“Choi Yuwon.”
Huiseo called his name. It would have meant to come to his senses, but contrary to the intention, it seemed to egg Yuwon on instead. He, who had been staring intently at the confused Huiseo, suddenly brought his face even closer. They probably would have touched.
If only Huiseo hadn’t quickly raised his hand to block his own lips.
“Stop it.”
Huiseo said so with a trembling voice, but firmly.
Nevertheless, when Yuwon’s lips pressed down firmly on top of Huiseo’s palm without caring, confusion, suspicion, bewilderment, and a bit of anger mixed in Huiseo’s eyes. He couldn’t understand what exactly he was trying to do with him right now.
‘If I slap him here, will all the plans I made earlier go down the drain?’
Seeing Huiseo clearly thinking that, Yuwon raised the corners of his mouth and smiled. It was impressive, funny, and regrettable that despite his body being slow, he’d quickly noticed and blocked in that brief instant.
“…Not bad.”
Seeing Yuwon muttering that afterward, Huiseo was dumbfounded.
“Choi Yuwon…!”
“I guess I want more than just friends.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Let’s talk about the details after resolving this situation first.”
No matter how many times Huiseo asked, Yuwon didn’t seem to have any intention of answering his question. Then, as he readily pulled his head back, just when Huiseo thought he’d finally stop this bizarre behavior, the moment Huiseo let his guard down, he approached again and kissed Huiseo’s finger with a “smooch” sound.
“I thought you’d need some time to think about it too.”
At Yuwon’s words that continued languidly like a ferocious beast with prey before its eyes, Huiseo’s vision turned yellow and he even felt dizzy.
***
Once Yuwon set his mind to it, the cleanup was truly lightning-fast.
A post went up that very night.
The writer, who identified themselves as a student at the Imperial Higher Education Institute, said they wrote the post because they felt things couldn’t continue this way after watching this matter.
[To get to the conclusion first, the rumor that the prince hit a classmate is not true. I’ll call the friend mentioned as the victim A. Since that friend usually had a very hostile attitude toward the prince, it seems the rumor started that way first.]
[There’s actually another situation here. Recently, the prince started helping out with soccer club activities. Just odd jobs. But A was extremely dissatisfied with this. That day too, they had a serious verbal fight, maybe because of that. To be honest, I saw A bump the prince’s shoulder first that day. Then A also got into a big fight with that friend who goes around with the prince, you know. He said very insulting things to him, even bringing up family, so the prince got really angry….]
[But that incident just ended as a verbal fight. I’m certain. There are many witnesses to this.]
[After that, after class, it’s true that the prince moved alone from the parking lot. But at that time, the prince went to meet not A but another friend B. In other words, they fought here too; B is a childhood friend who recently reunited with the prince’s friend, right? They said there was an argument with the prince because of what happened with A earlier.]
[Why did these two fight? It’s not serious, just about how such a thing happened, stuff like that.]
[As far as I know, both the prince and B are definitely unrelated to what happened to A. The fact that he met the prince that day is something I confirmed with B several times. He wanted to speak up earlier, but the rumor started spreading so big that he was scared and couldn’t easily step forward. But he really thought this wasn’t right, so he asked me and I’m relaying it like this on his behalf.]
[Is this how I verify? (Student ID photo), (Screenshot of messages with B)]
[I hope there’s no more spreading of baseless rumors. From now on, if that happens, we’ll have no choice but to take separate action.]
If we extract just the important parts, that was it.
The settlement with Hong Donghyeon that proceeded underwater, the last line attached with the nuance that carelessly wagging fingers from now on could lead to ruin, and not only that, through the comment part-timers released by Myeongwoon Group, public opinion changed rapidly.
[Give me a three-line summary]
[So you’re saying it wasn’t the prince?]
[What, it wasn’t him]
[I heard he did it to ㅎㅅ, this is ridiculous really]
[I heard from a friend too, isn’t that crazy]
[Honestly even if he raised his hand there’s nothing to say]
[If he went around stirring things up like that everywhere, he must have had many enemies]
[The perpetrator might not necessarily be inside the school]
[But what did I just see, two men fought over ㅎㅅ? ㅁ_ㅂ]
Of course, there were people who were suspicious in between. Also, there was considerable curiosity about the identity of B, the third person who suddenly appeared, said to be Huiseo’s childhood friend. However, as mentioned earlier, due to people employed by Myeongwoon Group who systematically defended, even that was quickly swept away by other stories.
