People around him said that on the day of discharge, the world looked beautiful and there was a halo behind passersby, but those words didn’t really apply to Seongjo. The sky he saw as a civilian wasn’t much different from what he’d seen in the military, and he only felt similar to when he’d been on leave.
When his shortened hair had recovered to some degree, though not as much as before, he returned to school. Many familiar faces had already disappeared for reasons like having already graduated or having gone to the military later than Seongjo. Only after entering the campus did the two-year gap truly hit him.
“Hey? Who’s this? Isn’t that Lee Seongjo?”
When he turned his head at the bantering voice, a face he remembered was standing there. It was Eunseo, a classmate. Seongjo looked at her with a face mixed with gladness and puzzlement. Thanks to that, he couldn’t respond quickly.
After attending his first lecture since returning to school, Seongjo, feeling boredom for the first time in a while, had come to the smoking area as soon as the lecture ended. Eunseo… he definitely remembered she didn’t smoke.
He glanced around to check, but time passing hadn’t made him mistake the location, and it was definitely the smoking area. Still, thinking he should put out his cigarette first, he moved his hand, but Eunseo waved her hands to stop him.
“No, no. I came to smoke too.”
Having said that, Eunseo stood at a slight distance from Seongjo, then really did take out cigarettes and a lighter from her pocket. It seemed she’d started smoking during the past two years.
Had university life been that hard? Imagining the two years he didn’t know about, Seongjo exhaled smoke and belatedly offered a greeting.
“It’s been a while. You haven’t graduated yet?”
“Wow, you wound me right off the bat?”
Eunseo clutched her chest area exaggeratedly as if she’d been hit. Since it had been half-joking from the start, Seongjo also smiled without being flustered. Eunseo calmly explained the reason.
“I took a leave of absence once.”
“And when did you learn to smoke?”
“Oh, Kim Junseok gave me some grief.”
The answer came quickly but was joking in tone and not very specific. Thinking she probably didn’t want to say more, Seongjo didn’t ask further and just shrugged his shoulders. Soon Eunseo threw out another question with sparkling eyes.
“So, how does it feel to be discharged?”
“It’s just so-so compared to what I thought. Though the air in society is still good?”
Instead of conveying an exaggerated impression like others, he told it as it was. Eunseo seemed not to dwell on the content of the answer and continued with her words that were question-like yet not quite questions.
“What was the military like? Hey, there’s really no one like you. Everyone said you’d slip into public service or get exempted.”
“What would I slip out of when I’m healthy? Well, I did have it easy in military life.”
Whether it was because he was assigned to a unit with a good atmosphere, or because he met a superior who roughly guessed Seongjo’s family circumstances and worried about future troubles, or because Seongjo had a constitution surprisingly well-suited to military life from the start. He couldn’t know exactly, but in reality, Seongjo had spent smooth military life without much suffering.
But Eunseo seemed to feel that just the fact that Seongjo had served active duty was enough.
“Going to the military diligently. Going to university like common people.”
At words he couldn’t tell were praise or teasing, Seongjo let out a hollow laugh.
“What, how else would I go? Haven’t you watched too many dramas? Like Boys Over Flowers?”
“I should’ve seen how chaebols live to know. Hey, won’t everyone else think the same when they see you?”
It wasn’t that he didn’t know why Eunseo was saying such things. In reality, among the chaebol offspring Seongjo had known since childhood, quite many had received exemptions or public service through various methods. Enough that Seongjo could be considered a special case.
Still, appropriate modesty was helpful in life. When he waved his hand as if to say don’t say such things, Eunseo also appropriately changed the subject.
“Did you see the school? It’s changed quite a bit, right?”
“A building went up while I was gone?”
Nodding his head, Seongjo mentioned a part that had caught his eye as soon as he returned to campus. He’d just seen that a shiny new building had finally been erected on the campus site that had been empty while they only talked about construction being planned for a long time. Eunseo looked back at Seongjo with a slightly surprised expression.
“Ah, you don’t know?”
He couldn’t even tell what he was supposed to not know, so he just made a puzzled expression without answering. Eunseo laughed as if it was interesting, then said:
“You don’t know. That was essentially put up by you.”
