-Is this voice phishing? Are you eating? Don't live your life like that.
A human being worse than trash.
I sent the text carefully.
There was no answer.
I had to stop texting Miri.
It felt like I had lost everything.
I was so sick that I thought I would die for three days and couldn't even go to school.
-You can go back to that day and change your choice.
It's not voice phishing, you can trust it.
It was a week later when I received another text.
Among voice phishing scams, there will be no one who will confess to being a voice phishing scammer.
-I don't have money.
-I told you it wasn't voice phishing.
That's how Dalho and I started trading.
Dal-ho was said to be a nine-tailed fox who dreams of becoming a phoenix.
It was said that if you eat a thousand days of human time, you can become a phoenix.
-You're giving me just one day.
If you live for decades, or even centuries, losing just one day won't be a big deal, right? It's definitely not a losing proposition.
Rather than feeling any loss, you should consider yourself lucky to have met me.
--- pp.6-7

“Kang Si-yeon.
Just do as I say this once.
You and I are already in the same boat.
You must get my permission to get off the boat.
You know that, right?”
Ion-i keeps saying that he's on the same boat as me.
Being on the same boat means being trapped together within the confines of some fate.
I don't like it.
I don't even know exactly what kind of kid he is, so I'm getting involved with him like that.
“But you have to tell me what you want me to do to make me promise.”
“Oh.
Kang Si-yeon.
Feeling a little brave today.
“Okay, I guess I should say what I want to say.”
The moment Miri spoke, Ion-i glared at Miri.
Ion quickly averted his eyes.
“That day you saw me and our eyes met.
And you found out my secret, didn't you?
“Now that you know my secret, you must do what I say.”
It was purely Ion's stubbornness.
I made eye contact with Ion, but I wasn't interested in him at all.
I didn't know what Ion was doing or what he was trying to do, and I didn't want to know.

--- p.36

Ion-i looked for something on Yu-jae's phone and focused on it.
Miri slowly turned her eyes to Yujae's cell phone.
“Is this the executive board chat room?”
Miri muttered.
Ion focused for a while longer and then wrote something in the chat room.
“Oh, oh, is that okay? Then it would be a message from Yujae?”
Miri asked in surprise.
"ruler."
Without answering the question in advance, Ion handed Yujae his cell phone to me.
“Give me back the road.
“Either put it in your bag tomorrow or throw it somewhere in the classroom right now.”
Ion gave me Jae's cell phone and left the music room.
It's dangerous to wait until tomorrow and put it in your Yujae bag.
I decided to deal with it today.
I came out after spending some time in the music room.
The classroom was empty.
I went to my locker and pretended to look for something, then looked at Yujae's locker.
As soon as I got to school this morning, I checked the location of Yujae's locker.
I put my phone in the locker.
I was out of my mind until I walked down the hallway, down the stairs, and out the front door.
As soon as I left the school gate, tears suddenly started to flow out.
It was like having a nightmare.
I stepped aside and leaned against the wall of a snack shop.
Even a nightmare is fine.
Even if it's a nightmare that lasts for a few hours, that's fine.
I wish what I did was in a dream.

--- p.58

On the Tuesday in question, check the CCTV inside the school.
A piece of paper with this written on it was posted on the bulletin board.
“Dongju put it on.
They've started to seriously hunt down the culprit.
Yes, they say our country is a CCTV kingdom, right? Nothing is as reliable as CCTV.
It's the best witness and evidence.
“Seeing as the school readily handed over the materials, it’s clear that the school doesn’t know about Yujae’s whereabouts either.”
“But isn’t the fact that there are no CCTVs in the classroom a trap?”
“Hey, if we track and deduce the CCTV footage from other places by time zone, we’ll find something.
The conclusion is that Dong-ju is not the culprit.
“If he was the real culprit, he wouldn’t do this.”
The children all agreed that the culprit would be caught soon.
They said it was a matter of time.
I imagined myself being caught on CCTV screen.
Even though I tried not to imagine it, the image kept coming to my mind.
Even though I knew there was no CCTV in the classroom, the scene of me rummaging through Yujae's bag filled my mind with close-ups.
I could see what hell was like.
A long time ago, I read a traditional fairy tale about the triumph of good over evil, and I'd encountered a place called hell once or twice in it! If you do bad things in life, you'll go to hell when you die, and hell is a place filled with fiery pits, boiling pots of oil, and snakes.
I didn't go into that place myself, but I felt the pain, the suffering, and the fear.

--- pp.127-128

“Miri.”
I grabbed her wrist in advance and looked straight at her.
He looked into my eyes beforehand.
“Miri.”
“Why is he so serious? If you called me, tell me, tell me.”
“Miri.
“I, I never, ever want to let go of this wrist.”
I barely managed to hold back the tears that were about to fall.
“I want to keep holding this wrist.
“From graduating from middle school to going to high school to going to college to becoming an adult to becoming a grandmother until I die.”
So you can't die! Those words were about to come out.
“What? Hahaha, is this a confession? Ugh, we’re just friends, right? You, you don’t mean anything else, do you?”
Miri smiled with a playful expression.
“I only have friends who work part-time.
I wish I had one real friend too.
Yes, Kang Si-yeon.
Hold my wrist tightly.
I will never let you bear all the burden alone.
“Let’s be friends.”

--- p.183