By Zephyria 
After that day, Haon deliberately avoided Cha Jeong-won.
He rearranged his class schedule and made sure to check the department chatroom before classes started. If someone mentioned seeing Cha Jeong-won somewhere, he would calculate the routes and plan his day to avoid overlapping.
‘It’s my last year anyway. A little effort like this is nothing.’
When class ended, he left immediately. Before turning a corner in the hallway, he would fix his gaze on his phone screen. Just in case they ran into each other head-on.
He didn’t go down the stairs all at once either, stopping on each floor to scan the floors above, below, and the hallways on both sides.
But the world was not on Haon’s side.
It was a library he had entered after clearly confirming no one was there.
The smell of dust and old paper stabbed at his nose. Haon walked slowly, running his fingers along the spines of the books.
“Found it.”
Haon reached out as he spotted the book he was looking for. But just as he pulled the book out, he sensed someone pulling a book from the other side of the shelf at the same time.
Through the empty space left by the book, he could see the other side.
Black hair, sharp eyes.
It was Cha Jeong-won.
Their gazes met precisely through the gap in the empty shelf.
‘……Damn.’
Haon felt his heart drop with a thud.
Startled, he dropped the book, which landed on his foot, causing a silent scream to rise and fall in his throat. Cha Jeong-won stared at Haon with an expressionless face, then turned and walked away with his book.
Haon also quickly picked up his book, hugged it to his chest, and walked in the opposite direction. His heart was pounding like crazy.
‘Why here, of all places? Why now, of all times?’
The entire way out of the library, he felt Cha Jeong-won’s gaze on his back.
＊ ＊ ＊
“What do you want to eat today?”
At Kim Hyun-gyu’s question, Haon answered while checking the school community on his phone.
“How about kimchi stew? It’s chilly today.”
“Sounds good.”
The two headed for the student cafeteria. As they walked down the hall and opened the cafeteria door, Haon’s steps halted.
Inside the cafeteria, by the window seat.
Cha Jeong-won was sitting alone.
To make matters worse, there were no empty seats visible except around him. It was the peak lunch hour, and almost all the seats were taken.
“Huh? It’s Jeong-won sunbae. Should we say hello?”
As Kim Hyun-gyu raised his hand to wave, Haon grabbed his arm.
“Hyun-gyu.”
“What?”
“I suddenly feel like eating pork cutlet.”
“Huh? You just said let’s have kimchi stew?”
“No. I’m craving pork cutlet.”
Haon practically dragged Kim Hyun-gyu out of the cafeteria. In his haste to open the door, he pinched his finger, but he ignored the pain and kept moving.
For a moment, he felt a cold gaze pierce his back.
Haon didn’t look back. He felt like he shouldn’t look back.
＊ ＊ ＊
Haon sprawled on a bench.
“Wow…….”
Who knew avoiding Cha Jeong-won would be this exhausting.
He tried hard not to run into him even by chance, but they kept meeting.
“Hey, Yoon Haon. Are you listening to me?”
When Hyun-gyu raised his voice, Haon only moved his eyes.
“You’re coming to the welcome party, right?”
“Welcome party?”
“Yeah, gotta see the freshmen’s faces.”
Haon frowned.
“We’re graduating soon. What freshmen and welcome party? No way.”
A freshman welcome party held no appeal for Haon whatsoever.
Even if a four or five-year age gap isn’t a big deal once you enter society, it’s different inside school.
He was about to leave, and the freshmen were just arriving. Naturally, he felt a distance.
But Kim Hyun-gyu didn’t seem ready to give up. Instead, he draped his arm over the bench armrest and leaned his upper body further toward Haon.
“We’ll be busy soon with graduation project prep, internships, and all that. If not now, when will we ever go?”
“What changes by going and seeing their faces? And like you said, we’ll be busy, so why bother looking?”
Haon put the coffee straw in his mouth and spoke curtly. But Kim Hyun-gyu wasn’t one to back down easily either.
“It’s not just first-years going. Aren’t you going to use assistants for your graduation project?”
Mentioning the graduation project he’d be working on all senior year softened Haon’s resolve. Planning it alone might be possible, but the more people helping with the final product, the better.
“Maybe you could manage without. With your skills. But didn’t you see the seniors last year? You saw the difference between having assistants and not having them is like heaven and earth. This welcome party is practically an assistant recruitment war.”
There wasn’t a single wrong statement, so he couldn’t argue back.
Kim Hyun-gyu closed his mouth for a moment, then smiled meaningfully. He leaned closer, speaking in an even lower voice.
“The reason you don’t want to go……”
It was the moment Haon had just barely swallowed a sip of coffee.
