EAR Ch 11

Even with him saying that, Ryu Jaemin still doesn’t turn his head even once. Seungpyo lowered his eyelids and cast a displeased gaze at the back of his neatly trimmed black head.

Ever since the day their cell phones got switched, Ryu Jaemin has been completely pretending not to know Oh Seungpyo. He neither returned Seungpyo’s item nor asked for his own back.

The day after their phones were switched, they made eye contact at the snack bar, and Jaemin glared at him as if holding a grudge, but ever since then, he hasn’t even tried to show his face properly. Though their classes are different, their classrooms are right next to each other, so they inevitably cross paths in the hallways or the cafeteria while coming and going.

There had been plenty of chances to talk over the past few days, but rather than that, Ryu Jaemin ignored Seungpyo even more than he did last year. As if to say he didn’t want to get tangled up with him at all. It was an absurd thing.

“Is he sulking or what just because I ran my mouth a bit right in front of him? Doing perverted things behind people’s backs, what is he acting so proud of for no reason?”

It was completely different from the behavior Oh Seungpyo had expected from Ryu Jaemin. Realizing their phones had been swapped, Jaemin should have turned pale, rushed over to Seungpyo the next day, and begged him first to keep the secret.

Of course, he hadn’t planned on spreading rumors, but it seemed like it would be fun to see the flustered expression of Ryu Jaemin, who always looked detached and aloof in everything. So he had dropped a few hints to come find him quickly, but Ryu Jaemin’s attitude was pure ignorance.

“Is it that there’s no evidence?”

The SNS account was shut down long ago, and there are no pictures left on the phone. But isn’t it something Ryu Jaemin has no way of knowing, whether Seungpyo took screenshots or left any evidence behind?

From the time their phones were swapped until the account was blocked, it took about a few hours, and during that time, Seungpyo didn’t hold back and thoroughly enjoyed every single picture Ryu Jaemin had uploaded for people to see. The latest picture, which looked like it was just snapped in an abandoned building with the front of his shirt open and his nipples coyly exposed, was child’s play.

Pictures taken wearing only seductive underwear, pictures taken from behind showing his entire bare buttocks, pictures taken with only a bare body and a school tie pulled taut like a dog collar… When a picture with even his dick pulled out appeared like a final boss as he scrolled down the screen, a dry laugh burst out of him before he even realized it.

Despite posting such lewd pictures, the profile picture of the account was out of the blue a cozy, decorated room view with a night view as the background. Books placed in front of a table and a sofa with a few cushions. He had heard once that he lived in a very expensive luxury apartment, so at first, he thought it was Ryu Jaemin’s room, but it didn’t seem like he would post a picture of his real room on an account like that. Moreover, looking closely, the scenery beyond the window didn’t look like Seoul, but rather the night view of some foreign city.

The self-introduction post, uploaded like a notice, was even more ridiculing. It was written in a tone that would be hard to imagine coming from the owner of an SNS account posting obscene selfies, if seen by a stranger.

[I do not answer to hookup offers.]

[I cannot take all the pictures you request.]

[Since this is an anonymous account, please refrain from overly personal questions. I am sorry.]

Every single human visiting the account only spouted trashy posts and left, yet Ryu Jaemin’s self-introduction was unnecessarily polite. He only excels at studying, a foolish punk. If he really wanted to completely hide himself, he should have written a post like this as trashily as the perverts he hung out with. Just like the replies Seungpyo left when dealing with the trash.

That’s right, that damn reply. Watching the conversations exchanged with people, he naturally learned where a punk who quietly studies like a model student every single day picked things up to take such a wide variety of those kinds of pictures.

You fucking ill-mannered whore bastard, why don’t you wear crotchless panties? I kept asking you, are you discriminating against requests?

└ I’m a student, so it’s hard to buy underwear that’s too revealing. I’m sorry.

Can you upload a video of you jerking off? Even on mute is fine.

└ Taking videos takes a little time. I’ll try when I have time.

Aren’t you interested in anal mastography?? Please just pretend to do itㅠㅠㅠ Your butt is pretty so it’ll probably be insanely lewd, not a request but a wish.

└ That’s still a bit scary… I’ll think about it later.

The sight of him answering by diligently using honorifics while perverts mixed in profanity and made him do perverted things could only be described as bizarre. The dirty things the bastards leaving replies chattered competitively weren’t even that shocking to Seungpyo. After all, the craziest bastard among them seemed to be Ryu Jaemin.

The posture of having politely answered all sorts of nonsense looked unbalanced somehow, and as he kept looking at it, anger welled up for some reason, so Oh Seungpyo meticulously replied to the perverts instead of Ryu Jaemin on that day he picked up the phone.

He only told the perverts they were perverts, but it was so much fun teasing them because they shivered and got angry to no end, so he got way too absorbed in leaving replies that time flew. If he hadn’t suddenly been logged out and kicked out right in the middle of excitedly leaving replies, he might have stayed up all night doing that.

Even just looking at the neatly groomed back of his head right now, Oh Seungpyo was about to let out a snort of utter disbelief. At school, he acts like a model student and honors student who doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world, yet behind the scenes, of all things, he’s doing perverted things…

He had seen people a few times in movies or cartoons who act like losers at school and thugs outside, but this was his first time seeing a case like this. To use a common saying, reality was even stranger.

Even with the face hidden, Ryu Jaemin’s vibe lingered faintly in the pictures. If one looked at the Ilyang Boys’ High School uniform and neat notices like a model student’s note-taking together, he could even bet money that more people would react with “Now that you mention it, it does seem like it” rather than “That makes no sense” when told that the protagonist in the pictures was Ryu Jaemin.

“Not that I’m actually going to snitch, though.”

Oh Seungpyo’s life, excellent in many ways, wasn’t always smooth sailing either. A cone in a bag. Just as a sharp awl naturally pokes out of a bag even if left still, an outstanding person inevitably stands out. In Oh Seungpyo’s opinion, he was precisely that awl-like figure.

Since excellent people naturally invite the jealousy and inferiority of those around them, he had suffered unfair treatment due to other kids’ frame-ups or misunderstandings, but he had never done anything petty like snitching to a teacher or his father.

That didn’t mean he always let unpleasant things slide generously… That couldn’t be the case. Seungpyo tended to clear his chest by making the bastards who pissed him off swallow plenty of water to the extent possible. He would intentionally play around even closer with a girl that the punk who ruined his mood liked, enjoying the sight of that punk fuming, and depending on the situation, he would ignore him like an invisible person until he apologized first.

Anyway, Oh Seungpyo was popular with both the boys and the girls, so as a result, even if Seungpyo just blew a cold wind and ignored them, it often ended in a conclusion where kids who were scared in advance that they would be alienated from the group lowered their gaze and gave in first.

Oh Seungpyo didn’t plan on doing anything petty this time either, such as exposing Ryu Jaemin’s humiliation to others. But no matter how he thought about it, Ryu Jaemin ignoring him first made no sense. Ryu Jaemin hadn’t done anything wrong to him, but still, Ryu Jaemin deserved to speak up first, approach him, and try to break through this situation. Seungpyo grumbled belatedly.

“If you don’t return a found item, can’t you report that to the police too?”

“You’re reporting it now of all times? You said your contract ended and you’re buying a new one.”

Before the kids’ out-of-sync chorus even finished, the front door of the classroom opened. Shouting “Quiet, quiet!”, the teacher entered and stood in front of the podium.