“Park Shinui-ssi, it seems you need to quit either drinking or drugs—one of the two. Since yesterday, you’ve only been asking me questions that you yourself should know best.”
Kang Taejun had also demanded to know what drugs he’d taken yesterday, and now even the butler was saying similar things. Well, it was understandable. After digging through his secret account, traces of Park Shinui being involved with poor-quality drugs were scattered everywhere, so for the time being, he had nothing to say even if he heard such things.
“Haha, right. My memory is so hazy. So from now on, I’m planning to quit both drugs and alcohol.”
But who was he? He was someone who had lived tenaciously since childhood, enduring all kinds of ridicule and contempt. Most of all, the ‘Park Shinui’ here was none other than Kang Taejun’s Dedicated Guide. That fact alone meant there was absolutely no need to be intimidated while reading someone’s mood.
“That’s quite welcome news to hear.”
“Yes, so please answer me now. Did I originally report to work at the Ability Center?”
Park Shinui asked again with the most ingratiating and polite attitude possible. In any case, his future goal was clear. For now, the best he could do was stay by Kang Taejun’s side, the protagonist of the novel, and directly intervene in major events.
However, immediately gaining Kang Taejun’s trust and attempting something was nearly impossible. It was clear he wouldn’t even give him a chance to approach. The past Park Shinui he remembered was literally ‘hopeless garbage,’ so it was obvious he wouldn’t even treat him as human.
So Park Shinui changed his strategy. He decided to start by establishing relationships with the people around Kang Taejun and gradually building trust. First, he had to show that he’d changed completely—to the point where the past Park Shinui couldn’t be imagined. The next goal was to become close with the butler, Kang Taejun’s closest aide. If he got close to him and grasped the current situation, naturally an opportunity to approach Kang Taejun would arise.
“As far as I know, from last month when you manifested as a Guide until the Pair Bonding Ceremony, you held parties every single day.”
“What?”
“You have deep connections in so many fields, didn’t you enjoy glamorous parties so much that rumors spread everywhere?”
Right now the butler was treating him like a scoundrel who had completely devoured his master who was as pure as snow, but he was someone who knew better than anyone how desperate Kang Taejun needed a Guide. So if he made sincere efforts from this side, perhaps someday he might open his heart and become a reliable ally.
But what did he just say? That Park Shinui held parties every day from the day he manifested as a Guide?
“Ah……”
Park Shinui closed his mouth, at a loss for words. The butler looked at Park Shinui with a pathetic expression, as if asking how he could not even remember what he himself had done. Then he let out a deep sigh as if to make a point.
“So Park Shinui-ssi, excluding the matching tests you received at the Center on the day of manifestation and the next day, you’ve never once reported to the Ability Center.”
Only cold contempt remained in his tone that held absolutely no expectations for the other person.
“I, I see.”
Park Shinui scratched the back of his head. He’d thought that if he couldn’t directly approach Kang Taejun, he should become a necessary figure for the incidents himself, but it seemed like it would take quite a bit more time than expected in the current situation.
“To think I never went to work once. Well, that’s… good… I mean, that was irresponsible behavior.”
“……”
“Hahaha.”
Park Shinui gave an awkward laugh while also feeling relieved. If he hadn’t reported to the Center and hadn’t even properly received a grade evaluation, it meant the Center side also didn’t know Park Shinui’s exact condition. Then he would have excuses to make even if he couldn’t guide skillfully right away.
Good. Park Shinui inwardly cheered as he picked up the clothes placed on the bed.
“Then I should properly report to work starting today.”
“Yes, well. So Park Shinui-ssi’s manager is supposed to come pick you up soon, but… Park Shinui-ssi?”
The butler’s brow furrowed sharply as he watched Park Shinui lift his top up to his chest to change clothes.
“Surely, you’re not about to change clothes now?”
“Yes, why?”
“……Never mind. Then I’ll be taking my leave.”
The butler who had stopped speaking hurriedly turned toward the door.
