Wallet
Wallet
"Haaaahm...."
It had only been a week since the semester started, and I was already bored and tired to death.
Wasn't this what people called the post-break slump?
I had played too hard after the semester ended, and now my body was hitting back.
There was a reason people said even too much fun was no good.
Still, if I could just get through this one class, tomorrow was a free day, and then it was straight into the weekend.
Time that working folks might as well call a holiday, and I could rest through it.
Going on a date this week was probably out of the question.
It would be better to just quietly laze around at home.
The class seemed to be winding down; the professor gathered up the textbook
and turned off the projector.
Now if she just raised the screen, everything would be over.
But, defying us undergrads' expectations,
the professor suddenly turned the projector back on.
Wearing an expression that said she had just remembered something, she went "Heo-heo"
and laughed.
This was a little unsettling...
"Ah, right... I completely forgot about the assignment."
I knew it.
Why were my gloomy premonitions never wrong?
Our department head professor, who had broken the immutable law of doing only OT on the first day of the semester,
seemed to have come thoroughly prepared.
She plugged a USB into the computer, pulled up a file, double-clicked it,
and brought the screen up on the huge projector.
"Ah, but don't worry, at least it's not a group assignment this time."
At the words "not a group assignment," the classmates and seniors around me
let out sighs of relief.
Especially the seniors who had come back from military service had this look in their eyes like they'd been saved, practically gleaming with hope.
They had almost ended up stuck doing a group project sandwiched between juniors they hadn't even gotten properly close to yet
and hadn't managed to fit in with.
If it were me... ugh.
I didn't even want to imagine it.
"The topic is a report on the development process of volunteerism. The scope covers from the embryonic period we learned today to the development period. Font size 8pt, minimum 3 pages up to a maximum of 10 pages. The deadline is next week. Late submissions will be penalized 2 points per day."
The professor's explanation ended, and everyone pulled out their phones and started taking pictures of the screen.
The Volunteerism course so far wasn't too hard, and since it included Western history topics like British or American history—which I had found interesting back in world history class—it didn't seem so bad.
Yeah... now this was what an assignment should be...
Assignments ought to focus on gauging individual ability,
not place their weight on teamwork.
Mm-hmm.
"But by embryonic period, does that mean from the emergence of humanist thought? Or from the time of the Glorious Revolution?"
"It's a little ambiguous."
In social welfare studies, volunteerism is considered to have first appeared during the era of the Stuart dynasty in England.
During the period of unrest across England from the Glorious Revolution and the like,
the vigilante groups that rose up to protect their own villages apparently started being called volunteers.
"But in the end, isn't that just the origin of the term? Since the root of the ideology is humanism,
the humanist ideas and the era of mercantilism are probably where it starts."
Lee Min-ho folded his arms and nodded.
This guy was snoring and sleeping right up until the assignment was given,
so how did he grasp that kind of content?
"Even if it looks like I'm sleeping, I'm not sleeping."
"Anyway, he's a peculiar guy. This is why he can't ever date anyone."
"A frog forgets its tadpole days, and a little bastard who was mo-ssol until just recently is saying stuff like that..."
Jeong Hwan-yi had recently started dating
Song Jae-yeon, whose number he'd gotten at a steakhouse,
after they'd grown closer.
I hadn't been paying much attention since then, so I didn't know,
but they'd been going on dates every weekend and building their relationship, and Song Jae-yeon had confessed first.
I had no idea why the person whose number got taken ended up being the one to confess,
but something about it felt a little strange.
"So? Do you have time to be standing around here?"
I smirked at Jeong Hwan-yi and urged him to check the time.
The guy who'd been going on about his date and saying he'd leave first—
was it really okay for him to be here chatting with us?
"Ah, crap, I gotta go. I'm heading out first."
"Yeah, get lost, you disloyal bastard."
Lee Min-ho hung his head, now saying he was the only mo-ssol left.
He was decent-looking too,
so why couldn't he get a girl?
"If I knew that, do you think I'd be like this?"
"Well... I guess you're right."
Lee Min-ho, having said the most obvious thing possible, packed up his bag and stood up.
I grabbed my bag and got up from my chair too.
***
"Huh?"
Lee Min-ho and I came out of the department building and into the parking lot.
Since all the classes were over, the only cars were the professors' cars,
and the only car that looked like it belonged to an undergrad was my Porsche Cayenne.
But, in the spot where my car should have been, instead of a car,
something else was lying on the ground. I went closer to see what it was.
"Why is there a wallet on the ground?"
