Chapter 9: The Swollen Dumpling and Summer Plans

The next day, a first-period class was scheduled—the very lecture Yeon-chae audited. Arriving just barely before class began, Yoonwoo found few empty seats.

Hyun-jun, who was seated somewhere in the middle, waved his hand, calling Yoonwoo over. It was an ideal spot, neither too far front to feel pressured nor too far back to have an obstructed view.

“Come here! I saved you a seat.”

Hyun-jun greeted him, moving the bag he had placed on the adjacent seat. Yoonwoo was about to sit down without much thought, but then he abruptly looked up, scanning his surroundings.

“Why? Is this seat no good?”

“It’s not that… It seems Yeon-chae hasn’t arrived yet, and the only remaining seats are in the very back row.”

“Oh? Yeon-chae?”

“We always sit together, all three of us. I feel bad taking a good seat just for us.”

“Hey, why bother saving a seat for him? He’s just auditing; who knows if he’ll even show up?”

“He’s never missed a class. I think he’ll come, even if he’s a bit late…”

Now that Yoonwoo thought about it, Yeon-chae always arrived in the lecture hall long before him, saving seats for them. Thanks to him, even in a fiercely competitive required course, they had always been able to attend class comfortably.

As this realization dawned on him, Yoonwoo suddenly felt a slight resentment towards Hyun-jun. Hyun-jun had also benefited from Yeon-chae throughout the semester, so it would have been nice if, for once, he’d arrived early enough to save a seat for Yeon-chae too.

However, Yoonwoo had arrived even later than Hyun-jun, putting him in no position to complain. He simply puffed out his cheeks in annoyance, unable to utter a word.

“Aren’t you going to sit?”

As Yoonwoo hesitated, still standing, Hyun-jun asked, a hint of confusion in his voice. Yoonwoo dragged out his reply.

“Well…”

He was still rolling his eyes, lost in thought, when a familiar voice called Yoonwoo from behind.

“Yoonwoo sunbae.”

“Oh, you’re here?”

Yoonwoo quickly spun around. Then he exclaimed in surprise.

“Yeon-chae, what’s wrong with your eyes? Didn’t you sleep?”

Yeon-chae’s eyes were as red as a rabbit’s.

The previous night, Yoonwoo had ultimately returned home before 2 AM. After heartily eating jjajangmyeon, he felt too sleepy to endure any longer.

As a guilt-ridden Yoonwoo grumbled, Yeon-chae, walking beside him, offered a faint smile. His face, illuminated by the dim moonlight, shone pale.

‘I enjoyed it.’

‘Hey, I mean, I enjoyed it too. The jjajangmyeon was really delicious. But that’s not the point right now…’

Delicious food was one thing, but he should have either studied or, better yet, slept during that time. He had planned to fill his stomach and study all night to avoid falling asleep once he got home.

But instead, he’d only filled his stomach and then gone home sleepy. What a reversal of priorities! In the end, it felt as if he had simply eaten jjajangmyeon on a moonlit lawn for no particular reason.

Yoonwoo trudged towards the main gate, his face etched with profound disappointment. At that moment, Yoonwoo was too preoccupied with feeling endlessly sorry for his future self.

‘That was my point, though.’

Because of this, he missed Yeon-chae’s disheartened voice. ‘Huh? What did you say?’ Yeon-chae shook his head without answering. His broad shoulders seemed somehow slumped.

In any case, since Yeon-chae had left school right away with Yoonwoo, he should have been able to get at least five hours of sleep. Yoonwoo felt a bit tired, but he had often slept less, so he could manage.

Yeon-chae, however, looked as if he had pulled all-nighters for two or three consecutive days. Yoonwoo gazed at Yeon-chae’s rabbit-red eyes and spoke with concern.

“You’re just auditing. Why push yourself to come? You should have just rested at home.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Yeon-chae replied in a hoarse voice, slowly turning his head. Facing a face he hadn’t seen in seven hours, Yoonwoo was surprised once more.

The boy who had been perfectly fine last night had, in that short time, become a swollen, burst dumpling. His faint inner double eyelids seemed to have completely unfolded and vanished, and his soft cheeks were so swollen they looked ready to burst.

For a moment, Yoonwoo almost burst into laughter, but he gritted his teeth and held it back. This was because Yeon-chae’s expression was exceptionally somber.

“Sunbae…”

“Oh, Yeon-chae. What is it?”

Yoonwoo hastily replied, as Yeon-chae’s voice seemed to tremble faintly. His fingertips tingled from suppressing the urge to poke the ‘dumpling’ just once.

“Are you going to sit here?”

“Huh?”

Yeon-chae’s gaze shifted towards Hyun-jun. Yoonwoo’s head followed his eyes, turning in the same direction. Hyun-jun, sitting in his seat with a sullen expression, looked up at Yeon-chae with a ‘what is it?’ look.

Students seated on either side also looked their way, as if wondering what was happening. There was still only one seat left.

Yeon-chae’s long eye-corners drooped downwards. His downcast eyes and fluttering eyelashes appeared sorrowful. His red lips parted hesitantly.

“Then I’ll… go sit in the back…”

At that instant, Yoonwoo sprang up from the seat he had almost taken, quickly grabbed his bag from the desk, and urgently exclaimed, “No! I’m not sitting here!”

Yoonwoo wasn’t that shameless. He had tact and knew proper etiquette. He couldn’t just casually abandon Yeon-chae, who had consistently arrived early for two months to save their seats, simply because he was late for one day.

Yoonwoo scowled and sharply slapped away Hyun-jun’s hand, which was tugging at the hem of his hoodie. “I’ll sit in the back. There are plenty of seats over there.”

