…I need to return the gym clothes. I should go find that guy’s classroom. What year was he in again….
Cha-heun, who had started his morning three demerit points in the hole, dropped his bag off in class and immediately headed down to the second-year floor, looking around. He was carrying a shopping bag with the neatly ironed gym clothes inside — but now that he thought about it, he didn’t actually know which class Baek Yu-gyeong was in.
…That’s a bit awkward.
And here was someone who claimed to like him and stuck to his side — not even knowing what class he was in. He felt faintly guilty about that.
…Come to think of it, Yu-gyeong is a little different.
In the process of trying to make a decent person out of him, something about how warm he was had been nagging at Cha-heun — warm enough that it almost seemed like an act. It wasn’t just toward Cha-heun either; he looked out for the people around him in general. Especially on the sports field, he’d seemed very popular among the girls — and it didn’t seem like it was purely because of his looks.
In the original timeline, he’d carried more of a cold edge, and his image among teachers hadn’t been particularly model-student-like either.
…But then again, looking at what he’d done yesterday — he didn’t do things he was told not to, and he listened well enough.
Comparing the two was making things needlessly complicated, so Cha-heun gave his own head a light ruffle. He stood there in a momentary daze — and the sound of male students passing through the hallway drifted to his ears.
“Hey hey, you heard Baek Ha-gyeong came back? Baek Yu-gyeong’s little brother? Apparently the girls are going crazy saying he’s insanely good-looking.”
“No way…. If he’s Baek Yu-gyeong’s brother, he’s got to be a loaded young master too, right? Baek Yu-gyeong acts like he isn’t, but everything he carries is designer.”
“Yeah, that first-year who was here briefly before going abroad.”
“Wait, wait. What class is he in?”
“Class 4, I think?”
Cha-heun caught the conversation and headed that way.
Perfect. If it’s his little brother, he’ll know which class his hyung is in.
He could have just grabbed any passing second-year in the hall and asked — but that obvious solution hadn’t occurred to him. Cha-heun made his way toward where Ha-gyeong was said to be.
Class 2-4.
Kim Seong-un was uncomfortable around Baek Yu-gyeong of Class 8. Part of it was having witnessed Yu-gyeong beat someone from behind — but what made it worse was something that had happened when Min Ha-seong had received the nameplate Shin Cha-heun had returned.
Ha-seong had shown up to school a few days later and accepted the nameplate with trembling hands, bowing his head meekly as he thanked him — and that image still lingered.
…Ugh, what a bastard. How badly must he have been tormenting him. Acting all decent in front of people and then behind their backs—
Seeing a timid-looking student in that state made him feel sorry for him. Kim Seong-un had no intention of stepping in and picking a fight himself, but he let that small, useless sympathy of his stir.
“Hey, your brother — that… Baek Yu-gyeong—”
Kim Seong-un had started to bring up Baek Yu-gyeong without thinking, then quickly clamped his mouth shut.
He’d been in the same class as Baek Ha-gyeong briefly back in first year and had a passing acquaintance with him — and in the middle of their conversation, seeing Ha-gyeong, who faintly resembled Yu-gyeong, had made him think of what had happened with Min Ha-seong. Baek Ha-gyeong had a good personality, and even as an Alpha he got along easily with Betas — Seong-un had always liked him well enough.
Ha-gyeong, who had been talking with others nearby, caught the familiar name and shifted his gaze toward Seong-un. He tilted his head slightly, folding the corners of his eyes into a pretty smile.
“What about my brother?”
“No, sorry.”
“Hm? Seong-un, why do you look so on edge? Did my brother do something to you?”
“No, it’s not like that…. Ah, never mind.”
“Hmm… you’re nervous around Yu-gyeong? Did he actually threaten you?”
“Threaten… is a bit strong.”
Kim Seong-un muttered that and averted his gaze.
Letting something that sounded like badmouthing slip in front of Baek Ha-gyeong — if Baek Yu-gyeong ever found out, it would be the end of him.
Ha-gyeong watched Seong-un with an unreadable look, then tapped the desk with his fingers.
A brief silence passed — then Ha-gyeong, eyes cast slightly downward, muttered with a rueful expression.
“Mm… I’m sorry.”
