“Shin-jae, try drinking this.”
The voice offering it was overly kind. Shin-jae stared at the liquid in the thermos cap before looking up. A dozen pairs of eyes were fixed on him.
Cunning bastard. Cha Sa-yoon always pulled this kind of stunt when there were people around, knowing full well that he was maintaining a certain image.
Shin-jae forced a strained smile.
“What… is this?”
He tried to keep his composure, but his voice wavered slightly at the end.
“Mm. Honey water. I heard you were out for a whole week with a sore throat. You still don’t look too well.”
As if I’d drink this when I don’t know what you put in it. The overly sweet tone only made it more suspicious.
“Ah, I’m actually fine—”
“This is real high-quality honey, you know? We got it from a family friend who’s a beekeeper. Come on, down it, all at once!”
“……!”
Cha Sa-yoon was more unhinged than expected.
Sensing rejection, he wasted no time tilting the cup right to Shin-jae’s lips. Half the honey water flooded into his mouth, while the other half spilled, trailing down his chin.
He swallowed instinctively, caught off guard. Some of the liquid went down the wrong pipe, triggering a violent fit of coughing.
The sensation was awful. Liquid had entered a place it shouldn’t have, and it felt no different from water torture. As he coughed uncontrollably, covering his mouth, he could feel the sticky residue on his palm.
“Shin-jae, are you okay? Want some water?”
The root of the problem was right beside him, casually patting his back as if nothing had happened.
“I’m… fine,” Shin-jae rasped.
When Cha Sa-yoon tried wiping his chin with a wet tissue, Shin-jae snatched it from his hand, prompting a pout.
“You should’ve just drunk it properly.”
Is this guy actually insane?
***
Korea was, in some ways, a society protected by its own prejudices.
“Our dear Shin-jae, want me to peel the kimbap for you?”
“……”
“Or do you want me to feed it to you too?”
“I’ll eat it myself.”
This guy has obviously never been in a relationship. Or he’s completely confusing flirting with babysitting.
With the start of the semester, the theater club’s practice sessions had shifted to the evening due to everyone’s differing schedules. Sometimes, they ate dinner together, and other times, they ate on their own before coming. Tonight was one of the nights they ate together, and the menu was kimbap.
As soon as Shin-jae received his kimbap, Sa-yoon practically dragged him over to sit with Im Myung-woo and Choi Ha-rim. Refusing to eat with the seniors would’ve looked strange, and Sa-yoon had obviously counted on that.
Just as Shin-jae was about to sit on the stage floor like everyone else, Sa-yoon, out of nowhere, shoved a seat cushion under him.
Seeing the blatant favoritism, Myung-woo complained that his own ass was freezing, jeering as he did. Sa-yoon didn’t even acknowledge him.
Shin-jae looked down at the kimbap, which had already been unrolled and neatly arranged in front of him, along with a pair of disposable chopsticks that had been split perfectly. His gaze darkened.
It wasn’t common for the oldest member of a club to wait on a freshman like this. Some members found it amusing, like Myung-woo, while others questioned it outright. The rest just seemed puzzled.
The person responsible for all this attention, however, couldn’t have cared less about what anyone thought. When Shin-jae glanced at him, Sa-yoon was too busy opening a bottle of water and placing it beside him.
If Shin-jae told him to stop, Sa-yoon would probably start frothing at the mouth, acting like a doting grandmother obsessed with her grandchild.
Just the other day, he’d claimed Shin-jae was nothing but skin and bones and needed to gain weight. Yesterday, he argued that Shin-jae was still growing and had to eat more, as if that somehow justified his behavior. For the record, Shin-jae stood at a solid 188cm, well above the average height for Korean men.
Watching him force out nonexistent tears as he lamented how tragic it was, wondering if Shin-jae was starving to death, was enough to make anyone’s brain short-circuit.
“Our dear Shin-jae, is it tasty?”
The same eyes that had been shedding crocodile tears moments ago now gleamed with satisfaction.
“You too, sunbae. Enjoy your meal.”
“I’m already full just watching you eat.”
…This guy is fucking insane.
Meanwhile, Ha-rim and Myung-woo, who had been watching the whole thing unfold, exchanged an odd look.
Their eyes met as they chewed their kimbap in sync. Sa-yoon, oblivious to it all, had his attention locked solely on Shin-jae.
“Shin-jae, is it good?”
“…Yes.”
“Then do you want mine too? Ah, but our Shin-jae is picky, isn’t he? You don’t eat other people’s food.”
That would’ve been more convincing if Sa-yoon had so much as opened his own kimbap. The sheer simplicity of his mind games made Shin-jae sigh.
“You should eat, sunbae.”
