Just A Friend

#60

“Seonwoo, I’m sorry and thank you…”

Kim Minhwan whispered in his ear. He blocked the drinks coming towards Nam Seonwoo and handed him a glass of water.

“Oh, don’t worry about the others. I told them you came after hearing the news while you were in the hospital. They’re actually grateful. The reason everyone’s quiet now is… probably because of the atmosphere…”

Hearing this, Nam Seonwoo noticed a few classmates at the table giving him friendly looks. Perhaps because of the hospital excuse, none of them were forcing him to drink.

“Anyway, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bragged about having your contact… Oh, what should I do? Are you very uncomfortable?”

Despite his dejected appearance, Kim Minhwan’s chattering didn’t stop. So Nam Seonwoo patted his back and said,

“You did well.”

Just sitting next to Kim Minhwan seemed to create a solid wall in conversations with classmates. So he turned his attention back to Choi Youngjae’s table. He felt he needed to keep watching to ensure that pig bastard wouldn’t do anything dirty.

At some point, one of the freshmen drinking next to Choi Youngjae collapsed onto the table. Nam Seonwoo saw Choi Youngjae and his group exchanging glances over the freshman. It didn’t feel good.

“Oh my, looks like our junior is quite drunk. We should take them out for some fresh air to sober up, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Youngjae, go with them and get some outside air.”

Choi Youngjae brazenly supported the freshman to stand up. They had been made to drink so much that they could barely keep their balance.

That fucking bastard, I knew he’d do something like this.

His teeth gritted. Looking towards Kim Minhwan’s side, everyone seemed out of it, probably because of the alcohol. No one seemed to notice anything strange about the two leaving. Well, these kids who had just graduated high school wouldn’t know.

Nam Seonwoo gestured to Kim Minhwan. When he said he’d step out for a bit, Kim Minhwan nodded brightly.

“But can Seonwoo go alone? There are a lot of people… Aren’t you scared?”

“……”

For a moment, he considered taking this guy along, but there was no need to involve an innocent person. After managing to keep Kim Minhwan seated despite his attempts to get up, Nam Seonwoo looked for Choi Youngjae, but he was already out of sight. It seemed they had already gone outside.

He quickly ran out of the building. The outside had grown darker, and areas without lit signs were almost pitch black.

Where did they go?

After looking around for a moment, Nam Seonwoo headed towards the alley behind the building. He had a hunch they would have gone to the alley rather than the main street to avoid others’ eyes.

The narrow, long alley had no streetlights. The smell of cigarettes was so strong it was suffocating, from all the people who had come out to smoke while drinking. And as he had guessed, he could see Choi Youngjae’s back in the distance.

He pondered for a moment. There were three options. Pretend to know the woman and call out to her, confront Choi Youngjae and ask what he was doing, or just run up and hit that pig bastard’s head.

The first was the safest, but the problem was he didn’t know the woman’s name. If he pretended to know her clumsily, Choi Youngjae might insist it was a case of mistaken identity. And if he confronted Choi Youngjae seriously about what he was doing, it was obvious he’d come up with some nonsense excuse about her being his girlfriend or something.

So it had to be the third option.

He shouldn’t have criticized Kim Minhwan for being nosy. First, the plan to not get involved with Kang Jihan, and now the second plan of “staying hidden like a dead mouse for the first year of college” was about to be ruined because of this damn nosiness.

Nam Seonwoo looked down at his body. His physical condition had definitely weakened over the past year. He was taller than Choi Youngjae, but to subdue a drunk pig bastard, he needed some kind of tool.

He quickly scanned the surroundings. The ground was littered with cigarette butts. Bricks were too dangerous, so something a bit cuter than a brick. Like a lighter…

As he was walking with his head down, looking for something someone might have dropped, a shadow on the wall suddenly moved. Startled, he raised his head and saw someone standing in the shadows.

“Oh, sh-shoot…”

His heart was pounding. What he had thought was just a shadow suddenly moved, and there was a tall figure standing where he thought no one was. It was impossible not to be startled.

The man stood silently without apologizing. Focusing his eyes, the shirt looked somewhat familiar. That shirt, and the familiar rudeness. Suddenly, the scene at the entrance earlier came to mind.

‘Ah.’

That guy who was blocking the way earlier.

