Everyone’s toast was made, and the atmosphere quickly warmed up. Han-gyeom adjusted better than he’d worried he would. Gatherings like this still felt awkward, and the noisy atmosphere wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he didn’t dislike it either. Even if it was hard to keep up with the pace of all the different conversations, honestly, it was fun even just sitting there quietly.
Maybe it was because, after entering university, he still hadn’t really experienced the kinds of things university students were supposed to experience. In that sense, he was truly grateful to Won-hyeok. Wasn’t the reason he’d even been invited to this drinking gathering with his classmates all thanks to Won-hyeok? He’d drawn attention because of the talk that they were dating.
No, come to think of it, maybe it had started when he met Won-hyeok and resolved to pay more attention to his outward appearance. He suddenly remembered how, after he cut his hair, his classmates had started approaching him, saying his whole vibe seemed brighter.
His world was expanding. It felt like all the things that, in his life, he might’ve passed by without ever experiencing even once were suddenly happening all around him ever since Won-hyeok came into it.
“You can’t drink much?”
Han Su-hyeon, who was sitting beside him, suddenly spoke while Han-gyeom was still steeped in thoughts of Won-hyeok. He glanced sideways at the beer glass that was still more than half full.
“Yeah. I’m kind of a lightweight, so I’m trying to drink slowly.”
After that, Han Su-hyeon focused his attention on Han-gyeom and kept talking to him. He asked whatever he was curious about without hesitation, and Han-gyeom answered him diligently, so before he knew it, amid the noisy atmosphere, it ended up looking like the two of them were having a conversation all by themselves.
Then Su-hyeon’s phone dropped onto the table with a thud.
“Hold on.”
It had fallen closer to Han-gyeom’s side, so he was about to pick it up for him, but Han Su-hyeon bent down first. As he lowered himself to retrieve his phone, he placed a hand on Han-gyeom’s thigh. Han-gyeom barely had time to startle at the sudden contact before Su-hyeon used that hand as support, picked up the phone, and flashed him a grin.
“Han-gyeom, so when are you going to tell us?”
Just then, Ye Ji-won, the class representative, tapped on the table in front of Han-gyeom. As if trying to pull everyone’s attention back to herself.
“Huh? Tell you what?”
“What do you mean, what? You have to tell us how you ended up meeting that sunbae.”
At that, the people around them all gradually turned their attention over. The classmates who had been split up in little groups, each having their own conversations, all looked at Han-gyeom as if they’d been waiting for this exact moment.
“Oh, sunbae joined the club I’m in, and……”
He wasn’t sure where to begin, but Han-gyeom started with that historic moment. The moment Won-hyeok had opened the club room door and walked in like a miracle. Of course, he couldn’t very well mention the fact that before that, he’d been following Won-hyeok around like some kind of stalker.
Just as everyone was fully focused on Han-gyeom’s story, a rattling vibration sounded across the table. It was Han-gyeom’s phone.
[Where did you say you were drinking again?]
It was a text from Won-hyeok. The moment his name appeared, Han-gyeom quickly snatched up his phone. It was because he was faithfully keeping his promise to stay in touch. After sending the name and location of the place, he set the phone back down.
“We drank together at the department dinner.”
“Yeah, and then?”
“Oh my god, I’m already excited.”
“At that time……”
Bzz—
Then it vibrated again.
[How late do you think you’ll be drinking? Ah, I’m absolutely not trying to hurry you along, I’m just curious ^^]
Han-gyeom replied that he wasn’t really sure about the time, then tried to continue his love story with Won-hyeok, but after that, the texts started coming one after another.
[You’re eating there too, right? What did you order for snacks?]
[Han-gyeom, you can’t really drink much. Don’t drink too much.]
[If it’s a gathering with your classmates, there must be quite a lot of people there, huh? I’m only asking because I really can’t remember, but were there a lot of alphas in the second year too?]
Han-gyeom kept interrupting the conversation to quickly answer Won-hyeok’s messages. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the kind of person who could multitask, so he couldn’t talk and text at the same time. As the conversation kept starting and stopping over and over, a few of his classmates seemed to vaguely catch on to what was going on and shot him envious glances.
“Come on, you’re on your phone way too much.”
At that moment, Han Su-hyeon, who’d been quietly listening from the side, suddenly threw back a shot of soju and then snatched Han-gyeom’s phone right out of his hand.
“Ah……”
“You’re supposed to have fun at a drinking party. Just being on your phone at the table the whole time is rude.”
And almost the instant Han Su-hyeon took his phone, Won-hyeok called. Seeing the number appear on the black screen, Han-gyeom shot to his feet and held out his hand to him firmly.
“Give it back.”
When Han-gyeom’s expression changed, Han Su-hyeon seemed startled too, and unexpectedly handed the phone back without protest. Han-gyeom asked his classmates to excuse him and stepped outside the restaurant for a moment. It was too noisy inside, and he didn’t think he’d be able to hear Won-hyeok’s voice properly otherwise.
“Hello?”
—Sorry for calling while you’re hanging out.
Just hearing Won-hyeok’s voice made the unpleasant something churning deep inside him seem to suddenly clear away and disappear.
“No, it’s okay. Actually, I wanted to hear your voice too…… Ah, sunbae, did you eat dinner?”
—Yeah. I’m eating with Sun-woo right now, actually. Since Han-gyeom wouldn’t eat with me.
“I-I mean, of course I’d rather eat with you, sunbae……”
Han-gyeom scratched awkwardly at his head in flustered embarrassment. Then, from the other end of the phone, he heard a faint laugh. His heart tingled, and his lips went dry all on their own.
—I’m joking.
After that, Won-hyeok’s barrage of questions began. Starting with how much he’d had to drink so far and who all was there, all the way to somewhat trivial questions like whether the food tasted good.
