BMGSN 3

〈Jinki-ya, I’ve seriously never met someone as good a person as you.〉

〈No. It’s just that you’re too kind… Other people treated you badly. There are a lot of good people out there.〉

〈Still… You comforted me like this. Thank you so much. There’s no one but you. 〉

Before the transmigration, Choi Jinki and Joo Unyoung had slept together in the same room. The softly whispering voice from back then came back to him vividly, far more real than when he had read it in the novel.

The white collarbone faintly visible beneath the thin T-shirt. Back then, Choi Jinki had been led along as if bewitched by Joo Unyoung, and the two of them lay down together in Choi Jinki’s room and tried to fall asleep. Their hands tightly clasped beneath the blanket.

Joo Unyoung had already liked Choi Jinki at that time. That meant that the two guys at the beginning of volume two already knew that they liked each other. It was not some vague flirting phase or anything like that. It was practically the same as dating.

“Ah… F*ck, this is driving me insane.”

When he buried his face in his hands, his chest felt stiflingly tight. He roughly wiped his face and swept his hair back, but it soon fell down again. Jinki let out a long breath and trudged after Joo Unyoung.

He’s not a bad guy, really. But why, of all people, did I have to end up in this body…? Why me? Ah!

His head throbbed as if someone were hacking it apart from the inside. Jinki clenched the ion drink that he had barely taken a few sips from and spat out a quiet “F*ck.” Some guys passing by glanced over at him with pizza bread stuffed in their mouths.

“Ah, f*ck!”

When he shouted out in irritation, the group of guys who looked slightly over 170 centimeters hurried halfway up the stairs, muttering under their breath.

This is driving me insane. Why don’t these bastards say anything even though they know they like each other? They should have started dating from volume two! Then at least I could be the one to say we should break up. F*ck. Anyone but Jinki would have been perfect, so why does it have to be this bastard?

“No, this is a f*cking lottery win. Yeah, he’s insanely handsome, rich, and good at studying!”

If only he could shake off Joo Unyoung, his life would be smooth sailing. Being transmigrated into Choi Jinki instead of some other guy was genuinely good fortune. If only this situation were excluded.

Jinki soothed himself like that as he took the stairs two at a time. Again and again, he recalled the memories of that day. The day they slept together. What kind of conversations they had, even the trivial details, came back clearly.

But there was one thing that bothered him. In Choi Jinki’s memories, there was no recollection of secretly sharing a “kiss.” And just as importantly, he had not openly followed Joo Unyoung around the way Unyoung had claimed yesterday.

Whether that meant there was something wrong with his memories, or whether Joo Unyoung had been lying. There was no way for the current Jinki to know.

* * *

After sitting through first-period math, his anxious thoughts vanished in an instant. That was because the knowledge stored in Choi Jinki’s body was far beyond what he had imagined. Joo Unyoung or whatever, a brain that had finished even the advanced senior-year curriculum was good enough to take the college entrance exam right away.

As he listened to the lesson, Jinki thought for the first time that it was fun. The next class was the same, and the one after that too. Once he realized that every problem was solvable, an unfounded confidence welled up inside him, the belief that no matter what happened, he could handle it.

Joo Unyoung bought Jinki drinks and bread. Jinki accepted what the guy gave him, memories of his past life, when he had been desperate for food due to having no money, surfacing unbidden. Of course, in his head, he kept repeating to himself, ‘Next time, I’ll refuse.’

Then lunchtime finally arrived, the moment he had been waiting for. The moment the fourth period ended, students ran toward the cafeteria like lunatics. They shouted loudly, voices echoing everywhere.

“Want to check what’s on the menu today?”

“Ah, no.”

Joo Unyoung tried to tempt him by casually bringing up the menu, but Jinki deliberately cleared his throat and avoided his gaze. He felt oddly self-conscious because he had accepted bread and a drink earlier. Still, he needed to shake him off. They had to grow distant.

At that moment, through the wide-open back door, a boy with reddish-brown hair swaggered in, wildly swinging his arms.

“Hey, hyung-nim’s here.”

The guy, who had his school uniform buttons undone halfway, plopped down into the seat next to Jinki and let out a huge yawn. Several piercings were embedded in his right ear.

“Let’s go in a bit. It’s bulgogi today, so the line’s f*cking long.”

“Oh, okay.”

Jinki gave an awkward smile, leaned back against the chair, and pulled out his phone. His arms were stiff with tension. He could not remember who the guy next to him was at all.

The knowledge his body remembered mostly seemed to be “important things.” For example, who the class president was, or how the male teacher who passed by taught Korean, but had such a quiet voice that you had to strain to listen, even when he used a microphone.

But this guy, who had so naturally taken the seat next to him, did not come to mind. It seemed to mean that the previous Choi Jinki had not considered him a friend, or had dismissed him as unimportant and ignored his existence.

Just then, his phone buzzed with a chime, and a message popped up.

[Go Yeol: Come out, let’s eat lunch.]

Jinki immediately sent a reply.

[Where?]

[Go Yeol: Front gate.]

There was no refusal. It was far better than eating with some nameless guy or with Joo Unyoung.

“I think I’m gonna eat with Yeol. You two wanna eat together?”

Jinki lifted his head and asked without hesitation. Joo Unyoung pouted his lips slightly, looking a bit disappointed. Then he tilted his head and asked in a grumbling tone.

