felt something weird. It was a familiar but revolting smell.
‘No way. There’s no way.’
Seung-ho erased the sudden thoughts from his head and continued speaking.
“You know how I went to your table to learn the curry recipe?”
“Ah, right. Did you make the curry alright?”
“No, we just made do with the curry that the girls gave. Haha.”
Seung-ho laughed bashfully and apologised.
“Sorry. You told me, but I couldn’t use the recipe properly.”
“It’s nothing. There’s no need to apologise.”
“And I didn’t thank you for telling me the curry recipe. So I came to thank you. I was really grateful back then, hahaha.”
In Seul-hwa’s eyes, the timidly thanking Seung-ho was just so handsome and cute.
“You’re welcome. It wasn’t much, anyway. Didn’t you say you were originally outside as well? What were you doing?”
Embarrassed, Seung-ho smiled.
“I was CoffeeTalking with some girls when the guys suddenly attacked me and tried to take a peek, so I escaped outside. Hahaha.”
“Girls?”
As Seul-hwa’s control of her expression started slipping, she managed to smile with not a little bit of effort. Not knowing what she was telling, Seung-ho told her the truth.
“Yeah. The girls who got my number today and those I exchanged numbers with before all messaged me at once, so I was kept busy CoffeeTalking.”
“Ah, really?”
Due to the dark, Seung-ho didn’t see that Seul-hwa’s forehead had wrinkled. His phone had kept vibrating during the time that he’d been saying those words.
“Don’t you have to look at your phone?”
“Yeah. I’m with you, aren’t I? I can look at it later.”
Seung-ho had learned from the internet that it was polite to not take his phone out with he was with others. He was properly applying that lesson.
‘Oh my.’
However, Seul-hwa had seemed to hear another meaning in his words.
‘That means that I’m more important than the other girls, right?’
Seul-hwa’s anger melted, and her cheeks glowed.
‘Honestly, seeing how lightning-quick he was in replying when he was CoffeeTalking with me, he definitely fond of me.’
However, no matter how much time passed, it didn’t seem as if Seung-ho was going to confess his feelings first, what with his timid personality.
“Seung-ho.”
“Yeah?”
With a pounding heart, Seul-hwa made a decision. She stretched out her arms and grasped both of Seung-ho’s cheeks. Thought 168cm wasn’t a small height, Seung-ho’s height of 186cm was incredibly tall, so she had to stand on her tip-toes.
‘W-what is this?’
As soon as Seul-hwa had taken hold of Seung-ho’s cheeks, the smell that Seung-ho had identified touched Seung-ho’s nose.
‘Cigarette smoke.’
He’d been doubtful, but it was the smell of cigarettes as he’d expected. She had come out alone and been taking a smoke. Seul-hwa, not knowing that she’d been discovered, said the words that she’d been determined to say.
“I like you, Seung-ho.”
“What if we get caught?”
“I told you; we’re not gonna get caught. The teachers are all out drinking.”
“Teacher Park Han-jin stayed behind though.”
“Ah, we practiced what to do when that teacher stayed behind. It’s your phone. You decide.”
“... Let’s go.”
Seung-ho had handed his phone in, but seeing that none of his other friends had handed theirs in, he wanted to get his own back.
The three students - Chang-min, Sang-wook, and Seung-ho - sneakily approached the front of the teacher's’ cabin.
“It’s really here, right?”
“I told you that it is. I saw it. After you open the door, open where our class number is written, and it should be in the basket.”
“God, I’m really scared, though.”
Although he’d sometimes gone astray or did as he pleased, he hadn’t ever disobeyed a teacher’s orders and so was nervous. However, he couldn’t back down when his friends were helping him like this.
Knock knock knock
“Teacher!”
As Sang-wook knocked on the door and called the teacher, Teacher Park Han-jin opened the door from the inside with sleepy eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“I saw something strange over there.”
“Something strange?”
“Yes, sir. I thought it was suspicious and thought that I should look at it with you.”
“Where is it?”
“Over here.”
Chang-min and Seung-ho held their breath as they hid next to the wall. With a can’t-be-bothered expression on his face, Teacher Park Han-jin followed Sang-wook and walked in the opposite direction.
After checking that the teacher had rounded the corner of the hallway, Chang-min and Seung-ho hurriedly opened the door to the teacher's cabin.
“We won’t get caught, right?”
“Shush.”
As soon as Chang-min warily opened the door, they saw 10 lockers for the classes next to the shoe rack. It was as Sang-wook had said.
‘Please don’t be locked.’
