READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 198
On the second day, there wasn’t really anything that could be called a special experience.
They often called it a ‘show-and-tell schedule,’ right?
We roamed around the nearby area for a tour of Seoul National University.
In the process, a few male students, who were completely obsessed with games, fled to an internet café.
If you’re going to do that, why even come on this trip?
And unexpectedly, there was the National Museum of Korea.
Because we were supposed to spend two hours in the museum, I thought I’d waste two hours staring at rotten flatfish eyes…but then I spotted the gift shop.
This turned out to be an unexpected find.
There were makgeolli cups carved with pictures of scholars drawn in an old style.
When you filled them with liquid, the transparent faces of the scholars turned bright red as if they were drunk.
Mother-of-pearl tumblers, cups engraved with patterns of royal robes, celadon bowls, and Goryeo celadon AirPod cases.
Compared to the bland and trashy souvenirs sold in local tourist spots, they had quite practical items—or even if they were useless, they inexplicably sparked a desire to collect them.
I immediately bought a mother-of-pearl tumbler for 54,000 won.
Speaking of collectibles, there was a 99,000 won miniature golden incense burner.
Still, it’s not like I’d have a chance to light incense at home.
“Oh, but I do need to light incense for something.”
Thinking about it, there was a mascot at home that needed to smell like incense behind the folding screen.
Hmm, buying one for Gomteng’s funeral wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I barely resisted the impulse buy and returned to the accommodation after finishing all the schedules.
The second day’s agenda passed by quickly, almost in a blink.
Though that comparison comes after spending ten hours in an amusement park.
The three of us, who had endured until dawn and had a rough time today,
Flopped onto our beds the moment it was bedtime, almost as if proving that my behavior on the first day was right.
While the three of them showered first and collapsed on the bed, I had plenty of time to soak in the bathtub on the second day.
A satisfying souvenir from the museum, a satisfying meal, and a free schedule.
Before I ended this perfect day of travel as a student, I fiddled with my smartphone and sent a message to Siyeon.
[Are you there?]
After sending the message, maybe about three seconds passed?
The number ‘1’ next to me disappeared in a flash.
Another three seconds later came Siyeon’s reply.
[Still awake.]
[Do you all stay up all night there?]
With everyone busy moving about, I hadn’t met Siyeon much on the second day.
As we untangled the stories piling up, my fingers moved busily.
I suddenly wondered if Siyeon’s room also had grand plans to stay up until dawn, so I rapidly typed out a message.
[Yesterday, we did.]
[But today,]
[Everyone is sleepy,]
[So they said they’d just sleep lol.]
Shortly, Siyeon sent four quick messages in a row.
Yesterday, we stayed up until dawn playing, but today, they would just go to sleep.
The situation was no different from our room, which was also dark.
After briefly responding with four “kekekes,” just as I was about to leave a message wishing them to sleep well without asking whether they had stayed up all night or not,
[Yesterday,]
[In another room,]
[Did boys come too?]
A sudden expression hardened at Siyeon’s next series of messages.
What on earth does that mean, Siyeon? Why are boys coming to the girls’ room?
As I almost sent a message asking ‘Which guys?’ I quickly came to my senses and fervently deleted the text using the backspace key.
I briefly thought, ‘How dare they?,’ but sensing this might be an old worry, I asked if it was fun instead.
[Did you have fun?]
[Yeah.]
[That’s a relief.]
[Sleep early tonight!]
I felt reassured by Siyeon’s positive response and added a few more lines to finish the message.
In any case, it seemed she was getting along well with her friends, unlike at school.
[Yeah.]
[Good night.]
With the short three-letter message, I lightly pressed the power button and plugged the smartphone into the charger.
As the faint light shining in the dark room went out, deep darkness settled in.
Since everyone had fallen asleep first, I didn’t need to use the eye mask and earplugs that I’d used just fine the previous night.
Tossing around, I buried myself in the blanket, then simply closed my eyes.
Thus began the first schedule of the third day, after breakfast, marking the final itinerary of the school trip.
Two hours at a large indoor sports center.
As someone who had never even thought about visiting a sports center just for fun, it turned out to be quite a refreshing experience.
Just hearing the word “sports,” I initially thought, ‘Why would they take middle schoolers to a gym?’ but a sports center is actually a place full of various activities for both kids and adults to enjoy.
Since I’d never been and clearly had no interest, how would I know?
Exciting music with cheap sound quality was playing, and there was no moment of quiet in the indoor sports center.
