This fucking bastard…….
It took less than three seconds for Hongdan to pull off the double pansy ring Seonha had put on him, stomp on it, and pull out the phone he’d kept in his pants pocket.
There wasn’t a hint of hesitation in the hand movements pressing the keypad.
“Yes, hello? Ah, I’d like to report something. Someone damaged the park here. It’d be great if you could bring handcuffs too, if possible.”
***
“Ah…… you picked…… a flower.”
The younger of the two dispatched officers, a man, approached Hongdan while scratching the back of his head. Having come to the scene and assessed the situation, he’d probably been pushed forward because it reeked of a difficult troublemaker.
You could tell just from the two flower buds on his epaulettes signifying he’d just become a patrol officer, and the cowardly back of the senior officer who was only letting out deep sighs some distance away.
Hongdan acted nonchalant even knowing he was being treated like a crazy person.
“Yes. Here, this pansy.”
At his feet, light pink petals were trampled all over. The ring Seonha had made by constantly fiddling with those petals with hands five or six times larger had already lost all recognizable form.
Looking down at that miserable scene, the two flower buds—that is, the pitiful patrol officer—had to struggle not to grimace. Then he asked in a deliberately calm tone whether they’d really summoned public authority for something like this.
“So you’re saying this one, just one flower was pick……”
But the question couldn’t be fully formed before a troublemaker rushed at him with flashing eyes.
“What do you mean, one flower isn’t a flower? Are you dismissing it because it’s a minority right now? People who do the nation’s work should listen more carefully to minority voices so this Republic of Korea can leap forward as a true democratic society. And you think this is just any flower? This is a double pansy, a double pansy! The probability of occurring in nature is extremely low! When you could write a thesis on this, is the expression ‘just one flower’ really appropriate? Our poor trampled baby is going to cry!”
“Hongdan, you’re the one who stepped on thi……”
“Shut up.”
Hongdan wrapped up Seonha, who was the actual reporter yet was trying to report the truth without reading the room by displaying journalistic spirit he didn’t even have, in just two syllables.
Except for Hongdan’s roughened breathing, only awkward silence continued between the three people.
Honestly, Hongdan knew too. How ugly and pathetic he looked right now.
Hongdan knew better than anyone that the target he should be venting at wasn’t that innocent young lamb rolling his eyes as if troubled, but Yeon Seonha who was already brimming with those beggar-like tears again.
Even knowing that, he found himself disgusting and detestable for not being able to stop this unreasonableness.
Really, so much.
“……Hongdan.”
He thought he could endure it well enough.
For the past year, no.
Since the day he told Seonha about the divorce, he’d been practicing all along, so he thought he could easily overlay these remnants of emotion.
Just three months, he thought if he just gritted his teeth and endured while thinking only of money, it would pass quickly.
But rather than becoming stronger over the past year, he’d only become softer and more worn down, reacting to him yet again.
“Hey, Hongdaaan……”
So pathetic at himself that just.
“I want to die.”
“……”
Hongdan no longer had the strength to keep standing and collapsed right there. From his face buried deep in his knees flowed an apology like a groan.
“I’m sorry……”
Unlike Seonha’s, it was an exhausted and dried-up voice. That made it give an even more miserable impression.
The patrol officer, who had been seriously considering emergency psychiatric hospitalization procedures, seemed quite flustered by that reaction.
“No, um…… are you okay? If you really need help……”
The kind public servant bent down to fulfill his duty. It was when he reached out to check on Hongdan’s condition.
Tap.
“He’s fine.”
Someone grabbed the patrol officer’s wrist. Before even a fingertip could touch Hongdan.
The patrol officer’s brow, which had been barely holding smooth, finally had to crumple.
And for good reason—that someone actually looked just as difficult to see as a normal person as Hongdan.
Though not yet arrested, he was already dressed like a suspect with his clothes pulled over his head.
To be an Islamic woman who’d lost her hijab and hastily wrapped clothes around herself, he was half a span taller than him, and the tear-mixed voice coming from between the makeshift hijab was quite low. Above all, the strength gripping his wrist couldn’t possibly be considered a woman’s.
In other words, even after doing ten forward and backward rolls, he was a sturdy man.
Especially considering that build that seemed to be 2 meters tall, at minimum a recessive alpha male.
The patrol officer looked back and forth between his caught wrist and the suspicious man cosplaying as a suspect—that is, Seonha—and went through the emergency hospitalization procedures in his head again. In the meantime, Seonha’s lips moved once more.
“He’s fine. I’m Hongdan’s guardian.”
It felt oddly like emphasis had been placed on the word “I’m.”
So that seems like an even bigger problem.
Even though he wasn’t particularly resisting, the patrol officer tilted his head as he felt the grip getting progressively stronger, trying to confirm the face half-hidden by clothes. Just before the angle of his head became close to perpendicular, his cowardly colleague who’d passed him the troublemaker finally approached.
“Hey, what are you doing? If the situation’s wrapped up, just give a warning and let them go.”
“Ah, but I……”
“But what? Man, you gotta have flexibility to last long in this work.”
His colleague patted the patrol officer’s shoulder with a good-natured smile. Coming to play cool senior now seemed more than a little ridiculous, but the patrol officer displayed superhuman social skills and backed away from Hongdan. Then the force gripping his wrist also smoothly released.
“Excuse me, what was your name again? If you have ID, please show it for a moment.”
The patrol officer’s colleague pulled out a terminal while looking at Seonha. Hongdan, who seemed like he’d keep squatting, urgently got up at that sound.
