“Hello.”
A female student with long straight hair wearing jeans bowed her head slightly toward Jeonghan in greeting. Her face smiling gently as she tucked her hair behind her ear was pretty even in Wooyeon’s eyes. Though Wooyeon wasn’t interested in department affairs, he knew who she was. Was it Chu Seonyoung…… He had heard several students chattering that she was the goddess of the College of Commerce and Economics.
“Hi.”
Jeonghan wasn’t flustered and smiled at Seonyoung. Wooyeon, who had looked at the two alternately, eventually lowered his gaze to the floor. It felt like somewhere in his heart was being pricked with a needle. Though it was a childish thought, the two looked well-matched like a good-looking couple.
“You’re going to eat lunch, right? Let’s eat together, oppa.”
Seonyoung didn’t feel embarrassed about expressing her interest first. Her confident attitude suited her well like well-fitting clothes.
“You always leave right after class ends, so I couldn’t even talk to you.”
“Ah……”
Wooyeon, standing next to Jeonghan, examined Jeonghan’s face. What was Jeonghan thinking now? Wooyeon began to feel uncomfortable as if he had become an outsider caught between the two.
“I have a prior engagement today, so I can’t. Sorry.”
Jeonghan’s fingers touched the hand Wooyeon had hanging by his side. Wooyeon looked up at Jeonghan at the touch caressing his thumb. It seemed like Wooyeon was the only one of the three who was flustered.
“You’re eating with Wooyeon sunbae again? You two must be close.”
Only then did Seonyoung’s prettily curved eyes turn toward Wooyeon. Seonyoung probably didn’t know what kind of time Jeonghan and Wooyeon spent every lunch hour. As if caught doing something bad, Wooyeon’s heart sank.
Wooyeon pulled his hand from Jeonghan’s touch and stepped back. He could feel Jeonghan’s gaze directed at him, but Wooyeon didn’t even have the composure to look at Jeonghan again.
“Then can I eat with you too?”
“Ah, no. You two eat together.”
It was a statement that came out without him knowing, unable to bear the awkward atmosphere. Wooyeon was surprised himself and looked up at Jeonghan again. Jeonghan’s face, with the smile erased from his lips, was cold. With a face that didn’t understand, Jeonghan was looking at Wooyeon with one eye distorted. Wooyeon stepped back again.
“Oh, really? Sunbae, you’re really considerate.”
Seonyoung’s fresh smile turned toward Wooyeon. Wooyeon’s gaze, not knowing what to do, encountered Jeonghan’s again.
“I’ll be going.”
Wooyeon withdrew first from the meeting gaze. Though cowardly, it was no different from running away.
With his back to the two people who looked good together like a painting, Wooyeon left Sanggyeong Hall with quick steps. He just wanted to avoid it and had no confidence. The image of the two people standing side by side kept flickering before his eyes. Though he had never harbored futile expectations or anything, he felt as if he were being interrogated.
How much farther had he walked? Wooyeon reflexively turned his head at the force that snatched his wrist.
“Sunbae.”
It was Jeonghan. Jeonghan, who should have been with Chu Seonyoung, was holding Wooyeon’s wrist while breathing heavily. Jeonghan wasn’t smiling. Wooyeon tried to pull out the wrist caught by Jeonghan, conscious of the surrounding gazes for no reason, but it wasn’t easy.
“Kwon Jeonghan, let go of this first.”
“Why is sunbae backing out?”
He met Jeonghan’s sharp gaze again. Words that weren’t even in his heart poured out from Wooyeon.
“I was thinking of going to the library anyway. I dozed off earlier so I didn’t listen to class properly……”
“Are you joking right now?”
Jeonghan let out a breath as if incredulous. At the sharp tone that seemed ready to cut at any moment, Wooyeon’s heart sank with a thud. Then, the phone in Jeonghan’s hand started ringing. Both their gazes turned to Jeonghan’s phone simultaneously. Jeonghan looked at Wooyeon again, then answered the call. His gaze remained fixed on Wooyeon.
“……As I said earlier, I have a prior engagement so I can’t eat with you. And I don’t know how you got my number, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me from now on.”
Kung, and another corner of his heart collapsed. The low voice dripping with cold pierced Wooyeon’s heart.
Wooyeon wasn’t stupid, and anyone could tell that Chu Seonyoung had feelings for Jeonghan. At Jeonghan who only said what he had to say and hung up, Wooyeon ironically felt not relief but despair.
‘It’s not like I like them, so what’s the big meaning?’
The words Jeonghan had said about another student who had shown interest in him came to mind again. It didn’t matter if it was Chu Seonyoung or anyone else. Jeonghan was someone who gained everyone’s favor and was the subject of very common crushes, but he didn’t tolerate it.
