Since he has to study like hell until he gets a job from now on, he has no intention of forgetting Teacher Lee Euishin’s teachings. However,
“That’s all for today.”
Those words really seem like the most ecstatic thing in the world. Kwon Yunsu closed his textbook and organized his pen faster and more decisively than anyone else.
“What should we eat?”
Kwon Yunsu asked the person next to him. On the first day of the semester, when he was sitting in the department room with a stupid face, this guy had quickly struck up a conversation. The internet said that freshmen should get to know guys who seem sociable and well-informed. The guy responded with an uncomprehending face.
“Why would we decide the menu?”
“What?”
“The sunbaes should decide. We go like this to the front of the Engineering building and take a walk with stupid faces. Then within 5 minutes, we’ll get scouted somewhere. Let’s go.”
What a cool guy… Kwon Yunsu shouldered his bag without another word.
“This is in front of Building 2? Can’t you even memorize building names?”
Lee Euishin clicked his tongue as he approached Kwon Yunsu, who was vigorously waving his hand at the main building entrance. Kwon Yunsu, who had run over noisily, wickedly whispered in his ear.
“The sunbaes bought me lunch. Dakgalbi.”
Well, aren’t you excited, so excited. Well, having eaten breakfast like that and left, whatever he ate for lunch would taste good.
“…Getting fed measly dakgalbi and coming back… what’s there to brag about, whispering like crazy.”
Though he scolded while touching his earlobe, Kwon Yunsu was, as always, someone who listened to curses, reproaches, and scoldings with one ear and let them out the other.
“How is it possible that I haven’t spent even 100 won of my own money on lunch until the second week of the new semester? It’s really amazing.”
“Be amazed all you want, that’ll end next week too.”
“I have a lot of March allowance left, what should I do with it?”
“Return your library books and buy textbooks. Don’t think about getting photocopies.”
“Teacher Lee Euishin once said that to truly make studying your own, you must use new books….”
He smoothly touched the back of Kwon Yunsu’s head.
“You listen well.”
Looking down at the profile of Kwon Yunsu diligently moving his feet, Lee Euishin recalled the days when he was the guy’s ‘teacher.’
Thinking about it, senior year seemed to be the best. Eating provided meals while studying, no one picking fights, and he could ignore calls from home as he pleased. Above all, Kwon Yunsu had been the most docile. Obediently following his words and not unnecessarily closing the distance. Compared to sophomore year when he had to take down several guys to re-establish an intimate relationship and securely take the position of country bumpkin owner, those were truly peaceful days.
It was fortunate that Kwon Yunsu’s head wasn’t as empty as expected. Though it required some patience, after coaxing him a few times, he followed along quite well, which had a certain satisfaction in raising him. Though the clueless Kwon Yunsu didn’t know, Lee Euishin’s self-sacrifice (or what was called a father’s heart) was famous within the school. Especially among the teachers. Lee Euishin’s grades, which were clearly going to continue to the special A level, had stopped right at the point when he started looking after Kwon Yunsu that winter.
‘It’s fine for a senior to just maintain their grades.’
He didn’t know how much of those casually self-assessing words were true. Studying wasn’t incredibly fun, he didn’t want to go to that special A level where his cousins swarmed, and considering the major-linked program, this school was more advantageous anyway. Above all, he had no confidence in displaying greater concentration with a fumbling country bumpkin by his side.
“Lee Euishin, why do you refuse free meals when you look like someone who’d get taken everywhere?”
Lee Euishin chuckled.
“Why should I mooch off that kind of meal?”
Kwon Yunsu quickly looked around. They were still within the vast Engineering campus grounds.
“Watch your words. How many group projects does this damn university have, do you want nasty rumors spreading about you? Are you really not going to participate in department life at all?”
Kwon Yunsu still doesn’t know how much he hates people. How much those humans with business cards stamped with ‘sa’ from noble yangban families love social gatherings, how they plaster all kinds of cultivation and put on airs whenever they meet. Lee Euishin, who until second grade of elementary school had not a single proper day off as a sidekick to such social gatherings, had long been an official character-ruined person in his family. He even intended to hide to the end that he was living with Kwon Yunsu. Because if it became known, it would immediately become family gossip.
“Why see faces you’ll get sick of seeing once you enter your major early? Just don’t go around causing trouble yourself.”
