“What? Where did he go now?”

Aram saw that the container was empty and pouted. Maru had told her that Daemyung would be here.

“He’s not here, right? So let’s just go.”

Jiyoon pulled on her arm. She had this thought before, but Jiyoon was actually quite strong. If she hadn’t done any exercise, she might actually be forced around by Jiyoon instead. Aram said okay before taking a step back.

“But is it okay to leave this open?”

Usually, it would be locked with a padlock, but it was wide open right now.

“Perhaps it’s because he had business here? I don’t think Daemyung-seonbae is the type to forget about these kinds of things.”

“Oh? You flatter him quite a lot. You do like him after all.”

Aram chuckled as she watched Jiyoon blush. ‘Daemyung-seonbae’, was how she called him. On the outside, Daemyung honestly wasn’t that charming. He was a little beyond plump, he was physically dense, and he had a quiet voice as well. However, his personality was flawless. He was the one who took care of the first years the most after all. He was the kind of person who would carefully ask what problem someone had if that someone was frowning.

‘They do suit each other, I guess.’

Daemyung and Jiyoon. Jiyoon was a little too much for Daemyung in Aram’s mind, but the two weren’t a bad combination. If he was some trashy guy, Aram would have persuaded Jiyoon otherwise, but she could accept Daemyung. Well, the way Jiyoon looked at Daemyung wasn’t really ordinary, especially recently.

“Do we need to wait then?” Jiyoon spoke as she looked around. Aram told her that they should just go, but this weak-hearted girl was worried about the what-ifs and told Aram that they should return after he returned.

“Geez, you worry too much.”

“You’re the one who’s too relaxed, Aram.”

“Oh? You’re retorting back at me more and more these days. This won’t do!”

Aram started tickling Jiyoon’s waist. Although Jiyoon could withstand pain very well, she was very ticklish. She soon started giggling and started running away but Aram chased her to the end. They ran laps around the shipping container and started sweating. The news mentioned that the average temperature would be 2 degrees higher than last year, and indeed, it was quite hot. It was only the middle of May, but it was so hot.

“Let’s come back after eating ice cream.”

Aram grabbed Jiyoon’s hands. Since it would only be for a short while, Jiyoon thought that there should be no big problems and followed suit.

* * *

“When are midterms again?”

“In three days.”

“Today’s Monday, so, Tuesday, Wednesday… midterms start on Thursday?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy moly. Then it lasts until Monday?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s annoying. I won’t get to have fun on the weekend.”

“Yeah right. I know you’re going to have fun anyway.”

These guys giggled as they read the comic books they borrowed. Geunseok clicked his tongue and closed his notebook. The teachers started giving away the answers starting last week. They didn’t just tell them the pages the exam questions would be created from, but the specific lines as well. It was like that for every subject. Only their majors teacher told them the vague outline and told them to study everything, but for the rest of the subjects, the teachers made it so that blind memorization would be enough to get full marks in the exams.

If this was cram school, their teachers would not think well of doing such a thing. After all, a short range of revision materials meant that the questions would be really hard.

‘But this shithole school isn’t like that.’

As expected of an engineering school, they just fed you the answers. Thanks to that Geunseok never missed the first place in the exams. He did not remember studying hard for the exams, but he was still first place. In fact, the tests to get into a cram school was harder. On top of that, he had a lot of private lessons these days as well, so he wished that he could decrease school to just one hour.

No matter how hard these teachers tried to teach him using chalk, he had already learned them beforehand through other lessons. Square roots and whatnot - his cram school had already started calculus, while the school was actually following the national curriculum.

What was funny was that these guys were complaining that it was hard. He wondered if these guys had a brain in the first place.

“Uhm, Geunseok.”

He smelled something sweet. Geunseok smiled and looked at the girl that approached. She had a voluminous body, had small earrings on so that the teachers wouldn’t notice, and she also wore a pale layer of lipstick. In the class, there were two types of girls. The girls that were only biologically classified as ‘female’ as well as those that wanted to be an actual girl. This girl belonged to the latter. She was quite cute and she was well developed as well. Above all, he liked that she didn’t reject skin to skin contact.

