They had decided to have lunch together. Park Hyeonji stayed in one corner of the cafe’s first floor until around the time Eunha got off work. Fortunately, she wasn’t just waiting around. She seemed busy with personal matters. She stared intently at the laptop she’d brought with her, flipped through documents with a troubled expression, and made phone calls with someone. Even on her day off, it looked like she had an awful lot to do.
After getting off work, they headed to a neat Korean restaurant nearby. While waiting for their order, light conversation mixed with updates on each other’s lives was exchanged. She was a friend they saw maybe three times a year at most. It was especially rare for just the two of them to meet like this, but it wasn’t particularly awkward. Eunha had attended the same middle and high school as Park Hyeonji. They were friends who had stuck together constantly throughout those six years to the point of being sick of it.
A friend who had once been so close and dear.
During lunch, Park Hyeonji broached the subject.
“You know I’m quitting my company soon, right?”
Eunha nodded. He had read such conversations in the group chat several times. The chat room, which included a total of five people including Eunha, accumulated a massive amount of messages every day. Because of that, he hadn’t checked all the information, but Park Hyeonji’s resignation had been mentioned several times, so he knew the gist of it.
These days, she was living a hectic daily life where 24 hours a day weren’t enough. It was because a goal she had long hoped for was approaching a point where it was sufficiently feasible.
Park Hyeonji’s dream, who had been devoted solely to art since childhood, had always been consistent. Becoming famous. Making a significant mark in the industry. Becoming an irreplaceable person, and so on… Anyway, the point was that she wanted to become someone big.
That vague and enormous ambition took clear shape during her university life. Park Hyeonji wanted to create her own brand someday. It started when she was inspired by a senior at school who had achieved great success starting from a small select shop on a street where independent brands gathered.
Once she had designed a concrete career path, there was no hesitation. During her university life, she threw herself into various competitions and external activities, and immediately after graduation, she studied abroad in England for a year. Currently, after two job changes, she was working in the visual communication team at the Korean branch of a certain global fashion house.
While gaining experience, she had stepped onto the starting point of her ultimate goal since the beginning of this year. In between working at the company, she planned concepts and occasionally shared progress updates in the group chat. Once, he had seen her post a photo saying she had started sample work. While preparing things one by one like that, she seemed to have recently made up her mind to resign. Saying she should start focusing in earnest.
“—So I need some support staff, and I thought I’d try recruiting through the school while I’m at it. It brings back old memories, and the department office also stepped forward saying they wanted to introduce someone to me.”
Park Hyeonji wrinkled her nose, saying school connections were great. She herself had experience working a formative part-time job under a school senior during her university days.
She said today she was planning to meet her faculty advisor as well as a close classmate who worked as a teaching assistant in the department office. Along the way, she would also meet the student she had arranged to be introduced to.
Eunha looked at his friend, who was enjoying her own story, with eyes that had become slightly ambiguous. From Park Hyeonji, who had taken on quite the appearance of a proper working adult, seemed to emanate a sparkling aura.
It definitely wasn’t some halfhearted emotion like inferiority. That kind of thing was generally more fitting for people who worked hard at something. However, whenever Eunha watched friends moving forward, he would invariably sink into a feeling of wanting to distance himself somewhere.
Eunha, who had been quietly listening to his friend’s words, smiled slightly.
“I hope it goes well. It’s always been your dream.”
He spoke with only genuine support in mind. Park Hyeonji, who had seemed excited all along, hesitated for a moment. With a slightly cooled, ambiguous face, she paused before carelessly letting out a voice.
“Lee Eunha. You…”
The words weren’t finished. It seemed she became conscious midway and naturally held back what she was going to say. Eunha also lowered his gaze, pretending not to notice.
They were people who had shared their school days. Just as Eunha knew Park Hyeonji, Park Hyeonji knew him just as well. What kind of student Eunha had been, what he liked and what he wanted, what dreams he had dreamed.
Dreams. Dreams, huh.
“Shall we get up if you’re done eating?”
Eunha said plainly. Because this kind of situation had been repeated countless times over the past few years, he could deal with it resolutely with thick skin.
Fortunately, Park Hyeonji didn’t bring up any more serious topics. On the way walking out of the restaurant, conversation at the usual temperature was exchanged. Mostly Park Hyeonji would relentlessly tease Eunha, and Eunha would defend himself by dodging this way and that.
“Anyway, just know this. I’m going to kidnap you if I have to and take you on this trip.”
Park Hyeonji threatened, saying if she brought along Gu Haebin and Kim Sunwoo, what could the likes of him do. Recently, whenever she thought of it, she thoroughly informed him about the trip. The friends’ travel plans, which he had thought were just ceremonial talk, had now been planned quite concretely.
The date was late July. She said it seemed difficult to go abroad, so they planned to enjoy a resort at a villa and briefly travel around domestically.
“Hm? I asked if you got it.”
While he was pretending not to understand properly and playing dumb, they were already at the university’s main gate. He had time to spare anyway. Eunha decided to accompany Park Hyeonji on her afternoon schedule. While staying with a friend he’d met after a while, he intended to at least exchange greetings with Yeonjun briefly.
He didn’t contact him separately. Eunha imagined encountering him like that, as if by chance.
