Two hours had passed since we’d stuffed ourselves with dinner. The seniors marched into the pension with imposing steps, each carrying three or four green crates. I could tell at a glance. Those crates were filled with piles of alcohol meant to send all of us straight to hell.
“Alright, we’ve eaten and rested enough. Now we’re going to start the games. Anyone who wants to participate, gather in the center. If you can’t drink, say it now. We prepared plenty of cola and cider, so if you can’t drink alcohol, you’ll chug one of these 355-milliliter cans instead.”
The president took command while the vice president assisted beside her. Like children following the Pied Piper, we all clustered together in the center of the living room.
“Yuri. Why don’t you drink cola instead of alcohol?”
“Excuse me? What are you talking about right now…….”
I was walking toward the center beside Do Jihoon when he suddenly said something that sounded like it came straight from some conservative grandfather from the Joseon Dynasty. Of course, I knew what he said was reasonable. I did have a bit of a record when it came to drinking……. Still, Jihoon was right next to me. With him here to manage things, I figured it’d be fine.
“It’s not okay even if I’m next to you?”
“No.”
“……Then you shouldn’t drink either.”
I pouted and whined at Do Jihoon.
“Alright. I won’t.”
“……”
That wasn’t what I wanted. I strongly appealed to him that my alcohol tolerance was at least two bottles and that I was good at drinking games—good enough to wipe the floor with all the ’21s. But Do Jihoon didn’t listen at all.
Once all the club members participating in the game sat down in a circle, the vice president raised his voice.
“Everyone who’s playing, gather up. If you can’t drink, say it now. Don’t grab a soda later saying you don’t want alcohol.”
Because Do Jihoon kept staring at me pointedly, I had no choice but to ask the vice president for soda cans. Ten cans of cola were placed in front of me. The same number sat in front of Do Jihoon.
As I rolled the cans around listlessly like a dung beetle, Woo Hyun-woo—sitting about two seats away—started picking a fight.
“Yeon Yuri. You know how to drink. Why are you sitting this one out?”
I wasn’t particularly happy about Hyun-woo talking to me, but I wholeheartedly agreed with what he said. Exactly my point. I jutted my lips out and glanced at Do Jihoon, but his expression clearly said, So what do you want me to do about it?
Fine. Do whatever you want. In the end, I had no choice but to give up drinking tonight.
Once everyone—including the people choosing carbonation torture instead of alcohol—had been decided, the vice president clapped twice.
“Alright. We’re starting now. No going easy.”
His eyes were solemn and reverent, like a general heading onto the battlefield. The seriousness made even me tense.
But then, in the middle of that grave atmosphere—
“Since we came all the way to Yangpyeong, the option~ obviously~ has to be on, right?”
The vice president suddenly dropped the serious look and switched to an experienced, excited vibe.
The “option” he was talking about was that thing. In drinking games, it meant an extra rule added on top. It ran separately from the game itself, but if you broke the option rule, you had to drink a penalty shot. Adding options made the game way more fun since you had to keep track of both the game and the rule. It was thrilling, too.
The problem was that as the game progressed, the probability of drunk idiots creating a “pizza” increased exponentially.
While staring at the vice president and wondering what kind of bizarre option would come out of his mouth—
“Let’s keep it simple and do Hunminjeongeum.”
Unexpectedly, it was Park Ju-yoon—the one we trusted—who dropped the bomb.
Encouraged by her support, the vice president became even more energized.
“You all know what Hunminjeongeum is, right? You can only use pure Korean words or Sino-Korean words. Loanwords and foreign languages are banned.”
“We’re screwed.”
“Then what if the game is in English?”
“Figure it out.”
“Excuse me?”
Murmurs rose from here and there. When I listened closely, unfortunately, most of the opinions were along the lines of this sounds fun. Damn democratic Republic of Korea—by majority vote, the option ended up being adopted.
All I could do was pray that once people got drunk, they’d quietly crawl back to their rooms and pass out.
“Alright, option’s set. From now on, anyone who uses a loanword or foreign language drinks a penalty shot.”
With the vice president’s sinister grin, the drinking game from hell began.
