By Zephyria 
He straightened his hunched-over body, but the awkwardness remained unstraightened.
“And why would I deliberately approach you, sunbae?”
He hadn’t done anything.
He dropped his phone, went to pick it up, and found the wallet… that was all.
“Ah.”
Suddenly, he remembered something about the wallet.
Come to think of it, he’d seen this wallet recently at the hospital. Back when Cha Jeong-won paid his hospital bill, he had stared intently at his wallet.
“I just found it lying here in the corner… It’s yours, right?”
“Look.”
Instead of taking the wallet, Cha Jeong-won just pointed at it.
“You picked it up thinking it was mine.”
At Cha Jeong-won’s words, Haon’s mouth fell open.
Was he really going to spin it like that?
“Do you really think that?”
Cha Jeong-won looked down at Haon without the slightest change in expression.
Maybe because of their eye level difference, it somehow looked like he was looking down on him.
“Yeah. That’s how it looks.”
At his short, nasty retort, Haon felt a surge of anger.
He took back all the pity he felt for him yesterday.
“Take your wallet. And whether you believe me or not, I’m telling you it wasn’t me.”
Haon turned his head to look for Kim Hyun-gyu.
It seemed Cha Jeong-won was the one who said he’d come find him. No wonder he’d been so restless, wanting to bring up Cha Jeong-won the whole way here.
If the person he was supposed to meet was Cha Jeong-won, he should have just said so. So that’s why he was making such a fuss earlier—he planned for them to meet like this.
“You remember my wallet but say it wasn’t you?”
“That’s… Ah, here’s the hospital money.”
He was about to mention the hospital but stopped and hurriedly pulled his wallet from his pocket.
While he was hastily taking out his wallet and pulling out money, Cha Jeong-won stepped closer.
Haon, startled, stood frozen stiff. Cha Jeong-won approached as if it didn’t matter whether Haon was like that or not.
His breath reached him. And his pheromones reached him too.
That sweet yet heavy scent he’d smelled yesterday under the sculpture stabbed at Haon’s nose again.
He wanted to smell it more. An impulse arose to draw it deep into his body. His lips felt parched.
Haon moistened his dry lips with his tongue, then lightly bit them with his teeth.
‘Get a grip.’
His pheromones are nice, sure. So what?
This wasn’t the time to be losing his mind over someone else’s body scent.
Haon pulled out the bills and held them out without even counting. He’d already taken them out earlier to pay the hospital bill, so there was no need to count separately.
“Here, take it.”
But Cha Jeong-won only glanced at Haon’s hand and didn’t take the money. Instead, he leaned his upper body even closer, causing Haon to flinch involuntarily.
At this rate, they might touch… but where and how would they touch…?
He was bending back so far his waist might break. Haon tightly shut his eyes and turned his head.
He shouldn’t have gotten up!
“You shouldn’t do this here.”
This is bad.
In that moment of intense tension, Cha Jeong-won’s presence quickly moved away. Haon blinked.
“Pretending it’s nothing, but you smelled my pheromones too. And you say I’m misunderstanding?”
What kind of talk was this now?
Haon was at a loss for words and just blinked.
He wondered what had just happened. Cha Jeong-won had come close to him, then moved away without doing anything. And at that moment…
Rather than relief, an inexplicable emptiness washed over him.
‘No. Why would I feel empty?’
Haon let out a hollow laugh and turned his head. Cha Jeong-won was standing still in that spot.
“I smell it because it’s there to smell. If I emitted pheromones, could you, sunbae, avoid smelling them?”
This is purely about smelling something because there’s a scent.
“Keep pretending it’s nothing.”
After saying that, Cha Jeong-won took only his wallet and walked off nonchalantly.
“What the.”
As Haon watched his retreating back with a bewildered feeling, Kim Hyun-gyu arrived carrying three coffees in a carrier.
“Like I saw yesterday, he’s really, ruthlessly handsome.”
He was handsome to an unreal degree. But that wasn’t all.
“Seems his mood is pretty bad again today. If I had a face like that, I’d be smiling every day.”
“Is that what you’re saying now?”
Haon grumbled as he put the money he was holding back into his wallet.
“He suddenly appeared and startled me.”
“Really? When you’re startled, you close your eyes, huh?”
Kim Hyun-gyu laughed slyly as if he’d seen everything. Haon glared at him.
