Teacher Park's eyes casually swept over Micah and Yoon-min before he asked flatly.
"Do you want to join him?"
Everyone was now watching this scene. Contrary to expectations, Yoon-min and Micah nodded at Teacher Park's question, which was more of a threat.
Teacher Park's expression turned slightly gloomy when he saw Micah and Yoon-min nodding. He coldly said.
"Fine, you two can go run laps for the entire session with him."
Yoon-min casually nodded once more, not seeming to mind having to run for about forty minutes straight. However, just as he and Micah turned around to start running, Yoon-min suddenly smacked his forehead and spun around to say.
"Oh, right, I forgot to mention Teacher Park, Micah and I both have asthma so if we faint after running for so long could you get someone to take us to the nurse's office, or perhaps the hospital?"
Everyone's expressions turned strange when they heard that, and they couldn't help but glance at Teacher Park.
Teacher Park's expression was even more gloomy at this point.
"Twenty laps. No less."
Teacher Park relented since even if Yoon-min was lying he truly couldn't risk it, especially when there were so many witnesses to testify against him.
Yoon-min grinned before he and Micah ran to catch up to Jin-woo.
"Jin, it seems like you made some friends!"
Seong, who was running alongside Jin-woo, said excitedly.
Jin-woo didn't respond. Watching as Yoon-min and Micah jogged over, he felt a strange feeling rise in his heart. Fear? Excitement? Anxiousness? He didn't know what it was.
"Hey there Mr. Multitalented, you don't mind if we join you, right?"
Yoon-min said with a laugh as he and Micah came up to run on either side of Jin-woo. Seong had to reluctantly take the far-right side next to Yoon-min.
"You guys didn't have to do this."
"What are you saying? It's perfectly normal to help a friend, right?"
"A friend?"
Jin-woo looked at Yoon-min slightly taken aback.
"Yeah, you've passed the 'vibe check,' so Micah and I want you to be our friend."
"Vibe check? What's that?"
Yoon-min had said 'vibe check' in English and even though Jin-woo spoke the language, he wasn't familiar with its colloquialisms.
Seeing Jin-woo's confused expression, Yoon-min smiled and explained.
"It just means you're not a bad guy. You didn't mind us switching languages while talking since you can speak English, and you didn't even flinch when I told you I was gay."
Yoon-min was using his fingers to list the various things he observed from Jin-woo.
"Oh, there's also your morbid sense of humor. I find it off-putting, but Micah thinks it's hilarious."
Jin-woo glanced at Micah, who smiled slightly at him.
With that, Yoon-min stopped listing and turned to Jin-woo to ask.
"So, friends?"
Jin-woo slowly nodded but then said.
"But you really didn't have to get yourselves in trouble for me when you have asthma."
Yoon-min clicked his tongue and said in English with annoyance.
"That bastard is completely sus the way how he chose to separate the girls from us boys, we don't trust him. It's also obvious he's hiding a nasty personality. But you don't have to worry about our asthma. Actually, I don't have it, Micah's the only one who does. But even then, he's never had to use his inhaler since elementary school, so he doesn't even carry it around anymore."
Yoon-min had a cheeky smile on his lips as he said those last words.
Seeing this, Jin-woo understood that these two had planned everything. Chuckling he said.
"Still, you probably shouldn't have joined me."
"Why?"
Yoon-min asked with a frown, not understanding Jin-woo's thought process. Without looking at him Jin-woo responded.
"Because they're slightly upset that you rudely came next to me and forced them to run way over there."
Jin-woo motioned to the right of Yoon-min as he said that.
Immediately as Yoon-min heard that, all his hair stood on end and a cold chill ran down his spine. He didn't even look to his right, without hesitation, he shifted over to run alongside Micah to the left.
In response to Yoon-min's frightened reaction, Micah let out a loud laugh while Jin-woo chuckled slightly.
"God damn it Micah, it's not funny! Now I really regret helping him out."
As the three youths laughed and argued while running, Ye-jun who had his hand on his knees while breathing heavily, looked over at them.
Standing upright, Ye-jun then took off his glasses that were fogging up to clean them. As he watched Jin-woo and the others, he couldn't help but mutter under his breath.
"Since when did that freak make friends?"
Ye-jun, however, didn't expect a voice to respond next to him.
"You left class before the first bell so of course you wouldn't know."
Shocked, Ye-jun turned and looked at the person.
"M-Mai-sun."
Ye-jun stammered slightly, a bit flustered that Mai-sun was the one who had caught his slip-up.
However, Mai-sun didn't seem to notice his flustered state as she handed him a towel and said.
"Here, you can use my towel. My team got knocked out in the first round so I didn't get a chance to use it."
"…Thank you."
After a pause, Ye-jun said while taking the towel from Mai-sun to wipe his face.
Mai-sun meanwhile, glanced at the pair of glasses in Ye-jun's hand before saying in slight surprise.
"Oh, what a coincidence! That looks like the glasses I bought for Seong's birthday back in middle school. I left it inside his locker as a surprise, but he didn't even wear them."
Suddenly, the hand Ye-jun was using to wipe his face with the towel paused.
"I was so embarrassed I didn't bother asking if he had thrown them out."
Mai-sun suddenly added, and Ye-jun's hand that had paused continued, but if one was looking closely, they might not have realized the pause was unnatural.
After wiping his sweat, Ye-jun calmly wore his glasses and tried to hand back the towel to Mai-sun.
Mai-sun didn't reach out to take it but instead smiled and said.
"Since your group passed the second round you can keep it for the next game. You were also extremely exhausted after this round so make sure to rest properly and drink some water."
After saying that, Mai-sun smiled sweetly before she turned and left.
Ye-jun watched as Mai-sun left, her last words echoing in his ears like a crisp bell chime.
While fixing his glasses, Ye-jun glanced at Jin-woo who was still running laps around the gymnasium at a steady pace. It had been more than a few minutes since he started running but he wasn't even sweating, yet here he was completely exhausted.
Ye-jun's eyes watching Jin-woo turned grim as he clenched the towel in his hand tightly.