#86. Night Piece
#86. Night Piece
"Ha... this is real life."
The four of us had staked out empty spots in the Design Room.
Me. Han Na-eun. Lee Hwi-min. Kim Si-eun.
We'd grown close through our Urban Planning Team Project connection and were now ripping open the packaging on the chicken we'd ordered as a late-night snack.
"Hey. Minho-ya, go dump the chicken sauce water."
Hwi-min handed out disposable chopsticks while ordering me around.
"Can't we just eat it like this? It's a hassle."
Do we really have to drain it?
I hadn't drunk any, but I didn't even have the energy to crawl out to the hallway.
"I'll go. Oppa."
Na-eun, who'd been glued to her phone writing a review for the delivery, stood up from her chair.
"Wow. Lee Min-ho. Sending your own girlfriend off like that."
"Yeah. I didn't peg you for that, Minho oppa."
Hwi-min jeering openly. Si-eun chiming in from the side.
I was starting to get why they say sisters-in-law are even more hated.
"Nah. Let's go together. Na-eun-ah. Gotta wash our hands anyway."
"Yeah. Sure."
I escaped the Design Room, dragging my slippers jjik jjik, and stretched my arms out wide.
"Ugh, I'm beat."
"It's only two o'clock?"
Hey. Calling it 'only' when we're pulling an all-nighter till 2 a.m. in the morning feels kinda unfair.
What the hell kind of life is this?
During exam and design deadline season, the Design Room lights never went out.
More than half the grade camped out there, eating and sleeping on-site while working nonstop.
"But being tired is being tired. How's your progress?"
"The ones doing okay already went home. What's there to say."
She was right.
It was a stupid question with an obvious answer.
The odds of someone actually nailing their design were ridiculously low.
Maybe 1 or 2 per studio?
Even then, they'd look at it stone-cold sober the next morning and think it looked like total garbage.
"But why'd you come along? Bathrooms are separate for guys and girls anyway?"
"Me? 'Cause I wanna be alone with you."
Honestly, Na-eun and I had been in the same space for ages, but our seats were so far apart we couldn't even chat.
Hers was in the farthest corner.
Mine was relatively inside.
Ten desks away to reach her.
"Ugh... don't say cringey stuff."
Tal-geon and its constant sidekick, another abbreviation: Night Work.
Late-night work.
My girlfriend was rocking the Night Work national rule outfit—hoodie and sweats—but her face was still glowing.
We stood at the bathroom at the end of the hallway.
"Rock-paper-scissors?"
"...You serious?"
"What, we each take one and go in separately?"
What a waste of money. This is.
"Hmm..."
Na-eun crossed her arms, pondering, then clapped her hands as a good idea hit her.
"Ah. How about this."
"What?"
"If Oppa drains the chicken sauce water, I'll drain Oppa's for you."
It took a slight delay to process those words.
Wondering what the hell she meant, I let out a hollow chuckle.
"Then from now on, we'll have to order ten extra sauce packets every time we get chicken."
"Don't mess around with food."
Na-eun straight-up serious.
But didn't you deliberately spill cola at the theater?
And it was a large after two sips.
"Anyway, what do you say?"
Without a word, I held out my hand and took the chicken sauce packet from hers.
I went into the men's bathroom and first washed my hands thoroughly with soap.
Peeling off the glue stains from my fingertips was still an unpleasant chore even after four years.
I tore open about a third of the plastic on the chicken sauce and drained the water, then hurried back to where Na-eun was waiting.
"...Here."
I handed her one of the two packs.
"My oppa's so sweet. Heh."
She smacked my butt with one hand. Pang pang.
Starving, I quickened my steps back to the Design Room.
Si-eun and Hwi-min, who'd set everything up conveniently with even the cola ready to drink, were chattering away.
"No way. So oppa went to that architect's guest lecture last year?"
"Yeah. Prof said anyone interested should hit him up."
"Wow. That's awesome. I'm a huge fan of his."
Ugh. Even break time chit-chat is like this.
Na-eun agreed with me, slamming the chicken sauce down on the desk a bit aggressively.
"Let's dig in~"
Na-eun sat down with a bright smile.
"Yeah. Eat up so we can head to hell~"
This place where the lights never dimmed was the author's hell.
As we ate chicken, we inevitably lamented our fates and shouted Tal-geon.
