Chapter 305 – 59. Midterm Evaluation
.
… I guess it’s because I saw that damn scene earlier.
Or maybe it’s because I’ve been chain-smoking ever since.
One side of my head hurts as if being stabbed by an awl.
I’m not saying that’s just an expression that women often use, but really.
It seemed okay before, but now it feels like it’s going to fall apart at any moment.
This is why you shouldn’t go near trash like cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, etc.
I ended up taking my hobby hostage to addiction and wasting money by paying a lot of taxes…
Whenever something shit happens, I smoke so hard that my eyes turn yellow.
Oh, fuck.
I definitely have to quit tomorrow.
It only ruins this body.
“Whoa…”
Tick, tick.
I took a moment to lean against the wall of a corner alley and shake off the ashes.
Yu Si-woo, who was looking at the three cigarette butts scattered on the floor, started to nauseate at the thought that he had already burned four cigarettes.
Of course, it only happened for a moment, and soon after, a large amount of white smoke spewed out.
… Anyway, Seo Woo Jin.
Was that kid really close to Baek Seo-yeon?
After falling back into the guesswork that I had already done five or six times for each butt, I melted the end of the tobacco into a red color like a pianistic flower.
Before entering school, that is, even last year, I had never seen Baek Seo-yeon meet another man.
What is a man? He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t even really meet women.
How can it be that I am already close male friends with a man I saw for the first time this year?
It was very easy to guess about this.
Oh, I guess you agreed with the health teacher in advance.
I hope that if I happen to see it, I’ll be a dick.
So, I want you to reduce my interest in you.
“… Ah, fuck…”
Okay. Thanks to you, I felt a lot better.
… Well, that doesn’t mean he will be angry with her like his white paper Yeon wants.
There was absolutely no way I would treat Baek Seo-yeon as an invisible person without any further interest.
Yu Si-woo especially had the least understanding of these types of people.
I don’t want to be the same person, so I’ll forgive you…
Babies with good kid syndrome that I can’t understand.
Isn’t it normal to feel better when you repay at least at a 1:1 ratio?
If possible, I want to repay you by raising it by 1:10, right?
In that sense, what we need to do to repay Baek Seo-yeon for her cute behavior is…
It’s not about benchmarking her and showing her how she hangs out with other women.
Rather,
Not giving up.
Rather more,
Living life as usual.
“…”
After throwing away the burnt butt on the street so that her fingertips were hot, I took a moment to look at the smartphone she was holding.
For some reason, her brain was pounding due to fatigue.
It’s later than expected.
She didn’t like the 16% battery left, so she let out a sigh full of nicotine smell, strengthened her legs, and stumbled out of the place.
It was around the time when the water-soaked white paper kite was dripping a lot of sticky white liquid between her thighs.
305
“… What should I do with this?”
“What can I do? Just run the washing machine.”
“… I see.”
… In the end, I did it to the point where my legs were shaking in her bathroom.
Since it was late anyway, I started helping her clean up, wearing only a Y shirt that had Seo Woo Jin’s body odor on it.
Oh, because I can’t move naked.
I had no choice but to wear it. There is no choice.
There’s still a little bit of moisture left here and there on my body, so it’s hard to put on clothes… Therefore…
There really is no choice.
“…”
As I was fiddling with my shirt here and there, I suddenly shifted my gaze when I heard a clicking sound coming from a corner of the kitchen.
… I looked around and saw Seo Woo Jin trying to boil water.
And that too with a yellow coffee mix.
“Are you drinking coffee at this hour…?”
“Uh. Unless I’m drinking caffeine, I tend to sleep well.”
“… Mix, huh?”
“This suits my taste. The capsule machine in the health room is good in its own way, but it lacks the taste of harmful substances.”
“… He kind of looks like an old man. He’s definitely two years younger than me…”
“What can I do with my tastes like this? … Seoyeon noona.”
“Just speak informally again. The same applies to titles and honorifics. … It’s very awkward.”
“Phew…”
Ah, surprisingly, the conversation with the person who came from next door and rang the doorbell diligently seemed to have gone well.
I tried to keep quiet and listened with my fox ears, but I ended up talking about things like the sound was too explicit and that it was time to sleep, so I should restrain myself, and so on for about a minute.
Well, just by looking at its appearance, it seemed like the house would not be soundproofed well.
I felt it the last time I came, too, but it was a one-room apartment that was far, far short of the money Seo Woo Jin would have earned.
Well, there’s nothing we can do.
There is no proper way to soundproof, so next time you should just reduce the sound as much as possible…
… No, next time.
Next time, I’ll do something like this with Seo Woo Jin again…
…
… You can do it.
There is. Yes.
“Would you like a drink too?”
“… I like coffee too…, … Is there something like a café mocha?”
“You know what? It’s just a cheap mix.”
