My Adorable President's Birthday Party
The birthday party finally ended at nine in the evening. Most of the night had been spent with Sua and Kang Suho laughing and chatting about stories from their childhood. I sat alone, nursing a beer and simply watching them. The incident where Jeong Sua had moaned and fled to the bathroom… I got properly scolded by her for that one later.
“Sorry. You were just too pretty—I couldn’t hold back.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Her lips were twitching upward at the word “pretty,” so I wasn’t sure if this even counted as a scolding. She still didn’t seem used to my honest compliments. That was fine. Once we started dating properly, she’d hear it often enough to get used to it.
A week passed like that.
“Hey, Kim Gicheol.”
“Yeah?”
“Come here for a sec.”
I called over the guy who, despite being in a different class, had come into ours and was making a racket. Why was his reaction so prickly? The moment he saw me, he put on a bored face and sauntered over with a lazy stride.
“You’re being extra crooked today, huh?”
“Yeees~ Yeees~ Of course I am. Thanks to the great and wonderful Kang Ijin, I’m riding the crooked line right now.”
“What the hell? Did I do something wrong?”
He was acting like I’d done something to deserve this attitude. Had I? There were so many possibilities I genuinely couldn’t remember any specific one.
“Don’t you remember what happened at the bar?”
“The bar?”
There was only one time that came to mind. The day Jeong Sua had fearlessly shown up at the drinking party Kim Gicheol had set up just to see me. But the drinking parties this guy arranged were never normal. They were gatherings meant to satisfy everyone’s desires—and those desires were mostly sexual. Thanks to him, I’d skyrocketed Sua’s favorability. He’d played a huge part in making her my girlfriend.
“You… took the prettiest first-year, the one named Sua, right? The moment you left with her, all the other girls ran away.”
“Is that my fault? That’s on your ugly face for not being able to charm even one girl. Go complain to your parents.”
“Fuck. It hurts more because it’s true, you son of a bitch. So what do you want?”
He was cursing me out, but he was still listening. The crooked attitude he’d shown at first was probably half a joke. It wasn’t the first or second time I’d shown up at one of his parties only to leave midway and ruin the whole thing.
“I’m trying to buy a car. I want a cheap used one—got any connections you can introduce me to?”
“Why the sudden interest in a car?”
“What else? I’m done living as a pedestrian, that’s why.”
“Dude, you got a girl, didn’t you?”
True to his girl-crazy nature, Kim Gicheol’s radar had picked it up instantly. The problem was that this bastard’s mouth was lighter than a feather. If I told him about my relationship with Sua, it would spread through the school like a North Korean propaganda loudspeaker.
“No, but there is a girl I want to seduce.”
I deflected with a suitable lie.
“The great Kang Ijin is buying a car just to seduce a girl?!”
“Hey, keep your voice down.”
For a moment the entire classroom went quiet. Kim Gicheol’s voice had been louder than expected, drawing the attention of every student around us. I didn’t particularly care about the stares from the extras. What did bother me a little was Lee Yena, who had been chatting with her friends, now frowning in our direction. This was definitely going to reach Cha Yeri’s ears. I just hoped it wouldn’t drop her favorability.
To vent my irritation, I narrowed my eyes and slowly scanned the room. The kids whose eyes met mine flinched and quickly looked away. The paused conversations slowly resumed.
“Gicheol, you wanna die?”
“Sorry, sorry. Anyway, you want me to introduce you to a good place to buy a used car, right? Perfect timing—I know just the spot.”
“Is it trustworthy?”
“It’s run by someone I know, so yeah, it’s solid.”
“Really? Give me the number. If I find a car I like, I’ll throw a drinking party myself as thanks for the help.”
“F-for real? You better not take it back later. Hehe.”
Seeing how fired up Kim Gicheol looked, it seemed the car situation would be resolved one way or another. After all, I’d promised him a drinking party if he was satisfied.
