The University Festival
"I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding!"
Cha Yu-jun, president of the ETSD club.
His arrival after a short delay flipped the entire situation on its head.
"We already confirmed everything with the seniors on our side."
"That's exactly what I'm saying — it's a misunderstanding!"
"Then explain."
"We did hear that you were doing cube steak, that much is true, but…"
The standoff with Sora left the other seniors floundering. Yu-jun, however, was the club president — the kind of man who had long since grown calloused to incidents and accidents of every stripe.
Spinning a story just enough to get by is my specialty. Heh.
He had a girlfriend. He also knew that girlfriend hated Sora.
"We saw it too, you know."
"Saw what?"
"The food truck! The Cheon Jong-won style one. We've been planning to do that ourselves for a while."
If he could drive Sora off, his girlfriend would be pleased. He just needed to engineer a situation where the other side had no grounds to complain.
"Then at least fix your prices. Can't you see the damage this is doing to our club?"
"That's going to be difficult."
"…And the reason?"
"I've been saying it from the start — there's a misunderstanding. Yes, we're running the same menu as you. But."
Years of experience. Something Sora simply didn't have. He could patch the story together just well enough to sell it.
"You bought that cheap?"
"Yeah. We go through a lot of volume, right? We know where to source it cheap. And another thing."
"Another thing?"
"We practically give the side dishes away and take our margin on the drinks."
Buying in bulk at a discount was true enough. Matching a five-thousand-won plate, though — that was a stretch no matter how you sliced it.
Would a freshman even know that?
An information gap. Back when he was a freshman himself, he had simply done whatever the seniors told him without a word. She looked sharp enough — he'd heard she came in as the top of her department. Even so, a freshman was a freshman. She still didn't know how the world really worked.
"…"
She seemed to be turning it over carefully, searching his words for any crack she could exploit — analyzing them the way an economics student would. But no matter how hard she thought, only one conclusion presented itself.
"There was someone in front of our booth acting like a shill for your side."
"I'll apologize for that!"
"So you're admitting it?"
"Ah, well~~ festival business is half joke, half actual war, you know? Looks like one of my friends crossed a line trying to help our sales. I'll make sure nothing like that happens again."
It wasn't airtight. He could have stonewalled completely. But he judged that admitting a little was the smarter play — mixing truth into the lie. The other side would start second-guessing their own thoughts and end up following his lead.
I do feel a little bad about deceiving her like this.
Part of him genuinely wanted to get along with her. She had the kind of face that made that impulse inevitable. No wonder the club members had been standing there like idiots. He might have done the same.
Pinch!
He had a girlfriend. Juha pinched his forearm.
Don't even think about it. Better to score points with the girlfriend standing right beside him than to reach for fruit he could never pick.
"Ahem! Ahem! Anyway, let's put this misunderstanding to rest here."
"A misunderstanding?"
"Like I explained, we make our margin on the drinks. So you guys can just sell your drinks cheap. Yeah — that should work!"
He steered the conversation forward. Sora looked furious, but she couldn't push back. She must not have found the words. Those pretty lips of hers worked uselessly, chewing on nothing.
"Or do you have some other objection?"
"No. Excuse me for the trouble."
She walked out of the booth. Only then did sighs of relief break out all around. It had been a hair-trigger situation — if she had actually lost her temper, even the seniors wouldn't have known how to handle it.
Just you wait. I'll beat you for sure.
Sora hadn't been able to avoid the pressure either. Seniors she had never even seen before had been lined up in ranks — the place might as well have been enemy territory. She wiped away the tears beading at the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand and headed back.
"…That's what happened."
"What?!"
"That's completely out of line!"
"Let's go wreck them!"
"Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!"
It was more than enough to set the male seniors of the Stock Club on fire. What had they even joined this club for?
"We can't do that."
Realistically, they couldn't win. Not in numbers, not in seniority, not in justification — they had nothing.
It was maddening, but she couldn't argue. She hadn't found a single hole in the other side's logic. Only one option remained: steel herself and beat them fair and square.
"Just because they're fighting dirty doesn't mean we should sink to their level."
"Then…"
"Honestly, competing on price is going to be tough."
Of course it wouldn't be easy. As one of the members had said, the other side was practically giving the food away. Even if their own club pushed itself to the limit, six thousand won was the best they could manage. Competing on price would just be—
Cutting into our own flesh.
Selling drinks cheap, the way the ETSD president had suggested, was an option too. But the logic was the same. No profit on the food, no profit on the drinks? They'd be better off returning the ingredients.
"What if we increase the vegetable ratio?"
"Oh, that's good."
"But that means a lot more prep work."
"We'll handle the kitchen — leave it to us!"
They were the economics department. They would find a way to be clever somehow. And the members' enthusiasm was fierce.
Sora clenched her fist tight. She couldn't just stand around either. She decided to throw her own weight behind them.
"Then I'll bring in as many customers as I can."
"Sora?"
"If Sora's doing it, people will definitely come!"
"But are you sure you're okay with that?"
Hye-ri asked, looking worried. Until now it had been Hye-ri and a few of the other girls handling that side of things — because Sora hated using her looks. Not that Hye-ri enjoyed it either.
I have to. I'll win no matter what it takes.
That bastard would have said exactly that. That was why he'd said those filthy things in the first place. A hostess club. She had zero intention of going that far — but anything she could use, she would use.
"Come to think of it, I don't see Senior Chan-wook anywhere."
"He's not actually off gambling, is he?"
"With that guy, it wouldn't surprise me."