“He shoved his face in mine without any warning, that’s why. Why would he do that without saying anything…?”
“Probably wanted to see your face up close. Or did you think he was going to kiss you or something?”
“Shut up. I’m leaving first.”
Teased by Kim Hyun-gyu, Haon roughly snatched a coffee from him and left the cafe. He didn’t want to stay in the cafe any longer, perhaps because of the other people’s gazes.
“Huh? Hey! Where are you going? He hasn’t even arrived yet?”
Kim Hyun-gyu’s voice from behind was drowned out by the voices of other people in the cafe.
Haon walked toward the school, cooling his agitated insides with the cold americano.
He was on high alert, looking around, worried Cha Jeong-won might pop out from somewhere again.
He’s not in sight… Well, I guess I did think I might meet him at the cafe.
He rubbed the back of his head where it had bumped against the table earlier.
“I shouldn’t meet him. I’ve already experienced it once.”
It was a vow to himself.
“Even if I know what kind of fate that person has, it’s not like I can change anything.”
He didn’t know why Cha Jeong-won’s wallet was there, but finding it was enough. Honestly, his own situation wasn’t good enough to worry about Cha Jeong-won.
“I need to get through the remaining semester well and get a job.”
Graduation project, graduation, employment.
To pass the three remaining hurdles, he’d even quit his part-time jobs. Thanks to that, he had to frugally manage his living expenses with only his savings, so his situation was quite desperate.
He couldn’t afford to slip up even a little here.
If something like going to the emergency room on the first day of classes happened repeatedly, it would cause a hitch in Haon’s plans.
Of course, that person probably didn’t want to tumble down the stairs on purpose, but still.
To calm his pounding heart, Haon gulped down the americano… but he didn’t calm down at all.
Meanwhile, Kim Hyun-gyu, left behind in the cafe, scratched his head with a troubled expression.
“He shouldn’t have left like this…”
Just then, a man entering the cafe looked around, spotted Kim Hyun-gyu, and waved. Kim Hyun-gyu also spotted him and called out in a troubled voice.
“Over here. Seo-jun.”
“Hey, hyung. Where’s Haon hyung?”
At Cha Seo-jun’s question, Kim Hyun-gyu turned his shoulders to face outside the cafe.
“Something urgent came up, so he left first.”
“Suddenly? He said he had time today.”
“Uh, yeah, he had time, but something suddenly came up.”
At Kim Hyun-gyu’s evasive answer, Cha Seo-jun’s eyes narrowed. That face reminded him of someone, making Kim Hyun-gyu promptly shut his mouth.
Cha Seo-jun, Cha Jeong-won.
An uncommon surname, a strikingly handsome face, and Cha Seo-jun, who possessed the same crazy height as Cha Jeong-won. They weren’t strangers.
He couldn’t tell this Cha Seo-jun that Haon had met Cha Jeong-won and left all flustered and red-faced.
“Haon hyung still likes playing tag, I see.”
Unaware of Hyun-gyu’s inner thoughts, Cha Seo-jun recalled Yoon Haon with a face mixed with regret and anticipation.
＊ ＊ ＊
Entering the classroom, Haon looked for an empty seat and paused at a familiar back.
It was Cha Jeong-won. He was recognizable at a glance, as if someone had stuck a nametag on the back of his head. Haon silently headed for a back seat.
“Hey, why are you going there…?”
He grabbed the arm of Kim Hyun-gyu, who had followed him in, and sat him down beside him.
“Anyway, they don’t do anything on the first day. Let’s just sit.”
Since usually all classes in the first week are just orientations, he expected this class to be the same.
Haon was quickly making excuses when he suddenly lowered his voice the moment Cha Jeong-won looked back.
“Let’s just stay here and then go.”
“Me? Well… sure.”
It was fortunate Kim Hyun-gyu was simple-minded.
After that, even while the professor came in and talked about the class, all of Haon’s nerves were directed at Cha Jeong-won.
Cha Jeong-won was also in his first semester of fourth year, and so was he.
Most of the classes Haon was taking overlapped. And considering the graduation exhibition?
He’d probably see him as often as he saw Kim Hyun-gyu.
‘This doesn’t seem like something I can just let slide, does it?’
It was obvious they’d frequently run into each other without even trying. Haon’s gaze changed.
‘Let’s deliberately avoid him.’
He thought it would work if he made up his mind to do so.