You’re making damn good use of your natural talent. Watching it go to waste would’ve been a damn shame.
“We need to talk, don’t we?”
It had been nearly ten days since their last conversation.
“I don’t.”
“Well, I do, so you just need to listen.”
At those words, Sa Shin-jae crossed his arms. His slightly arrogant gesture all but said, Go on, then. Cha Sa-yoon cleared his throat.
Seeing that sullen face made it even harder to speak. What an absolute brat. How he managed to hide it all this time was a mystery. If his usual attitude was all an act, then he was a damn acting prodigy.
Regardless, Sa-yoon turned his gaze toward the door and began speaking.
“I came to ask if you’d be in my graduation project.”
He kept it brief, focusing only on the main point. If he came straight out with a favor, there was no way Sa Shin-jae would agree. That’s why he’d first tried to get closer to him. The details—how they first met by chance, how he’d been drawn to his acting and started following him—were irrelevant. No point in bringing them up.
“…So I just happened to overhear your class. I wasn’t stalking you or following you around because I liked you or anything.”
Sa Shin-jae listened in silence. Sa-yoon had expected him to interrupt, to argue back, but surprisingly, he didn’t. Thanks to that, Sa-yoon managed to say everything he had prepared.
“We’ll be seeing each other a lot—during class and for the promo video—so let’s clear up any misunderstandings. The others are already getting weird ideas. I’ll just assume what you said that day was a drunk mistake.”
He wrapped up his words, but there was no response.
Finding it strange, he turned his gaze from the door back to Sa Shin-jae, who was staring intently at his phone with a serious expression. Curious, Sa-yoon took a step closer—only to see a flashy game screen.
Sa-yoon’s jaw dropped.
“Are you even listening to me?”
At his rough tone, Sa Shin-jae lazily glanced at him before putting his phone away, ending the game mid-play. Judging by his casual movements, it didn’t seem all that important.
“Yes, I heard your excuses loud and clear. Didn’t expect you to have such a weak tolerance.”
“What?”
“You must’ve had quite a bit to drink that night.”
Otherwise, there’s no way you’d forget.
His muttered words rang clear in the silent auditorium. The sharp pronunciation made sure every syllable hit home.
“Or tell me, senior, did you get into Korea University on a patch of grass? Because I swear I spoke Korean, yet you seem completely incapable of understanding it.”
“Who doesn’t understand now?”
“Was my wording too difficult? If you have regrets, sort them out yourself. Why go through all this trouble to explain?”
The sheer audacity of that statement made Sa-yoon clutch his chest. It felt like someone had dropped a massive rock onto his sternum.
“I told you—I don’t like you. Are you the one struggling to understand my words?”
“Is it possible for someone to be this utterly devoid of pride?”
“No, I’m telling you, this is all a misunderstanding—”
“I never misunderstood anything.”
This was insane. Absolutely maddening. How was this guy harder to communicate with than an AI?
“You must have a habit of pestering people and then, when they reject you, coming up with excuses like this to smooth things over. I’m the one who got stalked and felt disgusted, so why are you acting like the bigger person?”
“When the hell did I ever stalk you?! I already explained the class thing!”
Fine. Sa-yoon admitted it—he had treated Sa Shin-jae better than usual in an effort to build rapport. He’d been aware of it, and even others had pointed it out. He understood how the misunderstanding happened.
And that’s why, as someone who had lived a little longer, he had chosen to be the mature one and extend a hand.
But how did that equate to stalking?
“Are you always like this? So damn clingy?”
Rather than trying to clear up the misunderstanding, the guy had moved straight to throwing personal insults. A headache pounded at Sa-yoon’s temples.
“What?”
“Are you losing your hearing with age too? Should I repeat myself?”
This little shit.
The sheer level of disrespect was unreal. Sa-yoon had expected the conversation to be difficult, but he hadn’t anticipated that it would be completely impossible.
“It’s really not like that. If I actually liked you, I’d bow down and call you hyung every time I saw you. I’d even speak formally.”
“I don’t like being treated like an elder by people older than me.”
Every single word coming out of his mouth was infuriating. If Sa-yoon could just land a single punch on that smug face, he’d die a happy man.
But if he actually did it, the bastard would probably twist it into some nonsense about how Sa-yoon was desperate to touch his lips or something. Clenching his fist, he held himself back.
