#86
***
This wasn’t why I came to study philosophy.
I could hear the cooling fan whirring, then a notification popped up on my laptop screen saying the battery needed charging. I hadn’t even been gaming—just had one tab open for a free fortune-telling site, and the battery was already dead. I’d deliberately charged it before coming too.
I bent down and pulled the charger from the eco-bag at my feet. While untangling the twisted charging cable, I looked around for an outlet to plug it into. No matter where I looked, there wasn’t a single corner that seemed suitable for plugging in a charger.
“I need to charge this thing. Where can I plug the cord in?”
“Ah, there’s no outlet here. Just use my laptop.”
A classmate who was mixing cheap syrup into water from the water dispenser pointed at his bag with his chin. As expected, since we weren’t even indoors but outdoors, and in a corner spot quite far from the school buildings, there was no convenient way to access electricity.
I opened the laptop from my classmate’s backpack and turned it on. He must not have locked it, as the desktop appeared immediately without any password prompt.
Wait, this desktop… could it be? It was definitely an image I’d never seen before, but the facial features and the combination of hair and eye colors seemed familiar. If it had been just one person, I might have dismissed it as coincidence, but both men looked familiar—it was definitely BL fanart from something I’d seen before falling asleep last night.
He reads BL too! Even if it wasn’t the same work, the poses of the two men were far too intimate to be friendship or brotherly affection. To have fanart as his desktop wallpaper and not even lock his laptop. If it really was the same work, this was hardcore smut material. I’d have to secretly contact him after the festival ended.
I opened an internet browser and typed in a free fortune-telling site. When I clicked the top link that appeared, all sorts of pop-up ads opened. As I closed each ad one by one, I was once again filled with doubt.
Even for a philosophy department, a fortune-telling cafe as a festival booth was…
Not only were we banned from selling alcohol at the booth, but the spot our department was assigned was particularly bad. Other departments couldn’t sell alcohol and only sold food either, but the quality of food made by college students would be about the same everywhere. Even I wouldn’t have bothered coming all the way to a booth far from convenience stores.
So the breakthrough we found to avoid operating at a loss was to target the daytime hours. The idea of mixing internet-ordered syrup with water to sell as non-alcoholic cocktails and offering fortune readings using free fortune-telling sites wasn’t a bad choice. Yesterday, the first day of the festival, quite a lot of people had gathered to get their fortunes read.
But whether it was a grand opening effect or not, on the second day, customers had clearly decreased compared to yesterday when it was crowded. Maybe rumors spread that we were just reading directly from free fortune-telling sites. Thanks to that, I could sit leisurely at the table, but I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed by the glances of people passing by and peeking in. I should probably pick up a double major like the other classmates.
Maybe I’ll just check my own fortune. I was inputting my birth date into the site while keeping an eye on other working classmates when—
“Ah, let’s just look at it for fun!”
Two men entered, bickering with each other. All the philosophy students under the tent turned their gazes toward the entrance. Not only was one of them quite loud, but both were remarkably handsome. Damn, there were faces like that at our school?
The one who’d been loud had distinct features, and when he smiled, the aegyo-sal under his eyes naturally stood out. Plus, his nicely tanned skin and full lips gave him a cute impression while also being mysteriously sexy.
If he were an idol, he wouldn’t be mainstream popular, but he’d have a solid fanbase of older female fans. He’d probably be from a small agency, and even if he couldn’t make it to the top 3 in survival shows, he’d consistently place 7th. He’d debut like that, but once the project group’s lifespan ended, he might gradually lose buzz due to the small agency’s poor planning skills…
That guy was impressive, but looks-wise, the man standing next to him was even more outstanding. Unlike the 7th place guy, his skin was pale as if he’d never participated in a single sports day in his life. He had gorgeous features, like finely crafted details placed in exactly the right positions—a stunning beauty.
With his masculine bone structure, it was hard to immediately think “beautiful,” but his large, dark pupils and hair color contrasted against his white skin, making him look a bit scary—if not for that, he’d have the ideal beautiful face. He too looked like the type who, as an idol, couldn’t dance, sing, or act at all but would place 2nd in survival shows purely on looks alone.
Right. The one who suited my taste a bit more was the 7th place guy. In the midst of boredom, the appearance of these two handsome men made dopamine surge through me.
“Here! Please sit here.”
I shouted while pointing to the chairs across from me. Without realizing it, I’d half-risen from my seat. Even though today was quiet and only my table was occupied anyway, I felt urgent.
