# 2.
Jeongwoo, who had gotten caught up with Jihan, found himself unconsciously focusing on that number.
Then, at the voice asking, “Should I say it one more time?” he snapped back to his senses.
“Forget it. Just tell me which class you’re in and go.”
“Class? Oh, I was in class 7 during my second year.”
“Not that. Your current class.”
By this point, Jeongwoo had given up.
He was tired of the fruitless bickering, tired of the unpredictable conversation. Since he already knew the other was a third-year, he urged him to just say his class so he could find it himself. Jihan tilted his head again.
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I really don’t know. I was just about to go in and check.”
Good grief. Jeongwoo clutched his throbbing head. All that arguing had been for nothing.
If he didn’t know his class and number from the beginning, Jeongwoo could have just let him go and looked for Moon Jihan among the third-years. Someone who was obviously a delinquent would be easy to find.
It wasn’t normally allowed, but when a new semester started, there were often students who didn’t know their class, so they’d make an exception for the first day.
It was a technique he had learned from seniors who had already graduated.
Thinking he should do the same this time, Jeongwoo gestured for Jihan to go inside. As he turned his back with a dismissive wave of his hand, he heard Jihan’s voice from behind.
“You heard my number, right? Call me if you’re interested. Should I repeat it if you don’t remember? Zero-one-zero—”
“Are you crazy… That’s not what I meant.”
A curse slipped out naturally. Jeongwoo muttered the curse under his breath and waved his hand forcefully as if telling him to get lost quickly.
Jihan burst into giggles as he went inside, watching Jeongwoo’s disgusted face.
“Pretty boy, see you around.”
Jeongwoo’s sigh deepened at the playful laughter. Only after Jihan disappeared did Jeongwoo look at the door he had entered.
“How can even his carefree walk from behind be so irritating?”
Jeongwoo clicked his tongue, muttering to himself to calm his anger.
“His uniform is a disaster, and that smirking tone of voice is annoying too. How can someone in their third year want to go around like that?”
He tried to just let it go as a run-in with a crazy person, but he couldn’t help feeling angry. It was his first time experiencing something like this, which made it even more irritating.
Even though he tried to forget, that voice and appearance kept coming back to him, making him unwittingly mull over Jihan’s image.
“His face is the only thing worth seeing. What a waste of a good face, such a waste.”
“Sunbae?”
A junior called out to Jeongwoo, who had been mumbling.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just talking to myself.”
The junior, seeing Jeongwoo talking to himself, carried on with his business as if it were a common occurrence.
Even until he finished his Student Disciplinary Committee duties and went to his classroom, Jeongwoo found himself having to suppress his anger whenever thoughts of Jihan suddenly popped into his head.
***
He encountered the face he never wanted to see again just as he entered the classroom.
“Oh? It’s the disciplinary officer!”
Jeongwoo frowned after recognizing Jihan, who was noticeable even from a distance. Unlike him, Jihan waved a greeting as if genuinely happy to see him.
“I was actually about to go to the disciplinary office! This is great. We meet here.”
“…Don’t tell me.”
‘I’m not in the same class as that delinquent, am I?’
Disappointment colored Jeongwoo’s face following his unfinished words.
“You’re in this class too?”
Unlike him, Jihan was visibly delighted as he approached Jeongwoo, who stood at the back door.
As expected of a delinquent, he was surrounded by a string of friends who looked just as troublesome. Several of those caught at the school gate earlier were also visible.
“Student Disciplinary Committee. Ah, right. What’s your name?”
“……”
“Your name tag… Kwon Jeongwoo? Jeongwoo, even your name is pretty?”
Jeongwoo tried to ignore Jihan’s nonsense and walk past him.
But Jihan’s friends who were following behind each added their own comments.
“Kwon Jeongwoo? The second in the school?”
“Hey, he was even first in the school once. When Woo Sejong made a mistake. After that, he’s been second place forever, right?”
“I couldn’t be friends with him out of annoyance, but he’s close with Woo Sejong.”
“Looks like he has no pride.”
It’s everyone’s freedom to choose their friends, so who cares who’s close with whom? It was irritating to hear them gossiping with the person in question right in front of them. The feeling of being the subject of gossip by people who didn’t even know him or his friends well was pure annoyance.
They say birds of a feather flock together, and Jeongwoo realized anew that the old saying was spot on.
‘They’re all missing at least one name tag, tie, or vest as a baseline.’
Among them were students with piercings, and some who had taken off their school uniform shirts and were in casual clothes.
