With Areum During Exam Period (2)
Cheonggwang University opened some lecture halls during exam period. Most of the students using them were the ones who'd failed to grab a seat in the library.
Not every lecture hall was open—only a few buildings and specific rooms—so different years and even different departments often found themselves mixed together.
Areum peered into the lecture hall from the hallway and whispered.
"There are more people than I expected."
"Yeah."
The hall wasn't completely full, but there were more people than I'd anticipated. Probably upperclassmen.
"Let's grab seats fast."
Today's study group was the four of us: me, Areum, Ahn Seong-hyeon, and Seongju Hyung. The usual crew we always hung out with.
"Seo-jin and Mi-hyeon nuna aren't coming?"
"No. They said they'd just study at home."
"It's tough catching a glimpse of them lately."
Lee Seo-jin and Park Mi-hyeon. The two we met at the freshman orientation and hung out with at the start of the semester. The six of us had always been together, so our classmates even lumped us together as Hana's group.
But lately we hadn't been attached at the hip like we were early in the semester.
It wasn't that things had gotten awkward. Even now, whenever we saw each other at school, we greeted each other warmly and chatted.
Our clubs simply pulled us in different directions, so we'd naturally drifted apart. I also vaguely heard they'd been busy with part-time jobs.
'I guess that's just how it goes.'
I felt a little bothered because they'd been the first friends I got close to, but I figured that's just how everyone lives their life. It would be weird to get gloomy about it when we'd only known each other for a little over two months.
We settled into the lecture hall with the fewest people. Being in a crowd for no reason felt stuffy.
As time passed, however, the lecture hall we'd chosen gradually filled up. Before we knew it, it was about half full.
'They're more focused than I thought.'
Even Seongju Hyung and Ahn Seong-hyeon were locked in, and Areum—whom I'd half-expected to suggest finding an empty lecture hall for sex—had her nose buried in her notes. I suppose the threat of a C or D on your transcript really is terrifying.
I plugged in my earphones and started memorizing in earnest. I'd already finished all the assignment-based courses. If I could just do well on the memorization-heavy subjects, I'd be able to hang on to a decent GPA.
I was absorbed in studying like that for a long while.
- ♩♬♪♩♬♪
The music I was listening to changed, and the volume grew louder.
A call was coming in.
I flinched and checked my phone. It was from Areum, who was sitting one seat away. I took out my earphones and turned around to find her glaring at me with a frown.
Only when our eyes met did her expression relax. Areum whispered in a tiny voice.
"How can you not look back even once?"
"?"
Puzzled, I followed her gaze to under my chair. Bits of eraser dust lay there. Had she been pelting me with them?
"Why did you call me?"
"Let's go eat. Late-night snack, gogo!"
"Shh."
Her voice suddenly grew louder, making me aware of the people around us. Fortunately, since it wasn't the library, nobody gave us dirty looks.
Soon we stepped outside the lecture hall. Areum let out a huge breath.
"Puhaaaa! I can finally live!"
"The air is totally different out here."
"Everyone's studying like crazy."
Even though only a door separated them, the air inside and outside the lecture hall felt completely different. It was probably just psychological, but the air inside felt somehow heavy and hot.
"What should we eat?"
"Let's just get some gukbap."
"Ehh. If I eat gukbap, I'll want to drink. Let's eat tteokbokki, tteokbokki!"
The one who suggested tteokbokki was, of course, Areum. Why are girls so crazy about tteokbokki?
'Though I like it too.'
We walked down toward the school's back gate and went into a tteokbokki place. It was lucky our department building was close to the back gate.
Areum shot her hand up and ordered.
"Spice level 7, the Great Supernova Scorching Hell flavor... Oof?!"
I immediately covered her mouth and subdued her. What the fuck is 'Great Supernova Scorching Hell flavor'?
I turned back to Ahn Seong-hyeon and Seongju Hyung, whose faces had gone pale, and spoke.
"Should we go with level 1, or level 2?"
"Level 7... eurk!"
"Stay still."
I wrapped my arm around Areum's thrashing head in a kind of headlock. I'll let go before you suffocate, so just stay still.
"Let's go with level 2."
"Level 2 is okay with me too. But with some Coolpis on the side."
"Okay."
After I ordered the tteokbokki, I let go of Areum, who had gone limp in my arms.
"I-I thought I was gonna die......"
"If we'd eaten the tteokbokki you ordered, three people would've died."
"Tch... then at least order some sundae and fried stuff. How do you only order tteokbokki? You flavor-ignorant morons."
"Alright. Order the fried stuff you like."
Areum placed the extra order, and soon the tteokbokki came out.
"Oh, this is pretty good?"
