Chapter 70 - The Conditions for Becoming a Gentle Idol Leader - Chapter 70
Jung Hae, who had been about to shout in anger, cut himself off mid-breath. Go Young-in didn’t know that he’d been the one to orchestrate the bullying from behind the scenes. So how was he supposed to know enough to say something like that?
“Come to think of it, you met Ahn Tae-yeon, didn’t you.”
“How do you even—”
The reply came out in a voice that sounded utterly spent, but Jung Hae didn’t have the luxury of caring about such details right now.
Just in case, when his appearance on the show had first been confirmed, he’d met with the people from his old class and made sure they kept their mouths shut.
Those bastards didn’t know Jung Hae was the one behind it all, but you never knew how a lie might get exposed, so he’d slipped the right amount of poison into the ears of both Go Young-in and Kyeon In-woo—and into the other side as well—so no one could contact anyone at all.
He didn’t know exactly when the two of them had met or what had been said. That, too, was information he’d bought from yet another classmate.
So Ahn Tae-yeon told Go Young-in something, and then Go Young-in passed it straight along to the producer?
“I see…? I see. So that’s what this was about.”
That bastard Ahn Tae-yeon… He must have known it was my doing, all while pretending not to know and sticking close to Young-in this whole time, then casually told him. Otherwise there was no explanation for why the producer knew.
If that was the case, it also explained why Go Young-in had been avoiding his calls all this time. He must have been confused, hearing that the friend who’d helped him all along had actually been the one hurting him.
Jung Hae drew whatever conclusions he wanted and was satisfied with them. If I’d known it would turn out like this, I would’ve stopped pretending to be nice a long time ago.
“You were still holding a grudge over something from when we were kids? Go Young-in, I mean, it’s not like I directly hurt you. And those guys bullying you wasn’t something I ordered, either. They just twisted what I said however they wanted.”
“……”
“Haha… come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually apologized to you, have I? Shit, sorry. That’s not what you want to hear, is it?”
“……”
“I know this sounds like an excuse, but I really have been reflecting on it. It was just youthful stupidity, okay? A real mistake…. Still, I did keep helping you all this time, didn’t I? You remember that, right?”
Go Young-in said nothing, only staring at Jung Hae in silence. Go Young-in was the one with his collar being grabbed, but looking at them, the situation seemed reversed. Jung Hae, agitated, rambled on in a rush.
“Or is this because I didn’t visit you in the hospital? Is the injury okay now? If you were upset, you could’ve just said so. You look completely lost. Then again, Kyeon In-woo didn’t exactly like talking about that time, either.”
Even after all these years, Go Young-in still had that face—one that, at a glance, made it impossible to tell what he was thinking. Jung Hae had always hated that about him.
“That thing back then. About you getting hurt. You’re not still hung up on it, are you? There’s no way he meant to do that. He probably just shoved you without meaning to.”
And he was uneasy. He couldn’t tell how much Go Young-in knew, or who else he might have told.
“Come to think of it, was it the emergency stairs back then, too? Right? What a coincidence that the place overlaps like this. Not that I’m planning to do anything, so don’t worry.”
It was infuriating. If he thought about it, he’d been the only one, besides Kyeon In-woo, who had ever helped Go Young-in—and he was the only one who’d kept playing along with a kid who had no friends.
“Why, why aren’t you saying anything? Young-in. What is it with you, always looking down on people just because you can?”
Go Young-in, who had been silent until now, finally reacted.
He looked at Jung Hae with that particular disdainful expression Jung Hae loathed so much.
Where had the idiot, who had just been trembling stupidly a moment ago, gone? Go Young-in gave a light shake of his head and smiled, as if to flaunt it.
It was a bright smile, the kind Go Young-in almost never showed, and Jung Hae found himself staring at him blankly.
“Because you keep acting like this.”
“...What…? You, you just—”
“Jung Hae, how about admitting it now?”
“……”
“You’re never going to beat me in your life… cough…!”
