Welcome Party Hell!
The students huddled together in their assigned groups. “Since today’s the first day, how about we rearrange the desks so we can see each other’s faces and get to know one another?” At the professor’s suggestion, two people turned deathly pale…
Aaaargh! Professor! Please, no! Suhyun screamed inside his head, but right beside him was someone who actually let her true feelings slip out loud.
“Ah…”
Juyeon’s face had gone pure white. A sigh that perfectly mirrored Suhyun’s inner cry escaped her lips.
“Nayong, should we move over here?”
Juho, who didn’t know much about them yet, blinked and lifted his desk.
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
Nayong had already spotted Suhyun shrinking in on himself. Just as she’d expected. He’d made a big show of quitting, but he clearly wasn’t the type who could actually follow through. Yeah. If he were the kind of person who could leave, he would’ve done it already. The fact that he was still sitting here like this was obviously taking every ounce of courage he had.
If she coaxed and coddled him just a little, then crushed his self-esteem like always, he’d come slinking back to Purple Storm with his tail between his legs. Just like when she’d lured him in the first place.
“Suhyun~”
Nayong called his name in an overly sweet, gentle voice.
“Uh… yeah…?”
“Looks like we’re in the same group. Take good care of me~”
The sudden change in her attitude left Suhyun feeling like he was sitting on a bed of thorns.
“What? You two are close?”
Juho, who had finished arranging the chairs, swept his gaze across the group members’ faces.
“Hey. Suhyun’s in a band with us too~ That little club~”
“Oh! Really? I had no idea?”
Suhyun missed his chance to call out Nayong’s shameless lie. Still, he felt like he needed to explain himself, so he barely managed to open his mouth.
“…But I quit recently.”
Nayong’s eyes sharpened.
“Aww~ Weren’t you just joking around back then?”
“No. I wasn’t.”
When Suhyun answered with as much firmness as he could muster, Nayong shot him a glare that said she didn’t like his attitude one bit.
“Come on… You should come back. What are you even saying? We both know you don’t have anywhere else to go.”
That might have been true before. But not today.
“I… I already joined another band.”
“You? Where? What band?”
“The central club…”
“What are you talking about? How could you possibly get into that?”
As far as Nayong knew, the central band club was filled with nothing but monstrously talented players. There was no way someone like Suhyun, who didn’t even have connections, could have broken into it.
“It’s true. Really.”
When it was clear she didn’t believe him, Suhyun pulled out his phone and held the screen out to her. What he showed her was the Spirit group chat. The announcement for tonight’s welcome party was pinned at the top.
“You… actually… got in there…?”
It wasn’t just Nayong who was shocked.
“…Huh?”
Juyeon, who had been silently listening to the entire conversation, looked up at Suhyun with a face full of astonishment.
Suhyun, who had been too busy trying to explain himself, only then realized that Juyeon had heard every word.
“Ah… Hello…?”
He hadn’t expected to greet her like this, so it felt incredibly awkward, but Juyeon’s reaction was far more intense than he had anticipated.
“Th… then the new guitarist is…”
Juyeon stammered, struggling to get the words out.
“Yeah. It’s me.”
When Juyeon suddenly slumped forward and flopped onto her desk like she’d fainted, the flustered Suhyun had no idea what to do.
“U-um… Is it really that bad that I’m the guitarist? Should I quit after all?”
“Alright. Now that everyone’s introduced themselves, I’ll hand out the keywords for each group. You’ll prepare your presentations based on these.”
The professor’s explanation came at the most perfectly inconvenient timing. In the end, Suhyun never got to hear Juyeon’s answer. The atmosphere was nothing like the warm welcome Seoeun had given him, so he sat through the rest of the class in a state of frozen tension.
“Okay everyone! Make sure to post what you’ve come up with in the group chat by Wednesday!”
Juho, who had been made the group leader, announced the decision like he was giving orders to the three band members.
“Got it.”
Suhyun had zero desire to let Nayong grab him by the scruff of the neck, so the moment class ended he shot out of the lecture hall like a bullet.
This is uncomfortable. Yeah, it’s uncomfortable. Just a few words and he already felt this miserable. It felt like dark clouds had already gathered over the entire semester ahead of him.
Still… Park Juyeon… The image of her trembling eyes as she stared at him kept floating into his mind. Light brown hair that fell to about her shoulders. A petite frame that looked like she was two hand-spans shorter than him. She felt completely different from the image of a band vocalist he had in his head. If anything, Nayong gave off much more of a vocalist vibe.
“I wonder if she’s… good at singing…?”
It didn’t take him even a few hours to find the answer.
The area around campus wasn’t exactly bustling, but it had pretty much everything you’d need. Bars, karaoke rooms, PC cafes, cosmetic shops—it wasn’t missing anything in particular, but there also wasn’t any special reason to come all the way out here either. It was that kind of neighborhood.