There was no other way. And Chan-wook, who always seemed to pull some miraculous solution out of thin air, was nowhere to be found.
He'd only get in the way.
Put him on customer service and he'd pick a fight with the guests. Put him on hustling and he'd advertise the booth as some kind of shady establishment. Him staying put was the biggest help he could give. But right now, even a pair of tiny hands would be useful.
"Should I go find him?"
"Do you have any idea where he is?"
"Yeah."
"Then please."
Even if they just put him on grunt work, it would help a little. And it would help with her own stress, too.
Where the hell has he crawled off to this time?
Hye-ri left to find Chan-wook. Watching her back disappear, the club members pulled together. The other side had the edge in business experience. Ingredients, maybe even skill — there wasn't a single area where they held the advantage.
"We might not be able to win… but we are not going to take this lying down. We give everything we've got and push the sales as high as we can."
Even so, they would stand and fight. If they threw everything into it, they might at least put a dent in the other side's numbers.
"Let's go! Let's go! Fighting!"
Slurp.
A university festival. A place that had never had anything to do with me.
No friends, no college, no job.
I had opened my eyes early to the three principles of a successful life. It was a creed I still lived by. Why waste time on studying that never helped anyone, or on networking? That was just throwing your life away. I had followed the rule so thoroughly that I never cultivated any friends. I didn't regret it.
"Something like that happened?"
"Yes. Isn't it completely unfair?"
"Yeah. That's rough."
"Kyaa♡"
Just one thing. There was a single point on which I had envied the ordinary social types living ordinary lives.
Never getting to eat the most delicious things at the most delicious time.
Fruit tastes best in season. Women have a delicious season too.
I bit into Hye-ri's peach-soft lips. They were so tender and plush they felt ready to melt. A light suck, and sweet juice welled up. It was a place I could have spent any amount of time exploring.
God, this is insanely good.
I was starting to understand why Ken Fisher gave the advice he did to young people — why he told them to enjoy it while they were young. I traced those white teeth gently and slipped my tongue inside. The interior was soft beyond belief.
The height difference. Water flows downhill; there was nothing to be done about that. Saliva she hadn't managed to swallow came through, and Hye-ri drank mine down like a baby bird taking food from its mother.
"Mmm~ so good."
"Oppa, if you keep kissing me, we won't get anywhere with the conversation…"
"What am I supposed to do when something this delicious is right in front of me?"
I was the type who couldn't hold back when something tasty was within reach. An empty lecture hall. Outside, the festival was in full noisy swing. Places that were always crowded had a blind spot — and that only made it more exciting. Even the same idle fooling around felt fresher when you did it at school.
Kids who got caught doing yass in lecture halls. People badmouthed them to their faces and envied them behind their backs. I was fulfilling a wish I never got to live out when I was young.
"So I was hoping you could help us, oppa."
"Help how?"
"If it's you… isn't there something you could do? You're a pretty good cook, too."
I had cooked for Hye-ri before. Just throwing together whatever was in the house, nothing more.
A completely different league from the little house games you kids play.
It would be a significant asset. The problem was that one person's strength alone wasn't going to turn this around.
"Depends on what Hye-ri does for me."
"Me?"
"There are a lot of pretty girls walking around out there. Not as pretty as Hye-ri, though."
"Ah♡"
Still holding her close, I gripped one cheek of her ass firmly in my hand. Soft as if it had a fine down over it — that baby-soft texture. You could only feel this at the delicious age of twenty. Never any other time.
Ah, I want to use her.
I wanted to use that hot, tight little hole a couple of times. But the place was the place. Hye-ri's tastes ran closer to ordinary. Skinship was about as far as the line would stretch.
"You smell amazing. Did you put on perfume?"
"A little. Oppa, you smell like sweat."
"…"
"That's why I like it."
Even now we were stealing our pleasure in a corner the windows couldn't see. Hye-ri rubbed her forehead against my chest. When I looked down, the valley inside her white tank top came into view — surprisingly well-padded for her size.
"Hoo… hoo…"
She breathed against me. A small sound, but in an empty lecture hall it carried.
"It's strong. Something really strong about the smell…"
"And my lips?"
"I want to."
Another kiss. Even when I put my hand somewhere improper, she accepted it. Raising the sense of openness little by little would be enough.
When our mouths parted, a thread of saliva still connected us. Her roughened breath brushed against me at close range. Starting today, I would unlock things one by one.
"Does my spit taste good?"
"Yes."
"Want to try something that tastes even better?"
"What… is it?"
"Here."
I pointed at my zipper with a finger. The main event was off the table, but something simpler than that was worth testing.
Even when we do it, she's the kind of baby who just lies on the bed and clings.
I would teach her how to make a man feel good, too. Something must have clicked — her face went red. Her heart was hammering against me. She didn't look entirely uninterested.
"I've never done anything like that before."
"That's why you need the experience. There's not a guy alive who doesn't like this."
"Then… I'll just try. Just try. You have to keep a proper lookout, okay?"
Her body was warm, too. After all the touching and kissing for this long, she had to be worked up.
Yeah. Everything is experience.
In every field. Sora was stacking up experiences of her own, one by one — especially in economics. If she never learned how to fight her way through on her own, someday she would be shipwrecked on an ocean as wide as the Pacific.
Slurp. Slurp♡
Hye-ri's experiences, I could teach. Sora's experiences were the kind no one could teach for her.
I can at least teach her the bitter taste of life, though.
An investor who pursued self-interest. Private equity wasn't something just anyone could pull off.