Chapter 57: True Education
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 57: True Education
“I’ll go talk to the others first. Don’t let it get to you.”
“It won’t,” I replied with an awkward smile.
Senior Min Ju-hee studied my expression for a moment before giving my shoulder a supportive pat. “Yeah, you don’t seem like the type to get hurt over something like this.”
“……”
“Still, it must feel unfair, so I’ll let them know. I’ll tell them not to get any weird ideas.”
I doubted they’d believe her even if she told them, but it didn’t feel bad knowing that Senior Ju-hee trusted me and wasn’t swayed by those rumors. It meant she had absolute faith in me, after all.
I guess I haven’t lived my college life too poorly.
At least I had one cool senior who believed in me. I left the explaining to Ju-hee and went back to work.
“So, this is where the Sex Master was hiding?”
I heard Yoo Ah-rin’s voice from behind. When I turned around with a frown, she was looking at me with a mischievous, playful grin.
“Aha, so that’s why you were looking for him? Were you really that desperate for sex?”
“……”
“Should I try to set you up with someone?”
“Get lost before I kill you.”
“Pwahaha! That’s hilarious. But seriously, didn’t Anonymous 11 snipe you? How did everything line up so perfectly?”
“It’s a coincidence. He really doesn’t know anything.”
In the first place, the gender was wrong. There was no way Anonymous 90 knew anything about Seo Ye-rin. At my firm response, Yoo Ah-rin let out a soft breath and asked, “Since you’re saying that, I guess Anonymous 90 was wrong?”
When I gave a silent nod of affirmation, she asked with a triumphant smirk, “What about the English Literature Department part? He got that right.”
“Probably a lucky guess.”
“Tsk, tsk. You dummy.”
Ah-rin clicked her tongue and crossed her arms, her voice brimming with confidence. “Even I could see that the guesses for the second and third days were just shots in the dark. It was basically a fifty-fifty chance, right?”
“Either they’re a loner or they’re not. But it’s rare for someone who spams the board every day saying they want sex to be an insider.”
It was a gamble worth taking.
“Either a guy or a girl. Another fifty-fifty. Since it’s more likely to be a guy, he just went with that.”
“……”
Watching Ah-rin’s confident display, I found myself getting drawn into the conversation.
“But what about the English Literature Department? There are so many departments in our university, yet he pinpointed that one.”
“What’s your point?”
“Ugh.”
Complaining that I was no fun, Ah-rin held out her phone. It showed the posting history of Anonymous 69.
“Anonymous 69?”
“How did he know? To find out, I did exactly what Anonymous 90 did. And then it clicked.”
In the end, Anonymous 90 was essentially a stalker of Anonymous 69. And Ah-rin was saying she had read through Anonymous 69’s posts just like he had.
“If you look, most of it is just useless spam and the same words over and over. Just being a total sex parrot every day.”
Tap.
Ah-rin pointed her finger at the ‘Comments’ section.
“Anonymous 69 doesn’t leave comments often, but do you see what the posts they did comment on have in common?”
Looking at the screen she held out, the answer became clear even if I didn’t want to know.
“……They’re all posts related to the English Literature Department.”
“Exactly!”
At my words, Ah-rin nodded vigorously with a bright smile, looking like she wanted more praise for finding the answer.
“Anonymous 69 commented on every single post related to the English Department. The karaoke sniping incident, the time someone messed up at the Gopchang house, and even when stories about Ye-rin came up.”
“……”
“They’re all English Department posts. So Anonymous 90 made an educated guess. He figured Anonymous 69 might be from the English Department.”
And even if he was wrong…
“He could just shrug it off and say, ‘Oh well, I guess not.’”
Because it was anonymous.
A sharp pain pricked the back of my head. I had been fine until a moment ago, but now a subtle surge of emotion toward this ‘Anonymous 90’ person welled up inside me.
They probably just wrote it for a laugh. They probably just took a stab in the dark, thinking it didn’t matter if they were wrong. Meanwhile, Seo Ye-rin and I had reacted with such frantic, serious desperation.
“I need to meet them.”
I felt a sudden urge to meet this person. I felt like I wouldn’t know what this feeling in my chest was until I saw Anonymous 90 for myself.
“Huh? Meet them? You’re still going to look for them?”
“Yeah. Might as well clear my name while I’m at it.”
“……Want help?”
I shook my head at Ah-rin’s tentative offer. “No, I’ll look on my own. You’ve helped enough already.”
Ah-rin seemed dissatisfied with my lackluster response, pouting her cheeks slightly before quickly walking away.
After that, I focused back on the kitchen work. My assigned part was the spicy stir-fried pork. It took a bit of effort, but it was a menu that could be finished quickly if prepared in advance. I started a trial run to check the taste and see how long it would take to cook here.
“……”
Before I knew it, Seo Ye-rin was standing blankly beside me. She was wearing a white shirt and a black skirt, the same outfit Ah-rin had on earlier. It seemed that was the uniform for the servers.
