Lee Hyeonseok acted needlessly spitefully and got angry like an elementary school child who, after bullying the kid they like, gets hit on a sore spot by someone. Of course, that was putting it cutely—acting emotionally unstable at his age, from Seo Jiwoo’s perspective, it would be nothing but shitty in vulgar terms.
When Seo Jiwoo unknowingly hung up the call unilaterally, Lee Hyeonseok, like the one who farted getting angry, didn’t think about what he himself had said and was dumbfounded, muttering “Ha! Ha! After I was so lenient,” and called once more.
This time he thought Seo Jiwoo would answer the phone right away. Unlike Lee Hyeonseok’s expectation of him acting cute and charming on the phone while prostrating and begging for forgiveness, Seo Jiwoo hesitated with the phone in front of him. In the end, just as he was about to press the call button, the signal disconnected. Lee Hyeonseok, who hated Seo Jiwoo rejecting him more than anything, immediately called the guards at home.
Lee Hyeonseok thought about having the guards beat up Seo Jiwoo who dared to act so fearlessly, but he also hated seeing others touch him when he should be the one to do it, so he decided against that.
—Yes.
“Tell Seo Jiwoo to choose whether he’ll answer the phone properly or cry all night.”
—Yes. Understood.
Though he ignored the guards’ greeting and said what he had to say, they answered politely without complaint. Instead of exercising violence through the guards, Lee Hyeonseok decided to make Jiwoo uncomfortable. In Lee Hyeonseok’s thinking, this much didn’t even count as punishment. Thinking there’d be no one else in his life who’d be this lenient, he even marveled at his own soft heart.
Seo Jiwoo, who received the message from the guard, froze solid in confusion. He was so flustered that in front of the guard, he opened his eyes wide, couldn’t close his mouth, and even turned red in the face. In front of the guard.
Lee Hyeonseok stared at the guards inside the CCTV with murderous eyes. The guard slightly softened his expression at Seo Jiwoo’s flustered appearance but quickly erased it. Seo Jiwoo didn’t notice their change in expression at all. Unfortunately for the guards, however, Lee Hyeonseok, who was watching it in real-time, ended up in a foul mood.
Lee Hyeonseok vowed not to let the guards off when he got home. As soon as the guard left, Seo Jiwoo, who immediately called Lee Hyeonseok, was shown on the screen. While watching that expression, Lee Hyeonseok thought things like maybe his head would have cracked again if he were in front of Seo Jiwoo right now, and didn’t answer the ringing phone. After going through the trouble of making him call by delivering a message Seo Jiwoo would obviously hate, he had absolutely no intention of answering.
While Seo Jiwoo acted like he was performing an ancestral rite in front of his phone, he found it quite injurious to his pride to answer as soon as the signal rang. Also, it was because Cheon Jaekyung had come to his senses.
“Lee… Hyeonseok…!”
Even though Cheon Jaekyung had not a single fine spot on him, befitting one of the main gongs, he wasn’t cowed. It was just like his half-sibling’s claim that main gongs must maintain their dignity in any situation, that they can’t be without dignity. Lee Hyeonseok just thought that way briefly.
At least until he saw Cheon Jaekyung subtly trembling.
“……”
Lee Hyeonseok frowned in puzzlement. It was a trembling clearly different from trembling in pain. If you looked closely enough to see it openly, shaking pupils, a body stiff with tension, and very slight trembling came into view. It was definitely the appearance of someone gripped by fear.
At that sight, Lee Hyeonseok, who had never once treated Cheon Jaekyung as a living human, suddenly recalled Seo Jiwoo’s words to adapt to this world. He thought that would be impossible unless he lost his memory. The clumsy plausibility and development that made this world turn both helped and didn’t help Lee Hyeonseok.
In fact, the reason Cheon Jaekyung had come this far was also because, as a main gong, absurd luck followed him. Otherwise, there’d be no way Cheon Jaekyung, who had no connections or anything, could have come to a place where tremendous money and manpower had been poured into security and gotten to see Lee Hyeonseok’s face.
Cheon Jaekyung cleverly avoided the surveillance Lee Hyeonseok had set up and barged in recklessly saying he’d find where Seo Jiwoo was. It was something possible only because he was a main gong. If Lee Hyeonseok hadn’t been here, Cheon Jaekyung would have used his heavenly luck to steal someone’s phone among the staff or something and achieved his desired purpose. However, when people with the same heavenly luck clashed, Lee Hyeonseok, who had more, simply won.
That was also why, even while looking at Cheon Jaekyung who had fainted from being beaten without a single fine spot, Lee Hyeonseok spewed curses at this absurd situation and treated everything as fake. From the beginning, he didn’t treat anyone other than Seo Jiwoo as living humans.
Lee Hyeonseok realized that only those particularly entangled with Seo Jiwoo became somewhat more natural. Thinking about it, his secretary, Secretary Cha, was also like that. Originally, when Secretary Cha was only entangled with him alone, he only performed predetermined tasks. Only after being entangled together with Seo Jiwoo did he show richer emotions and thoughts. Originally, no matter what absurd task was given, he would have handled it without a single question, but now he even hesitated. Sometimes he was bewildered by things that progressed too easily. Not just Secretary Cha, but guards and researchers entangled together with both Seo Jiwoo and Lee Hyeonseok were also like that.
