When I Returned, a High School Romantic Comedy Began

2 – Park Chae-rin

I got up from my seat and followed the class president out of the library.

I still didn’t have a clear grasp on exactly what was going on, but when she said class would be starting soon, I naturally followed her down the hallway.

As I walked, the scenery outside the windows was not the Isan High School where I worked doing public service, but the Isan High School ‘I attended’.

‘The outdoor library is gone.’

The outdoor library was built after I graduated.

Now without a trace, the basketball courts that used to be there had returned.

And that wasn’t all.

The classrooms were all jumbled up and rearranged, no longer the school I remembered from 2023.

Most of all, Lee Ha-won walking slightly ahead of me.

I heard she went to study abroad in America, so why was she wearing the same school uniform as me?

“…”

I rubbed my arms, feeling the texture of the shirt cuffs.

It was undoubtedly the soft fabric of the dress shirt I had worn to school, and the sensation informed me that this was not some empty, surreal dream.

I tried to take out my phone to check the date, but when I looked in my pocket…

Besides a single candy bar of a brand I’d never even heard of, there was nothing inside.

“Class president.”

“Yeah?”

“What day is it today?”

Given my sudden question, she would have been justified to react with confusion, but instead the class president smiled and calmly answered.

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“What, you want candy so you’re asking that?”

“Huh?”

Seeing my blank incomprehension at her non-sequitur response, Ha-won took something out of her pocket and handed it to me.

“Here, candy. No need to play coy.”

What she gave me was a simple candy bar of the kind commonly seen at convenience store counters.

I reflexively held out my hand when she offered it, though I didn’t really understand why she was giving this to me.

As I stood there dumbly holding the candy, Ha-won spoke.

“Anyway, Joo-woon always seemed uninterested in stuff like this, but looks like you pay more attention than it appears?”

“Huh? Ah…I guess so?”

With my awkward reply, Ha-won stopped walking and smiled, looking at me and saying in a small voice.

“Don’t tell the other kids I gave you candy, okay? I did prepare some for White Day but not enough to give to the whole class.”

“…Got it.”

Only after hearing those words could I know for sure what day today was.

‘She said White Day?’

White Day.

March 14th, the day boys give candy in return for the chocolates they received on Valentine’s Day… In truth, at school it was a day for giving candy back and forth between boys and girls.

Leaving the class president who entered through the back door behind me, I looked at the sign above the front door.

[1-2]

No matter how much time had passed, 1st year class 2 was firmly fixed in my memory.

‘I was definitely in class 2 freshman year.’

The hypothesis I had vaguely thought just maybe was perfectly fitting the facts.

What’s more, following the class president into the classroom awakened remnants buried in forgotten memories, so that what I’d thought of as a hypothesis could no longer be called that.

“…damn it.”

I had gone back in time to March 14, 2015.

*

I need a breather.

When break time came after class ended, in order to organize my thoughts I put the candy I’d received earlier into my mouth, softly rolling the sweet, strawberry flavored candy around as I lost myself in contemplation.

‘Is this a hidden camera prank?’

The first thought that occurred to me was that everyone was deceiving me as part of some elaborate scheme.

But from the moment I entered the classroom, that idea had long since flown out of my mind.

There was no reason to go to such elaborate lengths for a hidden camera prank.

What’s more, my back hurt just from sitting still due to my herniated disc, to the point I received a public service duty exemption.

Yet now, even though I’d been sitting for 30 minutes, there wasn’t the slightest hint of pain or discomfort.

That’s because even for a hidden camera show, there’s no way they could perfectly heal my back.

Plus, the sights I saw walking to the classroom were beyond the scope of a hidden camera prank.

‘Can this make any sense?’

An unbelievable yet unavoidable reality.

Through whatever principles and by whoever,

I had gone back to the past.

To my first year of high school, no less.

“…Should I buy some cryptocurrency?”

When I realized I had gone back to the past, my immediate thought was, naturally, money.

