Why You, Me (3)
Creak.
The moment I opened the rooftop door, a dazzling blonde swept over her shoulder as she turned to look at me askance. Yu Seolhyeon.
Her eyes were slightly lifted, and from what I could tell, she didn’t look particularly happy.
But I just casually dropped the line, unfazed as if it were nothing at all.
“Ah, what’s this? You were already here first?”
“I didn’t eat much at lunch today.”
It was tonkatsu today, after all.
“Tonkatsu didn’t sit right with you? It’s actually pretty good.”
“Never mind that.”
Yu Seolhyeon cut me off lightly, crossed her arms tightly, and continued with a sideways glance.
“So why did you call me?”
She probably thought I’d called her to interrogate her about the morning incident.
Her mood had been foul the entire time.
Of course I had called her to interrogate her. Half of it, at least.
“You know, about what happened this morning.”
“What? Just now you were talking like you were defending me, and now you think I had the kids throw the stones?”
Yu Seolhyeon scrunched her eyebrows a little more and pouted in discontent, but I just shrugged once and answered in a light voice.
“No.”
“Eh?”
Yu Seolhyeon blinked quietly.
“I told you this morning. I don’t think you were behind it. I believe you.”
“Ah, really?”
“You don’t seem like the type to lie about something like that, and besides, you’re not the kind of person to do that.”
The Yu Seolhyeon I knew could poke at people she didn’t like a little, but she always respected her own boundaries.
She wasn’t petty enough to throw stones in someone else’s yard like a real criminal.
…Of course, that was before she went down the villainess path.
“Moreover, there’s a promise in play here.”
“To stop harassing Jin Soyeon as a condition for helping with the dungeon raid?”
“Yeah. Since you even promised that, I don’t think you’d do something like that to Soyeon.”
“Hoo.”
Yu Seolhyeon stared at my face with an expression that said, “Surprising.” Then she grinned.
“What can I say? Even though I’m basically your childhood friend, you’re still doubting me, and now you trust me?”
“Ah. Siwoo?”
We weren’t on the same casual-friendship level as me and Soyeon, but Yu Seolhyeon and Lee Siwoo were childhood friends in their own way.
‘…That’s probably why you’re even more suspicious of her.’
As Siwoo said, you have a history, don’t you, Yu Seolhyeon?
But I didn’t say it out loud.
No need to poke the bear.
“Still, I can feel how certain you are about my words. Is it because of your ability?”
“Not exactly.”
I wasn’t blindly believing Yu Seolhyeon’s character setting.
Instead, after spending months with her and seeing everything she’d done, I was trusting her human nature and personality.
If the Yu Seolhyeon I knew was in front of me, she would never do something like that.
Well, honestly…
It was because I already knew the real culprit was someone else. That was the bigger reason.
“I just think you wouldn’t do something like that if I saw it.”
“Haha. I wonder how much you’ve been watching me to say something like that.”
Even if we combined both lives, we’d probably known each other for quite a while.
“Anyway, I called you because there’s something I want to ask a favor for and something I need to take responsibility for.”
“Responsibility?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded firmly.
Yu Seolhyeon’s eyebrows twitched faintly.
The word responsibility obviously didn’t sit well with her.
“What responsibility?”
“You threw a stone at Soyeon’s house, remember? That’s what I’m talking about.”
“But I told you that wasn’t my doing.”
“Of course it wasn’t your doing.”
I paused for a moment, then suddenly spoke.
“The odds are high that it was one of your group girls who did it.”
“Oh? You can be certain?”
“Ask me instead. Weren’t you suspicious of someone in the group, right?”
“Well… There are more than a few girls who like Siwoo.”
“Don’t play dumb. Even if you like Siwoo, there aren’t that many girls in our class crazy enough to go that far.”
“…”
Girls who were in love with a boy but would throw stones at his house at night? Not many in our class.
And a girl with that kind of temper was in Yu Seolhyeon’s group.
“It was probably Kang Yoojung who threw the stone.”
“…”
“You didn’t have solid evidence that Kang Yoojung was the culprit, and there was no point exposing the group’s internal secrets, so you just pretended not to know, didn’t you?”
