“Looks like you were having quite the enjoyable conversation.”
A low voice sounded by my ear. He looked to be in a bad mood.
Since I do, in fact, have a brain, I’m capable of thinking. It was obvious he was in a foul mood because of Ki Tae-young. Trying to reassure him, I told him a new piece of information about Ki Tae-young.
“Ki Tae-young sunbae got a girlfriend, Doji.”
“So?”
“No, I’m just saying.”
Even though Do Jihoon answered curtly, he only looked cute to me. What could I do? Birds of a feather flock together—Do Jihoon and I were pretty much the same.
I spread both my arms wide open without any guard and looked at him. Then I lifted my chin and spoke.
“Here.”
“What.”
Do Jihoon frowned even deeper, his already wrinkled brow tightening.
“No. I’ll take your pheromones, so go ahead and release them as much as you want.”
“……”
The pheromones that had been moving sharply around him suddenly stopped dead at my words. The air that had felt sharp enough to pierce awkwardly circulated instead.
“Why? Weren’t you angry because of Ki Tae-young sunbae?”
“……”
“Is it embarrassing to do it here? Want to go home and finish it there?”
“Finish what? Forget it. Like you said, let’s just go home. We need to eat chicken.”
“Ah, right. Chicken!”
He turned his body and started walking toward home. As I followed behind Do Jihoon, I noticed his hand was empty and slipped my hand into his.
Then I asked something I’d been curious about.
“Doji. Can I mark your hand?”
A deep sigh slipped out of him.
To be honest, I felt like I understood now why he always sighed. Whenever I approached him aggressively like this, Do Jihoon would sigh.
But that didn’t mean I planned to stop approaching him. I liked expressing affection, and I also liked how Do Jihoon’s ears turned a pretty shade of red.
Maybe it would be different if he hated it, but Do Jihoon absolutely didn’t hate it when I told him I loved him. The pheromones naturally flowing from him were moving in such a pleasant way. There was no way Do Jihoon disliked it.
“……Do whatever you want.”
“Okay. You can do whatever you want too.”
“Yuri. Please just—”
Grabbing Do Jihoon’s wrist, I hesitated for a moment before shoving in a massive amount of pheromones.
Unlike a pheromone shower, when marking someone you usually only put in a small amount of pheromones. But instead, I injected quite a large amount of highly concentrated pheromones. Maybe because of that, the wrist touching mine trembled slightly. It looked like Do Jihoon had been startled.
But damn it—even that was cute.
“Alright, now it’s your turn.”
After thoroughly stuffing in my pheromones with satisfaction, I grabbed Do Jihoon’s wrist and placed my own wrist into his hand. Do Jihoon slowly curled his fingers. The warmth of his hand touching my wrist felt nice.
And the moment I thought that—
“…Ugh.”
He began pouring an intensely concentrated amount of pheromones into my wrist. I had put in a lot too, but Do Jihoon was worse. At this rate, the scent would probably last for more than a week.
He acts all reluctant until you lay the groundwork for him. Honestly, what a guy who pretends to resist so much.
Still, he was cute, so what could I do?
After Do Jihoon finally injected as many pheromones as satisfied him—
I moved my hand and wriggled it until our fingers intertwined. Unlike earlier, Do Jihoon looked to be in quite a good mood now.
As the sun set and evening dimmed into night, we walked back to our apartment together, cool wind brushing against us while we held each other’s hands tightly.
***
There are many different kinds of people in this world. Some people handle things perfectly on their own without anyone needing to say a word, while others won’t lift a finger even when people around them push them to do it.
Up until now, my surroundings had been filled only with the former type. My three close classmates, my boyfriend Do Jihoon, and even Kim Bo-jin—who was unexpectedly diligent. My friends were generally responsible people who handled the tasks assigned to them neatly.
Even during the two experiment classes that had group assignments—the only group projects of the first semester of freshman year—I had luckily ended up on teams with hardworking people. Because of that, I had always thought the so-called “group project villain” was basically an imaginary unicorn.
But this time, it seemed like my luck in drawing teammates had completely failed.
“…Why isn’t he coming?”
Inside the Starbucks café, I chewed irritably on my straw while suppressing my anger. It had already been an hour. In the second semester we had to write General Physics lab reports in teams of two, but even though the meeting time had passed by over an hour, my partner showed no sign of arriving.
