.
Ban Yeo Ryung seemed to have been confused with my recent behavior since she was appropriately spacing the words in her text. She might be feeling a distance from me. Ban Yeo Ryung was anxious about even the minor change in my mood.
This brilliant girl still remembered the change I made when we were freshmen in middle school. She was afraid if I was trying to get away from her like that again.
As I read her text out loud, a weak thought came across my head out of the blue.
I closed my flip phone and placed it on my chest as if holding it for prayer. A few moments had passed since I lied like that on my bed.
I wanted to say, 'promise me,' to Ban Yeo Ryung and the four boys. 'Would you promise me you will never turn back and leave me?' It was what I wanted to ask them. Ever since I realized everything was a novel, I had these concerns that hardly diminished from my head.