# Chapter 16
When the dorm supervisor checking the rooms one by one approached them, Yumyeong suddenly raised his hand.
“Dorm supervisor! I want to change rooms. I absolutely can’t share a room with this bastard Hanju anymore.”
“What? You think I like it?”
Pushing back the indignant Hanju, Yumyeong spoke to the supervisor again.
“Anywhere is fine, so please move me to another room.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. If you kids keep changing rooms for your own convenience, the dorm order will……”
“Ah, I figured as much, right? But then why does the transfer student get to change it however he wants?!”
At Yumyeong’s words, the supervisor, caught off guard, fell silent for a moment. Hakyoung calmly glared at Yumyeong, who was picking a fight again. Whether that guy glared at him or not, Yumyeong was curious about how Hakyoung had sweet-talked the supervisor.
“Why does only that guy get special treatment? No matter how rich his family is, ow.”
“Hey, get inside already! If you’re going to talk about things unrelated to roll call, get in!”
The supervisor got angry for no reason and announced the dismissal of roll call. Yumyeong, who had hidden inside the room for a moment, stuck his head out the door again. His eyes met Hakyoung’s directly.
“Hey, can’t you tell me how you persuaded the supervisor? I also tried every trick in the book to use a four-person room with just two people. This wasn’t easy either, so how the hell did you do it? Let’s share secrets together.”
Hakyoung tried to close the door while ignoring Yumyeong.
“Ah, wait! It’s a compliment, a compliment. I’m saying you’re so amazing for making the impossible possible. I want to be like you.”
Even at the deliberately provoking words, Hakyoung just bit the inside of his lips hard as if extremely annoyed. At that expression, Yumyeong immediately became pleased.
“My friend, you must be so nice. Having everything in the world go your way.”
Hakyoung’s face, which had caught the true meaning behind the words delivered with a bright smile, immediately hardened.
“……Bullshit.”
The door slammed shut with a bang right in front of him. Short-tempered guy, Yumyeong muttered quietly and slipped into his room with an even more refreshed face.
“His true nature’s coming out again.”
Yumyeong grumbled as he closed his door. His eyes met with Hanju, who was sitting at the desk. Hanju opened his mouth with a worried face.
“Why do you keep being mean to the transfer student?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Hakyoung, he must be having a hard time adjusting, so why do you keep picking fights?”
“Since when are you on the transfer student’s side?”
“Is this about taking sides? Ugh, so childish.”
Saying that, Hanju waved his hand as if to say let’s stop.
“You don’t know because you haven’t seen the transfer student’s true self.”
“If you say so.”
Hanju sat at the desk and busily took out workbooks and such.
“Hakyoung’s nice. At first I had prejudices because he was a rich young master, but honestly, maybe because he received a good education, his character is really proper. Some kids misunderstand him as fake, but this is what I think. Even if it’s fake, maintaining that attitude consistently is amazing. Hakyoung’s a good kid.”
“……Confess honestly. What made you fall for him?”
At those words, Hanju flinched. It was a secret from Yumyeong, but he’d gotten a portable game console from Hakyoung for 20,000 won. Since this game console had a used price of about 300,000 won, even if he saved his allowance he couldn’t dare think of buying it. As if reading Hanju’s heart, Hakyoung had very kindly made a cool deal, attaching an un-embarrassing reason that since he himself didn’t use it much, it would be better to sell it to someone who would use it well.
That wasn’t all. Though it hadn’t even been a month since he transferred, Hakyoung already had a good reputation all around. Not only was he favored by the teachers, but he was also explosively popular with the female students. It was natural that the female students felt favorable toward that harmless gentlemanliness that was completely different from other male students who did pitiful and pathetic things to get the girls’ attention.
Hanju secretly benchmarked Hakyoung’s attitude while taking notes thinking, ‘I should use this on girls I like when I go to college later.’
Behind such Hanju, he heard Yumyeong’s grumbling voice.
“If we’re being precise, who was the first one to pick a fight? His true nature will come out soon, right? He even curses when others aren’t listening. Don’t be surprised. Just now he said to me……”
“That’s why you’re weird too. You’re not that kind of person.”
“What do you mean?”
“Originally you were that kind of kid too. Good at studying, getting along with everyone, popular. You’re plenty outstanding yourself, but honestly the way you act only toward the transfer student…… it looks like an inferiority complex.”
When no words were heard from behind, Hanju quietly turned around. Then he was shocked to see that Yumyeong’s expression showed his pride was truly hurt.
“Hey…… sorry.”
Hanju quickly apologized. However, Yumyeong’s expression showed no sign of softening.
Rather, he shut his mouth tight as if hurt and looked out the window. Hanju wanted to smack his own lips for speaking carelessly.
It must have been from the end of last year that Yumyeong became strange in various ways.
Yumyeong, who had been top of his class at admission and continued to maintain first place in the entire school, became noticeably insincere in his class attitude from a certain point. There were many times he openly slept in front of teachers, and he was called to the teachers’ office several times for not submitting performance evaluations at all despite being notified they were definitely included in grades. During final exams, his grades completely plummeted, dropping 70 places. Since the school had just over 100 students per grade, it was a tremendous decline.