When we first got paired up by random rotation at the start of the semester, I had clearly asked him something. Should we take turns writing the report every other week, or should we meet every week and write it together through discussion?
Naturally, I assumed he’d pick the former.
But even though I gave him the choice, he picked the latter—meeting together to work on it.
And now, here we were in the first week of October.
This was already the third time he’d been late to our meeting.
If he didn’t do anything at all, I could at least remove his name from the report. But he’d show up at ambiguous times, give vague opinions, then leave vaguely. It made it difficult to justify removing his name.
Suppressing my anger, I picked up my phone and sent a KakaoTalk message to Do Jihoon.
[Doji. That bastard Woo Hyun-woo still hasn’t shown up.]
[♡My Doji♡: I’ve told you multiple times. If it’s stressing you out that much, just remove your teammate’s name.]
[But it’s awkward to do that ㅠㅠㅠ]
[♡My Doji♡: I seriously can’t understand it.]
Do Jihoon understanding my feelings made me feel a little better. I passionately typed my reply.
[Right? I seriously can’t understand why he’s so irresponsible.]
Just as I was busily chatting with Do Jihoon on KakaoTalk—
The chair across from me scraped loudly as someone pulled it out and spoke to me.
“Hey, hey. Yuri. Did you wait long? Sorry. I was on the bus and there was a traffic accident up ahead.”
Bullshit.
The moment I heard that sly voice, irritation bubbled up automatically. If he was going to make excuses, he could at least come up with something reasonable. Hearing that kind of nonsense felt like the disbelief in my head was about to burst through my scalp.
Honestly, I felt like I’d already tolerated more than enough.
According to Park Myung-soo’s famous quote—‘If you endure something three times, you’re a pushover.’ By that logic, I was already a complete sucker.
I didn’t think I could hold it in anymore.
“Excuse me, hyung. Being late once or twice is one thing, but this is too much. Please come on time from now on.”
After the semester opening meeting, Woo Hyun-woo and I had talked a few more times and even eaten together a few times. So I’d wanted to avoid causing trouble if possible.
But he was the one who started it.
My tone was fairly aggressive. Woo Hyun-woo looked surprised that I was confronting him instead of letting it slide like before. He slammed his fist on the table with a bang and glared at me.
“You think I was late on purpose? I told you. There was a traffic accident.”
I didn’t like defining people in just a few lines and trapping them in one-sided stereotypes. Thinking this person will act like this, or that person will behave like that. To me, that kind of thinking was like wearing a blindfold that prevented you from seeing the many sides of a person.
But Woo Hyun-woo was an exception.
Ever since the opening meeting ended, he kept emphasizing that he was a year older than me and subtly pressured me not to speak casually. Since he bragged about his age so much, I assumed he’d at least do his work well.
That had been a huge mistake.
Maybe he’d been aging in reverse, because he constantly made all kinds of excuses and ran away from his responsibilities. After I generously let things slide once or twice out of consideration, it seemed he’d started looking down on me as some pushover report shuttle.
“Then what about last week? Or the week before that? Does it make sense that every single time we meet, you’re the only one who has some kind of problem?”
“You little—”
“Don’t raise your voice. And don’t slam the table. It’s not even yours.”
“Hey. Does it feel good talking back to your hyung like that with your eyes glaring?”
“Stop making a big deal over a one-year age difference.”
I had wanted to end things peacefully.
But both Woo Hyun-woo and I were gradually raising our voices.
I wasn’t usually the type who liked speaking this emotionally. We still had to write reports together for the rest of the semester, so even while arguing, that part worried me.
But it seemed the resentment that had built up over the past month finally burst out, because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore.
I’d already said “yes, yes” and understood for three weeks straight—what more did he want?
“People can be late sometimes, you know? And for that you’re giving me a fucking lecture? A lecture?”
“I don’t care. If I’ve endured it for three weeks, I’ve endured enough. I’m planning to go talk to the professor, so handle the rest yourself.”
Honestly, finishing the rest of the semester alone and writing the weekly reports myself sounded better than dealing with this bastard.
Just imagining sharing the grade for a report I poured my heart into with a guy like this made it impossible to sleep peacefully at night with both legs stretched out.
