Chapter 17:

  Summer Film’s New Face (3)

Red spaghetti sauce dripped from Eunho’s white dress shirt, falling onto the floor one drop at a time. Semin’s face turned deathly pale.

This was even worse than cherry blossom bibimbap. He’d practically taken a shower in it!

With a look of utter despair, I imagined Eunho’s face as he turned around any second now.

What was the point of my Make Eunho a Great Male Lead project? What was the point of getting trapped in the supply room in Semin’s place?

In the end, Eunho would frown at Semin, and the two of them would have the worst possible first encounter—

“…What the heck?”

“I’m really sorry. I tripped, and…”

Contrary to my expectations, Eunho looked at Semin with surprising composure instead of getting angry.

Standing beside Semin, I watched Eunho behave much more gently than I’d anticipated. Then his eyes met mine.

Eunho lowered his gaze and spoke, looking not at his sauce-covered uniform but at Semin’s knee.

“Your knee. It’s red. You should go to the nurse’s office.”

This was strange. Even if the flow of events changed, the content was supposed to remain the same. So why was Eunho the only one taking a different path?

Watching Eunho walk away so coolly, the cafeteria erupted into another round of murmuring.

I told Semin I’d be right back, then hurried out of the cafeteria.

Everyone was inside eating, so there was no one outside.

Eunho was at the communal sink, washing the spaghetti sauce out of his hair.

“Eunho!”

At my shout, Eunho turned to look at me.

“Are you okay?”

Water was dripping from his hair and obstructing his vision. Eunho raised his hand, pushed his hair back, and flashed me a bright smile.

“How was that? I did what you told me to. I did well, right?”

“Huh?”

Eunho’s face was flushed beneath the water droplets. His eyes were innocent, as if he were embarrassed but proud of himself and hoping I would praise him.

Seeing this expression on Eunho’s face for the first time, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a strange sense of unease.

It was the same feeling I’d experienced in the classroom yesterday.

“You said that if I wanted to become a great male lead, I should overlook little mistakes. Those were your words, weren’t they?”

“Eunho…”

At the same time, Eunho and I turned to look in the same direction.

Dogyeom was approaching us with a towel in his hand. Where had he managed to get it?

Dogyeom handed the towel to Eunho.

Originally, the first impression between these two had been…

‘What’s your problem?’

‘That’s what I want to ask you. You scared her!’

Their first encounter had gone badly because of Semin. But now, things seemed to be going better than they had in the original story.

Eunho accepted the towel Dogyeom offered him.

“Thanks.”

“Your head’s okay, right?”

“I don’t know why everyone’s making such a fuss over this. It’s not like I’m injured. I’m fine.”

I looked back and forth between Eunho’s indifferent response and Dogyeom’s deflated smile, then remembered Semin, who was still alone in the cafeteria.

Come to think of it, I’d left her all alone amid all that commotion.

“Eunho, keep drying your hair. I’m going to check on Semin.”

“You don’t have to. Semin and I cleaned up the spaghetti. She’s in the nurse’s office now.”

“…You cleaned it up? Together with Semin?”

Dogyeom nodded.

Eunho seemed to have finished roughly drying his hair. He approached Dogyeom and me, then glanced at the name tag on Dogyeom’s chest.

“Oh, so your name is Han Dogyeom?”

“You know me?”

“More or less. Where’d you get this? It’s a judo club towel.”

“Someone gave it to me. They asked me to pass it on to you. By the way, do you have a change of clothes? I could lend you some.”

“No, I’m good. I have clothes.”

Eunho waved his hand and headed back up to the classroom.

As I watched him walk away, I tried to figure out what had changed and how the situation was unfolding.

But I couldn’t.

I really… couldn’t understand it.

\*

After entering the classroom, Eunho opened his locker and took out his gym clothes.

If he’d been wearing his usual gym clothes, he would have had to sit through class with spaghetti all over him.

Had Moon Yerim told him to make sure he wore his school uniform for situations like this?

Eunho looked at the gym clothes and let out a hollow laugh.

“Ugh, the smell of spaghetti…”

Even after roughly rinsing his hair with water, he couldn’t get rid of the smell that had seeped into his body and scalp.

Frowning, Eunho looked at the blue judo club towel in his hand.

He checked his watch.

The judo club had scheduled an additional training session after lunch. If he wanted to use the showers, he had to get in now. Speed was essential.

A powerful stream of water poured from the showerhead.

As Eunho washed his hair with shampoo, he thought back to what had happened earlier.

“Bae Eunho, you’ve really become a nice guy.”

When the hot spaghetti sauce had landed on his head, Eunho had thought of Yerim before he could even frown.

He remembered those catlike eyes of hers, looking at him so earnestly as she clasped both his hands and pleaded with him.

‘You need to be more forgiving of other people’s mistakes.’

Did she have some way of seeing the future?

