Seungyeon, who had fallen on his butt, frowned. Setting aside the pain, he couldn’t understand the situation happening right now at all.
The man standing in front of him pointed at Seungyeon angrily while fuming.
“Fuck, seriously! If you’re not crazy, just smoke a cigarette on the rooftop. If you’re going to jump, do it somewhere I can’t see you!”
“What? No, when did I ever…”
He had never, absolutely never, not even once decided to free-fall from the rooftop, so the man’s reaction was just bewildering. Even while Seungyeon stuttered, the man continued to fume threateningly. Taking Seungyeon’s inability to say anything under pressure as affirmation, the man raised his voice more and more.
“If you came to the hospital, get proper treatment for your mind or body! Don’t act like this!”
Who the hell does he think he is to say that? Seungyeon sat on the ground and looked the man up and down. With his towering height well over 190 centimeters and dressed all in black, he felt even more menacing.
“No, what do you do for a living to suddenly get so angry…?”
“Whatever I do! You just take care of your own damn life!”
The man glared with eyes bulging like a poisoned pufferfish. Before Seungyeon had a chance to argue back, he stomped down the stairs and disappeared. Left alone on the rooftop, Seungyeon just blinked with a dumb look on his face.
“What the…?”
He’s just leaving like that?
“What kind of person is that?”
Seungyeon, who belatedly got up from his spot, brushed off his butt. His mind was completely blank from the situation that had swept through like a storm. Suddenly grabbing his neck from behind, cursing at their first meeting. And what was that about dying or jumping…
“Ah.”
Only then did Seungyeon look at the railing behind him. Come to think of it, he had leaned against it just a moment ago and said “I want to die!” That was true, but…
Could he have mistaken that for really jumping? Is that why he grabbed him in such a panic? Did he think he was crazy, but turned out to be a crazy person with a good heart?
He didn’t know how to react to this bewildering situation in many ways. Seungyeon scratched his head while looking at the stairs where the man had left.
“Anyway, he’s really unique… Huh?”
There was something on the ground. Seungyeon, who had been looking at the stairs where the man disappeared, casually reached out his hand. It definitely wasn’t there until just now, so the man who just left must have dropped it.
“A wallet?”
Seungyeon examined the neat half-wallet this way and that. On one hand, he thought he should return it since it was a wallet of all things, but on the other hand, since the first impression was so unique, he didn’t want to meet him again.
With lukewarm feelings, wondering if there might be contact information, he opened the wallet and examined the contents. Inside were a student ID, one black card, and two 100,000 won checks. Seungyeon took out the student ID and examined both sides.
Inside the card, under a famous prestigious university logo, were the name ‘Jung Sanho,’ his department, and student number. Seeing that the student number started with this year’s date, could he be twenty years old?
“…With that face?”
It was just a glimpse, but he looked at least twenty-five? Seungyeon rubbed between his brows with a flustered face.
“Did he study really hard?”
Did his face take a direct hit from the passage of time from studying himself to death to get into a prestigious university? Muttering words that would make Jung Sanho extremely angry if he heard them, Seungyeon also checked the other card. With only a name embossed in English on the black surface, there was nothing else special here either.
What good is a student ID? Even if he could deduce the age from the student number, without contact information it was all for nothing. With a troubled face, Seungyeon waved the student ID back and forth.
“What should I do…?”
Seungyeon’s gaze lingered for a long time on the stairs where the man had disappeared.
*
“Seungyeon, is walking okay? If it’s uncomfortable, want to hold on here?”
Baek Sehee smiled brightly and held out her hand. Seungyeon quickly shook his head.
“No, noona. I’m telling you I’m not that badly hurt.”
“Mom was so worried too. Do you know how surprised I was when I heard the news? Your strong point since childhood was being sturdy, but suddenly you collapsed, and then you got into an accident…”
She trailed off weakly. Seungyeon, who had been watching her carefully, gently grabbed his noona’s hand.
“Hey, noona.”
At Seungyeon’s call, Baek Sehee made a spirited expression again and met his eyes. Her attentive attitude and gentle smile were the Baek Sehee that Seungyeon had seen in the drama.
The noona who came instead of Mom on the day of discharge took care of Seungyeon thoroughly. Thanks to noona who meticulously took care of everything from discharge procedures to packing, Seungyeon was enjoying luxury. Seungyeon looked at her with fresh eyes.
Baek Sehee was, how should he say it, a person defined by just one word.
‘Angel.’
Pretty, kind, gentle, the type of person who believes that good deeds always bring good results. That’s why Seungyeon didn’t dislike her. Originally, the world was meant to be led by good people.
