Free Web Novel“Here!”
The rooftop door slammed open.
Because it was famous as the best spot for watching the festival, it was crowded with students, but that didn’t matter.
“Ah, this is nice.”
“It’s so cool! Yuna, Yuna. Aren’t you cold?”
“Mm. I’m fine.”
Chhk—.
The three of them popped open chilled cans. It was mango-flavored Creamy Soda.
After lightly clinking their cans together in a toast, they leaned near the railing and looked down at the stage below.
The sweet alcohol carried on the happy night air.
This truly was the greatest freedom of your twenties.
-You can’t have a festival without this, right? It’s Hanguk University’s cheer squad performance!
The MC grabbed the microphone and raised the excitement of the festival.
Seo Eden, standing beneath the bright stage lights, danced to the music with sweat running down him.
It was a sight that fit perfectly with music singing of youth.
“When are you two going to start dating?”
“I don’t know?”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Didn’t you say you were just going to confess as soon as the festival ended?”
At Yungyo’s words, Heejeong burst into laughter.
“I seriously don’t know. Why am I like this?”
“From falling in love fast to falling out of love fast....”
“I think I like hanging out with you guys more now.”
At Heejeong’s words, Yungyo let out a short laugh.
Yuna smiled too.
A pleasant festival night.
The perfect campus fantasy brought to life.
“Yuna, stand right here! The lighting’s good here. Go fix Go Yungyo’s bangs!”
Heejeong didn’t let the moment slip away.
“Excuse me, could you take a photo for us just once?”
Thanks to Heejeong boldly calling out to someone nearby, the three of them ended up standing in front of the camera.
The prestigious university varsity jacket she had wanted so badly.
The prestigious university festival she had wanted to come to so badly.
But more than any of that, what Yuna had wanted most was....
“Taking it now. One— two—.”
Friends.
“Three!”
Yuna switched her SNS account to public.
For the first time, a photo was uploaded.
It was a picture from the festival day, taken with Heejeong and Yungyo.
She tagged the location too.
Her twenties, which she had fiercely endured just to arrive here, were melted into that place.
Location: On Hanguk University Rooftop
After that, photos steadily piled up on Yuna’s SNS.
Youstagram
[Coffee transfusion]
Tags: Go Yungyo, Jeong Heejeong
Youstagram
[Shinhyeon Bank 7th external activities, doneee. Thank you for everything]
Tag: Shinhyeon Bank
Youstagram
[Heejeong forced me to come to this one-day class... seriously just buy macarons please]
Tags: Go Yungyo, Jeong Heejeong
Youstagram
[A gift from my mentee (●'▿'●) Thank you, teacher will use it well~]
Youstagram
[Finally graduated! Mom, Dad, thank you]
Tag: At our beloved home
Seven years later.
Beneath the gradually fading transparent Yousta background, the airport came into view.
Airport buses moved back and forth on the roads, and planes flew through the blue sky above.
In the vast airport, someone walked along pulling a suitcase.
“Na— Yu— Na—!”
Yuna looked toward Heejeong, who was the first to call out to her.
Heejeong had a camera in her hand.
-We turned thirty.
Yuna’s calm narration flowed over the scene.
“Did you eat breakfast?”
“The timing was awkward.”
“I knew it. Here, bread! See? I’m the only one who really gets you, right? Right?”
-Heejeong got a job at a design company. Between all her extracurricular work and her surprisingly long list of awards, she was the first among us to land a job.
“Isn’t forgetting love through work seriously cool? Men get even more desperate for women like that, don’t they? Right?”
“How long is she seriously going to keep being like this?”
“Just leave her....”
“I really mean it this time! From now on, I’m only going to love myself!”
The Heejeong of the past had made that vow while looking at the job offer email open on her laptop screen.
When the laptop snapped shut, a transparent case on it revealed a four-cut photo strip she had taken with Seo Eden.
Yuna and Yungyo leaned against Heejeong’s shoulders as she held back tears.
-Heejeong, as always, dated bravely, but well... it ended like that. We never heard exactly how it ended. Because Heejeong had finally fixed that habit of sacrificing herself just to lift the mood. Things she didn’t want to say, she now buried as secrets. So all we know is that it ended. We didn’t pry. We just drank together that day.
