Cheerful Discomfort
Kiri unnie's been running on high energy lately. Wonder if something good happened.
Eve said it while watching a clip of Kiri at the café. The Adami in chat agreed, and somewhere in the middle of the flood, this one popped up:
A jolt went through me.
Oh, now that you mention it, Kiri unnie barely hangs out with me these days~ Guess the Hara have been keeping her plenty busy~
Right? I want to hang out with Kiri unnie too,
Another jolt.
Kiri unnie's boyfriend is a Hara, you know~ Take a shot~
Girlfriends and boyfriends are different... haaah.
Jolt after jolt.
Aah~ Unnie barely comes over to my place these days~
...Well, fair enough. We'd been together every single day lately, so it wasn't like she'd had time to go anywhere else.
But still. Eve's voice had always wrapped around my heart like something soft. Today it felt like thorns, pricking me raw.
Alright, Adami, bye for now~ Tomorrow's an off day, so see you the day after~
With those conflicting messages still rolling in, Eve's stream ended. The disappointment was real, but so was the relief of climbing off that bed of nails. I couldn't quite explain why.
"Phew... that was tense. Okay, Kiri's stream is— oh, she's still on?"
The second Eve signed off, I checked Kiri's channel. She was still live, which surprised me a little, and I clicked in.
Aaah~ I should wrap up too... gotta get up early tomorrow...
Sounded like she was about to end it. She'd started a full hour before Eve, so it had been a long one.
Yeah, thanks~ Honestly, Hara like you are what keep me going every day~
Don't be jealous~ You're all Hara the same~
Her speech had gone a little soft and slurred with fatigue. She bantered with the Hara a while longer before finally signing off.
I checked the time. Already three in the morning.
I had a one o'clock class, so it didn't matter much for me — but Wa Sol noona had a nine o'clock, if I remembered right. Would she be okay?
"Better just let her sleep... no. If I do that, she'll definitely get mad."
It had already been a week since Wa Sol noona and I started dating. In that short time we'd drawn a surprising number of stares, and complete strangers had started striking up conversations. All in a single week.
I'd also gotten a decent read on her personality.
No matter how exhausted she was, the moment a stream ended she always wanted to hear my voice. Usually by phone. Sometimes she just showed up at my door.
"Alright. I'll call her."
Knock knock.
"...That was fast."
I'd barely reached for my phone when I heard the knock. I knew who it was instantly, got up, and went to the front door.
She'd only been off-stream for a minute.
"Hey. You got here quick."
"Mm... tired..."
"You could've just gone to sleep."
"Don't wanna... wanna talk to Gachi."
Must've been a rough stream. Not a full horror game, but the kind that kept making her jump.
"At this rate you're going to end up sleeping over again."
"...Is that not okay?"
"It's not that."
For the record: in one week, Wa Sol noona had come to my place three times. All three times, she'd slept here.
"It's not like there's any problem sleeping at a boyfriend's place when said boyfriend doesn't even have the guts to make a move on his girlfriend."
"When you're talking to the person you love, maybe take the bones out of your words first..."
"Hehe. Love you~"
In the next breath the bones were gone entirely, and she was whispering pure soft meat against me as she leaned in. I wrapped my arms around her without thinking, guided her into the room, and carefully settled her onto the bed. She immediately nuzzled her face into the pillow.
"Haaahm. Smells like Gachi."
"It's my bed."
"Does it smell like me too?"
"...A little?"
"Pervert."
"You asked first."
"I am a pervert."
"..."
When she put it like that, there wasn't much I could say.
"Hehe. Haaahm... Gachi, I'm sleeping here tonight..."
"Yeah, I figured. Ah — you still need to brush your teeth."
"Uuung... too much work..."
"No. You drank a ton of chamomile tea on stream again."
Something I'd learned since we started dating: she drank a lot during streams. Carbonation was bad for the throat, so she'd switched to throat-friendly drinks — or so she claimed. Couldn't she just drink water?
"Fiiine..."
In the end she half-leaned on me all the way to the bathroom, and we brushed our teeth together. Once both our mouths were clean, we shared one deep kiss.
"Mmh. Mwah. Mwah..."
"Mwah... haah... bed?"
"Yeah. Let's sleep."
At some point, having each other close had become the most natural thing in the world. Another peaceful day slipped by.
...For the record, I slept on the floor again.
"Gachi, I'm heading out first."
"...Okay."
"Mwah. Sleep more."
Unlike me, she had a nine o'clock class. The moment it hit eight she was out the door of my studio, already on her way home. The morning kiss on the way out was a bonus.
"How am I supposed to sleep after a morning kiss like that... haahm. I should get up too."
Truth was, I had a reason to get to campus early today.
"I figured full scholarship just meant free tuition. Turns out there's a separate per-semester stipend too."
A TA had messaged me: as a full-scholarship student, I was entitled to additional support money each semester on top of tuition, and I needed to come by the department office to pick it up. Honestly, a bank transfer would've been fine — but apparently handing it over in cash was tradition.
"Well. They're giving me money. Might as well go get it."
When someone's handing you cash, you don't ask questions. Cash, gold, whatever — you take it.
I got ready quickly, packed my bag since I probably wouldn't be coming home before class, and headed for the department office at a good clip.
"Where was it again... ah, here."
