Group Project with Strangers
Group Project with Strangers
"Ah... this is bad."
He'd been grinning from ear to ear at the thought of going home and playing with Lil' One, and then suddenly — a group project.
His buoyant mood plummeted like the scraps of Wall Street stock on Black Thursday, crashing past delisting and straight into oblivion.
A group project.
It was one of the things he found most burdensome about attending university right now.
To be honest, when he did group projects with Jeong Hwan-yi and Lee Min-ho, it wasn't really a burden at all.
Because they were his closest friends in life right now.
So rather than feeling burdened, he could even joke around while tackling the assignment.
"Sigh... should I talk to the professor again this time?"
It wasn't about asking for special treatment. It was about asking to work on the group project alone, even if it meant receiving the lowest possible score.
Other elective course professors had understood his special circumstances, and most had nodded and given their permission.
The professor finished explaining the assignment, gathered the attendance sheet and textbook, and exited through the front door.
Before she returned to her office, he needed to go out and talk to her quickly.
He packed his bag and stood up, opened the back door, slipped outside, and turned his steps toward where the professor had headed.
"Professor!"
He called out to her, asking her to stop for a moment, and ran over.
Perhaps because she heard the sound behind her, the professor stopped in place and turned to look at him.
"Hm. You're Yoo Seong-hwan, yes?"
"I'm Yoo Seong-hwan, Class of 2017, Department of Social Welfare."
He bowed his head in greeting.
It seemed she remembered his name.
"Professor, about this group project."
"Yes. Is there a problem?"
"I... actually..."
It wasn't anthropophobia, but he explained his tendency to avoid new people and how other matters could cause trouble for the team members.
And then he began to make his case for handling the entire group project workload by himself.
The professor listened to his story, nodding and lightly stroking her chin.
After he had said everything, she began to think it over carefully.
"First of all, I understand that doing the group project right now is difficult for you."
"Yes..."
"However, this group project is replacing the final exam, so..."
She said that while she very much wanted to let him work alone, the assignment was already scheduled to substitute for the exam, which meant issues of fairness could arise.
What kind of situation was this?
He'd seen assignments used as exam replacements plenty of times, but of all things, the group project had to be the one.
"Ah..."
"I'm sorry. I understand, and I'd like to let you do it alone, but..."
"No, not at all. Thank you for understanding, actually."
It couldn't be helped.
Since it was an exam, he had to receive a grade too, and there couldn't be any issues of fairness.
If he caused a fuss for no reason and it made the news, he wouldn't be able to face the Director or A-ra.
"Sigh... I'll just have to pray I get paired with decent people."
Could he meet good people in a major course where several hundred students attended together?
He just hoped no weirdos got picked.
***
Kka-tok-kka-tok.
He'd gone grocery shopping, come home, and washed up, and now his phone was crying.
Lil' One was barking at the phone.
"Woof!"
"Aww, you little wriggler. What good does barking at the phone do?"
He scooped up Lil' One with one hand, grabbed his phone, and perched on the edge of the bed.
He checked to see who it was, and someone he didn't know was tagging him in the elective course group chat.
[Yoo Seong-hwan: I was washing up. Sorry.]
[Seong Yehwa: Oh! You were washing up.]
[Seong Yehwa: If it's okay, could we talk in a one-on-one chat...]
Just in case, he scrolled up, and sure enough, the professor had already used a program to assign the groups.
She'd said she'd post them right away, and she really was fast.
[Yoo Seong-hwan: Yes.]
He left a short reply and then tapped the profile to send a one-on-one chat message.
Anyway, it was a woman, as expected...
[Yoo Seong-hwan: Hello.]
[Seong Yehwa: Hi! I'll invite you to the group chat right away!]
[Yoo Seong-hwan: Thank you.]
From the looks of it, she was in the middle of a chaotic situation, setting up the group chat and rounding up the team members.
She was working hard even though she wasn't the team leader.
Was it because her grades were on the line?
And then he was invited to the group chat right away.
So the six people currently in the chat room made up one group.
Wasn't that a bit too many?
[Seong Yehwa: All our team members have been invited.]
[Yoo Seong-hwan: Hello.]
"Woof."
"Hey now, wriggler, you have to be quiet."
"Kking..."
It hurt his heart to see Lil' One clinging to him, asking to play, but it hadn't even been a minute since he'd been invited to the project group chat.
They'd start talking about the assignment any second, and disappearing would make him a nuisance, wouldn't it?
"Wriggler. Want to go play by yourself on the terrace?"
"Woof!"
