Chapter 16.1

9. I feel a desire to have sex with someone who has a spouse.

‘Not to that extent. Besides, it is illegal.’

10. I can’t stand a day without sex.

‘I can stand one day.’

11. I look for a brothel because I can’t overcome my sexual desire.

‘That’s impossible. Besides, it is illegal.’

12. I feel a strong urge for perverted sex.

‘…’

It was difficult to say “yes” or “no” because the standard of “perverted” was ambiguous. Sang Woo was forced to put the decision on hold and read the rest.

More than 10 out of 20 questions were said to be sex addiction, and the only perfectly matched question was No. 5 “I feel uncomfortable in my daily life because I often think about sex.”

‘It wasn’t an addiction.’

He suspected mental illness because he thought of it all the time, but no matter how simple the self-tests were, if the results were so clear, it would be wrong. Fortunately, Sang Woo thought so.

As he put his cell phone in his backpack and stayed still, what happened the previous day came to mind. While working with his partner in the practice room, somehow, they got caught on fire and returned home early. They tried to break up after similar sex acts in the car, but they played around in front of the house and it escalated into a kiss out of nowhere. In other words, he was almost late for the “embedded system” class today because he slept late having sex until dawn without washing up.

‘You have to state the requirements exactly, Sang Woo. There’s no object.’

Jang Jae Young was inconsistent and slightly different from time to time. Some days he was silent, some days softer, and some days he was rough. It was hard to choose which one was better, but it wasn’t good to be determined and anxious. Yesterday, he was so mischievous that he rushed in with a fit of anger and accidentally crushed the glasses Sang Woo had taken off by the bed with his palm. When he went to sleep at dawn, Sang Woo found the frames of his glasses had been broken in half. When asked to give the price, he didn’t answer.

Sang Woo sat with his chin on his palm and thought hard. He was thinking of a sensual expression that Jae Young made last night, but the door suddenly burst open.

“Huck, huck, I’m sorry! Sunbaenim.”

The male student that appeared was gasping for breath. Sang Woo belatedly recalled that he was sitting in the conference room and was about to have a task meeting. Looking at the clock, he was seven minutes late. He didn’t even notice because he was distracted.

“Sorry, I’m sorry! I fell while riding my bike, I know it’s an excuse, but I should’ve come earlier…”

It didn’t seem like a lie. The elbow sticking out from under his short-sleeved tee was peeled and had caked blood.

“If you’re hurt, go to the clinic first.”

“What? No… It’s alright.”

The boy sat across from Sang Woo and wiped his sweat with the back of his hand. Sang Woo shifted his attention to the notebook he had opened in advance and grabbed the mechanical pencil.

“Then let’s start the meeting. The topic of the presentation is the concave algorithm. If you don’t like it, suggest an alternative.”

“Sleep…poetry.”

He frantically took out a crumpled paper and a pen from his bag. In the middle of the paper, he wrote ‘Omok’ in capital letters.

“We don’t have much time, so wouldn’t it be too complicated? I thought of an ATM…”

“That one’s too simple to get high grades. I’ll go with Omok.”

“…Yes. Okay then.”

It was a two-person presentation assignment for the mini-project of ‘Algorithm’ class. Although the student was there, Sang Woo didn’t expect anything from him and thought of doing it alone anyway.

“You know you get extra points if you implement it as a program, right?”

“Are you going to do it?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“I think it’s going to be difficult… Then we’ll have to start with a checkerboard. Well, do you have any plans?”

“You can implement the initial value of the checkerboard as an array and divide the value according to the cell size. And at each turn, check two types of diagonals, horizontal, and vertical. 3×3 processing is a bit complicated, but…”

Seeing the boy’s expression, Sang Woo quickly added, “I’ll take care of it.”

“What should I do?”

“After I hand over the program, you organize the process of focusing on dynamic programming. I think you could also mention memoization and recursive functions, and the chart required. I’ll make the program and send it to you by midnight on Sunday, so let me know your email address.”

The boy quickly took notes of Sang Woo’s suggestions. Then, he tore a piece of paper where he wrote down his email address and handed it over with both his hands.

“I’m not as good at coding as you are, but I’ll take care of the analysis and presentation.”

Can he trust him? Sang Woo cast a suspicious glance. If he won’t do it properly, he can do it alone.

