When I left the hospital room to give Lee Hyeonseok some time to cool his head, there were four guards standing there. I flinched from the bewilderment of suddenly encountering four large men and my guilty conscience, but they paid no mind and spoke to me.
“Ah. Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the hospital shop for a bit.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“It’s okay though….”
“Let’s go.”
I don’t know what Lee Hyeonseok instructed them, but they absolutely wouldn’t leave me alone. No matter how much I refused, they pretended not to hear and stubbornly accompanied me, so I was now practically in a state of half-giving-up.
“…Yes.”
I sighed and answered, then moved my feet, and one guard followed me. The remaining three seemed like they would stay in front of Lee Hyeonseok’s hospital room. As I walked listlessly toward the shop, I heard the guards muttering while looking at me from behind.
“Pride breaker….”
“There’s no pride breaker quite like him.”
Memorably, I’d gotten not one but two nicknames.
One was the nickname “pride breaker.” The reason was naturally because I’d turned Cheon Jaekyung into a eunuch and broken Lee Hyeonseok’s thing. Having damaged what could be called a man’s pride—not just one guy but two—I had nothing to say.
“Being a mistress without even fearing the consequences.”
The other one was mistress.
Seeing how much Lee Hyeonseok looked after me, they’d been puzzled among themselves, and this incident made them brand me as Lee Hyeonseok’s mistress. They giggled among themselves even though they clearly knew I could hear them from this distance.
Look at those bastards’ character. I did turn twenty, but I haven’t even graduated high school yet.
I was just dumbfounded. The treatment as a concubine or mistress was absurd, and their rotten character openly mocking someone much younger than them was ridiculous. Anyway, it was all fucking absurd.
At the very least, if Lee Hyeonseok actually liked me and I’d really become his mistress, I wouldn’t have felt this wronged.
But I had definitely received favors, and because of that, it was no different from a situation where I’d agreed to give my body. With no way to perfectly deny it, I could only pretend not to hear their words and go my own way. I was grateful that the one guard beside me acted businesslike without any hint of contempt for me.
“Wow….”
I’d lived 27 years and never came to a university hospital, so I didn’t know, but surprisingly there were various types of stores in the hospital basement. Instead of a hospital shop, there was a convenience store, a branded bakery chain, a porridge restaurant, a hamburger franchise, and even a phone store.
“I look so healthy I’ve never seen this kind of thing before….”
“Well, Seo Jiwoo-nim does suit the side of hospitalizing others rather than being hospitalized.”
The guard replied to my mutter on his own. I’d thought he was at least the better human among them for keeping his mouth shut earlier, but he wasn’t. What’s the use of adding “-nim” and using honorifics when scratching at people’s insides is all the same?
“Yes. Well, sending another person wouldn’t be bad either.”
“I apologize.”
Since it had come to this, I looked him up and down and muttered to meet his expectations, and he obediently apologized. Fighting with him would only result in losses if anything, with nothing to gain, so I just entered the convenience store.
First, I bought four cans of cola and two cans of ion drinks and headed to the register, then noticed artificial flower bouquets so I grabbed one and put it on the counter too.
“Ah, I forgot to buy coffee. Could you get me just any one?”
While the employee was ringing up the third can of cola, I asked the guard to run an errand, pretending I’d just remembered. Though he was quite annoyed by my request, openly frowning, somehow word must have spread because even while clicking his tongue, he turned back toward the beverage section.
And while he wasn’t looking, I diligently shook the four cans of cola, alternating between them. The employee was startled by my sudden cola-shaking, but I just pretended not to notice. Checking if the guard was coming while diligently shaking the cola, I put it down the moment he picked up a coffee can and turned around.
“Here, you, go.”
“I’m really sorry. Thank you.”
The guard placed the coffee can on the counter with a thud. Still not satisfied, he spoke while breaking up his syllables, so I put on an apologetic voice and apologized.
“Huh…?”
“?”
Just as I finished paying for the coffee and was about to put it in the bag, someone made a dumbfounded sound while looking at me. Wondering who it was, I turned around and it was Lee Juwon.
“You… why are you here?”
Why is Lee Juwon coming out here…?
“What’s wrong, Juwon… huh?”
Why is Han Taeseok coming out here too…?
“What’s going on, …You! You…!”
Why is even Cheon Jaekyung coming out here…?
Lee Juwon and Han Taeseok were surprised to see me, but as soon as Cheon Jaekyung saw me, he even pointed at me while trembling with rage. With a face as if seeing his parent’s enemy. No. Since I cut off his lineage, wouldn’t it be his child’s enemy?
“You bastard, come here right now…!”
“Ah, wait a moment. First of all, I’m sorry for everything and I didn’t mean to do that, but can’t we talk it out?”
“Stop your bullshit, you fucking bastard!”
“I don’t know who you are, but please stop.”
