chapter 16
16. Still Worried
It was a peaceful weekday morning at 12 pm.
According to my schedule, it was time to eat lunch.
Unfortunately, my brother wasn’t home today.
It was likely that he would be absent during the weekdays for a while.
My brother was now a university student.
He had to go to school, after all.
“……This is a hassle.”
I had made breakfast early in the morning, saying it was the first day of school, but now I was too lazy to make lunch.
Should I just boil some ramen?
I was too lazy, so maybe I’d just have coffee and be done with it?
“Hmm……”
I lay down on the couch, fiddling with my phone and wiggling my toes.
I was bored.
Maybe I should go out and have some fun for a bit?
I considered contacting Sehwa, my soulmate, but then I remembered that Sehwa had an entrance ceremony today.
……Seriously, everyone but me is a college student.
It’s peculiar that among my close friends, there were hardly any who had to retake the exam.
Those who did well just naturally did well, and those who gave up, like me, either didn’t go or went to a local university.
I should’ve done the same.
No, that’s not it.
If I had been assigned to a local university, I wouldn’t have been able to see Oppa.
Thinking that way, my life as a repeater at home didn’t seem so bad.
Even I was surprised, but I was diligently studying according to the schedule I promised Oppa.
I didn’t find studying itself enjoyable at all.
I just had to pretend to know something so I could ask Oppa questions in the evening.
It would be a minus factor if I asked him to teach me everything from the beginning to the end without any effort!
That would seem like I lacked sincerity. That’s it.
I wanted Oppa to feel like he was gradually raising me up.
It was like a game.
The title was [Raising a Little Sister].
I would open a book, pick out something that looked difficult, and ask him about it.
Of course, I intentionally asked questions I already knew the answers to a few times.
When I would ask, “Is this because of that?” Oppa would respond with a pleased expression and nod his head.
I could see the pride in his eyes.
I felt a sense of accomplishment from being taken care of in small ways.
We may think of ourselves as adults, but Oppa and I are still just high school graduates.
We’re humans full of flaws, far from perfect.
Those imperfections were rather appealing.
That’s because, to me, Oppa was the ideal type of “oppa”.
Of course, not all romance novels are the same.
Each one has its own unique leading characters that come alive.
There’s the lively heroine and the wounded hero.
The heroine with a lot of baggage and the hero who wraps her in his arms.
I also like the combination of a 4D heroine and a dry hero.
But no matter what, my favorite type of oppa is the “clueless oppa” type.
The physically strong and coercive type, maybe due to my father’s influence, always makes me frown.
In this genre, that type is the most popular, but I didn’t particularly like it.
I preferred the cute and helpless hero type.
Especially scenes like “If this gets revealed to others…!” were exactly my cup of tea.
Hah.
Why don’t I just ditch my afternoon study session and review instead?
I didn’t have much time to myself lately, so I haven’t been able to read those manhwas recently.
If Oppa finds out, my beautiful romance plan will crumble.
Our love isn’t about taking gradual steps, but about succumbing to my distorted desires.
In severe cases, it’s filthy and could even be hated.
That’s why I absolutely couldn’t let Oppa know about this kind of thing.
But since he’s not home right now…….
Even though I knew I was alone, I sneaked into my room and unlocked my secret tablet folder.
My collection, which I’ve been gathering over time.
From officially released ones to those I obtained through the dark route, which don’t exist in Korea.
I checked the time and saw that I still had a lot of time before lunch.
“Hehehe~”
A humming tune flowed out unintentionally.
Am I really unsatisfied with my desires?
As I looked at my masterpieces again after a long time, the suppressed darkness that I had been holding back seemed to burst into flames like oil meeting fire.
[Can’t we just live while cherishing each other?]
[I can give up everything for you! I’m not joking.]
[If I cared about what others thought, I wouldn’t have made it this far.]
……Will Oppa ever say something like this to me?
The thought made me feel good, but the picture didn’t come together well.
It seemed like there was still a long way to go, and I wasn’t sure if my efforts were making any meaningful progress.
But Oppa’s genuine facial expression was nice.
He’d blush bright red and tremble at the slightest touch, and the impact was incredible.
Ah. Seeing this again makes me want to see more.
