The Subconscious Diary (1)

"The standing of popular culture in modern society extends beyond mere forms of consumption…."

The professor's voice made for an excellent lullaby. That was just how things went after lunch. Even if you didn't want to sleep, it was the hour when sleep came for you anyway.

I was no exception, parked in the very back row with my face buried in the desk.

Yep. Civil service track for liberal arts majors. Who needs a GPA?

Ever since I'd forced through a department transfer last semester, my schedule had gotten tangled in more ways than one. Sitting through a general education lecture, I couldn't even muster the interest to follow what was being said — much less any motivation.

Then again, switching from the middle-and-high-school teaching track to the Grade 9 / Grade 7 civil service track was a pretty drastic pivot. Even I found my own state of mind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hard to deal with. It felt like I was just wasting time at university.

But I didn't regret it. Honestly, figuring out my aptitude this early was the smart move.

Yep. Kids are the absolute worst. I am never becoming a teacher.

I'd learned that the hard way while tutoring. I was simply not cut out to teach anyone!

"Hwaaam—"

Class had just wrapped up, and I was lifting my head to check the clock above the blackboard when it happened.

What the hell is this supposed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to be.

Something weird was floating in front of my eyes.

School? Teacher? I squeezed my eyes shut hard and opened them again, but the text refused to disappear.

What kind of insane nonsense was this?

I'd transferred out of education ages ago — what teacher appointment? Attendance Book? And what was this about a diary?

Diaries? I only wrote those back in elementary school. Isn't this a little off?

Honestly, even elementary schoolers probably didn't keep diaries these days.

I must actually be losing it.

The stress had finally fried my brain. That much was obvious.

And then—

Chaak—

"Uagh!"

A sudden chill against my neck made me flinch hard and shrink into myself. When I looked up, a familiar face was grinning down at me.

"Our little junior's living the high life, huh? Switching departments really put your mind at ease? Sleeping through a gen-ed with drool and everything."

Her long, jet-black straight hair swayed. Those big, open eyes curved into playful crescents. As she leaned over the desk, her thin sweater made a heavy, unmistakable presence impossible to ignore.

Kang Eugene, my senior. A third-year in the English Literature department who'd repeated a year, making her one year older than me — even with my military service under my belt.

"When did you get here, Senior?"

"Just now. You were staring into empty air with that totally blank look on your face. What were you looking at? The clock?"

She held out the can of electrolyte drink she'd been carrying — the very cold weapon that had just assaulted the back of my neck.

"No, just… I haven't fully woken up yet. Seeing things a little."

I took the can and pressed my fingers to my brow. The window floating in midair still hadn't gone away.

Maybe I should just ignore it for now…

The truth was, Senior Eugene was also the person who'd unintentionally steered me onto the path of transferring. Saying it like that made it sound like I'd been gaslit or something, but it wasn't like that.

We'd just happened to tutor the same student and naturally started talking. Once we got close, she'd recommended me a bunch of tutoring gigs. The problem was that taking those students on had made me feel my own limits down to the bone.

The elementary schooler who threw things mid-lesson. The high schooler who walked in reeking of cigarette smoke. The creepy parents who dug into my private life every night. After surviving those hellish few months, every last shred of romantic illusion I'd ever held about teaching someone had been smashed to pieces.

It wasn't simply a teaching-career problem. More precisely, the very act of instructing anyone had become something I hated.

I can barely breathe handling a single tutoring session — and you want me to sit a dozen kids down and teach a class? That's insane.

Done. Over it.

Anyone would say I'd come out behind on the deal, but fuck, like I didn't already know that? I'd never had some grand sense of mission, so there was no lingering attachment. The only thing that still burned was how unfair it felt to have poured all that effort into something for nothing.

"What's with that face? Thinking about the tutoring stuff again? Ugh, still holding a grudge? I bought you meals, I bought you drinks — I did everything!"

She clicked her tongue at my sour expression.

"Here. Drink this and snap out of it."

She clapped me on the shoulder and laughed with that big, easy laugh of hers. The good-natured smile that was uniquely hers. I knew there was no malice in it, but sometimes that sunny attitude still got on my nerves.

I cracked the can open and chugged the cold drink.

"Still, transferring did put some color back in your face. Before, you used to walk around looking like a zombie."

"I'm still a corpse."

"Drama queen."

That was the moment.

Excuse me?

No — hang on. Who said you could just register someone on your own?

And more than that, registering Eugene — a university student — in an Attendance Book? It had been talking about checking elementary school diaries a second ago, and now this hallucination was treating a fully grown senior like a student?

"Senior."

"Hm?"

"Senior, do you happen to keep a diary these days?"

At my completely random question, Eugene snorted.

"A diary? Am I in elementary school? I'm lucky if I scribble assignment deadlines in a planner."

"So you do have a planner, then?"

"Why? Gonna snoop through it?"

"…Maybe?"

"What's wrong with you, you little pervert. Heh."

So what kind of diary is it even collecting, then?