Cheon Jaekyung tried to grab my collar as if to personally mess me up, but I quickly dodged. Then I offered a perfunctory apology and hid behind the guard. For a moment I worried what if the guard didn’t like me and just offered me up to them, but he knew how to separate public and private matters and blocked Cheon Jaekyung.
“You! Do you know who I am?”
“Jae, Jaekyung-ah, calm down. This isn’t like you.”
Having failed to grab my collar, Cheon Jaekyung started arguing with the guard who blocked him. The words starting with that opening were pathetically like Cheon Jaekyung and unworthy of a protagonist. Was that really something that would come from a protagonist’s mouth? Lee Juwon grabbed Cheon Jaekyung’s arm and stopped him. Good job, Lee Juwon. Try stopping your man.
“This…! …Phew….”
As expected, the power of love was amazing. Or if not that, the power of the novel’s setting. If it were me, I would have strangled the bastard who cut off my lineage first, regardless of who tried to stop me. Cheon Jaekyung couldn’t control his rage and tried to shake Lee Juwon off while raising his voice, but soon he took a long deep breath and was calming down. It was really to the point where it wouldn’t be strange if he killed someone, but it was amazing how he calmed down as if a switch had been flipped.
“You said you’d take responsibility….”
“?”
Lee Juwon calmed Cheon Jaekyung as if soothing him. Responsibility—I didn’t know what responsibility he was talking about, but I just decided to shrink down and didn’t even make eye contact. Even without looking, I could feel their gazes.
“It’s fine so just hurry up and leave.”
Han Taeseok urged Lee Juwon and Cheon Jaekyung who were dawdling. Living my life, there were times when Han Taeseok’s actions looked lovely. Good, Han Taeseok. You can do it. While I was cheering for Lee Juwon and Han Taeseok with all my heart, Lee Juwon suddenly betrayed me.
“I’ll talk for a bit and come back.”
“Lee Juwon!”
“What? No, stop it. What for!”
“It’s okay, so you two stay here quietly, okay?”
Out of nowhere, Lee Juwon said he’d talk with me and started approaching me after separating the two far away. I had nothing to say and it was awkward to face him, so I grabbed the guard’s clothes. I tried to quickly escape this place, but Lee Juwon coming to us was faster.
“I’m sorry. For no reason, because of me….”
“Huh? …Ah. No, rather I’m more….”
Lee Juwon apologized without any explanation. For a moment I didn’t quite understand what Lee Juwon was saying with that apology, then I realized that if everything went back to the beginning, this all started with Lee Juwon getting beaten.
“The guys get especially sensitive when it’s about me.”
Not just sensitive but like lunatics. Could that be brushed off with the word “sensitive”? But I was okay now. In exchange for Cheon Jaekyung touching my future, I’d touched Cheon Jaekyung’s future too. If you ruined someone else’s future, you had to be prepared for your own future to be ruined. Of course, separately from that, even though Cheon Jaekyung threw the first punch, I did feel sorry. I couldn’t help it because I was a better kid than I thought.
“Even you who has nothing to do with it.”
“?”
While thinking Cheon Jaekyung was bad yet feeling guilty wondering if I’d been too harsh, Lee Juwon spoke to me again with a strange nuance. Certainly, as Lee Juwon said, at first I had nothing to do with it, but not anymore. Yet Lee Juwon was still talking as if I were a completely unrelated person.
“Still, they listen well to me, so if you get any contact, tell me everything. You probably won’t be enough.”
“Ah, um…. Yeah, thanks…?”
Well, they listened to Lee Juwon’s words so well it was scary.
“Lee Hyeonseok also lost his memory so he’s like this now, but once he regains his memory, I’ll be the only one who can stop him.”
…There was such a thing. Among all those people, that strangely detached feeling. For example, even though we were all eating together, that something like they were talking among themselves. That thing where even though we were talking together, I absolutely couldn’t shake the feeling that I was foreign. Even though they clearly looked after me, that feeling of being an outsider I couldn’t shake….
That kind of thing that only I could feel while no one else noticed.
Fuck… Lee Juwon can treat me that way, but anyway I keep getting dragged into this, so what can I do? Damn bastards. I wish they wouldn’t just say it but show results. As Lee Juwon said, I wish they’d just leave me as an outsider and have their love triangle drama among themselves.
I should probably pray about this too when I draw purified water in the morning.
“Then I’ll get going.”
“Yeah, I’m counting on you.”
At my earnest request, Lee Juwon’s expression hardened slightly, but he immediately smiled warmly and dragged Cheon Jaekyung and Han Taeseok away.
“Kids these days are scary.”
“I know, right.”
As the guard muttered while watching Lee Juwon moving away, I agreed with those words. At my words, the guard looked at me with a face that said “you’re also kids these days,” but I ignored it and returned to the hospital room.
