There’s a saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Look at the eyes of that bastard Yoon Taerim or whatever. That bastard was more than capable of pulling crazy shit. It was a situation where some kind of eerie energy wrapped around Yoon Taerim. Just the fact that he hung around with a guy named Yeongbin said it all. Red alerts were blaring in Seungyeon’s head. If he said even one wrong thing here, he didn’t know what kind of handle would be grabbed.
Well, if someone was normal, would they hit on someone at first meeting—no, even if it wasn’t the first meeting, how much could they have seen each other—suddenly saying let’s go somewhere? He was definitely a pervert. Instinctively, the formula ‘Yoon Taerim = pervert’ was completed in his head.
Seungyeon wanted to cry. He had just come here to lay the groundwork for his noona’s well-being. Who would have known that the Korean medicine doctor who never appeared even once in the original work had a connection with Baek Seungyeon? If he’d known that, he wouldn’t have stubbornly shoved his face in here.
‘Status window, you fucking bastard.’
It felt off from the time it gave him that core check or whatever! Instead of telling him the name of Mirae Yuon Hospital’s director, it should have told him what kind of person Yoon Taerim was, what their relationship was!
Should he just overturn everything and run away even now? Seungyeon rolled his eyes looking for an escape route. Even so, plausible words flowed smoothly from his mouth.
“I pretended not to know because I thought it would be more burdensome if I suddenly acted like I recognized you. But you must have really sharp eyes.”
“I see.”
A strange current passed between the two. Seungyeon smiled with the most harmless expression possible and prayed and prayed inside that he would please just let it slide appropriately. Fortunately, whether his prayers worked, Yoon Taerim also didn’t ask any more questions and pulled his body back.
With a suddenly bland attitude, he tapped away at the keyboard.
“Alright, patient. Please move to the treatment room and get acupuncture before you go.”
At the welcome order to leave, Seungyeon sprang up from his seat. He moved his steps as carefully as possible to not look like someone who wanted to run away.
The moment Seungyeon grabbed the examination room door and pushed it, Yoon Taerim’s voice was heard from behind.
“There are 2 hours left until I get off work, Seungyeon.”
The door closed with a thud along with his words mixed with laughter. Even though they’d only exchanged a few words, his energy was completely drained. Seungyeon’s steps moved weakly as he was guided by the nurse to the treatment room.
*
Let’s think positively. First of all, the purpose of coming here was automatically achieved. Because he had definitely made acquaintance with the Korean medicine doctor who trapped Baek Sehee. He was confident that this connection would be used meaningfully later on.
And one more thing. Although unintended, thanks to Yoon Taerim, he could obtain new information from the status window.
[Action consistent with the possessed body’s disposition confirmed! As a reward, 1 penalty nullification pass is issued!]
[※Nullification is automatically deducted when a penalty occurs, and there is no separate expiration date. Penalty nullification passes are generated when you perform actions consistent with the possessed body’s disposition toward a specific person, or when a specific person’s favorability increases.]
It seemed that his improvised response from a moment ago had luckily met the conditions, and thanks to that, he had obtained a penalty nullification pass. Forcibly holding back his desire to get angry about where such a shitty system exists, Seungyeon carefully examined each letter like solving a non-fiction passage on the college entrance exam.
‘Action consistent with the possessed body’s disposition’ meant Baek Seungyeon’s fraudulent activities. When compared with what just happened, it seemed that buttering up Yoon Taerim and lying was recognized by the status window as behavior that perfectly matched the possessed body’s disposition.
Then naturally, the ‘specific person’ the status window referred to meant Yoon Taerim. Was it a rule that applied only to specific people, not an unspecified majority?
“What the hell is the standard…?”
It would be nice to know the standard for distinguishing whether someone was a specific person or not. Or at least a pattern? If he knew that, he could aim for penalty nullification even by doing shitty things. If he committed fraud against an unspecified majority without knowing anything right away, wouldn’t it just be straight to handcuffs and jail?
Seungyeon grabbed his throbbing head. Even when he tried to think positively, it didn’t work out as he wanted. He knocked his forehead against the table. As the chill seeped into his skin, his mind cleared up a bit. In the bustling cafe, Seungyeon lay face down on the table alone, complaining of depression.