The man standing alone, his group having already gone inside it seemed, didn’t appear to be smoking. The cigarette held in his hand with his phone wasn’t even lit.

…Wait, a smoker, right?

“Excuse me.”

As he approached the man, he tilted his head slightly, but still couldn’t see his face. He couldn’t take off his hat, so he looked at the man’s chest area as he continued speaking.

“Can I borrow a lighter?”

“……”

After a moment of silence, the rude guy rummaged through his pocket and handed over a lighter. Instead of the expected cheap disposable lighter, it was a heavy Zippo lighter. And it looked brand new.

“…Don’t you have one you’ve been using, not this?”

Again, the rude guy said nothing. But seeing that he readily lent out something that looked expensive, it seemed he wasn’t completely lacking in manners, just not talkative. Nam Seonwoo nodded and rolled the lighter in his hand.

“I’ll send you money for this later.”

Although he lacked muscle, his night shooting accuracy was over 70% during his military service. Nam Seonwoo glared at the glimpse of the pig bastard’s back of the head, then swung his arm in a full swing.

He thought he heard a cracking sound.

“Fuck, what the-!”

It was a hit.

The rude guy said nothing even after seeing how his expensive lighter was used. Whether he was at a loss for words or what, at least he wasn’t angry, which was fortunate. Then he thought he heard a deflating sound, but soon a booming voice overlapped it.

“You there! Was it you? Who the fuck are you!”

Choi Youngjae, clutching his head, turned around and shouted loudly. Seeing his stance like he might charge at any moment, Nam Seonwoo thought, Well, goodbye to my quiet college life.

But something unexpected happened. Perhaps because of the pig-like squealing next to her, the woman leaning on Choi Youngjae seemed to sober up.

She seemed to grasp the situation, looking at the dark alley and the arm around her waist, and pushed Choi Youngjae with all her might, raising her arm high.

“Who the hell are you, you fucking dirty bastard!”

There was a crisp slapping sound, as if she had struck his cheek.

“Oh.”

After the exclamation came worry. Choi Youngjae was the type to get even more aggressive with women. As he hurried to run towards them, he heard quick footsteps from the opposite direction. Three people who ran up with the sound of walkie-talkies were wearing patrol vests.

“Are you the one who reported?”

When the female student shook her head, one of the police officers looked this way.

Report? But there was no one around…

Nam Seonwoo turned towards the rude guy. The man who had been standing still all this time slowly raised one hand. It was the hand holding the phone.

‘…Nice.’

He decided to revise his evaluation of the rude guy. He was a rare specimen in this day and age, with a proper sense of decency. He seemed to have good observation skills too, noticing something suspicious when Choi Youngjae passed by.

While two officers separated the drunk and belligerent Choi Youngjae from the woman, one approached with a notebook.

“I’ll need to verify the identity of the reporter. Could you please state your name and date of birth?”

Thanks to the timely arrival of the police, there would be no trouble with Choi Youngjae, which was fortunate. As he was waiting to ask the decent rude guy about the cost of the lighter after the identity check was over,

“Kang Jihan.”

At the voice from above, his body froze for a moment.

It was a voice he hadn’t heard once in a year. Yet somehow, it felt as if he had heard it just yesterday, and he had no idea why.

Suddenly, amidst the thick smell of cigarettes in the air, he thought he caught a whiff of the fresh scent he had noticed earlier. As if the voice itself carried a scent.

Unable to turn his head towards that direction, Nam Seonwoo’s eyes moved confusedly within the shadow created by his hat. His eyes rolled busily, as if unsure whether he wanted to confirm Kang Jihan’s face or not.

“Date of birth is-“

There was no need to hear the rest. This was really Kang Jihan. The moment that thought hit him, his frozen brain finally issued a command.

Run away immediately.

Nam Seonwoo took off without looking back. He might have heard the police officer shouting something behind him, but he didn’t care. As he pushed through the crowds of people on the main street, he desperately prayed.

Please, please, please don’t let him have noticed.

Nam Seonwoo only stopped running when he could see the officetel he had been holed up in for a year. Panting, he looked back, but there was no sign of anyone on the street. As the tension drained from him, he collapsed onto the ground and hit his hood repeatedly.

Why did I have to talk to him…!