"This place is tasty. A little spicy though."
"Sseup. Ha. It does have flavor."
"It tastes a bit bland to me......"
"Bland my ass. Everyone else is huffing and puffing from the spice right now."
"Lame joke."
...I felt wronged. I wasn't even trying to make a joke.
Anyway, maybe it was because we were eating a late-night snack in the early morning, but everything tasted even better. The tteokbokki, the sundae, the fried stuff—all disappeared in a blur.
In the middle of chowing down like that, one fact abruptly popped into my head.
"Ah, shit. I was on a diet."
I hurriedly put down my chopsticks, but the tteokbokki was already scraping the bottom of the plate. Same with the sundae and fried food.
"If Seora noona finds out, I'm dead......"
Of all things, I'd eaten tteokbokki, fried food, and sundae—foods that are basically a diet's worst nightmare. They made the beef I'd eaten at the last club dinner look like health food.
Why had I eaten this without a second thought? No, maybe I'd just lost my mind because it was the first carbohydrates I'd had in ages.
I let out a deep sigh and said.
"Guys. Hyung. Keep what I ate today a secret from Seora noona. If I get caught, I might actually die."
"...If she's the nuna I know, she really might kill you."
Ahn Seong-hyeon, her cousin, drove the final nail in the coffin. An Seo-ra was definitely a kind, cheerful, good nuna, but when she was scary, she was truly terrifying—especially when she was training me.
"Don't worry. Why would I go out of my way to tattle?"
"As long as nobody says anything, she won't know. It's just one meal anyway."
Fortunately, Ahn Seong-hyeon and Seongju Hyung said they'd keep it secret. Just as I was thinking they were truly good friends—
"Hoh. Hooooh......."
Areum was looking at me with a shit-eating grin. So goddamn annoying. I could tell that if this bastard got the upper hand, it was going to be a hundred percent headache.
I raised my fist. If I exaggerated just a little, my two fists together were the size of Areum's whole head.
"You want a knuckle sandwich?"
"Oh my my, what kind of way to talk is that! Do you not realize whose hands your life and death are in right now?"
"So what."
"Eesh! Why am I the only one treated differently!"
Well, because you're the only one acting like a jerk.
"You want me to confiscate the jokbo?"
"What are you talking about! Soyeon unni gave that to us?!"
"To be precise, nuna gave it to me. Not to you."
"Tch......."
Keep messing around. Damn it all.
*
On the way back to the lecture hall.
"Did I eat too much? I'm already sleepy."
"Me too. I'm sleepy even though I'm drinking coffee."
Ahn Seong-hyeon and Seongju Hyung spoke, yawning widely. As if it was contagious, a yawn escaped my mouth too. I was going to fall asleep for sure once we went back inside the lecture hall.
Areum, sipping loudly on her coffee, spoke.
"When you're sleepy, check Camta, Camta."
"Campus Time?"
"Yeah. There are loads of funny posts there. Since it's the day before exams, everyone's going crazy and posts are going up like crazy."
"Hmm."
Campus Time, an app a lot of college students use. For the record, I hardly ever used it. I was signed up, but I was too busy looking at 'Trickster.' Actually, it was also because I'd been keeping my distance from online communities since I started university.
'When you spend too much time in communities, it fucks with your head, so to speak.'
There was definitely useful information, but there was way too much hateful content—from gender conflict to political talk to all kinds of mud-slinging. Of course, the solution was to just not click on those posts, but those community gremlins were too good at picking titles. They baited clicks so well they could put most internet article headlines to shame, making them hard not to click on.
"Study hard, everyone."
"Fighting."
We exchanged rough words of encouragement and went back into the lecture hall. Alright, let's get back to studying.
*
'I'm so fucking sleepy.......'
Since I'd stuffed myself in the early morning, a food coma hit me like crazy. My eyelids weighed a ton. A 100kg squat honestly seemed lighter.
'Should I check out Camta?'
I'll just wake myself up a bit and then go back to studying.
When I went into Camta, posts were streaming down. Looking at the timestamps, new ones were going up every second. Was Camta this heavily used? The refresh rate was insane.
Among them, one post caught my eye.
[The Dean Study Method]
'What kind of study method is this?'
I clicked on it.
[The Dean Study Method]
- Fck, I'm screwed. I'm betting it all on the Dean Study Method.
Memorize only half of a half of a half of the exam scope.
'Ah, that kind of Dean?'
The posts on Camta were mostly this kind of nonsense.
[Counting Grades at Night - Author Unknown]
An A brings joy
a B brings relief
a C brings bitterness
a D brings anguish
an F brings mother, mother!
'Eok!'