He’ll like it again like a fool… Even with a face worn out from assignments, he would surely show a bright expression like an animal perking up its ears. Eunha unconsciously curled up the corners of his mouth, then erased his expression as if putting on a serious face at Park Hyeonji’s question of why he was suddenly laughing alone.
The College of Fine Arts, which had become somewhat familiar after visiting for a few days, had a disorderly atmosphere. Following behind Park Hyeonji, who walked as familiarly as if it were her own home, Eunha was reminded anew that she had been a member of this place. To think that the person who made him more flustered than anything these days and his old friend were connected as alumni. It was a strange connection.
Though that coincidence was all there was to call it a ‘connection,’ and there didn’t seem to be any particular reason for them to be involved with each other.
They soon arrived in front of the department office. Perhaps because the end of the semester was right around the corner, the corridor was quite crowded with people who had business there. Among them, Eunha’s eyes unconsciously narrowed upon discovering a certain familiar group.
There were a few things he had learned while showing his face to Yeonjun over the past few days. That Yeonjun at school really wasn’t alone. That quite a few people approached him. However, that he had been similarly isolated at the beginning of the semester. The cause of that was those people.
As was typical of arts and physical education departments, Yeonjun’s department also had a small number of students, and the distance between classmates and upperclassmen and underclassmen was close. It was the complete opposite in nature from the atmosphere of high freedom in Eunha’s Business Administration department, where only people who stuck together stuck together.
In a department that operated like a small society like that, it was bound to be greatly influenced by trivial gossip or rumors. They said the ignorant hazing of the old days was gradually disappearing, but it was also true that the influence of upperclassmen was relatively strong.
They wouldn’t be unaware of such things either. That influence. Rather, they probably acted even more brazenly because they knew.
Yeonjun had never mentioned such a topic, but even so, he could see right through it. It was thanks to detecting their ongoing petty meanness with his whole body.
While walking around here for the past few days, Eunha recalled the subtly uncomfortable atmosphere and overtly malicious gazes he felt whenever he encountered them. Upon reaching the conclusion that they must have been creating an atmosphere of isolating him by expressing their private feelings and giving him the cold shoulder like that all along, he had felt extremely unpleasant.
Fortunately, he knew that recently the misunderstanding that had been one-sidedly bought was almost completely cleared up, and he was hanging out with his classmates and some seniors. He had seen several times the sight of people starting conversations with Yeonjun, as if trying to become friends belatedly. That was a future that could happen at any time. Unlike the wishes of that pathetic bunch.
Yeonjun was a person who couldn’t help but become mainstream. It was natural since someone with an appearance that naturally drew attention was perfect in personality as well. It was obvious that they had realized that self-evident reality more keenly than anyone and led the atmosphere. The more he thought about it, the worse their offense really was.
What is there about that kid to bully? Who do they think they are…
Although Eunha, who was entirely an outsider, couldn’t do anything, it was also true that they were detestable enough to make him want to do something.
While Eunha harbored such bitter feelings, Park Hyeonji waited for the people who had gone in ahead to come out. At one point, the teaching assistant who spotted her from inside the office came out into the corridor with a brightly brightened expression.
“Hey. How long has it been?”
Park Hyeonji likewise showed a friendly, pleased expression to the man who greeted her first. While briefly exchanging greetings, the teaching assistant suddenly glanced over Park Hyeonji’s shoulder and raised his eyebrows.
“Huh? You came at just the right timing, Yeongmin-ah. Come in together.”
While Eunha silently watched the teaching assistant beckoning with both hands for Yeongmin to come closer, Park Hyeonji asked him for understanding.
“Can you wait a bit? It won’t take long.”
“It’s fine even if it takes long.”
While answering calmly, his eyes met Yeongmin’s. For a moment, it felt like conscious gazes clashed between them.
The two had never exchanged a word, but they knew of each other’s existence. Because they had already run into each other three times when he was with Yeonjun.
And each time, Eunha had likewise stared piercingly at the group that glared fiercely at Yeonjun. The person in question, Yeonjun, had placated Eunha like that. Hyung. I’m really okay. While saying that.
The student who was arranged to be recommended to Park Hyeonji happened to be that person?
“……”
After they went inside the department office, Eunha sat on a chair in the corridor with his arms crossed and fell into deep thought.
He contemplated the rotten ones who were steadily abusing their power by holding their high grade level and the unique department atmosphere hostage.
So, he understood that such behavior was extremely nasty and childish.
But… in terms of putting oneself in another’s shoes, wouldn’t it not be particularly bad?
Those bastards were the ones who first showed the scariness of school seniors.
It was around the time Eunha was mulling over the particularly solid alumni network of arts and physical education fields. The time when he was exploring a route through which he might be able to intervene.
“Hyung.”
He awoke from his thoughts at the familiar voice. When he raised his head, Yeonjun, holding a single sheet of A4 paper in his hand, was standing right in front of him. His eyes, looking down with a slightly tilted body in puzzlement, were filled with their usual clear light.
“Why are you here?”
It was an extremely excited voice. He, dressed in work clothes, looked somewhat disheveled. Paint was plastered all over his art apron, and the waterproof black arm covers weren’t in much better condition. His hair was more tousled than usual, with its curliness alive. At that somewhat grubby-looking appearance, his throat tickled for a moment. Eunha maintained an indifferent expression and uncrossed his arms.
“Hi.”
