Chapter 78: The Words That Wouldn’t Come

I wiped my eyes once more.

Then my bag vibrated.

[Yoon Heesung] Come to the 3rd floor. Room 301.

Even the phone felt unfamiliar after all this time. Everything about daily life felt awkward, as if I were experiencing it for the first time.

I climbed the stairs further. I finally found room 301 and sat in the very back seat.

Even in the lecture room, my fragmented thoughts wouldn’t connect. I couldn’t find a clear answer, so I just lowered my eyes and endured the time.

I heard cheerful laughter. It was a bright, warm sound. The chatter among themselves was lively.

Someone laughed out loud. Another person even swore. They all just seemed happy.

There was an anticipation for the days ahead written all over them.

But I wasn’t. My path ahead was bleak.

I didn’t know what to do now, and there was no answer other than to endure, just scraping by.

I really couldn’t find my bearings. I couldn’t get help from anyone.

Those kids laughing and talking over there and me, we were too different. It was like we were a different species altogether.

How had I lived this long without making a single real friend? I guess I could blame my unapproachable impression. Even being pushed aside by my own mother was all my fault.

‘How did I get by before…’

As I thought back to high school, I quickly shook my head inside. Even when thinking about high school, I shouldn’t think about last year. I had to think about before that.

When I didn’t know Yoon Heesung, before I transferred, how did I live?

I mulled over my memories with a heavy heart. I didn’t have anyone to chat with at school, so I just sat in the classroom and studied. After school, I went to the study room and worked my part-time job.

Then I went home, did the chores before my mom came, and then fell asleep after flipping through more workbooks. Every day was the same repetition.

‘A part-time job…’

I used to work back then. I lived so diligently that the current me would look pathetic in comparison.

I was living so differently now that those days felt distant.

If I stayed still like this, I’d be swept away by Yoon Heesung. That sense of crisis filled me.

I couldn’t even wear the underwear I wanted now. If Yoon Heesung said to take them off, I had to. There was nothing I could choose of my own will.

Then I realized the most important fact.

‘If I said I was working a part-time job, would Yoon Heesung stay put…’

He was someone who couldn’t even wait through a lecture before stripping off my underwear. Would he give me permission? He might tell me to go out completely naked.

I got depressed again. There really was nothing I could choose for myself.

Someone tapped on my desk.

“Hi. You’re Lee Yunwoo, right?”

I slowly raised my head. A girl with a bob cut was looking down at me. I stared at her with wide eyes, wondering who she was, so she introduced herself first.

“I’m Oh Yeonju. The class president this semester.”

Her smile was neat. The word “class president” told me why she was talking to me. Even though I didn’t respond, she kept talking to me cheerfully.

“You didn’t come to the orientation or the pre-semester program. Did you register for classes okay?”

“…”

The difference from high school was that here, there were people who looked out for me. Someone remembered I was absent from every event and reached out to me first.

Just moments ago, I felt lonely as if I was all alone in the world. But now that someone actually approached me, I became extremely nervous.

I opened my mouth, but words wouldn’t come out. It should have been a simple answer. Say my name and tell her I couldn’t make it because I was busy.

But I could only move my lips and couldn’t say anything.

“…”

Yeonju looked surprised.

“…Are you sick?”

Eventually, I jumped up from my seat.

“…Wait, just a second… I need to, to go to the… bathroom…”

“Oh, go ahead.”

I left the spot as if fleeing. I walked toward the end of the hallway, staring at the floor.

I went into a bathroom stall and gasped for breath. My heart was pounding like crazy.

It was strange. It was impossible to look someone in the eye and have a conversation.

Why was that? Why did I act like that? It was so hard to even give a simple answer.

The moment I tried to speak, a delusion washed over me that Yeonju would see through everything. The things that had happened to me.

She would discover that I was a fool who couldn’t even wear underwear.

I reached up and grabbed my own collar. I panted for air. My head spun.

With my condition like this, it was meaningless to even think about a part-time job.

It wasn’t until the class started that I barely returned to the lecture room. When I slipped in through the back door, the professor said, “You should be glad I didn’t take attendance today,” and laughed.

I couldn’t laugh. I just bowed my head and crawled back to my seat.

Of course, I didn’t really pay attention to the class, and as soon as it ended, I almost ran down the stairs.

Yoon Heesung had kept his word. Sure enough, as soon as I walked out, the car was waiting in front of the building, just as it had been when I got out earlier.

