CBR 29

Normally, people get angry when they hear the truth. Having been hit right in the bullseye since the morning, Jaewon flared up and displayed aggression.

“I asked if you’re Kim Dojun’s bread shuttle.”

“How old are you that you’re speaking informally?”

“Can’t you see the name tag? I’m a senior.”

“I’m twenty-three, though.”

“What kind of nonsense is that? Why is a twenty-three-year-old in high school?”

“I was held back 5 years, you punk.”

“Hk….”

As Jaewon insisted on such an absurd story, the strutting ringleader faltered. A student beside him who looked like a close confidant cautiously added:

“He’s the rumored King’s Man.”

“No, actually, I think he really is a bread shuttle.”

Feeling a pain in his chest, Jaewon blurted out the words right away. He hastily corrected himself, but it was a step too late. The students’ gazes were coldly frozen.

“Not content with usurping the seat of the fiancé, going as far as a bread shuttle…. Your greed is over the top.”

The ringleader narrowed his eyes and reprimanded Jaewon.

“I said Dojun is a fan.”

“Ha…. Why did I say that?”

“Then why aren’t you registered with the association? Your name wasn’t on our Triad roster, you see.”

“The Triad… what?”

“The Samlip Cooperative Federation. It’s a labor union for bread deliverers.”

“Huh. Isn’t this just a bread shuttle club?”

Compared to its terrifying name, the core substance was a cute gathering. Jaewon belatedly inspected their faces and details closely. Most of them had hazy impressions, like soft tofu dissolved in water. Featuring arched eyebrows, drooping eyes, swirl glasses, and the like, each of them flaunted various individual traits.

“How dare you take individual action? Your liver must have grown so big it’s sticking out of your body.”

A student with prominent front teeth like a rabbit said, swaggering. A head shorter than Jaewon, he was more cute than scary, but his momentum was quite fierce.

“For Dojun to hire a deliverer. It’s something that hasn’t happened even once since entering this school. What trick did he use?”

“Did he capture his heart with this pretty face?”

“That’s an arm that’s probably only ever held a pen. What does he expect to do with this? Can he even carry a single box of bread properly?”

“Was Kim Dojun the type to fall for design rather than performance…. I hadn’t even thought of that.”

The group, resembling the seven dwarfs, surrounded Jaewon in a huddle and exerted pressure. After synthesizing their remarks, Jaewon threw a question.

“Is what you guys are doing to me right now stemming from a fervent wish to become Kim Dojun’s bread shuttle?”

“Of course! It’s an opportunity to become Kim Dojun’s closest confidant! You can’t possibly claim you don’t know just how great that glory and those benefits are, can you?”

“Where did some rolling-in stone dare usurp a position of glory that anyone would dream of.”

“To have Dojun stolen by a guy with no foundation like this…. Urgh, I can’t accept this!”

“Ho-oh.”

Jaewon stroked his chin and let out an exclamation of admiration. A voluntary slave culture—how interesting.

Serfs in the Middle Ages had a sort of protective apparatus consisting of family, home, and land usage rights, thanks to which they never starved no matter how badly they were treated. Therefore, sometimes a destitute free man would put a rope around his neck, place a coin on top of his head, and offer himself to a lord as a serf.

In a similar vein, they seemed to want to offer themselves to the highest-ranking person in the school and enter under his protection. Indeed, while the flow of history moves fast, human cells never change. And the proletariat dreaming of the bourgeoisie had no interest in serfs.

“Well then, keep up the good work. It’s nice to see you living so diligently. I’m busy, so I’ll get going.”

“Where do you think you’re going.”

The ringleader blocked Jaewon as he said his farewells and tried to leave his spot.

“You’re not moving a single step from here until you write a written oath renouncing delivery.”

He spoke with solemn determination and propped his foot against the wall. Jaewon looked at the thick, sturdy leg blocking his path, then snapped his head up.

“Oh? Dojun!”

When he shouted with delight, the Triad group collectively poked their necks out like meerkats and turned around. Jaewon didn’t miss that opening and bolted.

“Catch that bastard!”

“If I catch you, I’ll split you into thirds!”

“Head, chest, belly!”

Profanities flew thick and fast, and a chase ensued. The pursuit force was quite fierce, but Jaewon, who went around carrying a thousand-nyang debt with his mouth, was always a prepared sprinter. He leisurely shook off his pursuers and returned to the classroom.