I turned off the screen for a moment and then picked up my phone to leave a sly message for Oppa.
[What time are you coming over later?]
I’ll prepare dinner and wait for you.
* * *
The Korea University campus is huge.
I knew it was famous for its size, but seeing it in person was on a whole different level.
……Do I need to take a bus within the school?
The thought of being late for class because I didn’t take the bus inside the campus made my mind go blank.
Somehow, I safely arrived at the humanities building.
403. If it’s 403…….
I climbed up three flights of stairs and arrived at the lecture room.
Inside, there were students who seemed to be from the same department, already forming their own groups.
I opened the back door and entered, placing my bag in a corner seat that seemed to have fewer people.
It didn’t feel much different from high school.
A large blackboard.
A large screen.
It felt like the only difference was that they weren’t wearing school uniforms.
I leaned back and habitually looked out the window.
The weather is nice, isn’t it?
I was thinking that maybe, somehow, I’d get close to some people if I stuck it out.
“Hello, freshmen!”
A group of men and women walked onto the stage, looking like they owned the place.
From the way they referred to us as freshmen, it was clear they were upperclassmen.
They were all wearing matching uniforms, giving off a strong sense of unity, like they belonged to a club or a specific group.
“Everyone’s been notified, right? There’s a welcome party for freshmen hosted by the student council tonight!”
So they’re from the student council?
The guy standing at the front, with a cheerful voice, shouted out to the entire lecture hall.
He seemed to be the president of the student council.
“We’ll be giving a campus tour after classes end this afternoon! We’ll show you around the lecture halls and professors’ offices, so don’t leave early and stick around!”
I didn’t really feel like attending the party, but it seemed like something I should do.
Getting lost and showing up late to class was not an option.
Just then, a professor with white hair walked in through the front door.
The student council members, who had been explaining things in detail, bowed to the professor and quickly exited.
“Everyone, nice to meet you. I’m…”.
The professor, with a voice that sounded like it belonged on a late-night radio show, started explaining what “English Literature” was all about.
It was a completely different atmosphere from the intense studying I did for college entrance exams.
It felt more like listening to an old man tell stories from the past.
Is this what college lectures are supposed to be like?
After about 30 minutes of casual storytelling, the professor bid us farewell and disappeared.
The student council members, dressed in their windbreakers, rushed back in.
“We’ll show you around the cafeteria! You guys know, five or six people per table, right?”
There weren’t that many of us in the English Literature department.
I’d say around 40 people or so.
Compared to other departments with hundreds of students, ours was relatively small.
But I didn’t think we needed to increase our numbers.
It was hard to say that the future of language-related fields was bright, even as a joke.
From what I heard, people who actually used their majors were extremely rare.
“Hey, junior!”
I was lost in thought, wondering about the relationship between Papago and the English department, when someone poked my shoulder.
“…Yeah?”
“We’re all heading out now. Want to come with us?”
It felt familiar.
Who was this? Something about them felt extremely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place them.
“…Is that Lee Jun-ho?”
“Do you know me?”
“No, Lee Jun-ho. I don’t recognize you.”
The voice sounded familiar, but I just couldn’t remember who it was.
“That’s…….”
“What, you can’t remember this?”
Her shoulder-length, wavy brown hair and her nose, which was so straight it seemed like it belonged to a foreigner.
Her skin was flawless, without a single blemish.
Just one glance and you couldn’t help but say she was a beauty.
But the probability of having a friend like this, aside from my recently acquired little sister, was 0.
Who was this?
“Seriously, you can’t recognize me? Let me borrow this for a second?”
Without even waiting for an answer, my senior snatched my glasses and put them on, striking a pose with her hair tied back.
“Does this ring a bell?”
I was left agape, my mouth hanging open in shock.
I had forgotten, but she was definitely someone I knew.
“Is that… Park Min-ju?”
“You recognized me quickly.”
“No, I wouldn’t have recognized you without glasses, and your hair color has changed… and it’s been too long since I last saw you.”
“Still, I’m a bit disappointed you couldn’t recognize me. Well, are you a new student in our department?”
“Yes, I’m a repeater.”
“So, does that make me your senior?”
I rubbed my chin, my face a picture of bewilderment, as she burst into a fit of giggles.
