He had never really tried making any major changes to his appearance before. When he was little, he just got his hair cut at the barbershop his mom dragged him to, and after becoming an adult and properly living on his own, he hardly even went to a barbershop anymore. Whenever it started to feel a little inconvenient, he could just roughly trim it with kitchen scissors, and that way he didn’t have to waste money.
Besides, even if he went to a stylist and explained exactly what he wanted, there was no ignoring the possibility that the result still wouldn’t turn out a hundred percent the way he wanted.
He’d always believed comfort was best and just lived however he felt like, so why was this catching his eye now? After that, Han-gyeom stood blankly in the bathroom for a long while, staring hard at his plain, unimpressive face.
***
Time felt like it was moving unbearably slowly. The fact that there was still over an hour left before his general education lecture ended made Han-gyeom restless for no reason.
After parting ways with Won-hyeok like that yesterday, Han-gyeom had resolved to ask him face-to-face whether he’d upset him somehow. But after first period ended, completely unexpectedly, Han-gyeom got called over by the professor.
The professor said he’d called him in because he wanted to praise him, saying the assignment Han-gyeom had submitted last time with Won-hyeok’s help had been deeply impressive, and ended up keeping him there talking for well over ten minutes.
A chilling feeling came over him that if he stayed any longer, he might not only miss lunch but get dragged straight into grad school at this rate, so somehow he managed to escape.
But after eating lunch, there was no way he had enough time left to meet Won-hyeok. Han-gyeom, who had a general education lecture right away, slumped his shoulders in the classroom and stared resentfully at his phone for no reason.
When Han-gyeom had texted him good night yesterday, Won-hyeok had replied in the same gentle tone as always, telling him he must’ve been tired today and should get plenty of rest. So inwardly, Han-gyeom had let his happy delusions run wild, thinking maybe Won-hyeok wasn’t actually all that angry after all.
“All right, we’ll stop here for today’s class……”
At the professor’s voice, Han-gyeom’s eyes widened. Had an hour already passed? He glanced at the clock, only to see that there were still over forty minutes left in class. Just as he was inwardly bowing in gratitude, thinking he’d now regard this man as a true professor and would listen diligently from next class onward, the very next thing out of the professor’s mouth crushed him.
“I’m going to assign a group project. Like I said during orientation, this course won’t have a separate midterm exam and will be graded through an assignment instead, right?”
In an instant, the faces of the dozens of students sitting in the classroom, including Han-gyeom, went dark. A group project during midterm season.
That professor would probably live a long life. Even at this very moment, dozens of people sitting here were cursing him out.
“It’ll be done in groups of three, and the topic, grading method, and teams will be explained by the teaching assistant when they come in. Then everyone, prepare well and do your best to get good grades.”
Having casually dropped a bomb and left, the professor leisurely exited the classroom. Amid the students’ murmuring, someone even muttered that they hoped the professor would watch himself walking home at night.
Soon after, the TA came in and pulled up a PowerPoint. The assignment topic and the most important parts of the grading criteria were organized there. After that, the members of each team were announced.
Han-gyeom ended up in a group with Kwon Han-ul, a second-year in the Fashion Design Department, and Yoo Da-eun, a first-year in the Visual Communication Design Department. At the TA’s instruction to freely discuss the assignment together until class ended, the three of them were now seated together.
Han-gyeom naturally glanced sideways at the two people sitting with him. Yoo Da-eun wore a faint smile the whole time, which gave her quite a good impression.
And if he had to define Kwon Han-ul in one word, it would be flashy. Starting with his bleached blond hair and ending with the clothes he wore, everything about him was striking. He had quite a few piercings in his ears, and his right eyebrow had a diagonal slash shaved into it, as if he’d done it on purpose.
“Should we at least decide on a topic first? I think that way we can move on to the next step.”
Kwon Han-ul suggested it.
Han-gyeom had been thinking the same thing, so he swallowed down his gloomy mood and agreed. He wasn’t confident or social enough to casually strike up friendly conversation with people he’d just met. And besides, what even was a group project? Wasn’t it a culture that deserved to disappear from universities entirely, one that awakened your hatred of humanity?
If you grabbed college students walking down the street and asked whether they liked group projects, there probably wouldn’t be a single student in all of South Korea who’d say yes.
“That sounds good. Let’s at least choose a topic quickly.”
With a bright, bouncy voice, Yoo Da-eun clapped her hands once.
Since it was a general education course, not something he was doing with classmates from his own department, he’d been extremely nervous, but thankfully, the atmosphere flowed far more comfortably than he’d feared. Both of them approached the discussion fairly actively.
“Then…… I’ll post what we discussed today in the group chat.”
“Han-gyeom oppa, you’re seriously so meticulous. You’re the best!”
If he had to put it simply, Yoo Da-eun’s personality was the complete opposite of Han-gyeom’s. Before he knew it, she’d already started calling him oppa, the word settling naturally in her mouth as she showed the same easy warmth toward strangers without the slightest hesitation.
By the time the short meeting was over, class had ended too. The sound of chairs scraping inside the room filled the air noisily. According to the timetable, Won-hyeok would have just gone into class by now. A while ago, when the professor seemed like he was ending lecture early, Han-gyeom had thought he’d gained time to go find Won-hyeok and talk to him, but the professor’s surprise gift had completely fooled him.
“But Han-ul oppa, you use Instagram, right?”
“Huh? Yeah.”
“Is this you by any chance?”
While Han-gyeom packed his things in a gloomy mood, Yoo Da-eun scooted right up beside Kwon Han-ul and shoved her phone toward him.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Whoa! I thought maybe, since the name was the same.”
