Chapter 48: Overturning a Poor First Impression
After that harrowing experience dealing with the North Koreans and their attack on their southern neighbor's social elite. Both Hee-Young and her daughter were quite shaken up. However, as much as they wanted Alex to stay by their side twenty-four seven, he simply told them that they did not pay him for emotional support before leaving the two women by their lonesome.
Alex then returned to his home, with the scavenged North Korean AK and several of its magazines, and stashed them away. It was highly illegal for him to possess this weapon, but there was no way in hell he was giving up the chance to own an automatic AKM. This was something that would be extremely difficult to obtain, even in America.
After unloading the firearm and making sure the mags were secure, Alex then went to sleep, just wanting to get some rest after the nerve-wracking hostage situation. He had killed half a dozen men at the very least, and yet he did not seem to care.
If anything, he found the whole situation exciting, so much so, that he was having a hard time sleeping due to the adrenaline and endorphins that were flowing through his bloodstream. But soon enough, he fell asleep, and the next day he rose with the dawn, before getting ready for his classes.
---
Before Alex's physics lecture began, his professor, Doctor Park Hae-won, was sitting in her office with a middle-aged man. The man had short, grey hair, dark eyes, and wore a pair of glasses. He was dressed in a stereotypical professor's outfit, with the leather patches on the elbows of his blazer and everything.
Currently, the man was sipping his coffee with a haggard look on his weary face. Why was he so exhausted? Because ever since this semester had begun, his wife had been hounding him about multiple things.
Not only was she constantly complaining about his lack of effort in his lectures, which was resulting in a poor performance of his students, but he was also spending more money than they had on gambling. Bringing the family even further into debt.
But lately what angered the man the most was how his wife was so focused on this single student, who she could not help but bitch about every time they were together. Recently, she had been complaining about how Alex had cheated on his exam, and yet despite her bold claims, she could not prove it. There was simply no evidence to support her thesis.
Like always, Hae-won was currently speaking about this very subject, with an irritated tone in her heightened tone, and a scowl on her otherwise pretty face.
"That little punk! I don't know how he did it, but he is definitely guilty of cheating. One just doesn't go from a C average to a one hundred percent on an exam without some kind of cheating!"
Hae-Won's husband simply sighed. He did not want to get into this conversation again. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to take a smoke break and gamble some more. But his wife was forcing him to listen to her "problems" this early in the morning. Thus, he could only respond with sound logic and reasoning.
"Dear, you have no evidence that he cheated… Maybe he just studied really hard and applied himself?"
Hae-won scowled at her husband with a hate filled gaze, as she chewed him out for taking Alex's side in this petty one sided dispute.
"Of course you would take his side! You are both men, after all!"
Hae-won's husband was, in all honesty, barely even paying attention to his wife's words. He was too fixated on his phone, for which he was currently gambling on online slots. After dropping nearly five hundred USD down the drain, he scowled before climbing out of his seat with a frustrated expression on his face.
""Fuck! I lost again! Do you ever shut the fuck up?! I don't care about your problems!"
This sudden outburst shocked Hae-won. Until now, her husband had never lashed out at her like this, and she realized he had just wasted more money on gambling. Thus, she was quick to scold him over his errant behavior.
"How much did you waste this time? You do realize we are behind on our bills, right? Why do you keep dragging us further into debt?"
The man did not say a word, as he grabbed his coat and began to walk out the door, which forced Hae-won to scream at him with a shrill tone in her voice.
"Where the fuck do you think you're going?"
Despite how furious the woman was, her husband simply made one statement before shutting the door behind him, and leaving Hae-won all by her lonesome.
"I need a smoke…"
Once she was alone, Hae-won began to pout, and think about how she would scold Alex after her lecture was over.
---
Just like that, Alex's lecture was over in the blink of an eye, despite the fact that it felt like a lifetime to him. He was just about to head out to his next class when Hae-won stopped him. There was a bitter look on her face, as she commanded Alex to take a seat in front for desk.
"Alex, I need a word with you. Come and sit…"
In all honesty, Alex was waiting for this conversation, and thus he had a smug expression on his face, when Hae-won sat down at her desk and pulled out his test, which was fully graded. She handed it over, and to nobody's surprise, it was marked with a 100% score. Thus, Alex continued to grin smugly, as he asked just what was wrong with his test results.
"I'm sorry, Doctor Park, but I don't see the problem?"
This remark caused Hae-won to frown, as she scolded Alex for lying to her.
"You know damn well what's wrong with this test… You cheated! If you admit it now, I promise to be lenient with you!"
However, Alex did not budge in the slightest, and continued to look at the woman with a conceited gaze. His retort was equally smug.
