I felt the lingering rays of the sun scald my neck as I crouched underneath the hedge, which caught on my skirt and tore through the polyester material. That, however, was the least of my concern. My heart was thudding loud enough to reach my ears, my tongue was dry and my eyes were as wide as a rabbit's as I scanned about the field for any sign of the enemy.
…. No, I didn't really see Dohwa as the enemy. Things had changed between the two of us forever, but I could not do away with the happy times I'd shared with him, those brief moments during this wild year in which I'd felt like an ordinary teenager at last. It was just that, I was sure that those memories would be tarnished the moment I caught sight of him again, for I knew he was certainly uninterested in things returning to how they were in the past.
As I leaned my back against the brick frame of the flower bed, my mind was suddenly rushed with images of yesterday's events, events that I had little chance of forgetting myself. I instinctively held my right cheek, which still tingled in response to the kiss pressed on the skin. I had tossed and turned all night, wondering what that kiss had meant. At first, I'd felt jubilant; surely, Dohwa believed I had once loved him and he could forgive me for my current disinterest! But then, something didn't seem entirely right. Dohwa was sharp as tack; he was as smooth as water and quite the social expert.Why did he pass up the chance to call me out on my bluff? There was no way he'd believed me. I wondered if he was perhaps testing me…. But even that idle theory made little sense.
I sighed and mumbled, 'Whatever.' There was no use in worrying myself over yet another thing that I had little control over remedying. I slid out a comic book out of my backpack and began to read, having decided to simply wait out the busy after-school crowd.
Then, as though it had been put there by the devil himself, a thought occurred in my mind. Love points— if Dohwa really liked me, wouldn't that mean that my points would have gone up by at least one?
In spite of myself, I began to feel a little excited. Finally, I no longer had to write to save my life! I could finally date Eunhyeok freely!
I pulled out the long-forgotten Jelly Pop from my bag pocket and flipped it open. My heart began beating loudly again as I waited for the camera to focus on my face— those few seconds felt like an eternity.
But at last— what did I see?
I didn't see a point. Nor did I see the dreaded 0/0 tally, which was honestly the very least that stupid phone could do for me.
Instead I saw this:
-1/0
'Oh, for the love of—!' I cursed aloud, before quickly clasping my mouth. After looking around quickly, I sighed in relief. No one had noticed me, thank God.
Now I was free to redirect my attention to whatever the hell was displayed on my screen, the numbers a taunting, cheerful pink.
I wasn't good at maths. In fact, it was my utterly worst subject, something that I had to hope every year to barely scrape a pass in. But even so, I was positive that these numbers didn't make an ounce of logical sense. I'd already known that I was a special case with my absolute zero of love points, which had made me the miserable target of Marang's CEO. But I'd never expected for my points to count backwards, in some ridiculous defiance of all that was possible.
…. Maybe I didn't need to be too surprised. Something like this was typical of my disaster life, wasn't it? Even with things having reached rock bottom, my horrendous luck was determined to dig a hole.
But really, what on earth did this mean? Did this mean that Dohwa didn't love me, after all? Though that would have meant that my numbers would have remained as they were.
I then remembered something the CEO had said about the system; that any emotion brought on by love would be accounted for. Jealousy, sadness, hate…. Did Dohwa hate me? He'd pretended to be pleased and kissed me on the cheek, but maybe privately he'd been outraged by my deception?
That seemed a real possibility. However, what was with the minus sign? Surely love-inspired emotions added to the toll, not reduced!
I snapped the phone shut and cradled my head in my arms, the hard plastic digging into my palm. This was too, too much. I dimly wondered what would happen next. Would it be too far out of Marang's budget to send an assassin after me? Or maybe they'd manipulate the weather and strike me down with a thunderbolt?
'There you are, Su-ae!'
I nearly jumped out of my skin! Behind me, leaning over the hedge, was my best friend Ajin's grinning face. She appeared to be out of breath.
'I've been looking all over for you,' she said, giving me a playful shove on the shoulder. 'What are you doing here?'
'Um….' I laughed nervously. 'Taking a nap?'
She raised an eyebrow. 'Really?'
'Yeah…'
She shrugged, before turning around. 'Fine…. Hey, she's over here!'
And, really, I should have seen it coming. I should have known that even if I hid from him, there was nothing stopping Dohwa from looking for me.
I saw his pleasant smile before my brain could hatch out a desperate escape plan. All I could do was gape at him gormlessly, love points forgotten, lying on the damp grass with nothing but my backpack for defence.
'Making a little home for yourself?' he asked blithely, nodding at my surroundings. I cringed.
'Our Su-ae's always been a bit of an oddball,' Ajin remarked, smirking at my obvious humiliation.
Dohwa then offered a hand which I carefully pretended that I did not see, pushing myself against the brick frame for balance as I stood up. He was still smiling, and I was still unable to match his energy as I avoided his gaze. It was far too soon for us to meet again, I believed. I wasn't ready.