“You need to eat more. I’ve been losing sleep at night, worrying that you might be going hungry.”
HACK— A loud coughing fit erupted from the side.
The poor soul choking was none other than Im Myung-woo. His voice nearly gave out from the sheer force of his coughing, yet Sa-yoon didn’t even spare him a glance. Ha-rim, on the other hand, shot him a look of sympathy.
“Why aren’t you eating more?”
After that peculiar mealtime ordeal, they were given a short break to digest their food.
Having barely survived the meal, Myung-woo elbowed Ha-rim, signaling her to go and find out what the hell was going on.
Ha-rim narrowed her eyes, unimpressed.
“Hey, I told you not to push your work onto me.”
She returned what she had received with a well-aimed punch. Even as he took the hit, Myung-woo stubbornly stuck to his argument.
“Then should I go ask instead? What’s so hard about asking? No, but still, it makes more sense for a female junior to ask, right?”
“What? Are you being sexist right now? What’s the difference between you and me?”
“That’s not— ow!”
His dialect slipped out in frustration.
The two, being the same age, bickered for quite a while. In the end, it was Ha-rim who stepped up.
Sa-yoon was standing off to the side, reviewing a video recording.
His expression was blank as he stared down at the camera. His eyes, sharp and focused on the screen, coupled with his tightly pressed lips, made him look almost angry. The sleek line of his jaw only emphasized his sharp, almost severe appearance.
Everything about him exuded an air of unapproachability.
He always said he wanted to film actors, but honestly, he looked more like an actor himself. Of course, whenever anyone pointed that out, he’d just brush it off as a joke.
“Back when I first met him, I never thought I’d end up getting involved with a guy like this.”
Yet somehow, here they were.
“Sunbae, is something actually wrong?”
“Me?”
As if he had expected her approach, he lifted his head, his face unsettlingly calm.
For a moment, Ha-rim wondered if she had imagined it all.
“Sunbae, you were acting kind of weird during dinner.”
“Was I? I didn’t really notice.”
“But suddenly, you just…”
She trailed off mid-sentence.
Now that she was looking at him closely, his eyes were gleaming.
It wasn’t just the lighting—it was like someone had polished black buttons with oil, making them unnaturally glossy.
“Sunbae, what’s with your eyes?”
“What about them?”
Ha-rim had seen this look on Sa-yoon once before.
Back when she was a freshman—practically a fossil compared to now—it was her very first semester, a time when everything felt light and exciting, like the spring breeze.
That was when an older student, a returning upperclassman, asked her out for a meal.
Having attended an all-girls middle and high school, Ha-rim had never had a single male friend, let alone experienced anything like this. The guy looked decent enough, so she figured, why not?—but their personalities didn’t match at all.
Still, her friends told her that you couldn’t judge a person after just one meeting, so she gave it another shot. The second time, she realized his values and views on women were even worse.
So, she politely turned him down.
Naively, she thought that was the end of it.
Then, one day, as she was leaving a lecture hall, he suddenly stopped her and held out a bouquet of flowers—confessing his feelings in front of everyone.
A murmur of excitement spread through the crowd.
People started clapping, and someone shouted, “Say yes!”
Then the chant began.
“Say yes! Say yes! Say yes!”
The guy, standing tall with a confident grin, held out a massive bouquet of red roses.
For Ha-rim, who had never dated before, this wasn’t a confession—it was a disaster that had crashed down on her out of nowhere.
Flustered, she stammered out a rejection, but the atmosphere suddenly shifted—like she was the villain in the story.
The guy, his face flushed red, huffed angrily before snapping at her—asking what their so-called dates had meant, accusing her of leading him on and using him, calling her a selfish bitch who only took what she wanted.
Towering over Ha-rim, who was much smaller than him, he raged, his anger pouring down on her like an avalanche. The atmosphere grew more and more hostile.
Then, he suddenly threw the bouquet onto the ground.
No one in the crowd stepped in to stop him.
Ha-rim was terrified—not just of him, but of the entire situation. She wanted to run, to get as far away as possible, but her legs wouldn’t move.
“Since when was accepting a confession an obligation? Some idiots actually think making a big public scene like this is romantic—completely oblivious to how much pressure they’re putting on the other person.”
That was when someone stepped forward.
Cha Sa-yoon.
He positioned himself in front of Ha-rim, blocking her from view, and faced the furious guy head-on.
“What’s this, a show? Are we at an amusement park? A goddamn zoo? Did you guys pay an entrance fee or something?”
His sharp words cut through the crowd, snapping them out of their trance. Slowly, people began dispersing.
“Who the hell are you?” the guy demanded.
“Me? Just a bystander,” Sa-yoon said casually.
But his eyes—his eyes looked exactly the same as they did now.