“Just the two of you? Can’t I come too?”

“You?”

“Yeah. Me. I mean, him too, so wouldn’t it be fine if the four of us eat together? Why eat separately?”

Jinki chewed on the inside of his cheek with a troubled expression. F*ck, what do I do? I want to run away from here, and he’s asking to come along?

But he had no excuse to refuse. After some hesitation, Jinki asked Go Yeol if two more people could join, and Yeol replied with a simple [Sure] without even asking who they were.

When Jinki’s expression crumpled slightly, Joo Unyoung, who had been watching, sprang to his feet as if he had been waiting for the moment.

“Go Yeol said it’s fine, right? Let’s go, hurry.”

“Huh? Uh…”

“Baek Jaehee, did you bring your phone and wallet?”

“Who even carries a wallet these days? Ah, you’re an X-Phone user, right? Use X-Sung Pay, you little shit.”

Jaehee… Ah, Baek Jaehee.

Jinki sighed. Baek Jaehee was a delinquent who, despite that, served as the student council president.

In the middle to later part of the novel, there was a scene where Baek Jaehee brought his friends and beat up Choi Jinki. He even brought weapons in a vicious display, making Choi Jinki feel despair, while Baek Jaehee looked triumphant.

After that, he threatened Joo Unyoung. Feeling that there was no way to resolve the situation, Unyoung said he would give up on Choi Jinki.

It was because he could not bear to let the person he liked get hurt. Because of that incident, the two had temporarily drifted apart. It was simply one of those hardships that appear in the normal flow of the story, so later on, Choi Jinki took his revenge and saved Joo Unyoung again.

“It’s inconvenient sticking with this old X-phone. What should I do?”

“If you keep using X-Sung, X-Phones will start feeling inconvenient. Buy the new one that’s coming out this time.”

“Should I? But it’s not even broken yet.”

“Do you wait for your phone to break before replacing it? Whatever, let’s go already. What are we eating?”

Jinki frowned as he felt two pairs of eyes turn toward him. If he safely grew distant from Joo Unyoung, would he be able to avoid what happened with Baek Jaehee? That guy had not originally been that vicious either.

“I don’t know either.”

“Let’s eat meat, meat!”

“Meat places aren’t open at this hour.”

Baek Jaehee strode up and slung an arm around Jinki’s neck, walking as if they were dancing. He seemed to have completely forgotten about the bulgogi from the cafeteria, chattering excitedly about meat instead.

Jinki pushed him away several times, but he just would not let go. It was already getting warm around noon, and Jinki was frowning when Joo Unyoung grabbed Baek Jaehee’s shoulder. The back of his hand brushed Jinki’s cheek. It was cool.

“Jaehee-ya, let go first. You’re making Jinki uncomfortable.”

“Huh? Hey, over something like this…”

“I said, let go.”

The atmosphere sank in a strange way. Baek Jaehee looked at Joo Unyoung as if he were dumbfounded, then clicked his tongue and snapped, “Ah, fine. Whatever!” as he pulled his arm away. Only then did Joo Unyoung break into a bright smile.

“Jinki-ya, you were hot, right? Let’s go.”

With his eyes gently curving as he smiled, Joo Unyoung grabbed Jinki’s arm and tugged him along. From behind them, Baek Jaehee could be heard grumbling about how men were supposed to be.

* * *

“Ah, augh!”

“Just a little more… Try to relax.”

“Ah, wait… I mean, ugh, hnngh!”

His arms trembled violently. Jinki squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again as he felt the pressure on his lower abdomen. If he had been the original Choi Jinki, he would have cleared this easily. But the current Jinki did not know how to properly use his strength.

“Jinki-ya, is it hard for you?”

“No… Ugh, haa…”

With his cheeks flushed bright red, Jinki finally managed to sit astride the top of the wall. He had never imagined the wall would be this high. On top of that, the other guys went over it smoothly like snakes, and the fact that he, tall and broad-built, could not do it made him feel like he could die of embarrassment.

“Jinki-ya, jump over here. I’ll catch you.”

Supporting himself with both arms, Jinki gently rubbed his lower abdomen where it had been pressed hard. From below, voices urged him to come down already, but he did not have the presence of mind to respond.

“Haa, huff… Ah, it hurts.”

F*ck, this seriously hurts like hell.

Jinki swallowed down the curses he wanted to spit out. If he swore openly like he normally would, the others would notice that Choi Jinki had changed. Of course, saying he had entered a novel would not even count as an excuse.

“Jinki-ya.”

At that moment, a pale hand stretched up toward him. It belonged to Joo Unyoung, who had been calling his name repeatedly. When Jinki, startled, staggered with an “Ah—,” Go Yeol extended his thick arms and grabbed Jinki’s waist on both sides. Jinki immediately understood what he was trying to do.

“Y-Yeol-ah.”

“Why?”

“I’ll, I’ll jump down myself. If you do that, you’ll hurt your arms.”

No matter how strong Go Yeol was, lifting a nearly adult man straight up would be difficult. Jinki hurriedly pushed Yeol’s hands away with both of his own.

Then he looked down, and his breath caught in his throat. The wall was far higher than Go Yeol, who was nearly 190 centimeters tall.

“I, I’ll do it—ngh!”

And at some point, his vision started spinning. No, Go Yeol could not have spun him around, so the world itself must have spun. Jinki let out a dying scream.