Ajin seemed to notice something was up, though she wisely chose not to say a thing as we trudged back to the school building in silence. She merely gave me a sharp look before we parted ways, one that undeniably said, Tell me what the heck's going on later. I grinned at her in relief, glad that at least one person was willing to take pity on me.
'She's nice,' Dohwa commented as we watched her go. 'A whole lot of help with looking for you all over the school.'
I coughed awkwardly. 'I see….'
He regarded me wordlessly, and in turn I watched him, looking for any signs of his hidden hatred. No, I couldn't see any anger in his eyes, or even a trace of the hurt I'd inflicted upon him yesterday. Honestly, I couldn't read anything on him at all. His face was a perfect mask of pleasantness, and whether he secretly wanted me dead was any fool's guess.
'You going to come by today?' he asked, out of the blue.
I looked at him, startled by his directness. 'You want me to come over…?'
'Sure,' he replied. 'I've got a needle and thread spare that you can use.'
I blinked in confusion, and then glanced down at my skirt in horror. Face and neck now a scarlet torch, I gripped the torn ends of the material together.
'Or I can sew that up for you,' he went on. 'I get pretty good grades from Textiles.'
'N-No, I'm fine!' I rushed out. 'I've got a spare skirt at home, really…. Don't trouble yourself.'
He tapped me on the forehead. 'Why, what's the issue?' Then he smirked. 'Don't you want to go to your first love's place?'
Distraught, I groaned into my hands while he laughed good-naturedly. He was teasing me! He'd never believed me for a second!
As I followed him into the school like a mindless puppy, I found myself getting increasingly puzzled about the minus love point. Now that I knew that he hadn't fallen for my dumb story, I could no longer hold onto the idea that he hated me for rejecting him. That had been stupid of me to assume in the first place. Dohwa was just not that kind of guy. He was the type to bow out gracefully, rather than hold onto petty grudges.
While keeping one eye on Dohwa, I reached for the Jelly Pop once again. With one quick prayer to the heavens, I peaked at the screen.
0/0
I just about managed to stifle a wild scream. Without having done anything, my points, or lack thereof, had returned to normal. Not that having zero points again was the most ideal position— I still had a target on my head and a fanfic novel-reading CEO to please. But I felt that wading in familiar waters was a far more favourable situation. Things could, quite literally, only look up from here.
I ran up to Dohwa's side and grinned at him. Even the hot weather was suddenly enjoyable.
'Scary.' He side-eyed me. 'What are you up to?'
'Nothing,' I sang.
We were leaning over the stair landing at Dohwa's apartment, getting giddy from the dizzying heights. We were tearing up discarded ideas from my notebook and throwing them down below. There were a few unsuspecting passersby that brushed off paper on their heads and glanced back up, irritated, though we ducked out of sight in time.
Dohwa had taken to doing a dramatic reading of bits of dialogue that I'd deemed far too embarrassing to enter the netspace. I shut my ears and proceeded to yell loudly in order to drown out his voice.
Naturally, that didn't work.
'"And so, Gray,"' he continued, clutching his chest and sighing as bashfully as a lady, '"I want to love you as honestly as you want me to. I do not want to deceive you nor myself any longer. Will you accept my proposal?"'
I kicked him. 'You're a bully.'
Rubbing his leg, he said pointedly, 'That's not what it says right here….'
I glared at him. 'Fine.'
I didn't need to look at the slip of paper, having obsessed over this exact scene at least a hundred times before I decided to get rid of it. I threw my head back and prepared to deepen my voice in accordance with Gray's lovesick cadence.
'"My darling Cindy! I would like more than anything to accept your love. But I'm afraid that I must not."'
"'You won't?"' Dohwa cried, camping it up. '"But why?"'
'"Because I believe that you are deceiving yourself still! I will not,"' I went on, getting really into it, '"allow us to go on living on a lie."'
'"Are you saying that I do not love you?"'
'"You do not."'
Dohwa laid a hand on his forehead. '"My very heart is breaking as you deny me my feelings. How can you call me a liar?"'
'"I can call you a liar because I know that you are incapable of feeling any kind of love that isn't what you'd spare for a brother! You do not see me as a man. You wish to merely make me happy, as though you are a benevolent sister. In truth, you don't care for me at all!"'
I was panting from the deliverance of such a heavy-put line. Huh, I thought to myself. Actually, that isn't as bad as I thought it was. Maybe I'll add it back in.
I glanced at Dohwa expectantly, waiting for him to carry on the exchange. Instead I saw him pause, frowning as he read over the script. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then shook his head, as though he'd decided that whatever was on his mind didn't really matter.
I felt something tug on the back of my mind, and I then got a sense that there was some important detail that I was missing. But I just couldn't put my finger on it. Dohwa had evidently moved on from his blip, so there was no reason for me to linger.
That evening, as I walked back home, I got an impulse to check the Jelly Pop phone again. There had been no real reason for it, other than to confirm that all was well and that the earlier mishap really was a slip on the system's part.
That, no doubt, ended up being a huge mistake.
After all, shouldn't I have wisened up by now? Shouldn't I have known that nothing in my life was ever going to be easy?
-2/0, the screen read.
Typical.