‘What should I try….’
Wandering aimlessly around the sports center caused me to reconsider the entrance fee.
Archery, climbing, crossing a sky bridge, biking, darts, basketball court…
While there were tons of activities laid out, avoiding those that required vigorous movement meant there wasn’t much I wanted to do.
Just loitering about, I felt like a bear lazily waking from hibernation when suddenly, I spotted the green sign of the shooting zone through the snow-like crystal.
It didn’t require much movement, looked fun, and was a generally safe activity.
Having never shot a pistol before, the previous soldier in me shouted with baseless confidence to give it a try.
Now that I’m here, I should at least do something, I rationalized as I subtly stood in line.
Before long, I felt others starting to fill in behind me in the noisy atmosphere.
As I instinctively turned my head, habitually looking back…
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
Coincidentally, the three guys standing right behind me were the trio of boys I had hung out with in the first year.
As our overlapping exclamations echoed, Sunhyuk slightly raised his hand to chest height, palm visible, as he spoke.
“Hey, you little rascal!”
“I can still reach your neck with my hand, you know?”
Since I sensed they were likely to start trouble, I instinctively extended my hands first.
To avoid embarrassment, he said the three words he usually uses, ‘you little rascal.’
Despite his considerable height gain, compared to my still-stunted growth, he could easily reach my neck with his hands.
But briefly, as he managed to stretch his neck back, Sunhyuk shrugged me off due to the height difference.
“Wow, you’ve gotten stronger, huh?”
“Geez, can’t you just say something without choking me? Did you come here to shoot?”
“If you don’t say anything worth getting hit for, why don’t you?”
This felt to me like a long-lost mundane element of life. Sunhyuk casually shrugged off the complaints with a question about whether we’d come to shoot.
Similarly indifferent, I replied while keeping an eye on the two behind him who were quite sweaty from the effort.
“Why are you two like that?”
“There’s that brutal taekwondo machine over there, and I was the only one who didn’t do it.”
Pointing vaguely towards a taekwondo machine, Sunhyuk indirectly explained the state of his two friends.
“No, you can’t just keep doing that forever. It won’t end!”
“If we took punches and kicks like that, even a bear would be on the ground by now, damn it…”
It seemed that Tae Hyun and Dong Ha were quite dissatisfied with that taekwondo machine, inhaling deeply and exhaling loudly as they grumbled about their never-ending battle with it.
I had no idea what had happened, but through these two, I learned that there were experiences I should never try even out of curiosity.
Where was Siyeon? What class were you both in? How did you do on your midterms?
As we started to share various unfinished conversations, it was soon time for us to experience shooting.
The pistol model was of a reasonable weight that wouldn’t strain the wrists of a middle school girl.
Looking to the side, there was an information board divided into six stages explaining how to hold the gun and shoot.
So this is how you hold a pistol, I thought as I grabbed the gun according to the instructions.
“You can’t even shoot well in FPS games, yet you want to shoot a real gun?”
‘This guy… I have to win, no matter what.’
Since we were next in line to enter the shooting range in sequence, Sunhyuk was also there.
He was fired up and ready to show off his shooting skills to a middle schooler, comparing real guns to video game experiences.
I took a deep breath, ready to channel all my focus into shooting—mechanically pulling the trigger once amidst the white noise, followed by the sound of the simulated gunfire.
Pulling the trigger again amidst the white noise, another round of mechanical gunshot echoed.
Focus brought back the concentrated shooting I had almost forgotten; the results were…
“Wow, you really suck at this.”
‘Such a bummer.’
A crushing defeat.
Honestly, if I compared it to a child’s game, it was still on that level, but I had still been brutally outdone by a middle schooler.
The pistol just wasn’t my fit; clearly, I was better suited for a K-2, yeah.
Dong Ha and Tae Hyun had decent shooting scores too.
While I felt humiliated after being brutally beaten by a middle school guy, I couldn’t say anything when suddenly Sunhyuk taunted me again.
“I told you, that’s why you can’t win at FPS games.”
Not stopping there, Sunhyuk casually laughed and continued to tease me about my gaming life, pulling in FPS games that I had never even played.
In a typical scenario, it was a taboo for girls to use against boys in verbal battles.
He boldly opened his mouth, referencing ‘that place,’ as if it were all fair game.
“Yeah, go shoot a lot in the army.”
“Oh, damn.”
His expression stiffened immediately; he finally realized he couldn’t win this fight and lowered his head.
Filthy and disgusting as it was, a win was still a win.