Poison? Could Dong Hae really be poisoned with my cooking? As I helped Dong Hae reach the school clinic, I tried to think of reasons why his stomach suddenly ached. I mean, sure, the food I cooked was painful to the eyes and probably disgusting to the tongue, but it couldn’t have poisoned him, I was almost sure.

When we reached the clinic, the nurse helped me set Dong Hae on a chair. Once he was settled, the nurse started asking the questions. “What’s wrong?” she asked sweetly, checking his temperature. Then she noticed Dong Hae’s hands on his stomach. “Did you eat anything before it started?”

He nodded. “I ate her fried rice.” He answered her weakly, pointing at me accusingly.

The nurse turned to me scarily. “What did you put in there?” she asked me like I was a criminal who needed to confess my crime. it was always like that when Dong Hae pointed the blame on me all these years.

He was lucky he had a stomachache or else I would’ve attacked him with words right then. Instead, I tried to look and sound innocent as I answered the nurse. “I just put in rice, carrots, sausages and eggs, nothing more.”

“Are you sure?” she asked again, as if really convinced that I was capable of putting poison on Dong Hae’s food. I nodded repeatedly, feeling intimidated by her accusation. She then walked over to a medicine cabinet and took a tablet out. She walked back to Dong Hae’s side and her face suddenly changed from scary to sweet. “Take this, and I’m sure that you’ll feel much better. But if you will still feel some pain later, you can come back here.”

After taking the tablet with a glass of water, Dong Hae stopped looking so weak and was instantly back to being himself. That made me doubt whether he was really sick just now. He smiled at the nurse. “Thank you for saving my life.” he told her with his alluring voice that always seemed to melt most girls’ hearts.

We left the clinic after that. And since he was back to himself, I took the time to let out my thoughts. “Yah, how can you be so stupid? Why did you still eat my fried rice even when you already saw how disgusting it was?” I asked him. “And were you really sick just now or were you just pretending so I’d feel bad?”

As we walked, he suddenly lowered his head. “I did it because I didn’t want you to be embarrassed by Se Ri.” He remarked in an unusually not joking tone. Seriously, I kind of liked the way he acted then. But then he looked up with a smirk on his face. “No one can embarrass my girlfriend except for me, right?”

What a way to ruin a moment. “Then you really just pretended to be sick so you’d make me feel embarrassed in front of the nurse, didn’t you?” I accused him, seeing he enjoyed doing that.

He let out a sarcastic laugh. “Is that what you think?” he said with a playful smile.

“You’re such a jerk, you know that?” I remarked knowingly, walking faster so I wouldn’t walk alongside of him.

Suddenly, he spoke in a louder voice so that I could hear him even though I was about a meter away from him. “I wasn’t acting sick, okay? I’m not a good actor. Your fried rice was really sickening, is that hard to believe?” he said so loudly that the people passing by heard him and laughed.

Hearing that, I stopped walking and turned back to him. “If my fried rice was so sickening, why did you finish it all in the first place?” I replied just as loud, gaining a few laughs from the passers –by. “it wasn’t for you anyway.”

He walked over to me. “That’s just the point. If I hadn’t eaten it, then you’d be the one suffering from a stomachache.” He told me defensively, this time in a smaller voice. “Aren’t you even the least thankful?”

For the first time ever, I, Choi Ji Na, was going to swallow