“Then, something else to drink or something…”
“There’s something else… Ah, there’s one. A little bit of orange juice left.”
“Orange juice? … Do you like that?”
“I don’t really like sweet things. I just bought this because Yozora likes it.”
“… Aha. Yozora.”
For a moment, I thought for a moment that Yozoh also stops by here often.
Then, I asked for the little bit of orange juice that was left and continued with my previous thoughts.
If Seo Woo Jin had his way, he could live in a much better place than here.
I guess it’s just because this place is close to the academy.
As I was gently removing the bedsheets that had become damp because of me, I couldn’t hold back my curiosity and asked.
“… Hey, why do you live in a place like this?”
“A place like this?”
“So… You can live in a bigger and nicer place.”
“I’m satisfied with this. I live alone anyway, so I don’t think it needs to be bigger than this.”
“I heard it was economical in a strange place.”
“I’m always economical. Don’t compare me to you.”
“Yes. Yes.”
Okay. It is said that among the rich, there are especially many misers.
Maybe Seo Woo Jin is that type of person.
I didn’t think it was a big deal and was in the middle of crumpling a thin sheet into the washing machine.
Knock, knock.
He tapped the empty orange juice bottle on the cup and continued talking a little more.
“I have lived in a big house before. When I was a little younger than now.”
“… Middle school student? High school student?”
“Uh.”
“… Was life not that good back then?”
“I don’t know if many people would know, but I had been living alone since then. It was so lonely, like I was haunted by a ghost, that I didn’t like it.”
“…”
“If it weren’t for the fact that all my relatives wanted to adopt Don and not me, I might have been tricked and continued to live… I’m not perfect at acting.”
Come to think of it, that man also said he was an orphan like me.
The conversation we had while clinking beer cans together at a convenience store table a few hours ago.
After thinking about them one by one, I took the cup that Seo Woo Jin handed me and quietly quenched her thirst.
“That’s why I don’t want to live in a large house. It would be nice to have a house this size and fully equipped… But there’s nothing like that. Especially around the academy, there aren’t any.”
“… For something so economical, it’s very emotional.”
“It’s emotional. I was a little traumatized by that incident. It happened to me when I was a little kid.”
“… Well, I have that feeling a little bit.”
“What do you know? You’ve been in Most Wanted since you were young, so you wouldn’t have experienced shit like me.”
“… It happened. Something like that.”
“What is it?”
“…”
“… Ah, is it difficult to tell?”
“…”
“It’s okay if you’re in trouble. Don’t tell me. I won’t pry.”
“…”
Seo Woo-jin pours the water that has just started to boil into a cup, stirs it roughly with a coffee mix bag, and then brings it to his mouth.
As I was staring at him blankly, there were a few obstacles in my way of telling him right away.
And because I had a strange feeling that started to feel like the edge of the paper was getting wet, I slowly lowered my gaze.
First of all, I think it is presumptuous to sympathize.
When I was that age, I had no experience of suffering from my relatives,
Similarly, the experience of living alone in a large house occurred only after I became an adult.
Since this may have happened to me, wouldn’t even people who have never experienced such a thing be able to empathize with it at a reasonable level?
But the problem is.
“…”
Strange feelings that cannot be contained in the category of ’empathy’… It is.
“Hey…, … Seo Woo Jin.”
“Uh.”
Well, when I try to put it into words, it’s a bit weirder than I thought.
It seems easy to create misunderstandings.
… It seems a little lewd.
Above all, I was embarrassed to say it with my own mouth.
Not that.
“… You said it earlier. Don’t we know a lot between us?”
“…”
“So, there is no relationship like ours, even though we only enjoy it when we need it.”
“… That’s right.”
“So… I have a worry? A little old worry?”
“Uh.”
“I wanted to hear your thoughts on that.”
“Counseling?”
“… It’s similar. It feels like a complaint or a complaint.”
There were definitely a few obstacles,
One of the words that has been on my mind for several years.
“… Do you remember what I said earlier in front of the convenience store?”
“If you ask me that, you wouldn’t know. It wasn’t just one or two.”
“I just came to my senses and realized that I was just a member of Most Wanted… And that I wasn’t there because I wanted to be.”
“… I remember it when I heard it.”
For the first time.
To others.
“That organization… I mean.”
“…”
“You can’t get beaten just because you don’t want to do something bad, right?”
He mumbled hesitantly.
“If you don’t want to do it, get rid of it. I’ll help you with the rest.”
“… What is it? Isn’t this a person who really has no measures…”
“I’ll help you, just tell me when you need it. You can use me in negotiations, right?”
“… And then what if you get kidnapped and imprisoned somewhere?”
“… I haven’t thought about that yet.”
“… I knew that… You idiot.”
… A few words that don’t seem to have a particularly detailed plan.
I never thought it would sound this good.
I didn’t even expect it.
