He kept talking to me non-stop, saying the most trivial things.
“Your fingers are really long.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Bae Jung-yoon naturally initiated physical contact with Hoon. He casually played with Hoon’s fingers, completely ignoring the eyes around them, as if public decency meant nothing to him. Thanks to that, Go Hoon had no mental space left to focus on anything else.
After finally finishing his last class, he practically ran away from Jung-yoon and made his way back home. He felt like he had been sweating bullets the entire time, keeping alert to his side during the lecture, but without even a moment to relax, Hoon immediately sat down in front of his laptop.
He considered taking a quick nap, but setting up the framework for the personal assignment due next Friday took priority.
Staring blankly at the basic desktop background on the laptop for a while, Go Hoon then closed his eyes tightly. With dry lids, he pressed his fingertips firmly against them.
Was it because he was getting older? It hadn’t been like this before, but now, the lack of sleep was visibly taking a toll on his body.
If he said this in front of the Factory Manager, he’d probably get scolded with a barrage of curses about how a young guy like him complains too much. But it was true—what could he do? Ever since getting out of the army, it felt like his bones had aged, and just a few days of less sleep made his shoulders heavy and his eyes dry.
Forcing strength into his drooping eyelids, he grabbed the mouse. The moment he opened the file to start his report, drowsiness washed over him like a tide.
Sitting upright, Go Hoon began nodding off. He drifted in and out of sleep like he was wandering through a fever dream, and eventually, his upper body pitched forward.
Barely avoiding a collision with the keyboard, he straightened up and shook his head vigorously. He tried to shake off the sleep, but his body didn’t respond the way he wanted.
“This won’t do.”
He shot up from his seat.
Rummaging through the cupboard, he pulled out three sticks of coffee mix, dumped them all into a cup, and poured in hot water from the electric kettle. Too lazy to get a spoon, he stirred the contents roughly with one of the coffee packets and sat back down.
“Ugh…”
Just one sip of the thick mixture was enough to make him groan from the overwhelming sweetness. But with the hot, sugary caffeine filling his stomach, he did feel somewhat better.
Unfortunately, that alertness lasted only a moment. Before long, Hoon had his hands resting on the keyboard again, his head starting to droop. The sleepiness kept creeping in, impossible to resist.
Locked in a fierce battle with sleep, his hand suddenly jerked forward like a spasm. At the exact moment between sleep and wakefulness, his muscles had involuntarily contracted.
Because of that, he accidentally knocked over his coffee cup, and the glass tipped, spilling the contents straight onto the laptop.
“No…!”
Hoon cried out in panic, but sheer desperation couldn’t override the law of gravity. The brown liquid soaked the low table and the laptop, seeping into the keyboard through the tiny gaps.
In an instant, he was wide awake. Of course—the sharpest jolt to human consciousness is a sense of crisis. That thought only flickered through his mind for a second as Go Hoon hurriedly grabbed a wad of tissues from the tissue box and wiped down the laptop.
The surface was easy enough to clean up, but the real problem was the inside. He tried everything to remove the sticky residue from between the keys. He even shoved tissues into the gaps, but the deep-set stains wouldn’t come out.
Then, the laptop screen flickered with static—and went black.
His body froze for a few seconds as if turned to stone. Eyes wide with shock, he stared blankly at the laptop.
“…What the fuck.”
After some time, Hoon finally managed to move his fingers. With trembling hands, he carefully tapped a few keys. But the laptop remained unresponsive, refusing to power on.
“What’s wrong with you now?”
Flustered, Go Hoon tapped the body of the laptop with his palm. A typical tech-illiterate move—when something doesn’t work, hit it first and ask questions later.
“Please turn on.”
Please…! With a desperate heart, he repeatedly pressed the power button. Still, the laptop showed no signs of life. He rotated it this way and that, but there wasn’t even a flicker on the pitch-black screen.
It seemed the coffee that had seeped inside had caused a short in the motherboard. Trying to stave off full-blown panic, Hoon forced his thoughts into a positive direction.
Maybe if the coffee inside dried out, it might work again? Yeah. Phones that fall in water sometimes work fine after drying completely—right?
Clinging to that faint hope, Go Hoon waited half a day. But the miracle never came. After getting off work at the factory and returning home, he immediately tried pressing the power button again, but the laptop still displayed nothing but a dark screen.
He clung to denial for a while, but eventually, he had to accept the truth. The laptop that had faithfully lasted over ten years had finally met a glorious end.