Seeing them made Jeongwoo feel like his duties as head of the Disciplinary Committee, which should have ended at the school gate, were continuing into the classroom.
Jeongwoo, who had always insisted on following school rules no matter what, pretended not to see anything. The reason was that he was already tired from dealing with Jihan, and there were just too many things to point out with each person.
“Wow. Jeongwoo, you’re good at studying too.”
Oblivious to Jeongwoo’s face growing stiffer at his friends’ comments, Jihan continued with his carefree remarks.
Jeongwoo, who had been silently watching Jihan, the source of all this irritation, was about to walk past him when he turned around again.
“Even when I’m pretending not to see, I should still do what needs to be done.”
“Do what? Don’t tell me you’re…”
It annoyed Jeongwoo to see him looking around in confusion.
He might turn a blind eye to the others, but he couldn’t let Moon Jihan slide.
“Moon Jihan. You, what’s your number?”
Remembering how Jihan had confidently walked through the school gate without a single thing in proper order, Jeongwoo asked.
Jihan and his friends, who had been chattering amongst themselves, simultaneously looked at Jeongwoo.
In an instant, all eyes were on him. Used to being the center of attention as a disciplinary officer, Jeongwoo didn’t change his expression and urged him to answer.
“I asked, what’s your number?”
Inwardly, he also resolved to send him straight to the head teacher if Jihan tried to waste time with more nonsense.
“Me? Oh, roll call. Third year, class 5, number 16, Moon Jihan. My number is zero-one-zero…”
“That’s enough.”
He sharply cut off the endless nonsense.
At the same time, he decided to give him the maximum penalty points he could. It was payback for messing with his head with strange talk.
“Why? You asked for my number earlier too.”
“I was asking for your student number, 16.”
“You were listening when I was about to give you my phone number earlier.”
Jihan spoke sulkily, whatever he was thinking. His glossy red lips pouted.
Seeing this, Jihan’s friends made cooing sounds here and there, saying how cute he was, but Jeongwoo didn’t even blink.
Rather, he couldn’t understand the students who found Jihan cute.
And as for the number issue—he had never asked for it, but Jihan gave it to him anyway, and now he was shifting the blame.
Jeongwoo couldn’t understand Jihan, who seemed to push everything onto him.
While Jeongwoo was looking around at the students surrounding him with a dumbfounded expression and triangular eyes—
“Call me. You memorized my number since you’re smart, right?”
“……”
“Ah, I might not answer if it’s too late at night because I’ll be sleeping.”
Jihan started talking nonsense again.
There was an underlying assumption that Jeongwoo would have memorized his number and would contact him.
Jihan’s large eyes with their thin double eyelids looked demure. With a gaze that seemed to say, ‘I know you’ll call me,’ Jeongwoo passed him by, not wanting to ruin his mood any further.
He could feel the burning gaze on the back of his head, but he had no energy to spare for it.
Jeongwoo was exhausted from the morning. And all because of Moon Jihan, whom he had just met this morning.
When Jeongwoo went to where his friends were sitting, Jihan’s friends, who had been quiet, started chattering about what that meant and whether Jeongwoo had asked for Jihan’s number.
Instead of answering, Jihan just shrugged and smiled, watching Jeongwoo who had collapsed onto his desk.
He found Jeongwoo’s attitude, which was overtly ignoring him, amusing. For some reason, he wondered what expression Jeongwoo would be making beyond that small, seemingly frail back that looked like a soaked piece of laundry sprawled on the desk.
Hyewoon asked Jeongwoo, who was spread out on the desk like a wet rag:
“What were you guys talking about over there?”
As a student with a sports scholarship, Hyewoon arrived at school earlier than the Disciplinary Committee. Having finished his dawn training, he seemed to have missed the confrontation between the two at the school gate.
“You didn’t see? They both stand out so much that everyone must have seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“Even the early-arriving students were hanging from the windows to watch.”
Sejong, who was playing with Hyewoon’s wet hair, teased him for not knowing.
“What is it that I should know?”
“I really don’t know either.”
Looking back and forth between the two who claimed to know nothing, Sejong said “good grief” and slammed his hand on the desk.
The loud noise drew the attention of students who had been chatting while waiting for the teacher and those who had been solving workbooks.
Sejong’s face turned bright red under the gaze of so many eyes.
Unlike Jeongwoo, who was used to being the center of attention just for being on the Disciplinary Committee, Sejong, who wasn’t immune to such things, hunched his shoulders and lowered his voice. Then he nodded his chin toward the back.
“Moon Jihan, that hyung is 21 years old.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
