Chapter 60: Unexpected Interventions

Chapter 60

“Oh…”

Just as I was about to stumble, my wrist caught in a firm grip, a strong arm encircled my waist, steadying me. The sudden closeness meant his scent enveloped me instantly.

A warm, woody aroma filled my nostrils, a pleasant, enveloping scent of timber. It belonged to the person I’d been spending the most time with lately.

“Yoon Geon-woo?”

Before I even turned my head to confirm, I uttered his name. While I had no idea what brought Yoon Geon-woo to the General Academy building, I had never been so grateful for his appearance.

As always, Yoon Geon-woo’s expression remained impassive as his gaze lightly swept over Han Seon-ho and the frozen student council members. Then, a slight smirk twisted his lips.

It was, of course, a distorted smile, bordering on a sneer, but what surprised me, however, was that it wasn’t his usual tense, furrowed-brow, sensitive expression.

“Sogum! That just now… I accidentally—”

Having been momentarily stunned by Yoon Geon-woo’s appearance, I only snapped back to reality when Han Seon-ho spoke to me. His face openly betrayed his flustered inner turmoil.

“Oh, it’s fine. I know it was an accident.”

“Then, perhaps we could talk alone for a moment?”

Han Seon-ho suggested we speak privately, but I saw Gwon Hyeon-ju, who was standing behind him, urging him on, indicating that time was running out.

“Uh… I…”

The student council members present cast their gazes rapidly between me, Yoon Geon-woo, and Han Seon-ho.

As the awkward silence lingered, Yoon Geon-woo slowly released my wrist, which he had been clutching. He had abruptly grabbed my wrist, making me assume he would pull me out of the academy building to talk, but this was entirely unexpected.

“I’m going this way.”

Yoon Geon-woo gave a slight nod, his tone light. Then, he turned and strode away, not once looking back.

This wasn’t just unexpected; it was utterly baffling! For a moment, the question ‘Where are you going?’ was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t just stand there, dithering. I had to make a decision right then.

“Han Seon-ho, I’ll contact you later.”

While I had been looking forward to confronting Han Seon-ho, something told me it was better to follow Yoon Geon-woo this time. I diligently pursued Yoon Geon-woo, who had already distanced himself considerably. As I urgently called out to him, his swift steps seemed to slow down by a beat.

“Yoon Geon-woo!”

After considerable effort, I finally caught up to him, and only then did Yoon Geon-woo halt his stride.

“Hey, since we ran into each other here, why didn’t we just go together? Why did you walk off ahead?”

“How would you know where I’m going?”

“Weren’t you going to the room?”

“No.”

Yoon Geon-woo shrugged, as if to say, ‘What are you even talking about?’ This was utterly preposterous. I had just foregone a private conversation with Han Seon-ho because of him, and now he was acting like this…

“Then why did you tell me to follow you?”

“When did I?”

“What? ‘When’? Yoon Geon-woo, you clearly…”

Now that I thought about it, Yoon Geon-woo had only said, ‘I’m going this way,’ not explicitly told me to follow. But don’t people usually go together in situations like this?

“Hey, Sogum.”

As I simply stared up at him, Yoon Geon-woo pressed his index finger firmly against my forehead. His expression seemed somewhat serious. A wave of anxiety washed over me, wondering if something terrible had happened, and the brief moment before he spoke again felt like an eternity.

“You know, when you make a face like that, you look really ugly?”

However, what came out of his mouth was, predictably, pure nonsense.

“…What, you jerk?”

“I was just going to leave, but I couldn’t bear to look at you, so I spoke up. You ugly duckling.”

Just as I was about to retort, ‘What do you think you’re doing to me?’, Yoon Geon-woo withdrew his hand, then immediately flicked me hard between the eyebrows.

Thwack!

Given his inherent strength, that single flick made my head spin. It was a sharp, stinging pain that made my vision flash.

“Hey! You son of a… Ow…”

Clutching my head and groaning, I looked up only to find Yoon Geon-woo had vanished. It seemed he had hit me and then bolted.

Still, we’d be sharing a room tonight anyway; he couldn’t escape my grasp forever. What was the point in running? Yoon Geon-woo’s antics were so utterly absurd that the tears that had been welling up instantly receded.

‘Just wait until that jerk comes back to the room.’

Sharpening the blade of my revenge, I returned to the dorm first and waited for Yoon Geon-woo to come back. After a brief period of lounging, I opened a messaging app. Since I was idling away my time, and I had rushed out earlier promising to contact Han Seon-ho, I figured I should at least send him a message.

However, an alert popped up in my chat list, indicating a message from an unidentified user whom I hadn’t yet added. Distracted, I wondered if I hadn’t saved Joo Yeo-rye’s number yet, so I immediately checked the message.