Jung Hae lunged, his hand shooting out to clamp brutally around Go Young-in’s throat. Fuck, Go Young-in—how dare you!
“It’s because of you, Go Young-in.”
“Ghk.”
“You ruined everything!”
Clause 18｜A perfect idol does not act rashly or speak carelessly anywhere.
No, this maniac. Jung Hae was hereby appointed today’s certified lunatic. This year really was one hell of a year for nearly choking to death.
Go Young-in was flustered, even though this had been exactly what he’d intended. He hadn’t expected a provocation this flimsy to work, yet it had gone over so cleanly that it was almost hard to believe.
Judging by the fact that the status window warning about reckless speech had quietly vanished, it seemed like saying that much to Jung Hae was fine.
If he’d taken it one step further, he definitely would’ve been penalized, but Go Young-in had been watching Jung Hae’s reaction throughout the conversation and was half-certain he’d take the bait.
Jung Hae’s grip tightened around Go Young-in’s throat.
“You should’ve just died back then! If your head got smashed, you should’ve just fucking died on the spot, or ended up a vegetable, or never shown your face in front of me again!”
Just look at him now, strangling him in a fit of rage. Go Young-in didn’t know the exact reason, and didn’t care to know, but Jung Hae hated being dismissed. It was practically his reverse scale.
His breath was already running out, his vision beginning to blur, but there was nothing to be done. Go Young-in forced his eyes open as wide as he could and struggled to look at the status window hovering above Jung Hae’s face.
ding
Clause 19｜A perfect idol must not display violent behavior toward others.
Instead of the status window that had been there moments ago, a new one had appeared above it.
“Why do you keep showing up and getting in my life? Fuck! Go Young-in, who the hell do you think you are to look down on me! You piece of shit!”
Go Young-in wheezed and tilted his head back. Just as his vision began to go completely white, the status window that had been hanging there all this time slowly vanished.
The moment it disappeared, Go Young-in tightened his grip on Jung Hae’s arm, raised one leg with all his remaining strength, and drove his knee hard into Jung Hae’s abdomen.
“Ghk, you fucking—!”
As Jung Hae staggered back, Go Young-in braced himself on the floor with one arm and collapsed forward, coughing painfully.
“Cough.”
That bastard!
Go Young-in roughly wiped at the corners of his eyes, damp with bodily pain, and looked up at the empty air while coughing.
If nothing shows up after I went this far, then seriously, fuck….
He forced down his panic and stared into the air. Time passed, but nothing appeared. No Caution, no Warning—just silence. Only then did Go Young-in finally feel relief.
He’d really done it. The gamble had worked. Because the conditions had been softened every time he received a penalty, he’d risked it, wondering whether some degree of self-defense would still be allowed if he ever found himself in mortal danger.
Fuck. So it only disappears once I’m actually about to choke to death. What a piece of trash. Would it have broken something to vanish a little sooner?
What was with Jung Hae, spiraling into paranoid delusions like that all on his own? The problem, if there was one, was that the provocation had worked far too well even though Go Young-in hadn’t said all that much.
He’d matched Jung Hae’s rhythm as best he could, but if it wasn’t Jung Hae, then what exactly had caused Bae So-jin or the producer to back out? As for Yoo In-hyeok, he’d probably made a mess from his own side. But from what Jung Hae was saying, it didn’t seem like things had gone as planned.
There still wasn’t enough information. At Jung Hae’s current state, if Go Young-in asked him directly, he’d probably do nothing but ramble about whatever he wanted to say instead of giving a proper answer.
...What does it matter.
Go Young-in wasn’t interested in what that bastard Jung Hae was thinking. There were plenty of things in what he’d just said that he didn’t understand, but none of them were things he needed to know right this second.
He rubbed at the back of his neck. Thank God for the costume covering his throat. At least this was easy enough to hide. If it hadn’t been, he wouldn’t even have dared try it, not with the aftermath he’d have to deal with.
