༺ The Reason Behind His Kindness ༻
When I was folding the porridge paper bag to take it home with me…
-Buzzzz
My phone buzzed.
It was Minji. I brought my phone to my ear.
「Hello?」
「Yes? What’s wrong?」
「Doah! You recently worked on the advertisement, didn’t you?!」
「Yeah.」
Did something happen? She sounded so panicky…
「Have you sent the mid-term report?」
「Yeah I did. Today was the deadline, wasn’t it?」
Since me and Oppa planned to go out today, I already submitted it yesterday before I streamed.
「Where did you send it?」
Obviously…
「To the professor’s email, of course.」
Last week, he wrote his email address on the blackboard and told us to send the report there.
「He changed it! It seems like you haven’t seen the notifications on the school site, huh?」
「What?!」
「I only found out about it after the other guys told me! Ugh, I don’t even know what to say—!」
Why the fuck did the professor— No, there was no time for this! I had to submit the report now!
「So, where do I send it? When is it due again?」
「He made a whole page for us to submit our task! Send it there!」
「Seriously, what the hell is wrong with him?!」
So annoying!
Like, seriously!
Why couldn’t he just tell us at the end of our exam?!
I could feel my anger seethed out of the deepest part of my heart.
When I opened the school site and read the notice stuck on the corner, I legitimately had the urge to give the professor a low rating.
Who the hell posted an announcement like this?!
「They also set the submission deadline! There’s just fifteen minutes left! Hurry up, upload it!」
「Okay, okay! Thank you, Minji! Seriously, thank you!」
I hung up the call, thinking that I should go home right away.
But, as I grabbed the door handle, I thought of something.
…Had Oppa submitted the report properly?
If Minji and I didn’t know about it, there was a high chance that Oppa didn’t know either.
I screamed a silent curse, went back inside and sat on his computer chair.
Then, I pressed his computer’s power button.
“Oppa.”
He was sleeping so soundly…
Ugh… What should I do…?
I knew that he was sick, but this really was an urgent matter!
Sorry for waking you up, Oppa, but I had no other choice!
“Oppa! Oppa!”
I shook him gently, but he didn’t respond, so I grabbed his shoulder and shook it a bit more aggressively.
“Advertising management! Report! Now! You must send it again!”
He opened his eyes halfway.
Then, he shook his head left and right.
“No… I sent it already…”
“You sent it to the wrong place, Oppa! Not the professor’s email, but the school page!”
But, he was still out of it, probably because of the medicine.
“…Doah, why are you still here…?”
Because I couldn’t just go home! What if something went wrong with your report, you jerk?!
“Oppa, please wake up.”
I tugged both of Oppa’s arms in the opposite direction with all my might. Finally, he staggered out of his bed.
“Sit down here.”
After getting the corpse to sit down in front of the computer, I opened up the browser and got into the school site.
“Please log in here.”
But, he already went back to sleep, still sitting on the chair.
Seriously?! Fuck…I still have to submit mine—!
Luckily for me, when I clicked the login button, his ID and password were saved there, so I could just login right away.
Which meant, I could just submit the thing. Great!
“Oppa.”
“…Hm?”
“I’ll do this for you, let’s get you back to your bed.”
“…Okay.”
After sending Oppa back to bed, I clicked on the upload file button.
It wasn’t hard to find the file I needed to submit because the professor had decided on the format of the file’s title.
“Advertisment Strategy Report… Han Taemin…”
There we go, I found it.
After I was done uploading the file, I quickly pressed out the logout button and logged in with my account.
Then, I opened the email, downloaded my own file… And uploaded it…
After that was all done, I let out a deep sigh.
Seriously, this damned professor…
Jeez…!
I should also send Minji a coffee giftcard.
If she hadn’t called me, I would definitely go ‘Huh? But I sent it, though…?’ during the next class.
Just thinking about it made me want to die out of frustration.
Haah… Anyway, I should turn off the computer and leave.
But, when I pressed the logout button and closed the browser…
[Luka(Luka025)nim’s stream…]
…What the hell was this?
I was about to click the X button on the top right when I noticed those words.
The page name was very familiar.
There was no way I’d fail to recognize it.
After all, who wouldn’t recognize their own account?