I finally found the office and knocked. A voice from inside told me to come in.
I stepped through the door — and instead of the TA who'd called me, Professor Yu Eun-yeong was sitting there.
"Hello?"
"Hey~ What's with that face? Looking for the pretty TA and stuck with old me instead? Got a problem with that?"
"I don't particularly have a problem..."
"Fair. A guy dating Wa Sol isn't going to notice other women anyway."
Just how far had the rumor that Wa Sol and I were dating spread? Was it normal for professors to know which students were seeing whom?
"Wa Sol's a good kid, but do not learn a single academic thing from her. Face of an angel, brain of a rock."
"Are you allowed to say that about a student?"
I asked, slightly stunned. Yu Eun-yeong just shrugged and waved a hand.
"I say it to her face. She's one of only two students I've ever told, 'Please do not show up in the same class as me more than once.'"
"Now I'm curious who the other one is..."
"Better off not knowing."
Huh? The atmosphere had shifted just a little. Or was I imagining it?
"Anyway, enough small talk. Here — your semester support stipend, for the department top scorer. Our school's flush enough to hand out cash to every department valedictorian admit, but we're the only department where a professor delivers it in person."
"So why are you the one handing it over, Professor Yu?"
"The TA got blackout drunk with me last night and called in sick."
"Still, stepping up for your TA like that is nice to see. I'll gratefully accept the stipend."
I took the thick envelope of cash, bowed to Professor Yu Eun-yeong, and left the office. On my way out, through the crack in the door, I caught her watching me go — then discreetly fishing a cigarette from her pocket. I decided not to notice.
"Is it really okay to hand over this much money in cash? What if I lose it... better shove it in my bag."
For the record, the stipend got cut the second my GPA dropped below the 3.5 range.
I'd better work hard... midterms were a month away. Time to start studying.
"...Almost time."
The resolve to study lasted all of a moment.
The clock was creeping toward the end of Wa Sol noona's major class, and my head filled up with her. After a brief internal debate, I decided to wait for her in the lounge.
"Come to think of it, this is my first time going to the lounge alone. Please let it be empty..."
I still hadn't shed my loner instincts. Even now, the only people in my year I was close to were Hae-an, Seo-hyeon, and Cheon-u. Part of that was the disastrous first impression I'd made, but...
At least since I'd apologized to Hye-jin a week ago, no one was openly hostile anymore.
"It's just that nobody wants to hang out with me... being a loner sucks."
Was the increase in talking to myself also a loner thing...?
No. Enough of that. I was Wa Sol noona's boyfriend. Constantly putting myself down was disrespectful to her.
First things first — check if anyone was in the lounge.
"Huh? Who's that?"
Bottom line: the lounge was not empty. The problem was that I had no idea who the person in it was. I'd memorized most of my classmates' faces, so this wasn't a freshman. An upperclassman, then.
Looked mid-to-late twenties. Grad student, maybe.
"...Hello."
"Oh! Finally, someone walks in. Hey! You a freshman!?"
...What. This guy's energy was off the charts.
The man with the dyed blonde hair beamed and practically shouted the moment I stepped in. Honestly, it was a little overwhelming.
"Yes... are you a grad student, by any chance?"
"What? Do I look like I've committed that many sins?"
"Sorry?"
"Come on, grad school's where people with too many sins end up."
"Ah... no. I just haven't met you before..."
"Haha! I'm kidding~ The way you can't even take a joke, I'm guessing you don't do much department socializing?"
"Yeah, well..."
Cheerful guy. Being able to chatter like this with a complete stranger... he really was a cheerful guy.
"I'm Kim Ju-hyeon. Graduated last year. Heard of me?"
"No. Like you just said, I don't really do department life."
"What~ I figured I'd be pretty well-known..."
Ju-hyeon sunbae made a show of his disappointment, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back. If he'd graduated and factored in military service, he was probably around twenty-six.
Four years older than my twenty-two. Maybe that was why he already felt so much more like an adult.
"What brings you here, sunbae?"
"Ah, I had some business on campus. And I was hoping to see someone."
Business, as a graduate. I wouldn't know, but I'd heard the outstanding ones sometimes got invited back to give lectures or something. Maybe that kind of thing.
"If they're still calling you in after graduation, you must've been a pretty strong student."
"Strong student? Not really. Professor Yu Eun-yeong told me more than once never to show up in the same class as her again."
Wait. That line.
I'd just heard it from Professor Yu Eun-yeong. The one person besides Wa Sol noona — this was him.
"For the record, I wasn't the only one who got that speech. Know who the other one is?"
"Yeah. Wa Sol noona."
"...Huh?"
Professor Yu Eun-yeong had said it was better not to know about the one person besides Wa Sol.
"You know Wa Sol?"
"Yeah, of course."
Why had she said it was better not to know?
"You two must be pretty close, huh? Calling her noona and everything."
"We're dating."
"...Ah. Is that so?"
I remembered the look on Professor Yu Eun-yeong's face then. It hadn't been a bright one.
"Haha. I see. Then I guess we'll be getting to know each other."
"Getting to know each other?"
I had a rough idea. This cheerful graduate was—
"I'm Wa Sol's ex-boyfriend. So... looking forward to working with you."
—a thoroughly unpleasant person who started with a lie the moment he met you.