When he opened the back door, Kim Dojun was visible amidst the bustling students. Positioned in the spot with the best feng shui, Kim Dojun radiated his usual peerless atmosphere. Sunlight pouring through the fluttering curtains illuminated him. In contrast to the snowy white curtains, his black hair glittered in the light.

‘Could Lucifer from his days in the heavenly realm have been like this?’

Appreciating the sight where mysterious light and shade coexisted like a total solar eclipse, Jaewon approached slowly. Sitting with his shoulders straight and in a proper posture, Kim Dojun was reading a book. Swallowing hard as he felt his heart thump-thumping, Jaewon couldn’t help but think: isn’t a high school student sitting at the very back of the classroom and browsing men’s magazines for all to see the pinnacle of classic tropes? His chest swelled with expectation.

‘Maxim? Playboy? Penthouse?’

However, upon getting closer, it was a textbook. Jaewon’s head went numb. Opening a textbook for the next class in advance and reading it was not something a protagonist should do. Unable to contain his anger at such an excessively exemplary act:

“No way. This isn’t it.”

Jaewon shook his head vehemently and braced his hands on Dojun’s desk. Dojun, who had been about to turn the page, looked up at Jaewon as if viewing a street vendor.

“Your morning greeting is overflowing with personality. I love to see it.”

“Is this really the time for you to be studying leisurely?”

When Jaewon demanded an explanation out of nowhere, the focus vanished from Dojun’s eyes. Dazed for a moment, he swept back his hair and muttered.

“Ah, every time I look at you, my mind goes blank.”

“You’ve got nothing better to do, so you’re studying. Wow, I’m at a loss for words.”

Swept up in fury, Jaewon clutched his forehead and let out a scoff. He persuaded Dojun with the passionate attitude of a proselytizing religious person.

“Youth never returns once it passes by, so you’re going to waste your days idling away in a cement building like this? Aren’t you even remorseful toward your own face?”

“Where did things go wrong with you?”

“You should experience love, and even see friendship shaken because of love! Huh?”

“Love?”

Dojun’s frowned expression gradually turned strange. With his lips twitching into something like a child trying to hold back mischief, he lifted his back off the chair.

“As for that…”

As Dojun slowly leaned his body forward, he abruptly grabbed Jaewon’s wrist. Startled out of his wits, Jaewon tried to shake him off, but the grip strength was immense, leaving him unable to budge an inch.

“Coincidentally, we have it right here.”

A finger glided up, brushing over his skin. It was a trifling contact. Yet, just like being scraped by a flint, his body flared up hot. Jaewon was greatly startled. The curse had begun anew.

“Now all we need is friendship.”

Dojun grinned with a devilish face. Understanding the implication a beat too late, Jaewon’s eyeballs wobbled like pudding. Feeling something hot welling up from his lower abdomen, he burst out in indignation.

“Why on earth are you doing this to me?”

“You said you hated me.”

When Dojun changed the angle of his head, his contours under the sunlight were exposed starkly. Looking at the bridge of his nose, which looked as though it had been carved by the hands of a god, his judgment blurred.

‘Did I say I hated him?’

“I happen to like people who say they hate me.”

“Are you crazy, are you a pervert?”

Jaewon panicked and retreated backward, but at best, he was just a fruit fly caught in a Venus flytrap. Dojun drew close to Jaewon’s face—who was struggling hard enough to rattle the desk—and asked menacingly.

“Don’t you grasp the situation right now?”

Indeed. He didn’t grasp it at all, but the atmosphere dictated that being honest was a no-go, so he stayed still.

“If anyone’s going to hate, it should be me hating you, Jaewon. Have you lost your mind?”

Madness gleamed erratically in eyes as black as minerals in the dark. Silently meeting that gaze, Jaewon closed his eyes. Well, stepping on even a king’s shadow was grounds for beheading, so he had been foolish.

“Listen well, Kim Dojun.”

Puffing out his bangs with a huff, he stood straight up. In the world of males, failure to properly establish hierarchies leads to confusion. He resolved to clearly define the relationship between Kim Dojun and himself at this opportunity.

“You’re a student, and…”

Jaewon pointed squarely at Dojun with his finger and said solemnly.

“I’m a bread shuttle.”

Roughly tossing a loaf of bread onto the desk, he immediately added words before Dojun could say anything.