First Day of School
What even is a university, really? Not many people stop to think about it in any concrete way. A university is just a university, after all — for most of us, the image that pops into our heads is more than enough.
According to the encyclopedia, it goes something like this.
An institution of higher education dedicated to the research of various academic fields and the cultivation of leadership qualities.
They sure made it sound complicated.
Put simply, it means you study one field for real. Back in elementary, middle, and high school, we took a little of everything — Korean, English, math, science, social studies. University is where you pick one subject from a much wider pool and dig into it until you actually know what you're talking about.
A place that manufactures specialists, each one hyper-focused on a single discipline. And, at the same time, a society unto itself.
Young people in their twenties, freshly minted as adults, gather in one place. They make friends. They study together. They form study groups, debate their majors, pile up knowledge and culture in equal measure. And every so often they drink, they socialize, they build the kind of connections that last. That, in theory, is the goal of university: to grow both your intellect and your social life.
At least, that was how I understood it.
...But that's the hopeful version.
People who lock in their career path at twenty, land the right department at the right school, then throw themselves into it with enough fire to walk away with both self-improvement and a killer network? Those people are rare. Dreams are hard to seize, and talent is even harder to find.
The world has far more of the other kind. The ones who just park themselves at a university and stall for time. The ones who put off deciding and drift in with the current. Those people make up the majority, if we're being honest.
They pick a department with a decent cutoff score, or one that looks good on a résumé, and they just... go. Since they don't actually care about the subject, studying is a nightmare. If they happen to be sociable, they might still enjoy some version of campus life. If they don't, they wash out entirely.
The original me — Lee Se-won — belonged to that second group. He'd enrolled with a "might as well go to college" attitude, failed to adapt to a campus that looked nothing like what he'd imagined, and ended up with an academic warning. That was the guy whose body I was wearing.
And I was on my way to university to clean up Lee Se-won's mess.
Why the hell do I even have to go...
I let out a sigh, grumbling inwardly. Whatever. I had to avoid getting expelled. The money and time already sunk into this place made expulsion too expensive a waste. I had to at least show up.
This stop is ○○○ Station. Passengers exiting, please use the doors on the right—
The announcement chimed through the subway car, letting me know we'd arrived. Maybe it was the gender-reversed world, but the voice on the intercom was a clean, well-modulated male one.
I stood up from my seat and trudged out. It was rush hour, so the platform was packed, and my already unpleasant eyes narrowed even further.
Why the fuck is this a nine a.m. class.
I was going to die of exhaustion. For someone who went to bed at six in the morning and woke up at two in the afternoon, a morning commute was cruel and unusual punishment. I'd already dropped more f-bombs this morning just trying to get out of bed than I cared to count.
I was starting to understand, just a little, how the original Lee Se-won — that runaway ninja — had felt.
So this is the fight you've been fighting this whole time, huh, Lee Se-won.
The one silver lining: the school was close. Whether he'd picked a university near his studio on purpose or not, the trip took twenty minutes, tops. Thank fucking god for that.
Before long I was standing in front of the lecture hall. A nameplate by the door read Building OO, Room 502. The time was 8:52. Plenty of time, thankfully.
"Hahh..."
I took a moment to steady my breathing before going in. Unfamiliar places always made me nervous — especially for a socially inept loner like me. I'd dug through Lee Se-won's relationships, and as far as I could tell, he hadn't made a single friend at this university.
Which made sense. I was a retake student, a year older than everyone else, and even a one-year gap puts a wall up when you're trying to get close to people. On top of that, Lee Se-won had been the introverted type who froze around groups and never made the first move. He'd missed his window, and by the time he thought to try, the cliques had already formed.
"That's why you should've just... fuck..."
"Hey! We're running a five-on-five against the PE department today, you in—"
"Kyahaha! Is that for real?"
I'd been standing there a moment when the chatter from behind the door drifted out. Girls cussing each other out and messing around. Guys gossiping in high, fluttery voices. The whole bizarre scene left me briefly speechless.
But only briefly. It was time to go in. I decided to slip through as quietly as possible and reached for the doorknob.
Except...
Rattle. Rattle.
The door wouldn't open. It was stiff, like something had caught it, like something on the other side was blocking the way.
"Ah? What's wrong with this thing..."
I stood there confused for a second — and then one of Lee Se-won's memories surfaced on its own and filled me in.
Our university's pretty old, so every door in the place is rusted to shit.