‘A bit of lies mixed among numerous truths’
Would even those lies then appear as truth?
That seemed to be the strategy Yuwon and Myeongwoon Group chose to break through this matter. It couldn’t be called a desirable solution, but seeing how things were going, realistically there was no easier and more effective method than this.
Watching the pandemonium that was no different from a marketplace gradually settle down, and those furiously angry people flock to the new issue they’d thrown, Huiseo felt both relieved and frustrated at the same time.
No one inside the imperial palace, not even his own father who had served His Majesty the Emperor by his side for such a long time, could easily resolve this matter.
In the end, it was the power money held.
This kind of cleanup would be unthinkable for the imperial family, which had to transparently disclose the budget execution process and undergo repeated audits. Around that point, there was something even Huiseo could no longer ignore and came to clearly know.
“…This won’t do.”
He couldn’t act clumsily anymore.
Huiseo sat staring at the brightly glowing monitor for a long time until dawn.
Honestly, suddenly appearing again overnight just because such a post went up looked too transparent. So until the attention really turned away from the school and the rumor was completely extinguished, Hwan ended up resting a few more days while at it.
During that time, Huiseo went to school alone, and Yuwon approached him right away.
“Do you think this is good enough?”
At Yuwon’s question, Huiseo had no choice but to nod obediently.
“…Yeah.”
How could he complain any more here? The people who’d been clamoring night and day for days looking like they weren’t even sleeping had all scattered, and were busy just talking about who was dating whom and bursting with new anger saying who was being tyrannical where.
No one cared about Hwan’s story anymore.
They’d hounded him like that, but not a single person apologized, leaving only desolation, but it didn’t matter.
“Then how about we have the conversation we couldn’t finish back then?”
Yuwon asked with a grinning face. From that relaxed appearance, confidence that the initiative was clearly with him could be felt. Since he’d earlier openly shown Huiseo such a nuance in that direction, he thought Huiseo would have come with some preparation.
Then at what line and what to demand would be good—it was the moment when Yuwon was having a happy dilemma where he wanted to scream. Unexpectedly, Huiseo struck first.
“I need to leave the palace.”
At those words spat out with determination, Yuwon honestly couldn’t help but be surprised.
It was because until recently, no matter how hard Yuwon tried to persuade him, he’d firmly refused saying not to force him. Seeing him say such things first without being rushed, it seemed Huiseo had also gained some deep lesson from this incident.
“Ha.”
Yuwon laughed briefly. How things were going wasn’t bad for him. But Yuwon suspected Huiseo’s intention in bringing up such words now specifically.
“It’s welcome news to hear, but you’re not trying to use that as a substitute, are you?”
If asked whether Yuwon liked or disliked Huiseo leaving the palace, his answer was naturally that he liked it. However, since there had been a direction he’d hoped for earlier, it was natural to feel regretful. Thus he openly showed a dissatisfied look, but Huiseo’s attitude was firm.
“If what you want is my heart, then I have even more right to refuse.”
“When I said let’s talk later, I didn’t mean ‘do your worst’ like this.”
“Or is this also coercion? Since I helped, hand over at least your lips?”
“That’s not bad either though?”
“……”
“If I ask you to, will you do it?”
When he asked that, even though Huiseo, who’d been confident the whole time as if he’d come prepared, tried to act otherwise, his eyes wavered. He seemed to be belatedly worried whether he’d really go that route. That clumsy appearance was funny, so Yuwon soon couldn’t help but burst out laughing with a “puhoot,” as if he couldn’t be stopped.
With Huiseo as his opponent, it was always pleasant to have verbal sparring like this.
It was the same with always ultimately yielding according to his wishes.
“Right, one-time use would be a waste.”
Yuwon thought this might be better long-term. In fact, he knew that even if he said the ridiculous words “like me from now on,” especially that stubborn Jeong Huiseo wouldn’t do so.
Compared to that, leaving the palace was definitely a situation that became more advantageous for him. Pursuing him, well, that was something he could do anytime with his own skills. He was grateful enough that words of rejection like “because you’re a man” didn’t come from Huiseo.
‘No, is it really right to think it’s fortunate?’
He worried whether it might be Hwan who made Huiseo so indifferent.