“E-excuse me……!”
“Yes?”
The colleague officer openly pulled back his body. Judging by his widely dilated pupils, Hongdan had already been registered as a troublemaker in his head. He looked preemptively scared that Hongdan, who had suddenly blocked his view by standing up, might start causing trouble again.
Hongdan didn’t care and closed the distance again. He even firmly grabbed his forearm so he couldn’t get any farther away.
However, the voice that flowed out was a bit deflated. He didn’t look like the same person who’d been firing off words in a booming voice that could leave the park earlier.
“Um…… do they really have to state their personal information?”
It was a stupid question. Moreover, it shouldn’t be Hongdan, who had called them here, asking it.
Naturally, the colleague’s expression also crumpled considerably.
“What, you reported it yourself. Didn’t you want this person punished?”
“W-well, yes, but……”
Hongdan desperately lowered his gaze downward. Unable to add any more excuses, he just ground his lips. From above his deeply bowed head came a voice that had become more resolute and simultaneously turned overbearing.
“If you do this one more time, you could be arrested for obstruction of official duties. We’ll let the flower-picking slide with just a warning, but we can’t do that for obstruction of official duties. Let go of this.”
Fortunately, Hongdan had enough reason left to understand this warning.
Hongdan ultimately let go of his arm and stepped back. Then he repeatedly dry-washed his face while looking at the air. His lips were slightly parted, but due to tension he couldn’t even let out a sigh.
Whether Hongdan was falling into self-loathing alone or not, the police approached Seonha once again.
“Sir, don’t you have ID? If not, please tell us your name, date of birth, and address.”
“Mm……”
Instead of answering, Seonha glanced toward where Hongdan was. His right arm twitched as if trying to grasp something.
Should it be called fortunate?
“Sir. You don’t want to go to the station either, right? Please cooperate.”
Or should it be called a greater misfortune?
Because his back was turned, Hongdan couldn’t see the situation about to unfold at all.
“Excuse me, sir! Your ID.”
As the situation dragged on, the police’s tone also began to sharpen. Only then did Seonha turn his head toward them. Then, after wetting his lips—dried by the dry late autumn wind—with his tongue once, he answered slowly.
“……Yeon Seonha. Born April 17, 1997. Pyeongchang-dong xx-12.”
“Yes. Yeon-Seon-ha. April 17, 1997, Pyeong…… What?”
After finishing his words, Seonha’s eyes chased Hongdan again. Before he knew it, he was sitting on a nearby bench with a blank face. Seonha tenaciously scanned facial features that weren’t even clearly visible from the distance. He didn’t even notice that the person checking his personal information had stopped speaking in confusion.
“P-please, one more time……”
The officer, who recognized Seonha’s identity from his criminal record, spoke in a trembling voice. Seonha’s face as he looked back at him again had blatant annoyance on it.
“Your hearing must not be good.”
Seonha said indifferently as he pulled down Hongdan’s coat that had been covering his face. The tearfulness that had irritated Hongdan had long been erased. So much so that they couldn’t be seen as the same person—his voice was low and heavy.
“What are you surprised about? That I’m that Yeon Seonha? Or the criminal record of beating people up despite being a chaebol?”
Because he’d been wearing the coat pulled over his head the whole time, his hair was pressed down. Seonha roughly tousled the hair blocking his view. The distinctive long, low eye shape that was finally revealed was essentially no different from his ID.
“Don’t tell me, that Yeonhwa Group……?”
The officer, whose guess turned to certainty, stepped backward. With just one stride, Seonha stood right in front of him and looked down with dry eyes.
His thin, neat lips curved fishily.
“Well, does something change if I’m Yeonhwa Group’s Yeon Seonha? Do chaebols pay extra tax on fines? Or the opposite? I’d appreciate a discount.”
“That’s not it……”
The officer’s words trailed off. Even though he hadn’t done anything beyond the scope of legitimate official duties, he was just overwhelmed by Seonha’s presence. Seonha narrowed the distance a bit more as if he’d been waiting for that reaction.
“Strange. The conversation keeps getting longer, when you’re all people who should understand……”
Pausing his words, he swept back his annoying bangs once more in a large motion. Then his dark gray eyes glinted eerily as they caught the moonlight.
“This matter today, me being with Choi Hongdan. I’d like you to keep your mouths shut so those trashy reporters don’t catch on. I won’t necessarily stop you if you’re confident you can fight Yeonhwa and win, though.”
“……”
“But as you know, we’re so busy. Well, I wonder if we’d even have time to deal with you. Let’s not waste each other’s energy and wrap this up here, shall we?”
Though it ended as a question, it was practically a notification. The two officers stood with dumbfounded faces, unable to even get angry. No, to be more honest, it was closer to having lost the will to stand up to such confident arrogance.
Satisfied with the silence, Seonha also bid farewell without wasting more time on useless conversation.
“Well then, there’s no problem now. You said earlier you’d end it with an on-site warning, so I’ll be going. You two should get back to patrol duty too. In dangerous times like these…… who knows if some chaebol’s child might be causing an assault incident. Right?”
The sharp look in his eyes soon became soft clouds. The corners of his mouth that had been raised crookedly also found gentle balance again. By the time he turned around.
“Hongdaaan- Even if you didn’t like the ring, how could you call the police-“
He had become a perfect eighteen-year-old, better than anyone.
“You don’t like the ring? I also know how to make necklaces, should I weave you a necklace? Your neck is long and slender, Hongdan, so a necklace would look really pretty on you, right?”
