# Chapter 17
“…We just fought like friends fight. I was upset.”
“I see…”
“Yeah. Do Jihoon is important to me, but it seems like I’m not that important to him, so I felt hurt.”
As I picked at my food and sighed out my answer, strangely the atmosphere became quiet. When I looked up, everyone was staring at me like I was an abandoned kitten.
“What’s with that look?”
“I see… It was a lovers’ quarrel…”
“Do Jihoon does have a cold image.”
My friends’ reactions were very strange. I quickly added an explanation to clarify.
“No. I think you’re misunderstanding something… It’s not like that…”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry. We won’t tell anyone. Yuri must have been going through a lot emotionally.”
I received sympathy votes. I was so dumbfounded I choked. Lee Daeju brought me water. The look in his eyes like he was watching something pitiful was an added bonus.
“Yeon Yuri with his gumiho-like appearance. Just spray your pheromones and pounce on him!”
“Are you crazy? That’s a crime, you lunatic.”
Still, being comforted by my friends made me feel a bit better. We were joking around as we passed by the water fountain.
Just then, a strong rose scent wafted from nearby. It was my pheromone smell.
“……”
“……”
My head turned instinctively. And I made eye contact with Do Jihoon, who was looking at me.
Around Do Jihoon were many people who looked like his classmates. Regardless of trait, they were all looking at Do Jihoon and talking to him.
He said he had no friends. What a liar.
I hardened my expression and quickly turned my head, leaving the student cafeteria. I should have eaten at the Engineering cafeteria. I’d unnecessarily walked to the student cafeteria to commemorate our first meal there.
I went back to class with my friends, feeling depressed. Despite it being the first day, General Physics jumped right into the curriculum. By the time I got home, I couldn’t remember a thing we’d learned that day.
“…What the hell.”
I rolled around in bed thinking about Do Jihoon. I couldn’t figure out why he had gotten angry.
He had unpredictable aspects. He would go along with all my crude jokes, but then show his nasty temper at strange moments.
I didn’t want to stay in this state with Do Jihoon. I wanted to make up. But this time, I didn’t want to reach out first. It was my paltry pride.
First, I needed to know why he was angry. But I couldn’t figure it out on my own.
I decided to get reinforcements. I picked up my phone and dialed a familiar number.
I was worried he might ignore my call if he was busy flirting with someone, but he answered quickly.
“Moshi moshi. This is Kim Bojin.”
“I have a problem, Bojin.”
“You’ve reached the wrong number. I’m hanging up now.”
“Hey! You owe me, remember? Shall we think about that?”
“……”
In the end, Kim Bojin had to listen to my worries.
“What is it?”
“Listen to the situation. It’s about me and Do Jihoon…”
I explained the situation to him. How we were happily walking together when suddenly he got upset and flooded me with pheromones, and how he threw a fit just because I called him “honey.” Despite threatening to hang up, Kim Bojin listened to my concerns seriously.
“That’s how it happened.”
“…Oh.”
“Ignoring Do Jihoon’s wrecked personality, state the problem that appeared in this situation in about 500 words.”
“Please give me some time.”
“Okay.”
He pondered for a while. I was looking at clouds passing by the window.
Finally, I heard an answer from Kim Bojin.
“Maybe he just doesn’t like you?”
“Fuck. I thought so too.”
“Then it’s definitely that.”
“No, but listen.”
“Go ahead and talk.”
“This bastard does everything I ask even when he says he doesn’t want to. And he goes along with all my crude jokes.”
“Really? That’s hard for a normal person to do.”
“……”
“Then he probably doesn’t dislike you. But why?”
“Right? He sometimes has moments where he’s off, but I don’t understand why.”
Kim Bojin and I racked our brains again. But from his demeanor, he couldn’t give me a proper answer.
“Hey, hey. I’m getting a call from the guy I’m interested in.”
“Surely you’re not going to abandon your friend for some Alpha… right…?”
“I pray for you. Bye.”
