To live a “decently ordinary” life, there are times when you have to do utterly pointless things—things you don’t need to do at all. Right. And this situation right now, sitting in this stinking chicken place with food that tasted like absolute shit, surrounded by pathetic loser bastards and listening to them talk, could be called part of that too.
“But Won-hyeok, have you ever joined any other clubs before?”
“No. This is my first one.”
At that, Bae Seok-woo widened his eyes, saying that was unexpected.
“I feel like tons of people must’ve tried to recruit you.”
“That’s not really true.”
No, it was true. From the moment he entered this school, everyone—classmates and sunbaes alike—had been hell-bent on dragging Won-hyeok into their clubs.
People were really simple. Just because someone had a few outwardly visible qualities, they all rushed in like they’d discovered treasure in the deepest part of the ocean, scrambling to claim it for themselves. He understood that psychology better than anyone, but that didn’t mean he had any reason to play along.
He didn’t have even an ant’s-worth of interest in joining some club that liked to act like it had gathered for some grand noble cause, only for the inside to be packed with idiots trying to hook up, date each other, and get drunk.
Sure, there were probably places that weren’t like that, but Won-hyeok had no desire to waste the precious time of his life on anything like that. So with polished eloquence and an air of reluctant inconvenience, he turned down every request. The ones who had latched onto him at first quickly dropped off, but the problem was the two he actually hung around with—Kim Sun-woo and Kang Yubin.
The two of them were in the same volunteer club, and they kept making a huge fuss telling Won-hyeok to join. When he heard them say that if he did a lot of outside activities like volunteering, it could help later when writing job application essays or building up his specs, he almost burst out laughing.
As if he couldn’t fill that out just fine without joining a damn club.
“Then why did you join a book club?”
“I like books, but as I got older, I naturally stopped reading as much. So I thought that if I joined a club, I might be able to build a reading habit again.”
“That was really smart of you. One of our club activities is…”
Maybe he was moved by what Won-hyeok said, because Bae Seok-woo kept explaining nonstop, practically spraying spit as he talked.
Won-hyeok was almost surprised at himself for how smoothly that plausible-sounding answer had come out. The reason he’d joined wasn’t anything that grand. To shut up those two assholes who kept pestering him about joining a club, the most reasonable method was: I joined a different club.
That was all. What were they going to do then? At first they’d probably run their mouths about how disappointing it was, but eventually it was obvious they’d give up. Once that happened, he could quietly drop this club too—a loser den like this one—without any fuss. That was why he had deliberately picked a small-scale club that looked like it would draw the least attention. So there wouldn’t be any trouble afterward.
“What do you think? Sounds fun, right?”
“Yes. I’m really looking forward to it.”
He hadn’t actually listened to what the club president had said. Won-hyeok merely put on a practiced smile and humored him appropriately.
Looking forward to it, my ass. There wasn’t a single thing in this boring-looking club that seemed worth anticipating or even remotely interesting.
Except for one thing.
“……”
When Won-hyeok turned his head toward the table right beside them, a figure wrapped in grayscale flinched and quickly turned his head away.
Kang Han-gyeom, second-year in the English Department.
Back in the club room, he’d said they were meeting for the first time in front of the vending machine, but in truth, Won-hyeok had seen Han-gyeom a few times before. In the cafeteria, or the lounge. There was no special reason he remembered a guy he’d only brushed past briefly. It was just because of that bastard’s appearance.
He’d only learned they were in the same department at the vending machine.
Can he even see where he’s going dressed like that?
His fashion sense was garbage, and ever since they were back in the club room, Won-hyeok had been able to feel those strange little glances the guy kept sending his way. It kept getting on his nerves.
“Uh, I’m going to go to the bathroom.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Won-hyeok slowly got up, stepped outside, and went into the alley next to the building. After checking that no one was around, he pulled out a cigarette from inside his clothes and lit it.
“Fuck, my clothes reek like chicken.”
Letting out a long stream of smoke, Won-hyeok muttered the curse with practiced familiarity. Club dinner, my ass. At first, he’d planned to watch the room a little and then leave soon enough with some vague lie about having something important to do. But every time he turned his head, that jumpy little bastard kept reacting, and it was weirdly interesting, so he ended up staying put. Before he knew it, two whole hours had passed.
By the time Won-hyeok had smoked about half the cigarette, another customer from the chicken place came slowly into the alley where he was, humming to himself, thoroughly drunk.