Kim Hyun-gyu scooted right up close to Haon and sat down. He was close enough to feel his breath.
“……is because of Jeong-won sunbae, isn’t it?”
“Whaat?”
Startled, Haon reflexively leaned his upper body back and waved his hand.
Thud. The cup hooked on the back of his hand spun a full circle in the air.
Coffee poured out, cascading over Haon’s thigh and the front of his shirt. A few ice cubes bounced up and fell, sliding between his thighs.
Haon shot up from his seat, shaking himself off. In the process, he bumped his knee against the corner of the bench.
“Ouch!”
His vision flashed white. The pain seemed to shoot right into his bones. His breath caught in his throat.
The timing was completely messed up.
As he hugged his aching knee, Kim Hyun-gyu hastily grabbed some tissues and stood up.
“Hey, you okay? Why did you get so startled by what I said? Ah, really. Sorry.”
He only said he was sorry, but his face looked like he was holding back laughter. It was a pretty absurd situation.
“Shut up. It’s all wet because of you.”
Haon gritted his teeth and rubbed his knee. It stung and felt numb.
The coffee stain and his bruised pride grated on his nerves simultaneously.
“You’re partly to blame too, getting all worked up about Jeong-won sunbae.”
“What do you mean, worked up?”
Haon roughly brushed off his clothes.
“Oh, please. You’ve been sticking your neck out like a meerkat everywhere, afraid of running into Jeong-won sunbae.”
“When did I?!”
Flinching, Haon shot him a glare. Kim Hyun-gyu laughed and held out a tissue.
Haon, who had been roughly pressing a tissue against the stain on his thigh, grabbed his knee again. It throbbed.
“But why have you been like this lately?”
“Like what.”
Kim Hyun-gyu roughly wiped the coffee off his hand and held up a finger.
“First. The elevator stopped, so we had to take the stairs up.”
“That couldn’t be helped.”
“Second. The hot water was working fine when I showered, but it stopped when you went in.”
He couldn’t argue against that one.
Having to shower with cold water since morning, his bones still felt chilled.
“Hey, isn’t it the apartment’s problem? It’s a new building, so why does it break down so much?”
“The apartment’s problem? You’re the problem. That never happened to me, you know?”
Kim Hyun-gyu narrowed his eyes and scrutinized him.
“Third. You keep getting minor injuries and messing things up. Look at you now. Coffee shower and knee bash. At this point, shouldn’t you admit it?”
“Admit what?”
“That you’re cursed.”
The assertive tone slightly hurt his feelings, but he couldn’t argue back.
Come to think of it, it had been a streak of misfortune since that incident on the stairs with Cha Jeong-won.
Before that, the elevator never broke down, and he never shivered from a cold shower first thing in the morning.
‘No way. It can’t be that misfortune is contagious, right?’
Shaking his head at his own ridiculous thought.
What, does bad luck transfer from a person? It’s not a smell.
“Hey. What did you say? Just now.”
“Nothing.”
Haon waved his hand dismissively and lowered his head. For no reason, a chill ran down his spine.
It was a nonsensical thought. Still, an uneasy feeling lingered in a corner of his mind.
＊ ＊ ＊
The next morning.
“We’ll be late. Hurry up.”
Kim Hyun-gyu’s voice echoed in the hallway. Haon, still smoothing down his slightly sleep-rumpled hair, shoved his feet into his shoes.
He had to wash with cold water again this morning. It was infuriating.
“I need to ward off the bad luck.”
The things he’d been experiencing lately were so absurd that he looked it up on his phone and found there was something called exorcism pollack. He’d been holding out until today, but if things didn’t improve, he thought he might buy one, so he put a suitable one in his shopping cart.
He locked the door and stood in front of the elevator at the end of the hall.
As soon as he pressed the button, ding, the door opened.
The moment both of them got into the elevator and Haon was about to press the button, Kim Hyun-gyu urgently clutched his stomach.
“Ah, wait a sec. I need the bathroom.”
“Now?”
“Stomachache.”
Before the door closed, he hurriedly got out of the elevator.
“Go ahead first.”
Click. The door closed.
“What did he eat by himself…….”
Muttering, Haon belatedly looked up. He had forgotten to press the first floor, and the elevator was going up.
With a sense of resignation, Haon leaned against the wall and turned on his phone.
Meanwhile, the elevator arrived at the top floor, the 9th floor.
He waited for the door to close, whether someone got on or not, but nothing happened no matter how long he waited. Thinking maybe no one was getting on, Haon looked up and unconsciously held his breath.
“……Sunbae-nim.”
It was Cha Jeong-won.