This Is It
The truth was, someone inserting themselves into this group wouldn't have been a problem. This wasn't some closed-off cult. It was just an ordinary cluster of students that had formed because people talked too much. A guy, a girl, even a professor or a TA swinging by for a minute — none of it would have made a difference.
The problem wasn't how he looked. It was his personality.
Namely, Han Ho-cheol. This bastard.
"Hmm? What're you guys talking about~?"
His voice had a nasal twang woven through it. A whole fucking lot of it, too.
"Tell me too~ Come on?"
Every time that voice rang out, a noisy nasal overlay rode on top of it. The sound, manufactured somewhere around the nose, had a particular talent for chewing through your nerves. And the voice itself was deep, true to the name — so every time the nasality resonated, it called to mind some unpleasant ravine.
If he could just act in a way that matched that name, that would have been nice... but he didn't, and that was precisely the guy's biggest flaw.
If your name is Han Ho-cheol, huh?! Act like a damn man!! Knock back a shot of soju like you mean it! Spit out a proper curse for once! Don't pull that fairy-ass aegyo shit!!!
Hah...
A sigh punched its way up from somewhere inside me. The tendons in my neck stood out as irritation flooded in on autopilot.
...Honestly, if that had been his real personality, it wouldn't have bothered me this much. You know the type, right? That one friend who talks a little like a girl, a nasal lilt creeping in now and then, but isn't actually gay. And somehow he's weirdly close with all the girls. I'd had a friend like that in high school, so that much I could understand. This was a gender-reversed world, after all — you could even write it off as one guy's personal flavor.
The problem was that this clearly wasn't his real personality. The fakery was painfully obvious. Even as he poured out the aegyo, you'd catch his eyelids twitching now and then. The occasional tremor in his voice proved it. He was mixing that nasal lilt into his own voice and being creeped out by it himself.
It was a curious thing. If it bothered him, he didn't have to do it. The fact that he still went to all that trouble meant there was a market for it.
"Oh, hey Ho-cheol. We were just talking about games."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah, unlike a support with no human rights like you, Se-won sunbae is apparently a proud Top laner."
"He says tearing the trash bitches who wander into his lane to shreds is the joy of his life."
The moment Han Ho-cheol stepped into the group, he blended in like he'd always been there. They'd already gotten close over freshman year, taking the same classes. Both circles were among the more outgoing in the department besides, so it wasn't as if they'd never crossed paths. The girls seemed to actually like that nasal voice of his; they looked at him with something warm in their eyes.
He mixed with the group as naturally as water finding its level. Unlike me, there wasn't a trace of awkward air around him when he talked. I had to give him a little credit there.
So that's what a social butterfly looks like...?
How did a conversation never hit a single dead spot...? Wasn't it just common sense that silences happen when people talk? Right now, my common sense was being slowly demolished. Talking with Seong A-rin lately, I'd started to think I'd grown a little. That was just because Seong A-rin was easy. A real social butterfly was a fundamentally different species from me.
Ahh. I could feel the distant, towering wall.
"Aha... I see."
I stayed quiet for a moment, and his eyes brushed across me. Some unreadable feeling settled into that fake gaze. I just smiled back, mild and even.
Honestly, it is uncomfortable.
But there was no need to show that. Hide your hostility. Show your goodwill. Even if you didn't actually feel any goodwill, slapping a rough coat of it on the outside was goodwill enough. A lesson I'd picked up last year, bouncing from one part-time job to the next. In a world this rough, there was no reason to go making enemies on purpose.
Han Ho-cheol stared at me a moment longer, then turned his gaze toward Eun-byul.
"...More importantly. Eun-byul! It's been a while? Good to see you~."
He greeted her with a bright, beaming face. Then he sidled up beside her, naturally as anything, and started linking arms. Lee Eun-byul's lightly muscled arm slid between his. The motion was so smooth I almost missed it.
And then his eyes came back to me. This time, for some reason, I could read the feeling in them perfectly. What sat in that gaze was mockery, plain and simple.
I was thrown.
What is that.
What the hell was that. Was this this world's version of a fox act? Could you just do skinship that naturally? Well. I'd learned something today.
Every so often, Han Ho-cheol would make a move on Eun-byul like that. It was nothing more than linking arms — hardly any skinship at all — but in a reversed world, the destructive power looked considerable. Not that Lee Eun-byul herself seemed comfortable with it.
"Ah, yeah... it's been a while."
She smiled awkwardly and carefully extracted her arm. Han Ho-cheol's arm, robbed of its destination, floated in empty air. Now it was his turn to be thrown. Those beaming eyes of his trembled, just slightly.
I watched it and snorted inwardly. I'd figured as much. I told myself:
Our Eun-byul is a chickenshit coward who'd bolt even if a hookup landed in her lap. She's not the kind of person who'd fall for a fox act that cheap.
While I was thinking that, Eun-byul suddenly turned to me.
"More importantly, sunbae, when are we getting drinks? It feels like it's been forever since we last went out."
"Sorry. I've just been slammed lately."
"You're actually, actually busy, right? You're not just avoiding me, are you?"
"Whaat~ Eun-byul drinks with Se-won sunbae too~?"