The reason Won-hyeok remembered that customer was because the guy had been so damn loud inside the restaurant. He looked like some office worker, and he’d kept running his mouth saying his department head should die, to the point that later Won-hyeok had actually started wanting to shut that mouth for him himself.
“Oh, someone’s here.”
Spotting Won-hyeok, the man stopped humming and came to a halt two steps away from him.
“A college student?”
The man gave Won-hyeok a curious once-over. At the sudden question, Won-hyeok turned his head with a deep frown.
“Yeah.”
Too annoyed to answer properly, he just gave a rough nod.
“Kid, you’re young and already smoking, huh. Keep that up and you’ll ruin your health.”
Bullshit. The guy didn’t even look that much older than him. There were always people like that—people who started working and making money just a little earlier than others their age, then acted like real adults and tried to lecture everybody.
Since Won-hyeok wasn’t saying anything, the man got more excited and kept rambling. Before long, he’d even switched to calling himself “hyung-nim.” Just how much had he had to drink? The smell of alcohol was overpowering even from a distance. And on top of that, there were the hiccups in the middle of his talking.
To Won-hyeok, all of it was pure stress.
“When it’s your turn to earn money like this hyung-nim, you’ll understand. Life isn’t easy.”
That’s why you’re killing time this late in a cheap chicken place full of college students, right? Won-hyeok nearly said it, but held back. He was trying hard to suppress the fury boiling inside him when—
“Huh? Ah, shit. I left my cigarettes behind. Think you could spare me just one?”
The man stepped closer to the side and stretched out his index finger toward Won-hyeok, drawing a “1” in the air as he asked. Won-hyeok’s eyes went colder and colder.
“Why would I?”
“Don’t be so cold. Fine, I just gave you some life advice, so think of it as payment and hand one over.”
Won-hyeok lifted his eyes upward and let the cigarette he was holding drop to the ground with a tap. He was already stressed enough having to play club member when it didn’t suit him in the slightest, and now some pathetic bum playing at being an adult had attached himself to him too.
“Sure. I’ll pay you.”
The man’s face lit right up.
That was when Won-hyeok used his long leg to kick him hard in the shin.
“Argh!”
The man screamed and doubled over from the sudden pain. Won-hyeok didn’t stop there. He lifted his foot again and shoved the staggering body with a rough thud.
The drunk went down to the ground easily, and Won-hyeok, one hand still in his pocket, started kicking him mercilessly.
“You fucking piece of shit. Talking down to me like that… fuck.”
“Ugh! Y-You, what, what the hell!”
The man raised his arms, trying somehow to block Won-hyeok’s kicks, but eventually all he could do was writhe and groan.
“If you like cigarettes that much, then have all of them.”
Won-hyeok pulled out the pack from inside his clothes and shook the cigarettes out all over the fallen man. Then he tossed the empty pack to the ground and crouched down.
Rifling through the man’s body, Won-hyeok pulled out something that looked like a wallet and immediately checked the ID inside. He was carefully memorizing the man’s name, age, and address when he heard some kind of noise from behind him.
Won-hyeok got to his feet at once and looked back.
A pair of glasses came rolling over the ground, bouncing here and there, and stopped in front of him. Thinking that the glasses were smaller than they’d looked, Won-hyeok shifted his gaze back to the bastard who had fallen.
“S-Sunbae…?”
Kang Han-gyeom fumbled around on the floor with his hand, then found the glasses, put them on, and looked this way with a stupid expression on his face.
Won-hyeok ground his teeth. Things had gotten tangled in a pretty weird way. Of all things, the stress he’d built up had exploded outright, and this idiot had caught him at the scene after he’d lost his reason. He was quietly thinking through how he should manipulate the bastard, when Han-gyeom suddenly sprang to his feet and came running forward like an arrow.
“Sunbae! Are you hurt?”
“……”
“A-Are you okay? Are you injured anywhere…?”
Even while swaying unsteadily, Han-gyeom carefully looked over Won-hyeok’s body here and there. It was such a completely unexpected reaction that all Won-hyeok could do was keep frowning, unable to do anything else. Because nowhere in the simulations he’d been running relentlessly in his head had that loser bastard ever reacted like this.
“What on earth happened…?”
That was when it happened. The man who had been groaning on the ground suddenly scrambled upright with a furious yell and tried to lunge at Won-hyeok. Honestly, that worked out even better. Won-hyeok had been about to take the hit and create a situation he could twist into mutual fault—but then something unexpected unfolded right in front of him.
That loser bastard suddenly darted straight into his line of sight.
