NAPE - 39

A promise made in a fluster was still a promise. Reluctantly, Bibi had to go to the school where Doyoon worked. On Monday morning, she pulled a hat down low and wore a large, baggy hoodie.

Honestly, for a vampire who rarely felt the cold, this attire was just cumbersome. But it was necessary to hide her easily noticeable appearance.

“Let’s sit in the very back row. There are a lot of people anyway, so no one will know who’s who, but there’s no point in standing out.”

Nam-won, who had entered the spacious lecture hall, was also wearing a hat, and he sat down in the back row with quite familiar movements. He was Bibi’s bodyguard and watcher for the day. He was always drafted because he was a junior, and he moved according to Doyoon’s instructions.

Usually, he would grumble and badmouth behind his back, but today he seemed quite excited.

“Hehe. The freshmen are so cute, so cute. Why are all the kids these days like celebrities?”

Seeing him grinning at the young blood, the reason became clear. Bibi involuntarily glared at Nam-won with narrowed eyes.

“Hey. Don’t look at me like that. Believe it or not, I’m a youthful thirty.”

“......”

“I didn’t come here to pick up girls. I came to absorb the youthful energy.”

“......”

“Honestly, look at the guys’ condition. Even if I stood next to them, there’d be no sense of incongruity.”

That was true. Looking at the guys around them, they had sparse beards and already had deep eye sockets. Outwardly, they weren’t that much different from Nam-won... not because Nam-won looked young, but because the guys looked old.

Whatever. Bibi sighed softly and looked around. The clean and spacious lecture hall was filled with young and fresh humans.

Their faces, having just entered university, held the vitality of new sprouts in spring. Especially in the eyes of some humans, a glint of arrogance or something similar to pride could be seen. Doyoon had said that this was a school where only the top 1 percent could enter. Was that why?

In the chaotic atmosphere of the new semester, the sound of someone’s footsteps was heard. With the appearance of a tall, handsome man entering through the front door, the students tensed up and straightened their heads. The surroundings became quiet.

“Attendance... I won’t call names today, I’ll just check who’s absent.”

Saying that, Doyoon scanned the lecture hall with dry eyes. He checked each student’s face and marked those who were absent. The students, as well as Nam-won, were surprised that the professor had memorized the names and faces of so many people even at the beginning of the first semester.

“See that, see that. I bet he’s a professor just for the fun of tormenting students.”

Bibi didn’t understand why memorizing people’s faces and names was such a shocking thing. Still, Doyoon standing on the podium looked different in another sense.

When they first met, Doyoon had been wearing a black mustang jacket, his hair disheveled by the rain and casually swept back as he smoked a cigarette. The image of a hunter roughly pulling the trigger without properly aiming was deeply ingrained like a stereotype.

Seeing him standing on the podium in a neat shirt and with his hair styled properly, he looked like a completely different person. Even with the title of professor, there was nothing awkward about it.

Bibi carefully observed Doyoon, who had begun lecturing, and the students who were focused on his words. She didn’t know how she had ended up in this place, but it was the first time in her life that she had been in a place with so many humans, so it was interesting.

The inside of the lecture hall was filled with all sorts of body odors that stimulated her senses, and from the back, the constant murmur of voices and rustling noises could be heard.

While Bibi was looking around, Nam-won put his bag on the desk to create a barricade, then slyly took out his phone and turned on a YouTube video. Doyoon was lecturing in the front, and he was doing something else. Wasn’t this a bit too much? Bibi waited for an opportunity and then snatched his phone like lightning.

“Mmph?”

Nam-won mumbled quietly with his lips pressed together. Bibi tilted her chin, indicating that he should focus since Doyoon was lecturing. Looking dumbfounded, Nam-won snorted and glared, holding out his hand. He seemed to want his phone back. Bibi shook her head firmly.

“Hah! Tch... You think it’s okay not to listen to the professor’s class...”

Nam-won grumbled once more. Bibi narrowed her eyes and shook her head.

If Nam-won watched YouTube, he would want her, who was next to him, to watch too, and then at least the people in front, behind, and beside them would be affected. Students who were distracted would gradually spread, and eventually, everyone would stop listening to Doyoon’s lecture. She couldn’t just stand by and watch such a useless thing happen.

“Haa...”

Eventually, Nam-won gave up. He glared at Bibi with resentful eyes, then shook his head and looked at Doyoon, who was starting his lecture.