The two men sat side by side across from me. They look even more handsome up close? It was truly a sight to behold, having not just one but two of those rare handsome men sitting together. It was like a feast for the eyes. Somehow I felt like even my vision was improving.
“Which of you would like to go first?”
I asked, barely suppressing my desire. Even as I asked, I felt like I knew the answer. The tall man had been looking around with a suspicious expression since entering. The 7th place guy who came with him was sitting there with sparkling eyes, clearly trying not to spoil the mood.
“Me!”
As expected. It was the 7th place guy.
“Then please tell me your birth date and… your name.”
Actually, just the birth date was enough. Well, truly professional fortune-telling places would probably consider even the Chinese characters of one’s name, but crude fortune-telling sites didn’t have such functions. There was a field to enter a name, but it was just like a nickname feature.
Still, asking for his name was my own greed. It wasn’t because I had serious romantic interest. Strictly speaking, it was like an extra asking for at least the name of a benefactor who saved their life. I wasn’t planning to do anything with it, just wanted to know. It wasn’t entirely wrong to say he’d saved a dying atmosphere. If handsome men were just a little less rare, I wouldn’t have gone this far.
“My name is Kim Bonoh. Oh, I don’t know what time I was born.”
“It’s okay if you don’t know the time.”
So it was Kim Bonoh. Even his name somehow seemed like a trainee from a small agency… As Bonoh-ssi was about to give his birth date, the man sitting next to him grabbed Bonoh-ssi’s arm to stop him. What’s this? That possessive behavior like he’s trying to control his boyfriend? Did I fall asleep reading BL yesterday…
“Why are you telling him that so carelessly? What if he curses you or holds a ghost wedding ceremony…”
“Can’t you say such things quietly… And how do you read fortunes without a birth date?”
When the 2nd place guy next to him spoke, Bonoh-ssi whispered back embarrassedly. Though I could hear it all anyway. I felt like I understood the mindset of that magician who once performed naked magic tricks in a bathhouse because of middle-aged men’s suspicions. Why would I bother cursing him? If I had any curses to cast, it would only be infinite doppelganger generation.
And what? Ghost wedding ceremony? I’ll make you two hold a ghost wedding ceremony with each other. I wondered how someone so suspicious could live in this world. With such a handsome face, he probably received goodwill from people around him even while doing nothing, so why was he like this? I wondered if he’d been scammed on a lease deposit or something. If it was lease fraud, that attitude would be completely understandable.
“I’m sorry. Haha…”
Perhaps noticing my displeased expression, Bonoh-ssi apologized and then gave me his birth date. I entered Bonoh-ssi’s birth date into the site. The man sitting next to him still had an expression like he distrusted me.
“Bonoh-ssi has a lot of water?”
“How did you know?”
“What?”
The person who reacted to my comment about having a lot of water wasn’t Bonoh-ssi, but the man sitting next to him. How did I know? I knew from looking at the fortune-telling site.
…But the question “how did you know?” in response to “having a lot of water” did sound somewhat meaningful. He would have definitely nitpicked anything I said due to his suspiciousness, but maybe I’ve been reading too much BL lately—it sounded like it had a slightly different meaning.
“That kind of thing shows up too?”
The man next to him asked again. And Bonoh-ssi looked somehow shy. Hmm. Maybe I should cut back on the BL.
“No, what element you have a lot of among the five elements in fortune-telling is basic information, so of course it shows up…”
Feeling wronged, I even turned the laptop around to show them the screen. Ah, this is trade secret stuff I shouldn’t be showing.
“……”
“……”
Fortunately, after I showed them the laptop screen, the man on the left went quiet. Even though I hadn’t said much, both men looked embarrassed. Bonoh-ssi especially had been flushed since earlier, probably embarrassed by his suspicious companion.
“…Anyway, you have a travel star, so um, it seems related to overseas too.”
“Gasp, how did you know? I almost immigrated to Australia!”
I’d just read the fortune-telling site’s results directly, but the reaction was good. It seemed to coincidentally match up, and Bonoh-ssi spilled his information freely. With his eyes wide and nodding, he responded earnestly to everything I said. Since I don’t believe in fortune-telling, I might have secretly mocked someone else for acting like this, but when a handsome man was looking at me and sending trusting gazes, there was no way I could dislike it. Ah, this is nice… He’s really cute.
“Um, then what about my love fortune…?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
