# Chapter 14
“Yuri! Come sit over here.”
As I entered room 406, Daeju, whom I’d met during the orientation camp, greeted me. I walked toward Lee Daeju who was calling me.
“So you’re also in General Chemistry section 1. Jisu and Gihyeok are all in section 2.”
“Really?”
Daeju seemed quite happy to see me and kept talking.
“But isn’t it really strange?”
“What is?”
“At our school, Alphas and Omegas used different buildings. So…”
“Your school too? We did that as well.”
We continued talking until the professor arrived. Daeju was a good conversation partner. He joked around saying he hated when there was dead air.
“Hey, hey, the professor is coming in.”
The professor gave us a brief overview of how the first semester would proceed. I diligently copied down the information about attendance scores, assignments, and explanations about midterms and finals onto my pad. I had told Jihoon I wouldn’t study, but now that the semester had started, my motivation to study was bubbling up.
Since it was the first week of the semester, as the seniors we met during orientation camp had said, classes ended quickly after just giving a briefing. Because the school had created cosmic gaps in my schedule, I had classes for periods 7 and 8 after my periods 1 and 2.
Originally there was a 4-hour gap, but today it was over 5 hours because we finished early. And it was the same for the other students too.
“What should we do…?”
Daeju said dejectedly. I shook my head to indicate that I didn’t know either.
“Should we go to a PC bang? Are you good at LOL?”
“No… Not at all. I’m Bronze.”
“……”
We were making small talk as we exited the building. As we were contemplating what to do, a light descended upon us.
“Oh, aren’t you Yeon Yuri? It is Yuri, right?”
“Senior Bae…”
Our school had a buddy system called “jjak-seon-jjak-hu” to help juniors adapt well. From what I saw during orientation camp, Senior Gyeong Baehyun was my buddy senior.
We whined to the senior. The senior burst into laughter when hearing that we had a 4-hour gap.
“That’s normal. In my freshman year, first semester, I had first period on four days.”
“What…? How did you survive?”
“I just skipped, of course. Don’t you guys do that though. You’ll pay for it later.”
Fortunately, that day we met the senior and were able to kill time by touring the school and greeting the Korea University cats. On the first day of the semester, after attending all my classes, I arrived home almost at 6 PM. This wasn’t even high school anymore.
I showered, rolled around on my bed, and checked KakaoTalk. There were messages from Kim Bojin and Do Jihoon, as well as from a group chat with four members including Lee Daeju and me.
❖ ❖ ❖
[Kim Bojin: How’s university life?]
[Didn’t I tell you? I have first period classes on 3 days]
[Kim Bojin: Cat laughing emoticon]
[Rabbit farting emoticon]
Despite my curse that Kim Bojin wouldn’t even make it into a Seoul university, he was admitted to a fairly decent university’s business department. And he was developing a relationship with an Alpha he’d exchanged numbers with during orientation. If you think about it, this bastard was the biggest traitor.
[Do Jihoon: Did you get home?]
[Yep you?]
The “1” next to the KakaoTalk disappeared quickly. Jihoon was surprisingly attentive to our relationship. Given his temperament, I thought he’d reply once every three hours, but whenever I sent a message, he usually replied right away.
[Do Jihoon: I only had first period today, so I came straight home.]
[Huh? Really? Didn’t the kids in your department ask you to eat or hang out with them?]
[Do Jihoon: Are you a question mark serial killer? No, they didn’t.]
That was unexpected. Jihoon had a gorgeous face, superior physique, and unlike how he acted like a jerk to me, he didn’t behave badly toward others. So I thought kids would ask for his name and invite him to eat together. Of course, since he was the type to skip orientation camp because it was bothersome, it was obvious he’d prefer a situation where people weren’t interested in him.
[Ok ok then I’ll see you tomorrow morning]
[Do Jihoon: Get a driver’s license, Yuri. I woke up at 6:30 today to pick you up.]
[You overslept]
[Do Jihoon: Brightly smiling round emoticon]
[Do Jihoon: Want to walk tomorrow? ^^]
[Sorry sorry sorry sorry;;]
[Rabbit begging desperately emoticon]
It took about 20 minutes by car from my house to Jihoon’s house, and about 50 minutes from my house to Korea University. It was by no means a short distance. Thinking about having to commute this distance every day made life seem very tough.
[Hey]
[Do Jihoon: What]
[Should we just live on our own?]