After classes ended, it was lunchtime. I quickly filled my stomach with some bread and, just like yesterday, headed to the student council office.
“Welcome back.”
Cha Yeri, who had been organizing documents, greeted me as if she’d been waiting.
“You look beautiful today as always, Madam President.”
“Stop with the nonsense and come help me with work.”
“Yessir!”
“Answer properly.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Haa…”
Cha Yeri let out a long sigh as if she’d given up trying to correct me and went back to looking at her documents. The corners of her mouth were slightly, almost imperceptibly, lifted. Ever since the kissing incident, she had started secretly smiling like this. We were still far from the happy ahegao face I wanted from her, but it was clear the kiss had had a positive effect.
“What are you just standing there for? Aren’t you going to help?”
“Understood.”
There were no thorns in her voice. Proof that she wasn’t in a bad mood. It was probably best to stop the teasing here for today. This was the limit where I could mess with her without earning any real resentment.
At Cha Yeri’s request, I took half the documents piled on her desk and sat down on the sofa. Starting this afternoon, student council executive interviews would begin here. The interviewers would be just the two of us—me and Cha Yeri. In contrast, the number of students coming for interviews was at least a hundred. It was the highest number in Gangan High’s history.
As expected, the person responsible for that was undoubtedly Cha Yeri. A woman with neat features, great popularity, perfect grades, wealth, and ability. A lot of students wanted to join the student council just to be with her.
“Wow~ Our president really is popular. There are so many applicants.”
“You’re in no position to talk, Kang Ijin. The large number of applicants is partly your fault too.”
“Huh?”
“Because of you, all the problem students in our school are flocking here.”
Cha Yeri glanced toward a stack of documents tucked away in the corner. What was that? I flipped through them one by one and saw nothing but familiar faces.
“These can’t be…”
“Thanks to you, my workload has doubled.”
These were all application forms from the school’s problem students. Every single one of them was someone not even worth interviewing.
“Amazing… Did you organize all these yourself, President?”
Her ability to quickly review the documents and separate only the problem students for the sake of efficient interviews was astonishing. You couldn’t tell someone was a problem student just from their paperwork. Of course, I could have done the same classification. Since I myself was very lightly dipped in that bad category, I had a decent grasp of the school’s problem kids. But Cha Yeri was different. Most of these people she’d probably never even met. Yet not long after becoming student council president, she had identified every problem student in the school and separated their documents.
“I wasn’t planning to even interview the ones in that pile. If you have any objections, speak now.”
“What happens if I do?”
“I’ll logically explain why they shouldn’t be interviewed.”
It seemed she had already decided these applicants were rejects. Still, the fact that she was asking me… probably meant their reason for applying was me.
I flashed her a grin.
-Zzzzt.
I fed the entire stack straight into the paper shredder.
“No objections. I have no intention of forcing you to do something you don’t want, President.”
Cha Yeri seemed pleased by my firm attitude and gave a small nod.
“Tell your friends. The student council isn’t a place you can join just for fun. One problem child is already more than enough.”
“I’ll make sure to drill it into them.”
As expected, she hadn’t earned the title of Ice Princess for nothing. Even if my kiss had melted her a little, she was still a cold-hearted princess.
“By the way, President, what are those documents over there?”
Now that I thought about it, there was another pile of sorted applications on the opposite side of Cha Yeri’s desk. I had shredded all the worthless ones. So what were these?
“These are the opposite. These are the applicants I’ve taken a special interest in.”
In other words, these were people who had already caught Cha Yeri’s eye before the interviews even began. People chosen by Cha Yeri… The jealousy made me want to do something bad.
“Can I take a look?”
“Sure. I was going to show them to you anyway. You’re the vice president, so you need to know.”
Cha Yeri handed the documents to me directly. Hmm? She kept glancing at me with an oddly amused expression. Was she curious about my reaction?
I carefully flipped through the pages. Then I stopped dead in the middle.
What the hell. Why is this bastard here?