The only saving grace was that he had backed up all his assignments on both a USB and the cloud. Because the laptop was so old, he’d developed a habit of dual-saving important files just in case it died—and that habit saved him.
Still, he’d have to take it to the service center and see if it could be repaired. With that conclusion, Go Hoon left for school at dawn, carrying the heavy laptop bag in one hand.
“Hey, what’s that?”
Running late and with no time to stop by his locker, he went straight to the lecture hall, where Jo Seong-il bombarded him with questions, his face twisted in shock.
“Laptop.”
“Why the hell did you bring that giant thing to school?”
“It broke. I’m going to take it to the service center for repairs.”
“Wow, I haven’t seen a laptop bag like that in forever.”
Jo Seong-il stared at the massive laptop bag like it was some relic from the Stone Age.
“Seriously, I think my dad used to carry one of those around back in the day. Mind if I take a look?”
Hoon nodded without hesitation at Seong-il’s request. It wasn’t like touching it would wear it down, and even if it did, the thing was already old enough that it didn’t really matter.
Barely waiting for Hoon’s go-ahead, Seong-il quickly unzipped the bag—and reeled back again.
“Who the hell still carries around a fossil like this?”
Fossil? Damn, that’s harsh, you bastard.
Sure, the laptop was thick enough to break someone’s skull if dropped right, and sure, while everyone else was hauling around sleek, lightweight laptops, Hoon had to treat his like some sacred relic, used only at home. Still, it had served him well, and he was fond of it in his own way.
“It’s not that bad, is it?”
Hoon replied with a half-hearted tone, but Seong-il just shook his head in disbelief.
“You cheap bastard. What do you even do with all that money you bust your ass earning as a night-shift tech? Just buy yourself a new damn laptop already.”
Seong-il said it in a light tone, more teasing than serious, but Hoon didn’t answer. He stayed quiet.
There were things someone who didn’t work part-time and just got allowance wouldn’t understand. In Go Hoon’s world, if something could be used longer, he’d use it to its limit. If it could be fixed, he’d fix it. That was the rule.
Seong-il’s curiosity toward the antique laptop faded quickly. Hoon carefully zipped the bag back up and placed it beneath the desk. Meanwhile, Seong-il, now fiddling with his phone, suddenly spoke up again.
“Hey, are you getting lunch at the cafeteria again today?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s eat together. They’ve got takoyaki on the menu today.”
“You’re eating cafeteria food just for takoyaki?”
“Yeah. Our school’s famous for its takoyaki, don’t you know? Hidden gem status.”
Seong-il looked more excited than usual. Watching him, Hoon instinctively clicked his tongue. The campus food must be god-awful if the mass-produced takoyaki was considered the highlight.
“Seriously though, where the hell is all our tuition going, Seong-il?”
He asked with genuine curiosity, to which Seong-il simply shrugged.
“Hell if I know. I’m just as curious where all that money’s vanishing to.”
“You should flex your power as class rep or something.”
“Pfft. What power? I’ve got none. I’m just a glorified punching bag and errand boy.”
Trading mundane chatter with Jo Seong-il, the professor finally entered the classroom. As if on cue, both of them shut up like they’d planned it.
After an hour-long class, Hoon headed straight for the lounge.
The laptop was a bit of a nuisance to carry around, but he just needed to get through one more hour until lunchtime. After that, he’d head to the service center and drop it off for repairs.
Estimate? About an hour would be plenty. Repairs would obviously take several days, so there was no need to wait around—just drop it off and be done.
Go Hoon settled into one of the stair-stepped lounge seats and sprawled out over a beanbag. He popped wired earbuds into both ears and, just in case anyone got ideas—not that it was worth stealing—he hugged the laptop bag tightly as he dozed off.
After a short nap, the alarm blared and his eyes flew open.
“…Time to eat.”
Like a true twenty-something, his mind was entirely consumed by food the moment he woke up. Stretching out his stiff limbs, Hoon sluggishly made his way out of the business school building. A few minutes passed as he waited in front of the cafeteria for Jo Seong-il.
“Yo, Go Hoon!”
At the booming voice calling his name, Hoon looked up. Jo Seong-il was waving enthusiastically from a distance. Even though he was the one walking over, he was waving like crazy, full of energy.
With one hand in his pocket and the other gripping his laptop bag, Go Hoon didn’t move a muscle. Unbothered by Hoon’s dry reaction, Seong-il kept waving like an idiot, laughing all the while.
And then—someone familiar came into view beside him. Towering a full head above the rest, Bae Jung-yoon strolled toward him with that slow, easy gait.
