Angel Smile - Chapter 258

In a certain high school.

Goo Min Chae despondently laid her cheek on the desk. She was barely a few minutes into her summer remedial class and already she wanted to go home. The teacher had left the remedial students to their own devices after assigning a pile of worksheets to them that was expected to be finished in the two-hour period they were given.

Her eyes darted around, searching for something more interesting to do or someone to talk to. Unfortunately, her only friend in remedial class had skipped out to the bathroom as soon as the teacher left, and all the other kids—whom she was mostly unfamiliar with—were from other classes.

Min Chae sighed.

She missed her middle school. There, she had friends she was familiar with, and not a day was boring with Yeo Ri and Jang Mi around. Even after Yeo Ri left school, she still managed to enjoy her school life since she was well-acquainted with her classmates and had Jang Mi to banter and eat lunch with. Now that she was in high school, all her friends branched off to their own independent paths. Although there were several familiar faces in her batch who came from the same middle school as her, none of them really clicked with her as well as Yeo Ri and Jang Mi did.

Thinking of her two best friends, she discreetly pulled out her phone and typed a quick message to the chat group she had made for her best friends. She followed up with sending several stickers describing her current mood to the chat group.

[Min Chae: I’m so bored!]

Merely a few seconds later, Jang Mi sent a sticker of an eye-rolling dog and replied:

[Jang Mi: Go study.]

[Min Chae: You go study.]

Min Chae shot back with a flurry of cute but childishly insulting stickers.

However, contrary to her new normal, the ever elusive bee, Lee Yeo Ri, actually popped into the conversation.

[Yeo Ri: Are you guys free this weekend?]

[Jang Mi: I have cramschool in the mornign, but I’m free after noon. What’s up?]

[Min Chae: I’m freeeeee getoutofjailfreecard freeeeee]

Yeo Ri sent a laughing sticker, then followed up with her earlier enquiry:

[Yeo Ri: I wanna have a birthday party this weekend. Will you guys come?]

Min Chae perked up at her text. She typed furiously with a barely contained smile.

[Min Chae: You’re having a birthday party? Really? I’ll come! I’ll totally come!]

Min Chae knew that her best friend rarely celebrated her birthday with anyone else other than her family. Even back in middle school, when the boys in her fan club pooled their money to prepare a surprise party for her, she had been reluctant to participate in it. Yeo Ri had rejected the idea as soon as she found out, and she never took home any of the gifts they sent her way. She had shared the perishables with the other girls, and returned the non-consumables back to their givers, as she always did with all the other things she received from the boys.

[Min Chae: Ahha then this can double as a housewarming party! My grandma sent us a huge box of rice cakes so I’ll bring some with me kekeke]

[Yeo Ri: Yeah! I haven’t told Gun-oppa yet but I’m sure he’s fine with it. Since I’ll be really busy soon I thought it might be a good time to do something special. I’ll see you guys later! Bye-bye~]

After sending her text, including her new home address, Yeo Ri apparently went offline.

Despite the abruptness of her friend’s presence, Min Chae could barely suppress her excitement. She was finally going to see her best friend again!

The last time that they had met was during the graduation ceremony, and it had been months since then. Although texting through the messaging app and calling eased her loneliness, these types of social activities couldn’t compare to seeing her best friend face to face. She missed getting cleansed by Yeo Ri’s near-perfect existence.

“What are you grinning to yourself for?”

Min Chae was startled out of her daydreams at the sound of her friend’s voice. Yoo Yeon Joo, who had gone to the bathroom, was finally back.

Min Chae blinked her eyes. “That was fast. Did you have a good sh*t?”

Yoo Yeon Joo jumped, almost screeching in surprise, “F—! Why do you have to be so vulgar?!”

“Ow!”

“You crazy dog!”

“Shh!”

“Oi, those two girls over there—do you want the teacher to come back and make us all stay here for another hour?!”

Their noisiness stirred up the rest of the remedial students, who were somewhat seriously trying to complete their assignments.

“Sorry!” Both girls apologised in unison.

Yoo Yeon Joo shot Min Chae a dirty look before sliding back into her seat quietly.

For the first half an hour or so, both girls tried their best with the worksheets, but soon it became apparent that neither girls had enough brainpower to concentrate for too long.

“Psst—” Yoo Yeon Joo poked her friend after she shelved away her unfinished worksheets. “So? Why were you grinning like a madman earlier? Got a boyfriend?”

“What? No. It’s just my best friend,” Min Chae glowered at Yeon Joo.