Ah.
So I just needed to put a little more force into it. That was the thought I had as I shoved the door open with everything I had.
BAAAAANG!!!!!!!!!!
As if it were announcing its existence to the entire world. As if it had decided, right then and there, to make the loudest sound a door had ever made. The thing flew open with a violence that sent the door crashing into the lecture-hall wall, the impact blasting noise in every direction. Startled faces snapped toward me from every corner of the room.
And right on cue, another of Lee Se-won's memories surfaced.
But if you put any force into it they slam open with a fucking huge bang. Draws aggro from the entire room, so be careful lmao
It hit me, all at once, that I was completely screwed.
You should've told me that FIRST, you piece of shit!!
I screamed it at the guy in my head, but it was already far too late.
The girls in the back who'd been planning their five-on-five. The guys up front who'd been gossiping. Even the handful of students who'd been quietly on their phones. Every single one of them stopped what they were doing and locked their eyes on me. Dozens of pairs of eyes, all pointed in one direction. Mine.
"......"
"......"
A silence so thick it was almost vicious. A few seconds stretched out like an eternity.
Fuck. Fuuuuck......
I wanted to die of embarrassment. I was the kind of person who could not handle this kind of attention.
"......"
In the end I couldn't take the staring and hurried to a seat, keeping my face as blank as I could manage, heading for the most isolated corner in the room. This awkward atmosphere... I had no idea what to do with it. I didn't know how to break it, and I didn't have the confidence to try. The best I could do was sit down quietly and disappear.
Maybe that was enough. The other students finally peeled their eyes off me and started talking among themselves again. I could still feel the occasional glance flicking my way, but those I could live with.
I want to drop out...
I'd been inside for all of a few minutes and I was already craving a withdrawal form. That was when the professor finally walked in — a middle-aged man, somewhere in his fifties. He started calling attendance the moment he reached the podium.
"Kim Woo-sung."
"Yes."
"Kang Yoon-mi."
"Yeees."
He worked through the student numbers from the top. Mine sat somewhere in the middle. A little time passed, and then he called my name.
"Lee Se-won?"
"Yes."
The professor turned his head toward me. His eyes went wide, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
"Ohh, so Student Lee Se-won decided to attend? It's been a while. I was starting to think we'd never see you again. Hohoho."
Then he just kept talking, all by himself. His mouth was smiling. His eyes were not.
The subtext wasn't hard to catch. He was calling me out.
Fuck.
What have you been doing this whole time instead of coming to class — that was the real question. Of course the professors knew about my academic warning. They were the ones who'd been taking attendance. Showing up for the first time only after expulsion was on the table was never going to look good.
It's not like I planned on going to school in the first place...
A flicker of indignation passed through me, but there was no chance he'd understand.
"Haha......"
In the end, the only move I had was an awkward laugh. I forced the corners of my mouth up and manufactured a smile. That was the best I could do.
The professor watched me a moment longer, decided he had nothing else to say, and turned back to the board.
"...All right, all right. Let's get started."
He picked up a pen and began writing on the whiteboard. Class had officially begun. The students who'd been chatting were supposed to focus now.
The atmosphere in the room, however, was still anything but settled.
"Whoa, that guy actually came. I don't think I've seen him once this semester."
"Did you see him open the door earlier? That was so intense I almost pissed myself."
The girls in the row behind me were whispering about me. They clearly thought they were being quiet. I heard every word. They kept snickering and murmuring back and forth.
A guy nearby had something to add, too.
"That dude seems kinda weird..."
The fuck? Why all of a sudden.
"Huh? What's up?"
Another guy nearby seemed to be thinking the same thing I was. His voice had a nasal twang that was a little off-putting, but I appreciated him speaking my mind.
"Nah, I live in the same neighborhood as him? Pretty close, actually. Last night I suddenly heard this screaming... like he'd seen something he wasn't supposed to see. Scared the hell out of me."
Unfortunately, the guy's logic was airtight. A memory flickered through my head.
Ah.
Last night. Checking my bank balance. So he'd heard that.
Shit. I should've been more careful...
Not that I'd had a choice. Ten million won vanishes from your account overnight and you wake up six million in debt — how the hell are you supposed to not scream? It had been a force majeure situation.
Still. It was a painful unforced error. That guy had every reason to think I was unhinged.
God. Please just let this end...
I sat through the rest of the lecture like I was perched on a bed of nails.
And that was how my first day of university went.