Semantic Error

ierce manner.
The handout Sangwoo needed was now in the shape of an airplane, sandwiched between Jaeyoung’s index and middle fingers.

“Give it to me, please.”

“More desperately.”

“I beg you.”

“Fail.”

The moment the professor turned his back on the students to write on the blackboard, the paper plane drew a smooth arc in the air while escaping through the slightly opened back door.

Sangwoo rose from his seat, suppressing his anger.
It was also a foolish thought that he would get anything from Jang Jaeyoung.
He squeezed between the tightly packed desks and went forward to grab a printout from the stack on the professor’s desk.
Just then, the professor turned around and made a cold expression.

“What is the student doing?”

“I’m sorry.
I didn’t get the materials, but I couldn’t tell you, because I was afraid it would interfere with the lecture.”

“It’s not because you’ve been dozing off since the first hour?”

The professor clicked his tongue in disapproval while wearing an expression that screamed “pathetic.”

“Go to the bathroom or something.”

“What?”

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“Bath.
Room.”

Sangwoo went out the front door with the handout without even knowing why he had to do so.
He was not a student who was loved by professors for raising his hand or visiting the lab on his own initiative, but he naturally gained their trust at the end of the semester, due to his high assignment completion rate and high test scores.
It was the first time he had made an impression on a professor on the very first day of class.
In addition, Professor Choi was an important professor who mainly taught fourth-grade (advanced) subjects.

After entering the bathroom, Sangwoo almost screamed.
His reflection in the mirror was strange.
A dark mustache had been vividly inked under his nose.
He hurriedly turned on the faucet and washed his face with water, but nothing changed.

‘I need to hurry and return though…’

Sangwoo lathered his hands with soap and quickly rubbed his philtrum (the vertical cleft in the middle of the upper lip).
The black graffiti was erased little by little, but it was a very slow process.
Sangwoo couldn’t believe that he was wasting his lecture time on such a useless thing.

‘You’ve been meticulously painted as an arts student, you son of a bitch.’

He wasted 19 minutes like that.
With only five minutes remaining in the class, he thought he’d only be glared at by the professor upon returning to the classroom.

‘What was it that I did that was so wrong?’

Sangwoo suddenly felt wronged.
He only told the professor the cold, hard facts about what happened in the class Jaeyong failed: Sangwoo had done the assignment alone.
Jang Jaeyoung’s failure to graduate may seem unfair to others, but it was self-inflicted.
For that reason, it was too harsh for him to sit back and wait outside the classroom during class.

‘Error-like motherfucker!’

Sangwoo uttered the worst curse word he could think of.
Even ‘error’ depended on the nature of the error.
It could easily be fixed if it were caused by typos or formatting errors, but logical errors often appear and are not easily caught no matter how thoroughly the code is searched.
Jang Jaeyoung, who unexpectedly appeared and tore down Sangwoo’s daily life, was nothing short of a semantic error.

After the class ended, the students, who had been tightly-packed like canned sardines, struggled as they pushed their way out of the classroom.
Sangwoo walked back to his seat and packed his backpack.
He saw red padding out the corner of his eye, but ignored it and left the classroom.
Jang Jaeyoung’s goal was to make Sangwoo angry.
He didn’t want to make him triumphant by showing him the expression on his face.

He thought that it would be better to not attend this class rather than sit in such a position.
However, because it was a required class for his major, he had no other choice but to stay far away from Jaeyoung, who had occupied the best seat.

After that, things went the same way as the previous day.
After getting his tray of Korean food, Sangwoo settled in the most remote place in the restaurant, and among the many empty seats, Jaeyoung sat next to him and ate without saying a word.

Feeling indigestion, he cleaned his plate, and went to the snack shop, but of course, they didn’t have the coffee Sangwoo wanted.
Because of the theater crew, even his walk was ruined.

After sitting down at his reserved seat in the library, he was exhausted.
It had been only two days since the tormenting began.
At this rate, how could he stand that psycho’s attacks for two weeks?

“Hitting the books again today, hoobaenim.”

He was sitting with poor posture and quietly opened a book, but Sangwoo glared at him with angry eyes.
Now, just from looking at Jaeyoung’s face, Sangwoo’s seethed with anger.

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“Can’t I report it somewhere?”

Charge:

– The crime of walking around in red.
(Not against the law)

– The crime of occupying a seat.
(Not against the law)

– The crime of sitting next to him.
(Not against the law)

– The crime of shaking his leg.
(Ambiguous)

– The crime of spinning his pen.
(Ambiguous)

– The crime of buying up all the coffee.
(Not against the law)

– The crime of filling up the trash can.
(Not against the law)

– The crime of not giving the handout.
(Not against the law)

– The crime of scribbling on the face.
(Guilty)

– The crime of his very existence.
(Not against the law)

– …….

The more he analyzed Jaeyoung’s faults, the more he himself seemed to feel shabby.
The cunning villain couldn’t be accused of using abusive language or violence.
It was as if Jaeyong had gotten inside Sangwoo’s head and then had only chosen things he absolutely hated, things that wouldn’t seem like a big deal to others, to torment him.

“Bug-like bastard.”

Sangwoo glared at Jaeyoung who was reading a book and giggling.
With his back fully leaning against the chair, he crossed one leg over the other and nodded vigorously.
A red hat filled his field of vision, so Sangwoo felt a strong desire to hit the back of Jaeyoung’s head.

He couldn’t do anything, because he had been paying attention to Jang Jaeyoung for quite some time.
But things got better after a while.
His enemy, who was reading a book, yawned and began to fall asleep.
Fortunately, he fell asleep quietly without snoring, grinding his teeth, or talking in his sleep.

After Jaeyoung had fallen asleep, people he presumed were his friends were giggling as they went to take pictures.
At the same time, a few female students hung around and whispered, but it wasn’t that much of a distraction.

Two hours later, Sangwoo put the book and the pencil case in his bag, careful not to wake up Jaeyoung.
But the moment he pulled out his chair, Jaeyoung suddenly sprang to his feet.
Drinks and several packed snacks that had been left behind by people he didn’t know, dropped on the floor as he hit them with his elbow.