With a click, the call ended. Kim Bojin was a really bad bastard.
“……”
After that, there was no response from him. Suddenly, my phone screen only showed my usual background. Life was fucking lonely, sob.
❖ ❖ ❖
“Having to come all the way here on a rare day with no classes…”
Lee Daeju grumbled while buttoning up his collar. I agreed. The reason I kept going to school without quitting was because they matched my Friday schedule with no classes, but now I had to come back to school for the general assembly. And by taking public transportation with great effort.
It had been four days of cold war with Do Jihoon since Tuesday. The safety check messages that used to come every other day had completely stopped. Even yesterday evening when we had overlapping classes, he didn’t come to pick me up and just drove home by himself.
Tomorrow I’d have to move into my rented room. I could only sigh.
As we walked together, we arrived at the pork restaurant for the after-party. We entered and sat next to Kwon Jisu and Shin Gihyeok.
“You still look gloomy today.”
“They say he’s still in a lover’s quarrel.”
“It’s not like that, you bastards…”
Looking around, the spacious restaurant was packed with people. I could see our classmates awkwardly sitting with seniors who had informed us about department life at school.
“Let’s just drink.”
“Yeah.”
With alcohol and meat, there was nothing to fear. We made toasts for all sorts of reasons. For Lee Daeju getting a boyfriend, for Kwon Jisu adopting a puppy, for Shin Gihyeok getting dumped by his girlfriend, and so on. I was last.
I looked anxiously at Lee Daeju, who was raising the tension. He looked at me with a grin and opened his mouth. It felt ominous.
“For the smooth reconciliation of Do Jihoon and Yeon Yuri!”
“Shut up, you bastard! Turn down the volume!”
As expected, my intuition was right. Lee Daeju’s voice had unnecessarily good projection, so our classmates sitting around us one by one turned their gazes toward me.
“Alright, now let’s rotate tables! Two people from each table, get up and move to another table.”
The second-year department representative clapped and shouted. I looked at him in bewilderment. The timing was the worst.
Shin Gihyeok and I got up from our table. Lee Daeju and Kwon Jisu looked at me with pity.
Classmates and seniors bustled around the restaurant. As I was awkwardly looking around wondering which table to go to, one table called us over.
Shin Gihyeok and I went and sat at that table. They were familiar faces I had seen during orientation. When we sat down, the classmates at the table greeted us.
“Hello. Shall we introduce ourselves first? I’m Kim Hyunjung. 20 years old.”
“I’m Woo Hyunwoo, 21 years old.”
I had boasted to Do Jihoon about making lots of friends, but in reality, I was a bit shy. I was fine in one-on-one situations, but in gatherings like this with multiple people, it was hard for me to speak up first.
Shin Gihyeok introduced himself and me in my place.
“I’m Shin Gihyeok and this is Yeon Yuri. We’re both 20 years old.”
“If you’re both okay with it, shall we speak informally?”
Woo Hyunwoo, who was the oldest at our table, suggested speaking informally first. We nodded.
Various conversations took place at this table. Which school we graduated from, how the first week was, and so on. Woo Hyunwoo, who had taken a gap year, knew drinking games well, so he joined tables with classmates beside us and led games.
One by one, people started getting drunk. As alcohol entered my system bit by bit, I struggled to keep my mind clear. If I got drunk and acted out again, I wasn’t a human but a dog, a dog.
It was while we were playing the tofu game. An Alpha sitting at the next table, who seemed drunk, emitted a thick mocha pheromone scent and pointed at me.
“Yeon Yuri, your father is the Chairman of Bumong, right?”
“……”
The table suddenly went quiet at those words. After a few seconds of silence, other classmates also opened their mouths one by one to ask questions, as if they were curious about the truth. I sighed and answered quietly.
“Yeah. That’s right.”
Then the Alpha who had pointed at me said, “I knew it,” and laughed loudly. It was a bit baffling and annoying, but I decided to just understand since he was drunk.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
