Chapter 8.11

Sangwoo hesitated walking into the space that was occupied by four large desks. Jaeyoung had never felt uncomfortable there, but somehow he felt ashamed now. The walls filled with posters looked messy that day, and there were all kinds of boxes, crumpled papers, snack bags, broken speakers, a curling iron, a calf massager, and mismatched slippers on the floor. The heavy metal music that Yuna was playing sounded particularly loud. She was head banging with her eyes closed. Her deep-yellow bobbed hair shook wildly in the air.

‘… Come to think of it, you don’t really go well together.’

“Hey, Choi Yuna. Look at this.”

“What?” She answered without looking back.

And, Jaeyoung saw that Sangwoo looked as if he had met a ghost or something. There was no way he liked what he saw. Why was she wearing a red leather jacket and a choker around her neck today of all days?

“Don’t mind her. Sit here.”

After pointing at Sungjin’s seat, Sangwoo hung his backpack on the chair in a bitter way.  As he did that, Yuna, who was looking back, shouted.

“Who is that?”

“A hoobae I’m doing the project with. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Woooooow, that game you’ve been working on lately? What’s your name? Are you in our department?”

“Chu Sangwoo. Comp Sci. Don’t mind the look on his face. This is his greeting face.”

“The name is fucking funny. It’s like Chu Sangchu.”1

Yuna clapped her hands while laughing. Jaeyoung was scared that Sangwoo would leave, but he was just sitting with a rigid look on his face. Jaeyoung handed him a packaged snack that happened to be on Sungjin’s desk.

“Make yourself comfortable.”

“How can I be comfortable when you are uncomfortable?”

“That’s true.”

When Jaeyoung tried to turn his computer on, Sangwoo raised his hand to block him.

“Throw away the trash first.”

It was only then that he noticed snack crumbs, cans of Coke, empty cigarette packs, and a bunch of tissues on the desk. Jaeyoung returned after taking care of the trash as Sangwoo had ordered him to. Even the stuff on the floor had to be dealt with, so he roughly pushed them into a corner.

“Take care of the socks.”

As soon as he had sat down, another order had dropped. Jaeyoung grabbed the socks that stuck out behind the monitor and stuffed them into his bag.

“Ventilate.”

It was bothersome, but he opened the window.

“Organize your books,” Sangwoo said after trying to organize the books without success.

“Now turn on your PC.”

Jaeyoung stared at the ceiling while it was starting up.

“Clean up your desktop before you start working, please.”

“Do you even care about stuff like this?”

“It’s hard to look at it from the sidelines. Hurry up.”

Although he was slightly irritated, Jaeyoung either deleted unnecessary files or moved them to separate folders.

“Try to regularly clean up your desktop.”

“This is my area, dude. This is an invasion of space and my private business.”

“It’s really funny to hear that coming from sunbae and not someone else.”

“You even know how to make jokes.”

A smile spread across Jaeyoung’s lips. This was the perfect time to do a headlock or mess with his hair, but those things were just forbidden in Sangwoo’s case. Sangwoo was looking at the ceiling with his arms folded and with an expression that looked like he still didn’t like it. At one point, he turned his chair and looked at Yuna’s back.

“Excuse me. You’re not alone, and it’s really loud.”

Yuna’s eyes opened wide and were shifting between Sangwoo and Jaeyoung.

“There are good headphones over there. Use those.”

“….”

Yuna didn’t lose her temper, but her mouth was open as if frustrated. Jaeyoung got up from his seat, grabbed the headphones on Yuna’s desk and forced them over her head. When the jack was plugged into the computer, the sound of the violent music disappeared. Sangwoo looked much more at ease.

“Open the software now.”

It was time to show off his skills. Jaeyoung, who returned to his seat, spread his hands out once, then placed his left hand on the keyboard and his right hand on the mouse.

“Begin.”

Sangwoo said that and then turned to a neatly opened book on the desk that had been cleared off at some point.

Jaeyoung thought that Sangwoo would interfere with each task and tell him what to do, but Sangwoo literally kept his word about merely supervising. Thanks to that, Jaeyoung was able to work without feeling burdened. Sangwoo was so quiet, that he wasn’t even sure he was sitting next to him.

Click, click. There was only the sound of mouse clicks and typing on the keyboard. Apart from Yuna humming the chorus at times, there was no interruption at all. His hands sweated a little, and his heart was pounding a little faster than usual. Jaeyoung also made a map on top of everything else, because he was  in a good mood.

Footnotes:

1. As you may remember from volume one, Chu Sangwoo’s name rhymes with Chu Sangchu, which means Chu Lettuce.