“…”
Yu Seolhyeon didn’t add any excuses and simply shrugged once.
“So what do you want from me?”
“Take responsibility in your own way.”
“Exactly how?”
“Question Kang Yoojung. Even without evidence, if you strongly interrogate her, she’ll eventually confess.”
When I heard that, Yu Seolhyeon’s lips curved up slightly.
“Why me?”
She added with a light tap.
“…If I answer that?”
“Come on, that’s a pretty brazen answer, Yu Seolhyeon.”
Do you even have a conscience?
“Well, if Kang Yoojung really did it, I’d feel bad as a friend… but…”
She trailed off and looked at my face, then finally opened her mouth. She seemed genuinely curious about how I’d react.
“Separately from that, do I really need to take responsibility? I didn’t order it, and the kid did it on her own. Just because we’re in the same group…?”
Yu Seolhyeon’s group. Her faction. But when you looked at it objectively, Kang Yoojung was just one of her many friends.
Just one person to one person.
She didn’t necessarily need to take responsibility just because Kang Yoojung committed a bad act.
…Honestly, if she hadn’t been involved at all.
“You know I pretended not to know even though I did, but honestly I didn’t actually think Yoojung was the real culprit. There was something suspicious, sure, but I didn’t ask too much because it felt like I was suspecting a friend.”
Hey, when did you start thinking of your group girls as friends?
“But blaming me for taking responsibility doesn’t sit right with me.”
Finally smiling sweetly, Yu Seolhyeon wrapped up her point.
From her perspective, whether she questioned Kang Yoojung or not didn’t matter much, but she realized I was curious about how I’d answer.
As expected, that mischievous personality never changes.
She never listens to good advice, anyway.
“Of course you should take responsibility.”
“Why?”
“Because you planted the seed.”
Yu Seolhyeon tilted her head for a moment.
“I?”
“Yeah. You secretly encouraged the rumors about Soyeon. Kang Yoojung was the most affected.”
“It was just suspicion.”
“And you promised not to harass Soyeon.”
“Ah, so I was secretly trying to stop the rumors because of me.”
“Even though you secretly encouraged it, Kang Yoojung probably got rebellious instead?”
“That’s too assumptive.”
Well, the one who actually provoked Kang Yoojung was different.
“Yu Seolhyeon. We’re going to have a lot of exchanges from now on, right?”
There were going to be plenty of things because of my future-sight ability.
She probably thought she could get important information during the raid on the Yeongdeung Mountain Dungeon.
“I think the foundation of everything is trust. You traded with me under the condition of not harassing Soyeon, and now she’s suffering because of the old things you did.”
“…”
“But if you say it like it has nothing to do with you, it’ll be hard for me to trust you.”
“…”
Yu Seolhyeon fiddled with her sleeve for a moment, then chuckled.
“Haha. Okay, fine. Why are you so serious about it?”
“I’ve never been serious.”
“Well… I guess so.”
Yu Seolhyeon gave a faint smile.
“You really care about Jin Soyeon, huh?”
“Of course. She’s my childhood friend.”
“She’s also your girlfriend.”
No need for unnecessary small talk.
“Anyway, you question Kang Yoojung to get a confession, right? Then what, hand her to the police?”
“No need for that. Just have Soyeon apologize to her separately. After all, the real culprit is someone else.”
“The real culprit?”
“It’s a bit ambiguous to call him the real culprit, but there’s someone who secretly guided Kang Yoojung to do it. I need to catch him.”
In the game, there was one guy who used kids who hated Soyeon to hurt her, slowly drew close, and targeted people harassing her to make them rely on him.
It was a truly creepy stalker mindset.
Surely no normal person would think of doing that to the girl they like—to make her suffer and become dependent on them.
“That sounds interesting. You interrogate Yoojung to find the real culprit?”
“No, Kang Yoojung probably doesn’t know.”
“Eh? Why?”
“She’s not stupid. She was just subtly guided.”
Emotions like hatred are easily swayed by gravity.