As they carefully pulled on the 7th class’s locker door, it opened to their relief. Chang-min grinned, took the phone from the basket, and handed it to Seung-ho.
“Let’s go.”
They close the locker door silently, stealthily opened the cabin door, and left.
“Ah, it was there before, but now it’s gone.”
“It’s probably nothing, so go rest. And don’t go out.”
“Yes, sir~”
They could hear Sang-wook and the teacher conversing at the end of the hallway. Chang-min and Seung-ho hurriedly closed the door and hid next to the wall.
The teacher didn’t seem to have noticed them and went into the room as if nothing was wrong.
“Whew.”
“Woah, I was so nervous I thought I was going to die.”
As soon as he left the wall, Seung-ho made eye contact with Sangwook, who was approaching him. Sang-wook folded his hand into the shape of a phone and shook it next to his head.
Seung-ho grinned and waved his phone in the air.
“Ah, I really thought we were going to get caught.”
“Do you know how annoyed Teacher Park Han-jin got when I said it wasn’t there anymore?”
“Sorry. Hahaha.”
“Ice cream.”
“I’ll buy you a cone.”
“Alright.”
“I want the carp-shaped ice cream sandwich.”
“Sounds good!”
The three joked around as they light-heartedly returned to their lodging. Inside, the boys were chattering loudly as usually.
“Oh, are you back?”
“Success?”
With a proud expression, Seung-ho held up his phone.
“Keh, as expected.”
“Yeah, who hands in their phone these days?”
Bzz bzz bzz
As soon as he turned his phone one, it began to vibrate like crazy.
“You’re very popular.”
“It’s all spam.”
Making up a vague excuse, Seung-ho went into a corner and went into CoffeeTalk after unlocking his phone. Unlike before, not only Seul-hwa and So-hee but also kids in his class and those who’d gotten his number that day had all sent one or two messages each on CoffeeTalk.
‘Woah. Is this because it’s a school trip?’
Although it was embarrassing, he was even more happy that he’d gotten this many messages.
After answering every single message, which had totalled to be over 10, Seung-ho plunked down at his place. He’d hadn’t done much, but his legs had lost their strength due to being so nervous.
‘And, climbing up the mountain today was a bit hard, too.’
CoffeeTalk!
He’d wanted to rest a bit, but replies to his messages were coming one or two at a time. When he answered one person, another two sent messages; when he answered them, other female students sent messages. When he answered the new CoffeeTalk messages, the female students who had first sent messages replied, and the cycle repeated itself.
“Hey, your phone’s going to catch on fire.”
“Who are you CoffeeTalk-ing with?”
“I think it’s a girl, no?”
At the word ‘girl’, the five friends rushed toward Seung-ho. Taken aback, Seung-ho clutched his phone close to his chest.
“W-what are you looking at?”
As Seung-ho got flustered and tried to hide the phone, the guys approached him even more stubbornly.
“It must be a girl since you’re hiding it!”
“Yeah. Guys! Seung-ho is CoffeeTalk-ing with a girl! And not just one, but several of them!”
As Chang-min shouted those words, all of the male students in the class rushed toward Seung-ho.
“A-are you crazy? What are you doing?”
“Hey, I asked who it was!”
“Are you dating?”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“Awesome!”
He was terrified of the guys who suddenly swarmed him. Even if he almost made a mistake, it felt as if the guys would pass the phone along and look at it.
“You guys are weird!”
Seung-ho yelled as he urgently wore his shoes and left the lodge. As the guys tried to follow him out, he hurriedly ran toward the gym.
“Woah, are guys usually like this amongst themselves?”
Although he’d run away, he now didn’t have a place to go. Since the campsite was halfway up the mountain, there was nothing to do even if he left; it was also cold because the wind was blowing quite strongly.
There was nothing he could do but sit on a bench in the corner of the gym and wait for the kids in the lodge to calm down.
Without anything to do, Seung-ho just kept tapping in CoffeeTalk. After having done it for a while, conversing with several people was harder than he’d expected.
‘I could take it easy when it was one or two people, but now I have to keep tapping without a rest.’
CoffeeTalk!
‘Huh?’
Seul-hwa had sent a CoffeeTalk that said that though she’d come outside to take in some fresh air, it was cold.
[I’m also outside.]
[Ah, really? Where are you?]
[I’m near the gym.]
[You’re on the complete opposite side from me. I’m behind the building. XD ]
Since he’d been about to move anyway because staying still was making him cold, he thought that it was a good idea. At the thought that it’d be better to meet up and talk with her, Seung-ho stood up from his seat.