“Instead of that… you’d change if you tasted a miracle too, right? If you go to your department room now and just stick around for about 10 minutes then shyly hold out your phone, you’ll make about ten acquaintances. And Sunbae 1 or 2 will ask you to go eat dinner together.”
He definitely picked it up somewhere. Kwon Yunsu’s expression was quite serious.
“If you want, I’ll go with you. Then I’ll also be Engineering Freshman 1 and have dinner with you…”
“Are you crazy to eat dinner outside? Did you forget the contract?”
Breakfast was Kwon Yunsu’s voluntary choice, but dinner was clearly supposed to be made by Kwon Yunsu. After writing it with his own hand in the boarder contract (Kwon Yunsu had wanted to write it because he was worried about something, so he just roughly went along with it), he’s going to mooch dinner? That makes no sense.
“Ha… I used all my energy making egg rolls this morning, so I don’t have confidence to make dinner.”
Despite saying that, Kwon Yunsu had never once yielded the sink. Though he couldn’t even season things properly, every single day he made something crude and said try this, try that, and that…, that’s really something.
“…Let’s go grocery shopping and eat chicken skewers.”
He persuasively coaxed Kwon Yunsu and left the school. It wasn’t far to home, so they walked for now, but it was troublesome because there were so many people.
Passing various buildings, they entered the main road leading to the main gate. This is the most tiresome. The place filled with all kinds of club promotional booths forming the essence of the new semester atmosphere. The place where flighty-eared Kwon Yunsu perks up his ears every day.
“Hey, Lee Euishin. How about the robot soccer club? It smells like Engineering. You’d make a lot of friends from the same field.”
“Before you play soccer with that, you have to make all the robots yourself.”
“What about that? I think it’s a central club. Let’s take this chance to interact with girls too. How many girls are in your department?”
Kwon Yunsu will diligently talk about girls from now on too. When he’s just a dick-sized country bumpkin.
Lee Euishin, whose mood had soured, walked straight down the main road without any response. The chattering sound grew distant then close again, and then at some point, no sound could be heard at all. When he turned around, Kwon Yunsu had stopped walking and was staring blankly at somewhere.
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you…”
An ominous premonition suddenly struck the back of his head, and Lee Euishin stopped speaking.
“Hey, listen carefully there. It’s tilted.”
“The string doesn’t reach here.”
“What? You useless guy. Ahn Shinwook, you go up and try it.”
“Aigo…”
Pathetic squids were hanging a banner on top of a tilting booth. The grimy, dirt-stained rag fluttered this way and that in the wind, then when the guy who climbed on the chair yanked it, it transformed into letters that could more or less be read. Terrible words were written there.
「Engineering Soccer Tactical Strategy Discussion Club Yongjjaenghotoo (龍爭虎鬪)」
Lee Euishin wanted to gouge out his eyes. When he quickly grabbed and shook Kwon Yunsu with trembling hands, Kwon Yunsu turned around blankly. In Kwon Yunsu’s eyeballs looking at him, the two words ‘Engineering’ and ‘soccer’ were firmly embedded and sparkling brightly. The complicated and baseless words that followed had clearly been self-edited.
“Euishin-ah, this must be what they call fate.”
“…Fuck, seriously!”
Of course, Kwon Yunsu didn’t back down and ran over like a sparrow and wrote a membership application.
“I really want to join.”
The expression on little Kwon Yunsu’s face as he said that was so full of expectation that Lee Euishin wanted to throw Kwon Yunsu outside the universe.
Even after that, Lee Euishin thought about it over and over. At that time, he should have stopped him even if it meant breaking Kwon Yunsu’s leg stumps.
***
“Hiiik, this is really sick. Sliding tackle cancel, wow… look at how smooth the motion is.”
“It’s really natural.”
“Oooh….”
“Oooooh…!”
“Kyaa!!!”
“Did you see? Did you see? The cross went straight in!”
“It’s really fucking sick.”
“So fun!”
What’s so great about a measly soccer ball?
Kwon Yunsu felt like he’d die of amazement. What the hell is this that makes it so fun? Even stuck in the club room for two hours without a single common heating device and no heating, his cheeks and earlobes heated up so he wasn’t cold at all. I must have entered this school to join this club. Kwon Yunsu was casually thinking thoughts that would make Lee Euishin clutch the back of his neck if he heard them.
