Chapter 6.16

‘Never appear before me again.’

It was the second time he heard it. Sangwoo felt terrible both then and now, but he was happy to hear it. Within seven minutes of hearing that, he came out of his apartment properly dressed and wearing a backpack. He headed to school while pedaling hard enough for his legs to break. He arrived when it was time for the first period to end. Sangwoo headed to the engineering college with his nose streaming.

Jang Jaeyoung had declared that he would walk out of his life, so his troubles had practically disappeared. All that remained for him to do was to restore the seat that this typhoon had swept through. After standing in front of classroom #303 while waiting for people to leave, Sangwoo sat down in his spotless seat. He opened the textbook for his major and read the letters with greater intensity than he ever had before. His sympathetic nervous system gave him an adrenaline rush.

His anger towards Jang Jaeyoung was a powerful motivation. Sangwoo made eye contact with the professor with a blazing look and took notes while pressing down with enough pressure to rip the paper. He memorized every single detail. All he had to do was to look at the problem, and the solution would appear in his head. He felt like he was playing a game where he got a fever buff2. His heart was pounding.

He couldn’t stand his daily routine being ruined by Jang Jaeyoung and others. Determined not to become a victim, Sangwoo led a more fiercely efficient life on that Friday than he usually did. He sat by his desk and studied without getting up for hours at a time and solved homework problems during his part-time job. He looked at the letters with his eyes wide open without skipping even the least important question.

When he came home on Sunday night, he collapsed on his bed.

His three-day long Fever Buff was on its last legs. Sangwoo felt slightly depressed and severely fatigued. He made an effort to not think about anything, but as he was lying down and looking at the ceiling, his head was filled with all sorts of trivial things. Things such as a hand that suddenly appears, swearing out of spite, pretending to be close by saying his name, or a tongue that was slowly licking lips, were all related to one person. The virus in his brain that was called Jang Jaeyoung seemed to increase like a geometric progression.

That phenomenon continued even after the fire had been extinguished. It was an unpleasant evening.

return 0;

Week 3. A complete program with errors debugged had been run.

8:30am: Wake up, exercise, shower, breakfast

9:16am: Go to school

9:24am: Arrive at school

9:30am: Arrive at the classroom, study ahead, review

10:00am: First class begins

10:50am: Transfer classrooms

11:00am: Second class begins

12:00pm: Transfer to the restaurant, meal

12:28pm: Transfer to the snack shop, buy coffee, walk

12:45pm: Transfer to the library, check new book, book loan, solve homework

6:00pm: Transfer to the restaurant, meal

6:28pm: Return home, brush teeth, change clothes, rest

7:00pm: Game

9:00pm: Study game trends, figure out community trends

10:00pm: Study programming languages

12:00am:  Reserve library seat, rest

12:30am:  Bedtime

Sangwoo went to school at the same time, sat in the same seat, and took his classes sitting with the same posture. The ‘Embedded Systems’ class seemed as fresh as when he took it on the first day. As Sangwoo had been frequently disturbed and thus not been able to concentrate at all, it was no different than it being the first class to him. The professor called for Sangwoo after class, which had been hectic because he was checking the parts he needed to study separately.

“Come see me when you’re done.”

“Yes.”

In the past, he would have felt as if the sky were falling down, but Sangwoo put his book in the bag with a calm expression. There were so many strange things that had been happening, so this amount of stress felt like nothing. Sangwoo got up from his seat and headed towards the teachers’ platform. The professor was putting away the microphone.

“You asked to see me?” Sangwoo said in a gloomy voice.

“I noticed you were absent during  the previous class. Why?” The professor said while winding up the microphone cord.

‘My sunbae, who’s a dude, erratically asked me to go watch a movie with him and whispered in my ear, so I didn’t attend the class. This was because my heart was filled with the intention of taking the semester off having received such a big shock.’

“I’m sorry.”

“Did the student next to you who sleeps everyday go somewhere?”

“I think he dropped the class.”

The professor finished with the microphone, handed it to the teaching assistant, and stared at Sangwoo. He was the type who had fierce and sharp eyes, but Sangwoo didn’t feel anything.

“I have high expectations, Sangwoo.”

“You’ve heard of me?”

“There isn’t a single professor in our department who doesn’t know of you.”

The professor smiled slightly. It was so faint that it didn’t even look like a smile.

“I was disappointed in the beginning, but it’s still not too late. Let’s get it together from now on.”

“Yes.”

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Footnotes:

2. A ‘fever buff’ is a buff system in the MMORPG game Maplestory. Think of it as a buffer feature where all actions are sped up.