you're annoying | ryeji

TWENTY-SEVEN

chp. 27

"Yejiiii!!" Jungwon called out, a tumbler in hand.

"Hi, Jungwon," Yeji smiled half-heartedly, unable to put on a full smile since her mind was unfortunately captured by a certain Shin.

"You're going back to class to get your bag, right?" Jungwon asked, and the girl nodded. He beamed. "Great! Can you do me a small favour and give this to my sister? Her class did PE before us so she left this here."

The brunette raised a brow at his request, but spent no time contemplating it and accepted instead, taking the tumbler in her hands. "Yeah, no problem."

"Thanks, Yeji!" The boy ran off, catching up with his friends.

Letting out a resigned breath, Yeji began her walk to her homeroom with a goal to give the tumbler to Ningning in the class beside them. She would've rejected Jungwon's request, as she didn't want to interact with any of her friends today, afraid that it would cause them to worry about why the legendary duo wasn't talking today. But she didn't mind anymore. Truthfully, she didn't know why her and Ryujin weren't talking as well. Though normally if Yeji was in this situation with someone else, she'd have no problem ignoring them back, thinking that they probably wanted nothing else to do with her.

But when it comes to Ryujin? That was a whole different story.

Since their gym class had just ended — with absolutely no interactions with Ryujin —, the gymnasium was emptied out, everyone heading out for their break before the fifth period. Therefore, if anyone even whispered, Yeji would be able to hear it. And much to her luck, she heard a very familiar voice coming from the locker rooms.

Yeji slowed down her pace, tentatively nearing the entrance of the locker room. As she got closer, the voices got louder, and she identified the owners of the voices.

Ryujin and Isa.

Ever since she was young, she was taught not to eavesdrop as that could be unfair and an act of disrespect to ones that were speaking. It was a boundary thing Yeji was taught, and she's stuck to it once it was drilled into her brain. But in this current moment, she had forgotten all about her principles when she heard her own name in Isa's voice.

"...Notifications earlier, from Yeji."

'Me?'

"Oh," Yeji heard Ryujin say. "And?"

"So, may I ask you why you two aren't talking?"

At that moment, Yeji stepped closer to the doors, gripping tightly on Ningning's tumbler as she listened in.

However, when the next words came, Yeji wasn't prepared for it.

"I don't want to talk to her, not today, nor this week."

'What?'

Yeji's face turned blank, and her grip on the tumbler gradually loosened.

"...So you're ignoring her, basically?"

"Pretty much," Ryujin muttered.

And that was the moment Yeji's heart dropped,

But not only that — the tumbler she was holding had also dropped.

CLANG!

'Fuck.'

Yeji took a deep breath and crouched down in front of the opened locker room, tiny drops of tears falling from her eyes. The moment she had feared and anticipated had arrived — hearing Ryujin admit to intentionally ignoring her. Nothing mattered in that moment, her only thought was to get away from there, drop Ningning's tumbler off, and skip the rest of her classes because she couldn't resist crying her heart out anymore.