Campus Log - Chapter 73

“I’ll understand that you were excited because you drank today. Call me later. Let’s have a drink together.”

“F**k, that’s disgusting.”

Park Tae-hyun shuddered his shoulders in revulsion. The momentum that had seemed ready to flip the table at any moment was gone, and the man stumbled backward, bumping into people.

“Get your act together and watch yourself at night, you bastard. What if a loan shark drags you away?”

Park Tae-hyun turned away with his nose still in the air. His group got up in a huff and filed out of the pub. In the middle of the table, now quiet as if doused with cold water, Song Hyuk-jun wiped his chest.

“Hey, everyone, that was scary, right? My bad.”

When Ryu Eun-seok apologized readily, everyone murmured that it was fine. Thanks to the goodwill he had built up over time, people were willing to let it slide to this extent.

Song Hyuk-jun, noting that the number of people had decreased, said they could order more side dishes and lifted the mood. Lee Dong-ha shooed away the female junior and returned to his seat. His obvious attempts to gauge my reaction made me feel a belated sense of embarrassment.

So I pretended to check my phone for no reason and looked away. There were no messages, so I just scrolled through the list of newly uploaded panda fancams on YouTube.

Meanwhile, Ryu Eun-seok’s large hand, still covering the back of mine, squeezed firmly. I stayed still in his grip without pulling away.

The warm, pressing body temperature brought with it a certain sense of kinship.

Even after the end-of-semester gathering was over, the ones who remained until the end couldn’t let go. “Let’s play claw machines,” “Let’s go to a coin noraebang,” “Let’s eat more at someone’s house”—their boisterous voices lingered in front of the pub.

I want to go home. I really want to go back to the dorm now. Please, let Ryu Eun-seok finish his goodbyes quickly. I wish Song Hyuk-jun would tell me to go ahead. I subtly shifted my steps toward the back gate of the school, already prepared to part ways early.

“Senior.”

Lee Dong-ha approached me. During the time at the pub, his perfume smell had largely faded.

“Can I call you noona too, like Hyuk-jun does?”

It wasn’t particularly funny question, but hearing it while drunk made me chuckle. With my facial muscles relaxed, I nodded.

“Yeah.”

Lee Dong-ha must have drunk quite a bit too, as his cheeks were flushed red. Bathed in the lights pouring in from both sides of the street, the junior’s face looked strangely excited.

“Then have a good vacation, noona.”

Only after hearing that farewell did it occur to me that I wouldn’t be seeing this guy for a while. The same went for the others I had exchanged names with today. I had gotten a few new contacts under the influence, but I’d surely forget who was who over vacation.

“I’ll contact you from time to time.”

Lee Dong-ha quickly added those last words while subtly glancing at someone. Then, without properly looking at me, he tilted his head and hurriedly turned away.

“Hong Sang-hee.”

Ryu Eun-seok had come up beside me.

“You’re nice to him.”

I craned my neck back to look up at the man 26 centimeters taller than me.

“Am I?”

“Yeah. You eat with him, you smile at him.”

Ryu Eun-seok stood leisurely with his hands in his pockets. But that posture didn’t hide the crooked edge seeping from his voice.

*”You find everyone annoying.”*

That was the day Ryu Eun-seok had picked a fight with me in front of Kwon Ga-ram. He was saying something similar now—asking why I treated only Lee Dong-ha differently.

The reason I didn’t snap back like last time was, first, that my sensitive nerves were more relaxed than usual, and second, I didn’t want to argue with someone I wouldn’t even see from tomorrow onward.

“We ate together often too. At the dorm.”

“But you didn’t smile at me.”

Did I? Other than when I’m looking at pandas, I don’t often have reasons to smile, so that might be true. But I didn’t know Ryu Eun-seok paid attention to things like my facial expressions.

“See, you’re not smiling now either.”

As Ryu Eun-seok’s sullen complaints continued, the remaining people, led by Song Hyuk-jun, decided on their next destination. While saying goodbye to them as they headed off somewhere, our trivial conversation paused for a moment.

When I turned my head back, Ryu Eun-seok was looking down at me stubbornly, as if he had no intention of letting this topic go.

“Smile.”

He was even asking for something absurd.

“The more you say that, the less I want to smile.”

It’s like when you’re planning to study, but suddenly someone nags you to open a book—you just don’t want to do it. I wondered if I had been too blunt, but hearing someone tell me to smile made me not want to lift the corners of my mouth.

“Try thinking of me as a panda.”

Ryu Eun-seok’s clear eyes grew intense. Was he trying to imitate the bright, sparkling eyes of a panda? The longer his gaze bore down on me, the more a hot flush rose above my neck. My entire skin tingled as if an ant were crawling through my clothes.