75.
#Already a Senior
“But isn’t it too late…” Haram mumbled, turning to look at Hayun.
“Hyung, don’t tell me you came then?”
It was past midnight, so it would seem strange to the child. Even the servants passing through the dining room seemed to glance at them at Haram’s question.
“I was a bit late. The noise must have woken Dawoon up too,” Hayun replied.
At Hayun’s answer, Dawoon relaxed his tensed body. In reality, Hayun had come late. It wasn’t that Dawoon had gone to his room first; Hayun had come to Dawoon’s room as soon as he arrived and told him to come to his room.
“So that’s why Hyung’s clothes were like that,” Haram said, nodding.
At the mention of clothes, Dawoon’s heart sank again. If he had known he’d run into Haram, he would have properly put on pajamas before coming out. He deeply regretted his carelessness, but spilled milk couldn’t be put back in the bottle.
“Your soup is getting cold,” Hayun gestured to the soup in front of Haram.
Only then did Haram make an “Ah” sound and properly focus on his meal.
“I’ll come home early today. Let’s have dinner together,” Hayun said to Dawoon before leaving the dining room.
Haram was purely delighted, but Dawoon just nodded silently.
The daily routine, disguised as peaceful, started again. Now Dawoon was used to it and felt nothing. It was just a repetition of the same day.
***
The weather had become quite warm. No, rather than warm, it would be more accurate to say it had become hot. Dawoon, who generally didn’t feel the heat much, was still wearing thin long-sleeved T-shirts, but Ui-hyeon had been complaining about the heat even in short sleeves since last week.
“Ah, an endless series of exams,” Ui-hyeon grumbled, lying down on the grass.
The midterms had just ended, but being seniors, there was pressure to prepare for job hunting. They also had to prepare for their graduation theses.
“If I get a job offer in the first half of the year, can I skip the second semester?” Ui-hyeon said, flipping through a list of companies recruiting for the first half of the year, wishing for a quick decision.
“What are you going to do?” he asked Dawoon.
Dawoon replied with a “Well…” He planned to apply for TV producer positions, but there weren’t any openings yet. If he had continued with the university broadcasting club, he might have gotten information through senior members, but he had quit in his freshman year, so he had no one to help. He was just vaguely flipping through books related to media company exams in preparation for recruitment in the second half of the year.
“Why don’t you apply to the same place as Na-eun?” Ui-hyeon casually mentioned Na-eun.
“She’s been in the broadcasting club all along, so she probably knows some seniors in that field, right?”
That was probably true. Even so, Dawoon and Na-eun were applying in different directions. There was no reason to apply to the same broadcasting station as her. In fact, Dawoon didn’t mind if it wasn’t necessarily a broadcasting station. As long as he could do PD-related work, it would be fine.
“Shouldn’t you have at least attended an academy for that?” For some reason, Ui-hyeon seemed more enthusiastic about Dawoon’s job search than Dawoon himself.
“If necessary,” Dawoon answered, but he felt a bit lost.
“Don’t tell me Hayun hyung won’t let you go?” Ui-hyeon’s face was already contorting as he asked.
Since freshman year, they had never mentioned how Dawoon’s relationship with Hayun was continuing. Still, perhaps due to the shock from back then, Ui-hyeon always remained wary of Hayun. Even when Hayun just called to ask when Dawoon would be coming, Ui-hyeon would look at him with suspicious eyes.
“You never attend department gatherings or anything, don’t tell me it’s because of Hayun hyung…”
“It’s not,” Dawoon cut him off before the nagging could go on longer.
“Well, that’s good then,” Ui-hyeon backed off, but he still didn’t look entirely convinced.
Dawoon just smirked and turned his head away. Of course, Hayun would get nervous every time Dawoon mentioned meeting someone privately. In that respect, Ui-hyeon’s suspicion wasn’t wrong.
But even before that, Dawoon himself didn’t want to meet anyone. He found it tiring to get entangled with people. He had learned a lot from the incident with Choi Yu-na. His friendships couldn’t be purely innocent. He disliked his grandfather’s intentions getting involved, and he also disliked Hayun unnecessarily sharpening his edge.
Not wanting to provide anything that could cause problems, he naturally started avoiding getting entangled with people. Ui-hyeon and Na-eun were pretty much the extent of the relationships Dawoon had maintained throughout university.
“Anyway, ask Na-eun too. It’s a similar field after all,” Ui-hyeon said.
“Me, what?” Na-eun suddenly popped her face in behind Ui-hyeon.
Caught off guard, Ui-hyeon yelped in surprise. Na-eun frowned, seemingly displeased by his reaction.
“Did you commit a crime or something? Why are you so surprised?”
“What crime? You pop out suddenly, how can I not be surprised?”
