Ch.187187 – Lies 2

# 187 – The Lie # 2

Everyone gathered at the secret base.

Strictly speaking, it hadn’t even been a day since we escaped from the corridor, but it felt like a very long time had passed.

“It feels like almost a year has gone by, doesn’t it?”

Dahui smiled brightly, pretending not to know anything. But I knew that after this meeting ended, Dahui would die one way or another.

I decided not to show that I knew, though.

“Should we order chicken?”

Kwon Sua laughed, “Hehe.”

But Teacher Hong Miri pointed something out.

“There probably aren’t any chicken places open right now. I checked everywhere. Everyone’s closed their shops and busy causing chaos. Nothing’s normal anymore.”

That was true. In a world where stomachs don’t rot, there was no way anyone would be running a normal business. So we had to cook something with the ingredients available at the secret base.

We tried making an impromptu pizza by kneading flour, but everyone’s skills were terrible.

“What doesn’t work just keeps not working.”

Yang Juhui laughed with flour on her nose. It had been an incredibly long time since I’d seen Yang Juhui laugh.

When was the last time I saw her angry at me and herself for not finding her sister? But now Yang Juhui seemed somewhat transcendent.

Everyone did.

While I had been waiting countless hours to gather points to prevent Dahui’s death, constantly swimming upstream like a salmon into the past, everyone who had experienced that time with me had grown up a little.

High school students are really something.

They change dramatically when you don’t see them for just a few days.

We ate pizza and played card games.

And we reminisced about everything that had happened until now.

“I almost died because of the Head Ghost at first. And then I pretended to date Yang Juhui as my ultimate move to escape the corridor… Thinking about it now makes me laugh. Yang Juhui insisted we could only hold hands until our 100th day together!”

Bong Jiyeon burst into laughter at my story.

“What, did she think she was the Virgin Mary or something?”

“W-when did I ever say that! When did I ever say such a thing!”

Yang Juhui shouted and denied reality. Her face was very red. Maybe she didn’t remember. Well, that made sense. Yang Juhui hadn’t escaped back then.

How many times had she died and lost her memories until now? Looking back, it all seemed like a dream.

“Thanks for going through all this with me until now. When you think about it, you all got involved because of me. You’ll have to keep suffering a bit longer.”

All those struggles with various ghosts now felt like peaceful everyday life. Ironically, I missed those days a little.

“So Bong Jiyeon, are you really not going to date Jeongseok?”

I looked at Bong Jiyeon and asked.

She immediately flared up.

“What are you talking about all of a sudden!”

“Either reject him clearly or accept him. If you keep this up, Jin Seoyeon will steal Jeongseok from you.”

“Shut up! Please!”

Unlike the angry Bong Jiyeon, this time Yang Juhui burst into laughter.

Yang Juhui pointed at Bong Jiyeon and said.

“She doesn’t like it when someone chases after her. She likes chasing after others. That’s why her relationships never last long. Once they start liking each other, she loses interest.”

What a terrible mindset. She’s definitely the type to fall for bad boys. Honestly, Jeongseok couldn’t be the bad boy type. Neither could I.

Bad boys.

What exactly makes someone a bad boy? I was destined to be pushed around by bad girls. I looked at Dahui. Dahui was a terribly wicked girl.

She tore people’s hearts into a thousand pieces, yet she could laugh so casually like nothing happened.

After this meeting ends, Dahui would die again in some outlandish way.

To give us back tomorrow night.

I intended to prevent that.

“Well, I need to use the bathroom.”

Quietly, I slipped away.

And headed straight for the old school building. The old school building, trapped in eternal time, now blurred the distinction between reality and dreams.

I entered the third floor and headed toward the entrance to the fourth floor, which was so deeply submerged in water that no person could advance.

Of course, that didn’t matter to me.

I took a deep breath, dove in, and entered the sea.

The giant clock was still there.

I placed my palm on the clock and considered one last time.

“……”

The consideration was brief. Just a fleeting moment.

But to me, it felt as long as from the beginning of the universe to its end. Toward the clock that pulsed like a living thing—thump, thump—I wished strongly.

The clock could grant only one wish at a time.

If I made a wish, whatever someone else had wished for before would be overwritten and disappear. That was the weakness of the clock that granted only one wish.

And a very long time ago, a small and trivial wish that a female student had made when she placed her hand on this clock.

To fulfill my wish, I had to erase that girl’s wish. That’s how dreams work. To fulfill one of my dreams, someone else had to give up one of their wishes.

So what should I do?

When I first arrived at this place, I closed my eyes selfishly. I chose to do nothing, and the world was submerged in flood.

As a result, my friends turned against each other, and in Dahui’s case, she even died eternally to take responsibility for my mistake. But that shouldn’t happen.

—I want to have a family.

Someone’s wish that the clock had granted was transmitted through my palm.

Over that small and selfish heart, I wished strongly.

