I Hate Handsome Dicks
"Over here!"
After meeting up with Heekyung, we traded a few quick updates on how we'd been. Then the waiter checked our IDs, and the drinking began in earnest.
"Don't worry about it. Order whatever you want."
Heekyung said it like she was the one picking up the tab, while Jieun and I were still figuring out what to get. I was worried. The place was far too nice for a couple of twenty-year-olds to be throwing money around without a care.
What, is this girl loaded?
The question crossed my mind, but I had no way of knowing. Jieun, though — whether it was because she trusted me or not — started firing off orders without a second thought.
A few minutes later, so much food arrived that there was barely room left on the table. The two girls beamed at the spread like children.
"Hey, this place looks pretty expensive. You sure this is okay?"
I checked one more time before touching any of it. That was when Heekyung, with a wicked little smile, said something I could not believe.
"It's fine. Someone else is paying."
As she said it, Heekyung looked at Jieun. Jieun, catching on, looked at me. And I looked back at Heekyung with the face of a man who had just bitten into a turd.
This bitch.
Not her. Not me. And definitely not Jieun. Which meant a third party. I knew instinctively that someone was about to walk in — and that he would be a pretty damn attractive guy with his eye on Jieun.
And wouldn't you know it, I was right.
"Oppa, over here!"
Heekyung threw her hand up and called someone over. The guy was a textbook alpha male. Tall, built, handsome — he had the full trifecta, and not a shred of decency to go with it.
I wanted to spit out the food I was chewing.
"Say hi. This is an oppa I know."
"Hey. I'm Shin Jeongwoo."
Jieun, mid-bite, found herself returning the greeting before she knew what was happening. Then she snuck a glance at me. Probably because of what she had said back at the hotel.
I leaned toward her and whispered.
"I thought you said you had a conscience."
"N-no. I didn't know about this."
Jieun was so flustered her pupils were actually shaking. Whether she was telling the truth or not, I took another look at the guy.
Fuck this. I need to start working out.
Height and face you were born with — nothing you could do about those. But the body? No excuse. For a second I found myself reflecting on just how weak and lazy I had been.
And just like that, with Shin Jeongwoo crashing the party, the night took a turn.
Jieun kept glancing at me, then finally confronted Heekyung.
"Hey, Heekyung. You never said anything about this."
"What? This oppa saw you on my Stargram and begged me to introduce you. Give it a shot. He's loaded, too."
Heekyung delivered that load of crap with complete confidence.
You little bitch. Just you wait.
While I was silently swearing revenge, Shin Jeongwoo cut in.
"Sorry about that. She said you were a close friend's friend. I just figured it couldn't hurt to put a face to the name."
"Ah. Right."
"You can drop the formalities. I'm not that old. Twenty-two."
True to alpha-male form, the bastard steered the conversation along without a hint of awkwardness. You could tell he had done this before.
Before long, the whole table was running on Shin Jeongwoo's terms.
I had been shoved off to the side before I knew it. Watching him talk to Jieun, I turned to Heekyung.
"Why'd you even bring me tonight?"
"Huh? 'Cause I'd be bored. If those two are off doing their thing, what am I supposed to do?"
"...You're a psycho."
I couldn't help the harsh words. The drinks I had been planning to skip started going down fast.
Meanwhile, Jieun and Shin Jeongwoo's conversation had shifted to college.
"Wait — Seongwoon University?"
"Yeah. I start this year."
"Nice. I'm a sophomore. Engineering, though."
Unbelievably, they went to the same school. Listening from the sidelines, I felt my will to fight drain away a little.
You've gotta be fucking kidding me.
These new-generation alpha males and their ridiculous résumés. It was enough to make your head spin.
Shin Jeongwoo turned to me this time.
"What about you?"
"Oppa, this one's retaking the exam with me. Hehe."
Heekyung, being the lunatic she was, actually giggled as she announced I was a repeater. In that moment, I finally understood why Joseon-era merchants had been so desperate to buy their way into the nobility.
Goddamn academic caste system.
Anyway, this was not a table I was enjoying.
After that, I stayed out of the conversation as much as I could. My instinctive aversion to alpha males had turned me into an outsider at my own night out. I just sipped my drink now and then, listening to the others talk — or, when that got old, killing time on my phone in the Coin Gallery.