Startled, Yoo Da-eun slapped her phone down onto the table and covered her mouth. Thanks to that, Han-gyeom could see the screen, and there was an SNS account on it, showing around ten thousand followers.
“He’s pretty famous as a fashion influencer, this oppa.”
Maybe she’d noticed Han-gyeom looking, because Da-eun smiled and added the explanation. Han-gyeom just nodded without much reaction. He had thought from the moment he first saw him that his clothes were anything but ordinary. But students in the Fashion Design Department usually all dressed like that anyway, so it didn’t really feel that unusual.
Somehow, the three of them ended up leaving the classroom side by side. Yoo Da-eun kept chattering away to Kwon Han-ul about his account, his followers, and everything else, until she suddenly made a fuss about how she’d forgotten she had plans. Then, before they realized it, she had already disappeared.
“She’s got a really bright personality.”
“She really does.”
Kwon Han-ul let out a small laugh as he looked toward where Yoo Da-eun had vanished, and as his bleached hair fluttered, Han-gyeom’s gaze naturally drifted to his piercings. His heavily pierced ears were so flashy that Han-gyeom stared at them without thinking.
“These? It only hurts a little when you get them done. After that, it’s fine.”
Han-gyeom jumped. He’d literally just been thinking that getting that many piercings must hurt. Had he used mind reading or something?
As Han-gyeom floundered after getting caught, Kwon Han-ul laughed softly.
“I hear that all the time.”
Then maybe it was like how people were always asking Han-gyeom whether he could even see through his bangs.
“But which way are you headed?”
“Ah, I’m going to the student union building……”
Han-gyeom turned in that direction to head to the club room. Won-hyeok usually stopped by the club room after class, so he was planning to wait there and maybe study. Once they met, he’d ask about yesterday, apologize if he’d done anything wrong, and then go to the library with him like usual.
“Oh, me too.”
That meant he was stuck walking there together with him. Han-gyeom felt terribly awkward about this situation, walking side by side with someone he’d only started talking to today. And since Kwon Han-ul’s personality seemed, if anything, much closer to Yoo Da-eun’s than Han-gyeom’s, that only made it more uncomfortable.
“But if you’re in the English Department, you must be good at English. I’m jealous. I seriously suck at English. It was my lowest score on the CSAT too.”
But making Han-gyeom feel silly for getting nervous too soon, Kwon Han-ul handled the conversation very skillfully even with someone he’d only just met. And even if it was empty flattery, it wasn’t easy to put yourself down while praising the other person.
To be honest, based on first impressions alone, Han-gyeom had thought he didn’t really want to get close to him. If Won-hyeok was neatly handsome, good-looking, and even pretty, then Kwon Han-ul was, well… the exact opposite. He looked kind of rough around the edges, like delinquent vibes practically dripped off him. But people always said not to judge others by appearances. Contrary to his impression, he was actually quite sociable and kind.
Maybe because of that influence, Han-gyeom had gradually let his guard down and joined in the conversation too. To the point that after about three minutes of talking, he’d already started speaking casually.
“So SNS ads really pay that much?”
“Yeah. So sometimes I get annoyed and don’t feel like managing it, but then I see money getting deposited into my bank account and I end up doing it anyway.”
Thanks to that, Han-gyeom even learned about worlds he’d never known before. Come to think of it, did Won-hyeok use SNS? Since Han-gyeom himself didn’t use that kind of thing, he’d never even thought to check. He’d ask him later when they met.
“Um, uh…….”
Around the time the student union building started coming into view from a distance, Han-gyeom moved his lips.
“How do I look to you?”
Kwon Han-ul’s personality was the complete opposite of his, but so was his interest in dressing up and appearance. As someone in the Fashion Design Department and a fairly well-known influencer on SNS, he was someone who knew how to style himself.
So suddenly Han-gyeom became curious how he looked through someone like that’s eyes.
“Huh?”
At those words, which were highly open to misunderstanding, Han-gyeom immediately realized his mistake and waved his hands frantically.
“I don’t mean it like that. I’m just curious what I’m like, appearance-wise.”
Suddenly, what he had agonized over endlessly in the bathroom yesterday came back to him. The worry he hadn’t been able to reach any conclusion on even by bedtime, so he’d put it off for later.
“Um…… I’d say ordinary? Your clothes are pretty plain too……”
Watching him trail off, Han-gyeom realized Kwon Han-ul was trying very hard to phrase it as kindly and indirectly as possible.
“Are you growing out your bangs on purpose?”
“Huh? No, not really……”
Apparently he’d assumed that, since there were a lot of guys these days who grew their hair out long.
“I’m just asking, but do you think it’d be a turn-off if your lo, lover looked like this?”
“……”
For the first time, no answer came out of the mouth that had been chattering nonstop this whole time. Silence was as good as a yes.
“I figured…….”
“Ah! No, it’s not like that. Everyone’s tastes are different, right? If you really want, then how about at least getting your hair cut a little neater?”
Maybe thinking he had to salvage this somehow, Kwon Han-ul hurriedly started offering suggestions one after another, even adding gestures as he talked.
But unfortunately, none of it reached Han-gyeom’s ears right now. He’d been so intoxicated by the sheer luck of ending up dating Won-hyeok that he hadn’t paid attention to anything else at all. Wouldn’t Won-hyeok easily get tired of someone who looked like this? Could it be that when he said he was annoyed yesterday, it was because he’d suddenly grown sick of Han-gyeom’s appearance, which wasn’t just ordinary but honestly kind of lacking? They’d even talked about ideal types, so could that maybe have been because of this too?
“Han-gyeom, do you maybe have time?”
“Huh?”
“If you’re okay with it, I was thinking I could help you out a little.”
Han-gyeom blinked.
