While I was in the middle of glaring at Woo Hyun-woo and venting my anger, a KakaoTalk notification chimed— and a message from Kwon Jisoo popped up.
[21 Kwon Jisoo: Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?]
It was a worried message.
When I looked around, I saw Kwon Jisoo leaning against the counter, staring in my direction. I felt a little embarrassed and sorry for causing a scene at the place where my friend worked part-time.
[ sry sry I’ll head out soon……. I’ll explain later ]
“Hey. Your hyung is talking to you and you’re looking at your phone?”
I had been thinking I should stop here and leave because I felt bad for Jisoo.
But this bastard Woo Hyun-woo kept poking at my nerves. The way his eyes scanned me irritably, the sneer hanging at the corner of his mouth. Under the table, he was nudging my knee with his shoe.
In comics or dramas, you often see characters who were sitting quietly suddenly snap and explode.
Whenever I saw that, I always thought, If you’ve already endured this much, why not just grit your teeth and endure to the end? Why make things more uncomfortable by exploding like that?
But after experiencing it myself, I realized that when someone truly gets pissed off, their mind goes completely blank and strangely calm. It felt like I could hear the sound of my patience snapping clean in two.
“Aren’t you going to answer?”
With my mind quiet, my emotions were completely suppressed, and only rational, logical thoughts about the situation began lining up in my head one after another.
“I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to say. You’ve been late so many times that I just asked you to please stop being late. I seriously can’t understand what part of that made you angry.”
“I don’t like your tone.”
“I’ve been writing the reports by myself for three weeks and still smiling it off. And now you care about tone? You’re not even a little sorry about the fact that I wrote those reports alone?”
“……”
Woo Hyun-woo continued glaring at me with his fists clenched tightly.
I wanted him to say something.
Putting aside my anger, I genuinely didn’t understand why he was acting like this.
But even after several minutes passed, Woo Hyun-woo just sat there silently.
By that point, both of us had gradually calmed down from our earlier excitement. Neither of us stood up, and neither of us spoke. For a while, we just sat across from each other at the café table in silence.
In the end, I was the first to speak.
“I’m sorry for raising my voice.”
After all, when two people are having a conversation and someone blurts out harsh words because they can’t control their emotions, an apology is only proper.
There was at least a tiny bit of guilt—about as much as the hair on an ant’s front leg.
Though it was less guilt toward him and more dissatisfaction toward myself for failing to hold it in.
Maybe because I apologized first, Woo Hyun-woo also stopped trying to keep the fight going and offered an apology.
“No, hey. I’m sorry too. I really didn’t do it on purpose, but things kept getting messed up. Whatever you say, I don’t really have an excuse.”
Woo Hyun-woo forced an incredibly awkward smile, trying to act cool.
Maybe he genuinely did feel sorry.
But because of his behavior up until now, it just kept feeling like he was putting on an act to look cool. I tried to shake off that thought and look at the situation objectively.
In any case, Woo Hyun-woo had apologized to me, and I had also apologized for the part he complained about.
It was safe to say the matter of our argument was now completely settled.
“Then hyung. What should we do about our report?”
I had boldly declared that I’d talk to the professor and write the report alone, but in reality that was somewhat unrealistic.
For fairness’ sake, it would be difficult for the professor or teaching assistant to favor just one student’s convenience.
Still, I had planned to ask with a bit of hope—but thinking about it, the best outcome would be for this guy Woo Hyun-woo to reform and actually participate in writing the report.
“…So as long as I come on time from now on?”
Woo Hyun-woo replied while lifting his phone.
Thankfully, it seemed even that hopeless repeat-exam-taking bastard still had a shred of conscience left.
I broke into a wide smile and walked over to the seat beside him with my laptop. Then I explained how far I had gotten with the report so far.
Still, since he had managed to get into Hanguk University, Woo Hyun-woo wasn’t a complete idiot. Once I explained things, he understood quickly.
“Yes! Exactly that.”
“Really.”
“Yep yep. Also here—besides pulley friction, what other sources of error could there be, hyung?”
“Hmm……. Since this is measured by hand, there was probably some human error too. And the pulley torque wasn’t considered either.”
“You’re right! Wow, I didn’t think of that.”
Once Woo Hyun-woo actually started putting real effort into writing the report, he upgraded from a pile of trash into a fairly decent teammate.
It felt like some of the parts that had been lacking when I worked alone were finally being filled in.
I playfully tapped Woo Hyun-woo on the arm and wiped imaginary tears.
“You’re this good at it, so why were you late all this time, seriously. Do you know how hard it was doing this alone…….”
“Alright, you punk. I said I’m sorry. I told you I’ll do better from now on.”
