He’d intended to take the Post-it note with him like the phone number notes he’d received, but soon his mind changed. Seongjo took out a pen and wrote a reply right on the back of the Post-it.
[But why is your taste in drinks like this?]
He’d been about to write something like ‘Your taste in drinks is really fucking terrible’ but softened the content a bit. He had a premonition that if he hurt their pride too severely, there wouldn’t be a next time.
He stuck the note right in the center of the desk. It was structured so that the reply content could only be checked by peeling it off and checking the back. Seongjo smiled slightly, then gathered his things and left the spot without lingering.
* * *
The next day, he visited the library again with Eunseo. They happened to have a class together, so their routes overlapped. Eunseo seemed amazed by the fact that Seongjo had followed her to the library.
Unlike the image of chaebols that people generally held, Seongjo diligently lived his university life. Enough that Eunseo and all the other people around him acknowledged it.
However, that diligent university life only meant that of a dissolute college student. That very state of going around drinking with classmates and being preoccupied with playing around.
Just looking at the fact that he’d never been to the library before showed he’d been neglectful of his studies. That said, it wasn’t that he didn’t focus on classes at all, so his grades weren’t to the point of being terrible. In any case, because of that, Eunseo seemed surprised at Seongjo’s uncharacteristic academic enthusiasm.
“I guess it was better than you thought when you came yesterday. I thought you’d come once and never come again.”
“Well, it was decent?”
“Don’t tell me you’re getting attached because you think of it as your own building?”
At the joke that continued again, Seongjo just laughed haha without much comment. He wanted to confess that something fun had happened yesterday, but also wanted to leave it as his own secret. There was also the fact that he’d refrained because if he actually said it out loud, it didn’t seem like it would sound very enjoyable.
Had that owner checked the reply to the note he’d left yesterday? If they had the dedication to personally get a vending machine drink and leave a memo, wouldn’t they have noticed the Post-it that remained? He thought that owner must have retrieved the reply.
Seongjo deliberately drew the same seat number ticket as yesterday and entered the reading room. When he confirmed that spot from afar and discovered the drink placed on the desk, he felt happy enough to want to laugh out loud again.
Unlike Seongjo who was delighted, Eunseo saw the spot with a can already placed there and poked Seongjo’s bag repeatedly as if puzzled.
“Didn’t someone reserve it? Want to switch to another spot?”
To Eunseo’s whispered words, Seongjo shook his head saying it was fine. Eunseo had an expression like ‘what’s fine about it,’ but didn’t press further and moved toward the opposite side from Seongjo. She seemed not to want to pay more attention to it.
The reason their seats were separated was the result of mutual agreement between the two, thinking that if they sat side by side in adjacent seats, they might just be mistaken for a couple. Thanks to that, he could leisurely check the unidentified gift by himself alone.
Before even sitting down, Seongjo put down his bag and checked the drink can. Like yesterday, a yellow Post-it was attached, but it wasn’t the same guava orange drink as yesterday.
[Are you going to keep coming? If so, change vibration to silent mode, and don’t let people get close.]
Seeing that the drink had been changed, it was certain they’d read the note, but the fact that they didn’t say a single word about that part made it even more amusing and appealing.
Seongjo had almost no memory of receiving orders from anyone. This was because peers naturally found Seongjo intimidating, and not only household servants but even some teachers often fawned over Seongjo. Since his father and grandfather had also raised Seongjo indulgently, this result was even more pronounced.
Therefore, the commanding tone written in the note was unfamiliar to Seongjo. But perhaps because he hadn’t heard it directly in spoken words but only read the writing, he didn’t feel bad and rather felt as happy as yesterday.
Seongjo changed his phone to silent mode as the neat handwriting instructed. Since he’d turned away several people yesterday, there would be few or no people approaching to talk to him today. Even if someone did approach, he just had to bear the annoyance, go outside to have a conversation, and come back in.
