Four pitch-black guys were sitting tightly packed on a worn-out three-person sofa, playing a console game. Taking turns, he’d been just watching for a while already, but it was so fun. The profile of the club president hyung skillfully handling the controller looked really cool.
The first day he visited the club room, Kwon Yunsu’s heart was fully swollen just by the fact that it was a holy site for soccer fanatics. Since he wasn’t the type to be shy around strangers, he wasn’t intimidated even alone and there wasn’t much to be nervous about.
‘Oh, you came?’
The first person to greet him was Kim Younghwan, the freshman club president playing the game right next to him, the person who had been using lackeys when hanging the banner at the booth. He was skilled and relaxed in many ways, so he was a bit surprised when told they were the same freshman. And when he learned he was a repeater, no, a half-repeater who had freshman experience, he thought ‘of course.’
Next to him, the sad creature with short limbs who couldn’t unfold the banner was Song Taesu, majoring in new materials, a guy who talked tremendously, including to himself. The guy cramming his long body into the end of the sofa with a crooked face, picking at Song Taesu’s controls, was Ahn Shinwook, majoring in computer science. He lacks sociability. And,
‘Our club is nothing special. These faces here are everything. Feel free to visit.’
Lee Eunsub, who had given a kind explanation and handed over the membership application, was a repeater majoring in mechanical engineering like the club president hyung. He’s at the library now.
Kwon Yunsu recalled that day’s events and laughed alone in disbelief.
‘Can’t I just come here? The booth….’
Guarding the booth, I want to try that too. When he asked that with sparkling expectations, Kim Younghwan next to Lee Eunsub responded.
‘That won’t work.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we won’t open the booth starting tomorrow.’
‘Why?’
‘You said you’re joining. The college club minimum is five people, and we were exactly four. Now that we meet the requirements, we have to withdraw. Hey, take down the banner.’
‘Yes.’
They tidied up the booth at the speed of light and left. Lee Euishin next to him trembled, saying they were definitely a gang of con artists, but moved Kwon Yunsu made up his mind right at that moment.
‘Jackpot! Being the last key, I feel like Frodo, Euishin-ah.’
And Kim Younghwan said something similar to Kwon Yunsu’s nonsense. The first day Kwon Yunsu visited the club room, at the new semester launch ceremony.
‘Yesterday, this club’s Cinderella was safely caught, so we’re able to launch safely today. It seemed like it would’ve been fine to disappear, but anyway, everyone applaud.’
The only one who laughed “hahaha” and clapped like a seal at those words was Kwon Yunsu. Kim Younghwan’s daily comedy was exactly Kwon Yunsu’s taste.
‘I took over this club from Lee Hakyoung.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘My high school classmate. A sophomore in our department.’
‘Took over? Why?’
‘I owe him quite a bit. Originally, this is a club with a soccer-fanatic mechanical engineering professor sitting as the advisor, but every year it falls short on members and has no achievements and doesn’t do academics, but he won’t let it be abolished no matter what. So among current students, it’s like passing around a bomb. Lee Hakyoung said he just waited for me to enter. To pass this on.’
‘…Why are you saying that now?’
‘Because it’s the club launch ceremony?’
‘Well, it’s not a losing deal, so don’t withdraw. Anyway, when Professor Cheon occasionally calls us, we just go use our bodies a bit, do some translation, watch soccer matches together, mooch some chicken. Once or twice a year? And normally…’
Kim Younghwan took something out of a bundle tucked in the corner and placed it on the desk.
‘We just do this.’
It was the moment Kim, the club president, slipped right into Kwon Yunsu’s heart.
‘Waaaaaaah! PlayStation!!!’
The enthusiastic reaction was solely Kwon Yunsu’s. Kwon Yunsu, who still liked console games more than PC or smartphone games, had often visited PlayStation rooms in a distant neighborhood even in high school. During exam prep, he felt too guilty to ask to buy one, and it felt somehow embarrassing to ask for it as an admission gift, so he’d thought he’d save up allowance from now on to buy it, but that precious thing was right there in front of him.
‘All our club activity reports come from this. We also supplement lacking membership fees by betting with this, and decide who goes to throw out the piled-up trash with this too. Let’s research and discuss diligently from now on. Fighting.’
‘Fighting!’
