Chapter 40: The Classification

“Sunbae, I’m really sorry, okay? Just stop sulking and lift your head for a second—I’ll just put the towel behind you.”

Even as I said that, I kept repeating to myself: Jinho, endure it. Hold on. You have to hold on. But Jung Saebin’s brief, sidelong glare and curt remark finally made me explode.

“Go away.”

“The sofa’s getting wet! If this gets ruined, are you going to buy me a new one, sunbae? No, do you even know what kind of sofa this is?! I’ve been apologizing for hitting you since earlier! It was my first time hitting someone too! And honestly, do you even have the right to be like this right now? This happened because you did something that insane out of nowhere! So who told you to do that to someone who said no?!”

Whether I was screaming at the top of my lungs or not, Jung Saebin still had his lips poked out, glaring to the side. Frustrated, I threw down the towel.

“Fine, do whatever you want!”

I didn’t even want to see his face—so I went back to my room, slammed the door, and fumed alone. This is ridiculous. I don’t care about anything else, but that sofa was mine… Ugh. As I glared at the poor door, I heard Jung Saebin’s voice from outside: “Nosebleed!”

Nosebleed?! I need to go out—. No. No, Kim Jinho. If you run out now, you’ll really have no dignity left. I grabbed the hand that was about to fling the door open with my other hand and repeated: Remember what he was about to do to you, Kim Jinho! I forced my worried heart aside and sat down with my back to the door.

“Hop-Hop is mean.”

Startled. At the sudden muttering right behind me, I turned around—and Jung Saebin was standing there.

“……”

Why is he here doing that again? Half his body sticking out, tears in his eyes, glaring intently—it was almost funny.

“Where did you put the ice pack?”

“…Over there.”

“Over there” where? He probably thinks I can read his mind or something. I looked up at Jung Saebin, who was just saying “over there” without any direction. A deep sigh escaped me.

“Where exactly is ‘over there’?”

I carved the character for ‘patience’ in my mind and asked again—he shuffled sideways. Judging by his raised shoulder, he was pointing at something this time. But the problem was that the raised arm was hidden by the wall. Standing at the doorway with only half his body showing, he must have forgotten he was only half-visible. I sighed deeply again and pressed my forehead.

“Cheap.”

“…What is?”

“Only to me.”

Unlike earlier when he’d been crying, Jung Saebin spoke without any sign of pain. Was he okay now? I ignored him as he crept toward me, keeping a close eye on his still-red cheek.

With everything happening so fast, I was exhausted—and judging by his cautious demeanor, it seemed like the earlier situation wouldn’t repeat, so I relaxed a little.

Anyway, what’s different? I looked up at Jung Saebin standing in front of me as I sat on the bed, waiting for his next words—but he just kept his mouth shut. Unlike his lowered head facing me, his eyes were subtly focused somewhere else.

Is he thinking? Or does he want me to ask something? I urged him with my eyes to continue, but of course, he didn’t get the hint. Ah, whatever. He’ll speak when he’s done organizing his thoughts. Hoping he wouldn’t say anything crazy like before, I quietly enjoyed the silence. After a while, his eyes sharpened again as he met my gaze and began to speak.

“I heard. About the stray mutt, the butterfly, the teddy bear. But Hop-Hop is different. Mean.”

You’re the one who speaks Korean harder to understand than a foreign language—you’re the mean one.

“I heard that even though the human scum is pushy, he’s cute enough to tolerate. I heard that even though the sociopath crawls around, he’s subtly obedient enough to overlook. And I heard that even though the pretentious ones seem useless, they’re funny enough to grow on you…. But I don’t seem to fit any of those.”

“……”

“Discrimination is bad. I have pearls on my d*ck too—so don’t discriminate, just suck it.”

…Where do I even begin with this…?

Jung Saebin, pouting like a whining child, soon sat down beside me and lay his upper body on the bed. I was getting used to being dumbfounded.

What should I ask first? The strange nicknames I’d heard earlier were—annoyingly—not unfamiliar. Thinking back, they were things that had been casually thrown around whenever those four gathered, without me having time to question them. Vaguely… no, actually I knew clearly that those words were referring to me—but I’d been ignoring it. I guess it’s time to admit it.

The word order was a bit off, but to interpret: he’d heard about me from the other four—and the content was rather irritating. I thought of a few questions and turned my head.