I picked up the wallet that was nicely parked in the parking lot.
The black wallet—maybe it was even a luxury brand—looked a little plain on the outside,
but the inside was decorated somewhat ornately.
Was this what they meant when they said luxury was more beautiful in what isn't seen than what is seen?
"What are you doing?"
"This."
"A wallet? What, did you find it?"
"Yeah."
When I nodded, Lee Min-ho took the wallet from my hand.
Then, he suddenly opened the wallet to check what was inside,
so I grabbed his sleeve and dragged him somewhere out of sight.
"What are you doing! If you do that, you'll get arrested for embezzlement of lost property or something?!"
Money left unpulled from an ATM, a dropped wallet, a wad of cash—
if you pick up that kind of thing and it goes wrong, you're in huge trouble.
Especially on a campus where CCTV covers everything.
"Idiot, I'm looking for an ID or student card. We have to find it and return it."
"How are we supposed to return it... If they dropped it in the parking lot, they probably went home already."
"If we post it on Everytime, a close friend or someone from their department will let them know."
And then Lee Min-ho, who had been rummaging through the wallet, said "Found it,"
and pulled out a card.
The shape was a bit different from ours, but it seemed to be a student ID.
"Department of Social Welfare... night class."
"If it's night class, doesn't class start soon? Then why is this in the parking lot?"
"She must've stopped by briefly and then gone somewhere."
I looked closely at the student ID Lee Min-ho was holding.
The photo was of a really pretty noona, 24 years old, four years older than us.
In the ID photo, she was wearing a suit,
and from the employee ID hanging around her neck, she seemed to be a cool noona
who was working a job while studying hard.
"Hmm... I think I've got the time..."
"For what?"
"This wallet. I'm going to return it in person."
"What?"
For a moment, I was taken aback.
Lee Min-ho was a guy who hated troublesome things,
so I'd thought that even if he picked up something like a wallet, he'd just leave it there and go on his own way.
But instead of leaving it at a convenience store or the department office,
he said he'd return it in person.
Well, he was a guy with plenty of money, so it wasn't like he was hoping for a reward or anything.
"You saw the ID photo, right?"
"Huh? Yeah... she was a pretty noona."
"She's exactly my type. I'm gonna try hitting on her."
"...."
Yeah, that figured.
Even though we had just been having a conversation about dating moments ago,
the fact that I hadn't even imagined it would lead to this meant I was the idiot.
Lee Min-ho had said he liked older women who could hold him.
That was why he was always going out drinking and hanging around female upperclassmen.
"Actually, do you know the reason I haven't dated until now?"
"Your drinking habits?"
"Ugh! No, that's not it. I like women who genuinely like me,
not women who just want my body."
"Well... that's only natural."
"Right, I thought you, of all people, would understand."
Lee Min-ho nodded.
He seemed satisfied
that I, a married man no less, agreed with his philosophy.
"But, after seeing this noona's photo... how should I put it? Should I say I fell for her at first sight?"
"You haven't even exchanged a single word with her and you fell for her?"
"Listen. It's to the point where, even if this noona wasn't just after my body
but even bossed me around so much I couldn't drink, I think I'd still like it."
"........"
I brought my hand to my forehead.
For a moment, I almost screamed from the sudden headache that hit me.
It wasn't that I was taking issue with someone falling for a person from a photo.
In the old days, people got married without even seeing each other's faces once before the wedding,
and many of them became happily devoted couples.
But, the reason my head hurt right now
was because of the sight of Lee Min-ho, who was already greedily gulping down the kimchi soup.
He had an expression on his face that said he was confident he could charm her no matter what,
so in his mind, them dating was already a sure thing.
Well, it was true that when a man confessed, there weren't many women who refused...
On top of that, I was strangely shocked
that Lee Min-ho, who had only ever valued pure love, had suddenly changed like this.
"Anyway, night class is just starting, so I'm gonna wait until this noona shows up."
"Haah...."
I checked my watch.
Today was a day A-ra had a program shoot, so she'd probably only be coming in around dawn.
That meant I didn't need to rush home and prepare dinner.
As long as I got home by 9 o'clock, the curfew A-ra had set, it should be fine.
"Hey, I'll wait with you."
"Huh? You're not going home?"
"A-ra Noona is coming home late today too, so I've got nothing to do."
"Yeah? Then I'll get her number, and we'll just go grab something to eat."
Lee Min-ho nodded.
I felt a little relieved seeing that.
So he was only planning to get her number and call it a night.
How glad I was that he hadn't said anything about heading straight to a motel after drinking.