“Yuna, hold this for me for a second.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t let it shake!”
Heejeong handed the camera to Yuna.
Then she started filming her airport OOTD for her vlog.
-Right. Heejeong found another kind of love now.
“My subscribers seriously aren’t growing these days.... I’ll pull in my lovelies again with this travel vlog. Subscribe me, love me!”
“Why? How many are you at?”
“I’m almost at the Silver Button!”
-Heejeong started Intube. Now it’s filled with people who give her affection even without her asking.
-Unnie TT_TT please upload more often, you’re my favorite Intuber
-I keep coming back here in the end, I really love your vlogs... they have such a uniquely lovable vibe
-Jeong Heejeong I’ll love you forever!!! (〃´૩`〃)
Yungyo, seated in an airport chair, had her laptop open across her knees.
“Yes. Sir... just like the schedule I sent you by email last time....”
She looked busy, talking diligently on the phone.
-In the end, Yungyo cut ties completely with her family—or more precisely, with her father and younger brother.
“Let me crash at your place.”
The Yungyo of the past had stormed into Heejeong’s house dragging several suitcases.
“What is this? Some kind of event? Don’t tell me it’s because I always said I was lonely sleeping alone...?”
“No. I just came to mooch. I’ll pay rent from now on, so let me stay.” freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
“What happened?”
“Fuck. Even after all that shit, they still told me to come for kimchi-making. I seriously can’t take it anymore.”
-The final blow came when Heejeong’s father, who had already thrown a fit because she skipped one ancestral rite, said that at the very least kimjang was mandatory no matter what happened. A worried phone call from her mother saying that her father had even prepared a switch struck something inside Yungyo’s heart. After that day, she moved out of the apartment. Saying she’d rather die than take their support.
“This damned patriarchy... I’m going to use it for my own gain somehow.”
-Go Yungyo was still Go Yungyo. After taking a leave of absence, she started a business.
“Today’s the results day, right? Aaaah Yungyo what do we do!”
“What do you mean what do we do? If I fail, I fail.”
“Yungyo... your hands are shaking.”
The three of them huddled in front of a laptop in Heejeong’s tiny apartment.
“Okay, I’m clicking. I’m refreshing?”
“Ah, stop dragging it out and just do it!”
“Yungyo closed her eyes.”
Click.
“Yungyo! Yungyo!”
“What? What is it!”
“You got it! Yungyo, you got first place! Yours got first!”
The screen showed that Go Yungyo’s idea had won the grand prize in the contest.
“Aaaah! I did it!”
It was none other than a single-serving kimchi seasoning sauce.
A seasoning aimed at single households in their twenties and thirties.
Soon, supermarkets started displaying Go Yungyo’s signature seasoning with cute character illustrations.
[Daughter of the Jongga House Fresh Kimchi Seasoning]
[Daughter of the Jongga House Radish Cube Seasoning]
[Daughter of the Jongga House Chive Kimchi Seasoning]
A photo of Yungyo appeared.
It captured twenty-five-year-old Yungyo awkwardly smiling while holding a certificate at the Korea Brand Awards.
“Hah... this is seriously impossible.”
“Why? What did they say?”
“They keep copying my ideas at other companies. Those crazy bastards.”
By now, Yungyo had ended the call and was gritting her teeth.
“I’ll show them who I am again with the next product I develop. I’m the damn eldest daughter of a Jongga house who spent twenty years making holiday pancakes.”
“You kind of emphasize that now, huh?”
“I have to use it somehow or all that unpaid labor would be a waste. And it’s flavor approved even by the Jongga daughters-in-law, so I should make that the catchphrase too.”
-She still keeps in touch with her mother from time to time. Not as much as before, but her mother has changed a lot. Since two years ago, she no longer does kimjang. Whenever she wants some, she simply cooks easily with Yungyo’s seasoning.
Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.
“Yuna. You got a message.”
Heejeong, handing her an Americano, gestured toward Yuna’s phone resting on her lap.
-And what am I doing?
[Teacher T_T]
[I don’t think I can come to the makeup class on Sunday because something came up at home, what should I do...]
[I’m really really sorry]
After reading the message, Yuna opened her calendar.