Besides, hadn’t he now possessed her younger brother, a troublemaking nuisance of a younger brother at that? What more could be said about that heart of coming to help her younger brother who only caused trouble every time he got hurt? That alone showed what a kind person she was.
‘If it were me, I would have cut ties already.’
If it had been Seungyeon’s real older sisters and brothers? He probably would have been removed from the family register when he did illegal gambling with identity theft.
However, Baek Sehee sacrificed herself to protect her family, and Seungyeon, even to the point of a contract marriage. Naturally kind and good-hearted, she was more than qualified to be the protagonist of a life drama, not a trainwreck drama.
“Um, noona. I can’t explain in detail right now, but still, from now on I won’t ask you for money…”
He was about to say ‘I won’t do it’ but unconsciously looked around. It was because he was creeped out that the status window might appear again and launch a dump truck while talking about penalties.
Somehow understanding the silent Seungyeon, Baek Sehee smiled prettily and shook their clasped hands.
“Seungyeon, don’t worry. I’m your noona. What’s family good for? You can ask me for anything anytime.”
“Noona…”
At her gentle words, Seungyeon’s eyes quickly became moist. Baek Sehee was definitely an angel. His favorability toward her shot up.
Just as Mom was his real mom to Seungyeon, Baek Sehee was ultimately real family too, no different from a real older sister. Good people needed to be treated well, and Seungyeon already knew what she would go through in this trainwreck worldview. Even now, his heart ached when he thought of all those incidents and accidents she would experience while helping others, just because she was kind.
Tae Muhyuk, Baek Sehee’s husband and one of the protagonists of this drama, was in a word, a ‘son of a bitch.’ He contract-married Baek Sehee, who had been his personal secretary, using money as bait, and while using her as a shield in the front, he enjoyed adultery with his mistress in the back. Baek Sehee endured harsh in-law treatment while pretending not to know even though she knew.
After that, as the succession war of Tae Group began in earnest, she also unwillingly got caught up in the sibling fight and became entangled in various matters. Eventually, later on, she gets a happy ending with Tae Muhyuk’s half-brother Tae Jeyoung, but the process was absolutely not smooth.
Although he didn’t remember all the episodes of all 50 episodes, Seungyeon remembered the major incidents that would happen in the future.
If it were up to him, he wanted to step up so Baek Sehee wouldn’t get hurt, but the word ‘balance’ that the status window mentioned bothered him. Since it gave penalties while talking about personality, it would definitely not stay still if he acted contrary to the flow of the story.
‘But who’s going to give up?’
Seungyeon glared at the empty air and squeezed Baek Sehee’s hand tightly.
“Noona, from now on just trust me.”
If there are no teeth, use gums; if the status window says no, help in a way that works. What in the world can’t be done? If worst comes to worst, even if he gets hit by an 8-ton truck, he has to do what needs to be done.
While Seungyeon was steeling his resolve, Baek Sehee burst into laughter, saying he seemed to have matured. Appropriately agreeing with her words, Seungyeon casually threw out a question.
“But noona, what are you going to do now? Are you going straight home?”
“Hmm? No, I’m going to drop you off and then go run an errand.”
“Really? Where?”
“I just have to go to a Korean medicine clinic to run an errand for an elder in the family.”
So this is the right time after all. Seungyeon looked at her with gleaming eyes. He thought he might be able to become a magpie repaying kindness faster than expected.
“Really? Then should I come with you? If I borrow the power of Korean medicine, I might heal faster, you know.”
He smiled shamelessly and showed his casted arm. Baek Sehee nodded without suspicion.
“Then shall we go together?”
Following his gently smiling noona, Seungyeon also smiled. The episode related to the Korean medicine clinic played in his head.
Around episode 3, when Baek Sehee was suffering from harsh oppression and in-law abuse while eating sweet potatoes by the handful.
Baek Sehee receives herbal medicine at her mother-in-law’s request without any suspicion, and that herbal medicine ends up flowing to Tae Mujin’s wife, Tae Muhyuk’s younger brother.
Told it was herbal medicine for vitality recovery, Tae Mujin’s wife takes the herbal medicine without suspicion, but she, who was in early pregnancy, has a miscarriage.
Because of this incident, Baek Sehee is suspected of deliberately switching the herbal medicine to cause the miscarriage, and the abuse and oppression from her mother-in-law and sister-in-law begins…
‘I can’t watch that happen even if I die.’
How dare they touch our noona? With my eyes wide open, I won’t watch that happen. Somehow vowing to protect and stop noona in this trainwreck worldview, Seungyeon clenched his fist tightly.
