A Peaceful Weekend
Time flew by, and a full week had already passed.
Throughout that stretch we had only ordinary classes. I had heard that club activities would begin once this weekend ended and the next week rolled around. Entering the Illusion Dungeon would come the week after that. In short, for roughly two weeks after enrollment there would be no combat lessons at all. If I had to put a label on the period, it felt a lot like the adaptation phase for new recruits in the military.
And during that recent week, all sorts of rumors about me had sprung up.
A pretty face with a rotten attitude. A chic, haughty ice prince. A guy who had zero interest in girls. And so on.
Behavior born of trauma had bred negative misunderstandings, and those rumors had hardened as solid as concrete. Still, it was fine. Once I overcame the trauma I could slowly clear things up later. For now I had no choice but to live with the gossip.
Putting up with rumors of this level isn’t hard. Seo I-eung is stuck with far worse malicious ones than me.
Seo I-eung had it worse. One of the rumors stuck to her claimed that her family ran a mob outfit and that she herself was a mob boss’s daughter. It was pure fiction. She had explained it to me herself—she was absolutely not any kind of gangster’s kid.
Who the hell started that rumor…
Knowing the truth, I made a quiet vow. When I finally beat my trauma, I would clear my own name and wipe out the vicious falsehoods clinging to Seo I-eung at the same time.
A peaceful weekend.
After confirming that the ramen stocked on the shelf had finally run out, I jammed a black hat down low and stopped by the convenience store for something to eat.
“Welcome.”
“Yes.”
I returned the greeting and flicked a glance toward the counter. A part-timer sat there staring only at a phone. Not the one who usually worked this hour. Had that person quit? Until now the shift had been covered by a guy, so I could come without stress. The replacement was a girl. Of course she was a beauty.
I’m never coming back to this store.
Next time I would use the place next door. Or pick a different time slot. I grabbed a basket, passed the counter, and headed for the shelves, stopping naturally at the cup-ramen section. Money was tight; expensive food was out of the question. The Illusion Dungeon entrance fee last time had hit my wallet hard.
Hmm.
I scanned the rows of cups, weighing my options. The first thing that caught my eye was a rich gomtang noodle—probably a new product. Price: 2,200 won.
…Why is that so expensive?
A cup of ramen over two thousand won. That crossed the line and then some. Cup ramen exists because it is cheap. If I were going to spend that much I might as well throw in a little more and buy a proper lunch box.
I’ll just go with the old reliable.
I pulled my gaze away from the gomtang and chose the classic of classics: yukgaejang bowl noodles.
Cheap and tasty. Perfect.
Naturally I picked the small cup. It might have been my imagination, but the big bowls always tasted subtly different—in a bad way.
About ten cups of ramen… plus some water and a little kimchi.
I finished shopping in a hurry and set the basket on the counter.
This one doesn’t even glance at me once.
The part-timer rang everything up without ever looking at the customer. The type who avoided eye contact. A very correct attitude. With someone like that I wouldn’t need to switch stores after all.
Come to think of it, I really do need to find a part-time job myself.
I watched the barcodes flash past and thought it over. Ssalmeok was getting shaky. Game-currency values kept dropping. Unless you were a super-farmer with a small army of characters like SuperBoma, the market had become brutal.
“All set. Please insert your card up front…”
Only then did the part-timer glance at me.
“…insert it.”
Her voice had changed—from thick with annoyance to suddenly diligent. I shoved my hat lower and slid the card into the terminal. Payment finished.
“Have a nice day! Please come again!”
I left under a send-off that had grown uncomfortably cheerful. Once again I revised my decision: I would never set foot in this convenience store again.
Back at the studio building, I was walking down the third-floor hallway when—
Creeeak—!
The door to 303 opened and a woman trudged out. Messy hair, a worn-out tracksuit. She looked like a full-time shut-in, yet because she was beautiful she somehow avoided looking truly grubby.
First time seeing the resident of 303.
I had known someone lived there. I had never actually run into them, but every time I walked the hall I occasionally caught the sense of a presence inside. Even beyond her, plenty of neighbors still had faces I didn’t know—probably because I almost never left the room before starting at the academy.
No need to greet her, right?
I considered it for a second and decided against it. Neighbors rarely greeted each other these days. Bleak reality. Without looking her way I kept my eyes straight ahead and walked. Just as I was passing—
“Ah, anyeo ha…”
An unintelligible mumble reached me. Was that meant for me? I flicked a sidelong glance.