There was no answer from Jihoon. Seeing the “1” disappear, it seems he read it though.
[I mean it’s hard for you to drive too]
[If I say I want to live on my own, my parents will 100% link me with you]
[Since it’s going to end up that way anyway, let’s live together, yeah?]
I enthusiastically expressed my opinion.
[Do Jihoon: If you promise to keep taking suppressants during your cycle periods]
[Ok ok of course. It’s not like I have anyone to do it with anyway…]
[Do Jihoon: Bear covering mouth and snickering emoticon]
[Fuck you]
Alphas and Omegas each had rut and heat cycles. During this period, which lasted about two days a month, those who had manifested became instinctively driven by pleasure. In other words, they went into heat.
The cycle first appeared during adolescence. Until children became adults, they were given suppressants to control the cycle. The suppressants weren’t particularly harmful to the body, and it was a law established by the World Health Organization to prevent teenagers, who still had difficulty taking responsibility for themselves, from doing something foolish.
After becoming an adult, you were given the right to decide whether to take suppressants or not. Those who chose to take them said they did so because they disliked how bestial it felt to have their eyes roll back and only want sex during the cycle period. Those who chose not to take them argued that they were adults now and why should they restrain themselves when sex during the cycle period was incredibly pleasurable.
I was decidedly in the former camp.
Day by day, the memories of the previous world were rapidly fading, but my unconscious mind, which was subtly ingrained, found the animal-like rut and heat somewhat uncomfortable.
[21 Lee Daeju: Heyyyyyyyy]
[21 Lee Daeju: Wow finally saw it]
[? What’s up]
[21 Kwon Jisu: We have overlapping major classes tomorrow for periods 5-6]
[21 Kwon Jisu: So we were saying let’s eat lunch together and then go to class]
[21 Lee Daeju: What do you think?]
It wasn’t bad. Since I had liberal arts classes in the morning and had to go early anyway. It would be nice to eat together.
[Yeah let’s do that]
[21 Lee Daeju: Then I’ll take that as everyone agrees? Let’s meet at the student cafeteria at 11:30]
[21 Shin Gihyeok: Okay]
With that, the conversation was roughly wrapped up, and as I was about to put my phone away, I noticed a casual chat room and an announcement room below. The casual chat had over 999+ messages, so I didn’t want to go in. I clicked on the announcement room.
[21 Choi Yeonghak (Dept. Rep): I’ve set this as an announcement]
[21 Choi Yeonghak (Dept. Rep): There’s a department general meeting this Friday!! I’ve set the after-party location and time as an announcement. Please check and vote on whether you’ll attend!]
[21 Choi Yeonghak (Dept. Rep): I’ve created a poll]
A department general meeting! Of course I wanted to go. I happily entered the poll and clicked that I would attend.
❖ ❖ ❖
“Yuri. If you were a little later, I was going to leave without you.”
“Sorry, sorry. My alarm didn’t go off.”
“You should go to ENT. I think there might be a problem with your cochlea.”
We headed to school bickering as usual.
“But it’s surprising you don’t drive around in a flashy car?”
“I’m not interested in cars. I just drive whatever they bought me.”
“Wow… Rich kids, seriously.”
“It’s really funny hearing that from you.”
“This weekend? You kept it free, right?”
“Yeah.”
We decided to move into our own place this weekend. When I told my parents that I wanted to live on my own, they said with very satisfied expressions that they already had a place. My jaw dropped, and my mother said:
‘You two get along so well. I knew you’d say you wanted to live together soon. It would be troublesome to find a place then, so I signed a contract in advance. It’s an apartment near the school. It’s fully furnished, so you’ll only need to move a few things.’
By the way, Jihoon’s parents had apparently agreed as well. They were very quick-moving people.
“Hey. Get out.”
“Yes, yes.”
We got out of the car and walked to the lecture hall for our writing class.
But strangely, attention was focused on Jihoon and me. Wondering if I was being paranoid, I turned my head and made eye contact with an Alpha who was looking at me. Confused, I turned my head the other way and this time made eye contact with an Omega.
“What the hell…?”
“Let’s use proper language.”
“Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”
Unlike me who was flustered, Jihoon looked all too familiar with this. Why is he so calm about this too?
Jjak-seon-jjak-hu (“짝선짝후”) – University buddy system between seniors and juniors
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