“What is it?”

“Did you write all of it down? I was going to do all of it but it was getting too sleepy,” saying that, the girl pulled a chair over and sat down.

“Sorry, I didn’t make notes for this class.”

“Really?”

“The teacher was so good at explaining that there was no need for me to write anything down.”

“I didn’t understand anything though.”

“Isn’t that because you dozed off in class?”

“......”

The girl pouted. Geunseok poked on the girl’s cheek and spoke.

“Instead, I’ll explain things for you. Just the parts that the teacher said were important.”

“Wow, thank you so much.”

Their distance was short enough that their shoulders touched, and Geunseok started explaining the class materials to the girl. After being humiliated by Maru, he had stayed quiet for a few days. Any laugh that he heard sounded like disdain for him, and any kind of gazes he received felt like they were looking at him as though he was a liar. He felt disgusted. Every day was an agony. The ones close to him treated him just like before, but Geunseok thought that they would be looking down on him on the inside.

However, after some time passed, Geunseok realized that those guys really didn’t care. In fact, those guys came up to him and consoled him, asking ‘you look worried these days, are you okay?’ And other words like that. It was strange. He was humiliated in front of the entire class, yet no one seemed to change their attitude towards him. Those that outright ignored him were just those that weren’t close to him in the first place.

After that experience, Geunseok realized one thing - that people generally didn’t care about others. Unless it was someone really close, they did not care a single bit unless it affected them as well. After that, Geunseok started smiling again and acted kindly towards everyone again. He treated them to food, listened to their worries, as well as proactively did what had to be done. At one point, he realized that the evaluation of him became much better than before. His classmates offered him to play with them a lot more frequently before, and their members were a lot more varied as well. He even got close enough to the ones that simply ignored him before. No, he made it so.

He remade his kingdom. In this small classroom, there was no one that hated the person known as ‘Hong Geunseok’. Not a single one. It was extremely pleasurable. He was acknowledged by the teachers and the others flattered him as well. The fact that some girls became more flirty with him was also an element that made him feel better.

‘That’s not right.’

The fact that there was no one that hated Hong Geunseok was a mistake. There was just one. And whenever he looked at her, Geunseok felt twisted. He looked at the cute girl smiling at him and naturally glared at the plump girl sitting behind her.

Kim Soyeon. She was someone that he didn’t even give a glance at in the acting club, but right now, she was unpleasant as hell.

“What?”

The girl sitting next to him became curious and turned around. She also found Soyoen.

“...Are you interested in Soyeon, Geunseok?”

“I am, I guess.”

Hearing that, the girl frowned. Of course, she soon returned back to a smile. Geunseok found fun in probing others out like this more than anything. It was a process of confirming her affection towards him. The sense of superiority welled up inside him and made him smile.

“I couldn’t help but be interested in her. She’s all alone. I was wondering if something happened to her. I’m worried about her as her friend.”

“What, it’s like that? I almost misunderstood you.”

“Misunderstood me? About what?”

He asked despite knowing what she meant. Geunseok was aware that these actions made him out to be a witty and positive man.

“No, it’s nothing.”

The girl shook her head before lowering her voice.

“But hey, do you know?”

“Know what?”

“The rumor.”

“The rumor?”

“There’s a bad rumor about Soyeon. She acts like she’s a good kid, but the rumors make the others stay away from her.”

“What’s the rumor about?”

“You know that she had a boyfriend, right?”

“Taejoon? I do. He’s a friend of mine.”

“It feels somewhat off for me to say this, but she doesn’t suit Taejoon, right? Just look at how handsome Taejoon is.”

“He is.”

“Right? But Soyeon is a little… I mean, I really don’t like saying words like these, but you get what I’m saying, right?”