“Seyeo…”
She stood rooted in place, muttering to herself. I couldn’t make out the words. Her eyes weren’t even aimed at me, so it definitely wasn’t directed my way. I faced forward again and kept walking. As I unlocked my own door I glanced back down the hall.
“……”
The woman was still standing there. She was glaring at me with a murderous expression, as if she wanted to kill me on the spot.
What the hell—scary.
I ducked inside in a hurry and bolted the door. From now on I would be careful walking the hallway. Room 303 looked like a dangerous woman.
After I finished eating I turned on the computer and checked the message window synced to my phone. Another mountain of messages waited.
·
·
·
Hundreds more messages sat stacked on top of those.
Maybe I shouldn’t have traded numbers so freely.
Regret hit late. Every time a girl asked for my number I had just handed it over, and this was the result. Of course I never replied. The fact that they were all beautiful girls was already stressful, and answering every single message would eat my personal time. I only answered a limited set of people.
Either male classmates, or…
…the professor and the instructor, or…
…messages from Seo I-eung, or else my landlord Cha Seolyu…
Looking at it like this, there are actually quite a few.
Anyway, outside of this small circle I didn’t exchange texts. Not unless something special came up. Even with these people I never kept the conversation going long.
The only person I could talk to freely through cyberspace was one single individual.
Only SuperBoma. Over the past week of voice chats we had gotten pretty close.
“You’re early. What did you eat?”
“Just a simple cup of ramen.”
“Which one?”
“Yukgaejang bowl noodles.”
“Please tell me you didn’t get the big bowl.”
“Of course I got the small cup.”
“Whew. Almost disappointed.”
Our conversation codes somehow matched really well. Not knowing each other’s faces kept things pressure-free, so we voice-chatted almost every day.
“Oh right. Something annoying happened today.”
“Annoying?”
“I ran into a neighbor I’d never seen before and said hello, right? But the guy completely ignored me and just walked past.”
“Maybe he didn’t hear you?”
“No way. I greeted him right in front of his face.”
“Really? Why wouldn’t he answer… What a rude bastard.”
“That’s the problem with people these days. No neighborly warmth left.”
“Next time you see him, don’t greet him either.”
“That’s the plan. And the guy—he acted like he was so good-looking he could treat people like dirt. This is exactly why I hate handsome guys. Their personalities are trash.”
So SuperBoma’s rude neighbor had been a guy. For the record, SuperBoma claimed not to discriminate against ugly men, but said most handsome ones had rotten personalities so she preferred to avoid them.
“I’ve told you a hundred times—being handsome doesn’t automatically mean the personality is trash.”
“I know that. It’s just that every handsome guy I’ve met so far really was trash. And the one I saw today had that heavenly-tier face, so of course he was extra rude. Anyway, I don’t actually hold prejudices.”
She said she didn’t, but from where I stood she clearly carried a little bias against handsome men.
“But the way you talk, it’s like you’re handsome yourself? You’re ugly.”
“Think whatever you want.”
SuperBoma still believed I was ugly. She had never seen my face. Since she hated handsome guys, I saw no reason to correct her. We would never meet in real life anyway.
“If no girl will have you, you can always marry this noona later. I’ll specially take you in.”
“Who’s calling who noona? And why the hell would I marry you of all people.”
Her words weren’t serious. Just a running joke she tossed out often. While we were chatting like that—
“Oh, right. Talking about neighbors reminded me of something that felt kinda creepy earlier.”
“Creepy? What happened?”
“On my way home some neighbor was just standing there muttering what sounded like a curse.”
“Holy crap. Is she a psycho?”
“Not that bad, I think. Just someone whose head’s a little off.”
“That is a psycho. You’ve got zero luck with neighbors. She didn’t do anything to you, right?”
“No harm done, but she did glare at me from behind with this really weird look.”
“For real? That’s textbook criminal behavior. Shouldn’t you report her to the police before something worse happens?”
“She hasn’t actually done anything yet—what’s there to report?”
“Be careful for real. Try not to run into that neighbor if you can help it. There are so many crazy women these days.”
“I will. But maybe I just misunderstood.”
“Nope. Not a misunderstanding. My gut says that woman is a textbook psychopath criminal.”
“You’ve never even seen her—how can you decide that so fast…”
“People have instincts, okay? Anyway, forget that crazy psycho and let’s play already. I’m hopping on my 120th alt.”
And so I spent the entire day chatting without a single awkward pause with SuperBoma, gaming the whole time. It was the most enjoyable weekend I had had in a long while.
I would look for a part-time job tomorrow. Something like warehouse loading—definitely not a service job that forced me to deal with people.