SSL 31

Going to a good university is hard. It was one thing to vaguely think that things would somehow work out if he just raised his grades, and another to hear about the specific conditions. The reality of how far he had to go hit him viscerally.

However, Doyoon took a breath and calmed his mind. It wasn’t entirely hopeless. He felt that it was a good thing he came to the information session and was grateful to Jaehyun. He had already raised his grades a lot in the first semester. Thanks to that, he had gained a little bit of confidence. He felt that if he continued to work even harder, it wouldn’t be impossible. I have to work hard.

“Alright, that’s all for the admissions process explanation. Thank you for your attention. Yes, well then.”

The instructor displayed the last page of the PowerPoint presentation and spoke, directing his gaze particularly at the parents in the front rows.

“Before we move on to the Q&A, I’d like to introduce our academy. As for how we are responding to these various admissions processes…”

“Let’s go.”

Jaehyun tapped Doyoon’s shoulder.

The two of them gathered their bags and stood up. Beomjun also followed them out into the hallway, but he had left his things at his seat.

“I have class here after this anyway. Are you guys leaving?”

“Yeah. I was thinking of getting some food with him.”

“Okay. You’re still not thinking of joining the academy?”

“Sorry. I came with the intention of just listening to the free information session and running away.”

“Got it.”

Smiling, Beomjun gave a light wave.

“Go on. Keep in touch.”

“Yeah. Thanks for today. I learned a lot because of you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

After Beomjun went back into the seminar room, the two of them quickly came out of the building. As soon as they were standing on the street, Jaehyun began to point to various places around them and ask.

“You want to get hamburgers over there? Or the snack place over there is supposed to be good, too.”

Or the pork cutlet place over here is good too, and so on. He chattered on for quite a while, which surprised Doyoon a little. Jaehyun seemed to know the stores in this neighborhood very well. Did he come near this academy often, or had he researched it somewhere? Seeing as he was using citation forms like ‘supposed to be’ and ‘they say,’ he guessed it was probably the latter.

“They say that sandwich shop over there is a bit fancy for guys to go to, but not to the point where we can’t. If you like Western food, you want to try going there?”

“Yeah… I’m sorry. But let’s just go home. Let’s not eat.”

“Huh?”

Jaehyun’s eyes widened slightly.

“Uh… You said you were fine until two. It’s not that time yet.”

“I don’t have money.”

“Ah, that doesn’t matter. I’ll pay…”

“I don’t want you to.”

Doyoon cut him off.

“I don’t like you spending money. I don’t like you spending it on me. I didn’t like it last weekend either. Let’s not do that anymore. I’m going to look for a part-time job starting this vacation.”

Just before Jaehyun’s expression changed strangely, Doyoon continued.

“Once I get a part-time job, I can pay when we meet, so I’ll do that. Let’s just go today.”

I was happy that it was just the two of us. Doyoon thought again.

‘Let’s go,’ ‘I was thinking of getting some food with him.’ Even as he heard those sentences, Doyoon hadn’t been sure. Was he right that Beomjun was now excluded and just the two of us were going out to eat, or was it another wrong answer? But in reality, Beomjun had disappeared into the seminar room. Only Jaehyun and Doyoon were left.

Jaehyun had suggested they eat. Thinking about it, he had never eaten with just Jaehyun before. It was the first time. At the art exhibition last time, they had only eaten ice cream and then parted ways.

His heart fluttered to a ridiculous degree. But at the same time, his ankles grew heavy. As if caught in shackles. Because he had no money. In his left pants pocket was one thousand-won bill and two hundred-won coins, and in the front pocket of his bag was one transportation card. With just that, he couldn’t eat with Jaehyun.

But it wasn’t entirely hopeless. It was a similar feeling to when he had heard about the college admission processes earlier. The awareness of being in a low place, but also the confidence and hope that this awareness spurred.

I’m going to raise my grades. I have to get into the department I want at a good university. And I need to earn money, too. Now that he had a ‘friend,’ it seemed that doing friend-like things with a friend cost money.

I can do it. Doyoon muttered softly to himself again. It’s scary to ask my brother. I’ll look it up online. I should also look around when I’m walking. There might be job postings up… Just then, a voice reached his ear.

“What are you talking about.”

Jaehyun looked down at Doyoon and said with a blank expression.

“You have to study.”

“Yeah. I’m going to divide my time well and work part-time and study, too.”

“No.”

“Uh…?”

“You, you’re being a little…”

The sound of a sigh. A frown forms between his brows. His eyebrows go up.

“Why do you think I suggested we come to the admissions information session? Didn’t you realize anything while listening? If you want to get into a top-tier university in the science track, we won’t have enough time even if we only study together for the entire vacation. What kind of useless thing are you trying to do.”

“With you…?”

“Let’s go.”