[Lish M Concert]
After getting fooled by this kind of thing several times already, Yuna had become more knowledgeable than anyone about idol comebacks, concerts, and birthday cafés.
The dates were already marked in advance.
Yuna let out a small sigh before typing.
Input: Yeah lol I know it’s the concert LOLOLOL I told you I wouldn’t fall for that
[Ah please teacher TT__TT it’s reaaaally a family thing TT_TT]
Input: Bring your mother with you then LOL
[I really brought my grades up a lot TT_TT please let it slide just once TT_TT]
-And I teach children at an academy.
The Yuna of the past returned once more to the academy.
The exact same one shown in Episode 1.
“I heard a lot about you. They say all your tutoring students got into prestigious universities? It’s not easy for a college student to teach that well. Amazing. You must have always been smart in school, right?”
“...Actually, I retook the college entrance exam three times.”
“Oh my. Three re... takes?”
“I can clearly see how to raise the kids’ grades. Mental care helped a lot too.”
“Hm....”
The academy director, who had been looking at Yuna suspiciously, finally nodded.
“That’s right. The most important thing in exams, no matter what, is mentality. If you manage that well, there’s no problem.”
Yuna smiled refreshingly in the academy lined with competition awards and university acceptance banners.
-It couldn’t be helped. Even if I tried to say goodbye to the suffocating college entrance exam, it had sunk its roots too ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) deeply into my life. People who spent a long time in exam life, from the moment summer passes and autumn approaches, from the moment the morning air touching their skin turns cool, a heaviness settles in one corner of the heart. The body remembers the exam. That’s why. I decided to run through exam season together with them. That day no longer feels hopeless to me.
Input: I’ll reschedule the makeup class for one other day just once, you seriously better do well
[TT_TT Teacher thank you I love you♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Ah seriously how did I live without Teacher Yuna?? I’m so happy I’ll give you lots of kisses on makeup day]
With a small laugh, Yuna pressed and held the message and added a heart.
Her wallpaper was a photo taken with her students.
-Anyway, this is how we turned thirty.
Yuna leaned back against the airport chair.
-At this point I thought I’d have things like my own house, my own car, stuff like that... but honestly, thirty isn’t a big deal. I just came to my senses, and somehow I was thirty.
“We should get going now.”
“Ah! This is so nice. How long has it been since we went on a trip together?”
“My memory’s a little fuzzy....”
Yungyo closed her laptop and stood up, Heejeong switched off the camera in her hand, and Yuna, after tossing away her empty coffee cup, gripped the handle of her suitcase again.
-What is youth?
The three of them walked through the airport.
-Are we still in it?
Or has it already all passed us by?
All three of them looked different from before.
It was hard to point to one exact thing, but each of them walked forward with faces that had clearly grown.
-The starting line is already far behind us
And the finish-line tape is still so far away
Right now.
Sunlight streamed through the wide airport glass windows.
The shadows of the three women walking side by side moved ahead and behind each other.
-There are times when you get too exhausted from running and need to adjust your pace
And times when you’re so out of breath you want to quit everything.
But.
Yuna briefly turned back.
As if meeting the eyes of the viewers beyond the screen.
-Even when I want to look back
This moment, when I know I need to come back to myself and face forward again.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Na Yuna—.”
The two walking ahead called for Yuna.
She turned her head again and half-ran toward her friends.
She did not look back again.
-Isn’t this what youth is?
The three of them, walking in step to head toward a wider world together, slowly grew farther away.
A familiar melody began to play.
It was the very song the three of them had once stayed up all night practicing together, that song from back then that felt like it was breathlessly running toward tomorrow.
Above the piano melody, drumbeats like a heartbeat piled up, along with the guitar sounds that made the heart tremble.
-Because
All of us
The airport where the three of them kept moving farther away.
The bright electronic billboards inside it came into frame one after another.
-[Jeans with a different fit, Diodano]
-[The exact taste of black raspberry wine, Samsachun]
-[Pass the civil service exam with WillEdu!]
-Even if there comes a moment when you briefly falter
Someday, without fail
I believe you’ll make your final sprint.
The billboard messages were visible.
It was almost as if the world itself was speaking.
-Because my time is something only I can create.
Your youth, too, is a success.
And with that, 〈Youth Disqualified!〉 came to a close.
It had finally ended.