Lee Hyeonseok thought that perhaps, like Seo Jiwoo hoped, he too might be able to adapt to this world to some degree, seeing the surroundings gradually becoming realistic humans. Fortunately, befitting someone selfish with high self-esteem and self-love, Lee Hyeonseok was also positive.
“So, what are you going to do now?”
Cheon Jaekyung hid his fear and acted tough. Lee Hyeonseok ridiculed Cheon Jaekyung’s attitude of ‘kill me if you can’ and sneered. No matter how realistic a human he became, his essence didn’t go anywhere.
“If you’re going to do it, you’d better do it now. I’ll definitely, not just you, but, urk! Mmph!”
Lee Hyeonseok looked at the guards as if telling them to quiet Cheon Jaekyung, whose words were getting long, and put his index finger to his lips. After visually confirming the guards subduing Cheon Jaekyung and covering his mouth, he answered the phone that was about to disconnect.
“Yeah.”
—What are you trying to do?
“……”
Lee Hyeonseok got back exactly what he had done to the guards earlier. He ended up losing his words at Seo Jiwoo’s attitude of cutting him off and interrogating him in a cold voice. Looking at Cheon Jaekyung going “mmph mmph” in front of him, Lee Hyeonseok unexpectedly faced a huge reality check.
“I’m getting a reality check.”
—What?
Lee Hyeonseok cherished and protected him this much, yet Seo Jiwoo being lukewarm and indifferent was unbearably insolent. He wondered if Jiwoo knew thanks to whom he was living so safely and luxuriously. Originally, the person themselves doesn’t know whether they’re normal or not.
“I take care of you, look after you, protect you. But instead of being grateful, you climb up on me?”
—Ha…. Wait a moment.
“What?”
At Lee Hyeonseok’s preposterous claim, Seo Jiwoo took one long breath, then covered the speaker, held it far away, and muttered something. Seeing that, Lee Hyeonseok thought he should install a wiretap too.
—Right, you’re right.
Seo Jiwoo, who returned to the call right away, placated Lee Hyeonseok in a tone exactly like reading from a book. He became happy right away at Seo Jiwoo doing something that, if anyone else had done it, would naturally have them spending the night in a hospital. This time, Lee Hyeonseok went along with it, wondering how Jiwoo would move his mouth to humor him.
While they exchanged a conversation with no substance that only Lee Hyeonseok enjoyed and no one else did, Cheon Jaekyung realized the person on the call was Seo Jiwoo and began to resist intensely. Seeing that, Lee Hyeonseok smiled grimly and warned indirectly.
“You only listen obediently after going out for no reason and suffering a terrible ordeal.”
—What terrible ordeal?
Befitting someone perceptive, Seo Jiwoo caught on right away and pressed for details. At the sight that could be called admirable, Lee Hyeonseok especially showed generosity. It also had the intention of scratching at Cheon Jaekyung’s insides.
“Seeing you act so stupidly even after meeting Cheon Jaekyung recently, you’ll live life comfortably.”
—Let me tell you one thing: sometimes acting a bit stupid is the shortcut to living life comfortably.
“You know what’s an even faster shortcut than that?”
When Lee Hyeonseok mocked both Seo Jiwoo and Cheon Jaekyung together, Jiwoo unfazed expressed his own theory. Hearing that, Cheon Jaekyung glared at Lee Hyeonseok with bloodshot eyes. Seeing that, Lee Hyeonseok spoke somewhat arrogantly.
“Listening well to what I say.”
—…….
It was something said to Seo Jiwoo, but also something said to Cheon Jaekyung. In the end, Cheon Jaekyung, unable to control his emotions, even released threatening pheromones. Lee Hyeonseok got up from his seat as if finding it interesting and approached Cheon Jaekyung closely.
“Unless your head is just decoration, you’d quickly figure out what happens when someone with nothing acts up, wouldn’t you?”
Whether humiliated, Cheon Jaekyung’s face turned bright red and his body trembled at the overwhelming pressure Lee Hyeonseok gave. The sight of him slowly approaching while making heel sounds clip-clop also looked somewhat like a grim reaper.
Lee Hyeonseok let out a chuckle, finding it quite funny that what his half-sibling had carefully created was subdued so utterly uselessly.
“Why act up when you’re so pathetic?”
Lee Hyeonseok spoke both to mock Cheon Jaekyung and to tell Seo Jiwoo to do well on his own, but since Jiwoo had already made a wise decision, only Cheon Jaekyung’s insides were turned upside down.
Lee Hyeonseok, thinking Seo Jiwoo would be listening attentively on his own, stood before Cheon Jaekyung whom he’d reached and poured out violent pheromones as is. Whether more effective than violence, Cheon Jaekyung began to cough as if suffocating. With tears welling up in his eyes, he began to tremble visibly.
“Sto, stop!”
‘Shh, I’m on a call.’
Lee Hyeonseok, who blocked the mouth of Cheon Jaekyung who couldn’t endure and let out a crying voice with his foot, muttered to him with lip movements.
It was truly hard to gauge whether the place Cheon Jaekyung had snuck into was a research lab or a gangster’s office.