The Coin Gallery, especially, was packed with entertaining threads. Perfect for wasting time.
What's this? Why is this guy...?
That was when I spotted a strange message.
The thing was, people on the Coin Gallery treated my inbox like a public utility. They called it the Sacred Reliquary.
They would buy coins, then send me a message praying those coins would moon — like tossing a coin into a wishing well.
As the owner of said inbox, I found the whole thing pretty absurd, but I had learned to live with it. A kind of noblesse oblige, I guess. I had made a killing on coins, so I figured I could afford to be generous.
That was why I periodically logged into the gallery to clean out the Sacred Reliquary — or rather, my inbox. Dead time like tonight was perfect for it.
At least, it was — until I spotted a username I recognized.
I checked the message again.
The subject line didn't matter. I had gotten every kind of title imaginable. What mattered was who had sent it.
Pongpongi.
This was someone I knew. Not in real life — we had crossed paths a few times on the boards. He was the one who had been insisting, over and over, that I wasn't actually a high schooler.
From what I knew, this guy actually understood coins. The kind of person who could walk into a room and call himself an expert without anyone laughing. In other words, he had too much pride to be using something like the Sacred Reliquary.
Curiosity got the better of me. I opened the message.
It was a fairly long write-up. The gist: he was a streamer, and he wanted me to come on his broadcast.
BJ Minjae?
I didn't follow livestreams closely enough to know the details, but he was known as something of a big name. This was not some fifty-viewer, hundred-viewer room.
That was when Jieun, sitting next to me, called my name.
"Dojun!"
"Huh? What?"
"He does coins too."
"Oh, yeah?"
Reading the room, it seemed like Jieun had dragged over a decent conversation starter for my sake, since I clearly wasn't fitting in. I wasn't thrilled, but I threw out a question for her sake.
"How long have you been at it, hyung?"
"Me? About a year."
"Make much?"
"A bit? All in, maybe thirty, forty million."
Shin Jeongwoo said it like he was genuinely proud. I felt nothing. No — more than that. I no longer had any desire to talk coins with this guy.
To be blunt, we weren't in the same league. It wasn't that I looked down on him. It was more like a conversation between a level-one newbie who had just started the game and a burned-out veteran who had maxed every stat and cleared every piece of content.
I didn't know for sure, but we were probably in completely different assets, completely different markets. And the seed money we were working with existed on different planets. Someone rolling hundreds of billions and someone rolling a few tens of millions approached investing in fundamentally different ways. What you could and couldn't do was just too far apart.
That left me with two options: teach him, or start bragging. I didn't like either one.
My attention drifted back to Pongpongi.
"I'm gonna step out and make a call."
I got up from the table, figuring I would get some air while I was at it. Outside, I searched for BJ Minjae. He was still live. Viewers were pushing four thousand. I didn't know the scene well, but for a coin stream, that seemed like a pretty big deal.
Should I text him?
Pongpongi was someone I had wanted to meet at least once, if the chance ever came. Especially since I had learned almost everything I knew about coins on my own. The problem was, I hadn't known he was a streamer.
The more I thought about it, the more complicated it got. And that was when Jieun came out of the restaurant.
"Dojun."
"Why'd you come out?"
Looks like she had come out because she was worried about me again — the guy who couldn't fit in. I felt a little embarrassed.
Fuck. This goddamn inferiority complex.
I knew why, at least. Honestly, it wasn't Shin Jeongwoo's fault. I just couldn't stand alpha males. I didn't want to force a smile and play along.
But what was I supposed to do? No matter how hard I tried, I just didn't want to get friendly with a bunch of handsome dicks.
"It's cold. Go back inside."
"I really didn't know."
"I know."
"Or... want to just leave? The two of us?"
"...We can do that?"
Jieun nodded like she had been waiting for me to ask. Something warm settled in my chest. Other than Mom and Dad, Jieun was the only person who worried about me like this.
I glanced around, then took her hand and pulled her into the alley. I pushed her against the wall and kissed her hard.
Her lips were soft and wet, and her tongue tangled with mine in a way that felt good. Jieun flinched at first, then let the tension go and melted into me.
Feeling bolder, I ran my hands slowly over her body. From her shoulders, down her back, to the generous curve of her ass. Even through the thick winter coat, I could feel that signature springy softness of hers.