I kept checking my phone in between working, hoping another reply might come — but there were no further messages. When my phone buzzed once in the middle, a feeling of anticipation shot up inside me like Jack’s beanstalk — and the moment I saw it was an advertisement, it shrank back down to the size of a bean sprout’s head.
After that, I made a conscious effort not to think about Seon Eunhu for the rest of the time allotted to making the pig’s head. Whatever misunderstanding had led the Alpha upperclassman to dislike me was none of my business. There was no need to expend energy on his negative energy toward me, and I didn’t have the bandwidth for it either.
So I just pressed the clay with my fingertips over and over. My fingers felt strangely heavier than before.
“Isn’t it kind of lonely now that all the guys have gone off to the military? No one to go to a pojangmacha with and drink till dawn…”
An Seungkyu came back in smelling of cigarettes, sat down, and started grumbling. I unconsciously held my breath for a moment against the acrid smell drifting off him, then answered belatedly.
“…I guess.”
“Ha, the fact that I’m even talking to you about this is kind of funny. Anyway, all the ones who are left look like a bunch of timid nerds, it’s so boring. I should’ve just followed everyone to the military instead of postponing it a semester for nothing.”
Whether he was bored from sitting still and working for hours, An Seungkyu rambled on about things I hadn’t asked about.
I didn’t respond, thinking it wasn’t my problem, and An Seungkyu let out a long exhale. The glasses he’d pushed up three seconds ago slid back down again.
“Hey. Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Ah, damn, me neither. I want to find someone to date before I enlist in the fall, someone who’ll wait for me — but there’s nobody pretty in this year’s freshmen. I wanted to hook up with a twenty-year-old.”
“…….”
“First years in our department are out, maybe I should look at other departments?… Hey. So if you don’t go to pojangmacha and don’t have a girlfriend, how do you take care of your sexual urges? Do you go to those kinds of places? Or do you have a friends-with-benefits thing? If you’ve got something good going on, hook me up. Don’t do it alone.”
The longer An Seungkyu talked, the more my brow furrowed. From the worldview revealed in every word he used, An Seungkyu was exactly the type of person I had no desire to be close with.
Unable to hide my discomfort, I let something slip out before I could filter it.
“What am I, some kind of animal? I don’t do any of that.”
“Huh?”
This time it seemed An Seungkyu was the one having the thought I’d just had about him. He even lifted his hera off the clay to stare at me with a dumbfounded expression.
“Right, I’m the trash again, aren’t I? There are no women here, so let’s be honest for a second. Why do you think sexual desire is one of the three basic human needs? We treat hunger and the need for sleep as important — so why look down on sexual desire? Sexual desire exists to be released. That’s how the thought process stays normal and sex crimes don’t happen.”
“Being able to control that urge is what makes someone human. Do you eat other people when you’re hungry? Do you lay out a blanket and sleep on the street when you’re too tired? We’re not Alphas or Omegas — we can manage that urge just fine. And if you really can’t hold it, you can handle it yourself.”
“Come on, that’s not a fair comparison. Doing it yourself and actually having sex are completely different feelings — what are you even talking about… Don’t tell me you’ve actually never done it with a girl.”
An Seungkyu stared at me as if he couldn’t believe it. Behind his lenses, his gaze carried a condescending air of superiority.
Any further conversation was a waste of energy.
“Forget it. I have to go now.”
My part-time job was coming up, so I had to leave. I took off my apron, folded it away, and spritzed the parts I’d been working on with a water bottle so the clay wouldn’t dry out. An Seungkyu leaned back to avoid the mist.
“Wow. I’ve been sitting next to a rare protected species. Sure, sure. Since apparently we’re dealing with a virgin here, I’ll acknowledge every statement made. Let’s talk again once you’re an adult, little baby.”
“Good luck.”
I walked out of the studio with the sound of An Seungkyu’s snickering behind me. Having listened to that crude talk, I felt like my ears were rotting off.
According to scientific knowledge, it tends to be those with smaller genitalia who enjoy saying things like that. Apparently the deficiency stemming from having a small dick manifests as a promiscuous attitude.
It wasn’t entirely unfounded — because I had once, in a bathroom, caught an unintentional glimpse of An Seungkyu’s situation, and the sight had been so pitifully disproportionate to the size of his face and frame that I’d been genuinely startled. Calling it a “thing” felt like too much credit. “Something located between the legs,” “shorter than a finger but longer than a toe” — those kinds of descriptions fit better. Actually, at that scale, instead of a proper noun, shouldn’t it be a diminutive?
Truth be told, when I’d seen An Seungkyu walking around with that pitiful little thing he called genitalia, I had genuinely pitied him and worried about his reproductive prospects. But based on this conversation, it seemed like it would be better for nature overall if An Seungkyu’s line just ended with him.
“Hey. Go Taerim!”
I was crossing the department building lobby, trying to manage my irritation, when someone called my name. I turned to see third-year upperclassmen Lee Jinseong and Seon Eunhu approaching.