Whether it was because of the sunlight or some other reason, Jaehyun gestured somewhere down the street with his face deeply scrunched up.

“Let’s go talk there.”

“Where are we going…”

“My place. You said you feel burdened by me buying you food.”

His voice was cold.

“You don’t even want me to buy you two-thousand-won tteokbokki because it’s a burden, so what can I do? We’re going to my place.”

They took a bus from the academy to Jaehyun’s house. Jaehyun got on first, held out his transportation card, and said, For two people. When Doyoon made a bewildered face, Jaehyun turned back and explained. Since he was the one who had suggested going to an unplanned location, it was only right that he paid the bus fare, too.

“I don’t want to make you spend money or cause you trouble either. You understand, right?”

“…”

Doyoon gave a small nod and, as Jaehyun indicated, sat down in the window seat of a two-person seat, not noticing the sarcastic tone.

Since Jaehyun was silent the entire way, Doyoon just looked out the window. Even after they got off, Jaehyun just silently led the way, so Doyoon just followed, watching his back. Only right before he opened the front door to the second floor of the officetel did Jaehyun open his mouth.

“My noona is here. If my noona is using the living room, we’ll go into my room.”

“Okay.”

However, his noona was not in the living room. Seeing as the door to the room by the window was closed, she was probably in her room. Jaehyun approached the door and knocked, then said, Noona, I’m here with Doyoon, can we use the living room? and only the sound of Okay! came back from outside the door.

“Are you hungry, though? There’s pizza in the fridge. We ordered it yesterday and there’s some left.”

“…”

“You don’t want to eat leftover food if I’m the one giving it to you?”

“Huh? No. It’s not because you’re giving it to me, it’s because you or your noona might want to eat it later.”

“No. This pizza isn’t good. I’m going to throw it away because it’s not good.”

Jaehyun said with a thin smile, holding the refrigerator door.

“It’s trash I’m going to throw away anyway, so you can eat it and get rid of it for me. I’m throwing trash in your mouth. You good with that?”

“Yeah.”

When Doyoon nodded in relief, Jaehyun, for some reason, let out a ‘ha’ sound and shook his head. Then he took out two slices of pizza covered in plastic wrap from the fridge, put them in the toaster oven, turned the dial, and then went to the table and gestured.

“Sit down. Take out your handout and notebook.”

“Okay…”

“Open to the fourth page.”

Doyoon had expected Jaehyun to sit across from him. But instead, Jaehyun came up behind his shoulder and stood there, looking down from behind and tapping the corner of the page.

“Right, here. The GPA system changes starting from the second year. Even though you’re aiming for the regular admissions, you still need to prepare for the early admissions. In that case, you have to aim for the first grade tier, and to get the first grade tier at our school, you need to be in the top 10 to be safe.”

“Yeah.”

“But you were 93rd in the school for finals. Let’s say you raise that to 10th by the second year. Okay, but you also have to raise your mock college entrance exam score by 70 points by the third year. And you have to get a handle on essay writing starting from the third year at the latest.”

“Y-yeah…”

“Is that going to be easy, or not easy.”

“Not… easy.”

“It’s possible. But it’s not easy. It’d be hard even if you devoted all your time to studying, right? So, is it something you can do while also working a part-time job, or not.”

“Uh…”

“Answer me.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know. It’s not a hard question. How can you manage something that’s not easy to begin with while also working a part-time job. You should be able to get this kind of answer right.”

“…”

“I’m not telling you to give an answer you like or dislike, I’m telling you to give the right answer. Can you do it while working a part-time job, or can’t you.”

“I can’t…”

His voice faded at the end. Why is this happening? Doyoon blinked.

It was hard to breathe. His chest felt tight. Jaehyun was telling him the right thing, the realistic thing, but his rib cage felt like it was being crushed entirely by something like a torture device. I want to escape. As he was thinking this, Doyoon suddenly flinched. It was because Jaehyun had actually squeezed his shoulder hard.

“Right. You knew, so why did you do that.”

“…”

“Open your notebook.”

Jaehyun gestured with his chin, then let go of his shoulder, patted his back a couple of times, and went to the opposite side. He sat down, then took out a small, thick, leather wallet-like thing from his bag and unbuttoned it. But when he opened it, the inside was a notebook, and a page with a calendar drawn on it appeared, which surprised Doyoon. So there are things like that.

“Let’s meet and study three times a week. Just two hours at a time.”

Jaehyun said, picking up a pen and circling a few dates.

“It’s hard for you to make a lot of time because of meals, right. So let’s make the time short. I’ll give you a lot of homework instead. Is Monday, Wednesday, Friday okay?”

“Do you mean you’ll tutor me? Like you did before the final exams?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to.”

Doyoon shook his head.

“Then you’ll be spending too much time on me. I don’t like that.”

“Before the final exams, you and I studied for four hours a day sometimes. You obediently accepted my tutoring then.”