“You did follow me around. Why do you keep lying? It’s pathetic coming from a grown man.”
“That’s because you—!”
His voice came out louder than intended due to sheer frustration, making him pause for a second.
“I told you it’s a misunderstanding.”
Would this conversation ever end?
The frustration was suffocating. It felt like a weight was pressing down on his chest. He wanted to split himself open and lay his insides bare just to prove he was telling the truth. But since that wasn’t an option, his insides were practically boiling.
“Sure, whatever you say.”
Ah, fuck. The words slipped out before he could stop them. The fact that this asshole didn’t believe even a single shred of his explanation was seriously pissing him off.
“You really think I’m making up some ridiculous misunderstanding right now, don’t you?”
Did AI just get a sudden update to recognize cursing?
Sa-yoon gave a quick nod, and Sa Shin-jae continued.
“Everyone reacts the same way when they get caught. They deny it first, just like you. At first, I was naive enough to believe them. Until I walked in on some private tutor jerking off with clothes he stole from me.”
What the fuck. What kind of deranged bastards did this kid have to deal with?
“I had a lot of my stuff stolen during school…”
His voice was calm, but what he was saying was the kind of twisted shit even OTT dramas wouldn’t dare touch.
“That’s when I finally realized why my things went missing so often.”
Weirdly enough, the first thing that popped into Sa-yoon’s head was that damn drink. That time he had, out of courtesy, switched the bottle in Sa Shin-jae’s hand with a fresh one. Now, he finally understood why Shin-jae had looked so damn reluctant to take it.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you, but that’s not the same as this.”
“It is to me.”
“I really just came to ask you to be in my project. You do theater, you were a child actor—”
“Oh, the graduation project.”
Sa Shin-jae scoffed coldly.
“Does playing house even count as a project?”
“What?”
“And to think you had the audacity to waste my valuable mealtime with this. Instead of coming here to make excuses, why don’t you spend that time preparing for a real job? Is it even easy to get hired with a film degree? Especially in times like these.”
Muttering to himself, he added, “Ah, or is distinguishing between what matters and what doesn’t a challenge for you?”
Something snapped.
It wasn’t a metaphor—Sa-yoon could practically hear the sound of his patience shattering.
“You done?”
Sa Shin-jae had already turned away, clearly intending to end the conversation and walk off—just like that day. But this time, Sa-yoon stepped in his way.
“So you’re seriously lumping me in with those sick freaks? Right now?”
Shin-jae tilted his head slightly, the overhead light casting a shadow across half his face. With his sharp nose acting as a dividing line, the contrast made him look like some kind of Asura, split between light and dark.
“Yeah, senior.”
Sa-yoon exhaled sharply. There was no getting through to him. Some people were just impossible to reason with, and this conversation had made it painfully clear—Sa Shin-jae was one of them.
“Maybe you were just unlucky enough to be surrounded by perverted bastards, so now you can’t even tell the difference between stalking and basic human interaction.”
Normally, Sa-yoon would have grabbed him by the collar and dragged him down a peg, but right now, he didn’t even want to brush against the guy’s clothes.
“There are different kinds of interest in this world, you know?”
Sa-yoon let out a sharp breath, his lower lip jutting out slightly. His bangs lifted into the air before settling back down, tickling his forehead. Feeling the strands brush against his skin, he suddenly broke into a smirk.
“You keep saying I like you, that I’m flirting with you… So, why don’t I let you experience what that actually feels like?”
Seeing is believing, after all.
***
Sa Shin-jae was tall. That was quite the advantage—it made him easy to spot anywhere.
Thinking about what was to come, Sa-yoon couldn’t help but whistle. With light steps, he approached the group and greeted Shin-jae.
“Shin-jae, hey!”
“Uh… hello?”
As he cheerfully called out, the others looked puzzled but still returned his greeting. It was that stage of college life—freshmen who hadn’t memorized all the upperclassmen’s faces yet, so they just greeted anyone who seemed vaguely familiar to play it safe.
“Oh, and hello to all my juniors, too.”
Sa-yoon flashed a wide grin at their fresh, innocent faces, slipping effortlessly into his role. The way he accepted their greetings was almost too natural.
“I was just passing by and happened to spot our Shin-jae. Guess today’s gonna be my lucky day.”
