Harmonious Love

Where There Is Sunlight, There Are Shadows (5)

***

“Mo Yeon, do you know how to draw?”

“…”

At the unexpected question, Mo Yeon slowly lifted his eyes from the major course he had been looking at. Art? What’s this about? His eyes were full of confusion as he turned to look at Tae Young-won.

It was almost time for course registration for the new semester.

The sound of mouse clicking had been echoing in the living room for a while. The two were filling their course registration carts together in preparation for the start of the semester.

They each had their laptops open and were in the process of arranging their schedules and adding courses when the rather abrupt question about drawing came up.

“Drawing?”

“Yeah. Or psychology?”

“Huh?”

Something seemed to click. Mo Yeon craned his neck to look at Tae Young-won’s monitor screen.

“Sunbae, are you trying to take ‘Color Art Psychology’?”

“Yeah. Someone said it was fun. Do you want to take it together?”

“I already took that last year.”

“Oh, really? I heard a lot of recommendations for it, so it must be really popular.”

Mo Yeon stared at him for a moment, then spoke again. Tae Young-won probably wouldn’t be able to take the Color Psychology course.

“Why don’t you take something else?”

“Hm? Why?”

His eyes, which had been fixed on the monitor, turned to Mo Yeon. His face, initially full of questions, gradually changed in a subtle way. Mo Yeon could watch his eyes change to a playful look in real-time.

Feeling like he already knew what Tae Young-won was going to say, Mo Yeon’s eyes narrowed unconsciously.

“I get it, you want to take an elective with your Mo Yeon hyung, right?”

“That’s not it.”

“Sure it’s not.”

“It really isn’t.”

Of course, that wouldn’t be bad either… but that wasn’t the intention behind what he just said. Nevertheless, Tae Young-won added something more.

“Okay, let’s take the class together anyway. No need to be embarrassed. What’s wrong with taking a class together even if we’re not dating anymore?”

“…”

“You’re acting so shy when you insist it’s not true.”

Mo Yeon’s expression hardened without him realizing it. Oblivious to Mo Yeon’s feelings, Tae Young-won grinned.

“This is how we decided to start over, right? Thinking about when we did assignments before, it would be good to take classes together. We can play teacher-student using assignments as an excuse…”

“…”

“Just be honest, you like it but you’re pretending not to.”

With that, he turned his head back to the monitor. Huh, Mo Yeon let out a hollow laugh.

“Then should I just take ‘Color Art Psychology’ alone? Should we look for something else we can take together?”

Ah, right.

This sunbae is trying to register for such a popular elective course? Now I understand why his schedule has always been such a mess.

“What do you want to take? Oh, someone recommended this one too.”

“Sigh. Sunbae.”

Mo Yeon let out a deep sigh. Tae Young-won asked with an innocent face.

“What, have you already taken this one too?”

“…That’s not it. You absolutely can’t add courses like this.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Finally taking his eyes off the monitor, he made eye contact. Mo Yeon spoke in a flat voice.

“Sunbae, you’re really bad at course registration, aren’t you? With those skills, you won’t be able to get into such popular courses anyway. So you should add less popular ones and aim for those. Usually, even that’s a gamble.”

“Who says that? That I’m bad at course registration?”

Tae Young-won asked with round eyes, as if hearing this for the first time.

“Where did you dig up this strange information and why do you believe it so readily? Mo Yeon, have you ever seen me fail at anything?”

It was an unexpected response. Mo Yeon couldn’t hide his bewilderment.

“Sunbae, it’s all over school that you’re bad at course registration. I’ve heard that rumor since I entered school. Later, I thought it couldn’t be true, but it really was.”

“Geez, how far do these kids spread rumors?”

Tae Young-won frowned. Mo Yeon raised the corner of his mouth crookedly.

“Honestly, you’ve never successfully registered for all the courses you pre-selected at once, have you?”

The number of courses that could be pre-selected was always limited.

If you greedily fill your cart with only popular courses that attract a lot of competition, you might have a perfect schedule for the semester if you succeed, but if not, things get very complicated.

That’s why when making a schedule, you need to distribute courses well, considering the risks. In the worst-case scenario of failure, you might end up having to pick up unpopular courses that no one else wants later.

And most of those courses, despite being electives, are often not interesting at all and many are difficult to get good grades in.

“Hmm… Come to think of it, I’ve never succeeded all at once. But I’ve never lost out on grades because of that. You know I maintained my top GPA last semester too, right?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Even the first course Mo Yeon had overlapped with Tae Young-won was one he had forcibly taken to match his schedule for a Friday off. It was a course that was difficult to get good grades in and had quite a lot of assignments.

