One-Room Dictator 34

#34

Even though he studied hard, his grades barely hovered around average, and now that he’d been dumped on top of that, it was only natural that his grades would hit rock bottom. And so Bonoh spectacularly bombed his final exams. Looking at the 2.35 printed on his transcript, Bonoh felt so pitiful that tears pricked at his eyes.

Feeling like the world was mocking him, for a while he would randomly flip off the air or search around for hidden cameras. And as soon as the semester ended, Bonoh first checked if there were any spots available for active duty military service.

With not much time left before his enlistment date, Bonoh went to the neighborhood hair salon. “Please shave it all off,” he said with just those words and sat down in the chair. When the sound of the clippers approached, he almost squeezed his eyes shut, but he forced them wide open instead.

‘This is… me? Damn, fucking handsome. Kim Bonoh is a real man….’

His hair fell away in clumps, and looking at his cleanly shaved face in the mirror, Bonoh’s eyes pricked with tears once again. He was moved by his own appearance – breaking up and going to the military like a real man. It was his second time crying since the breakup, and that’s how Bonoh’s pride was restored.

***

[Hello~ Dear questioner.^^

First, to increase the reliability of my answer, let me explain my background. I have stolen the hearts of 9 people in 3 months and received confessions from them. (Sometimes they confessed simultaneously, which was quite troublesome…)

But surely I didn’t achieve this because I’m somehow special? Not at all. Know yourself and know your enemy, and you’ll win every battle. Without knowing a tree’s heart, even if you hit it 10 times, you’ll only hurt the tree’s feelings. Fortunately, you’ve met me, so all that’s left is to forge ahead.

Looking at what you’ve written, your friend seems to be a tsundere same-age type. (This is just a name I gave for convenience, so whether they’re actually the same age isn’t that important^^) According to my database, I deduce they’re the type who’s far from being a model student and often clumsy. Usually friends of this type are active and show tsundere tendencies. (In illustration terms, maybe natural moe with brown eyes?^^ㅋ)

Even though this type seems cheerful, they’re actually shy inside^^ so you need to approach them actively to capture them. I’ll tell you the method from now on, so please follow along.

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Bonoh wrote out in detail the strategy he had learned. He looked with proud eyes at his username displayed above the answer he had posted. Casanovafarmer. It was definitely a username that suited him perfectly.

Besides that, he selected romance-related questions from various posts and answered them with sincere devotion. Though he didn’t do it expecting anything in return, Bonoh desperately prayed that his good deeds would come back to him as luck. Like getting all the classes he wanted during course registration, for instance.

Taeseong returned early in the morning on course registration day. Bonoh had been grinding his teeth about course registration, bitter from last semester’s disastrous schedule, and was about to leave his room to go to the PC bang. Bonoh’s eyes had opened early even before his alarm went off due to his nervous feelings. The moment he opened the door to go secure a spot in advance, he ran into Taeseong.

“Hey! You’re alive?”

Bonoh grabbed Taeseong’s arm and greeted him warmly. He was genuinely happy to see Taeseong after so long, but his tension about course registration and the side effects of waking up early in the morning had strangely elevated his energy, causing his body to move before his mind unintentionally. When Taeseong looked down at his grabbed arm, Bonoh hurriedly let go.

“…Where are you going?”

“I’m going to the PC bang for course registration. Are you planning to do it from your room?”

“Yeah. Oh, no. I was also thinking of going to the PC bang to do it.”

Taeseong’s expression looked somehow determined as he said this. Bonoh recalled Taeseong’s schedule from last semester. That bastard has good reason to turn over a new leaf too, he thought as they headed to the PC bang together.

Unlike usual, the PC bang near school was crowded even in the early hours. People had roughly thrown on their department jackets or some were even wearing pajama pants. Everyone seemed to have gathered for course registration. To think all these people were competitors. Bonoh surveyed the PC bang with a sharp gaze. Then, seeing two seats at the very back were empty, he led Taeseong over.

As soon as Bonoh sat down, he ordered a hot dog first. There was still plenty of time, and his calculation was that filling his stomach first would make his hands at least a little more nimble. After setting up the school homepage and a second-by-second clock on his screen, he peered at Taeseong’s monitor.

“Huh, what are you doing without logging in?”

Taeseong was still stuck on the initial screen. Just moving his mouse around and rolling his eyes, he seemed unfamiliar with using a PC bang. The PC bang near school was an ordinary place where you had to log in and charge time to that account to access the desktop, but Taeseong looked like someone experiencing a PC bang for the first time.