Yoo Yeon Joo looked faintly hurt that Min Chae called someone else her best friend, but dismissed it as her occasional bout of pettiness. It wasn’t as if her best friend wasn’t allowed to have other best friends, right? It’s only been a few months since they knew each other after all.

“Your best friend? The one you said was really pretty?” Yeon Joo half-heartedly threw out a guess. She had heard Min Chae talk about her ‘pretty friend’ every once in a while, so it wasn’t hard to make a connection.

“Yeah. She’s having a birthday party this weekend. I can’t wait to see her again!” Min Chae beamed happily at the thought.

Yoo Yeon Joo bit her lips to stop herself from saying, ‘What? You’re not going to invite me?’

Min Chae’s ‘best friend’ wasn’t someone she knew, so she didn’t have the rights to force Min Chae into letting her go with her. Besides, how awkward would it be to attend some stranger’s birthday party?

While she was distracted by her thoughts, Min Chae’s attention was stolen by her phone again. Yoo Yeon Joo peered at the screen, and a familiar face popped up.

“This girl again? Min Chae, can’t you have a more normal hobby than fangirling over another girl?” Yeon Joo teased.

Min Chae frowned, “What’s wrong with fangirling over my Yeo Ri? Look at her—she’s so pretty! Ah, I can’t wait to see her again…”

“Wow, do you hear yourself? One of these days you might turn into a real crazy stalker fan, you know,” Yeon Joo remarked with a slightly disgusted face.

“—Besides, Yeo Ri said she doesn’t mind it. Since I’m her best friend.”

“Huh?” Yeon Joo made a face as if she thought her friend was a lost case.

“What?”

“Did you really go crazy?” Yeon Joo stared at her with bewilderment. She knew her friend could be a little maniacal, but she hadn’t realised how far her delusions had gone! Did she really think that becoming someone’s fan was the same as becoming their friend? Min Chae seems like she needed a lot of help, Yeon Joo thought.

“Ah—” Realisation dawned on Min Chae. She realised that she never really explicitly told her school friends that her best friend was Yeo Ri—that the up and coming new actress Lee Yeo Ri was her best friend. Min Chae also realised that the way she talked about the ‘best friend’ and the ‘celebrity she liked’ made it seem as if she was talking about two different people.

“What’s wrong with calling my best friend, ‘my best friend’?” she grumbled.

“Hey, Goo Min Chae, are you really alright?” Yoo Yeon Joo asked worriedly. “Just because you’re her fan doesn’t mean you’re her friend, you know…”

“What! Hey, are you misunderstanding something? I’m really her friend, okay? Her best friend!”

“Alright, alright,” Yeon Joo nodded in understanding as she gazed at her pitiful and delusional friend.

Min Chae gaped at the way her friend didn’t believe her. “It’s true, okay?! I have proof!” Min Chae hastily scrolled through her photo gallery in search of a picture of them together. It took a very long time considering how much junk she had saved in her gallery. Finally, after what seemed like an endless amount of scrolling, she finally found a picture she had taken together with Yeo Ri.

It was a simple photo with her former middle school’s front entrance as the backdrop. Both of them were holding their diplomas, and while Yeo Ri had her hands tucked neatly in front of her, Min Chae was posing with a ‘peace’ sign.

“See?!”

Yeon Joo took a look at the picture. There she was, Min Chae, in all her silly glory, looking like a fan taking a picture with her favourite celebrity who happened to go to the same school. Judging by the pretty girl’s polite smile, they didn’t seem to be as close as Min Chae made them out to be.

“Oh, please. No matter how you look at this, it’s a fan photo. Besides, isn’t she pretty famous? She shot a movie with Yoo Hyun Bin, right? Thinking about it realistically, there’s no way someone like you can be friends with someone like her. She’s simply born in a different league than us commoners,” Yeon Joo reasoned. She remembered Yoo Hyun Bin had posted a picture of the two of them on his social media, and Yeon Joo had taken notice of this since Yoo Hyun Bin was one of the few celebrities she liked.

Min Chae glared at her friend. How could she not believe her when the evidence was right there?! She had half a mind to make a video call to Yeo Ri as proof, but she knew she was being unreasonable. Yeo Ri seemed like she was in a hurry earlier during the chat, and Min Chae didn’t want to bother her friend during work.

“Fine. If you don’t believe me, then forget it!” She harrumphed as she coldly turn back to her worksheets, hoping to keep herself busy while she began her silent treatment towards her friend.

“Hey? Min Chae? Are you sulking? Oh come on—hey—”

—And thus, Goo Min Chae’s very average day continued.