Chapter 3

　　The moment I saw the course title, The Fundamentals of Writing, a name that honestly sounded more like a high school math textbook, I signed up. I didn’t have any profound reason for taking it. I had just been in a writing club back in middle school and recalled it being mildly entertaining.

　　Unfortunately, the actual lecture was mind-numbingly boring.

　　"Brevity is the soul of wit. A famous quote by Shakespeare, which implies that rather than relying on ornate rhetoric, a concise sentence is…"

　　This professor could genuinely pivot careers and become an ASMR YouTuber specializing in curing chronic insomnia. How on earth did he possess a voice that knocked people unconscious this efficiently? I had slept a full eight hours last night, and I was still fighting to keep my eyes open.

　　I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the fog from my brain. As I did, the guy sitting directly in front of me kept casting nervous glances over his shoulder, his cheeks flushing pink every time our eyes met.

　　Huh? Why is his face so red? It was barely early spring, and the winter chill hadn’t even fully broken yet. Did he just naturally run hot?

　　Honestly, whether he was prone to heat or not wasn’t my problem. I was about half a second away from boarding the express train to dreamland. Eventually, I surrendered to the exhaustion, my head bobbing rhythmically. By the end of the lecture, the professor had undoubtedly seen the crown of my head far more than my actual face.

　　The exact second the lecture ended, my eyes snapped open. The moment it was socially acceptable to go home, I was suddenly wide awake. Even I had to admit it was a pretty spectacular talent.

　　Wiping a stray line of drool from my cheek with my sleeve, I shoved my textbook into my backpack. Come to think of it, I hadn’t even taken a single pen out of my bag. That was honestly a little embarrassing. Was I really allowed to coast like this?

　　Sure, I hadn’t actually studied my way into this school, as the dream logic had just handed me an acceptance letter, but still. This was supposed to be the most elite university in the country, a campus crawling with nothing but academic overachievers. Yet, I felt like the only slacker in the entire student body.

　　After a brief moment of guilt, I quickly changed my tune. Now that I think about it, the students here seemed significantly more invested in researching human anatomy and physical intimacy than in passing their midterms, so we were basically on an even playing field.

　　Besides, wasn’t this all just a dream anyway? I still firmly clung to the belief that none of this was real. Because if it wasn’t a dream, how could any of this be happening? The absolute pinnacle of higher education in Korea being exclusively populated by incredibly horny gay men… how could that possibly be reality?

　　Just then, I caught the hushed voices of two guys whispering a few rows ahead.

　　"Yeoul, do you want to go see the cherry blossoms with me? I heard they’re stunning on that island this time of year."

　　What island is famous for cherry blossoms?

　　Apparently, I wasn’t the only one confused by the geographic pitch. The other guy shot him an incredulous look.

　　"What do you mean, cherry blossoms on an island?"

　　"Well, Japan is technically an island, and it’s famous for its cherry blossoms."

　　Huh. That actually made weird, twisted sense. As expected of Hankuk Uni students.

　　The guy’s smooth-talking abilities were off the charts. But the target of his affection was also a Hankuk University student, meaning he wasn’t born yesterday.

　　"You’re not going to make us intentionally miss the last boat off the island like you did last time, are you? Yoo Yihan, you already got caught pulling that exact same stunt."

　　Why is his flirting so over the top? He somehow managed to strand them on an island?! Whether he accomplished that through sheer wealth or brute force, it was an absolutely absurd level of capability.

　　"No way. What kind of psycho do you think I am? Why would I strand us on purpose? That was genuinely an accident last time, okay? Yeoul, do you really not trust me?"

　　Pfft. Guys who pull the ‘don’t you trust me?’ card are universally untrustworthy.

　　"Yeah, well. If I don’t trust you, who will? Fine. Let’s go."

　　He’s actually buying that obvious trap?

　　My ears perked up like a rabbit’s, utterly captivated by the drama unfolding in front of me. But mid-eavesdrop, my brain abruptly hit the brakes.