After writing down his role and the male student’s role in the notebook, there was one role left to be decided. Creation of presentation materials.

“Leave the PPT to me,” Sang Woo said with confidence.

He wasn’t good at art, but he knew how to make a good PPT. After writing down the material production under his name, there was nothing left to decide at the meeting. Pushing in the pencil lead, he put the pencil in its case and put them in the bag with the notebook. As soon as he stood up, the boy called him.

“I… Sang Woo sunbaenim.”

“Why?” he replied with a slight smile, sitting with a firm expression.

“Thank you for letting it slide today.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were classmates in the ‘Data Structures’ class before. At that time, I was 3 minutes late for the meeting, so sunbaenim left and did the assignment separately, do you recall? I got a D and retook the course… of course, I don’t blame you now.”

‘He wasn’t a first-time offender.’

Sang Woo frowned. It was terrible that there were so many people in the world who understood the concept of Jae Young’s time.

“I thought you’d go away again this time… It surprised me that you were there.”

“…”

“Is it because it’s been a few years since then? I think the mood has changed since then.”

He bowed to Sang Woo after saying something so difficult to understand.

“I’ll work hard with the determination to learn a lot.”

“Uh, okay.”

Sang Woo had nothing to say, so he answered roughly and left the meeting room.

The hot sun of late May poured over his black hat as he exited the library building. Sang Woo chewed on the boy’s words and headed to the practice room. It was there three years ago when he took a data structure class. At that time, he was so strict that if his partner was late, he wouldn’t even meet them anymore.

‘I think the mood has changed since then.’

Did that mean the past version of him was gone? Then it seemed to be true to some extent. For example, Sang Woo tolerated his partner if he was late now. If he didn’t establish such a principle, he wouldn’t have met Jang Jae Young.

Before he knew it, he arrived at the art college that he was accustomed to. He climbed the three flights of stairs, opened the fourth door, and entered.

“You’re here, Mr. Cho,” Jae Young said without taking his eyes off his cell phone.

He was playing games as he leaned on a chair with his legs stretched out and his feet on the desk. He was wearing a blue shirt and black slacks, and although he wasn’t wearing a suit, he looked nice in Sang Woo’s eyes as if he was going to an important event. As he approached while listening to the game’s sound effect, Jae Young’s arms stretched out and wrapped Sang Woo’s waist and pulled him in.

“What do you think?”

“It’s a lot more fun than I thought. Are you sure we made this?”

Jae Young was playing the test version as Chuchu, a nomad wearing braids and a fur coat. He tossed grenades to clear out mobs and sprinted ahead, catching slow enemies with a rifle. Sang Woo looked at it quietly and then spoke.

“We need to adjust the grenade damage.”

“I know. It’s too fake.”

“The sound effects we used are good.”

“Well done. And I found two bugs. If you install a booby trap and change your weapon without moving, you are forced to log out. Check that and the control status window. It doesn’t go sideways.”

“I know the first one. I’ll check the second one.”

Sang Woo tried to return to his seat, but his hand, which was slowly groping his butt, pulled at his waist. Sang Woo grabbed Jae Young’s shoulders and raised him up a little so he wouldn’t fall, and before he knew it, his eyes were staring at Sang Woo. It was a distance where their lips would easily touch. Jae Young lowered his gaze and looked at Sang Woo’s lips, then he looked at his eyes again.

“Hey.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t you miss me?” he whispered very quietly.

“We were together until this morning.”

“Who cares.”

Sang Woo wanted to say that it was a problem to be swayed by lust even before 24 hours had passed since he ejaculated, but when he came to his senses, he was kissing him again. An irresistible sweetness couldn’t be denied. An event that happened more often than eating these days.

Jae Young, who slipped his hand into Sang Woo’s t-shirt and was groping, pulled and released the band. He broke the kiss and lowered his gaze.

“You’re wearing your new underwear. Can I see it?”

“Underwear isn’t something you wear for others to see.”

“I bought it for me to see.”

Sang Woo ignored the nonsense and stepped back as he sat in place.

“Since hyung took four sets of underwear, I had no choice but to wear new ones. Please bring some of your own.”

“Why don’t you wear anything else?”

“I already have enough clothes, so I don’t feel the need to wear new ones.”