“……”
“……”
Silence flowed between them. There was nothing else to say. They weren’t close, and neither of them were particularly talkative. It was so quiet that you could even hear the sound of a few moths flying around under the streetlight, tapping against the bulb. After a moment of awkward silence, Hyun Youngjae spoke first.
“……Do you live around here?”
“Yes, this building.”
Jang Juwon pointed with his finger at the gray building right in front of them. Suddenly, Hyun Youngjae’s face brightened.
“I live here!”
Jang Juwon turned his head to follow the direction of Hyun Youngjae’s fingertip and looked where he was pointing. It was a gray building with a similar structure attached right next to his own building. As was typical of the one-room districts near universities, they weren’t even a few meters apart.
“Ah…… I see.”
“Did your studying…… go well?”
“Yes. Well…… so-so?”
“You didn’t have…… anything you didn’t understand?”
“Uh…… I think there might have been something……”
Jang Juwon trailed off. He hadn’t studied at all today. Though he had gotten something better instead. So he didn’t know what to say and just mumbled vaguely. He just wanted to quickly end this meaningless conversation and go home to lie down his tired body.
“Why didn’t you…… contact me?”
“What?”
“I said I’d…… teach you what you didn’t know.”
“Ah. Next time……”
“By any chance…… are you studying with Baek Iseon?”
“What?!”
Surprised, Jang Juwon inadvertently raised his voice. It was quite flustering for Baek Iseon’s name to pop out of Hyun Youngjae’s mouth. He hadn’t studied with him… but they had done something. And how did Hyun Youngjae know about that……
“Well…… Baek Iseon…… has better grades than me…… If you’re studying with him, then of course someone like me, me……”
“No! What, what are you talking about? I, I barely even know that sunbae.”
Flustered, Jang Juwon hurriedly and strongly denied it. In a way, it wasn’t exactly a lie. They’d never studied together, and all he knew about him was his age, name, and that his dick was big.
“Then why……”
Suddenly Hyun Youngjae took a step forward. Without realizing it, Jang Juwon took a step back. Shadows fell heavily over Hyun Youngjae’s face hidden by the cap. His eyes weren’t visible. His expression couldn’t be read.
“Then why…… did you get out of Baek Iseon’s car?”
“……That’s.”
He saw. A drop of cold sweat ran down Jang Juwon’s spine. His grip tightened on the paper bag he’d received from Baek Iseon. As he was racking his brain trying to think of an excuse, he suddenly felt a bit annoyed.
‘Why am I trying to explain this to Hyun Youngjae? And why is Hyun Youngjae interrogating me about this?’
They weren’t close enough for this, and they didn’t have that kind of relationship. What’s so unusual about a hoobae getting out of a sunbae’s car?
“I just ran into him by chance and he gave me a ride.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“……Really?”
“Sunbae, you seem to be taking too much interest in this.”
When Jang Juwon showed his annoyance and frowned, he could see Hyun Youngjae flinch.
“Ah, sorry. I…… asked too much.”
“No, it’s fine. Then I’ll be going in now.”
Jang Juwon gave him a slight nod and turned around. Then suddenly Hyun Youngjae’s urgent voice was heard.
“W-wait……!”
“Yes?”
Jang Juwon turned his head to look back. Before he knew it, Hyun Youngjae had come one step closer.
“Baek Iseon…… you shouldn’t get too close to him.”
“What? Why?”
At the unexpectedly absurd words, Jang Juwon turned his body completely to face Hyun Youngjae. Hyun Youngjae’s fingers fidgeted.
“His reputation isn’t that good either……”
“R-reputation?”
Displeasure clearly showed on Jang Juwon’s face. He already knew firsthand that Baek Iseon wasn’t exactly a good person. But judging people by rumors was one of the things Jang Juwon extremely despised. Rumors naturally tended to grow toward the more sensational side. And Jang Juwon knew this fact very well.
“I don’t care about things like rumors. I’ll judge for myself. Then goodbye.”
Jang Juwon shot back sharply, turned around, and walked toward the building entrance. He could hear Hyun Youngjae shouting from behind.
