Chapter 48 Part 1

Kim Gyeong-hun looked at the group members gathered for their project. He had booked the Study Room to bring them together, but he wondered if he had chosen a needlessly cramped space.

“Our presentation isn’t far off, so…”

He wanted to say they needed to finish quickly, but the look in Lee Jun’s eyes made him close his mouth.

“This won’t do.”

Lee Jun glared at the presentation material spread out on the desk with a displeased look.

“The material is too meager.”

“That’s true, but… as Senior Lee Jun knows, these aren’t internal documents.”

From the start, Lee Jun was aiming for a quality too high for a university student’s project, so there were limits to what they could find in publicly available articles. Kim Gyeong-hun tried to point this out, but Lee Jun’s refusal was quicker.

“Even so, there’s a limit to what we can gather just from these materials.”

At Lee Jun’s calm reply, Kim Gyeong-hun and Lee Jeong-yun became completely intimidated.

“See? I told you to change the topic.”

Meanwhile, Chaeheon, who had only been watching, spoke with a sly smile, as if trying to provoke Lee Jun, making the situation even more tense.

“How about this instead? We track a specific entrepreneur. Then we see if the outcome of their actions followed ethics or profit.”

It was a surprisingly detailed topic, and if they actually followed that example, it seemed like it could be interesting.

“That’s good!”

Kim Gyeong-hun liked it, and Lee Jeong-yun also nodded. However, Lee Jun couldn’t relax his expression; it wasn’t that it was bad, but he felt strange. Yet, no matter how much he thought, nothing came to mind.

“It’s too vague… We don’t know who to choose, and would that person even agree?”

“Is that so?”

Chaeheon casually withdrew his suggestion, and Kim Gyeong-hun and Lee Jeong-yun were quickly disappointed, as much as they had been hopeful.

“Let’s search again.”

“We don’t have much time…”

Kim Gyeong-hun said in a meek voice, sending a look of help towards Chaeheon.

“Do well.”

Chaeheon smiled, pressing them to get on with it, so now there was only one thing Kim Gyeong-hun could do: follow Lee Jun and sift through the materials again.

“Hyung… he’s grown distant.”

He changed after meeting Senior Lee Jun. He does whatever Senior Lee Jun wants, and he prioritizes Senior Lee Jun in everything. At Kim Gyeong-hun’s murmur about Chaeheon’s cruel change, Lee Jeong-yun nodded.

As Kim Gyeong-hun and Lee Jeong-yun left for class, Lee Jun and Chaeheon remained. They stayed rooted in that spot for three hours, and Chaeheon was the first to give in. He briefly took his eyes off his laptop and massaged his stiff neck.

Chaeheon, who had rolled his head around and stretched lightly, suddenly noticed the pheromones drifting in the Study Room and smiled. Just a moment ago, Lee Jun had completely suppressed his pheromones, so nothing could be felt.

But with just the two of them left, it seemed Lee Jun had let go of his tension, which pleased Chaeheon. He felt as if he alone had become someone special to Lee Jun.

Chaeheon repositioned himself to get a good view of Lee Jun.

He first met Lee Jun in his third year. Someone he had never seen before suddenly appeared.

[A freshman? Or have you just returned to school?]

Lee Jun merely crinkled his eyes, offering no reply. It wasn’t that he was in a particularly good mood, but rather that he didn’t want to engage.

[A transfer student? Second-year?]

He asked, hoping to hit on something, but Lee Jun seemed to have no intention of answering. He didn’t want to let him go like this…

[Are you shy? Come here. Junior.]

[I…]

[I won’t bite. Come here, I said?]

He had intended it as a joke to lighten the mood, but Lee Jun had simply closed the mouth that had barely opened. After going to such lengths and receiving no response, a subtle stubbornness welled up, and he approached him. Standing close, he realized Lee Jun was smaller than him. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed before, but then he realized Lee Jun’s face was small, giving him good proportions. That’s why he hadn’t known.

[He’s attractive.]

That was his impression upon seeing Lee Jun’s face. He’d thought Lee Jun caught his eye from the first moment, and it turned out Lee Jun was apparently his type.

That’s why he kept trying to talk to him, just to hear his voice.

But somehow things went wrong, and Lee Jun gave him a cold look and left.

It had been wrong from the start. Later, he learned who Lee Jun was, and though they were in the same year, he hadn’t known Lee Jun was older due to taking many leaves of absence.

After that, even when he tried to talk to him, it didn’t go well. Even if they were in the same class, Lee Jun treated him as if he weren’t there, and if they accidentally sat next to each other, he couldn’t even make eye contact once.

If it hadn’t been for that group project they happened to be in together, they wouldn’t be here now.

But that was then, and this is now, isn’t it?

“You’re not going to pull an all-nighter here, are you?”

If they had more to do, couldn’t they just go home? Lee Jun wasn’t uncomfortable coming to his house anymore, and it seemed better than the Study Room.

“I’ll do a little more, then go home.”

“So you’re determined to finish everything here before you leave.”

“Yeah. Send me what you’ve done so far.”

At Lee Jun’s words, spoken without looking away from his laptop, Chaeheon’s hand dropped onto his own laptop.

“If you ask for it, I’ll give it to you.”

He sent over the files he had gathered so far and took his hand away.

“Sent it. Check it.”

Chaeheon leaned towards Lee Jun as if to check it together. As he practically glued himself to Lee Jun’s arm and brought his head close, Lee Jun, belatedly realizing, pulled his upper body away from him.

“Why are you so close?”

“I just want to see.”

Chaeheon turned his head towards him and met his eyes.

“I’ll look at it and tell you.”

“Why would you do that? Just tell me what it’s like. If it’s not enough, we’ll just look again, I guess.”

Perhaps due to the close proximity to Lee Jun, Chaeheon’s complaints were noticeably fewer than before.

“Look at yours.”

Lee Jun pushed Chaeheon’s shoulder, creating distance. There was no need to be this close, so why?

“Senior.”

But Chaeheon didn’t back down. Instead, he grabbed Lee Jun’s chair, turned it towards him, and met his gaze.

“What are you trying to do?”

“I just want to see you up close.”

“Are you planning to just look and be done?”

“If going further is acceptable, I won’t refuse.”

“You won’t refuse?”