“Huh? Why are you apologizing all of a sudden, Baek Ha-gyeong?”
“Yu-gyeong has been on bad terms with our father for a while now. So he’s a bit warped in places — he might have snapped at you because of that.”
“Ah…?”
“Maybe because he grew up without a mother — he can be ill-mannered sometimes too…. Anyway, don’t let it get to you. Even at home, there’s barely any interest in Yu-gyeong.”
The moment Ha-gyeong finished speaking, another Alpha male student sitting nearby clicked his tongue and clapped his hands.
“Wow, shit, I felt that too. No wonder.”
“So he’s taking that out on people here? What a psycho.”
Ha-gyeong read the room, then added quietly:
“He’s always been that way. Still — don’t talk about him like that too much. Be good to our Yu-gyeong. He’s had it rough.”
“Wow, Baek Ha-gyeong, you’re genuinely too nice.”
“Honestly, didn’t Baek Yu-gyeong always give off a bit of a weird vibe?”
That one comment from someone opened the floodgates — complaints started spilling out from all directions.
“Yeah, that guy’s totally a girls-only type. Acts all sweet to girls and then picks fights with us.”
“You saw him the other day when someone bumped into him and he brushed himself off like he’d touched something filthy, right?”
“That happened to you too? God…. That’s seriously disgusting to deal with.”
“But Ha-gyeong, why do you call Baek Yu-gyeong hyung? Doesn’t birth order not matter when you’re the legitimate one?”
“Eh, he’s still family — whoever was born first is the hyung.”
With Ha-gyeong sitting at the center desk and the class buzzing around him in that messy sort of way —
“Hey.”
A voice cut clean across the noise from the other side.
Cha-heun, who had at some point come to lean against the classroom doorframe, was scowling as he looked at them.
As Cha-heun was stepping into the classroom, he caught eyes with a large student who had half-risen from a window-side seat near the corridor.
……? That kendo club kid — no, the student disciplinary committee member? Anyway, the one who gifted me three demerit points this morning…. Was he about to step in? I thought I just heard his voice a second ago….
…Honestly impressive.
There he is. That guy’s a stickler for principles, isn’t he.
Cha-heun had thought he’d grow into someone remarkable — and here he was, actually stepping up. Cha-heun skimmed that outstanding face of his for a moment, then let out a small laugh and stepped forward.
That student could step in if he wanted — but for something like this, it was better for an adult like himself to handle it rather than leave it to students to resolve clumsily. Cha-heun didn’t care if his own relationships here soured, but that student still had to live in this class with these people.
He quietly read the mood in the room. Among the faces of the male students gathered around Ha-gyeong, he recognized one.
Combing through his memory — it was one of the guys who’d gotten knocked around by him before. When Cha-heun met his eyes with a cool smile, that student flinched and stepped back.
These things usually travel in packs. …Bit of a delinquent crowd, by the looks of it. Birds of a feather.
Cha-heun looked them over with cold eyes, then shifted his gaze to Ha-gyeong.
“Isn’t this school bullying if a whole group of you pile on like this? If you’re going to talk behind someone’s back, do it where no one can hear — don’t let it spill out in the middle of the classroom and poison the whole atmosphere.”
Who would have thought — he’d come looking for Ha-gyeong, and walked straight into a scene of Ha-gyeong apparently talking behind Baek Yu-gyeong’s back.
Badmouthing would at least be one thing — this is practically incitement.
When Cha-heun fixed them with a sharp look, Ha-gyeong waved at him with a delighted grin — like someone who’d just spotted an idol — and folded his eyes into crescents. Unlike Yu-gyeong, his deep honey-brown irises curved with the smile and flickered.
“Ah! You must be that Shin Cha-heun? The senior?”
“You know me?”
“I’ve heard a lot about you. You’re the senior Yu-gyeong really~~ likes, right?”
“…From the way you were talking just now, it doesn’t seem like Yu-gyeong was the one who told you.”
“I just take a lot of interest in things. Brothers talk a lot, you know.”
Cha-heun was so taken aback by Ha-gyeong’s shamelessness that he let out a dry, dismissive laugh.
Sure they do.
What kind of idiot does he think I am.
Who talks this much trash about a brother they’re supposedly very interested in, you little high schooler.
