The Best of Tomorrow

“Bag?”

I pointed my index finger to the bag on the wall. I reached out my hand to get more accurate, and my index finger touched the window with a sound.

Baek In-hyuk pulled out a spray of glass cleaner and shouted, “Stop moving.”

Crazy, the two fingers reflected on the window look like a reloaded bullet.

When I took off my index finger, Baek In-hyuk grumbled and sprayed the glass cleaner on the fingerprint stain and wiped it with a newspaper.

Come to think of it, Baek In-hyuk was in charge of cleaning at school. The members used to make fun of him as he, Baek In-hyuk, was willing to wipe the floor with wet tissues even after returning from the schedule. It was so neat that everyone said they didn’t want to use a room with Baek In-Hyuk, but seeing how he was doing now, I understood how they felt.

How can someone live with him when he applies sanitizer, just because there’s a fingerprint on the glass?

I rubbed my temples and shook my head.

“Is that your bag? It’s been hanging from the beginning of the fifth period.”

“I put it on the back of the auditorium, but it disappeared.”

“Behind the auditorium? The vacant lot? Did you go to that scary place?

Haven’t your pockets never been stolen?”

I blinked at the endless questions. I was thinking about what to answer first and decided not to answer.

“Are you in this class? Then bring me that bag.”

“Bring your bag? Should I bring Seon-jae too?”

[T/N: Baek In-hyuk is such a tease >.>]

While looking at Baek’s face with a soulless look on my face, I confirmed what I was holding in my hands. One was a dustpan, and the other was a broom.

Baek Hyuk’s hands were each holding a glass cleaner and newspaper. I calculated which item would have a higher attack power.

The starting bell rang.

I raised my head and looked at Baek In-Hyuk. “Hurry up and give me my bag.”

At that time, someone opened the front door of the classroom and went in. It was Seon-jae. He strode inside and reached out his hand and lifted the bag hanging on the wall. Then he came out through the back door of the classroom, clenching the straps of my bag.

My head moved along Seon-jae. I stood facing each other at a distance from Seon-jae, who came out into the hallway.

His expressionless face was looking at me.

I was very nervous at the thought of what to do with this situation. Pressing my lips tightly, I couldn’t do anything about it, Seon-jae threw the bag at me.

I reached out my hand while looking at a bag that was getting closer just like a long parabola. When I played dodgeball in PE class, I was the one who was good at defense even if I was not good at attacking.

Whether I received it well or Seon-jae threw it well, the bag landed on my arms exactly.

I held my bag and looked at Seonjae. “……….Uh, thank you.”

Since the bell rang, students were quick to walk to the classroom.

Seon-jae’s eyes looked over my shoulder. It was where Baek In-hyuk stood, behind me.

“You’re in class five.” Seon-jae said without a facial expression and turned to walk away. The sunlight from the window looked like a light that illuminated the path for The Seon-jae.

Baek In-hyuk, who glanced at my enchanted face, passed me, saying, “I’m in love, I’m in love.”

When I checked the class with Baek In-hyuk, for a moment, my lips twitched.

I heard he said he was in class 4… Why is he entering class 5?

Bang bang, someone knocked on the door from behind. At the sound of the class starting, I rushed out the hallway

***

Self-study time.

Eun-hee, who was writing down the wrong problem in her notebook, looked at me constantly writing on the paper.

I was scribbling a warning letter from the future as if writing a Kamji.

[T/N: Kamji means black paper. When students get punished, they have to write lines to memorise what they did wrong, filling the paper so much that it looks black.)

The sound of writing was too loud, so I removed the pen tip from the paper. “Is it noisy?”

When I asked carefully, Eun-hee, who shook her head, jerked her chin to the front of the classroom.

My eyes met the teacher who was standing in front of the board and looked at me.

“Finally we’re making eye contact.”

“……what?”

“I’ve been watching for a while.” The teacher walked to my seat with his arms crossed.

Uh, why are you coming?

The teacher walked to my seat with his arms crossed.

Uh, why is he coming here?

I slipped a textbook on the letter.

The teacher, who stopped walking right in front of the desk, pulled out the end of the letter.

Oh, Sir. Please, that’s the only…

I looked up with a desperate face.

The content that was written, relentlessly flows out from the teacher’s mouth. “This letter is from the future, and you must trust what’s in it and put it into action. If you don’t believe what’s in this letter, you’ll have a great misfortune, so I hope you’ll have good luck believing it.”

The children giggled.

I bowed my head and almost cried, avoiding the teacher’s glare at me.

Fortunately, the letter I thought would be confiscated, came back to me. However, it came with a nice smack on my head. It was not just his fist that made my head sting. He must have used his knuckles too…

“Im Sol, do letters like that give you good luck? Huh? If you don’t study now, there will be a big misfortune.”

I bowed my head, pursing my lips…

[If you experience sleeplessness, watch a documentary about the mysteries of the universe. You can fall asleep without sleeping pills.]

The last sentence of the letter caught my eye.

How can humans live and be unhappy for one thing?

There’re only misfortunes that exist in one day or one hour.

I can’t even predict misfortunes that will happen in the future. So there are only misfortunes that I know and the biggest of them dominates. Since I am a student now, the teacher may think it is unfortunate that I don’t study and don’t go to the university I want because I don’t study. But the misfortune that has dominated the time I know, is the death of Seon-jae.

So, I’m going to stop it.

I’m going to save Seon-jae.

This is the only way I can live.

I folded the letter I finished writing.

When the ending bell rang, I would take my bag and go to Seon-jae’s school. Even if Seon-jae was in trouble and hated it, there was nothing he could do.

Only I could do this.