“Is this your first time at a PC bang? Why are you being so clueless?”

“It is my first time.”

“Wow… What have you been doing with your life until now?”

“The keyboards and mice are dirty, how could I touch them? Who knows if someone touched them with hands that picked their ears or nose? There are perverted old men watching porn too – how would I know if they touched the keyboard with hands that jerked off? Do they even clean properly?”

“…I get it, so keep it down.”

At Taeseong’s cutting words, Bonoh looked around. People at nearby seats were definitely taking their hands off the keyboards and mice they’d placed them on, having clearly heard Taeseong’s words. Bonoh was so embarrassed he couldn’t lift his head. However, Bonoh, who had scolded Taeseong to be quiet, also secretly placed both hands on his thighs.

“Try clicking on ‘non-member access’ at the bottom here.”

“Where?”

Taeseong was relaxed, but Bonoh’s heart was actually racing with course registration approaching. In the end, he reached toward Taeseong’s seat. Taeseong looked down at Bonoh’s head that had suddenly approached in front of his torso. He pulled the mouse and keyboard toward himself and skillfully entered the page to charge time as a non-member.

“Bank transfer is convenient, right?”

“Yeah…”

Because Bonoh had turned around to ask while they were quite close together, Taeseong couldn’t help but be startled. Bonoh looked at Taeseong strangely, then turned his gaze back to the screen.

‘What, that’s sexy…’

Taeseong was impressed. Not only the posture of stretching his waist and leaning in close, but especially the way he hit the keyboard smoothly and familiarly was particularly sexy. There were quite a few people who had logged in skillfully in all directions, but Taeseong only saw Bonoh.

Taeseong recalled one of the rules that ‘Casanovafarmer’ had taught him.

-Intellectual sexy strategy.

It’s difficult to suddenly feel sexual attraction between friends. To show an unexpected side, there’s exercise, but for this type, appealing to their intellectual side is most effective. When the other person is solving a problem they don’t know, you casually help them.

The point is to be nonchalant. Acting like a know-it-all is absolutely forbidden!

It was the strategy Taeseong was most confident about. During the summer semester, he had already helped Bonoh with problems he didn’t know (though of course Bonoh couldn’t understand what he was saying, so he couldn’t show off his intellectual side), and if you just looked at the first digit, his GPA was double Bonoh’s.

But he never dreamed he’d be on the receiving end of this strategy from Bonoh. What’s more, unlike him, Bonoh didn’t even seem to have any intention of seducing, which made it more infuriating, and like Casanovafarmer said, he was nonchalant, making him look even sexier.

Casanovafarmer’s advice was indeed amazing. Taeseong found it hard to look away from Bonoh’s profile. Even when he turned his gaze away, he unconsciously looked at Bonoh again. The inside of the PC bang was a bit dark, and Bonoh’s face brightened by the monitor light and his slightly tilted neckline came into view.

Then Taeseong noticed a faint mark remaining on his earlobe. With his gaze fixed on that spot, Taeseong spoke a beat late.

“…Kim Bonoh, did you get your ear pierced?”

With his gaze still on the screen, Bonoh finished the payment with familiar hand movements and answered matter-of-factly.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. You can transfer to this account.”

Taeseong turned his gaze to his phone to make the bank transfer as Bonoh had instructed. However, the image of Kim Bonoh with a piercing flickered before Taeseong’s eyes.

What kind of piercing had Kim Bonoh worn? A small, thin ring piercing? Or even just a simple piercing with a ball would definitely suit him well. His ears were round and cute after all. No, Kim Bonoh was like a delinquent who went out drinking every day, so that must be why. What did it matter how his ears looked?

Taeseong had never once thought of earrings or piercings as appealing elements. Rather, he was the type who didn’t understand creating the possibility of infection by deliberately injuring the body. Even that was other people doing it to their own bodies, so it wasn’t his business, and he’d never paid much attention to it.

However, when Kim Bonoh said he’d gotten his ear pierced, it bothered him a bit. Even now there was only a faint mark left, and he wasn’t even wearing a piercing.

“Why don’t you wear it anymore these days?”

“What, the piercing? I just did that because of my ex-girlfriend.”

Fuck, ex-girlfriend?

“Ex-girlfriend? Your ex-girlfriend told you to get it pierced?”

Taeseong said it as if throwing it out casually. He tried to sound as nonchalant as possible, but his voice seemed caught somewhere in his throat. Suddenly, Taeseong felt rage rising. Someone was desperately trying to get revenge after being scammed, while someone else had dated Kim Bonoh and even left traces like that?