Then there would be nothing more to nitpick about. If there was nothing left to nitpick, would the notes disappear starting tomorrow?
Lost in such thoughts, Seongjo finished that day’s worth of studying (though the actual time spent studying wasn’t much).
Likewise, instead of retrieving the Post-it, he wrote a reply and stuck it on the spot.
[Today’s one is a bit better.]
It was an evaluation of the drink. Unlike the terrible fruit drink he’d drunk yesterday, it had a passable taste. He wondered whether to write that he’d faithfully listened as the note instructed, but felt awkward as if he’d become a young child boasting achievements to a teacher, so he didn’t write it.
The next day.
Making the thought that the notes might end after two days seem foolish, on that very spot that had become Seongjo’s designated seat in just three days, another drink can was placed.
[If you’re not going to study, what are you coming to the reading room for?]
It was content picking a fight again, but Seongjo liked that persistence. The note of unknown sender that seemed thoroughly aimed only at criticizing Seongjo… no, not quite, at enthusiastically ‘nagging’ Seongjo was amusing. Above all, the fact that when he’d written that yesterday’s drink was decent, today they’d gotten the same drink as yesterday and picked a fight was even more so.
Seongjo opened and drank the beverage, then that day studied enthusiastically as if to show them.
As a reply, he wrote the childish content [But I came to study?]
The exchange continued. The notes came once a day. Like the first day, there was no case where the content changed or was added just because he’d left his seat and returned. Exactly one Post-it per day, usually a short memo not exceeding one or two lines, was the only channel of communication between the two.
In the early days when the note exchange continued, the other party pointed out Seongjo’s not-so-diligent study attitude and the people who kept approaching. Seongjo criticized the simplicity and inflexibility of the other party who brought the same drink for several days just because he’d said it was decent once.
After notes were exchanged a few times that way, the other party started bringing several types of drinks in rotation, and Seongjo transformed into a student who studied quite diligently.
From the time when there was nothing particular to point out anymore, he became curious about how the other party would respond, and the answer was simple. They started nitpicking meaninglessly.
[Your clothes aren’t good]
Seongjo’s outfit always stayed within safe and neat achromatic tones. Unless they were demanding he come wearing brightly colored primary color clothes, it was nonsensical.
[Your hairstyle somehow doesn’t please me]
College student Lee Seongjo maintained a neat hairstyle, like his clothes, with a part at an appropriate place and half slicked back. If they picked on that hairstyle, they’d have to curse about half of male peers together.
Though it was absurd nitpicking, Seongjo evaluated that point positively. He thought the note owner who was making strange complaints was trying to continue this conversation like Seongjo himself.
Seongjo faithfully left replies to all the notes. The other party also never skipped a memo. Every day that Seongjo went to the reading room, without fail, a drink can with a Post-it attached was placed there.
Wondering if there might be abandoned memos and drinks while he didn’t go, Seongjo became increasingly diligent. It was inexplicable what made him go that far for those trivial notes.
Content that had been purely short at first became longer and more varied as time went on. Sometimes there were days that exceeded four lines. It mainly happened when Seongjo left a question requiring a long answer on the back of the Post-it. What was written in the notes was usually either picking meaningless fights with each other or having not-very-important debates.
When Seongjo diligently stamped his attendance at the library, Eunseo in her own way diligently visited the reading room. At first, even though they encountered Seongjo at the library every day, she said nothing special, but gradually her puzzlement seemed to grow.
What he revealed to Eunseo, who kept pressing about what was going on, was on a day when they’d exchanged notes like this.
To [Why is your taste in drinks so picky? What do you expect so much from canned drinks…]
He’d left a note as an answer: [Jjajang vs Jjamppong / Reason too]
When he explained the existence of the notes to Eunseo while holding the Post-it where the other party who preferred jjajangmyeon had sincerely written even the reason, she got excited with a momentum as if beams would shoot from her eyes and said this:
“It’s a girl. One hundred percent!”