“Bunny bunny, bunny bunny!”
“Carrot, carrot!”
“Who just made a rabbit sound in English……?”
“Come on, hyung. What are we supposed to replace bunny with?”
“I don’t know. Say hop-hop or just rabbit. Drink, drink! Drinking games you learn while drinking~.”
Even normally, people started dropping like flies within an hour of drinking games. But now that this ridiculous option had been added on top, the ones whose tolerance was only half a bottle started collapsing in no time.
“Of course you’re chugging it, right, sunbae-nim? No half shots, no half shots.”
“You just said ‘shot,’ didn’t you? Fine. I’ll drink it in one go—but you’re drinking with me.”
“Huh?!”
The number of club members still participating in the game with clear minds gradually decreased one by one.
Several times we had to haul away the wobbling drunks like luggage, toss them onto beds, and then restart the game. Eventually, only familiar faces remained.
They were the same survivors from the drinking game at the first gathering.
“……Doesn’t this lineup look familiar?”
Apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking that, because Park Ju-yoon laughed and said it was funny.
Naturally, Do Jihoon and I were still there since we’d chosen carbonation. Unfortunately, Woo Hyun-woo and Ha Min-young were still there too. Whether they were just good at games or good at drinking, I couldn’t tell.
Time flew by, and before we knew it, midnight was approaching. As someone who should be asleep exactly at twelve like a model child of the new nation, it was an extremely exhausting hour.
A few club members, including me, started saying they were sleepy and headed off to their rooms.
“……You’ve got to be kidding me.”
And so.
Only six people remained: me, Do Jihoon, Ha Min-young, Woo Hyun-woo, the president, and the vice president.
At this point, it felt certain that the god of probability had completely skipped over me. Six people wasn’t a bad number for drinking games, but Woo Hyun-woo seemed to think differently.
Looking at the drastically reduced group, he proposed a game.
“Since there are fewer people now, how about we play Truth Game? What do you think?”
Truth Game? What was this, the late Joseon era? It wasn’t like there was any private business about these five people that I was particularly curious about.
Honestly, it was a terrible suggestion.
Besides, I had quite a lot of personal matters that could be exposed. Do Jihoon’s expression had hardened too—he didn’t look very interested either.
But apparently our opinions didn’t matter to him at all.
He bounced around eagerly and only looked at the president and vice president with shining eyes, asking for their approval.
The vice president—who never backed out of things like this—immediately agreed. The president frowned and began considering it.
I desperately hoped she’d refuse.
But once again, Park Ju-yoon ended up agreeing.
“Alright. We all know each other anyway. Min-young and Jihoon—and Hyun-woo and Yuri—you’re all the same year, right?”
“Yes, noona!”
Woo Hyun-woo answered happily like a caveman discovering fire. I honestly felt like tying that Prometheus-wannabe to a rock mountain.
And just like that, the disastrous Truth Game began.
Woo Hyun-woo grabbed a new bottle of liquor from one of the crates.
“Whoever the bottle’s mouth points to gets asked a question. We’ll take turns.”
“That’s too harsh. The rest of us will agree on a single question together and ask it.”
“……Okay, noona.”
As Park Ju-yoon stopped Woo Hyun-woo’s reckless rush, he opened the bottle and poured soju straight into a soup bowl.
I stared at the rising surface of alcohol with dead fish eyes.
Fortunately, since Do Jihoon and I had chosen carbonation earlier, that bowl of liquor didn’t apply to us. I just felt sorry for whoever would have to drink it.
“You only get one question, but this time there’s no skipping the drink, okay? It’s just one question. Everyone agree?”
“……”
“I’ll take that as agreement.”
Swept up in the fast-moving situation, I couldn’t voice my opposition. By the time I came back to my senses, Woo Hyun-woo had already started spinning the now-empty bottle.
Damn it. I’d zoned out for a second and suddenly became one of the poor souls who might end up drinking that alcohol.
As the bottle spun like a top, I prayed fervently to the heavens that the mouth wouldn’t land on me.
Finally, the bottle stopped.
And the mouth pointed at one person.