“Huh? Why? If you’re not busy, let’s talk more. I still have things to ask.”
“Didn’t you say you were going to change clothes?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean. Why should Butler-nim leave just because I’m putting on clothes?”
“……”
Park Shinui paid no heed and revealed his bare skin without hesitation, stripping off the top he was wearing.
The butler stopped his steps toward the door abruptly and turned back to look at Park Shinui with a bewildered expression as if entranced. In his view was a smooth, well-proportioned frame and flawlessly clean skin completely exposed.
Park Shinui, with rough movements devoid of any delicacy, carelessly threw clothing worth hundreds of thousands of won per piece onto the floor.
The butler watched Park Shinui strip off his clothes without being conscious of him at all with strange eyes. Until just recently, he was the very person who would drive people out, not allowing them to stand even outside the door let alone inside the room when changing clothes. His germophobic behavior of inspecting the servants’ phone galleries one by one in case they secretly filmed videos was nowhere to be found.
He even cherished his clothes so much, calling them ‘my babies’ and carefully picking them up only with his fingertips to hand over for laundry. But now he was lifting one of those precious ‘babies’—a shirt—with his toes, holding it out rolled up in a ball in his hand. And while awkwardly scratching the back of his head as if very apologetic at that.
“K Group is near the Ability Center, right?”
The butler slowly nodded while staring at the bite marks clearly remaining on Park Shinui’s nape and shoulder. Then he inadvertently accepted the balled-up clothes Park Shinui held out while in just his underwear.
What is this, is his mind coming and going because of drugs?
“That’s correct.”
It was strange. The Park Shinui he knew was an incredibly fussy and sensitive person, but the man before his eyes was acting like an easygoing neighborhood youth. Though it felt foolish to even have such suspicions, it was as if his very essence had been reversed in just one day.
[Watch Park Shinui closely. And if there’s anything you judge to be strange, report it immediately.]
[By ‘anything strange,’ you mean……?]
[If he acts differently from what we’ve seen until now, or says things unlike him. Even if I can’t pinpoint exactly what, anything where you feel a sense of incongruity is fine.]
The instructions left by his master who had gone to work this morning flashed through his mind.
“Kang Taejun-ssi is at the Ability Center now, right?”
He heard Park Shinui, who had put his feet through his pants and adjusted his clothes, mutter “Good” to himself. The butler forcibly suppressed his increasingly complicated thoughts and organized his emotions.
“Yes, since there was a large-scale battle recently, he’s probably at the Center.”
Come to think of it, the butler feeling that Park Shinui was strange wasn’t just from this morning. Precisely, it was from when he’d found Park Shinui again after he suddenly disappeared from the waiting room on the day of the Pair Bonding Ceremony. From that time, he had been showing aspects subtly different from the previous Park Shinui.
The butler picked up the pants rolling on the floor and hung them on his arm. Then he slightly turned his head and swept over Park Shinui’s back with still suspicious eyes.
Could a person suddenly change overnight? Was he bipolar? Or was this current easygoing appearance his true personality, and his hysterical behavior until now a meticulously calculated act?
That can’t be.
The butler shook his head, but the questions circling in his mind didn’t stop. He simply couldn’t understand why the man Park Shinui he’d been watching and the young man before his eyes felt like completely different people.
“Then I might see Kang Taejun-ssi today.”
“……”
The butler found himself staring at Park Shinui’s face. His appearance in the Guide uniform that fit perfectly as if tailored to his body, turning his upper body this way and that while constantly exclaiming in admiration, drew attention in a completely different sense from before. His bright smile that somehow carried a childlike innocence was brief but even seemed pure.
Then the butler came to his senses and clicked his tongue inwardly while shaking his head.
‘Pure.’
Self-loathing washed over him at the thought of having such absurd ideas about a person like Park Shinui. He steeled himself, telling himself that the smile he’d just seen was surely a well-crafted disguise like poisoned fruit, or a momentary hallucination created by drugs.
