“Jeong Minha… It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“…?”
It was a voice he’d heard somewhere before. His memory was hazy.
As Jeong Minha stayed frozen in place, the man standing behind him muttered in an even more irritated tone.
“This rude bastard…”
“…!”
Jeong Minha immediately realized the man’s identity after hearing the following sentence. That was because there was only one person who would speak to him like this.
But when he tried to turn around, the man pushed his head further with the gun barrel. Jeong Minha broke into a cold sweat and carefully raised both hands in a sign of surrender. Regardless, the man continued to get angry.
“No manners.”
“Me?”
“Then is there anyone else here besides you?”
“…”
He couldn’t understand why an acquaintance he met after so long was this angry. However, since it was a situation where he couldn’t resist, he suppressed the urge to talk back and listened obediently.
Then the man said while tapping with the gun.
“This bastard… You completely ignored my help, but then you suddenly appear after receiving support from someone else? And with people from a rival company’s family at that?”
“…What?”
When Jeong Minha answered in an absurd tone, the man who got even angrier made another ominous click sound with the gun in his hand.
“It’s a gift. I’ll send you off with the gun you love to death.”
Jeong Minha let out a hollow laugh while dripping with cold sweat.
“By any chance, is this a real gun? The sound is a bit different, haha…”
“Then would it be fake?”
“What?”
At the man’s words that didn’t sound like a joke at all, Jeong Minha, who was on the verge of tears, shut his mouth.
The man sighed and asked irritably.
“Said it wasn’t fun?”
What fun all of a sudden? Jeong Minha racked his brain as much as possible and pulled out his memories.
Soon he recalled the last contact he had with the man.
Contact me if you need help. 4:21 PM
It’s not fun anymore so I’m good 3:16 AM
It was when he was cooped up in his studio apartment right after the Olympics 4 years ago.
After receiving the contact, it was a reply he sent at dawn after wondering whether to just ignore it. There was no further contact after that. They didn’t meet either. So he’d completely forgotten. However, since it was now an important matter involving his life, he exerted superhuman strength to remember.
Jeong Minha answered brazenly again.
“Ah… it’s a bit of a waste to let this skill rot…”
It was a joke made in jest, but once again a click sound was heard from behind. Jeong Minha hurriedly added.
“Actually, it was too much fun.”
“…”
Soon the gun that had been pointed at the back of his head was lowered. Jeong Minha also lowered both hands he’d been holding up, then immediately turned around. As expected, it was someone he knew well.
“Hanseo hyung…”
“How many times have I told you not to call me hyung? That’s a title only my younger sibling can call me. No manners, and even your memory… Hopeless.”
“Ah, yes. Player Baek Hanseo?”
“Right.”
He looked at the man with a familiar face called Baek Hanseo.
His bluish-green hair was long down to his waist, tied once at the ends. From his neatly groomed hairstyle to his round glasses with a chain, to the mole at the corner of his right mouth. Just looking at his raised eyebrows and glaring eyes, he really looked pedantic. He didn’t know why such a person always dyed it such a flashy color though.
Anyway, he was actually pedantic in reality too. The man dressed in a black shirt buttoned up to the neck and even wearing a dark beige suit was, from memory… really full of nagging—in a word, an old-fashioned style.
But his skills backed it up that much. Just as Jeong Minha was 1st place in shooting, when it came to 1st place in archery, it was undoubtedly Baek Hanseo. Jeong Minha had won his first gold medal this year, but Baek Hanseo had been winning consecutively from before.
* * *
Since there were many places where shooting ranges and archery ranges were close together, Jeong Minha and Baek Hanseo had run into each other several times at training grounds from before. They only knew each other’s names and weren’t close enough to have detailed conversations, but they acknowledged each other’s skills.
Of course, Jeong Minha was the genius type and Baek Hanseo was the hard work type. Because of that, it was inevitable that Baek Hanseo’s irritation would surge every time he ran into Jeong Minha. No, rather, it was acceptable that his skills were like that. Because he was a genius who also worked hard. However, the reason Baek Hanseo disliked Jeong Minha was separate.