Anyway, this was how things had been going lately. Subtle. Awkward. And yet, somehow, peaceful, as if nothing were wrong......
How long that would last, nobody knew.
"—Alright, that's all for today. Exams are right around the corner, so make sure you all study hard."
The morning lecture ended, and students rose from their seats one by one. Today had been morning classes only, so everyone's steps were as light as they came. Han Ho-cheol offered the professor a brief greeting and stood up immediately.
"Ah, Ho-cheol. Wanna walk together?"
One of his classmates, Kang Min-woo, called out to him on the way, but Han Ho-cheol's answer was cold and flat.
"Sorry. I'm not in a great mood today."
"Ah, yeah..."
No rise, no fall — a voice with the feeling pressed down into it. Kang Min-woo nodded, looking faintly embarrassed.
Han Ho-cheol came out alone, walked a while, and then let out a sigh.
"Hah..."
The earlier scene replayed itself in his head on autopilot. Lee Eun-byul awkwardly pulling her arm free. Lee Se-won watching him with that faint, peculiar smile. Just thinking about it sent the anger surging up on its own.
"That fucking bastard."
The smile he'd put on earlier was gone. The fakery was gone. The Han Ho-cheol standing here now was prickly and irritable — the real him. He thought back over what had happened during the break. Lee Eun-byul ignoring him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Lee Se-won looking at him and letting that little sneer slip. His face twisted at the ugly recollection.
"Who the fuck does he think he is, laughing like that? Fucking hilarious."
He could still feel it. Lee Eun-byul and Lee Se-won slipping off into a world of their own, and the isolation he'd had to stand there like an idiot and feel, right beside them.
...Yeah. Isolation. For Han Ho-cheol, who spent most of his time at the center of every group, isolation was a deeply unfamiliar word. He hadn't felt it once in high school, or in middle school either. Ordinarily he was the one who made other people feel that way. He'd rarely felt it himself.
The sudden sense that he'd been made pathetic. The inferiority welling up for no good reason. There was no way that felt good.
"What the hell does that bitch even see in him, following him around like that?"
He was the one who treated her better. That much was obvious. Unlike Lee Se-won, he was bright with her every time they met. He'd laid on the aegyo, loaded his voice with warmth more times than he could count, even initiated skinship a few times, naturally. That was the method he'd spent his whole life perfecting — the way you charm girls. That should have been enough to reel in most of them. And yet Lee Eun-byul was throwing herself at some other guy... all it did was piss him off.
He'd always been the possessive type. Once he marked something as his, he had to have it or he couldn't sit still — and if he couldn't have it, he got ugly about it. And the thing he wanted to own this time was Lee Eun-byul.
"Fuck."
Han Ho-cheol chewed on his thumbnail. It was a fairly hysterical look, but luckily there was no one around to see it. He'd steered himself somewhere out of sight to begin with. He kept thinking as he bit down on the nail.
No, what do I even have that's worse than that bastard.
A clammy emotion oozed out of him. A sticky inferiority, a mean-spirited rage, lapped around Ho-cheol like a tide.
We're about the same height, and my social skills are way better.
The face... fine, he'd admit the guy was good-looking. But if you were only talking looks, he didn't lose either. And if you actually watched Lee Se-won, he seemed irritable and prickly besides. Maybe the fact that he still didn't have a single friend said everything about his personality.
He's just a loner bastard with a decent face.
He, on the other hand, came off as good-natured, with the kind of cute face people found easy to approach. His voice was full of life and he knew how to wear a dozen different expressions, so plenty of people sent goodwill his way.
I'm the one who likes her...
He was outgoing, he was good with people, and he was offering to like her specially. He was going to throw away all the girls who liked him and choose her, specifically. And even so, Lee Eun-byul didn't have him in her sights at all, and that made the anger surge. And more than that, he couldn't stand Lee Se-won.
"This is such bullshit."
It was a common enough psychology. You can't bring yourself to hate the person you have feelings for, so you hate the human standing next to them instead. People were that cheap — that alone was enough to slip the shackles. Give them even a shred of justification and they could hate someone without a second thought. Even if the person being hated hadn't done a thing.
The ugly feeling that had been stacking up for weeks kept growing, until somewhere along the way, Lee Se-won had become, in Han Ho-cheol's mind, a bastard who needed to die. A bastard who, if they'd run into each other in high school, wouldn't have been able to meet his eyes — strutting around like that just piled more irritation on top.
How do I mess with him?
After venting that hysterical feeling for a good long while, Han Ho-cheol came back out of the empty spot. His face looked as calm as usual, but his head was packed with nothing but how to make Lee Se-won suffer. How to pull him off her. How to make that bastard stop his little seduction act. His mind was a mess. He walked, turning it over and over.
After a few minutes of walking with no destination at all, he happened to spot Yu Bo-ram and Lee Eun-byul near the trash area, talking about something with real energy. Curiosity tugged at him, and he asked Eun-byul what they were discussing.
"What's going on?"
"Ah, well......"
And once he'd heard the whole story, something flashed through his mind. A smile of triumph hooked the corner of his mouth. The smile of a man who had just found his answer.
This is it.
With this, he could wreck Lee Se-won.