Campus Log - Chapter 49

“Why did you look at my story?”

At Eun-seok’s question, the red box slipped from Hong Sang-hee’s hand. As she fumbled to pick up the snack again, her flustered state was obvious.

Eun-seok’s hand reached the snack first. Hong Sang-hee reached out for it, but he hid the red box behind his back. He had no intention of returning it until he got a proper answer.

“I asked why you looked.”

“How do you know I looked? Give it back.”

Hong Sang-hee kept her hand out, frowning with dissatisfaction. Instead of the snack, Eun-seok held out his phone. Her ID was clearly visible on the screen.

“This is you, isn’t it?”

The vending machine’s white light poured directly onto Hong Sang-hee’s face, clearly revealing her unfocused eyes behind the glasses. Even in her small face looking up at him with a frown, uncomfortable tension was palpable.

“You memorized my ID?”

“Why wouldn’t I memorize your ID?”

Eun-seok tried to feign nonchalance. Usually, he smiled easily and effortlessly in front of others, but strangely, whenever he was with Hong Sang-hee, his facial muscles constantly slipped from his control.

“I keep staring at your profile waiting for you to accept my follow request—it’d be hard not to memorize it.”

Hong Sang-hee’s lower lip curled inward. She couldn’t really complain about the awkward situation. Looking at the flower photo and not accepting his follow request all this time—they were all her own choices.

“I was curious, so I looked.”

Hong Sang-hee gave up on getting the snack back and shoved both hands into her pants pockets.

“I wanted to see what kind of photos you post that make you so popular.”

At her candid answer, which came out more easily than expected, Eun-seok just blinked.

“You seemed in a bad mood all day, so I also wondered if you were pretending to be fine there.”

He’d finally gotten the answer he wanted, yet no response came out. Was it because Hong Sang-hee’s voice was too blunt? Or because he’d secretly expected a different reason?

He saw Hong Sang-hee’s fingers fidgeting busily inside her pockets. Their eyes briefly met in the air and quickly scattered.

“Satisfied? Now give me the snack so I can go up to my room.”

Hong Sang-hee broke the awkward silence, wiggling her fingers.

“Wait a moment.”

Eun-seok turned to the vending machine and bought one with almonds embedded in it. Then he handed it to her along with the snack he’d snatched away.

“Eating just one would be boring.”

Hong Sang-hee, hesitating, took the red and green boxes together. Seeing the snacks overflowing in her small hands filled his chest with inexplicable pride.

“Thanks.”

After parting with Hong Sang-hee, who mumbled her gratitude, Eun-seok returned to the gym. Finally in the mood to exercise, he sat down at the chest press machine when his phone buzzed twice briefly.

Checking the screen, Eun-seok neither blinked nor breathed. His sharply focused eyes fixed on the newly arrived notifications as if nailed in place.

[@ntfrme23 has accepted your follow request.]

[@ntfrme23 has started following you.]

Eun-seok rubbed his face vigorously with one hand. The twitching corner of his mouth peeked through his palm occasionally. His face, stiff all day, finally relaxed into a wide grin.

Hong Sang-hee’s private account was sparse. 0 posts, 1 follower, 1 following. The first person to penetrate this space was none other than Ryu Eun-seok himself.

Eun-seok sent Hong Sang-hee a DM asking if she knew the name of the tree he’d photographed. A reply arrived quickly: acacia tree.

His reflection in the mirror across from him looked unbelievably foolish. His cheeks rounded, his mouth stretched wide as if someone had pulled it from the sides, and the corners of his eyes crinkled deeply, nearly hiding his pupils.

For the first time, he liked living in the dorm.

***

Eun-seok believed his condition was gradually improving.

There was no reason it shouldn’t. First and foremost, he’d received news from his middle brother that the company was stabilizing.

And since he’d started going solo, instead of wasting days on trivial chit-chat and meaningless laughter, he had more time to focus on himself. Preparing for finals early in the study room, exercising without distracting thoughts at the gym, and feeling proud of himself every night as he went to bed, thinking he was doing well on his own.

Also, after publicly calling himself a “beggar,” the kids who’d been subtly probing whether the rumors were true disappeared. Though glances of pity or contempt still came his way, they didn’t bruise his pride as much as expected. These days, his attention was so focused elsewhere that he couldn’t bother deciphering the emotions hidden beneath others’ expressions.

Like whether Hong Sang-hee’s name would appear on his phone screen, or whether he’d encounter those cool eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses in the business school hallway or dorm study room.

After finishing Friday classes and heading up to the dorm, Eun-seok walked straight to the security office. Among the various stacked parcels, the largest one was his.