In 2015, Bitcoin would still be dirt cheap.

If I bought Bitcoin now, I could easily get a hundredfold return later and finally say goodbye to a life of financial hardship… But.

‘I don’t have any money I can use for it.’

Even just going back 3 more years would have let me buy Bitcoin for peanuts, but from my memories, even in 2015 it definitely cost at least 10,000 won.

An average person might think they could simply save up their allowance and buy it, but my family was so stingy about money that we couldn’t even order a single fried chicken.

‘We even occasionally got behind on rent…where would I get money for this?’

It’s one thing if money just directly replicates, but for cryptocurrency to reach 10 million won would take at least 3 years of waiting.

Friends and I used to joke about going all in on crypto if we went back to the past, but ironically, now that I was actually in the past, I didn’t even have the money to purchase any cryptocurrency.

“Ah…”

I should have memorized some winning lottery numbers.

If you’re going to send me to the past, shouldn’t you prepare something for me first?

‘I am thankful my back is completely better but still…’

I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have to live through another 8 years of hellish poverty like before.

Most of all being in high school now meant…

‘I can’t buy cigarettes.’

Cigarettes, the sole comfort and pest of my life that I picked up while busily working manual labor after graduating high school.

My body was still untainted before I started smoking, but my nicotine-accustomed brain craved it terribly.

I wish I could just step outside for a quick smoke right now.

I gripped the candy stick habitually like a cigarette, trying to recreate the feeling.

Suddenly, an unfamiliar hand slapped my desk, drawing my attention.

“Hey, where’d you get that candy?”

I raised my drooping head, gloomy with pessimism, to look at the person addressing me, and found myself face to face with a familiar figure and muscular body honed into solid muscle.

‘Yuma?’

Shimoe Yuma, my close friend and classmate from middle school.

I heard his dad got a job in Korea our first year, so his whole family moved to the neighboring country.

I immediately approached him spouting off Naruto references when he transferred in since I liked anime and manga, and somehow we kept in occasional contact even after he returned to Japan.

‘It’s been almost 3 years.’

Seeing my startled expression, he calmly spoke again.

“There’s no one who’d give candy to you, so where’d you get it? Did you steal it?”

His sudden accusatory question snapped me out of my momentary confusion, and I smiled brightly at my long unseen friend, answering.

“I don’t give a damn.”

If others heard it, they’d be shocked by my crude reply.

But the recipient of the profanity responded without any reaction.

“So you did steal it. Damn cockroach.”

Just listening made it sound like a messy exchange, but there was no response from those around us.

Half our high school class already knew this was how we messed around and talked in middle school.

And since today was White Day, after a week since starting high school they were all used to our antics.

In the midst of sharing this somewhat ferocious friendship with my long unseen friend…

The classroom’s back door opened with a ruckus, drawing my attention.

“Ugh, that crazy b*tch, go away.”

“Whyyy~ so meannn~”

Giggling as they entered were girls who clearly expressed through fashion, makeup, and speech that they were top tier.

A few so-called top girls flaunting their presence entered the room.

‘That girl…’

In the past I didn’t even want to meet their eyes, but…

I stared blankly, unable to look away.

“Ew, don’t ogle, I told you not to get clingy.”

Normally I would have quickly looked away, not wanting to get involved with them.

But one of the girls captivated my gaze, not letting go easily.

Sharp eyes that would make timid friends immediately look down, short black hair, and a purple Adidas jacket she always wore over her uniform.

“Chae-rin, you’re so mean~”

That’s right, Park Chae-rin.

We’d gone to the same middle school so I knew her face and name, but we didn’t really talk.

I might have goofed around with the guys at school but paid almost no attention to the girls.

Originally, she would have been just another top tier girl whose face and name I completely forgot, but she was unforgettable.

Of course she was.

[Chae-rin! My daughter!]

How could I forget the girl who led me to the second funeral of my life?