When Ui-hyeon retorted grumpily, Na-eun pouted her lips. Nevertheless, she put her bag down and sat next to Ui-hyeon. Ui-hyeon discreetly offered her something to sit on so grass wouldn’t stick to her clothes. Watching the two, Dawoon smiled faintly and shook his head.
It had been two years since they confessed they were dating. It was around the midterms of the first semester of freshman year. Dawoon had noticed Ui-hyeon’s tone and expression changing a bit when mentioning Na-eun, and it seemed they had been flirting since then. It was a bit unexpected. Especially since Na-eun had not hidden her feelings for Dawoon since high school, so when they said they were dating, Dawoon felt awkward around Ui-hyeon.
‘Love is always moving. Just because she liked you before doesn’t mean it has to stay that way forever.’
Ui-hyeon was composed about it. For a while after that, Dawoon felt uncomfortable being between the two and tried to avoid them, but Ui-hyeon and Na-eun just nagged him not to worry unnecessarily. They scolded him, saying he already had few friends at school and was now acting like an outcast, and became even more persistent in dragging Dawoon along. In the end, almost all the time Dawoon spent on campus was with either Na-eun or Ui-hyeon.
Seeing Ui-hyeon now trying to get Dawoon to apply for jobs at the same place as Na-eun, Dawoon couldn’t laugh or get angry because he knew why Ui-hyeon was doing this.
He regretted telling them back then. He should have just made up some excuse and denied it to the end. It had been years, but seeing Ui-hyeon still worrying about his relationship with Hayun made Dawoon feel bitter at times. He felt sorry that he couldn’t definitively say it was needless worry because his situation hadn’t improved at all since then. At times like this, he regretted being bad at lying. If he tried to reassure them with clumsy lies, the perceptive Ui-hyeon would only worry more.
“Ah, right,” Na-eun said, as if remembering something, and rummaged through her bag.
“This, do you want to go?” She held out two tickets to Dawoon.
“They say Choi Seon-gyeom is quite famous in the documentary field.”
The tickets she handed over were labeled “Choi Seon-gyeom Artist Photo Exhibition.”
“It says photo exhibition, but I heard he makes videos too. So if you go to the artist exhibition, you can see video works as well. Apparently, he’s more well-known overseas than in Korea, and he’s briefly staying in Korea this time.”
Na-eun’s explanation sounded like it was all secondhand information.
“Where did you get the tickets from?” Dawoon asked, as they didn’t seem like she had obtained them herself.
She rolled her eyes, avoiding Dawoon’s gaze.
“A graduated senior gave them to me.”
She tried to brush it off, but her obvious reluctance made it more suspicious.
“Don’t tell me it was Choi Yu-na sunbae?”
When Dawoon asked directly without beating around the bush, Na-eun let out a groan. She knew that Dawoon had quit the broadcasting club to avoid Choi Yu-na, so she tried to avoid mentioning Yu-na’s name if possible.
“It’s true that Yu-na unni gave them, but she didn’t give them specifically for you. She stopped by briefly saying she had some business nearby today. It seems her company is sponsoring that artist. She said some tickets were given to employees and she left them at the broadcasting club. I saw them and thought of you, so I brought them on my own.”
Na-eun desperately explained that it wasn’t Choi Yu-na’s intention. Dawoon quietly took a deep breath and nodded. He didn’t particularly think that way. In fact, there had been no contact with Choi Yu-na for the past three years, and Yu-na hadn’t reached out or approached him first. It seemed she had properly understood what Dawoon had said when they last met at the library.
“Thanks. I’ll go,” Dawoon said, accepting the tickets. Only then did Na-eun seem relieved.
“But I don’t have anyone to go with,” Dawoon said. There were two tickets.
“Want to go with me?” Na-eun raised her hand enthusiastically.
Dawoon unconsciously rolled his eyes to look at Ui-hyeon and tried to suppress a laugh that was about to escape.
“Then you should go with Ui-hyeon.”
“He’ll just yawn if he goes to a place like that. He finds it boring,” Na-eun mercilessly evaluated her boyfriend.
But even if Ui-hyeon wasn’t interested in photos or videos, Dawoon didn’t think it was right for him to go alone with Na-eun.
“I’ll take Haram,” Dawoon said.
Na-eun frowned, asking why Haram was suddenly being mentioned. She said an elementary school student wouldn’t find it interesting, and Ui-hyeon complained that Dawoon was still only hanging out with his younger brother and that’s why he didn’t have a girlfriend.
In fact, Dawoon didn’t really intend to take Haram. If he did, Haram would certainly complain about being bored. He just mentioned Haram as an excuse not to go with Na-eun. When Dawoon just smiled without further explanation, the perceptive Ui-hyeon seemed to catch on to Dawoon’s true intentions and waved his hand, saying to do as he pleased, and changed the subject.