The ‘dumpling,’ who had been acting pitifully like an abandoned puppy, smiled brightly. Relieved, Yoonwoo smiled back and said, “You sit here. Hyun-jun saved you a good seat.”

“…”

Yeon-chae seemed about to say something, but at that moment, the professor entered, and he lost his chance. While the professor, ten minutes late, apologized for his tardiness, Yoonwoo hastily dashed towards the back seats.

Even after that, Yoonwoo would occasionally recall the swollen, burst dumpling from that day. The ‘dumpling’ often appeared during exam periods, invariably showing up the day after studying late into the night with Yoonwoo.

He initially thought it was due to late-night snacks, but it also happened even when Yeon-chae had successfully resisted temptation and eaten nothing. One day, Yoonwoo became so curious about the ‘dumpling’ phenomenon that he casually remarked, “Your cheeks seem a little puffy today, don’t they?”

Yeon-chae’s eyes, which were so swollen they barely opened, widened significantly. “Am I ugly?”

“No, not at all! You’re cute, incredibly cute.”

“Really…?”

Yoonwoo gently reassured him that it was true, then asked why he was swollen. The gloomy reply came back: he easily swelled if he didn’t get enough sleep. Yoonwoo wondered then why Yeon-chae couldn’t have slept enough, considering he should have gotten around six hours even that day.

It was only over a year after they first met that Yoonwoo learned Yeon-chae absolutely had to be in bed by 11 PM and needed an average of nine hours of sleep a day.

“Are you Cinderella? Do you have to go home when the clock strikes twelve?” Yoonwoo teased Yeon-chae, then, “No, wait. You’re Sleeping Beauty. Who sleeps for nine hours?” he corrected himself.

Yeon-chae rolled his eyes, a flush of awkwardness and embarrassment spreading across his Snow White-like pale cheeks. Yoonwoo burst into laughter, this time thinking to himself, ‘You can be all the Disney princesses by yourself.’

A few days before final exams ended, Yeon-chae began asking Yoonwoo about his plans for the vacation. Having no plans, Yoonwoo found it difficult to answer.

As Yoonwoo mumbled, trailing off his words, Yeon-chae’s face quickly fell. He felt compelled to provide some kind of answer.

“Oh, uh, I was thinking of going to the summer MT. I couldn’t go in spring, you see.” A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he blurted it out.

Since Woo-jae, the student representative for the business administration department, was his peer, Yoonwoo often participated in most departmental events. This time, in particular, Woo-jae had persistently pestered him about missing the spring MT because Yoonwoo couldn’t get time off from his part-time job, so Yoonwoo had already cleared his schedule for this one.

Yoonwoo also regretted not attending the spring MT, so he was determined to participate this time.

“Summer MT? There’s such a thing?”

“Huh? You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know… Sunbae, are you going there? Really?” Yeon-chae slightly furrowed his brow as he asked.

Yoonwoo had noticed before that Yeon-chae was always late to hear news related to school or their department. This was true even though announcements were posted regularly in the department group chat.

Had he perhaps not yet been invited to the group chat? A slightly worried Yoonwoo extended his hand to Yeon-chae. “Yeon-chae. Let me see your phone for a moment.”

“Yes? Oh, here.” Yeon-chae, though puzzled, quickly placed his phone in Yoonwoo’s palm. A numerical password entry screen appeared.

When Yoonwoo held it out, asking him to enter the password, Yeon-chae looked flustered. He suddenly blushed, merely blinking his eyes.

“W-wait a moment…” He then quickly took back his phone, covered the screen with one hand, and typed in the password. His anxious glances towards Yoonwoo were amusing.

“Hey, I’m not looking, I’m not looking. Take your time.” Yoonwoo chuckled and patted the back of Yeon-chae’s head. Perhaps it was just a feeling, but it seemed he had to stand on his tiptoes even more than before.

Maybe Yeon-chae had grown taller over the semester. He was twenty, yet still seemed to be growing. Yoonwoo felt a strange sense of pride, even though he hadn’t raised Yeon-chae himself.

“It’s not that… You can see everything. Here.” “Huh? No, you don’t need to show me everything.”

Yeon-chae, having unlocked it, placed his phone in Yoonwoo’s hand. Just moments after meticulously hiding his password, he suddenly acted as if he had no privacy at all.

“The messenger is here. What do you want to see? Do you want to see my chats with my friends?”

“No, I just wanted to check if you were in the group chat.” Even though Yoonwoo said it was fine, Yeon-chae’s face, as he deliberately opened the messenger to show him, held a strange sense of confidence.

Yoonwoo, with no other choice, leaned his head close to Yeon-chae’s and peered into each chat window he opened. It was a messenger filled with surprisingly impersonal and dry conversations.

As Yoonwoo casually skimmed through the conversations, he wondered why he was even looking at them. Yeon-chae had been glancing at Yoonwoo, seemingly expecting something.

Feeling burdened, Yoonwoo rolled his eyes, lost in thought. He wondered if Yeon-chae had gotten a girlfriend and wanted Yoonwoo to notice. However, even after thoroughly scanning the chat logs again, there was no trace of a girlfriend, or even a ‘something going on.’

With nothing else to say, Yoonwoo simply blurted out whatever came to mind. “There’s not much to these conversations… You don’t have anyone you’re interested in, or anyone you’re ‘seeing’?”

“Right? I don’t have anyone.” “Oh? Uh, yeah, you don’t.”

Yeon-chae brightened, as if this was the answer he had been hoping for. It was a relief to have guessed correctly, but Yoonwoo couldn’t understand why Yeon-chae wanted to boast about *not* having a girlfriend.

It was simply impossible to keep up with what went on in the minds of young people these days.