Chapter 187: A Woman's Enemy Is... (9)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 187: A Woman's Enemy Is... (9)
Less than thirty minutes after A returned home, he was ushered back out. Seira and Red remained in the trashed room, sitting in a heavy, wordless silence.
Red, who had asked A to step out for a moment, said nothing. Seira, unable to fathom Red’s intentions for sending him away, also kept her mouth shut.
Though no words were exchanged, the rivalry between them was palpable. The mere act of observing one another made the room feel as if it were covered in a thin layer of ice; the look in their eyes suggested that neither had even a single percent's intention of backing down.
"Well? If you have something to say, say it."
Seira spoke with a scowl, clearly frustrated by Red’s silence after she had gone through the trouble of kicking the homeowner out. Letting out a soft sigh, Red withdrew her murderous aura and let the sharp tension bleed away.
"I'm his girlfriend."
"…And?"
Red had lowered her guard, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to provoke Seira. As Red introduced herself as A’s girlfriend as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Seira’s expression grew even more grim.
It annoyed her that Red was stating something so obvious that didn't even need to be said in this situation. What irritated her more was the clear realization that Red was saying it intentionally.
"You like him, don't you?"
Seira’s feelings hadn't changed, and there was no harm in answering, but she didn't want to. She kept her mouth shut, failing to realize that her silence was as good as an admission to Red’s question.
Red hadn't asked because she actually wanted to hear the answer from Seira’s lips, anyway. Even without a verbal confirmation, she could deduce the truth from the other woman's reaction.
Having seen Seira’s attitude toward A earlier, Red already knew the answer; there had been no need to ask from the start.
"I don't know what kind of history you two have. But the fact remains that I am his girlfriend."
"Are you trying to pick a fight?"
Seira glared at her with a gaze sharp enough to pierce through her, stung by those blunt words. But Red didn't react. Instead, she sat there with a calm, composed air, as if daring Seira to curse her out if she wanted to.
"You look frustrated. Like you were living your life thinking everything was fine, only to wake up and realize something unimaginable has happened."
It was exactly as Red said. Seira was frustrated.
Having watched over A for countless years, Seira had always kept a strict eye on his surroundings to ensure no women could get close to him.
Knowing that A disliked going out and preferred staying home, Seira had been certain that he wouldn't have any reason to meet anyone while living alone in Seoul.
For the ten years he had been in Seoul, she hadn't worried at all, and indeed, nothing significant had happened around him during that entire decade.
But then, the one thing she had never even imagined—a girlfriend—suddenly appeared. Her hands trembled, and her eyes wavered.
Just looking at Red made her blood boil, and though she did her best to suppress it, Red’s words, which felt like they were carving into her flesh and stabbing her heart, only fanned the flames of her anger.
"Fine. I'm frustrated. So what? Are you going to tell me to keep my eyes off him or something?"
It couldn't be helped that A already had a girlfriend. The fact that there were five of them instead of just one was a major problem, but Seira told herself she had simply been beaten to the punch; she hadn't completely lost A to the members of Hunter Killer yet.
"What are you going to do about it? Unlike you lot, I have a lot more of my life ahead of me. Don't act so smug just because you've gotten a little close to him now. I'm the one who has known him much longer."
"And I'm the one who has shared a much deeper relationship with him, I think?"
The moment she heard that, Seira clenched her fists. She wanted to lash out, but fearing that any further commotion would only cause trouble for A, she settled for glaring at Red with all her might.
Red was in a foul mood herself. Though she had told Seira she didn't know their history, she had a vague idea of who Seira was.
Before she knew A’s true identity, he used to tell her stories about his time in Spacetro, albeit heavily edited. In those stories, there was always an old friend who caused him a great deal of stress.
Red had instinctively known it was a woman but hadn't pressed for details. Seeing the way A and Seira interacted earlier, she realized that the person who had been stressing A out all this time was Seira.
A had felt powerless and stressed by the demand to "do nothing," and Red had felt his anger alongside him as she listened to those stories. Now that she was facing the culprit in person, Red’s nerves were far more frayed than when she had first confronted Seira upon her arrival.
When they first clashed, Red—who only knew Seira as a Spacetro executive—hadn't been able to attack recklessly because she knew A’s position. That momentary hesitation had allowed Seira to strike first.
Even during their confrontation, Red had felt that her relationship with A wasn't something she could easily explain to a Spacetro executive.
A’s return had helped her regain her composure, but the moment she realized Seira was the one who had been stressing him out, her irritation spiked.
It was obvious at a glance that the relationship between Seira and A was unusual. It was also immediately clear that Seira had feelings for him.
‘Though he doesn't seem to realize it.’
Regardless, Red was his girlfriend now. She was his first girlfriend, and she wasn't about to lose to the other members. No matter how long Seira had known him, Red believed that she was the one with the deepest connection to him now.
"You. You've said a lot of hurtful things to him until now, haven't you?"
Seira felt her heart drop. The fact that Red—someone she had only encountered a few times, not even a close acquaintance—knew about the very issue Seira was most sensitive about was jarring.
Red had dragged out the very thing Seira had tried her best not to show when she was with A.
"What does that have to do with you?"
"It has everything to do with me. Do you have any idea how much he was hurt by the things you said?"
