Eighteen's Bed-Chapter 22.1

I bit the inside of my lip.

I had nothing to say.

"You have no idea how much shit I went through because you bailed, do you?"

Honestly, I never expected to run into him again.

Not in a university this big, with so many different elective classes.

And yet, here we were.

Just my fucking luck.

"Like I told you before, I’m really sorry."

"Damn right you are. Of course, you should be sorry. But don’t worry—I’m willing to let it slide if you come to the group blind date I’m setting up."

"A what?"

Where the hell did that come from?

I stared at him in disbelief, thrown off by the sudden topic shift.

Then, he held up four fingers.

At the same time, my face instinctively twisted in discomfort.

Ever since last semester, I’d developed something of a trauma.

For some reason, seeing normal fingers unsettled me.

"Hey, can you—"

"Four-on-four. Yangyeong Pocha. I’ll send you the exact address later. Time? This Saturday at 7 p.m. Oh, and bring a friend. Someone decent. Not some loser."

Yangyeong Pocha?

Who the hell holds a blind date at a bar?

Or… wait, is that normal?

I had never given it a second thought before, and now, I found myself questioning everything.

As my mind struggled to process this sudden bombshell, Kang Suhyeon cut straight to the point.

His self-satisfied smirk was damn irritating.

"If you don’t show up, I’m taking your name off our next group project. Out of pure spite."

"Wait, what? Why?"

"You just disappeared last time—no calls, no attendance. And your friend, the one who transferred in? He dropped out before we even got to know him.

What the hell is up with people from your school? No sense of responsibility at all."

His gaze scanned me with a look of pure disappointment.

I averted my eyes and kept my mouth shut.

Because, well… I was guilty.

Feeling like I was being dragged into a trap, I nodded reluctantly.

"Good. If you don’t show up, I’m deleting your name off the PowerPoint slide mid-presentation. Got it?"

His fist clenched dramatically.

Now that I thought about it, Kang Suhyeon was our team leader.

And he was in charge of the PowerPoint.

Back when we first got assigned together, I’d been surprised by how quickly he volunteered for the position.

I thought he was just an overachiever.

The source of this c𝓸ntent is freewebnøvel.coɱ.

Turns out, he was just a manipulative asshole.

"Oh, and give me your number."

"My number? Why?"

"In case you try to bail again. The world’s full of flaky people, you know?"

"……."

I hesitated before reluctantly reaching for my phone.

Before I could even process what was happening, Kang Suhyeon shoved his own phone into my hand.

It wasn’t like I meant to ghost him last time.

I was just… dealing with a lot.

But I didn’t feel like explaining.

Because it wasn’t my problem.

It was Go Yohan’s.

After I punched in the last digit, he practically snatched his phone away.

"Oh."

"Expect a confirmation call from me."

He shot me a sharp glare, as if daring me to ignore it.

A second later, my phone rang.

As if that wasn’t enough, he squinted at the caller ID on my screen, double-checking his number.

Satisfied, he pointed two fingers at his eyes, then at mine.

"Be there on Saturday. If you don’t, you’ll officially be worse than human trash."

With that, he turned on his heel and strode away—only to suddenly stop.

Then, in a flash, he spun back around and quickly jogged back to me, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Oh, right. I’m in the mechanical engineering department."

One of my eyelids twitched.

Was he… winking?

God, I hoped not.

"Same year as you. Same age."

"…Great. Nice to meet you."

The moment I said that, he took off in small, quick steps.

And just like that, I was left sitting there, staring at the aftermath of the storm.

****

"That Bastard's a Lunatic."

Look who's talking.

I narrowed my eyes at the shameless asshole sitting across from me.

No self-awareness whatsoever.

Doesn’t he feel even a little embarrassed saying that?

Before calling someone else crazy, maybe he should reflect on his own personality first.

Just a thought.

"Yeah. He’s fucking nuts."

Still, I didn’t argue further.

Because I wasn’t much better.

At least, I’d accepted that about myself.

That made me slightly less shameless, right?

Even after graduating high school, my life hadn’t changed much.

I was still scraping the bottom of a meal tray.

The only difference was that it was university cafeteria food now instead of school lunch.

Basically, no matter how much I grew, nothing really changed.

And that applied to my life as well.

I only had to look at the person sitting in front of me to realize that.

Go Yohan.

