Gentle Giant 30

Notes:
“Ho-nim” – Nickname created by students (shortened from “incredibly handsome tiger beast-man”)

Gentle Giant Chapter 30

He definitely thought nothing would happen…

Dain bit his lip while looking at his phone. On the phone screen was a post that had been trending on the community board all weekend.

[Our school’s incredibly handsome male god Ho-nim!! Cafe shot from Thursday two days ago♡]

Actually, from the day Juho started attending school, posts about the ‘tiger beast-man’ who appeared in the humanities building had been frequently uploaded to the community board, along with pictures of Juho’s back.

The community, which had even created slang calling the ‘incredibly handsome tiger beast-man’ shortened to ‘Ho-nim’, was more lively than ever before.

Dain also sometimes looked at community posts and secretly clicked ‘like’ on Juho’s photos without him knowing.

Most were posts by female students praising Juho’s looks, atmosphere, or fashion, with agreeing comments flowing underneath.

Since he was a rarely seen tiger beast-man, and it was admiration for someone of the same age group, Dain sometimes showed Juho the posts and read them together.

When Juho first saw the posts, he made an annoyed expression at the attention sticking to him. However, he soon noticed the ‘likes’ Dain had secretly clicked while pouting his lips, and laughed loudly while teasing Dain.

Dain would blush and hide his phone each time. But after some time passed, he would again avoid Juho’s eyes and click ‘like’ on posts with his photos. If there were photos showing even a side profile, he would download them to his photo album.

At these obviously cute behaviors, Juho also often pretended not to know while knowing.

However, now one post full of Juho’s photos was tormenting Dain.

The post itself had no special content. It was a praise post about Juho, no different from previous posts. Except that today, Dain’s back appeared particularly often in the photos of Juho.

[Look at photos of ‘Ho-nim’ who became famous in just two days since the semester started at our humanities building! ( ੭ ̇ᗜ ̇ )੭ ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

(Photo)

I happened to go to a cafe and met our Ho-nim!!!!

So heart-fluttering ( ⸝⸝⸝ʚ̴̶̷̆ωʚ̴̶̷̆⸝⸝) ㅋㅋㅋ

Wow, he’s completely tall but his face is the size of my fist, is that real?!

You guys would also realize just by passing by Ho-nim’s side, ah, this person is Ho-nim!! 0_0 He has that kind of aura!! ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Hehe, ~(˶‾᷄ꈊ‾᷅˵)~

I didn’t have the courage so I could only take pictures of his back, but still that extraordinary back figureㅋㅋㅋ Amazing!!!

I debated whether to keep this to myself or upload it! Praise me ㅋㅋㅋ Hehehe ㅋㅋ

+ But does anyone know who that male student next to Ho-nim is?? (I put a mosaic just in case.) They seemed really close.. That male student was getting coffee from Ho-nim that day… How enviable is no secret…(*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ) Hehehe..]

That last paragraph became the fuse. Students who had been curious about Dain’s back that had often been captured together in Juho’s photos began asking one by one in comments who he was.

[Anonymous1: Right? I’ve seen that gray-haired guy a lot in Ho-nim’s photos…?

└22 Friends??????

└33333 Who is the gray-haired guy???

└44 I want to be next to him too!!!

Anonymous2: What, is he the same tiger beast-man???

└Obviously notㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ You dumbassㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└He might not know, why are you killing our kidㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅠㅠㅠㅠ

Anonymous3: That person is probably someone who’s been attending our school continuously, right? Anyway, look at how handsome even Ho-nim’s back is…ㅜㅜㅠㅜㅠㅜㅠㅠ Sniff… I’m cryingㅠㅠㅠ

└They seem close?????

└But the semester just started and they’re already that close????

└Seems like same department

└What department is Ho-nim?

└Public administrationㅋㅋㅋ So randomㅋㅋㅋㅋ What’s an exchange student going to do learning administration ㅋㅋㅋㅋ But it’s great if general education overlaps! I have overlapping Thursday lecturesㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└So enviousㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ]

Seeing people curious about his identity, cold sweat ran down Dain’s back.

Of course, it was true that he was always with Juho at school, but he had never thought people would pay attention to that extent. Just reading the comments felt burdensome.

More people than expected were interested in Dain’s existence, so countless comments were posted instantly, but they only asked who the gray-haired person was without any accurate answers being posted.

But one anonymously posted comment suddenly changed the atmosphere of the entire post.

[Anonymous14: I know how those two metㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ They didn’t become close after the exchange student cameㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└???

└?? Then???

Anonymous14: Those two met through random chatㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Fuckㅋㅋㅋㅋ Really hilariousㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└?????????????????????

└Random chat?? How do you know that???