"Yeah, yeah, Daddy has to work, so can you play alone for a little while?"
When he opened the terrace door wide, Lil' One dashed outside in a hurry.
He smiled faintly at the sight, then looked back down at his phone.
[Kim Jae-hee: Wow... this is for real.]
[Seong Yehwa: Please don't talk about things unrelated to the assignment.]
[Kim Jae-hee: Why not?]
What was this?
Suddenly, the back of his head prickled faintly, and he felt a sensation like an ache in his shins and Achilles tendons.
Once in a while, he got this kind of danger signal that warned him of a threat in advance.
"No way... could it be Lil' One..."
Just in case, he got up from the bed and headed to the terrace.
He wandered here and there across the terrace until he reached the spot where the beach chairs were set up.
He saw Lil' One yawning on the chair, enjoying the breeze.
Apparently, it wasn't something related to Lil' One.
"Woof."
"No, you were just getting some fresh air, huh..."
After confirming Lil' One was fine, he pulled out his phone.
He quickly entered A-ra's number on the dial pad, pressed the call button, and held the phone to his ear.
"Nuna."
- Yeah, Seong-hwan-a. Nuna's in the parking lot.
"The apartment parking lot?"
- Yeah. But is something going on?
"No... it's nothing, just please buy me a bottle of cola on your way up."
- How boring. In moments like that, you're supposed to say 'I missed you, Nuna~.'
He couldn't say he'd suddenly gotten worried and called, so he deflected by asking her to buy a bottle of cola.
A-ra was in the parking lot... so what was it, then?
Why on earth had he felt anxious?
"No way... because of the group project?"
Come to think of it, the last chat message he'd seen was 'Why not?'
He remembered it feeling extremely aggressive.
"What the... why are these people suddenly like this?"
He went into the chat room and read the messages, and it was a complete mess.
The two from earlier were tearing into each other and fighting.
[Kim Jae-hee: You crazy XX, cut the BS XX.]
[Seong Yehwa: I said stop cursing.]
No, wait.
It seemed the one causing a ruckus and making a scene wasn't two people, but just one.
He scrolled up to read the history, and that woman named Kim Jae-hee had started picking a fight,
calling someone a teacher's pet and whatever else, blazing up until she was cursing all by herself.
But wasn't 'teacher's pet' a bad word?
Was she talking about him?
[Yoo Seong-hwan: Hey, why are you fighting...]
[Seong Yehwa: I'll make a new room. Please wait a moment.]
[Kim Jae-hee: This XX bitch is trying to make a new room and cut me out.]
Kka-tok-kka-tok.
The alarm went off once more, and when he checked, a new room had been created.
Sure enough, that person from before wasn't in it.
[Seong Yehwa: It seems that person has no intention of working with us, so I left her out and reinvited everyone. Please all leave that other room.]
[Yoo Seong-hwan: What are you planning to do?]
[Seong Yehwa: I'm going to take screenshots and send them to the professor. Doesn't she look like she has no intention of working with us?]
[Yoo Seong-hwan: Heh heh..]
He didn't know how he was supposed to react.
The other team members were going along with it nonchalantly.
Was everyone except him a woman...
"No way, did I get on her radar because I asked to work alone?"
No matter how small the number of male students was, to be the only man in a group of six...
It was absolutely not random.
*
"Seong-hwan-a, give me another bowl of rice."
"Sure, sure."
He took A-ra's rice bowl and got up from his seat.
He opened the rice cooker, scooped up a full serving of rice with the paddle, returned to the table, and held it out to A-ra.
"Eat slowly."
"Yeah."
Even though he told her to eat slowly, he'd grilled the fish A-ra liked today, and she was wolfing it down.
He propped his chin on his hand and watched her with a wry smile.
"But why has your expression been like that since earlier? Is something wrong?"
"My expression? It's nothing."
Had his face crumpled up or something?
He felt his face with his fingers, and it did seem a little distorted.
"Something's up, isn't it?"
"Haa... actually, I have to do a group project."
"Because of an assignment?"
"No..."
He took out his phone and showed A-ra the chat room.
In the chat room, the women were talking among themselves, and some rough words were flying back and forth.
It seemed the rest of them knew each other, except for him and that rage-control patient who'd snapped earlier and was now being ostracized.
"Hmm... this looks like a normal women's group chat?"
"Are all other women's chats like this?"
"Yeah. It's no different from our Queens Members group chat."
A-ra casually dropped an enormous statement.
He put the phone down and started eating again.
So this was a normal women's chat room...?