　　What the hell am I doing?

　　Why had I just automatically assumed those two guys were flirting? No matter how astronomically high the gay population was at this school, statistically speaking, everyone couldn’t be gay. There were successful alumni who had gone on to marry women. There were normal, heterosexual campus couples walking around. And hadn’t I literally just been nodding along to their romantic banter like it was the most natural thing in the world?

　　At this rate, I was going to be brainwashed into thinking every man on the planet was into guys. Get it together, Taewoon. Just because someone is a man doesn’t automatically make him gay.

　　But then, watching the guy relentlessly deploy his cheesy lines about a romantic island getaway completely reversed my logic. More specifically, I happened to notice that his third leg has suddenly grown conspicuously thicker.

　　Yep. Every single man at Hankuk University is gay. Every last one.

　　"No. This isn’t going to work. I need to get set up on a blind date or something."

　　If this really was just a massive fever dream, I should at least try going on a date with a woman before I woke up. The absolute last thing I wanted was to open my eyes in reality knowing my entire dreamscape had consisted of nothing but aggressively dodging the advances of ridiculously handsome gay men.

　　Muttering to myself, I was right in the middle of firing up my resolve when a dark shadow fell over my vision. Now what? I looked up. Handsome Guy #1, the guy from the freshman welcome party, stood over me, his head cocked to the side.

　　"So what, now that you’re in college, you’re finally going to start seeing girls or something?"

　　"Huh?"

　　"What, you’ve got some grudge because you couldn’t get a girlfriend when you were studying to retake the CSAT? You were causing a whole scene earlier, winking at that girl over there."

　　Wink? I’m so painfully prudish, I’d probably think closing one eye too fast is a sign of a seizure. Me, winking at a girl? I’d just been fighting for my life, trying to keep my eyes open so I wouldn’t doze off. To him, I guess my desperate blinking looked like a cheesy pickup move.

　　"And a Korean Education major? That doesn’t suit you at all. You couldn’t even teach a dog to sit. Or wait, is that your master plan? Are you planning to use your student-teaching practicum to hit on high school girls?

　　"Disgusting. That’s literally a crime."

　　Why the hell was I suddenly being treated like a woman-crazed pervert by a guy I’d only spoken to once? Indignation flared so hot in my chest I thought I might actually explode; the words completely logjammed in my throat. While I stood there stammering, Handsome Guy #1 shot me a vicious glare and tossed out one last parting shot.

　　"Guess I’m the idiot for expecting anything."

　　"…What?"

　　Leaving me with my mouth hanging open in disbelief, Handsome Guy #1 marched out of the lecture hall. Having apparently gotten everything off his chest, he walked away looking content with himself.

　　Meanwhile, my insides started to boil.

　　Unlike my former coworker, Mr. Chilbong, who used to lose his damn mind at the mere sight of a woman, I’m a respectable guy.

　　Meaning, I don’t go feral over the opposite sex. It feels a little weird to say this about myself, but my face is… reasonably decent. I’ve had plenty of people confess their feelings to me. I’ve even had entertainment agency scouts shove their business cards into my hands on the street more times than I can count. Not that it mattered—I was kicked out the second I stepped into a practice room after they realized I had absolutely zero talent for singing, dancing, or acting.

　　Like, a desperate, tragic lack of talent.

　　I’ve only been single my whole life because I was too busy raising my younger brother, Seongjae, to date. If I really put my mind to it, I could date someone in a heartbeat.

　　Sure, if a fresh-faced, pretty college girl is nearby, my heart might flutter a little. But I’m not popping a boner just by breathing the same air.

　　But these crazy gay bastards at Hankuk University? If anything even slightly provocative happens, they immediately cover their crotches, grab the guy next to them like they’re trying to snap their wrist, and drag them off somewhere. I don’t even want to imagine where they go or what they do when they get there.