The damn Jung Saebin was lying still with his eyes closed, but he wasn’t asleep. There’s no way someone who got hit for doing this earlier and cried about it, then started groping someone’s hip again, would be asleep.

“Sunbae. If I told you to stop touching me, what would you do?”

“Hmm—. I’d stop touching you.”

“Really? Then stop tou—”

“I’m bored touching over clothes too. You don’t like touching clothes either, do you?”

I just shut my mouth. Still with that sleepy face, only his lips moving—why did it feel so threatening?

Hah… This is exhausting. At least the person in front of me is Jung Saebin. Otherwise, I’d have to put on a fake smile.

“Sunbae. Who are the human scum, the sociopath, and the pretentious ones?”

I didn’t really need to ask—I had a rough idea—but I was curious why they were stored in Jung Saebin’s head that way.

“……”

He talked plenty about useless things, but when it came to what I actually wanted to know, there was no answer. I shifted my hip sideways, slightly escaping his hand, and asked again.

“Taehyuk hyung is the human scum, Seonwoo hyung is the sociopath, and Hu hyung and Ho hyung are the pretentious ones—am I right? But why do you call them that?”

At that, Jung Saebin’s eyes opened. He looked like he was about to say something, but stared at the ceiling for a long while before letting out an uncharacteristic scoff and asking back.

“Why?”

The question mark that came with his hollow laugh was dripping with sarcasm. I was flustered by his rather absurd-sounding question. That’s why my reflexive “Huh?” came out so vague.

“What else would I call them?”

He calls the human scum human scum because he’s human scum. He calls the sociopath a sociopath because he’s a sociopath. As for the pretentious ones… well, it’s a bit of a cute word to describe them, but it’s the closest fit—so that’s what he calls them.

Jung Saebin, who’d only shown me vacant stares or childish behavior, suddenly seemed like an adult.

“Do you think I’m weird, Hop-Hop?”

The suddenly changed atmosphere was so uncomfortable and scary that I could only swallow nervously at a question I would’ve answered “yes” to without hesitation just moments ago. He wasn’t looking at me, his face was blank as before—but his voice was different.

But my damn curiosity moved my mouth on its own, trying to satisfy my still-unresolved desire for answers. Jung Saebin rolled his eyes once, fixed them back on the ceiling, and opened his mouth.

“If you let me give you a blowjob, I’ll tell you~.”

The tense atmosphere dissipated in an instant. Never thought I’d be relieved by sexual harassment. I joked back at Jung Saebin, who’d returned to his whining tone, telling him not to mess around.

Jung Saebin, now sprawled on the bed like it was his own, stretched his legs and lay on his stomach, smiling. As he muttered something ambiguous like “Fine~,” I secretly wiped my sweaty hand on my pants. Ugh, making me nervous for nothing with that serious face.

“Who should I talk about first?”

Just moments ago he’d acted like the question annoyed him—and now he’s carefree and bright. Jung Saebin hugged the pillow that had been lying still and started rolling around on the bed.

“I’ll tell you everything.”

Whether he was talking to me or to himself, it was a firm promise. And I’d been so scared of this guy that I clutched a bat… Hah, how embarrassing. I stared blankly at this guy who had mood swings worse than a child’s, then flopped back onto the bed.

Jung Saebin, who’d rolled away, soon rolled back. Staring into his eyes from not far away made me feel like I’d go cross-eyed—but I waited. Because his lips, at the edge of my vision, had opened.

“Hop-Hop, I’m weird too, and so are they. But still, I’m normal.”

And so Jung Saebin began a story that, no matter how you listened, seemed to have a lot omitted.

“Actually, I’m fine. Ah, rather than fine—I can understand. Them and me, we’re normal. Just a little different. We know that, so we don’t think it’s strange—but people who don’t know will call us strange.”

The first thought that came to mind was: does this guy actually know how to speak Korean? What’s “fine”? And suddenly “I can understand” out of nowhere. I was dizzy from his grammar—the only thing I could grasp was that “them” referred to Choi Taehyuk, Min Seonwoo, and the Namgung brothers.

“We know that too, so we’re mostly fine—but sometimes idiots make us angry. When that happens, we use different methods. So I think that’s just how they are—but to ordinary people, Taehyuk would be human scum, Min Seonwoo a sociopath, and the twins pretentious.”

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