She was someone that didn’t want to say the dirty words out loud. Geunseok sympathized with her. He understood her. People want to look good in front of everybody. Geunseok wasn’t planning on embarrassing her either. He had to act kind. Who knows? Maybe she would pay back with her body one day?

“I do. Actually, I thought that as well.”

“Right? It’s a little strange. Someone on Taejoon’s level must be able to meet someone much better than Soyeon. Of course, I don’t mean that Soyeon is lacking in any way, but…”

“Mm… Oh, then what’s the rumor about?”

The girl lowered her voice even more as though she was going to talk about a secret.

“Do you remember Yurim?”

“Uh… yeah, I do.”

Yurim, that was a name he hadn’t heard in a long time. His ‘ex-’girlfriend that transferred schools. He didn’t mind it that much since he was almost fed up with her, but it felt somewhat new to hear about her again. It was a little fun since she was so proactive during kissing.

“She was friends with Soyeon, do you remember?”

“Yeah. Those two were always together in the beginning of the semester.”

“But from some time onwards, the two cut relationships and Yurim suddenly transferred schools, right? Apparently, that was all because of Soyeon.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Apparently, she bullied Yurim a lot. But Taejoon doesn’t know the circumstances and thought that it was the other way around, so he was trying to help Soyeon instead. Apparently, he’s going out with Soyeon out of sympathy.”

The girl said up to that point and made an expression as though she just made a mistake.

“...Oh right. You were dating Yurim, right? You won’t like this story then.”

“Me and Yurim? No, not at all.”

“Oh, really? So I misunderstood the two of you?”

“A lot of people mistook our relationship. I hung out with Yurim to console her because she looked to be suffering. She was pitiful. Well, I guess others may think like that.”

“Oh, so that’s how it was.”

“But I don’t think I was of any help. I wanted to help her feel better, but she didn’t find me so reassuring. If I treated her a little better, then perhaps she would still be here in the same school. I sometimes feel like it’s my fault that she transferred schools… If I had been just a little better….”

“No, not at all. How is that your fault? You’re not in the wrong at all, Geunseok. In fact, she’s the problem.”

Geunseok shook his head as he acted as though he was in sadness.

“She must have her reasons. There’s no way that Soyeon is such a bad girl. Don’t you think so?”

“Me? Of course. I just wanted to tell you that such a rumor exists.”

“Okay. If Soyeon really is a good kid, then the rumors should die down soon. Oh, we were studying, right? Where were we again?”

They returned to their main topic. Geunseok laughed on the inside. It was obvious that someone who was annoyed by Taejoon going out with Soyeon spread such a rumor on purpose. Though, it was true that the two didn’t suit each other. Taejoon really had a low eye for girls. Geunseok wondered what made him want to date such a girl.

After replying ‘yes’ to the girl’s question asking him out on a movie, Geunseok stood up. Leaving the class, Geunseok glanced at Soyeon. The two pairs of eyes met and Soyeon glared at him with hostility before just ignoring him. Geunseok gnashed his teeth. He didn’t like this girl. Soyeon was aware of what happened in the acting club. She annoyed him to the point that she felt like a sore throat. It would have been better if she just disappeared like Yurim.

Geunseok went down to the cafeteria to score more points on that girl. He planned to talk with her over a drink. Just before he arrived at the first floor cafeteria, Geunseok saw two girls walk into it.

‘Those bitches….’

Lee Jiyoon. The shock from when she dared to talk back to him still remained within him. As a result of that, Maru caught his mistake, eventually leading to his expulsion from the acting club.

The tanned bitch next to Jiyoon. That was the girl that threw her slipper at him when he tried to scout some people from the first year design department. He felt as though that the eye that the slipper hit still ached. The two bitches that he wanted to beat up so much were hanging out together.

“Let’s get one quickly. The container is open.”

“I get it already.”

He overheard their conversation as he passed by. The container? At that moment, a brilliant idea surfaced within Geunseok’s mind. The acting club was filled with people he didn’t like, and now there was a way for him to get his revenge. Geunseok smirked and walked towards the back of the school.