Unrequited Love Obsession Diary - Chapter 4

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 4

And with his long legs, he walked ahead of Yeon-jae, still with the straw in his mouth.

However, Hyeonoh’s cup, which already showed the bottom and contained only ice, merely made air sounds each time he sucked on the straw.

In the air filled with the scent of late spring, along with the popular songs drifting from the university district restaurant and the cheerful laughter of college students, the air sounds from Hyeonoh’s empty plastic cup echoed in their ears.

When Yeon-jae belatedly came to her senses and hurriedly followed Hyeonoh, only then did Hyeonoh ask.

“Then why do you like Lee Do-han so much?”

At those words, Yeon-jae also couldn’t answer.

* * *

Third year of middle school. Yeon-jae spent the worst sixteen years of her life.

That summer, her parents, who had never gotten along well since Yeon-jae was young, finally decided to divorce.

It wasn’t something she had never imagined, but vaguely expecting her parents’ divorce and being notified of the divorce decision were worlds apart.

Her academic performance, which hadn’t been bad, plummeted to rock bottom, and her mother, who had been quite studious, used Yeon-jae’s declining grades as an excuse to vent the stress of the divorce process on her.

Her father rarely came home.

He had already gotten involved with another woman. He declared that he would start a new life with her.

Already being in her sensitive adolescent years, the family situation piled on like additional misfortune.

At that time, if anyone had even lightly touched her, Yeon-jae would have had only two possible reactions.

Either burst into anger or burst into tears.

But there was one fact that Yeon-jae had overlooked. Teenage girls are all a sensitive species.

Amidst her parents’ arduous fights, Shin Yeon-jae had somehow become a sensitive, difficult, somewhat rude girl who looked down on her friends and stared at people unpleasantly.

Looking back, that was a kind of game.

Yesterday, Hyejin was the worst girl who ignored her friends because of her boyfriend, and a few days later, Jiwon became the really bad girl who looked down on her friends just because she was good at studying.

So tracing back to the beginning was actually meaningless.

In fact, Yeon-jae didn’t pay much attention to the deteriorated friendships either. Even without school life, her head was already dizzy enough with other worries.

But when even Miyeon, who had been her closest friend since elementary school, turned her back on her, even Yeon-jae found it hard to bear.

“Miyeon, want to go home together after school?”

“No. I… I promised to hang out with Hyejin’s group first.”

“Oh, really?”

From a distance, Hyejin’s group was staring intently at Yeon-jae and Miyeon. Hyejin’s group belonged to the loudest voices in the class.

Miyeon couldn’t even make eye contact with Yeon-jae properly and hurriedly left her seat, then immediately joined Hyejin’s group.

She had roughly expected it.

And it wasn’t that she couldn’t understand Miyeon like this either.

If Miyeon didn’t abandon her, Miyeon would also become a target of this ostracism.

However, she couldn’t help feeling bitter.

Yeon-jae thought. If it were her, she would have held Miyeon’s hand no matter what happened.

* * *

Starting from when her friends changed, she also lost friends to eat lunch with.

For a while, Yeon-jae repeatedly skipped lunch.

Then later, she just ate lunch alone.

Then those who had been her friends just days before whispered loud enough for Yeon-jae to hear.

“She must have no self-respect. She’s eating alone so stubbornly. Pfft.”

“I could tell from when she looked down on everyone, but she’s really a nasty girl.”

These were friends who had eaten lunch together and gone to academy together after school until just last week.

But now they treated Yeon-jae like an invisible person.

Since Yeon-jae was human too, she was at a loss at first, but gradually became detached.

‘Should I be thankful that there’s no physical violence?’

They didn’t pour milk into her locker like in dramas, nor did they deliberately bump her shoulder while walking.

They just didn’t talk to her. As if looking at an invisible person.

During PE class, when she was paired with another kid who was left without a partner like her, the children who had once been her friends whispered and laughed from afar.

“Now the two losers can play together. Birds of a feather flock together.”

“Ew, they smell. Loser smell.”

Sixteen and clueless. Perhaps that’s why it was a time when things could become endlessly worse.

* * *

“Um, hey. Yeon-jae.”