Remembering her words, Eunho had instinctively looked at the frightened Semin and her reddened knee rather than his own uniform.

No, actually, the first person he had looked at was…

Yerim, who had been startled.

“Am I going to eat her alive or something? Why did she make that face…?”

After finishing his shower, Eunho came out and dried his hair with the towel Dogyeom had given him.

Just then, the door opened, and a male student wearing a judo uniform appeared.

The boy’s eyes widened.

Eunho spoke as though he already knew him.

“…Sorry. As you can see, I had to wash up.”

“I heard.”

“Right. I’m heading out, then. Good luck with training.”

Eunho walked past his junior and headed toward the exit.

Behind him, the younger student called out to stop him.

“Senior!”

The junior handed Eunho a blue towel. It was a new one.

“Thanks.”

“Give me the used one. That’s my towel.”

“Oh, then you were the one who gave it to Han Dogyeom…”

“Yes, I gave it to him. And also… about Gaecheol hyung…”

“……”

“Hyung has quit the judo club. No, he can’t do it anymore. Not now.”

The moment the name Gaecheol left the junior’s mouth, Eunho’s body visibly stiffened.

And when the boy added that Gaecheol had quit, Eunho’s eyebrows twitched.

“Couldn’t you at least come by once, even if you’re only a senior now?”

“I don’t do judo anymore. No… you know that. I can’t do judo.”

Judo was still a sore spot for Eunho.

He handed the wet towel to his junior and left the judo club room.

As he brushed the water from his hair again, Eunho stared quietly at the door of the judo club room, which had recently been repaired.

“I shouldn’t have gone there.”

Eunho regretted not simply attending class while smelling of spaghetti.

There had been no reason to go to the judo club, run into his junior, hear about Gaecheol, and then suffer through memories of his own days as a judoka.

As he climbed the stairs, he carefully rotated his ankle.

A sharp, tingling sensation shot through it every time he turned it.

“Oh, Eunho! You’re all cleaned up now.”

At the familiar voice, Eunho looked ahead.

Dogyeom was sitting on the stairs, waving at him.

Eunho’s mood immediately darkened again.

He knew Dogyeom by reputation. Whenever Eunho lay with his head down on his desk, there were always students around who brought him news from outside the classroom.

According to the other students, Dogyeom was the son of a famous actor, incredibly handsome, and good at English.

However, Eunho had never connected the rumors to Dogyeom’s face, so he had quickly forgotten about him.

He saw Dogyeom again in Yerim’s classroom.

That obnoxious-looking guy whispering something to Yerim.

And the same guy had been there when they went looking for Yerim after she got trapped in the supply room.

So this was Han Dogyeom.

He wasn’t as handsome as Eunho had expected.

Eunho grumbled under his breath, just loud enough for himself to hear.

“I’ve been wondering about this for a while. How do you know my name?”

Eunho wondered whether Yerim had talked about him to Dogyeom, so he asked.

Dogyeom chewed on his bread and shrugged.

Everything about Dogyeom’s relaxed manner irritated Eunho for some reason.

“Rumors. I heard you were doing really well in judo before you had to quit because of an injury.”

“……”

“And you’re close to Yerim, too.”

“You’re close to Moon Yerim?”

“Who knows? I’d like to get closer to her, but I feel like Yerim’s keeping me at a bit of a distance.”

Hearing Dogyeom call her Yerim without her surname made Eunho’s expression harden.

Noticing Eunho’s obvious reaction, Dogyeom widened his eyes as though he had just realized something. Then he put on a friendly smile.

“Let’s say hello whenever we run into each other.”

“Why should we?”

“Hmm. Because I want to be friends with you, too?”

“Why?”

“Just because… you’re cute?”

“You… are you making fun of me?”

As if he had expected that reaction, Dogyeom nodded.

“Sorry for teasing you. Actually, I transferred here not long ago, so I don’t have any friends.”

That was a lie.

Eunho remembered all the students who constantly surrounded Dogyeom.

Dogyeom lightly tapped the Summer Film poster hanging in the hallway with his finger before speaking.

“If you’ve quit the judo club and don’t have anything else to do, how about joining the film club with me?”

“I don’t watch movies.”

“Really? Yerim is the club president, though.”

“…So what?”

“Just saying.”

With that, Dogyeom leisurely walked down the stairs.

Was he always like that?

In front of Moon Yerim, he acted all sweet and innocent, pretending to be such a nice guy. But he was actually a sly fox!

Eunho glared at the spot where Dogyeom had disappeared, then shifted his gaze to the poster.

“Welcome… Summer Film…”

Looking more closely, he noticed the small words beneath the club’s name:

President: Moon Yerim

Eunho suppressed a laugh.

Whenever he thought of Yerim, he could almost imagine her standing beside him, chirping away like a baby sparrow.

He smiled, but then abruptly forced his expression to stiffen.

“Why… am I acting like this?”