Just a tiny push from behind, and a person falls endlessly toward the cliff— that’s the true face of hatred.
“Kang Yoojung probably knew Soyeon truly hated her. Moreover, you’ve been controlling what people say about Soyeon lately, so she’s probably built up a lot of resentment. And that guy used that to keep subtly provoking her.”
“Hmm.”
“But… well, it’s just speculation for now. Not certain. That’s why I’m trying to gather evidence to be absolutely sure.”
“You said you had a favor to ask me.”
“Yeah. Just introduce me to a pretty good private investigator, okay?”
“…”
“Okay. I don’t know what you’re planning, but I won’t ask.”
I didn’t really have any weird plans either.
Well, I just wanted to secretly get a few things from that guy’s house.
“So who’s the guy who guided Yoojung?”
“I think it’s Choi Chang-won.”
“Choi Chang-won? Him? Didn’t he say this morning he’d help find the culprit with Jin Soyeon?”
“Yeah.”
Choi Chang-won ranked 34th among first-year students.
He looked normal on the surface, but he was rotten inside.
Ah, of course I knew the game and reality could be different.
That was why I planned to hire a private investigator to be certain he was the culprit.
The game didn’t handle culprits that way, but whatever.
We’d catch him quickly without dragging things out.
‘Well, Yu Seolhyeon doesn’t seem to doubt my words at all.’
I guess it’s because of my future-sight ability. It made things easier since I didn’t need to convince her one by one.
“Once I get evidence that Choi Chang-won is the culprit, I’ll interrogate him together with Siwoo.”
“Siwoo? Why him? Isn’t one person enough?”
He’s 34th, right?
If he goes wild, what then?
I honestly wanted to just report it to the police, but since the evidence would be obtained illegally, I might end up being interrogated instead.
Also, if I report it to the academy or police, I won’t get that cool picture of Siwoo catching the real culprit.
Well, I was preparing it to raise the closeness between Siwoo and Soyeon.
“Jinhyuk, now that I think about it, when you said this morning that you’d help, you specifically mentioned Siwoo would help too, right?”
“Ah, I did?”
“Why do you want to do it with Siwoo?”
“…”
I hesitated for a moment.
Should I tell her honestly?
But anyway, as things progressed, Yu Seolhyeon would eventually learn my intent.
It might not be bad to tell her first before getting caught.
‘Well, Siwoo and Yu Seolhyeon are engaged, but they’re not seriously thinking about it. For the future, it might be fine to say something now.’
They both knew the other wasn’t seeing them as romantic partners.
After all, Siwoo was openly hitting on Soyeon, wasn’t he?
Yu Seolhyeon’s reason for harassing her was because her fiancé wasn’t interested and she was hurt that he had fallen for a commoner.
Of course, it was just a facade, but if her fiancé started dating another girl, her feelings would probably be complicated.
But at this point, it was necessary to mention it directly to Yu Seolhyeon.
“Honestly, in your position, you could feel that way, but maybe we could use this opportunity to make Soyeon and Siwoo….”
I scratched my chin for a moment, then carefully spoke.
“…Help them become closer, I mean.”
“What?”
Yu Seolhyeon asked back as if she didn’t understand.
Thankfully, she didn’t seem angry. Pure curiosity and curiosity shone in her eyes.
“Why are you doing that?”
Yu Seolhyeon tilted her head and wondered.
She seemed puzzled by why I would do something like this.
That made sense, though.
He was her ex-boyfriend, after all.
What should I say?
“Actually, it’s just a fake relationship, so it doesn’t matter.”
That probably wouldn’t be easy to believe. It lacked credibility.
Ah, yeah.
Let me try this excuse instead.
This kind of excuse probably worked well, didn’t it?
“Because I liked Soyeon a lot.”
I muttered slowly with a bitter look on my face.
“So I saw her dating a good guy….”
“…”
“…And I wanted to throw away this silly attachment quickly.”
More, clunk.
‘U-uh?’
What?
I felt like I heard some noise from the door just now?
Yu Seolhyeon seemed not to have heard it.
Or was it just my imagination?