Moreover, being in economics, he remembered feeling overwhelmed trying to keep up with what felt like someone else’s major course. Mo Yeon had forcibly registered for the class because of the Friday off, and at that time, he had overheard Tae Young-won grumbling to his friends about failing course registration. Of course, that was when Mo Yeon had never even spoken to Tae Young-won.

“…Are you talking about Principles of Accounting? I took it because it was worth taking. I don’t think I took it because I failed to get into something else. I thought that class was fine?”

“That’s not the point. The classes you take require an enormous amount of effort and pulling all-nighters multiple times to get an A+, don’t they?”

No. Tae Young-won really had a tendency to take strange classes. Tae Young-won shrugged as if he still didn’t understand.

“Really? I never thought they were difficult enough to pull all-nighters. If that’s the standard for others, well…”

“Huh.”

That attitude was even more annoying. Right, he’s saying he’s smart.

“Even last semester, you forcibly took that weird one, what was it, International Relations and Governance… You regretted it immediately on the first day of class.”

“Huh?”

“It was the first time in my life I had to prepare for a team project so early, except for major courses.”

Tae Young-won’s expression was strange. After staring at Mo Yeon for a moment as if thinking about something, he grinned.

“Right, that’s true.”

“What?”

It was a meaningful statement. Along with his odd expression, Mo Yeon felt an ominous feeling creeping up.

“…What is it?”

“Well, I assumed it was natural, but… did you really register for that to follow me?”

“…”

“After you kissed me in the lobby and ran away, did you really register for that to follow me?”

Gulp. He swallowed dry saliva without realizing it. Tae Young-won bit his lip for a moment as if trying to hold back laughter, then asked casually.

“How did you do it? Where did you get that information?”

“…”

“Teach me some stalking techniques too. You can tell me now, right?”

Can I tell him now?

“I’m really just curious. I won’t tease you. Okay?”

His expression was more than just a little curious. Mo Yeon rolled his eyes quietly, then slowly opened his mouth.

Well, there was no need to hide it. It’s not like he would need to stalk Tae Young-won again in the future…

“I just… listened to people talking in the major course classroom and department office right after the semester started… I worried about it and then withdrew one course.”

“…”

“I originally planned to find out about one more and register for that too, but I was afraid you might recognize me with just one overlapping course, and with two, it would be even more dangerous if you really noticed…”

As he spoke, recalling his memories, something else came to mind.

“…Ah, that one was actually really popular. It was easy to get good grades too… It was as popular as ‘Color Art Psychology’. I should have taken that one.”

“Hahaha!”

Finally, Tae Young-won burst out laughing. Now that he looked, Tae Young-won had been desperately trying to hold back his laughter all this time. Mo Yeon’s face turned bright red as he realized this.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Haha, hahaha!”

Tae Young-won laughed so hard that if they were outside, people around might have thought he had gone mad. After laughing for a long time, he was on the verge of wiping away tears.

Only after finally calming down did Tae Young-won exclaim in admiration.

“Wow, Mo Yeon…”

“…”

Mo Yeon was so annoyed that he didn’t reply. He just glared silently. He had done such things out of desperation. Honestly, he didn’t think he would be found out.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I wish I could go back in time and watch you following me around. It must have been cute.”

Mo Yeon blinked rapidly.

“Pretending not to be interested, wearing those ridiculous glasses… You must have perked up your ears whenever you heard my name, trying to follow me secretly.”

“…”

“Right? That’s what you did, didn’t you?”

Tae Young-won reached out and traced from Mo Yeon’s cheek to his nape. Then, passing over his collarbone, he reached his chest. He easily found and touched the protruding nipple through the clothes.

Ungh.

Mo Yeon quietly bit his lip. Small stimulations often felt excessive on sensitive areas. Tae Young-won flicked the nipple once more with his finger.

This time, although he barely managed to hold back the sound, he unconsciously scrunched his eyes and hunched his shoulders. Then, a noticeably lowered voice resonated.

“Hiding your face so well, pretending not to know any of this… Acting like an annoying loner.”

“…”

“It’s frustrating. If I hadn’t noticed, I wouldn’t have realized you were like this.”

Mo Yeon raised his downcast eyes. As their eyes met, Tae Young-won’s hand, which had been tormenting his chest, momentarily stopped moving.

“If I could go back… I wouldn’t stalk you, sunbae.”

For a moment, Mo Yeon felt like Tae Young-won’s face hardened. It could be due to simple excitement, or it might be his imagination.