53
“It’s a good thing I can easily bring you along.”
“Even if I get thrown out without a penny? What if I’m actually an adopted child, or was switched by mistake at the hospital, or what if the body is Cha Sukyung but the soul inside is a different per…”
I should stop here. At this rate, I might be suspected of having a mental illness. As I abruptly closed my mouth after rambling, Kwon Yikang turned to face me.
“So? Was the person I’ve been seeing for the past month a lie? Or have you somehow become someone else?”
“It’s not like that.”
“I don’t know which family you’re from. I never tried to find out, nor did I need to. I’m not curious about what your parents own, or how many gold bars you have.”
He made it sound grand, but I actually only have two. I made a sad face.
“You’re mine. You’ve been mine since the moment you took my hand. That doesn’t change whether you acknowledge it or not.”
Despite his forceful words, his lips moving across my flushed cheek were infinitely gentle.
“Even if I’m thrown away with nothing?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I act like a scoundrel?”
“Yes.”
His hand wrapped around my neck, and his thumb gently pressed my cheek, his tongue touching my parted lips. His tongue, which lightly licked and passed by, was smooth and somewhat tantalizing.
“Even if I… do something really bad? Even if I kill someone?”
“Yes. As long as you don’t try to escape from me, everything is fine. If you don’t like another man over me, don’t turn your back on me, and just lean on my hand and look only at me like you do now… I’ll adore and love you for the rest of your life. So don’t look at other men. Don’t be swayed by another man’s pheromones, don’t even look at them or keep them in your heart. …I don’t want to hurt you.”
Kwon Yikang whispered in a low voice, gradually applying more pressure with the hand wrapped around my neck. As the force pressing down steadily intensified and breathing became difficult, the strength in his grip suddenly disappeared, as if he had been timing it.
When I coughed slightly from the pain inside my throat, his lips overlapped mine like an ambush, breathing air into me. My hand, which had been feeling its way up his arm, embraced his shoulder. His trapezius muscles, swollen hard like an excited beast, pulsed beneath my palm.
∞ ∞ ∞
“Driver Lee, have some fruit.”
“Thank you… Young Master.”
When I offered a plate of fruit to Lee Gyeongjin, who was sitting on the living room sofa, he carefully addressed me as he accepted it.
“What is it?”
“You’ll be starting school next week… have you registered for classes? Ah, of course you must have taken care of it already, I just asked in case. Please don’t worry about it.”
No, I can’t do it by myself. I had completely forgotten that I needed to go to university starting next week. Why had I been running around enjoying myself, completely forgetting about this?
“What’s that? Class registration?”
“…You haven’t done it? The registration period should be around now.”
“What do I need to register for?”
“To take classes, you need to create a schedule and register for courses… Did you not know—or rather, did you forget?”
Lee Gyeongjin and I exchanged glances silently for a moment. I was confused about having to do something I didn’t know about, and Lee Gyeongjin was confused about me not having done something that was apparently important.
“May I help you with it?”
“Yes. Please help me.”
If I had someone around me who had been to university, I would have had the opportunity to hear about what university life was like and how to handle it. But the people around me were all like me—people who grew up uneducated. Both the oppressed and the oppressors were the same in that regard.
They often joked that today’s college students were easy prey, but they didn’t know what students actually learned or did at university.
To them, college students were idle people who had wealthy parents, grew up without financial worries, and spent money at useless places called universities during the day and drank alcohol at night.
“Do you at least know which university you’re attending?”
Lee Gyeongjin asked carefully, and looked somewhat relieved at my answer. We went to my room together and turned on the computer. He showed me the academic calendar on the university’s website.
“It seems like semester registration is over. Did you pay the tuition fee?”
“I haven’t heard anything about that. If it’s about paying money, wouldn’t my father have paid it?”
“…Since I’ve never seen any mail delivered to you, I assume Madam or the Director must have handled it.”
Lee Gyeongjin added a small “probably” at the end, speaking in an uncertain voice.
“Course registration started the day before yesterday.”
“Can I still register now?”
“Yes, but the good courses probably don’t have any spots left.”
“What are ‘good courses’?”
“I’d say courses that are at a convenient time, where you can get a decent grade with moderate effort.”
