#35
“Well, we’re the same gender so couple rings would be a bit… Instead we got couple piercings. Ring piercings. I wonder if they’ve closed up by now?”
Kim Bonoh said, touching his ears. He said they’d gotten couple piercings with rings.
Taeseong suddenly felt his fighting spirit ignite. At the mention of couple piercings, whether from vengeful feelings, his insides felt like they were burning up. With his ‘intellectual sexy strategy’ having failed, Taeseong needed to work even harder. This wasn’t the time to be sitting around.
It felt like he wouldn’t be satisfied until he left a mark on Kim Bonoh far greater than those faded piercing traces. To do that, he had to succeed in his revenge as quickly as possible.
Taeseong accessed the course registration page and glanced sideways at Bonoh’s screen. He quickly scanned the course names in the shopping cart, then began removing courses from his own cart and adding new ones. Starting with liberal arts courses, he selected the exact same classes, but since the time slots were different from what Taeseong had originally planned to take, he had to modify his major courses too, which changed his entire schedule.
“Redoing your schedule?”
“Yeah.”
“Crazy. There’s only 10 minutes left for course registration?”
“……”
Taeseong was too busy hurriedly modifying his schedule to respond. He was frantically trying to take the same liberal arts courses and match his major course time slots as much as possible. It was the first time Taeseong had ever been so desperate while making his schedule.
“Huh? You’re taking the exact same classes as me. Well, lucky me.”
“What is?”
“Hm?”
Taeseong, who had been frantically staring at his screen, suddenly turned his head at Bonoh’s words.
“What’s lucky?”
“Well, you know, your grades are so good. If there are group projects, we can work together… It’s better than taking classes alone. I guess.”
“Seriously.”
Taeseong made a deflated sound. His profile as he turned back to the monitor looked somehow sulky.
“Hey hey, there’s 1 minute left, 1 minute!”
A moment of tension suddenly swept through the noisy PC room. Someone had their sound on, and the ticking clock sound effect could be heard from far away. Bonoh wiped the sweat from his palms on his pants and placed his hand back on the mouse.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6
“5, 4, 3, 2. Now now!”
Bonoh counted down the last five seconds out loud for Taeseong, who didn’t have a stopwatch on his screen. The sound of hurried clicking could be heard from everywhere, and shortly after, the PC room became noisy again.
“Hah…”
“What? Joo Taeseong, did you fail?”
“No. I got everything. What about you?”
As soon as course registration ended, Taeseong let out a long sigh and leaned back in his chair. Bonoh asked about his somewhat dazed appearance, but Taeseong had succeeded in everything. He was just completely drained from the intense course registration rush.
“Me too.”
Bonoh chuckled. Just then, the hot dog they had ordered arrived. It seemed to have taken a while because of the crowd. Bonoh accepted the hot dog with a relaxed, smiling face. Taeseong watched intently as Bonoh happily took a bite.
***
“You’re going to sleep already? It’s only 11 o’clock, turning off the lights…?”
There was still about an hour and a half until lights out, but Taeseong had finished washing up and preparing for bed, then lay down on his bed. Since Taeseong absolutely never lay on his bed except when sleeping, Bonoh wondered if lights out time had been moved up again.
“No. Don’t mind me.”
After saying that, Taeseong put on his headset and lay flat on his bed. With both hands folded on his chest and eyes closed, Taeseong looked like a vampire resting during the day. Bonoh was wondering if he should turn off the lights early since it might be too bright for him.
“…Just in case, even if I fall asleep, turn off the lights sharp at 12:30.”
Taeseong suddenly took off his headset, sat up, and said this.
“Ah, I was going to do that!”
At the distrustful tone, Bonoh’s earlier thought of turning off the lights early completely disappeared. Go ahead and get your eyes burned. Bonoh hoped the fluorescent light would torment Taeseong like sunlight burning a vampire.
But what was he listening to? Bonoh glanced back at Taeseong. It seemed like music, but if it was Joo Taeseong, he probably wouldn’t listen to idol songs or anything in the top 100 charts. It might be classical, new age, or jazz. Or maybe CCM? His posture was so upright it looked almost sacred.
Then Bonoh thought the music flowing from those headphones might surprisingly be trot. Joo Taeseong listening to trot. Bonoh quietly giggled, careful not to let Taeseong hear, as he grabbed his underwear and towel and went into the bathroom.