But in reality, we'd come too far to say, 'Just this semester and then Tal-geon for real.'
Only one last thing left: fifth-year graduation design.
Quitting now without a diploma after getting this far would be insane.
"I wanna go home..."
Eating should've given me energy, but all that came out was a pitiful sigh.
"...Me too."
Na-eun, sitting next to me sipping cola, agreed.
"...Wanna head home?"
Around 3 a.m., the sneaky temptation to go home starts creeping in.
Truth is, once you pass this point, heading back feels impossible.
If you go home at 5 a.m., you only get two or three hours of sleep, so the mindset shifts to just crashing for a nap in the Design Room.
"Pfft. You know you'll regret it the next day if you go home."
Na-eun reined in my urge to escape.
"But if you get sleepy, come to my spot. I'll wake you up."
"How?"
Na-eun grinned and placed her hand on my thigh.
"Deliciously."
...The impulse to just lie down on the floor right now since I was sleepy hit hard, but after cleaning up the trash, I sat back at my laptop.
"Whew. Gonna finish organizing the drawings by tomorrow for real."
Hwi-min, already back at work, glanced at my screen.
"...At that rate, you're not making it by tomorrow?"
Sure, no windows, furniture, or level details yet, but this is nothing.
Last time we met an even tighter deadline.
"Don't jinx it, you liar bitch."
Irritated for no reason, I snapped at Hwi-min and dove back into work.
04:37
Around when the first buses start running.
Winter meant the sun still hadn't risen.
The Design Room, pretty noisy till 2, had fallen silent.
The living were zombie-fingering their keyboards, and plenty were face-planted asleep after hitting surrender.
I turned to look at Na-eun and saw her nodding off.
Her head bobbing to some offbeat rhythm.
I got up, intending to tell her to sleep comfortably, and approached her.
I dragged over an empty chair from the seat next to hers and rested my chin in my hand, gazing at her face.
Her face swaying as she fought sleep.
I poked her cheek ever so gently with my index finger.
"...Ah!"
Surprised by the unfamiliar touch, she opened her eyes wide and looked at me.
"What. When'd you get here."
"You were dozing, so just now."
"Argh... how long was I out?"
"How should I know. I was doing mine."
Na-eun checked the time and let out a deep sigh.
"I'm screwed."
She closed her laptop screen and stretched her arms out flat on the desk.
"How much'd you get done, Oppa?"
"If I'd done a lot, I'd be home."
"That makes sense."
Watching her slump, I delivered the line I'd planned.
"If you're gonna sleep, do it comfy. Want me to lend you the rakura-ku?"
There was a foldable bed Hwi-min and I had scrounged from behind my spot.
"Nah. I gotta finish this. But wanna go get some air together instead?"
"That sounds good too."
Fresh outside air was a solid way to shake off sleepiness at times like this.
"Yeah. Let's go."
"Wait. You're not putting on a jacket?"
It was December now.
Step out without one and you might freeze to death.
"Yeah. We're not going outside."
"So, indoor stroll?"
"Anywhere outside the Design Room's fine. Why go out and freeze?"
Na-eun grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hallway.
Maybe dawn made the hallway, with only some lights on, feel like a horror flick.
I figured we'd just loop the hall and head back, but Na-eun seemed to have a destination, dragging me down one floor.
"...Where to?"
"Somewhere good."
What good spot exists in this cursed College of Architecture building.
With zero expectations, I just followed her lead.
"...Here?"
308.
The small Seminar Room we sometimes used for Critiques.
Na-eun somehow knew the password.
Beep bleep.
The lock clicked open, and she slipped inside without turning on the lights.
"How'd you know the password here?"
"Picked it up when I worked at the Department Office for a bit."
That I could buy, but I couldn't guess why she'd brought me here.
In the pitch-black darkness.
They say when you lose sight, your other senses sharpen double—seemed true.
"Oppa. Shall we wake up together now?"
Na-eun whispering softly.
"What're you gonna do."
"You drained mine earlier, so now it's my turn to drain yours."
"You were serious about that?"
I'd thought it was just a joke and laughed it off.
Swish. Swish swish.
Sound of clothes hitting the floor.
"Where're you gonna drain it?"
"Hey. You drained two, so twice?"
"Eek?"
Na-eun making a dumb noise.
Guess the fridge'll never run out of chicken sauce from now on.