Woo Hyun-woo answered bluntly and roughly ruffled my hair.
It wasn’t exactly pleasant since the hair I had carefully styled was now completely ruined, but I suppressed my irritation by thinking about how much lighter the burden of writing the report had become.
Woo Hyun-woo also seemed to have shaken off his bad mood.
In a surprisingly peaceful atmosphere, we continued working on the report.
After spending about two hours writing it, we finally finished the General Physics lab report.
When I did it alone it took more than five hours, but with two people it was cut in half.
I felt incredibly happy.
Looking at the neatly aligned rows of perfectly arranged bars on the page, I felt like I could finally understand a little why Do Jihoon was so obsessed with organization.
“Good work, hyung.”
“Yeah, you too. It’s almost dinner time—want to grill some samgyeopsal nearby?”
Woo Hyun-woo scratched the back of his head as he made the incredibly awkward-sounding suggestion.
I loved meat enough to eat it three meals a day, but if I went to a barbecue restaurant with Woo Hyun-woo, it was obvious I’d only manage to eat about 300 grams at most.
So I shook my head and declined.
“Sorry, but I already had samgyeopsal for lunch today. Let’s go another time, hyung.”
“Really? Then let’s go eat something else. I feel bad about being late all this time, Yuri. Huh?”
Since he put it like that, I didn’t really have a good excuse to refuse anymore.
There weren’t many customers in the café anyway, so I had been thinking of chatting with Kwon Jisoo for a bit.
“Uh……. But hyung. I actually have dinner plans.”
Fortunately, I squeezed my brain and came up with the ultimate excuse—one that couldn’t reasonably be forced.
Woo Hyun-woo’s awkward smile instantly stiffened as he spoke.
“…Is that so?”
“Yes. See you next time, hyung. I want to eat with you too, but I already have plans tonight.”
“Alright then. When are you free?”
“Uh……. One moment.”
I thought if I said that much, he’d just assume I didn’t want to eat with him and drop it.
But whether Woo Hyun-woo was simply clueless or had some other reason, he was unusually persistent about eating together.
In the end, I had no choice but to schedule a dinner appointment with him.
***
After sending Woo Hyun-woo off, I sat in a chair near the front counter and started chatting with the now-free Kwon Jisoo.
She had asked me to explain what happened earlier when our voices got loud, so I was describing the situation as realistically as possible.
“And that’s what happened.”
“Wow……”
“No seriously, I almost ended up going to eat with that bastard in the most awkward situation imaginable.”
“So your ‘dinner plans’ were a lie?”
“Obviously. I almost died from dizziness.”
I pressed a hand to my head and staggered dramatically.
Kwon Jisoo coldly told me to stop messing around, her face completely expressionless.
Naturally, I lowered my hand and placed it politely on my knees.
“But listening to you… the way you talk kind of reminds me of Do Jihoon.”
“What?! What are you talking about? Do Jihoon is basically a robot. He used to creak like crazy, and I personally oiled him up piece by piece until he became human. I’m a very emotionally expressive person. How could you say we’re similar? That’s extremely insulting.”
I waved my hand jokingly as I said it, but in truth I was quite surprised.
Similar to Do Jihoon?
Do Jihoon was the type who tried to finish everything perfectly, to the point that I sometimes wondered if he was a robot with only a soft outer shell.
He had little interest in people and maintained a very clear persona.
Because of that, whenever I saw the way Do Jihoon acted outside, there were many times I had to suppress the nausea rising in my throat.
Kwon Jisoo must have noticed my completely unconvinced expression.
She frowned slightly, thought for a moment, then spoke.
“No. Usually in that situation people just get angry and snap. It’s actually not that common to talk that calmly. Just look at Woo Hyun-woo—he knew he was in the wrong but didn’t want to admit it, so he just raised his voice. You’re something else.”
For some reason, the way Kwon Jisoo clicked her tongue sounded like praise.
With a refreshed expression, I answered cheerfully.
“That sounded like a compliment. Thanks.”
“Yeah. Interpretations can make any dream sound good.”
“You little—”
“Anyway, you said you’re eating with Woo Hyun-woo. How are you going to handle that when it’s so awkward?”
Kwon Jisoo rested her chin on the counter and looked at me worriedly.
I shrugged and let out a sigh.
“I don’t know. We’ve eaten at the campus cafeteria together a few times before, so… it should be fine, I guess. That’s what I’m thinking.”
“You’re surprisingly positive.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
We were chatting away when, unfortunately, the alarm rang with a ding! and sent in an order.
With a regretful heart, I waved goodbye to Kwon Jisoo as she went back to work.
She shuddered and said that hearing that alarm sound gave her PTSD before walking into the kitchen.
