Chapter 18 \n<h1>I Don’t Want to be an Ojakgyo (18)</h1>\n
Cory still looked shocked. I thought I understood the situation a bit more.
Cory was a magic geek. I had completely overlooked that he would be interested in this area. I had only assumed that the only people interested would be those who wanted to figure out the secrets of the underworld and force me to work for them.
I just nodded, slightly embarrassed. When I nodded, Cory’s expression hardened and he furiously walked out of the club room.
As soon as the door closed, I heard a loud crash. A girl screamed. It was quite a ruckus.
Cory returned a long time after he had left. His face when he had returned was calm as usual. The shock on his face was wiped clear and he was back to normal. The piercing I had gifted him earlier was in his ear. But it looked like he had just pierced it: blood was still flowing down his ear. His face was still calm, though.
Cory sat on the sofa, refusing to look my way. He didn’t even lay down–a sign of incredible respet from his part. Cory put his hands together and then mumbled.
“I must’ve spent my entire life’s worth of luck. Maybe I’m going to die now.”“What?”
When I responded, Cory just said it was nothing and shook his head.
Cory just looked at me ever so often without speaking. He spent a long time just thinking about something, then said that he was going to sleep and laid down on the sofa. Then, he quickly fell asleep.
When he woke up from his nap, he blocked me on my way out as we were heading out to our afternoon classes. Then, he stared a hole into my face and opened his mouth to speak.
“Give me your hand.”“Why?”
When I shot him a suspicious look, Cory just said, “Give me you hand,” and put his hand out. I gave him my hand.
Cory grabbed my hand, shook it a few times, then looked at his own hand.
“Yay.”
Cory looked like he was in high spirits. He gave me a ton of his snacks, candy, and chocolate to hold in my arms and headed over to his classroom.\n“Shuraina, I’m so jealous of you.”“Why would you be jealous?”
I was yawning loudly and working on my history notes during break. Rose, who was famous for being loud and talkative in the yellow class, came up to me. Rose had a bun on the top of her head and a huge red ribbon attached to it. She was a very vibrant character. I was surprised at her bun as I responded.
“That Cory is talking to you.”
Rose, who was famous for being a chatterbox, seemed to have difficulty finding conversation partners have her friends had left her one by one.
“He just looks like of scary; he’s actually a really friendly kid.”“Cory is friendly?”
Rose looked surprised for a moment, then she wrinkled her face. I could feel a weird sense of envy and anger at her expression.
“What, you’re showing off because he likes you?”“What do you mean, he likes me. I’m not a pet. If you’re jealous of me being friends with him, go talk to him yourself.”
Rose stared at me as if I was strange at my words.
“Shushu, Cory is really popular. People just can’t approach him because of how scary he looks. In the beginning, there were as many people vying for his attention as the prince.”
Rose’s face went red with anger. It looked like there was a bit of shame as well.
“I, I tried talking to him once but I was ignored, too. Anyway, people probably stopped approaching him because he wouldn’t respond to anybody and just had a sort of angry look on his face. He’s incredibly powerful magically, and he’s at the top of his magic class. Do you know just how many people want to be close to him? Cory is the one pushing them away. And now he looks like he’s been studying too hard, with those dark circles…….. Sigh. Now he just looks too scary to approach.”
Cory’s dark circles really were very dark. It’s true that he looked scarier because of it. He gave off a vibe of a gangster student who had flunked a grade. I knew he had a scary face, but I had never known that he was the one pushing people away. Cory, it wasn’t that you just didn’t have friends? You were popular all along? What a betrayal. I couldn’t agree with Rose’s statements. I thought it was just Cory’s embarrassed face being misunderstood.
“Shushu, let’s go to our club.”
Oh, speak of the devil. Cory was waiting outside of my classroom. He looked at me and nodded his face towards the door, telling me to come out. Rose blushed and turned away from Cory when he arrived. I didn’t realize it until Rose said it, but I did recall a lot of girls having the same reaction when they saw Cory. Excited yet afraid.
I remembered once again that my friend was one of the male main characters in a novel. I completely forgot about that because of your dark circles, glasses, and your exhausted self. Sorry, Cory.\n“Rose, do you want some hints to get closer to Cory?”
Rose seemed extremely interested by that statement. Rose leaned in so she was the only one who could hear what I had to say. I was slightly taken aback at how close she shifted herself over, then tugged at her ear gently. It was the perfect distance to whisper.
Puff~
I huffed a warm breath of air into her ear.
I could hear Rose cursing at me from behind, but I just scratched at the mosquito bite on my arm.
I didn’t know any hints or opportunities to get closer to Cory. I just became friends with him by spending time with him. If we shared similar feelings, we became friends. If I took the time to worry about each and every thing about friendships, my head would burn up so fast that I would lose all my hair.
I headed out of class with Cory, who was still waiting for me outside.
“Shushu, I heard that you were going to go monster subjugating for your practical exams?”
This was about the time I was wrapping up our Augran Mountain model.
Cory sat next to me, sitting backwards on a chair with his head and arms leaning on the back of the chair. I paused my work and looked at him. Sleepy green eyes were watching me. I paused for a moment and nodded.
This was what our swordsmanship teacher had told us yesterday during class. Time had quickly passed, and we were already at the end of the semester. Vacation was right at our fingertips. Exam time had arrived. Like our morning classes, we also had exams for our afternoon classes.
Unlike our morning classes, however, our afternoon classes had practical exams.
Because of that, the swordsmanship classes also had a practical exam. Our subject was ‘monster subjugation’. We had to go to the lower areas of the Augran Mountains and fight low-level demons and monsters.
It might have sounded dangerous, but our professors and swordsmanship teachers were also participating, and our very rich school ensured our safety, so it would have been even weirder if it was dangerous.
Anyway, how did Cory know about our practical exams? Did the prince tell him?
“The magic classes are participating too.”
Oh, is that so? I nodded at Cory.\n“What do you mean?”
He sat up and hid his face with his hands. I could see his green eyes peek through his fingers. With a small voice, he continued to speak.
“I barely got back to acting normal.”
T/N
1: Korean elementary schools are from grades 1 through 6. There are three years of middle school, then three years of high school.