“By me?”
How long had it been since he returned from spinning his wheels in the military, and now he was being told he’d put up a building? When he asked with an expression of not understanding, Eunseo nodded and continued explaining.
“They built it with a donation from your family. Everyone must have figured it out because your father’s name is written at the building entrance.”
“What? Hahaha.”
Only then did Seongjo burst into laughter. He hadn’t known because he’d heard nothing about it. It seemed his father had pulled something while he was enlisted.
Was he unable to control his worried and longing heart for his son who went to the military? Anyway, thinking *such a fuss*, he was still interested in that building. Perhaps noticing Seongjo’s curiosity, Eunseo added an explanation.
“It’s a library, and the facilities are really good. The reading room is so well done too? I also go there to study these days during free periods.”
“You’re advertising it to me when I supposedly built it? Your tone sounds a bit like a salesperson?”
“Oh, what are you saying. It’s ‘thank you for building something nice.'”
Seongjo just lightly waved his hand and kept his mouth shut without much comment. Since it was something he knew nothing about, there was no reason to receive thanks. He had no intention of taking credit for the donation his father had given for the university either.
“Are you going today too? To the library.”
“Mm, I have a full schedule today so even if I go, it’ll be pretty late. Why? Are you interested?”
“Yeah, if I built it, I should at least go take a look.”
When he answered like a joke, Eunseo laughed out loud. It seemed he’d have to go see the building in question alone. He’d never experienced going to the library alone to study during university life, so it was slightly troublesome. Seeing Seongjo lost in thought, Eunseo slipped in a word.
“Yeah, yeah. But if you’re going, be careful, okay? Rumors about your return to school spread everywhere? That Lee Seongjo is here.”
“Why would there be rumors? What, did they mark me as crazy? Telling people not to hang out with me?”
“No, what are you saying. It’s the opposite.”
When he looked at her with a question, Eunseo turned her body and leaned against the wall, continuing:
“Starting today, there’ll be kids openly asking for your number, kids who come bump into you and say it was a mistake, kids who spill coffee on purpose and ask for your number to give dry cleaning money—there’ll be all kinds, right?”
At Eunseo’s question asking if he was playing innocent, Seongjo clicked his tongue as if genuinely dumbfounded.
“This is really a problem. You’ve watched too much Boys Over Flowers.”
“Hey, the kids who grew up watching Boys Over Flowers are the ones attending our school now. They use the exact tactics they saw and learned, I’m telling you?”
Listening to it, it seemed like she had a point, and yet… When Seongjo’s expression still wasn’t quite convinced, Eunseo widened her eyes slightly and added:
“Even I thought about deliberately bumping into you when I enrolled, you know? After hearing who you were.”
Though she said that, she was actually a case who found her match right at orientation after enrollment. She’d hit it off with a guy she was paired with for a drinking penalty mission and became a well-known campus couple. That was precisely Kim Junseok, who had given her so much grief that she’d even started smoking. But saying he gave her grief meant feelings remained, so it seemed they still hadn’t broken up.
He didn’t ask about that matter and just shrugged his shoulders as if it was nothing. Eunseo put the cigarette back in her mouth with an awkward face and continued mumbling in a pronunciation hard to understand.
“Well, it’s true I exaggerated quite a bit, but it’s not complete nonsense either. I don’t know how many kids asked me if you had a girlfriend after hearing you were returning to school. You know, it even showed up on the campus confession page? You’re going to be annoyed for a while.”
Seongjo clicked his tongue as if troubled, but in truth, it wasn’t that troublesome. Even before going to the military, and going back further to before entering university, there had already been many people who showed interest in Seongjo.
There had never been a time in his life when that wasn’t the case. Even without the family’s halo, he’d had his number asked for countless times on the street and heard just as many times that his face was worth something.
It was appropriate modesty again. He didn’t know if Eunseo had noticed. Having smoked one cigarette to the limit, she gathered her things, saying she’d go attend a lecture.
Before leaving, waving her hand at Seongjo, she said:
“But I’m really curious what someone will use to catch your attention. Tell me if it happens, okay?”
Seongjo just snickered and waved his hand back halfheartedly.