Moreover, there was one major incident.
In November last year, Yumyeong was identified as the instigator of a violence incident and because of this, faced the crisis of being referred to the school violence committee. Honestly, if you asked students who knew the whole story about this matter, a hundred out of a hundred would say Yumyeong was in the right.
The current third-year and second-year students, the 11th and 12th cohorts, had a very deep emotional rift. This was because the 12th cohort couldn’t accept the regular hazing considered tradition. Even though hazing was also a type of violence, the school had an aspect of turning a blind eye, saying it was difficult to completely uproot something that had continued for over ten years. Naturally, student dissatisfaction accumulated during that time.
Among them, an 11th cohort sunbae named Hwang Gyeongjin particularly tormented Yumyeong terribly. It was to the extent that everyone realized it was violence mixed with emotion beyond hazing. Finally, unable to endure it, Yumyeong responded to assault with assault, and the conclusion was the complete defeat of Hwang Gyeongjin and the sunbaes.
However, no matter how justified he was and even though the fight was mutual, strangely he looked like the perpetrator because Yumyeong had unilaterally beaten up the other side thoroughly.
The matter even got bigger when some witnesses among the sunbaes at the time despicably tattled to their parents. Those parents made a fuss about convening the school violence committee and demanded that Yumyeong be disciplined.
However, fortunately, the school, which had closely examined the circumstances before and after, stopped at giving Yumyeong a warning.
“Yumyeong, the reason we’re letting this incident pass is because we still believe in you. But if you get into a fistfight even one more time after this, we won’t be able to protect you anymore. At that point, it’s suspension at minimum.”
The student affairs director stood Yumyeong up in front of all his friends watching during his class time and said that.
Hanju had also witnessed that scene at the time.
Originally, the student affairs director was a vocal music major graduate who used his rich voice volume to discipline the children so that the entire campus rang. Though he cruelly wielded a danso flute to strike heads and shoulders, he also had a benevolent side. The sight of such a teacher speaking in a lowered voice was very serious, and even Hanju listening felt his heart squeeze with a tingling sensation.
Not because the warning was scary. It was that painful to witness someone’s disappointment right before his eyes.
He didn’t know how Yumyeong received this teacher’s attitude. Though he must have felt wronged, Yumyeong suppressed such things and got through the situation with a smile.
Even after that incident, Yumyeong didn’t particularly seem to have come to his senses. During winter break, Hanju chose to go home and Yumyeong stayed in the dorm. When break ended and Hanju returned, the Yumyeong he witnessed, far from returning to normal, looked like a screw had come loose somewhere.
Hanju felt sorry for Yumyeong. Anyone would feel that way seeing a friend they liked and admired go astray from a certain point.
Though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong, Yumyeong looked like someone who had lost his center. To the extent that pretending not to be like that and putting on a fine face seemed even more strange.
“Ah, I said I’m sorry……”
“……”
“I talked nonsense. I’m sorry!”
“It’s fine. Well, it could look that way.”
Yumyeong muttered in a nonchalant voice and scratched his head. However, Hanju felt deep guilt at Yumyeong’s eyes staring blankly without any laughter. Suddenly wanting to even kneel, Hanju came down from under the desk chair and threw himself on the floor.
“I’m sorry!”
“Are you crazy? What’s this?”
Yumyeong jumped in place.
“Out of worry for you, I unknowingly…… I know you’re not the kind of person who just hates people and gets jealous, but it’s strange that you only act like that toward Hakyoung, I’m sorry! But I wish you wouldn’t……!”
“I said it’s fine, ah, get up quickly!”
Yumyeong made disgusted faces while removing the pant leg Hanju had grabbed. Hanju read the mood and stood up.
“Are you not angry anymore?”
“I wasn’t even angry in the first place?”
Yumyeong laughed a little while looking incredulous. Hanju asked carefully.
“Really? You’re not angry?”
“Yeah.”
“But is there really something between you and Hakyoung?”
“Why are you asking? You won’t believe me anyway, so even if I tell you…… Aack! Hey!”
“I’m sorry!”
Hanju tried to prostrate himself flat again. Yumyeong grabbed Hanju’s collar and pulled him up faster than that, then let out a huff of breath that blew away his bangs covering his eyes.
“Actually, Ryu Hakyoung and I, we apparently knew each other in the past. Maybe we went to the same academy or something.”
“Ah, really? That makes sense.”
Shin Yumyeong’s family was also quite well-off. Though Yumyeong had never said with his own mouth who his father was, those who knew that he was the son of a famous politician all knew. Hanju, who thought there must exist a community among children growing up in similar environments, quickly agreed.
“But he got pissed that I didn’t remember him.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Petty-minded too.”
Of course, there were many other unspeakable reasons besides that. That he’d scratched out “homo bastard,” that he’d actively helped Sunmin who seemed to be the one Hakyoung liked, that he’d openly said he’d try to seduce Sunmin, and so on. There were more than one or two things that would earn jealousy and resentment.
Yumyeong silently thought to himself that he had gone a bit too far.