[Unidentified User (Add Friend)]: Are you asking me on a date right now?

The content was odd. I even re-registered the number to confirm if it was indeed Joo Yeo-rye who had sent it to me, but no matter how I checked, it was undeniably his message.

‘What the hell is this nonsense?’

Overwhelmed with embarrassment, I quickly scrolled through our previous conversation.

[Joo Yeo-rye]: Your glasses have been repaired. You requested I leave my contact information previously, so I’m sending this message.

[Joo Yeo-rye]: Calls are currently unavailable.

[Me]: How have you been? I was thinking of giving you the repair fee for the glasses, and if you’re free, maybe we could meet briefly?

[Joo Yeo-rye]: Are you asking me on a date right now?

I had intended to use the repair fee as bait to extract information about Jung Eui-chan Esper, but now I wondered if I should just abandon this approach altogether.

“Haaah…”

It had been a truly long time since I’d sighed out loud. To think that just a few short sentences could give me such a pounding headache. In a way, I supposed it might even be a remarkable talent.

‘Should I… just block him?’

If this continued, I might end up with a disaster like ‘zero confessions, one rejection’. A sudden impulse surged through me to simply block him clean and forget Joo Yeo-rye ever existed. However, the last shred of my conscience screamed that I still owed him for the glasses.

[Me]: Absolutely not! It’s nothing like that, so just send me your account number. I’ll transfer the money.

I decided to settle my debt first, and then gradually discuss the necessary matters with Joo Yeo-rye. If I could extract information about Jung Eui-chan Esper, I figured I could tolerate this much.

[Joo Yeo-rye]: Attempting to curry favor by using money is a tactic employed by those of immature age who have not yet reached adulthood… (View Full Message)

I quickly put down my phone after only reading the preview. To think I believed I could tolerate this much. It seemed I had been entirely mistaken. My patience for Joo Yeo-rye’s eccentricities hadn’t increased by even 1%.

Simply reading the brief text on the screen had multiplied my fatigue severalfold. Indeed, it seemed there were things in this world that one’s will alone could not overcome.

‘…What did I just read?’

A few days later, I finally tapped ‘View Full Message’ to read the entire text, and just like that, Joo Yeo-rye’s name was added to my block list.

Of course, I occasionally ran into him on campus, and he would often observe me intently from behind his thick-rimmed glasses before disappearing. It bothered me considerably, so I knew I’d have to either confront him, unblock him, or somehow settle things with him soon.

****

Time flew swiftly, and already two months had passed since the demon beast incident on the first day of school. The late spring chill had subsided, and lush green foliage now sprouted across the campus, heralding the arrival of vibrant spring.

It had also been well over a month since Yoon Geon-woo and I became roommates. Having consistently performed sleep guiding with him every day, despite his attempts to escape, Yoon Geon-woo’s condition had noticeably stabilized recently.

However, the actual process of sleep guiding was far from smooth, with the biggest obstacle being Yoon Geon-woo himself. To put it bluntly, his sleep duration was extremely short. By my calculations, he seemed to be getting only an hour or two of fragmented sleep each day. Inadvertently, I had discovered the reason why his eyes were perpetually shadowed.

“Why on earth don’t you sleep?”

“I don’t usually sleep much.”

“You need to sleep too. That’s how sleep guiding works. Try to force yourself to sleep a little.”

“If I could, I would have done it sooner. Be realistic.”

For the first few weeks, he seemed to have consciously lain down and taken short naps during my sleep time, but the period after that was the real problem.

Somehow, even when we went to bed together every night, when I woke up in the middle of the night, he was usually gone. I had found it strange that the effects of sleep guiding were so slow, but… it turned out that once I fell asleep, Yoon Geon-woo would sneak out of bed and happily enjoy his free time.

When I first discovered this, we had a huge fight. Of course, we couldn’t just keep bickering, so we eventually reached a dramatic compromise.

“Yoon Geon-woo, let’s try to find a solution. You can’t live like this your whole life.”

“…What now?”

“Our goal is for you to get a good night’s sleep, so we’ll try everything.”

“How can you say ‘everything’ when you don’t even know what that entails? Aren’t you going to make me do something weird?”

“No, we’ll just have to test out each method for better sleep and see what works. Anything will be better than your current state.”

Yoon Geon-woo eventually resigned himself after several days of arguments. And for good reason: his contamination level had once again surged from the late 40s to the 50s, making sleep guiding an indispensable necessity.

And now, the long-awaited day had arrived.

“Stop resisting and come here quickly.”

“Damn it… Why do I have to do this…”

I patted the spot next to me on the neatly arranged bedding.

“It’s your turn for a pillow arm today.”

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