Bibi looked around to see if there were any other students who were distracted. Fortunately, except for Nam-won, everyone was looking at Doyoon with sparkling eyes. She hadn’t known that humans’ enthusiasm for learning could be so great. She had always thought of them as just prey... Perhaps they were better than her.

“I have a dream now, graduate school.”

In a moment of humility, she heard someone muttering from behind. Bibi’s hearing was much better than humans’, so she heard the words clearly. Doyoon might have heard them too.

“Are you becoming a slave because of unrequited love?”

“I’d be grateful even if they made me a slave.”

“Yeah. When we first took the introductory course, there was a huge commotion about Eta. But the seniors call him ‘Demon Kwon’.”

A voice that seemed to agree was heard.

“Demon Kwon? Why? Is it because he’s handsome...? I wonder what nationality our Professor Kwon is.”

“Isn’t he Korean?”

“No. Look closely. His hair isn’t completely black, it looks a little brownish...”

“Really? It looks completely black to me. It seems to change depending on the angle of the light.”

“In my opinion, he’s mixed race.”

“Oh, then the size too... Hey, hey. Write with your pen.”

Judging that it wasn’t a conversation for the lecture hall, the students who had been whispering secretly switched to writing. Ah. That’s why... Everyone’s eyes were sparkling. It wasn’t because of their enthusiasm for the class. They were all devouring Doyoon with their eyes.

Somehow, it felt unsettling. Bibi felt a different kind of impulse than thirst. She wanted to personally control the eyes of the students who were looking at Doyoon as if teasing him. Until the end of the lecture, Bibi was very busy admiring Doyoon, feeling displeased with the students, and monitoring whether Nam-won was doing something else again.

“That’s all for today’s content. Shall we try a question different from the lecture? A brief discussion.”

Time flew by, and finally, Doyoon looked at his watch and closed his book. He sat on the empty desk and looked around at the students. However, his prophetic gaze didn’t reach the back row where Bibi was sitting.

“Would Adam and Eve, who ate the forbidden fruit and were expelled from the Garden of Eden, have been happy or unhappy?”

Even though he hadn’t asked them to present, a plump male student sitting in the front row confidently raised his hand. Doyoon tilted his chin as if to tell him to speak.

“I think they were happy. Although they betrayed God and were expelled from the land that nurtured them, they came to eat meat, established territory, and were able to accumulate wealth. Just like my grandfather.”

She couldn’t see his face because of his back, but from his confident voice, she could sense conviction, arrogance about his own intelligence, and a desire to show off that he was different from others. Someone muttered from behind, “That’s the grandson of the chairman of Group A.” Doyoon looked at the male student with an impassive face.

“Then, why would the two men and women who ate the forbidden fruit have felt shame and anguish?”

“Wouldn’t it be because they came to know death and ignorance? Wisdom is recognizing one’s own shortcomings, after all.”

“What would Jung-hoon have done with the forbidden fruit?”

When his name was mentioned accurately, the man coughed slightly, looking a bit flustered.

“Um... I would have eaten it. It’s better to be a hungry Socrates than an ignorant pig. I want to break out of my shell and become a bird flying to God.”

The student expressed his aspirations quite passionately. He showed a conviction that he was different from others. Breaking out of his shell and flying to God. Doyoon had given her a comic book called ‘Demian’ the day before yesterday, and she seemed to have seen similar words there. She thought there was something about Abraxas in it. It wasn’t interesting, so she had quickly closed it. She should have read more.

“Have you ever been hungry?”

Doyoon asked without any particular intention, and the students chuckled.

“Ah. Yes. I’ve been on a diet.”

“If it was a diet, you would have consumed the basic calories and water needed to live. Not that. I’m asking if you’ve ever been trapped in a cage, relying on only a drop of water. Someone who has fasted for about a month would know what hunger is like. Anyone here who has experienced that?”

No one raised their hand. In today’s world, it wasn’t common to starve that much. Of course, Bibi had experienced it all.

“Adam and Eve suffered three kinds of pain after eating the forbidden fruit. First, the pain of being ashamed of their ignorant selves. Second, the pain of being expelled from the perfect land given by God. Third, the pain of having to take other lives to survive. It was because they experienced that pain that they were able to conquer the land and prosper, as the student said.”

Adam and Eve expelled from paradise. A bird breaking out of its shell. Somehow... there was a common thread in that they left comfort while experiencing pain.