└How do I know? I saw them contacting each other with my own two eyesㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└Wow… random chat… what is that…. End times vibes?ㅋㅋ

└Ho-nimㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠㅠㅠㅜㅜ Just walking around would make people flock to him overflowing, what’s with random chatㅠㅠㅠㅠ But why didn’t I do random chatㅋㅋㅋㅠㅠㅠ I should have met himㅋㅋㅋ

└Me tooㅋㅋㅋ Is it possible to meet someone like Ho-nim if I go on random chat now?????

└No, impossible

└ㅅㅂ Look how decisiveㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Anonymous14: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Can’t you tell just by lookingㅋㅋ What would you do meeting people through random chatㅋㅋㅋ Your precious Ho-nim is probably going around hitting on girls through random chat, fuckㅋㅋㅋ????

└What are you saying. Ho-nim hitting on girls? Crazy bastard

└Stop exaggerating, fuck. If you have eyes, lookㅋㅋ Does he have a face that needs random chat to hit on girls??!!ㅋㅋㅋㅋ That’s what kids like you would doㅋㅋㅋ

└Fuck, that gray-haired guy next to him definitely meets people through random chat!!]

As soon as ‘Anonymous14’s’ comment was posted, everyone rushed in and a debate arena unfolded about whether it was true or not.

When people tried not to believe it, ‘Anonymous14’ replied to comments again, desperately trying to make Juho into a shameless person who goes around hitting on girls through random chat.

And that effort gradually took hold. People also began to suspect that the reason Juho and Dain were close might be to meet women.

Unlike the intention of the person who first posted, all hundreds of comments became a post filled only with things people wanted to say. Because of that, it recorded explosive views and instantly rose to become a best post.

Dain also barely restrained himself from wanting to write refuting comments while reading that post.

He could guess who ‘Anonymous14’ who first brought up random chat was. It was definitely that male student from before summer vacation.

Just when Dain was wondering whether he should clarify that he and Juho absolutely didn’t meet for such reasons.

“Hyung, what are you looking at?”

Juho, who had finished showering, sat next to Dain and asked.

“Huh?! Ah, nothing! Nothing!”

Dain quickly locked his phone screen. Juho tilted his head at that unnatural behavior but soon smiled and rubbed his face against Dain’s shoulder. Given Dain’s personality, even if he was hiding something now, he would definitely tell him himself by tomorrow.

“Hyung, we need to wake up early tomorrow, shall we sleep now?”

“Mm-hmm? Yeah… let’s do that. We should sleep quickly…”

Juho stretched out his left arm and patted the spot next to him. It meant to use his arm as a pillow.

At that natural action, Dain also smiled slightly and placed his head on Juho’s arm. At the firm yet soft texture and lavender scent from his body, Dain took a deep breath.

Nuzzling, Dain naturally rubbed his head against Juho’s arm and closed his eyes.

At Dain’s sleep-whining that wasn’t really whining, Juho also chuckled and placed his chin on Dain’s head, rubbing around.

Laughing out loud at the ticklish feeling, Dain soon fell asleep shortly after. Juho also fell asleep to Dain’s even breathing.

And a little while later.

As soon as Dain heard Juho’s even breathing, he opened his eyes. He gently waved his hand above and below Juho’s face to confirm once more that Juho had fallen asleep.

Fortunately, whether he was deeply asleep, Juho didn’t even twitch despite Dain moving around restlessly.

“Phew.”

After letting out a short sigh of relief, Dain soon gripped his phone and got out of bed. Then he headed to the bathroom.

Sitting on the toilet, after pondering what kind of clarification comment to write, he first clicked on the community post he had been looking at until just before.

[This post has been deleted due to reports.]

“Uh…?”

Dain’s finger wandered over the phone screen. After fighting with each other in comments and causing chaos, the problematic post had ultimately been deleted by the administrator.

Dain’s eyebrows changed to a troubled expression as a difficult look appeared.

If he posted a clarification post, everyone would probably rush in and fight in comments again, but leaving it as is bothered him.

If only his message hadn’t been discovered back then…

Once again, the bewilderment and shame from that time came back. It seemed like something bigger than what he had worried about before the semester started had happened, which was scary.

Should he discuss this matter with Juho? Would it be better to just wait and see? He couldn’t know which would be the better choice.

Eventually, even the little sleep he had left completely fled, and Dain just stared blankly at his phone screen before returning to bed.

Whether he hadn’t woken up until Dain returned, Juho was still breathing evenly. Dain carefully lay down next to him.

How nice would it be if they could just quietly continue school life like this? He was worried about how people would look at them starting tomorrow.

Would it spread quickly through word of mouth like before summer vacation, or would it pass as just a brief commotion within the community? He couldn’t predict at all.

He only hoped that no great harm would come to Juho because of his affairs.