"Oh right — you transferred into our department. You're coming to the welcome party, yeah? We've got the semester kickoff this Friday, then a meat-house dinner after."

"The kickoff party?"

"Yeah. You transferred in, so the only person you know in this department is me. If you don't want to end up a total loner, you should show up."

She grinned playfully and tapped my shoulder.

But right now my head was about to explode from the hallucination floating in front of my face.

"Uh… I'll think about it."

"Think about what. Just come. I'll look out for you, okay?"

…Was this senior just trying to add another crush to her aquarium? I knew she took decent care of me in her own way, but considering how many guy friends she already had hanging around her, this kind of kindness didn't exactly fill me with pure joy.

Which number guy friend was I? What slot was I in her messenger chats? Wait — was it already double digits?

I opened my mouth to say something, but she was already on her feet before I could get a word out.

A light shampoo scent drifted past me.

"I'm heading out first. Got another class."

She waved and slipped out through the back door of the lecture hall. By then, every other student had already cleared out. I let out a long breath and sank back against the chair.

"Huuu…."

Today really was weird…. I had been pretty exhausted lately, that much was true. The past few months of tutoring stress, plus all the nights I'd stayed up fretting over the transfer — there had been plenty of those.

I'm going to bed early no matter what tonight. Sleep it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠off properly and everything should be fine by morning.

I grabbed my bag in a hurry and left the lecture hall. All I wanted was to collapse onto my bed and pass out on the spot.

Beep—!

Beep—! Beep—!

"Nngh…."

A racket going off right by my head snapped my eyes open. I'd thought it was my phone alarm, but the sound wasn't coming from beside my ear — it was ringing directly inside my skull.

"Ah, shit. This again?"

I'd figured it would be gone once I woke up. And here it was again?

Ha. Fuck. Relentless little bastard. Fine — I'll look. Happy?

I waved my hand in irritation, and the book in front of my vision flipped open with a soft rustle, revealing the first page.

"……."

Ha.

You've got to be kidding me.

What was this? The sentences were so childish they genuinely read like something an elementary schooler had written. There was no way she'd written this herself, right? The real showstopper was the last line.

Went to the library and reviewed major material for three hours?

Kang Eugene? Her, of all people?

The senior I knew wouldn't go anywhere near a library if her life depended on it. Even during exam season she crammed at cafés — she was absolutely not the type to plant her ass down and study properly.

"Correct the lies? How am I supposed to know what actually happened. You want me to stalk her all day?"

Irritation surged up. What a completely useless ability.

Then another system message appeared.

"Spelling Checker?"

Come to think of it, I vaguely remembered hearing something like that back at school….

Going all out, aren't we.

Fine. I'll do it. Just let me use the damn thing.

I pressed the token-use button firmly.

In an instant my vision went dark, and a new landscape unfurled. Footage began playing in midair like a movie theater screen.

Huh?

The video raced along at triple speed.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Is this… Senior's day? Everything she did today?

It didn't show every single moment — more like selected scenes, one after another, broken up by time of day.

In the footage, Kang Eugene wasn't looking at the professor's face at all. Her head was slumped under the desk, and her fingers were flying across her smartphone screen like mad. Messaging chat windows scrolled past without pause. At triple speed it was hard to follow, but luckily she'd spent a solid hour on her chats, so there was enough observation time.

I couldn't make out the names clearly, but the other party kept changing — she definitely wasn't talking to just one or two people!

How many people is she even texting.

So this was the life of a natural-born extrovert…? Almost impressive, honestly.

The lunchtime scenes came next. Male underclassmen and classmates constantly swarmed around her. Whenever she gave them that eye-smile, linked arms, or casually tapped a shoulder, the guys grinned like idiots. The whole social circuit — free meals, bought coffees — whipped past at triple speed.

And finally, the scene right after the afternoon class where she'd run into me played out. Senior pressing a cold can against the neck of me face-down on the desk. That short conversation ended, and her footsteps leaving the lecture hall headed straight for a large PC Bang with a glittering sign, tucked into a corner alley of the university district.

Of course.

The way her hand clicked the game icon on the desktop the second the computer booted up was anything but casual.

What followed was a rapid-fire montage of her hammering the keyboard like she meant to break it and whipping the mouse around. Watching her jab a finger at the screen through her headset, lips moving nonstop, I was certain she was inquiring after her teammates' family members.

Meanwhile, down at the bottom of the monitor, ramen, skewered rice cakes, and iced tea got delivered. The sight of her combat-typing while vacuuming up ramen between rounds stood in perfect opposition to that final diary line — "As expected, I'm a model student."

Three hours.

Not the library. She'd spent exactly three hours wrecking games at the PC Bang, then headed back to her studio apartment patting her full stomach.

Pop—!

The moment the footage ended, my vision snapped back to normal. The dark ceiling of my studio apartment filled my eyes.

I was stunned.

"Guess I have no choice but to believe it now."

Peering into someone else's day.

There were things you could dismiss as delusion — and things you couldn't.