I looked at her with a dumbfounded face. The corners of Cha Yeri’s mouth were lifted—small, but unmistakable.
Kang Suho
Of course I knew Kang Suho would apply to the student council. One of the heroines was the student council president. It was within expectations that the protagonist would join the council and trigger events with the heroine.
What I didn’t like was this: Why was Kang Suho on the list of “applicants Cha Yeri is keeping an eye on”?
Wasn’t the cliché that the cold student council president starts off uninterested in the protagonist and gradually grows interested? The reason came straight from Cha Yeri herself.
“Kang Ijin’s younger brother, Kang Suho. I was curious just how much of a problem child your brother was, so I met with him separately to talk. Surprisingly, he was better than I expected. Unlike his older brother.”
So it wasn’t the first time. It looked like Cha Yeri had already met and spoken with Kang Suho privately. And from the way she spoke, it seemed she had approached him because of me. In other words, my existence was the reason she had become interested in him.
Had I drawn too much of her attention? Or was there some invisible force that created contact points between the two of them no matter what I did?
Deepening their relationship was within acceptable limits. After all, I was planning to let Suho into the student council anyway. But this was too fast. I still hadn’t raised Cha Yeri’s favorability enough to be satisfied.
“Besides, I heard something interesting from Junior Kang Suho.”
She was using polite honorifics with Suho. With me it was always “Kang Ijin,” “you,” or “Vice President.” But that was actually proof that I was an exception for her, so I wasn’t jealous. The only two people she spoke to without honorifics were probably me… and her maid, Lee Yena.
“What was it?”
“It seems you two don’t get along very well?”
Huh? What was that supposed to mean? Even today, Suho and I had gone to school together and maintained a perfectly amicable relationship. He hadn’t seemed particularly depressed in the morning either. That was because I’d resolved the things that had been bothering him while we drank together, and on his birthday I’d given him the card I’d stolen from an extra.
It looks like the time Cha Yeri spoke with Suho was before I reconciled with him.
In other words, she was acting all smug about something that was already over.
But why is Cha Yeri acting so smug about the fact that Suho and I don’t get along?
If I didn’t know, I should just ask.
“What about it?”
“If we let Junior Kang Suho into the student council… I thought it might make the vice president feel a bit uncomfortable.”
Cha Yeri wore an expression like she had won, as if she were taking revenge for everything I’d done to her so far.
Wow, fuck. What the hell is this creature? She’s insanely cute! I’m going crazy—I want to fuck her until her life is over and turn her into a wife who only takes care of me for the rest of her life.
But what should I do about our dear president?
I was actually planning to make sure Suho joined the student council. Rather than letting protagonist-heroine events happen where I couldn’t see them, it was far better for those events to occur in a place where I could easily interfere. It would be easier to sabotage them, and if I saw any signs of an event, I could snatch away only the good parts. Most importantly, Kang Suho needed to fall in love with Cha Yeri. Only then could I prove that I was a better protagonist than him.
Anyway. It looked like our president thought she had landed a solid blow on me and was feeling triumphant. In that case, my attitude was already decided.
“Let’s not let Kang Suho into the student council.”
“Why? Does he have some disqualification? If there’s no particular reason, I don’t see why we shouldn’t accept an excellent student.”
“I just don’t like him.”
“That’s unacceptable. As much as I hate to admit it, you are the official vice president of this school. Put aside your personal feelings. I’ve already indulged your personal feelings once, and that’s enough.”
“Excuse me? What do you mean by ‘once is enough’?”
“That time when you… targeted me to become… vice president…”
“Huh?”
Cha Yeri’s voice had become as small as an ant’s, making it hard to hear. I stood up from the sofa and moved closer so I could hear the suddenly quiet voice. And then I saw it.
The president, who had never shown a single crack in her composure, was blushing and looking embarrassed about what she was trying to say. The cold barrier had vanished, and in that instant the president had turned into a soft, squishy rice cake. The sight was so unbelievably cute that my cock reacted immediately.