"Oh please, Doctor Park, you and I both know that if you had any evidence of your claims, then we would not be having this conversation in private, and instead we would be sitting in front of the dean right now, while going over disciplinary measures. So tell me, what is this really about?"
Hae-won was immediately flustered by Alex's remarks, specifically because he was 100 percent correct. She had no evidence of his misdeeds, and was merely fishing for information. Once she had been called out, she felt incredibly embarrassed, and was about to scold Alex for "lying" to her when he spoke up once more.
"Are you having marital problems? Is that it? And because you can't speak to your husband about these issues, you decided to lash out against me, because I'm the other constant source of annoyance in your life?"
Alex had hit the nail on the head with this remark, and Hae-won was having a hard time composing herself. She could only cross her arms and look at Alex with a gaze of hatred as she hissed through her teeth.
"My husband and I are doing just fine, thank you very much! Why don't you mind your own business?"
Upon seeing that he was correct in his assumption, Alex wore a confident grin on his face as he began to press the woman for answers.
"You know you say that, but your tone sounds incredibly frustrated. It must be exhausting carrying all that stress. How about you tell me more about your problems? You would be surprised how good of a listener I actually am..."
Alex had enough experience with women to know that when they spoke about their problems, they were never actually looking for a logical and rational solution. They just wanted emotional support. And though he may not be able to feel genuine sympathy for a woman, the man had over the years developed an impeccable ability to mimic these emotions.
The moment he offered to listen to Hae-won's problems, he had already won the game, because her husband was the type of man looking for a solution, rather than being an ear for his woman to vent her frustrations to.
This was a common mistake that men made while in relationships with women, because they were far more logical and rational creatures than the female species, and because of this, they thought in terms of problems and solutions, rather than emotional nonsense.
Any man who was capable of recognizing this divide between the sexes, and had the ability to fake empathy and compassion, was a man who could win any bitch's heart, especially if he was both good looking and wealthy. And Alex was a master of this art form. Thus, Hae-won suddenly lessened her hostility when she heard that the man actually wanted to listen to her problems.
Alex skipped his next two classes and spent the entire time speaking with Hae-won about her marital problems. It turned out her husband was quite lazy, barely taking on any courses this semester to teach. Not only that, but he had developed a gambling addiction, and had become quite distant.
The reason she had been pestering Alex so much was because her family's finances relied entirely on her bonus. Or else she had no idea what they were going to do to survive. Naturally, this created a lot of stress and anxiety for the woman, who was happy enough to vent all of these emotions onto Alex.
Despite desperately wanting to inform Hae-won of the solutions to these problems, Alex did not. Because if he offered a logical and rational solution, instead of emotional support, the mature beauty would get mad at him.
Because of this, Alex simply listened to what she was saying, or at least to the best of his ability, and gave his professor the words of comfort that she needed. Which was more than any man had ever given her.
By the time their discussion was over, it was already lunchtime, and Hae-won only just now realized this. She was incredibly embarrassed, making Alex miss two of his lectures, and immediately apologized.
"I am sorry for wasting so much of your time. It is just that I have never met a man who was such a good listener before… You're not as a bad of a person as I first thought…"
Alex simply smirked, knowing that he had overcome the first hurdle in his attempt to conquer his beautiful teacher's heart. His first impression was not a good one, and it was not easy to overcome one's initial biases towards you. But, after wasting nearly three hours listening to her bullshit problems and providing emotional support, he had successfully done this. So much so that Alex felt the need to press his luck.
"Well… If you want to make it up to me, you could always cook me a nice meal? You do know how to cook, right?"
This comment caused Hae-won to blush. She indeed knew how to cook, but for whatever reason, her husband hated her cooking. Even though she prepared a lunch for him every day, he would rather waste money that they didn't have on cafeteria food. Thus, she meekly reached into her bag and pulled out a sealed lunch, where she handed it over to Alex.
"I made this for my husband… But it is just going to end up in the trash anyway… So if it will truly make up for what I have done, then you can have it."
If Alex was being honest, he was expecting the woman to deny his request, but seeing how embarrassed she was as she held onto the lunch box, Alex couldn't help but smile as he accepted the gift.
"I will gladly eat it. A woman's home cooking should never go to waste. I'll return the lunch box to you tomorrow morning…"
After saying that, Alex got up from his seat, and left for the cafeteria where he would warm up the lunch that Hae-won had made, and eat it with a wide grin on his face. Meanwhile, Hae-won sighed heavily before expressing her thoughts aloud.
"Oh Hae-won… What are you doing?"
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Thank you for reading my novel, if you wish to read a more serious story with an intricate plot, and complex world building, as well as a decent sized harem, and a few smut chapters. Please check out my two other novels: Tyranny of Steel, and Interstellar Age.
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