The completely arbitrary status window was one thing, but Yoon Taerim himself was also somehow off. This kind of premonition had never been wrong.
What the hell had the real Baek Seungyeon been doing and where to be acquainted with a bastard like that? Was it birds of a feather flocking together? At the very least, if he knew what the two did together, no, even just where they met, he could babble something…
“That’s right! He said something about Yeongbin earlier!”
Realization suddenly rushed in. Yoon Taerim said, ‘It was disappointing because I left first with Yeongbin.’ That meant he had met that guy Yeongbin, Yoon Taerim, and Baek Seungyeon in the same place.
Seungyeon urgently rummaged through his pockets and took out his phone. He wondered where he’d heard that name—wasn’t it that perverted bastard who sent that horrible dick pic as consolation? Seeing that they had the common point of being perverts, surely that bastard Yeongbin would know the answer.
Only after fumbling for a while because of the cast on one arm could he find the contact on his phone. He put the phone down on the table and tapped the screen with only one hand. When he pressed the name ‘Yeongbin hyung,’ the call connection tone immediately rang.
With a pounding heart, he brought the phone to his ear. After a few rings, a low male voice was heard from beyond the phone.
⏤ Baby, why are you only calling now? Do you know how many times I called?
The affectionate tone gave a completely different impression from the text he had sent. For a pervert, it was quite a normal and ordinary voice. Seungyeon hesitantly but carefully recited his business.
“Hello, hyung. I was recently hospitalized. So I was in such a state that I couldn’t contact you.”
⏤ Hospitalized? What happened? Are you sick somewhere?
“I’m okay now. But um… I wonder if I hit my head when I got hurt, my memory is a bit hazy and anyway, I should say I can’t remember things from before well?”
⏤ Jaeyun, where are you right now? Hyung will come pick you up, so tell me where you are. Let’s meet face to face and talk.
At the word Jaeyun, interest appeared in Seungyeon’s eyes. It seemed the fake name he gave to Yeongbin was Jaeyun. If he used a pseudonym, there must have been something suspicious… Seungyeon licked his lips with his tongue and carefully continued.
“No, I’m outside right now so it’s difficult immediately, so I think we’ll have to meet later. But, hyung. There’s something I want to ask—do you happen to know a person named Yoon Taerim?”
⏤ What, are you really sick somewhere? Why are you asking about Yoon Taerim again? We were together back then.
Listening carefully to the conversation that was getting closer to the main point, Seungyeon straightened his posture. He asked again in a subtle voice.
“That’s right. You know how I got into an accident and my memory has been hazy lately? I can’t really remember where I met with hyung either, so…”
⏤ Wow, you really can’t remember that? Baby, we met at F Hotel lounge. You said you like doing it with three people, so I called Taerim—you really don’t remember? We only kissed and didn’t go all the way, but it should be a hard memory to easily forget.
“…What?”
Three people, what, what did they do? At the ominous premonition, his heart pounded. At Seungyeon’s dumbfounded question, Yeongbin casually brought up the terrible truth.
⏤ I can’t help not wanting to share our baby with anyone. Taerim was a bit disappointed, but we parted on good terms that day, didn’t we?
“That’s a lie.”
⏤ Hmm? It’s not a lie though? Baby, that day you and I came at the same ti—
He couldn’t listen anymore and just hung up the phone. Seungyeon, who had been glaring at the disconnected phone like it was a possessed object, grabbed his head. He was bewildered and confused. And at the same time, the conversation Yoon Taerim had just had replayed in his head.
‘You left first with Yeongbin.’
Left, that, then that means…?
“Fuck, Baek Seungyeon. You crazy bastard!”
Why did he nod and clasp hands saying it was all good without properly knowing anything? Was he possessed? Was he crazy? Was he insane? If he didn’t know, he should have kept his mouth shut!
Penalty or whatever, herbal medicine or whatever—a sense of crisis washed over him that if he met Yoon Taerim here again, he might be devoured just like that. That guy Yeongbin or whatever seemed like a pervert too, but Yoon Taerim definitely wasn’t in his right mind either. Otherwise, what, what would three people do, really!
Seungyeon rubbed his burning face and sprang up from his seat. Heat kept rushing to his face. Truly vowing that he would never turn his head in Yoon Taerim’s direction again, he fled outside the cafe at full speed.
