241 New Normal (2/2)

Ha Jun knew his friend quite well, and the first thing he mentioned to get Gun to loosen up was his darling little sister. ”Not gonna lie, I think I wasted half a box of tissues yesterday,” he quipped.

Just as he had expected, Gun's expression softened and the corner of his lips slightly raised. ”Yeah.”

”How is she doing, by the way? The internet is going crazy about her, I saw.”

”She says she's fine. She wants to focus more on her projects so she's staying away from the medias for now.”

”Cool! Care to give your good friend here some spoilers?” Ha Jun lowered his arm, then elbowed his friend. ”Da Na doesn't know anything either. She said her mom wouldn't tell her anything because it's 'professional'.”

”Yeo Ri landed two main roles,” Gun stated. ”But I'm worried that she's overworking herself.”

”Seriously?!” Ha Jun gaped. Yeo Ri's charm was indomitable. Just by appearing on a single commercial, she had quickly rose to stardom. And yesterday's drama proved that she wasn't just a pretty vase; not only was she beautiful, she was talented to boot!

”You must be really proud,” Ha Jun said.

Gun's mood seemed to soar as he thought of his sister.

Sensing that the other man had loosened up, Ha Jun soon moved on to another subject, steering into a school-related topic instead.

By the time the two realised it, they had already arrived at school.

There was still plenty of time left before class starts, so the two headed towards the student lounge instead.

Despite being early in the morning, the student lounge was fairly crowded, with some people relaxing and chatting while others were focusing on their laptops and notebooks.

As soon as they entered the area, other people's eyes could not help but be drawn towards the attractive pair, though the two did not pay attention to the gazes.

Ha Jun looked around, and after spotting Da Na on one of the tables, he dragged Gun towards the girl.

Unlike her usual clean and stylish appearance, Da Na seemed frazzled and unkempt. Her hair was a tousled mess, and her eyes carried heavy, dark bags underneath it.

”Woah, you look like you need a few doses of caffeine,” Ha Jun teased.

”Don't test me, boy. I'm desperate right now,” Da Na groaned, glancing up at the new arrivals briefly before returning to her furious typing.

”I'm way behind on the assignment for Madam Gong's class. Ugh, she's a strict grader, so I can't jeopardise this! Gun, did you finish yours?”

”What! Since when did we have an assignment for Madam Gong's class?! Why did nobody tell me!” Seeing Da Na's intensity, Ha Jun panicked. All three of them had taken many of the same classes including this one, but for some reason it completely slipped his mind. To make things worse, their first class of the day happened to be this Madam Gong's class.

”What do you mean nobody told you?! Madam Gong sent three reminders in the class group chat. I asked you about this two days ago, and you said you'd work on it soon. You airhead!” Her stress peaked, and Da Na began hitting Ha Jun's arm for release.

”Ow! Ow, stop!” The boy cried. ”Sh*t, I muted the chat the other day. No wonder it felt like I was forgetting something!”

”Idiot! Stupid!”

”What about you, Gun?” Ha Jun bore with Da Na's abuse and turned to look at Gun. His gaze carried a trace of hope—hope for the rare chance that Gun was a comrade who had also somehow forgotten about it.

Gun offered him a nonchalant glance. ”I submitted it three days ago.” It was clearly a simple assignment, thus it had only taken him less than a day to complete it.

”What the—how are you so fast!” Ha Jun cried. He quickly latched onto Gun's arm, begging, ”I'll buy you a meal if you help me—!”

Gun seemed to ponder about the offer. Though, he had already expected something like this would happen.

He'd given his friends the benefit of the doubt, but Ha Jun, who was the minimal-effort type, ended up not coming through. Still, he was already prepared for something like this, and had saved several of his unused resources just in case they needed it. After all, that was what friends are for, right? Not that he was trying to make things easy for them or anything. Some things still required personal effort, after all.

”Three,” Gun counter-offered.

”Deal!” Ha Jun slid into the empty spot next to Da Na, then took out his laptop while Gun forwarded some files and articles to him through his phone.

By some miracle, Ha Jun managed to complete the assignment two minutes before it was time for class. Granted, his work was sloppy at best, but at least he had completed it.

”Gun, I could just kiss you right now,” he wept gleefully as he submitted the assignment in online. ”Now let's go! Hurry!”

The three rushed to the lecture hall just in time before the lecturer came in.

”Hello, class. Before I go off on a rant about latecomers, just take a seat and we'll begin the lecture. There's a lot left to cover for this topic—”

—And so, another normal day in Lee Gun's life began.