“Want a taste?”
I asked while keeping my eyes fixed on the pork. Ye-rin nodded eagerly. She must have been hungry.
“Step back a bit. Sauce might splatter on your clothes.”
“Oh, okay!”
She scurried behind my back. She seemed quite excited, standing close to my back and staring intently at the stir-fried pork.
“Woo-jin.”
“Yeah? Just wait a bit.”
“The other kids are saying you write weird things on the Bamboo Forest…”
“……”
What exactly was happening right now?
I turned my head with an incredulous expression, only to find Ye-rin patting my shoulder with a smile like the Virgin Mary, trying to comfort me.
“It’s okay. I know it’s not you.”
Of course you do. Because it’s you.
“And it’s not like it’s a bad thing, right?”
Oh, really?
“Se… sex isn’t something strange. We’re adults now, so it’s time we got used to things like that.”
“……”
“Anyway, I’m rooting for you, Woo-jin. Even if you did write those things on the Bamboo Forest! I will always…!”
Clatter.
I finally set down the frying pan and turned off the gas valve.
“The Sex Master is a bad person.”
I turned toward Ye-rin and made a firm declaration.
“Huh?”
“They’re bad. Spamming the board with stuff like that. Right?”
Startled by my sudden shift, Ye-rin stammered, her hands fluttering nervously. “B-b-but, I heard they… stay within reasonable limits.”
“Come on, there’s no such thing as ‘reasonable limits’ for spamming. If it makes people frown, they’ve crossed the line.”
Ye-rin’s face turned beet red, and her lips quivered as she tried to say something.
“I-if they crossed the line, wouldn’t the Bamboo Forest Manager have banned them already?!”
She was so flustered her voice even cracked. I gave her a bright smile and shook my head.
“Maybe the Manager just gave up. How could anyone think well of someone who just screams ‘sex, sex’ all the time?”
“Se…!”
“See? You can’t even say it. How can you call someone a good person when they say such vulgar words every day like it’s nothing?”
“T-they might not be a ‘good’ person, but they’re probably not a bad person!”
Ye-rin’s eyes were spinning. I took a step toward her and placed my hands on both her shoulders, pinning her so she couldn’t escape.
“And yet, you can’t even bring yourself to say the word ‘sex.’ Isn’t it because you think it’s something you shouldn’t say?”
“N-no! Se… sex isn’t a bad thing!”
“But you can’t say it.”
“Se…! Se…!”
“Se? Se? You can’t say it after all! Deep down, you think Anonymous 69 is a bad person, don’t you?”
“I don’t!”
“Then say it!”
“S-sex!”
Was this what it felt like to shout in a small voice? Ye-rin clasped her hands together and cried out toward the ceiling. I shook my head vigorously like a boxing coach, pressing her even harder.
“That’s right! You idiot! Sex isn’t a bad thing! Why are you so embarrassed?!”
“S-sex!”
“Again!”
“S-se-ex!”
“One more…!”
Just as I was about to shout for her to do it one more time, Choi I-seo came into my view, looking like she couldn’t comprehend what on earth she was witnessing.
“S-sex! Se-ex! Se-ex!”
The moment our eyes met.
“Hey! How can a grown woman just blurt out words like that so recklessly? How shameful!”
I immediately cut ties and tried to stop her.
“S-sex, s-sex…”
But even though I tried to stop her, Ye-rin had lost her senses, her eyes squeezed shut as she continued to mutter under her breath. Eventually, I had to send the overheated Ye-rin outside to get some fresh air.
“What was that?”
Choi I-seo stared at me with an incredulous look. “What exactly happened to make her like that?”
“……”
“My brain can’t even begin to imagine how you reached that situation.”
Naturally. I had also acted out of impulse because of Ye-rin’s reaction, and I was starting to regret it a little. Still, let me make one thing clear.
“It’s not my fault.”
It was clearly Ye-rin’s fault, and she had simply been punished.
“……”
I-seo glared at me with sharp eyes before sighing and getting straight to the point. “Did you see the work schedule posted in the group chat?”
“I did. I barely held back from reporting it to the Labor Office.”
Working from night until dawn with hardly any breaks—it was a disgusting schedule.
“It can’t be helped. I’ll buy you something delicious when we’re on break instead.”
“Well, if you’re buying, I won’t say no.”
There was no reason to refuse when the Department Rep was taking responsibility and offering to treat me.
“Right? Our break times overlap. Let’s walk around together then.”
“Sure… wait, what?”
I was about to answer without thinking, but my lips suddenly froze. It felt a bit like a date. But I-seo was already walking toward the servers.
…Am I overthinking it?
I wondered if she had just said it without any hidden meaning. But before leaving the kitchen tent, I-seo glanced back at me, seeing my confused expression, and gave a small smile.
“It is a date.”
Ah.
“I-I see.”