I jumped into the passenger seat.

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“Huup, huk…”

I was breathless, and then I saw my underwear crumpled carelessly in the space in front of the gear stick. I frantically reached for it.

Then Yoon Heesung grabbed my wrist.

“Ah. I’m throwing that away.”

“Why…?”

When I looked at him blankly, Yoon Heesung raised and lowered an eyebrow as if I was the weird one.

“I used it to masturbate, so it’s dirty.”

“…”

I was speechless. I closed my mouth.

Yoon Heesung fastened my seatbelt himself and started the car.

I didn’t say anything until we arrived at the underground parking lot. Yoon Heesung didn’t make a point of talking to me either.

It was a relief. Even if I opened my mouth, he would only say something weird.

‘You can’t hate me anymore.’

Even though it had nothing to do with the situation, his earlier words suddenly came to mind. Had I been deeply hurt by those words without realizing it?

Actually, that phrase kept surfacing not just now but throughout my daily life. It came to me when I was eating, when I was lying down trying to sleep…

There was a time when I liked that Yoon Heesung was the one who put me first.

“Are you not getting out?”

I don’t know why my tears burst out like a dam at that single phrase. It was just that I had no one but Yoon Heesung.

I really had no one but him now, and he was acting strangely, so maybe that was why I was scared and hurt.

No, I just didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even know if I knew anything in this world.

Everything could have gone well, but it seemed like it was ruined by my own choices. It all felt like my fault.

“Uh… I, I’ll get out.”

I fumbled to wipe my tears and unbuckled my seatbelt. But once the tears had burst, they didn’t stop easily.

I cried silently. Even while crying, I didn’t know why I was crying.

“Why are you crying?”

Yoon Heesung wiped my face frantically with a flustered voice. He used his hands, then rubbed my soaked face with his sleeve.

When that wasn’t enough, he pulled out a tissue from somewhere, patted my cheeks, and rubbed my eyes.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen today?”

But then, when Yoon Heesung asked me like that if something happened… all the grudges seemed to melt away.

And I became weak. I ended up spilling my inner thoughts.

I wanted to lean on him. Even though my situation had become precarious because of him, I wanted to lean on him.

“You, you made me not wear anything down there earlier.”

But he was the only one I had…

“And then, earlier, sob, at school, hiccup, someone talked to me, but I couldn’t even, even answer properly… I, I’ve become weird. I’m weird… What, what if I can’t go back to how I was before?”

My breath was short, and my words kept breaking off. But unlike in front of that girl Yeonju earlier, I could say something.

At least I could speak to Yoon Heesung. I sobbed almost wailing, pouring out my bitterness.

“Ah…”

Yoon Heesung let out a laugh-laced sigh.

“That was the problem?”

“Hiccup…”

His dismissive tone, as if he had heard every ridiculous thing there was, made me feel miserable again, and tears kept flowing.

Yoon Heesung stroked my cheeks and soothed me.

“I won’t do it next time. But you have to come down right after class, okay? If you’re even a minute late, I’ll send you off without underwear again.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. But don’t be late.”

I nodded over and over. I was worried he might strip me again, but hearing that reassured me.

It was strange that I felt reassured by his words, even though he was the one who had taken it off. But he was the only one who could say this to me.

“And from now on, if someone talks to you, you don’t have to answer. You can just not respond. Then you won’t get upset enough to cry like this.”

Is that so…? It wasn’t as if I felt this suffocated just because someone talked to me.

“At school, you can just attend class. There’s no need to mingle with other people.”

When he said it like that, it did seem like Yoon Heesung was right. Yeah, at school, I could just attend class.

If I had never planned to answer anyone from the start, I wouldn’t have to feel so low for not answering Yeonju properly.

“I’ll give you some earphones. Wear them in the lecture hall from now on. Then no one will try to talk to you.”

I nodded slowly. But the fear that crashed over me like a wave when a stranger suddenly spoke to me was something I had never experienced before.

I felt like I was really becoming strange. I just wanted to live an ordinary life without anything happening.

I had always lived like that.

And Yoon Heesung kept his hands busy the whole time I cried. He carefully wiped my tears, gently enough not to hurt my skin.

He even licked around my eyes with his tongue. When I looked at him, he seemed to like licking my face.

Before I knew it, my tears had stopped.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Underdog Connection

ChaebolContemporaryObsessiveLove

Read Now →
Not interested