Wooyeon hurt as if he himself had been rejected. Wooyeon forcefully pulled his wrist from Jeonghan’s hand.
“That girl, she likes you.”
“So what.”
His eyes filled with moisture were pitiful. Jeonghan’s voice was tinged with irritation, and even that was a wound to Wooyeon.
“Did you have to say it that harshly?”
“Ha……”
Fuck, what is this about now.
Jeonghan muttered quietly.
“Think about that girl’s feelings a little……”
“Sunbae, you must be a really good person. Thinking about other people’s feelings and even backing out on your own.”
“That’s not it……!”
“I have no idea why I’m even having this conversation with sunbae.”
Jeonghan ran his hand through his hair and sighed.
“Got it. I’ll accommodate her feelings, whatever.”
In front of Wooyeon, Jeonghan turned around immediately with a cold face. Only then did Wooyeon realize that he hadn’t seen Jeonghan’s back much until now. The words already spilled couldn’t be taken back.
Wooyeon stood there quietly, blinking to hold back tears. Jeonghan, who seemed like he would come back any moment, ultimately didn’t return to Wooyeon’s side.
It wasn’t long after that when the story that Kwon Jeonghan was dating Chu Seonyoung could be heard.
**14.**
Time flowed by relentlessly. Before long, festival season came, and the rumor that Jeonghan and Chu Seonyoung were dating became an established fact.
That didn’t mean there was a change in the relationship between Wooyeon and Jeonghan. The two still ate together during free periods, had sex, and in return Wooyeon received suppressants and Jeonghan’s pheromones. Occasionally when Jeonghan looked at his phone, Wooyeon could only guess that he might be contacting her.
He didn’t ask if it was true that he was dating Chu Seonyoung. Wooyeon was used to defending himself and didn’t want to needlessly provoke him. Jeonghan also didn’t particularly define his relationship with Seonyoung to Wooyeon. It was a strange relationship.
On an early summer night, the deep blue sky was stained with red in places. Wooyeon stopped walking and looked at the festival bars lined up long inside the campus. They said you’d be a fool to go to S University’s festival, but making those words meaningless, the festival was ripening as night approached.
Wooyeon’s phone vibrated incessantly, pushing up messages.
「Hey, just two hours please」
「I’m on my knees right now」
「Seo Wooyeon-nim, please」
「There’s really no one else to do it. For realㅠㅠㅠㅠ」
The emoticon that flew in immediately after turned the inside of Wooyeon’s phone message window into a sea of tears.
Wooyeon let out a small sigh and looked down at his phone screen. The messenger contact crying and clinging to Wooyeon was the Club President. The Club President’s request was this: Due to his tremendous management skills, visitors were bursting out and they were so short-handed right now, and he wanted Wooyeon to fill in for a student who had suddenly flaked and bounced.
Wooyeon’s blinking eyes moved along the row of festival bars lined up long.
「I have to go to my part-time job so I can really only do exactly two hours」
Whether lucky or unlucky, today was exactly a day without tutoring so his time was free. If it was two hours, it would be enough to help briefly before going to his convenience store shift.
「ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠSeo Wooyeon is the bestㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ」
「It’s over here by Sanggyeong Hall, come quicklyㅠㅠㅠㅠ」
At the urgent-looking message, a slight laugh burst from Wooyeon’s mouth. As Wooyeon’s steps approached Sanggyeong Hall, the Club President jumped out from one of the bars, waving his hand largely.
“Seo Wooyeon! Over here!”
“Oh, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do this well……”
“Hey, it’s fine. They’re drunk anyway so they won’t even know the taste and will just eat.”
The Club President pushed Wooyeon’s back and shoved him inside the bar. Inside the bar was mixed with the smell of alcohol and food, and the voices of young men and women already drunk before it was even late at night.
Wooyeon and the Club President passed between students screaming loudly on plastic chairs and metal chairs brought out from Sanggyeong Hall. When they went to the place set up like a kitchen, the smell of oil was vibrating.
“Everything else is done, just somehow handle the pancakes. The batter is all ready. If it’s not enough, mix in some water.”
Different foods were being made on each of the four burners. The Club President picked up an apron that had fallen beside him and put it in Wooyeon’s hands. There were two kinds of batter. A pale one with chives mixed in here and there, and kimchi pancake batter with very few squid pieces floating around.
“Hey hey, Jinyoung-ah. Did you buy the chives?”
“I put in everything I bought.”
“Then why is the batter like this?”
“Hyung, you told me to mix in water.”
Hmm…… It seemed like the chive pancakes were ruined. The Club President looked at the batter dripping from the ladle without a thick feeling and had a devastated expression.
“Is there any pancake mix left?”
When Wooyeon asked while putting on the red apron, the Club President rummaged through the box on the floor and put pancake mix on the table.
