"Why don't you text me first?"

What is this girl talking about?

I'd dropped Senior Yu Hak-pil off and come over to the business school.

My first class this semester was a required second-semester course for first-year business majors.

I'd told Senior Yu Hak-pil, sunk deep in thought:

If he studied the way I told him, he'd pass at the top for sure.

Senior Yu Hak-pil didn't believe it.

I wouldn't have believed it either.

Instead, I said, if he failed I'd give him a billion won.

He could use the money to keep studying after graduation.

Of course, there was a condition.

I said I'd name it after he passed.

The absurd offer left Senior Yu Hak-pil lost in thought.

Believe it or not, his head would be ready to explode for a while.

He'd be an idiot not to grab this chance.

I'd said I'd look into scholarships for him too, so he'd take the bait.

It might look like luring a man with money, but money was just one tool for reeling a person in.

Call it the groundwork needed for doing right.

My conscience was clear; looking back, I couldn't see any sin in it.

So I'd come into the business school's main building and was getting a can of coffee from the machine.

That's when she appeared.

A Yu-ra, the business-department freshman.

She walked right up out of nowhere and fired off something completely random.

A Yu-ra's looks and aura were something else.

Even in the business department, with its balanced ratio of men to women, she stood out.

That didn't mean she could move me, though.

Why didn't I get in touch first? The question made me laugh.

My turn to answer.

"Down by the creek and into the pines~ up past the ridge to the rooftops below~ yesterday's path and today's path too—my road, and it's never the same~." (TL Note: Tae-san is reciting Yun Dong-ju's 1938 poem "New Road" (새로운 길); the lines here are an adaptation in its spirit, not a translation of the poem.)

At my comeback, flowing like a…