Of course, he didn’t tell Seul-hwa that he was going over to her. He thought that he’d just surprise her when he got there.
‘If it were like before, I’d run away because I didn’t like her.’
He didn’t like her now either, but he didn’t feel repulsed as he did before. When he’d asked her for the curry recipe a while ago, he didn’t have the chance to properly thank her, so he was planning on telling her in person.
Since she’d said that she would go back after breathing some fresh air for a bit, he ran toward the back of the building without even looking at his CoffeeTalk.
Underneath the street lamp in the distance, a female student was standing with her back to him. Seeing as her hair reached her waist, it had to be Choi Seul-hwa.
‘She’s standing still even though she said that she was going to breathe some fresh air. She must be cold.’
As Seung-ho approached Seul-hwa, he called her with a loud voice.
“Seul-hwa!”
Surprised at Seung-ho’s calling, Seul-hwa turned around after tossing something in the rubbish bin. From a distance, Seung-ho was smiling and waving his hand.
“Hi, Seung-ho.”
Flustered, Seul-hwa took in a few deep breaths through her mouth before Seung-ho approached her.
“What were you doing?”
“N-nothing. I was just enjoying the cool air.”
Seul-hwa spoke vaguely with an awkward smile on her face.
“But why did you suddenly come here?”
“Ah, I came because you said you were here.”
After hearing Seung-ho’s words, Seul-hwa’s face brightened.
“You came to see me?”
“Yeah.”
Just as he’d said, Seung-ho was there because he had to tell her something, but Seul-hwa pulled a timid expression as if she’d misunderstood something.
“What is it?
As soon as Seul-hwa spoke, he felt something weird. It was a familiar but revolting smell.
‘No way. There’s no way.’
Seung-ho erased the sudden thoughts from his head and continued speaking.
“You know how I went to your table to learn the curry recipe?”
“Ah, right. Did you make the curry alright?”
“No, we just made do with the curry that the girls gave. Haha.”
Seung-ho laughed bashfully and apologised.
“Sorry. You told me, but I couldn’t use the recipe properly.”
“It’s nothing. There’s no need to apologise.”
“And I didn’t thank you for telling me the curry recipe. So I came to thank you. I was really grateful back then, hahaha.”
In Seul-hwa’s eyes, the timidly thanking Seung-ho was just so handsome and cute.
“You’re welcome. It wasn’t much, anyway. Didn’t you say you were originally outside as well? What were you doing?”
Embarrassed, Seung-ho smiled.
“I was CoffeeTalking with some girls when the guys suddenly attacked me and tried to take a peek, so I escaped outside. Hahaha.”
“Girls?”
As Seul-hwa’s control of her expression started slipping, she managed to smile with not a little bit of effort. Not knowing what she was telling, Seung-ho told her the truth.
“Yeah. The girls who got my number today and those I exchanged numbers with before all messaged me at once, so I was kept busy CoffeeTalking.”
“Ah, really?”
Due to the dark, Seung-ho didn’t see that Seul-hwa’s forehead had wrinkled. His phone had kept vibrating during the time that he’d been saying those words.
“Don’t you have to look at your phone?”
“Yeah. I’m with you, aren’t I? I can look at it later.”
Seung-ho had learned from the internet that it was polite to not take his phone out with he was with others. He was properly applying that lesson.
‘Oh my.’
However, Seul-hwa had seemed to hear another meaning in his words.
‘That means that I’m more important than the other girls, right?’
Seul-hwa’s anger melted, and her cheeks glowed.
‘Honestly, seeing how lightning-quick he was in replying when he was CoffeeTalking with me, he definitely fond of me.’
However, no matter how much time passed, it didn’t seem as if Seung-ho was going to confess his feelings first, what with his timid personality.
“Seung-ho.”
“Yeah?”
With a pounding heart, Seul-hwa made a decision. She stretched out her arms and grasped both of Seung-ho’s cheeks. Thought 168cm wasn’t a small height, Seung-ho’s height of 186cm was incredibly tall, so she had to stand on her tip-toes.
‘W-what is this?’
As soon as Seul-hwa had taken hold of Seung-ho’s cheeks, the smell that Seung-ho had identified touched Seung-ho’s nose.
‘Cigarette smoke.’
He’d been doubtful, but it was the smell of cigarettes as he’d expected. She had come out alone and been taking a smoke. Seul-hwa, not knowing that she’d been discovered, said the words that she’d been determined to say.
“I like you, Seung-ho.”
