Without Warning

They say it’s a school where all the troublemakers end up, the last resort for those with nowhere else to go. Yul was just trying to figure out how to graduate when someone caught her eye.

“Can I stay by your side?” she asked Kang Yoon-jo, the subject of eerie rumors, instinctively feeling safe around him.

“They scare you, and I don’t?” she remembers him saying, his usually sleepy eyes suddenly sharpening with a mocking laughter. “If you really want, try staying by my side,” he said, showing mercy, understanding her desperate struggles. And the moment she realized it was the wrong choice, she ran away, unaware of just how persistent and dreadful he could be.

“Long time no see?” Kang Yoon-jo reappeared, taking a place she desperately wanted, a place that didn’t suit him. And so began their long, dragging time together.

❖❖❖

“Take the candy out of your mouth, your tongue is red,” Yul said to Yoon-jo before starting the car, something that had been bothering her for a while. She couldn’t ignore the way he rolled the candy on his tongue, l**ked it, and s**ked on it.

“It’s cherry-flavored, so of course my tongue is red. What, you expected blue?” Despite his plain expression, his reply was somewhat prickly. “Want one? I brought two.”

“No, thanks.”

“Why not? It’s just us two in the car, it would be nice to share.”

Yul’s finger, poised to start the ignition, froze. She had only just realized how the nature of their conversation had shifted. “I don’t like those candies. I hate sucking on things.”

“Really now?” He chuckled, popping the candy out of his mouth with a pop. “But I wonder, what color was my tongue back then?”

“……”

“It must have been a pretty color, right?”

Screech. Her car halted with the sound of tires scraping the asphalt—not solely out of anger. Despite the time that had passed, the sharp sensation of his tongue, the sight of his head between her legs, vividly flashed through her mind.

Yoon-jo, eyeing her, offered the candy with a smile. “Take it, the candy. You know how well you suck.”