—Back to everyday life.

Tick-tock—the clock made the right sound and began to work.

My existence, which shouldn’t have been there in the first place, began to disappear.

It meant everything was returning to normal.

# # #

The girl opened her eyes on the hard desk.

When she came to her senses, she saw the classroom scene with dazzling sunlight streaming in.

She could see the students of Class “1-D” chattering away.

Her body felt heavy.

It felt like she had had an extremely long dream. How long had she been asleep? When she picked up her phone, she saw the time.

April 1st. 10 AM.

“Ah.”

I see. Today was April Fools’ Day. Yang Juhui finally remembered everything. Things like the fake confession incident that happened in the morning.

Suddenly, she felt angry.

For some reason, she felt very angry.

So many things had happened, and though she couldn’t remember what they were, she felt like she needed to be angry.

“Hey! You bastard!”

Bang-!

So Yang Juhui kicked the chair of the male student sitting in front of her. Soon, crash—the male student fell over. The student who was suddenly kicked raised his head and frowned.

“Geez, what’s wrong with you suddenly? Are you crazy?”

“What do you mean ‘what’? Ha Yeongwon, do you really want to die?”

“What are you talking about? Who said what?”

“…?”

Yang Juhui rubbed her sleepy eyes and looked at the male student. Now that she looked closely, the male student had curly hair and wore glasses. The name tag on his chest read “Kim Junho,” which was completely unfamiliar.

Yang Juhui was confused. Of course, such a student had never sat in front of her.

“What the hell? Who the fuck are you? Where is Ha Yeongwon!”

“Tsk, what are you talking about? Did you have a dream?”

“…Dream?”

“Or are you making an April Fools’ joke? It’s not funny, so stop it.”

“No, that can’t be. Wait… Don’t you all know Ha Yeongwon?”

“What are you saying?”

Abruptly, Yang Juhui stood up.

The students sitting around started to look at her.

It was a scene both familiar and strange.

“Don’t you know Ha Yeongwon?”

“…?”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know.”

“She’s just seeking attention.”

“Stop lying! This is an April Fools’ prank! This prank isn’t funny at all! Don’t you know Ha Yeongwon? Did you all forget Ha Yeongwon?!”

It felt like she had been dreaming for a long time. It felt like someone had set up a huge hidden camera prank on her. Something was clearly very wrong.

Whoosh-

Yang Juhui ran outside. To the playground. Many scenes were different from what she remembered, but the strangest thing was the letters written like a sign on the imposing new school building.

“Daejeon Yangji High School”

An unfamiliar place name. An unfamiliar name.

“What is this? What… This is a lie, right…?”

Yang Juhui felt like she had been dropped alone into a strange world. It felt like she had lost something huge, but she couldn’t explain what it was or find it.

Large tears now formed in the girl’s eyes.

Soft, soft, my heart like clear stream water—

Just then, Yang Juhui’s phone rang.

Hoping against hope, she looked at the screen and saw the word “Sister” written on it.

—Hey! Yang Juhui! Did you skip school again? Teacher Hong Yeri called!

“Sister?”

The ice that had frozen solid in Yang Juhui’s mind seemed to melt.

The incomprehensible situation became understandable like the warm spring weather.

“…To find my sister.”

—Hello? Where are you?

Yang Juhui hung up and dialed a number that was clear in her mind. But the voice that came through was cold and desolate.

—The number you have dialed…

“…Huff, huff!”

Yang Juhui now roughly threw her phone aside and ran desperately.

Toward the old school building. She thought that if she went there, if she went to that basement, she might somehow be able to overcome this situation.

But in the place where the old school building should have been, she saw a large auditorium. It was an enormous gymnasium.

A building that wasn’t in Yang Juhui’s memory.

“Damn it! What is this!”

Yang Juhui couldn’t hold back anymore and burst into tears.

While it was true that she wanted to find her sister, this wasn’t the way.

Yang Juhui felt something that had always stood straight inside her crumble like a sand castle, and she literally sat down.

She had no strength left to run, nor any reason to.

“You bastard!”

Was this curse directed at someone?

It was a curse that couldn’t be directed at anyone.

A male student approached Yang Juhui.

“Looks like you’ve come to your senses too.”

“…You are…”

“This doesn’t seem to be the Gaeryong Metropolitan City we remember. It’s Daejeon, apparently. Yeongji High School’s name has also changed to Yangji High School. For your information, I started noticing something was wrong when I was five years old.”

“……”

“No one remembers anything about the clock or the water veins. As if they never existed. The world has changed as if it was rewritten from the beginning. Maybe this was our everyday life all along. No ghosts, no nightmares.”

Jeongseok reached out his hand to Yang Juhui.

“It’s boring, isn’t it? We didn’t go through all that trouble just to spend such dull days. So let’s try to bring it all back together. Let’s gather everyone.”