It wasn’t a wound he’d made himself, and it wouldn’t leave a scar, so it wasn’t a warning issue.
His head felt foggy. He’d gone and done it, all right, but now came the aftercare. Given Jung Hae’s condition, there was no way he’d let this go.
“Fuck. You’re dead.”
As expected, Jung Hae’s expression turned menacing.
“After all this time, I was the one doing a favor and being friends with some pathetic loser who didn’t have a single friend, and this is how you act?”
Jung Hae raised his fist. A blow to a visible place was absolutely not an option. Go Young-in tried to dodge, but without meaning to, his body had gone rigid, refusing to move properly. Why was he like this all of a sudden?
His whole body began trembling of its own accord. Fantastic. Go Young-in, half giving up, shut his eyes.
“……”
Time passed, but no pain came.
Go Young-in cracked his eyes open. Jung Hae was looking somewhere else, his face twisted in visible frustration.
What the hell.
This was bad. Go Young-in hurriedly turned toward the door. He hadn’t even properly heard the door opening. Had he really been that tense?
Whoever it was would be staff, at the very least—so who? If it was a staff member or someone from another group, what then? No matter how he looked at it, this was a scene of a fight.
The first thing to reach his ears was a crude, insolent voice.
“Having fun?”
“Kyeon In-woo….”
Jung Hae’s jaw was trembling. He looked as though he’d run into an unexpected situation and no longer knew what to do.
Ah. At the familiar, swaggering voice, all the strength went out of him at once. Only then did his body feel a little lighter.
While Jung Hae was still stunned, Go Young-in quickly got to his feet and put some distance between them. He’d been at a loss for what to do, and now—thankfully—he wasn’t alone.
“Hey. Fuck.”
Kyeon In-woo shut the door with a loud bang, as if Go Young-in had no idea when he’d opened it, and tilted his head.
“Let me in on it, too.”
“Wh-what?”
Jung Hae stumbled over his words and slowly backed away. The man who had just been screaming at Go Young-in a moment ago was nowhere to be seen.
“Tell me what’s so damn funny. I want in on the joke.”
“Ah… it’s a misunderstanding. That was just a fit of temper. We ended up arguing because we didn’t see eye to eye, and things escalated, that’s all. Nothing weird was going on.”
“You talk too much.”
“...Kyeon In-woo, honestly, you get it, don’t you? You’ve always found him insanely frustrating, too.”
Kyeon In-woo closed his mouth tightly, then lifted one eyebrow in quiet amusement.
“Don’t you? Wasn’t that why you fought all the time?”
“……”
“Right? I’m right, aren’t I? It’s not just me! Go Young-in’s got problems too! There’s a reason those losers get bullied, ghk.”
Kyeon In-woo immediately lifted his foot and kicked Jung Hae. Struck mid-sentence, Jung Hae toppled to the floor with a clatter.
Maybe he’d been hit in the same spot Go Young-in had just slammed, because Jung Hae clutched his stomach and groaned. He couldn’t seem to get up properly, curling in on himself.
This… fuck… what the hell do I do about this….
The color drained from Go Young-in’s face. Kyeon In-woo seemed to have anticipated his reaction, because he spoke with maddening calm.
“Hey, don’t chew me out. I didn’t hit anywhere visible.”
Spreading both palms, Kyeon In-woo shamelessly denied everything as if nothing had happened.
Fuck… fuck…. This was clearly the moment when he should be asking what the hell Kyeon In-woo thought he was doing, but for some reason, the words wouldn’t come. His mind was too tangled.
Should he say thank you? Or get angry and ask why he’d escalated things? Demand to know if he even understood what Jung Hae had meant? Or maybe… He couldn’t even tell what he himself wanted, what he was thinking, or what he should say right now.
Everything was just a mess.
“And don’t go running to snitch on me, either.”
It was addressed to Go Young-in, or so it should have been, but for some reason Kyeon In-woo’s sharp, dangerous gaze was fixed on Jung Hae.