　　Take that couple from earlier! The guy pulling all those cheesy moves—his left thigh, seriously? Out of nowhere, just… why? Why the hell was his left thigh noticeably thicker than his right?! Guys like that are walking around, and I’m the one being treated like a pervert?!

　　I was fuming, but my internal clock rang faithfully, completely unconcerned with my righteous anger. I figured I should at least grab a bite to eat while I waited for Seongjae. Grumbling under my breath, I headed to the convenience store.

　　And that was how I ended up buying a triangle kimbap, witnessing, up close, in vivid, horrific detail, a live-action, R-rated movie I absolutely did not consent to see in the bathroom, and finally arriving where I was now.

　　Seriously… why does that guy hate my guts?

　　Thinking about Handsome Guy #1 made my head spin again. He glared at me every time we crossed paths, and today he’d actively picked a fight. Was he a bratty top who acted like a jerk because he actually liked me? Or did he just have a screw loose? I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

　　Either way, I needed to avoid getting tangled up with him.

　　"Seongjae, did you make a lot of guy frien— No. I mean, friends?"

　　"Just so-so. Not as many as you."

　　Right. You shouldn’t have as many as me. Because I have none. Don’t follow my example.

　　"It’s kind of annoying that you’re at the same school as me."

　　"Huh? Why?"

　　Is he embarrassed of me? My heart dropped into my stomach. In the real world, I could understand it, since I was a guy who couldn’t even properly graduate high school, but here, I was a student at a prestigious university. Why would I be something to be embarrassed about? My heart started pounding, terrified he might actually hate me.

　　"The person I like says he likes you, too."

　　"What?"

　　Wait, hold on—just like this? I wasn’t expecting him to come out so suddenly. The person Seongjae liked was, ninety-nine percent likely, a guy. Was he really just dropping the bomb out of nowhere?

　　I racked my brain, thinking back to the reactions of all the older brothers in the 1,321 BL novels I’d read—the ones who lovingly embraced their little brothers when they came out.

　　What do they usually do?

　　Q. If your little brother asks, "There’s someone I like, but… he’s actually a guy," what do you do?

　　A1. Yeah. I know. It’s him, right? I already knew everything.

　　Rejected. The premise of that response was "I already knew," but I couldn’t let him realize I’d noticed. I’d found out in the real world, not in this dream one.

　　Talking about reality in a dream wakes you up. If I woke up, I wouldn’t be able to see Seongjae anymore. So, that option was out.

　　Then, the second one.

　　A2. Casually ask who it is, then after hearing the name, act shocked, call him crazy, play the meddling obstacle between them… until it morphs into an incest ending where you confess you actually liked him too…

　　Guess I really have read too much BL. My brain is utter garbage. Anyway, rejected.

　　As someone who loves Seongjae, as a brother, nothing weird, I agonized over my choices before landing on a third option.

　　"Who is it?"

　　I decided to just ask for the name, act appropriately shocked, and then take the gentle, deep-hearted older sister stance: "I’m rooting for your happiness."

　　I was his older brother, not his sister, but BL novels severely lack proper older brothers. What kind of brother falls in love with his own sibling, gets hard, and pins him to a bed? Some novels even feature ankle-breaking. Yeah, definitely better to reference the supportive sister archetype instead.

　　"There is someone. He’s got a filthy mouth and talks rough… but that’s what’s cute about him."

　　Seongjae admitted it, looking as shy as could be. God, he was adorable. He was really in love. If he was happy, even if this was just a dream, that was enough. My eyes started to sting.

　　Seongjae, walk nothing but paths of flowers. Even if it’s only in a dream, I’ll make sure your life is beautiful.

　　"Oh, right on cue! Here they come."

　　I’d been gazing at Seongjae’s precious face with misty eyes when he suddenly shifted his gaze and spoke. Following his line of sight, I spotted a face that was entirely too familiar.

　　Why is he here?