4 years ago, every time they ran into each other at the training ground, Jeong Minha would speak to him with a carefree face.
“Oh? Hanseo hyung? Long time no see.”
“Who the hell is your hyung…”
“You’re two years older than me though.”
When he was concentrating and holding his bow, he kept picking fights from the side. Is this little shit teasing me for being old now? Even if Jeong Minha had no malice, from Baek Hanseo’s perspective, it all sounded irritating.
“That title can only be used by my younger sibling, so don’t you use it.”
It was when he scolded him once and ignored him again while looking at the target.
“Wow, Player Baek Hanseo. You even have a younger sibling? Shocking.”
“Hey you, what do you mean by that?”
“I just can’t imagine you taking care of someone. How many years apart are you?”
“Eight years.”
“Then they’re in 7th grade now? Wow… Hyung, be good to your sibling.”
“Get lost.”
Anyway, he kept getting on his nerves. After doing this, Jeong Minha who went back to the shooting range immediately shot consecutive perfect scores. Baek Hanseo wanted to change the direction of his arrow for a moment, but he held back because then his athlete qualification would be revoked.
Baek Hanseo, who valued manners the most, didn’t like Jeong Minha who seemed to live carelessly without much thought. But soon he heard that Jeong Minha would also be competing in the upcoming Olympics for the first time and thought: I should go watch. Let’s see if that great genius athlete doesn’t make mistakes.
Even while thinking that, Baek Hanseo naturally expected Jeong Minha to be 1st place. The records up until then proved it.
But at the Olympics held that year, Jeong Minha’s condition was strange.
‘What is he doing? There’s not much time left.’
Jeong Minha even had an expression he’d never seen before, with his arm trembling slightly. His score kept going down.
As an archery athlete who similarly required concentration, it was an anxiety symptom he knew all too well. Was he nervous? Though to say that, he’d been fine until just before.
Feeling something was off, Baek Hanseo followed Jeong Minha’s gaze and looked toward the stadium, the spectator seats.
‘…The coach disappeared.’
The bald man who seemed to be there at the beginning had disappeared. He became anxious just because of that? As expected, a rookie was a rookie. In the end, watching Jeong Minha win a silver medal due to successive mistakes, Baek Hanseo, who lost interest, left for the athlete waiting room.
Baek Hanseo proudly won the gold medal at that year’s Olympics as well. It was a proud achievement as a South Korean national archery representative.
He wanted to go find Jeong Minha like this and give him a piece of his mind, but Jeong Minha wasn’t visible even until the closing ceremony. However, around that time he felt that the association atmosphere was unsettled. Something seemed to have happened.
Self-centered Baek Hanseo didn’t particularly care and returned home. As the 1st place athlete, he had to prepare for the next competition too, so he continued going to the training ground and practice range. However, Jeong Minha wasn’t seen after that.
Since the always irritating face suddenly disappeared and the association atmosphere was strange too, he couldn’t concentrate because he was so bothered. Baek Hanseo, who was both a national representative and also from a chaebol family, had his secretary do it in the same way as a certain Mr. Someone. To find out what happened between Jeong Minha and the association.
And a few days later, even Baek Hanseo couldn’t help but be flustered at the answer that came back from his secretary.
“The coach ran off with the money?”
“That’s what they say. It seems to have been a fraudulent contract from the beginning, and currently it appears he’s stopped his athlete activities.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“Well… for a month, he hasn’t gone outside a 100m radius of his house.”
“Ha…”
Baek Hanseo was a thoroughly self-centered person. He knew it well himself.
That’s why he regretted the harsh words he said to his younger sibling when he was young and was belatedly trying to be good to them. Of course, that effort was limited to his sibling. He didn’t care what happened to other people.
But Jeong Minha was someone he acknowledged as a rival in his own way. To Baek Hanseo who had already reached the very top, Jeong Minha who even set new records in a similar sport looked amazing. It was irritating but it became motivation to practice that much.
Therefore, he had even personally acknowledged him as a rival, but he couldn’t stand to see him cooped up at home after falling for something like fraud. In the end, he found out the phone number he hadn’t particularly wanted to know until then and sent one text.