“There, there’s even a victim!”
It wasn’t worth turning around for. Jang Juwon went straight into the building.
Before going to sleep, he sent messages to Choi Yeonho and Shin Jisu saying he’d gotten the study guide for Applied Fluid Mechanics, and his phone went crazy from the morning. Thanks to that, he had to wake up early on a weekend morning and face the tediously familiar faces of those two. Sitting in a fairly crowded weekend morning cafe, Jang Juwon, completely worn out from fatigue, gulped down the cool, sweet drink in front of him.
“I will bow deeply to you, Juwon-nim.”
Shin Jisu pretended to bow with utmost courtesy.
“What about Design, huh? Won’t you give us Design?”
That was Choi Yeonho. He was stamping his feet anxiously. Come to think of it, he hadn’t even brought up Machine Element Design with Baek Iseon. No, he hadn’t had the time to think about that.
“Well……”
“Give it up, Choi Yeonho. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Right, Jang Juwon?”
“Uh, yeah……”
Shin Jisu looked at Jang Juwon meaningfully as she spoke. She probably didn’t know the detailed circumstances when she said it—if she had known, she would have beaten him to stop him—but Jang Juwon felt guilty on his own.
“In that spirit, you’re buying lunch today, Choi Yeonho.”
“Yeah……”
Choi Yeonho answered sullenly to Shin Jisu’s words. The three of them closed their mouths and each began studying. They went through practice problems for Statics, which was the most urgent subject, in order, and divided up parts to summarize for the memorization subjects.
Perhaps because it had been a while since he’d properly studied, Jang Juwon’s head was a mess. Wrestling with hopeless practice problems, impure temptations arose here and there.
‘Should I just do whatever Baek Iseon asks and get the study guides?’
No. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t rely on him forever. Unless it was a really shitty subject like Applied Fluid Mechanics, it was right to study on his own as much as possible. This was what he’d resolved when he decided to continue as a junior without taking a leave of absence. Jang Juwon gripped his pen again.
Before long, lunchtime passed and it became afternoon. The three of them, having finished a simple lunch with the money extorted from Choi Yeonho, returned to the cafe and started studying again. It was a truly rare sight for them. While they were concentrating, the sound of the door chime opening was heard. Jang Juwon, who had casually raised his head, made eye contact with a familiar face that had just entered the cafe.
“Oh, hello……”
“Youngjae…… sunbae?”
Jang Juwon raised his eyebrows slightly. Because of what had happened with Hyun Youngjae last night, it was a bit awkward to face him. However, he thought he’d just greet him briefly and go, but he smiled shyly and unexpectedly approached them.
“Uh…… hello.”
“Hi.”
Choi Yeonho also greeted Hyun Youngjae with a slightly surprised look. Shin Jisu sat still with her arms crossed and a displeased expression.
“So…… are you studying for exams?”
“Yes.”
When Choi Yeonho answered, Hyun Youngjae lowered his eyes slightly and scanned Choi Yeonho’s notebook. His expression instantly became serious.
“Yeonho-ya, this problem becomes easy if you solve it this way.”
“Huh?”
Hyun Youngjae picked up a pen that was rolling around on the table and began solving the problem. Choi Yeonho, who had just been wrestling with Machine Elements, just stared blankly as Hyun Youngjae smoothly solved the practice problem. The answer came out quickly in less than a minute.
“Sunbae……. No, hyung!”
Choi Yeonho looked up at Hyun Youngjae with a bright smile and eyes full of respect.
“Should I…… teach you more?”
“Yes!”
Unlike Choi Yeonho who answered cheerfully, Jang Juwon and Shin Jisu’s expressions were rotting away.
Hyun Youngjae really taught well. Not only did he know a lot himself, but he seemed to instinctively know how to explain things easily. At first, Jang Juwon and Shin Jisu, who had been displeased, were soon asking Hyun Youngjae various things. Unlike his first impression, he was kinder than expected and had a gentle side. Before being a good senior, he was a person with a good heart. The unexpected tutoring that continued until evening gave the three of them quite a lot of profit.