But Han-gyeom didn’t brush off a single one of them lightly and answered every question with complete sincerity.
—I should hang up before I interrupt more. Text me around when you’re heading out.
“S-sunbae……!”
When Won-hyeok tried to end the call, Han-gyeom called out to him urgently.
—Yeah?
“……I miss you.”
—…….
When Han-gyeom conveyed his feelings as naturally as he always did, the other end of the line went so quiet it was like everything had died still.
“Then I’ll hang up now! Enjoy your meal!”
Having said what he wanted to say, Han-gyeom ended the call first. He was gazing at Won-hyeok’s name on the screen with quiet satisfaction when someone came walking out of the restaurant.
“Han-gyeom.”
It was none other than Ye Ji-won, the class representative.
“Ah, I was just about to head back in. Sorry for coming out in the middle of everything.”
“Wait, before you go back in, there’s just one thing I want to tell you.”
Ji-won glanced back toward the inside of the restaurant, then suddenly took Han-gyeom by the arm and led him farther into the alley. Was she about to tell him something important?
“So, about Han Su-hyeon.”
“Su-hyeon? Why?”
“It’d be better if you didn’t get too close to him.”
It was a pretty startling thing to hear, and for a second Han-gyeom wondered if this was some kind of joke too, but there was a deep seriousness on Ji-won’s face.
“You seem like the kind of person who normally doesn’t care much about the gossip going around the department.”
“Th-that’s true, but……”
At the moment, the only things Han-gyeom cared about at university were grades, books, and Do Won-hyeok. He felt flustered that Ji-won had seen right through him in an instant, but considering how he’d acted all this time, he supposed it probably wasn’t hard to tell.
“That guy has bad rumors around him. He dates both men and women, and from what I hear, he cheats like it’s nothing and does one-night stands too…… anyway, he’s seriously trash.”
It seemed like, among their classmates, everyone who needed to know already did. Apparently, from the moment they entered school, he’d gone around dating one person after another, and according to the rumors, someone he’d been seeing had even slapped him right in the middle of campus, so for a while even students in other departments had been buzzing about it.
“But I’m already seeing someone.”
“He’s got a loose mouth and a loose lower half. Guys like that usually don’t care whether someone’s taken or not. I’m worried because he’s been sticking right by your side, which is unusual for him. Normally, even when the others get together, he almost never comes. And there was that thing last year too…… well, that’s not really something I should be the one to tell you, but you get it, right?”
That thing last year? Han-gyeom tilted his head, clearly not understanding.
Ji-won seemed to harbor some pretty strong negative feelings toward Han Su-hyeon. Come to think of it, even back inside earlier, barely any of their classmates had spoken to him. Just a few of the male classmates. Judging by that, it really didn’t seem wrong to say his reputation among them was bad.
“While we’re at it, when we go back in, change seats too. I already asked the others to make space for you somewhere else before I came out.”
Ji-won patted Han-gyeom on the shoulder and told him to just trust her.
“Um…… Ji-won.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For inviting me to the department dinner, and for looking out for me like this too.”
When Han-gyeom smiled shyly, Ji-won was briefly left speechless, as if she’d been struck by something beautiful.
“It’s nothing. I invited you, so of course I should look out for you. Let’s go back in.”
“Okay.”
Han-gyeom went back in beside Ji-won and, just as she’d advised him outside, sat down at a different table. There were only classmates there who usually hung out with her, and they were all kind and easygoing, so honestly, he ended up having much more fun than he had sitting next to Han Su-hyeon.
After changing seats, completely unaware of Han Su-hyeon’s persistent gaze following him, Han-gyeom melted back into the drinking party.
As time passed, more and more empty bottles piled up on the table. A few people were already as drunk as they could get; someone over there had broken a glass, someone else was going on and on in full self-pity about how they were going to contact their ex, and another person had said they were going to the bathroom and then never came back for ages.
It was exactly what a bunch of hot-blooded university students looked like. And among them was Han-gyeom too, who had gotten swept up in the mood and ended up drinking past his limit.
This was all because of those drinking games or whatever they were called. Once the atmosphere had loosened up enough, someone suddenly suggested they play drinking games. Then, as if they’d all rehearsed it, everyone started shouting slogans Han-gyeom had never heard before and playing the games, but he had no idea what any of it was.
You’d have to have played drinking games before to know them, and you’d have to have gone to drinking gatherings to even have a chance to learn things like that. Han-gyeom had absolutely no experience with any of it, so in a way, it was almost inevitable that he’d become a target. The only reason he’d managed to avoid the worst of it was because Ji-won had stopped Han Su-hyeon, who kept trying to blatantly target Han-gyeom as he ran the game.
But there was a more fundamental problem: Han-gyeom couldn’t drink well. After downing one or two glasses as penalties in the drinking games, his vision began to spin. His stomach churned too, and even though he gulped down cold water several times, the smell of alcohol hanging in the air and the stuffy, oppressive lighting unique to bars made every one of his nerves feel stretched taut with discomfort.
Still, he wasn’t so drunk that he’d completely lost his mind. So, wanting to shake off the alcohol while he still could, Han-gyeom slowly rose from his seat. He would’ve liked to at least say something to Ji-won, but she was too busy taking care of the classmates who had become even bigger drunks than he had, acting in her role as class representative.
Since he was only planning to step out for a little fresh air and then come back in anyway, he quietly went outside alone.
As he awkwardly leaned against the outer wall of the restaurant, his body swayed on its own. Just then, a hand suddenly reached in from beside him and steadied his staggering body.
“Are you okay?”
When he lifted his head, he saw Han Su-hyeon’s face.
“You’re pretty drunk, huh?”
He looked down at Han-gyeom with a blatant smile.