Now officially 191 cm tall, finally done growing—a fucking giant.

The craziest bastard I knew.

And on top of that, an idiot who still sucked at using chopsticks.

A quail egg from the soy-braised beef kept slipping from his weak grip, tumbling down onto the table.

Or worse—the floor.

Pausing mid-bite, I scratched the bridge of my nose with my index finger, then put my chopsticks down and grabbed his hand.

Without a word, I stabbed the quail egg onto his chopsticks.

"Don’t pick them up. Just stab them."

"Damn, you’re smart."

"……."

Shouldn’t he be at least a little annoyed at me?

And yet, Go Yohan just popped the egg into his mouth and chewed peacefully.

Meanwhile, my insides felt like a war zone.

I kept my head down, tapping at the side dishes with my chopsticks.

From that day on, Go Yohan changed the way he held his chopsticks.

Not that it made him any less clumsy.

Just like how our relationship had become awkwardly unsteady.

Scratching my neck, I snuck a glance at him.

As always, my eyes gravitated toward his lips.

I still hadn’t broken this habit.

The moment I caught myself staring, I quickly looked away, pretending to focus on something else.

Under the table, my legs curled inward.

"How’s class?"

"Fucking unbearable."

He spoke after swallowing his quail egg, chewing it down hard.

I clenched my hand against my thigh beneath the table.

On the surface, Kang Jun looked fine.

"They’re already forming cliques based on which elite high school they went to—foreign language schools, private academies, whatever.

It’s disgusting. These people are just learning to be assholes."

"Ah, yeah. I went through that too."

I nodded, recalling a similar experience from a few days ago.

Some upperclassman from my department, who had apparently gone to my high school, approached me first.

They must’ve heard about me from the teachers.

They just patted my back and told me to ask if I had any questions.

That was it.

No further contact.

Just the occasional nod in passing.

"…What?"

Go Yohan’s voice dropped.

His hand, still gripping the chopsticks, flinched.

His reaction was way too sharp.

I put my own chopsticks down and rubbed my arm.

Forcing myself to sound casual, I replied,

"Apparently, there’s a senior from my high school in my major.

Not sure if they heard about me from the teachers or what, but they just said hi and told me to reach out if I needed anything.

That’s it. We don’t really talk."

The tension around me didn’t ease.

"Ah."

His short response was not satisfying.

It felt more like an obligatory reaction than an actual answer.

The clinking of utensils filled the silence.

"Is it a guy?"

"Yeah."

I quickly added,

"But we haven’t talked since."

Why was I explaining myself?

Even as I questioned it, I didn’t stop.

I kept glancing at Go Yohan, gauging his reaction, before picking my chopsticks back up.

Tried my best to act normal.

I shoved a bite of food into my mouth, but it felt rough going down.

The food wasn’t spicy, but my tongue stung.

Just as I reached for another quail egg, my chopsticks slipped, slamming against the tray with a loud clatter.

Startled, I looked up.

Go Yohan’s face was cold.

Snake-like.

"What’s his name?"

Ah.

I fucked up.

I bit my inner gums, hard.

"I don’t know. I forgot."

"How do you just forget?"

Pushing my food around on my tray, I muttered,

"I just… didn’t bother remembering."

"……."

The sound of my chewing filled my head.

It was that quiet.

I sat there, enduring the silence, waiting for Go Yohan to speak.

It wasn’t that hard.

He spoke faster than I expected.

"Who the hell forgets a senior’s name? You wanna tank your social life?"

"Then let it tank."

I glanced up.

Go Yohan had returned to his usual expression, biting into his food.

His voice was still heavy and low, and his chopsticks hovered idly over his tray.

He looked lost in thought.

For some reason, my chest felt tight.

Uncomfortable, but not unpleasant.

Under the table, I crossed my ankles.

Something jumped inside my chest, like a fish breaking the surface of water.

Forcing my mouth open, I said,

"I’ll be hanging out with you all the time anyway.

Social life doesn’t matter."

"……."

I stole a glance at his eyebrows.

They didn’t twitch.

So… was he satisfied with my answer?

Or was he just holding back?

Like a midsummer night’s dream, his sharp expression flashed before fading away.

His voice, once cutting, had softened ever so slightly.

"Let’s sync up our schedules next time. Take electives together."

"Alright."

"And don’t just randomly pick classes again like you did this time."

