INV 35

There was an incident where some classmates, who took the elective group project lightly, let Kwon Yihyeon treat them to expensive meals only to vanish one by one, ignoring his messages. The sole remaining hoebae was practically trembling and crying, constantly walking on eggshells around him. It seemed to be because he was a classmate of the peer who had essentially forced Kwon Yihyeon to buy them dinner. The lone hoebae squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for the trickle-down discipline, but Kwon Yihyeon, being the self-proclaimed dark and gloomy person he was, found no joy in pure violence like collective responsibility. Instead, Kwon Yihyeon made a kind and gentle suggestion to the hoebae.

“Let’s… become legends.”

Time passed, and on the day of the project presentation, a veteran professor who had stood at the lectern for nearly 37 years praised their work as the best undergraduate short thesis he had ever received, offering a spot in graduate school on the spot. The old professor was sincere. A talented undergraduate student from the College of Fine Arts who submitted a phenomenal piece of work for a Chemistry elective group project? If he let this one go, he would be filled with lifelong regret.

Naturally, since the names of the team members who didn’t participate were all omitted, there was a crisis involving a flood of protests. However, the old professor majestically cut off their counterarguments.

“I received a separate email from Mr. Kwon. You surely didn’t expect to receive the same grade after failing to answer or even read the group leader’s messages. Let me tell you in advance. I have no intention of giving you anything other than an F, so do not bother coming to class anymore.”

Kwon Yihyeon thought with a faint smile.

Ah, as expected, if you’re prepared to screw someone over, you have to be prepared to get screwed over too. I tried to screw over the guys who skipped the group project, only to get an offer for graduate school.

Kwon Yihyeon grabbed the shoulder of the hoebae standing behind him.

“My hoebae helped me a lot. It was thanks to him that I could pull this off.”

“S… sunbae?”

Let’s die together. Kwon Yihyeon’s clear eyes sparkled.

“So, who is the primary author?”

“…”

“…It’s Kwon Yihyeon sunbae! I didn’t do anything. Sunbae-nim did it all! The proof is that sunbae-nim is the primary author!”

Kwon Yihyeon seriously felt like running away.

After that, rumors circulated that the Sculpture professor and the Chemistry professor had a physical brawl; whether it was true or not, both of them walked around with bandages on for a while.

This happened in his sophomore year.

It was truly an anecdote sufficient to make him a legend…

⋆˙⟡

From then on, no one dared to openly mess with Kwon Yihyeon. This was especially true once it became known that the rumors were real—that he had received full-time job offers from “every” workplace he had rotated through for experience, whether as a contract worker, intern, or part-timer. Anyone who has experienced social life as a part-timer, contract worker, or intern knows. That meant he truly, truly possessed an insane level of social competence. To be precise, you couldn’t do that unless you were a crazy bastard. Was that why? Occasionally, sensitive people found Kwon Yihyeon a bit difficult.

It wasn’t that they felt he was a bad person. He was indeed a cheerful man with a good personality, but should I say they felt a dark energy? He was a cheerful guy, a good person, and sociable…

But somehow, at Korea University, Kwon Yihyeon was the kind of person you felt you shouldn’t cross the line with.

Though not from Cheongna-eup, Park Seongjun, who attended the nearby middle school with him, was able to summarize Kwon Yihyeon more neatly than anyone.

“A crazy bastard who smiles softly and kindly with light-brown eyes that look golden in the sunlight, while internally measuring the angle for the kill.”

That was who Kwon Yihyeon was.

Even though during his graduating year, he was subject to plenty of talk about being involved with the mob because men in black suits—who said they owed a debt of gratitude to a Great Mountain—kept acting like they knew him…

Actually, it was just that Kwon Yihyeon wasn’t in his right mind due to insomnia and couldn’t grasp the situation, but his university friends were all worried about him. They stood by Kwon Yihyeon’s side and got angry in the faces of those who snickered while spreading ridiculous rumors about him, and they worried most when he was unreachable. They were so terrified that Kwon Yihyeon might have taken out private loans that they even wondered if they should start a fundraiser.

Still, because the tennis club hoebae managed to get in touch, they didn’t report it; otherwise, they might have called the police.

