The Outsider in the Group Assignment
On the evening of the day there had been a birthday party at Lee Narin’s house, I was exchanging messages with Yu Somi.
Weekdays were a different story, since I usually had other things to do and couldn’t always reply to her right away. But today was the weekend, and aside from attending Narin’s birthday party during the day, I had nothing on my schedule, so I had time to kill.
I replied, “I guess it’s not impossible, but thinking back on how things went, I can’t exactly say no. When you’re tired, all you want to do is lie down in bed. That’s just human nature...”
When she’d come to see us off after the party ended, Lee Narin had looked like someone who’d just been dragged out of sleep. Her shoulders had slumped as if she’d been worn down by Han Sia and Yu Somi, and all the petting she’d endured had left her hair in a messy, puffed-up state.
For the record, Narin herself had been the one to end the party, saying, “I’m tired now, so all of you go home!”
“But why did you take so many pictures of Narin today? I can sort of understand Sia, since she doesn’t have any siblings and secretly enjoys teasing people, but Somi, you have a younger sister, don’t you?”
When I thought back on today’s birthday party, Han Sia had been preoccupied with touching and fussing over Narin, while Somi had seemed more interested in taking pictures than anything else.
Sure, Narin was cute sprawled out in the arms of a giant black bear plush with cat ears on her head, but Somi had felt like she wanted photos from a lot more... angles, and in a lot more poses.
So she was using her friend’s photo as reference material for figure drawing...
Come to think of it, in terms of rarity, bodies like Somi and Soha’s were probably harder to come by in Korea, but from Somi’s own perspective, it seemed like a body like Narin’s was the harder one to find. That was kind of amusing.
...
No, more than that, so she normally used her own body as drawing reference?
At this rate, if she ever drew a character with a fuller figure, I was going to want to take a close look.
“Somi, you’d better make sure you get Narin’s proper permission, and thank her too.”
What. Why were “cute” and “lovable” on the same level as “drag home, put on a leash, and keep as a pet”? I’m not Han Sia.
Still, an animal... if I were being practical about keeping one at home, it would have to be a dog or a cat, but I guessed that wasn’t what she was asking.
We’d just been talking about drawing, so maybe she was trying to decide what sort of subject to use for her next piece.
Hmm... if I stripped away all the hassle of actually caring for one and just thought about what was cute...
“A rabbit.”
Were rabbits expensive?
I didn’t have any experience keeping pets, so I wasn’t sure.
I had kept lab rabbits before regression... but maybe because they were lab animals, they seemed pretty expensive.
She was talking like she was ordering something online.
I didn’t know what was going on, but if we were talking rabbits, then a white rabbit was the obvious choice.
“White?”
I replied, “Yeah. See you at school.”
Usually, once Yu Somi started messaging me, she never let go until I was on the verge of thinking, At this rate, I’m never waking up tomorrow.
But this time, she was the one ending the conversation, so she really must have had something to do.
Well, school had started up again, and Somi probably had classes to deal with on top of preparing for the Dongin Event. She was probably just busy.
.
.
.
♪~♫-♪-♬
Only a few minutes after I finished messaging Somi, another message arrived, this time from Han Sia.
Unlike Yu Somi, who sent me messages so constantly she might as well have been living to keep my phone buzzing, Han Sia’s messages were relatively rare.
It felt less like she used messaging for idle chat and more like she only contacted me when she actually had something to say.
Either way, I was just planning to waste time until I fell asleep, so I sent her a reply.
What was this? Had some kind of lovable-animal World Cup started trending among girls lately?
But Sia’s question was too broad, so it was a little hard to answer. Somi at least had given me conditions.
“Any conditions?”
Right. At the very least, I understood she was talking about a pet you could keep at home.
A cute animal you could keep indoors, but that would be a little awkward to take outside...
Was there anything besides a cat?
“I guess a cat’s the only one.”
Either way, the fur would be a hassle, but if I were keeping one, short-haired would probably be better.
If it were a cat the size of a human, like a Norwegian Forest Cat or something, I might think long-haired would be cuter. But something like that obviously wasn’t happening in an apartment.
“Short-haired.”
“Why???”
I didn’t understand why she kept sounding like she was ordering something online.
There weren’t any pink or blue cats in real life, so... was she trying to buy some kind of character merchandise?
Since we’d had a similar conversation when I was messaging Somi earlier, I wondered if Sia and Somi had been talking about animal character goods together or something.
It wasn’t unusual for high school girls to bring cute animal-shaped pencil cases or animal-shaped pillows to school, so maybe Sia and Somi were thinking about buying things like that.
“Black suits you.”
...But what exactly was I supposed to be looking forward to?
By mid-September, all kinds of performance evaluations had started at school.
Which meant that in main subjects like Korean, English, and math, we were getting pop quizzes, while in exploratory subjects like history, social studies, and science, we were being forced into absurd group projects.
Honestly, pop quizzes were a joke from the perspective of a regression-boosted academic monster like me, so they weren’t a problem at all.
The real problem was those meaningless group projects.
The group assignments in history or social studies usually amounted to, “Research the topic assigned to your group, stick the results onto a giant sheet of drawing paper, and present it.”
But there was no way a bunch of first-year high school brats actually knew how to do proper research or give a proper presentation, did they?
Something I could finish by myself in less than two hours would drag on forever if I had to do it with those idiots, so if I wanted a good grade, I had to steel myself.
...For the record, during last semester’s group project evaluation, I’d participated as earnestly as possible because I was worried about rumors going around the class.
In the end, I got a good score on the evaluation, but it didn’t exactly improve my reputation...
But this time was different.
And what was different was this:
I no longer needed to get a good score on group-project evaluations.
Originally, I was a man whose success was guaranteed by the existence of Bitcoin, so my school grades didn’t really matter anyway.
But group projects were the one thing I couldn’t ignore, because if I messed them up, my reputation in class could take a nosedive.
But now I had no reason to care about that anymore.
After all, last semester’s humiliating display had already proven that no matter how hard I tried, my standing in class wouldn’t change.
And even if I botched the evaluation a little, there was no way I’d become less likable than Song Changwon.
Heh. In that case, maybe I should ride the bus this time too.
Heh heh... I didn’t know who I’d end up grouped with, but they’d better manage their own score themselves.
...
Ah... somehow, this did not feel like the kind of atmosphere where I could casually say I’d just half-ass it.