Kwon Yunsu gave a thumbs up. Ahn Shinwook and Song Taesu had dumbfounded faces, and Lee Eunsub just smiled bitterly as if he knew the whole situation. He owes the club president hyung a debt, Kwon Yunsu thought, and,
‘Then you could’ve taken on the bomb alone, hyung, why did you drag Eunsub hyung in? He said he came because you asked him to.’
‘This guy owes me a big debt from our repeater academy days.’
He was immediately revealed as fact. The club president hyung knows how to draw a big picture. Kwon Yunsu was impressed.
‘Anyway, we’re special.’
This time, Kim Younghwan continued, randomly handing out vitamin drinks one by one.
‘Because nine out of ten guys are crazy about soccer, so it doesn’t have to be a club. That’s become ingrained in engineering students who have no particular hobbies except number games. But we still joined a club. So we like soccer tremendously. Totally special.’
‘Wow….’
‘Whoa.’
‘Jeez.’
It was a truly special and meaningful launch ceremony. Although there were no sunbaes to buy them a meal and they ate delivery lunchboxes by pooling their own money, Kwon Yunsu liked that one meal more than the ten meals he’d mooched from department sunbaes. Of course, Ahn Shinwook and Song Taesu’s faces didn’t look so happy.
‘We got hooked.’
‘Completely hooked.’
‘Why did you join?’
‘…Because it said soccer?’
The strange thing was that despite grumbling like that, the next day and the day after that, he could meet those guys in the club room. And now too. Even at the point 15 minutes before afternoon class, having let the entire lunch hour pass, everyone couldn’t take their eyes off the old TV. It was warm. The feeling of a special night when you’re allowed to sleep at a friend’s house.
“Eat this before going to class.”
When he turned around at the sound of the door opening, Eunsub hyung was coming in holding a school store bag. As always, people who give food are good people.
“I’ll eat well.”
They ate lunch with bread and milk side by side, then scattered in all directions and entered afternoon classes. The afternoon had the only liberal arts class he took with Lee Euishin. Since he’d decided to eat meat with the club members in the evening, he absolutely had to get Lee Euishin’s permission.
“…Was it fun?”
Seeing him grin with even his cheeks flushed, wondering what was so good, the words just wouldn’t come out nicely. Today Kwon Yunsu left home early, barely eating breakfast. Despite not even having morning classes, at a single text saying ‘What are you doing? Are you busy?’ he got excited and left. Earlier than himself who had a 3rd period class. Without even wearing a scarf.
‘Fucking hell. Fucking hell. Fucking hell!!!’
Left alone, Lee Euishin cursed while stomping on Kwon Yunsu’s scarf sprawled on the living room floor with thuds. He didn’t know if soccer idiot Kwon Yunsu was fucking annoying, that bastard Manager Kim who called Kwon Yunsu out at the crack of dawn for no reason was fucking annoying, or if he himself getting pissed off over such a thing was fucking annoying. Probably all three were fucking annoying.
“I’m suddenly motivated in life.”
“Did you completely give up on department life?”
“No, I just stopped by. I properly greeted the hyungs who bought me food, put a circle on the joint MT next month saying I’d go, and borrowed a book from a classmate.”
“You still haven’t bought the liberal arts textbook?”
“Nope.”
Kwon Yunsu grinned. What’s there to smile about like it’s something to brag about? Lee Euishin didn’t know that Kwon Yunsu was saving his allowance to treat them to meat at the club MT scheduled for next weekend.
The liberal arts class they took together was law. Neither of their heads worked well in that direction, so they tended to concentrate only during class. He’s the type who hates making time to study separately more than death, and he had trained his student Kwon Yunsu that way too.
Lee Euishin stared blankly at Kwon Yunsu’s profile as he calmed his excited mood and gradually focused on the class. Rosy cheeks full of vitality, large and clear eyes without double eyelids, lips that always seemed to be chewing on something. …Are you happy? Is it fun? Do you even understand? Lee Euishin became anxious. The country bumpkin’s world was rapidly expanding.
“Hah….”
And he lamented with a low sigh.
If only they had at least two or three classes together. It was impossible to make them completely overlap, but he could have added one or two more liberal arts courses. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to, but it’s all because of that idiot Kwon Yunsu. Thinking of how he stomped his feet during the February course registration period because Kwon Yunsu went on a family trip still makes his teeth grind. It was a miracle that they managed to match even one liberal arts course during the change period.
Not knowing Lee Euishin’s complicated feelings for no reason, Kwon Yunsu scratched at his insides again as soon as class ended.