Kwon Yihyeon didn’t know, but on the day he was reached regarding the Gyemyeong Bank Tennis Tournament, the hoebae had been making non-stop calls to various people who were worried about him.

Among them, the person the hoebae called first was the club president from three terms ago.

Specifically, the sunbae who was the president of the tennis club when Kwon Yihyeon was a freshman.

“Sunbae! Listen! I got in touch with Kwon sunbae.”

“…What? How was Yihyeon’s condition?”

“He seemed, well, out of it, but I could definitely feel his voice becoming more stable as we talked.”

“Did you ask if anything happened? My heart almost stopped when I heard he applied for a leave of absence without a word… Yihyeon isn’t the type of kid to do that…”

“The atmosphere wasn’t right for asking what was going on. But, sunbae said he’s okay now… that’s what he said. I’m going to believe those words. That’s why I called you. I don’t think we need to report it to the police…”

“…Right. That’s a relief. Thank you for calling me. Seriously. I’ll buy you a meal later. Yihyeon will probably contact us once he settles down. You start going to school regularly now. Mind your attendance. Your grades…”

“Yes! Fighting to your pro life too, president—no, noona!”

After hanging up, the sunbae finally breathed a sigh of relief.

She, who had returned to the path of a professional tennis player she once gave up on thanks to Kwon Yihyeon, was also a person Chacha had watched closely when investigating Kwon Yihyeon’s past.

⋆˙⟡

Kwon Yihyeon, who had already seen posts asking “Who is this?” on the university community since the MT, became truly famous to the entire student body during the Korea University General Sports Festival.

Since he was a child, though for no particular reason, Kwon Yihyeon quite liked the sport of tennis. As soon as he accepted that there was no one in Cheongna-eup to play tennis with, he determined that he would absolutely join the tennis club once he went to university.

A sport with a high barrier to entry where mental strength carries immense weight between those of similar skill, and where matches lasting over five hours in full games are not rare—knowing that was what tennis was, he still wanted to give it a try.

And the racket he first held at the club felt strangely comfortable in his hand.

He had a miraculous talent for tennis. A former pro-turned-daily coach, brought in through the club president’s connections, praised him excessively, saying his form was truly excellent and his center-of-gravity transfer was perfect, to the point it was hard to believe he’d only been learning for a few weeks.

After that, while gaining experience in various amateur tournaments as part of club activities, Kwon Yihyeon—who heard people say they would have told him to go pro if he were just a bit younger—was nevertheless facing his first actual match back then as a freshman.

At the age of just twenty, a match where you aren’t just training in teams within the club but competing under the name of a “tournament”—it was his first life experience, but Kwon Yihyeon wasn’t nervous in the slightest.

Only the feeling that victory was incredibly thrilling remained in his memory.

This was despite the fact that for those watching, it was a battle so intense they had sweaty palms and clenched teeth.

In the amateur realm, rather than the pro, Kwon Yihyeon was a genius. Kwon Yihyeon’s overwhelming skill quickly swallowed the early part of the match. At the moment where they could have won the mixed doubles final if they won just one game with a score of 4 to 1, the opposing team changed their strategy and began to target Kwon Yihyeon’s mixed doubles partner specifically. Following a series of misses from the shaken partner, they lost three games in a row.

Generally, in women’s singles and mixed doubles, winning two out of three sets means victory, but in this General Sports Festival, the men’s singles rules were applied to mixed doubles, requiring three out of five sets to win. Regardless, both teams had taken five games each, reaching a deuce. From now on, one must take two consecutive games to win. If another deuce occurred here, they would have to go through a tie-breaker rule for a sudden-death match, but his partner looked like she would struggle to even hold through two games. Stamina was one issue, but she was primarily cornered mentally.

Due to various circumstances, the club didn’t belong to the central student organizations, so although there were few members and little support, they all played tennis while shedding blood, sweat, and tears. They had worked so hard to reach the final threshold of victory, but because basic mistakes were repeated due to chronic mental health issues, her mental state had shattered.

At that moment, Kwon Yihyeon said this, and it was precisely the moment when a Korea University school newspaper member—who was revered as a “home master” for a certain idol group—instinctively zoomed in.

His lip movements were clearly captured on the camcorder.

“Sunbae, from now on, don’t move a single inch.”

It was a cinematic moment, believable even if told it was the reciting of a script.