What is that? That explanation makes no sense at all. As I furrowed my brows, creating wrinkles between them, Lee Gyeongjin scratched his head as if finding it difficult to explain.
“You need to choose courses based on which professors grade generously, which ones don’t assign too much work, which exams aren’t too difficult, and so on. Of course, as a freshman, you can’t be expected to know these things.”
So how am I supposed to register for classes? I still didn’t understand.
“Still, when you look at course names, you can sometimes tell which ones might be decent. You build your schedule around those. Course registration is a strategy in itself. That’s why the first day of registration is so cutthroat.”
Lee Gyeongjin let out a deep sigh, as if past memories were resurfacing. I hadn’t even attended university classes yet, but I was already getting a headache.
“You pay money to attend school, so why don’t they just tell you what you need to know? Why make you choose?”
“There are major courses related to your department and general education courses. Since there’s a required number of credits for graduation, you need to calculate and distribute them across each semester.”
Ugh, my head hurts. I didn’t understand before, and I still don’t understand after the explanation. What I realized now was that universities were ripping people off. They gobble up that expensive tuition and have absolutely no service spirit.
“It seems complicated at first, but you’ll get used to it after just one semester. Please don’t feel too overwhelmed…”
I felt overwhelmed. Lee Gyeongjin’s words didn’t comfort me at all. While I held my head in my hands, Lee Gyeongjin, who had been clicking around on my behalf, made a sound, “Hmm.”
“Let’s put in your major courses, then the required general education courses. We just need to fill in the rest—is there any course you’d particularly like to take?”
“No, not really. Can’t I just take what’s absolutely necessary?”
“You could, but you might not meet the graduation requirements later, which would be problematic.”
That’s years away. I can’t even guarantee what will happen next year, so I didn’t want to worry about things even further in the future.
“Just add a couple of decent ones for me.”
I irresponsibly passed the task to Lee Gyeongjin, and the resulting schedule was filled with courses that felt distant to me, like Basic English, Intermediate English, and Understanding Psychology, in addition to art-related subjects.
“I’ve heard you’re proficient in English since you learned it from a young age. Basic English was mandatory, and I added Intermediate English since there were spots left, which should be fine for you, Young Master.”
I don’t think it will be fine at all.
It would be a miracle for the current me to have even learned the Korean alphabet. At least one of the men who managed my area used to gather orphans and teach them how to read. He said even theft requires knowledge. You need to be able to read signs to run away properly. But I had no memory of learning English.
“Driver Lee.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“Let’s leave it like this for now and go out. I just remembered someplace I need to go urgently.”
“Are you sure it’s okay to register for courses like this?”
“It’s not okay, but I don’t think I have a better option. Please do it for me. And I’ll get ready to go out.”
Leaving behind Lee Gyeongjin, who was looking at me with genuine concern, I hurriedly went into the bathroom.
∞ ∞ ∞
As I trudged out of the building, Lee Gyeongjin, who had been waiting, opened the car door for me.
“Did your business go well?”
“…Yes.”
“You seem low on energy. Did something happen?”
“I’m just… sad about the limits of my abilities, which I already knew but got confirmed, hoping against hope.”
Before getting into the car, I looked up at the building I had just exited. The huge art academy sign at the top of the building seemed to look down at me mockingly.
“Let’s go to father’s art gallery. I’ve already called ahead.”
“Yes, understood.”
Perhaps noticing my bad mood, Lee Gyeongjin focused on driving quietly without playing any music. Grateful for his considerate behavior of not asking questions or making conversation, I recalled what I had heard at the art academy just earlier.
“Student, does it seem easy to you that your older peers get into universities by casually drawing pictures without studying late into the night? Those kids have been drawing for years. While others were studying, they were smelling paint and drawing pictures. The only difference is that while ordinary kids were burying their heads in books, they were immersed in art—the time spent sitting on their behinds is the same. How do you expect to draw anything or get into any university with skills that lack even the basics?”
What older peers? I’m already twenty years old. But what made me angrier was that I couldn’t say a word in response to that person who called themselves a teacher.
Since Cha Sukyung drew pictures, I thought I could just pretend to follow along somehow. I must have already been accepted to university, so I thought I just needed to avoid standing out. I definitely had that kind of lax attitude.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
Ohhh??? That moment of toxic possessiveness~