This was what they called a ‘reunion of fate’, right?
But since we were the same age, it didn’t feel like there was much of a difference.
I knew that prioritizing academic seniority over age was an old-fashioned concept.
“What’s with the senior thing?”
“If you’re a higher grade, you’re a senior! Anyway, let’s talk more about it at the welcoming party later. Let’s go!”
As I turned around, I saw our classmates, who were in the same group as me, staring at us with wide eyes.
“……Yeah.”
The student cafeteria, where we arrived with the student council members, was exactly as I had imagined.
But what was more surprising was that Park Min-ju was in the same department as me.
The saying “it’s a small world” wasn’t just a cliché.
I had known Min-ju for a long time, since elementary school.
We didn’t exactly have a direct connection, but our mothers were extremely close.
On weekends, Min-ju would often come to our house, and I would sometimes tag along with my mom to her house.
But all of that was a distant memory.
The friendship between our mothers had crumbled the moment Min-ju’s family moved away.
I don’t know if the saying “out of sight, out of mind” applies here, but after Min-ju moved and entered middle school, our points of contact dwindled to zero.
After that, we lost all contact with each other.
We weren’t exactly close to begin with, so I had genuinely forgotten about her.
“Wow. So, Junho oppa and Minju sunbae, you two met again for the first time today?”
As Minju told the story of our reunion, the fellow students sitting nearby stared at us like monkeys at a zoo, taking turns looking at me and Minju.
“Yeah! This is my first time, so it’s amazing.”
“Things like that happen in life.”
Although it was surprising, I thought it was something that could happen.
“I remember you as a kid who always cried about not wanting to go to school. What’s up? Did you have an awakening in high school or something?”
Park Minju, the genius girl who shone like a star from elementary school.
And me, Lee Junho, who hated studying.
The gap between our academic performances was like heaven and earth.
“That’s right. The real competition starts in high school anyway.”
“Wow! That’s right! You’ve always had a good brain, even if you didn’t like studying.”
I don’t know how Minju sees me, but the Minju in my memory and today’s Minju are extremely different.
In elementary school, she always wore her hair in a ponytail and glasses that made her eyes look small.
The top student with the best grades, Minju, had become a “bright and pretty college senior” in college.
Wow, this is what college is like.
“Are we all going to the welcoming party?”
Student council officer Park Minju, like a salesman, enthusiastically recommended the party.
“Yes!”
“Ah! Of course! I’ll take the last train there!”
Everyone was filled with anticipation and answered, except for me, who was holding my breath.
“Junho, what about you?”
If I refused, it would be like committing a great betrayal.
I was worried, so I started making excuses.
“I have a younger sibling at home, so I need to check the situation.”
Just as everyone was about to let it slide, Minju poked my side.
What followed was a small whisper that only I could hear.
“You don’t want to drink, right? It’s okay if you don’t drink. Our people won’t force you to drink.”
“No, I really have a younger sibling waiting at home.”
“What are you talking about? You don’t have a younger sibling.”
…Right, she knows I don’t have a younger sibling?
“……I got one.”
“You got one?”
“Yes. My mom remarried.”
Minju’s eyes widened in surprise.
Oh, wow.
I just found out today that her eyes could get this big.
“Ah, really? That’s amazing. How old is your sibling?”
“Twenty.”
As soon as I answered, I got a smashing response that made my back feel hot.
Wow, it’s like old times.
“Hey, you’re twenty, what’s with coming home early! I thought you were still a kid.”
“……He’s a student preparing for exams.”
“Then it would be more helpful if you weren’t at home! Geez.”
As I said that, my heart started to lean towards being more considerate.
Is that right? Is this kind of thinking normal?
I had promised to give an answer soon, so I took out my phone during a break in our casual conversation.
I was going to contact Jihee, but I had already received a message from [Dongsaeng♥].
[What time are you coming home?]
Just looking at it, I could tell they were waiting for me.
Even when I said goodbye in the morning, Jihee had an expression that hinted they wanted me to come home early.
……I’m hesitant.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen Minju, and considering the rest of my college life, today is a good opportunity to get closer to the kids, anyway.
“Minju.”
“Yes?”
“Can I come late?”
I just can’t go.