[The top student seems like they'll do well on this exam too]
- Should I confess and wreck their mental
'Is this that thing they call a Confession Attack?'
[It won't fit if it's that big.]
- Mr. Exam Scope... I said it won't fit if it's that big...!
It can't all get shoved into my head, you fucking asshole.
'Kk kk kk kk. Could Areum have written this?'
The sexual-joke concept was exactly Areum's style.
'They really are all losing their minds because it's exam period.'
All kinds of jokes were coming out. Some were stupid, but maybe because it was exam period, even those were funny.
That was when I was absorbed in Camta, scrolling down through the posts.
[You have a new message.]
A Trickster notification popped up. What's this?
- Backside_Of_One: sex
'Acting up again.'
Lately, Bback-sa had been sending messages more frequently. To be precise, it was after we found out we were in the same club.
- (Photo)
'Crazy.'
I hurriedly covered my phone and looked around. Fortunately, everyone was focused on studying or asleep.
'It definitely woke me up.'
How could I not wake up after seeing a full moon of an ass like that? Problem was, something else woke up too.
Bulgeun bulgeun.
'You just go to sleep.......'
I ignored my angry lower half and replied.
= Stop sending me stuff.
- You like it, but you're playing hard to get lol
= bullshit
It was true my cock was angry, but that didn't mean I was purely happy about it. That damn cock is a bastard that acts independently of my will or mood.
To tell the truth, it was actually starting to get annoying. Enough was enough.
- A virgin like you, when else are you gonna get a look at an ass like this. Take a good, long look while you can lololol
= there's plenty in porn bye
- pride huh? want nuna to take your virginity?
- excited? obviously it's a lie dumbass lololol
This roundabout way of needling me was getting old. No, it wasn't that I felt bad exactly—it was more that the talking pattern was the exact same every time, so I was sick of it. Honestly, putting 'lol' at the end of every sentence was cringey too.
- if you find me i'll actually give you a handjob.
- search hard~
Just as expected, the same pattern, and a sigh escaped me.
'It's not like we're playing a push-pull game.'
At first, I'd been curious who it could be—there was someone like this in the same club—and I'd even thought about finding out, but continuing to deal with her made me feel pathetic.
More than anything, I wasn't desperate enough to keep arguing with her and painstakingly track her down just to bang. No matter how much she went on about her ass, could it really be prettier than Areum's?
'Suddenly I'm out of energy.'
I made a sour face and sent one last reply.
= blocked bye
A moment after that.
- what? why!
- hey! i said i'll give you a handjob if you find me?
- why are you blocking me you bastard!
- hey, i'm sorry. i said i'm sorry. i'll apologize.
Apologetic messages came flooding in.
I watched the messages for a moment, then pressed the block button.
[Are you sure you want to block 'Backside_Of_One'?]
YES.
*
"......."
Poke, poke. Something was prodding my shoulder. At that, my body jolted violently as I woke up.
"Huk!"
Kkiiiik!
The desk and chair scraped against me, shaking wildly and making a racket.
"Ah, what the."
"You startled me."
"Wha, what is it?"
The sound had been really loud, so startled voices came from here and there. Even the people who had been sleeping jolted awake and turned to look at me.
"S-sorry."
I apologized awkwardly and got up from my seat.
'When did I fall asleep?'
I was just thinking I should at least go wash my face.
"...Ttalkkuk."
"Areum?"
"Ttalkkuk."
Areum, standing behind me, was hiccuping with a startled expression. It seemed Areum was the one who had poked my shoulder.
"...Should we step outside?"
"Ttalkkuk."
Once we came out into the hallway, Areum glared at me.
"I almost had a heart attack... Ttalkkuk! Knew it... Heukkeuk!"
"Pfft."
"You think it's funny?! Hikkeuk!"
"S-sorry."
What can I do, it's hilarious. I giggled and patted Areum on the back.
"Ttalkkuk! Heukkeuk! Hikkeuk!"
But the hiccups showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. Areum frowned with an irritated face.
"Take... kkeuk! Responsibility!"
"Should I buy you a drink? I'll get you one from that vending machine over there."
I said that because I felt sorry, but Areum shook her head.
"Hikkeuk! Not that! Kkeuk!"
"Then?"
"Come! Heeere!"
Areum grabbed my hand and took the lead, walking ahead. Soon, the place she stopped in front of was the bathroom.
"Wait, Hikkeuk! for a sec!"
Areum went into the bathroom and came right back out. Hadn't she gone in to use the toilet?
But what was this? Inside the entrance, Areum gestured to me.
"Come, Ttalkkuk! in!"
"...Excuse me?"
"Come on!"
"What kind of crazy nonsense is that."
Is she trying to ruin someone's life here?