While Bonoh was showering, Taeseong’s phone screen lit up. An advertising message notification had appeared. Behind the notification, the title of the video that was playing could be seen.
‘Peach Blossom Frequency That Enchants Men’. Behind the purple gothic font, the screen was filled with rose photos. Fresh red roses wet with moisture.
What was coming through Taeseong’s headset wasn’t classical, new age, or jazz. It wasn’t trot or CCM either. If you had to categorize it, it was closest to new age. There was gentle piano underneath the frequency. The piano melody felt somewhat familiar yet rootless, making it feel like sitting in a dentist’s waiting room if you listened with your eyes closed.
But strictly speaking, it wasn’t new age but rather ‘Peach Blossom Frequency That Enchants Men’. Taeseong wasn’t foolish enough to believe that this humming vibration sound would actually help enchant men. But the steadily repeating vibration and the piano melody underneath helped calm the inexplicable restlessness that surged up whenever he thought of Bonoh.
When Taeseong thought about revenge – that is, when he mulled over matters with Bonoh, saw Bonoh’s empty space in the dorm, or even when their bodies brushed slightly while walking together – he was swept up in intense and unfamiliar emotions.
This wasn’t good for Taeseong. Those emotions made him act unlike himself and get easily excited. Whether emotionally or physically. He found it hard to handle such a version of himself. What was even harder was putting an exact name to those emotions. Taeseong tried to roughly categorize it as ‘vengeful feelings’ and not think too deeply about it.
When those ‘vengeful feelings’ became too enormous to handle, Taeseong would carefully read the comments on the ‘Peach Blossom Frequency That Enchants Men’ video.
‘I got a call after listening to this for just two days ㅜㅜ Everyone take some good energy!’
‘The ex-boyfriend who blocked me contacted me again ㅁㅊ’
‘Lol do people actually believe this ㅋㅋ’
.
‘Everyone, I got a boyfriend! I didn’t believe it but I really got one, so creepy…’ (edited comment)
‘Thank you so much to whoever posted this video… My 4-year one-sided love came true……’
‘It’s been 3 years since we broke up but he contacted me…’
It was filled with testimonial comments posted by everyone competing to share. Feeling his mind stabilize from the steadily repeating frequency sound, Taeseong kept silently chanting Kim Bonoh’s three-syllable name.
Recently, Taeseong had subscribed to a slime-making video account and become one of the ‘squishy friends’. In a newly uploaded video, the young creator revealed that she had finally started dating after her crush confessed. There was no detailed mention of the process. Taeseong desperately wanted to know what efforts the creator had made. Hoping there might be hints, he carefully read through the comments.
Among the congratulatory comments, there was one asking about the secret, and below it was a reply saying she had listened to frequencies for 1 hour every night before bed. The frequency video Taeseong was listening to was exactly the video from the link attached to that reply.
Taeseong didn’t turn off the video even after Bonoh came out from his shower. Only after about an hour did he turn off the video and fall asleep.
Even the night before the semester started, Taeseong listened to the ‘Peach Blossom Frequency That Enchants Men’. By now he had memorized the entire piano melody playing in the background. Even without listening, it would automatically play in his head when he thought of it. Nevertheless, Taeseong had no intention of stopping the frequency until his revenge succeeded.
On the first day of the semester, Taeseong woke up leisurely, washed up, and before waking Bonoh, looked at himself in the mirror once more to check his appearance. He had neatly swept back his hair and was wearing a leather jacket instead of the formal jacket he usually wore.
He hesitated for a moment, then put on his glasses too. Taeseong’s eyesight wasn’t particularly bad. You couldn’t say it was good, but he could see well enough, and he didn’t want to see small details anyway. There was no point in clearly seeing things like eye boogers on people’s faces or dirt under their fingernails – it just made him feel disgusted.
That’s why he rarely wore glasses, not only in the dorm room but also outside. Even during classes, he couldn’t see the small text on PowerPoint slides clearly, but he relied on his hearing and concentration. Fortunately, except for a few lectures, the PowerPoint content wasn’t too dense.
The reason such a Taeseong had taken out his glasses was because of Casa Nongbu’s third strategy.
[-Makeover Strategy
After appealing with intellectual inner sexiness, it’s time to drive the point home with outer sexiness. Cinderella even used magic to win love, so you can’t just sit still waiting for a pumpkin to roll over with its vine. Try departing from your usual outfit or appearance! Like taking off your usual glasses and wearing contacts, or adding a point like a leather jacket to catch their attention.]
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