"Hey, randomly? I put a lot of thought into this.

Unlike you, who took a gap year, I had to fix my GPA."

"First-year grades are meant to be trashed. It’s a long-standing academic tradition."

"Then you should’ve trashed yours first.

Even skipped the required electives while you were at it."

"What the hell are you saying? You're not even planning to jump into the job market anyway."

"And you are?"

Neither of us had anywhere to go.

I shot him an incredulous look, only for Go Yohan to mirror my expression perfectly.

Then, he smirked.

"Of course not. My competition’s ready to tear each other apart just for a chance."

"Ah…."

"What was it again? ‘Siblings are a gift from God’? Give me a break. In the end, the one who laughs last is always an only child."

Go Yohan grinned, baring his teeth like a wolf.

I let out a short, breathy chuckle.

"Then you should only have one kid too."

"Damn, Kang Jun."

He cracked his neck once before flashing a lopsided grin, half amused, half mocking.

"Making history with your grand ambition—to get pregnant as a man."

"……Hey."

"Relax, I’m joking."

He waved his hand lazily before muttering, avoiding my gaze.

"Don’t take it seriously."

"……."

Our relationship was ambiguous.

Not distant, not close.

Just floating at this level of proximity, stuck in some weird, undefined space.

Go Yohan had spent most of his time in a depressive fog, only to suddenly bounce back into his usual mischievous self.

Or rather, his playful attitude only returned when I started responding to his jokes again.

Ever since then, we kept things this way—this precarious balance of playful jabs and transparent walls.

The moment I started playing along was the same moment Go Yohan changed how he used his chopsticks.

I was watching his awkwardly crossed chopsticks when he suddenly spoke.

"Oh yeah, take me to the group blind date."

"……?"

I must’ve misheard.

But his expression was calm, almost too natural.

I asked, just to be sure.

"What did you just say?"

"You need to bring a decent friend, right? No need to think too hard—I’m obviously the best choice."

A breath of disbelief escaped me.

Seriously, this bastard…

In so many ways, he was fucking ridiculous.

"Saturday at seven, right? Let’s go together."

"Wait, why the hell would I take you?"

Why there?

Why now?

I was so thrown off, I started stammering.

Go Yohan… does he actually want to go to a blind date?

I had only agreed to this thing in the first place because I was trying to find a way not to go.

So why was he—

An uncomfortable feeling, like moss creeping over damp stone, spread through me.

What the hell?

Irritated by his baffling thought process, I pressed my lips together.

Go Yohan set his chopsticks down and stared at me with a twisted expression.

The hell?

Why was he the one looking at me like that?

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You’ve got some nerve. Were you planning to go without me?"

"No, I wasn’t planning to go at all."

"Why not? You’re already struggling with this retake—you wanna completely screw over your grades too?"

"……."

"You’re out of your fucking mind."

Go Yohan scoffed, looking at me like I was the dumbest person alive.

"You think grades are a joke?"

Oh, I’m the dumb one?

Says the guy whose GPA got absolutely plowed by his professor last semester?

He got a whole field of Cs, man.

If farmers could harvest grades, they wouldn’t have to worry about crop yields this year.

It’d be a damn good season.

This—

This guy…

If we were living in medieval Europe, he would’ve been burned at the stake for heresy.

He was probably executed in his past life for insulting Jesus or something.

Trying to cool down, I let out a slow exhale.

This time, I slammed my chopsticks down onto my tray.

The stainless steel trays from high school had been replaced with cheap, white plastic ones in university.

Probably so we could all eat microplastics and die faster.

Whatever.

I glared at my tray for no reason.

Go Yohan picked up his chopsticks again—crossed in that stupid X shape.

Goddamn it.

I leaned back against the worn-out cafeteria chair.

"Am I seriously going?"

"Yeah, you’re going."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Who’s stopping you? Just go."

I absentmindedly picked up a side dish, then dropped it back onto my tray.

Except half of it missed and scattered onto the floor.

Fucking hell.

"Ah, shit…."

Go Yohan clicked his tongue, brushing the fallen food off his thigh.

The scraps tumbled onto the already-dirty cafeteria floor.

This bastard.

Who the hell was gonna clean that up?

The floor was already nasty, but that didn’t mean he could just casually add to the mess.

Unbelievable.

Go Yohan was always a pain in the ass.