Chapter 10

The Slump

A special edition of Lee Seok Min Writes

(Featuring the elusive ‘members of The Baby Soul Matchmaking Club)

                It was a particular sunny day in the BSMC HQ when all hell broke loose...

“I’m the target of manga guy?? Why didn’t anyone tell me I have a potential manga-loving stalker?!” Lee Hye Rin barges into the club room waving a familiar manila envelope around, one she’s not supposed to be in possession of.

          Lee Seok Min smiles to himself as he looks around the club room. Though smiling at this particular moment is almost life threatening, he convinces himself he has reasons despite the fact that he’s subjecting himself to undeniable bodily harm. This is the most lively the room has ever been since that Kim Sung Gyu request came in. Lively is lively, albeit a pretty painful one.

Even Hyun Seung Hee stopped functioning normally when she can’t decide between making a schedule for the ‘dangerous’ request (see, they even have a name for it) or getting coffee for people who aren’t going to drink it. But the former is not likely to happen because that’s going to screw up the matchmaking structure. They need to deliberate first; it’s the most important part of the cycle.

          It’s weird that they are not moving from the first stage of the match making process. They need to do something so they can actually call what they do as a club activity otherwise they might essentially be forced to send a falsified club report.

          “Can anyone answer my question?” Lee Hye Rin ordered, pulling out incriminating evidences from the illegal manila envelope she’s not supposed to have and lines it rather haphazardly on the meeting table.

          “How did you even get that? That’s like really classified information... I would need to—“

          Person with incriminating evidence have the gall to glare at him. He doesn’t think she has the right to do any glaring.

          “Yoo Ji Ah isn’t here...  She usually has all the explanations.”

          The look on Lee Hye Rin’s face demands answers though her knowing the actual answer would be scarier than looking at her angry face.

          “Guys!” she stares angrily at everyone in the room, though there’s really only two other club members in the vicinity at the moment.

          “You do know that what you’re asking is something pretty confidential that only specific people in the club are allowed to divulge?”

          “Lee Seok Min, this involves me... And as far as I’m concerned, I’m part of the club so that alone gives me rights to said information. What specific people are you talking about? There’s only five of us...” She crosses her arms obviously trying to be intimidating.

          He’s Lee Seok Min, he doesn’t get intimidated. He shakes his head. When he says ‘no’ it is a NO. There isn’t any other answer to that.

          “Fine! I’ll find out for myself then...” Lee Hye Rin walks out of the club room but not before swiping Seok Min’s Pop collection.

          “Ya! That’s hitting below the belt.”

          She slides the door real hard making more Pops fall from their now disorganized shelf. Lee Seok Min thinks it’s not nice to take out your anger on inanimate objects. He decided he’ll do a report on that and make the Club President decide on the proper punishment.

          Hyun Seung Hee gives him a questioning look. “Wouldn’t that be worst? I mean she’s going out on her own and confronting the requestor. Isn’t that against club protocol?”

          “Well, she already knows him. They started on the wrong foot so maybe this time they would be able to iron out the creases and that sort of thing. After she gets over the fact that he has her manhwa and had her tracked down...” he trailed off. That’s when the repercussions of what they started sets in.

          They both looked at each other, panicked.

          “Someone might actually get hurt today...” Seok Min hurriedly stands up disregarding the fact that he’s messing his table more and he’s leaving his laptop open for anyone to tinker and look at (and someone might see his wallpaper). “We need to hunt down a stalker...”

          “But Soo Jung-unnie might—“

          “I just shut down my laptop... There’s no turning back. We need to go. Now.”

          “O-kay...” Seung Hee exits after Lee Seok Min, making sure the door to the club room is locked; shaking her head at the latter who apparently had his laptop on hibernate instead of really shutting it down.

~0~

          Forget the deliberation process; Lee Soo Jung decided she’s going to take matters into her own hands. Regardless of the repercussion, she’s going to have to verify this information. Though she doesn’t know exactly where she’s and why she’s even doing this. There’s a request sent, what’s to question about?

          Now that she’s not trying to stalk him she doesn’t have any idea where to start.

          She’s not even sure why she’s doing this. There’s a long list of potential reasons why she can just ignore this request. But her ignoring it makes her match making club unreliable. Everybody knows she won’t let that happen.

          Well she can pretend that they didn’t receive it the next time they meet. But that would turn futile in the near future if and when he actually finds out that the club did receive the request. And she’d be branded as a liar for the entirety of the story.

          Everyone knows the story would without her in it.

          There’s the sound of stomping coming from the direction of the stairs. She realizes she’s been wandering around the History Building, how she came there she doesn’t know. Kim Sung Gyu doesn’t have classes in this building today. Another day wasted, oh well she can do the ‘talking to perfection’ tomorrow for now she can pretend everything is normal and that they have other requests to attend to (they do actually) and none of them includes Kim Sung Gyu.

          A familiar girl walks past her waving a common manila envelope, mumbling about trust and friends and a few things she’s not able to catch because there’s two other people who’s probably running after her. It’s odd that they need to run when the girl they were chasing wasn’t even running. Well she wasn’t walking at leisure but—

          “Soo Jung-nim... I really hate to interrupt your narration but one of ours is after one of our subjects... A little help would be ermmm.... helpful?”

          “Eh?”

          Hyun Seung Hee comes back out of breath “Ermmm, to put it lightly, Lee Hye Rin is about to afflict severe bodily harm to manhwa guy...”

          “Oh.”

          “Yea, c’mon... Subject about to be maimed...”

          The perfect excuse for a stupid plan. Emergencies are bound to happen since she’s running a very hazardous club (that she recently found out). And this is an example of one of them.

          Running towards the 1:30PM Introduction to History Class of Mr. Hong, she chances upon someone she’s been looking for a lot earlier before all this chaos happened. Said person sees her and waves, probably expecting her to stop and say ‘Hi’ (and she wanted to do so, damn emergency).

          “Seonbae! About your request... I’m on it...”

          She sees a ghost of a smile in the other’s face before they turned a corner. She’s so gonna regret this.