The moment I turned toward them, Seon Eunhu glanced sideways at Lee Jinseong and then looked straight back at me.
“Ah, so you’re Go Taeling?”
He tilted his head slightly as he said it, and I couldn’t explain why I felt such a sudden rush of anxiety. Was it fear that he’d be disappointed to find out the person from that exchange of messages was me? And so what if he was disappointed? There was no reason I needed to impress Seon Eunhu — yet for some reason it was hard to hold my head up, so I avoided looking directly at them.
Which meant Lee Jinseong answered on my behalf instead.
“Huh? No — it’s not Go Taeling, it’s Go Taerim! Do you not know our Taerim? He’s never once lost his full scholarship since he enrolled. Impressive, right?”
“Full scholarship?”
At Seon Eunhu’s echo of that, I snapped my head up. Contrary to my worries, his gaze looking down at me carried no disappointment — no emotion of any kind. Relieved by that, I quickly waved it off.
“It’s not all from grades! It’s because national scholarship funding is added on top. It’s because of the admission track I enrolled through.”
“Either way, you go to school for free, which is the point. And he works really hard at his practical work too. There are plenty of people who pay expensive tuition and just coast through, but this one spends the whole day attached to the department building and puts everything into his work. These are the kinds of students I like most. Right?”
Lee Jinseong looked to Seon Eunhu for agreement. But Seon Eunhu didn’t seem particularly interested and responded with indifference.
“Everyone’s got their own thing going on. Let’s go, I’m starving.”
“Yeah, yeah. Taerim, have you eaten? We’re heading out to eat now, want to come? I’ll treat you.”
Seon Eunhu looked at Lee Jinseong, who had made the suggestion without even consulting him, and then shifted his gaze to me.
Those dark brown eyes — I couldn’t tell whether they were urging me to answer quickly, or giving me a hint to decline.
“No… I’m on my way to my part-time job right now.”
“Really? Aren’t classes done for today? Please tell me you’re not working a job with no time to even eat, Taerim.”
“After class ended I was making the pig’s head all this time. I’m not really that hungry, haven’t thought about food.”
“Alright, got it. Don’t skip meals. But did you make the pig on your own?”
“No. With Seungkyu.”
“Ah — An Seungkyu, that slippery one?”
Lee Jinseong asked as if he knew something about An Seungkyu. Then he exchanged some kind of glance with Seon Eunhu, and his lips twitched like someone struggling not to say something.
It felt awkward to ask what was going on, so I was just trying to read the situation when Lee Jinseong leaned in and whispered in my ear with a playful air, the lobby otherwise empty around us.
“Don’t get too close to that one.”
“Sorry?”
“Innocent kids should stick with other innocent kids.”
Lee Jinseong patted my back twice and said “Let’s go,” taking the lead.
I followed behind the two of them, reading the implication.
It seemed An Seungkyu’s reputation among the upperclassmen wasn’t great, as expected. Of course it wasn’t. People with bad character — no matter how carefully they carried themselves in public — gave themselves away in just a few words.
That Alpha Seon Eunhu over there, who went through recurring heat cycles, still carried himself impeccably — meanwhile some unimpressive Beta was going around making lewd remarks to anyone who’d listen, so there was no way his reputation was going to come out looking good.
“Was that restaurant near the back gate? Oh wait, let me check the location.”
“No, we have to go through the front gate. That way.”
While the two of them sorted out directions at the department building entrance, I had stopped alongside them and drifted into other thoughts.
Did these two upperclassmen know that despite what An Seungkyu goes on about, they each had something considerably more underwhelming between their legs?
If the upperclassmen ever saw An Seungkyu’s situation, they’d surely be stunned. They might even mistake it for a pimple somewhere between his legs… Seon Eunhu in particular would probably recoil in horror. I didn’t know the exact dimensions of Seon Eunhu’s — but he was an Alpha, so wouldn’t there at least be double the difference in length and girth?
That kind of wondering led me to imagine An Seungkyu and Seon Eunhu standing side by side comparing sizes. In my imagination, An Seungkyu was rendered completely speechless, overwhelmed by Seon Eunhu’s erect dick. It was a satisfying mental image.
“We’re going this way — where are you…”
Seon Eunhu turned around and, unusually, addressed me. But the moment our eyes met, his words cut off abruptly. As if he’d just witnessed something, his straight brows twitched — and then the warmth drained from his healthy, well-colored face.
I was standing there bewildered by Seon Eunhu suddenly stopping mid-sentence when he strode toward me.
“…You said you were busy, right? Even if you’re busy you’d have time for a word or two. Right?”
And then he murmured low to me as I took a step back, faltering.
“Let’s talk for a bit. I won’t take up much of your time.”
“…….”
…Why is he speaking through clenched teeth all of a sudden.
Whatever change of heart had come over him in that brief moment — Seon Eunhu was suddenly showing open hostility.