A few weeks later, when she turned around, Miyeon was standing there.

All the kids’ gazes poured onto the two of them.

‘She hasn’t even glanced in my direction for a while.’

Yeon-jae stared at Miyeon without answering.

Miyeon seemed conscious of the gazes reaching her, hesitated for a moment, then continued speaking.

“…What are you doing after class?”

A gentler tone compared to last time.

A glimmer of hope began to rise in Yeon-jae’s heart, which had been pretending to be detached.

The hope that maybe she could become close with Miyeon again.

She didn’t need the other friends. They had only hung out together because they were in the same group anyway.

So no matter how much they tried to hurt Yeon-jae, she might be upset but her heart didn’t ache.

But Miyeon was different. Even Miyeon turning her back on her had hurt Yeon-jae.

Hiding such thoughts in her heart, Yeon-jae opened her mouth.

“Why? I’m not doing anything.”

When she said that, Yeon-jae was also a little nervous.

“Then, can we talk for a bit after school?”

Yeon-jae felt her heart swelling without realizing it and nodded.

After class ended, Yeon-jae waited for the kids to leave the classroom.

Miyeon also waved to the friends who were greeting her, but instead of following them out, she sat quietly in the classroom.

The classroom emptied, leaving only Miyeon and Yeon-jae. Only then did Miyeon get up from her seat and approach Yeon-jae.

Miyeon smiled awkwardly and fidgeted with her hands for a long time, which didn’t suit her.

Miyeon, after stalling like that for a while, opened her mouth.

“…The boys’ high school across the street. You know it, right? There’s a second-year there named Lee Do-han.”

Saying that, Miyeon turned on a social media app on her phone and showed her a photo.

It was a group photo. Miyeon enlarged the photo so that only one person among what looked like more than ten men filled the screen.

“You might know him too. He’s been famous around here for being handsome.”

However, Yeon-jae didn’t know who Lee Do-han was.

That made sense, since Yeon-jae wasn’t even interested in common male idols.

When someone in the group said they liked some male idol, only then would she roughly look them up.

However, even such Yeon-jae could see at a glance who the man Miyeon was pointing to was, without needing to enlarge the photo.

The man in the photo seemed to have been accidentally caught by someone’s raised phone camera.

From his honest features and unnatural gaze, no effort to look good in photos could be read.

Nevertheless, compared to others who were trying hard to look good, he had a much more handsome face that instinctively drew attention.

As Yeon-jae stared at the photo, Miyeon added one more thing.

“Hyejin said so. He lives in the same apartment as you.”

“…So?”

“Can you get his phone number for me?”

“What?”

For a moment, wondering what she meant, Yeon-jae was dumbfounded.

“Me? Why?”

A trembling voice returned as an answer to the reflexive question that escaped her.

“…Well, Hyejin likes that guy.”

Miyeon’s face, which she looked at belatedly, was almost on the verge of tears.

“She said she’ll only keep hanging out with me if I get that guy’s number…”

* * *

After that day.

When school ended, Yeon-jae would sit on the playground swing and wait for Dohan until sunset.

Her parents, who were facing divorce, had little interest in Yeon-jae, and even when she skipped academy classes to hang around the playground, it was only the security guard, not her parents, who worried about her.

“Why does the student from Building 107 come out and sit here every day?”

Even to that worried question, Yeon-jae just smiled awkwardly.

As soon as the security guard moved away, Yeon-jae let out a faint sigh.

Actually, Yeon-jae knew too. That there was no need to fulfill that request.

She could have said, “You deal with it too.”

But she didn’t.

Though she resented Miyeon, she was still Yeon-jae’s friend. Yeon-jae didn’t want Miyeon to go through the same trouble just because she herself was in a difficult situation.

She thought she would encounter Dohan soon, but things didn’t work out as easily as expected.

Dohan rarely showed himself, to the point where it was questionable whether the information about living in the same apartment was correct.

Still, Yeon-jae waited.

Fortunately, the information wasn’t false, and one day at sunset, Dohan appeared from around the corner of the apartment entrance that she was casually looking at.

Yeon-jae recognized Dohan immediately.

‘That’s him. The guy Seong Hye-jin likes.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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