After class, Suhyun returned home with an incredibly solemn expression and began scouring the internet.
> [MT Must-Read! Collection of Drinking Games to Become an Insider!]
After all, when it came to welcome parties or drinking gatherings, games were an absolute must. But since Suhyun had never participated in any school activities, he didn’t know a single one.
“I’m Ground. Uh… um… er…”
While watching the video and clapping his hands alone, a wave of self-loathing hit him so hard that he slammed his forehead onto the desk.
What the hell am I even doing… These were games you couldn’t even practice by yourself in the first place. This wasn’t helping at all. He had finally joined a band, yet instead of practicing guitar he was practicing drinking games. His own situation felt utterly pathetic.
No. This time it’ll be different for you. Once this year was over, he had no choice but to enlist. If he got ignored even here, Suhyun’s youth might really come to an end.
He widened his eyes, fixed them on the monitor, and clapped again, but…
“Oh? Suhyun wants to play drinking games?”
Seoeun burst into bright laughter. There were quite a few customers at the other tables, but none of them were playing loud drinking games.
“What do you think, everyone? Since it’s also Suhyun’s welcome party, should we?”
The reactions from the two people sitting across from Suhyun were far from positive.
“Drinking games are what beta males do. Lee Suhyun.”
“I… I also… d-don’t really like… games…”
Choi Kang openly wore a look of contempt while Juyeon wouldn’t even make eye contact with him. Suhyun already wanted to bolt from this place and run straight home. He had only asked Seoeun about it because he felt bad about practicing for nothing, but now she had turned it into a public execution.
Tears streamed down his face on the inside.
“Ahaha. Anyway, we don’t have enough people today, so let’s do it later when all the juniors are here! During the MT.”
At Seoeun’s declaration about the MT, Suhyun’s face turned deathly pale once again.
Th-there’s an MT too?! It wasn’t just a welcome party?
“Then shall we do another toast?”
As Seoeun lifted her glass filled with soju and beer, the rest of the members raised theirs as well.
“Cheers!”
While Choi Kang downed the entire contents in one go, Juyeon held her beer glass with both hands and sipped it like it was barley tea.
“Ah~ Hana really should’ve come today~”
Seoeun wiped the foam from the corner of her mouth with a regretful look.
“Yeah. Where is Yoon Hana anyway?”
“She said she’s helping her uncle with something today.”
“Hana’s… the guitarist… right?”
It was the name of the only member missing from the table.
“Yep! That’s right! Suhyun, once you see Hana you probably won’t be able to think straight?”
“Why? Why?”
Could she really be that insanely skilled at guitar?!
“Hana’s super pretty~ She’s practically a model. A model. She’s the visual icon of our Spirit~”
It was different from what he had expected, but Suhyun figured this wasn’t bad news either.
“I see…”
“Didn’t you see our performance at last year’s festival?”
“Uh… no.”
How could he have gone to a place with that many people? But admitting that he had never even seen a single performance felt just as awkward.
“Then how did you end up playing guitar and joining us?”
“I…”
Suhyun had first developed a longing for the guitar back in his third year of middle school. A friend playing in the very back corner of the classroom with a small amp, and the other friends gathered around praising him. Standing in the very back on his tiptoes watching the performance—that moment had lit a fire in Suhyun’s chest.
If I could play the guitar, would everyone look at me like I’m cool too?If I join a band, could I become like that?
He had burned with hope and sworn that once he entered high school he would join a band, but unfortunately the world had given Suhyun the gift of COVID instead. He barely remembered attending classes in the classroom, let alone joining any clubs… and even then he had spent his high school years wearing a mask, never even properly seeing the face of the kid sitting next to him.
By the time restrictions loosened, it was already his senior year and time for college entrance exams. When he finally got to university, he got sucked into a seriously messed-up club and never managed to do a single proper performance.
When he actually tried to explain it, the story sounded so pathetic that Suhyun decided to keep it short.
“I just… thought I wanted to try being in a band for a long time…”
“Oh. So this is your first band?”
Did a band with zero performances even count as experience?
“Probably…”
At his vague answer, Seoeun tilted her head.
“Lee Suhyun.”
“Y-yes?”
Whenever Choi Kang called him so unexpectedly, Suhyun could feel his whole body freeze up.
“You know the festival is in May, right?”
“Ah… yeah…”
“Any true rocker has to prepare a performance.”
Suhyun imagined himself playing guitar brilliantly on stage and nodded his head up and down with fierce enthusiasm. I’m finally going to do a performance! A real performance on stage!
“Until then, we’re going to complete our abs so we can perform shirtless without any problems!”
…Excuse me?