But the problem here was this wasn’t my computer.
When I was about to click on the link, I found my name again on his bookmark tab.
“Doah.”
“…Yes?”
That surprised me so much that I involuntarily held my breath.
When I turned my head around, I saw Taemin oppa sitting on the bed, looking at me with hazy eyes.
“…What did you say again?”
“Sorry?”
“Ah, I was so sleepy, so I couldn’t hear what you said just now.”
Oppa, who finally had come to his senses, got up and stood behind me.
“I remember that I opened the school site earlier…”
“Ah…right…um…the professor made an announcement—”
After I explained the whole story, Oppa showed a similar reaction to mine just now.
“Woah… I can’t even say anything… Seriously…”
“I know, right? I bet there are a lot of people who haven’t seen his announcement yet.”
“Yeah, I’m lucky that you’re here.”
Oppa let out a pleasant smile, but my whole body was stiff like a broken doll.
“Y-Yes… Well… I-I need to go now, Oppa.”
“Thank you, Doah.”
“Don’t mention it. Also, you should rest now! Sorry I woke you up.”
“If you didn’t, I’d get a zero, so don’t be sorry.”
“Don’t go out today and rest properly, okay?”
“Okay. I’m sorry for today, and I’ll take you somewhere nice next time.”
I left Oppa’s house as if I was running away.
…He definitely knew from the start…
Because if he didn’t, there was no way he’d act like that to me…
It wasn’t until dawn that I realized the reason behind Oppa’s kindness.
He knew everything.
From the fact that I was Luka…
To the fact that I was a hard-core otaku virtual streamer who was into anime.
Then, he must have known that the reason why I didn’t agree to go out yesterday was because I was streaming…
“Ha.”
I couldn’t help but laugh looking at how ridiculous I was.
What a moron.
He must have thought that I was pathetic.
I felt cheated out of all the moments I had with Oppa, and those times when my heart was fluttering…
Were truly the worst.
Of course, there was a possibility that I was wrong.
There was a chance that he was just a fan of Luka, and he had no idea that me and Luka were the same person.
But that was just what I wanted to hear the most.
Oppa wasn’t a fool.
Even if he had only watched yesterday’s birthday stream, there was no way he didn’t realize it was me.
I laid down in my bed, but I still couldn’t close my eyes and sleep.
What should I do now?
Should I keep pretending that I hadn’t found out?
Was it okay for me to meet with him again, smiling as if nothing had happened.
Of course not.
There was no way I could meet him while holding such anxiety.
But, it wasn’t like I could just confront him and ask, ‘Are you trying to get close to me because I am Luka?’…
It was too scary.
What if his answer was a ‘yes’?
What if he told me that he just wanted to play around with a VTuber.
Honestly, based on his looks alone, I definitely could imagine him saying something like that.
As I was suffering from anxiety like that…
-Buzzz
My body jolted after hearing my phone ring.
Who the hell texted me at this hour?
[Doah, I’m so… -Han Taemin]
I doubted that he’d say something bad, but I was still afraid to open it.
Because if I were to open it, I’d have to reply to him.
But I wanted to know what he was saying… So I tried a small trick.
[Do you want to activate airplane mode?]
After pressing the OK button, I opened the app.
The read notification didn’t appear.
It was a long text, so I scrolled it down slowly.
[Doah, I’m so sorry today.]
[I wanted to take you to a nice place and have a good time with you on your birthday, but as you saw, I’m not feeling wellㅠㅠ]
[I couldn’t even welcome you properly and just laid down looking like a mess. When I came to my senses, I felt so embarrassed about it…]
[When I looked into the assignment again, I realized that I would be in real trouble if it wasn’t for you.]
[Just look at the class group chat, a lot of people are protesting, they literally went ham there.]
[They’ll definitely report the professor to the school if he grades us based on this whole mess, maybe they’ll take some measures later.]
[Anyways, I’ll treat you to a meal next time in exchange for the porridge!]
[I felt like I was resurrected when I woke up after eating that! Haha!]
[See you on Monday morning at school!]
[Thank you so much for today!]
After that, he sent me a sticker of a running puppy with a heart in its mouth.
What do I do now?
Is there no refund in love?
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