Amid the noisy classroom atmosphere, it was distinctly out of place — Ha-gyeong sitting alone at the center of it all, calm and smiling like he hadn’t a care in the world. That was the thought Cha-heun had as he studied Ha-gyeong.
Neat brown hair — and beneath it, features that resembled Yu-gyeong if you were looking for it, yet with a subtly softer quality.
…Good-looking.
Looked at separately, the resemblance wasn’t obvious — but thinking of Baek Yu-gyeong and looking at him, there was clearly a younger-brother quality to him.
From what he’d accidentally overheard earlier, he seemed to be the son of the stepmother…. And his relationship with Baek Yu-gyeong seemed to be quite hostile. The sympathetic, pitying things he’d said had clearly not been coming from a good place — the odds were high that it had been deliberate.
…Smart kid.
Cunning was probably the more accurate word.
“More importantly, senior — aren’t you going out with Yu-gyeong because you feel sorry for him?”
“No.”
Cha-heun answered flatly, and Ha-gyeong burst into a bright, ringing laugh, waving a hand.
“Oh come on, of course you are. If you’re spending that much time around him, it can’t be out of pure goodwill — I figured you felt sorry for him on some level. Ah, or not? You haven’t heard about Yu-gyeong’s situation?”
…I don’t go around with him. He follows me around.
He wanted to protest — but this didn’t really feel like the moment to make that excuse, so Cha-heun kept a careful eye on the room’s mood while listening to Ha-gyeong and replied.
“Even if what you said counts as a ‘situation,’ does that really amount to much of one?”
Cha-heun said it carelessly, then looked at the male students who had been snickering earlier.
“And as for you all — I probably shouldn’t say this, but honestly…. Is he lacking in looks? Is he lacking in grades? None of those apply to you, so what exactly makes you think you have any right to talk about someone like that?”
One of the students who had been enthusiastically trash-talking Yu-gyeong a moment ago made eye contact and lunged forward, bristling.
“What did you just—”
“No, I could say more if you’d like. If you’ve got a problem with it, take a swing. Come on over.”
Cha-heun cut him off and took one step forward — and the student stepped back again.
The one who got hit by me before.
…Well, that one’s handled.
What mattered right now was pulling the atmosphere back over to this side. Not through logic.
If I just let it slide, this kind of atmosphere will keep going. Better to call it out and shut it down entirely.
He had absolutely no desire to go on the offensive against students this young — but precisely because they were young, he thought that if this wasn’t dealt with properly now, it could spiral into something worse later.
Ha-gyeong’s gaze landed directly on him. Ha-gyeong looked Cha-heun up and down like he was witnessing something curious — then, even in the middle of all this, smiled brightly and started applauding.
“Wow~, is this what they call a loyalty shield? I’ve seen it online but I never thought I’d witness it in real life.”
“Right. I heard you were abroad and just came back — must be great to get a live field experience the moment you set foot back on home soil.”
Cha-heun answered lightly, as if it hadn’t landed at all — and Ha-gyeong’s eyes narrowed for just a fraction of a second. Then he smoothed his expression back into place and smiled again. A bright, airy voice came from his lips.
“By any chance~ are you dating Yu-gyeong? From the way you talk, it sounds like you’re pretty attached.”
“…Hah.”
“If you didn’t know you’d grabbed a rotting rope, that would be frustrating, I suppose. …Ah, but Yu-gyeong is good-looking, so it’s not a total loss, right? Or is there something you’re not getting out of it? Is that why you have to defend him this hard just to flatter yourself?”
“That’s something else…. That’s the first time someone’s been so vulgar that I genuinely can’t think of what to say.”
“Oh come on, you’re the vulgar one, senior. If you’re trying to improve your standing, I can introduce you to other good-looking guys with money? A pretty Omega at your level — there’d be people willing to meet you.”
The moment Ha-gyeong finished speaking, short bursts of laughter rippled through the room. Contemptuous words and eyes that were closer to mockery than anything swept over him.
…Wow. That kid is really, really good with words. In one move he’s turned me into someone trying to leech off a rich guy.
Cha-heun had a brief flash of genuine admiration for Ha-gyeong’s way with words — before scowling at finding himself on the receiving end of such naked scrutiny for the first time.