Seira was furious, but she had no rebuttal. On the day of the terror incident, A had snapped at her, and the fact that he had gotten angry had been a massive shock to her.
It was the event that made Seira realize her behavior had been wrong—she who had thought things would be fine as long as they continued as they always had.
"So what? Are you mad at me? Because he's your boyfriend?!"
Still, Seira didn't think she deserved to hear this from Red. This was a matter between her and A; there was no room for Red to interfere.
"You hit the nail on the head. Like you said, he's my boyfriend. Is there any reason I should speak kindly to a woman who hurt my boyfriend?"
Red, pressing Seira with an aggressive tone, couldn't calm her mind either. She didn't get physical only because A was right outside, but the thought that Seira was a "bad bitch" who had hurt A wouldn't leave her head.
"What do you want me to do? If I don't talk to him like that, he's always the first to do something reckless. Can you stop him when he's being reckless?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen him act recklessly yet."
Seira fell silent. To her, Red looked like a child who was throwing a tantrum just because she was the girlfriend, without knowing anything.
As if sensing Seira’s thoughts, Red continued while looking her in the eye.
"But I would never speak to him the way you do."
Seira’s eyes, which had been glaring as if to see through Red, wavered. In contrast, Red’s crimson eyes maintained a fiery intensity, as if ready to burn Seira to a crisp.
"If I can't stop him from doing something reckless, I'll do it with him. If I can't do it with him, I'll wait so I can be there for him when he returns."
Seira had undoubtedly experienced countless situations that Red knew nothing about. Red was well aware of that.
She had boldly claimed to have a deeper relationship, but she couldn't deny that Seira and A had known each other for a long time. And in that time, they must have gone through and done many things together.
Red didn't know, nor did she care, why their relationship had turned out this way. Perhaps the cause lay with A. But even if it did, it didn't excuse the things Seira had said.
"There are countless choices. You didn't have to spend all that time saying things that hurt him."
Seira began to regret the last ten-plus years. Why had she been so harsh to him? Why hadn't she realized that A was being hurt by her telling him to do nothing?
She had thought she knew A better than anyone, but now she could only wonder what she actually knew about him at all.
"What... What do you know!"
"I don't know! There are still tons of things I don't know about him!"
The moment Seira raised her voice in frustration, Red raised hers as well.
"Did you hurt him because you knew him so well?"
Was it because she had just been wondering what she knew about him? Seira couldn't offer a single word in response. She felt like someone who had known A for a long time only to give him nothing but pain during all those years.
"I'm sure it's absurd to you. Hearing this from me all of a sudden. But I can't forgive you."
Red understood the intention behind Seira telling A to do nothing, but explaining it now wouldn't erase the fact that A had lived through those words.
"You told him to do nothing because he's always reckless? Whether the task is big or small, he's someone who gives his all to what he's been assigned. Have you ever once thought about how a person like that feels when they're told to do nothing?"
It was a fact that Seira had seen more sides of A because of their long history. However, Red had also seen a side of him during the months they had been dating, and she knew him to be a man who did his best in his duties.
Teaching her, going to the bookstore to pick out books together, offering words of encouragement when she was struggling... Even if A had approached her with a purpose as a Spacetro agent back then, Red knew better than anyone that those actions had come from the heart.
"And yet, what? You're frustrated? You'll outlive us? Do you really think you deserve to be chosen by him?"
"You don't know anything—!"
"Don't raise your voice. What if he hears you?"
Seira had shouted, but Red’s low, steady voice crushed the outburst.
Just because she was in a relationship with A didn't mean her relationship with Seira, a team leader in Spacetro, would become amicable. Red had asked A for this private moment because she felt she wouldn't be able to express these feelings otherwise.
But that wasn't the only reason.
Because she realized Seira liked A, and because she knew Seira wouldn't be able to stand showing this side of herself in front of the person she liked, Red had created a situation where they could talk alone.
Red knew from her conversations with A that he had been hurt by those words telling him to do nothing, and she had harbored ill feelings toward the person responsible for a long time.
Seira claimed she did it to stop A from doing something reckless in the past, but that was exactly what made Red feel so foul.
"All you've done is speak to him without any consideration. Do you think you can wrap that up now and call it 'different intentions' or 'not my true feelings'?"
Red thought it was childish behavior. Like a boy who likes a girl but doesn't know how to express it, so he teases her instead.
But when teasing goes too far, it becomes bullying; and when it becomes bullying, it's no longer a clumsy expression of feelings, but simply wrong behavior.
Despite her anger, Red didn't want A by her side while she was picking apart Seira’s actions.
It was a minimum courtesy as a fellow woman—for Seira, who had likely liked A longer than her, and who was now realizing that something completely unexpected had happened while she wasn't looking.
"You probably thought you'd always be the one by his side, right? That's why you lived your life complacent in a situation that never changed."
Just as Red said, Seira had felt no sense of crisis because A’s situation hadn't changed much. She had entertained the ridiculous notion that since A himself wasn't very interested in dating, he would stay that way forever.
Seira was the one who had blocked other women from approaching A, and it was because of her that A could remain uninterested in romance and stay in that unchanging state.
The fact that A hadn't known Luche was A.T. also played a part.
While Seira was thinking, 'It's fine as long as we can be together later,' the other women around A had gradually grown closer to him, developing their relationships further.
"I told you I'm his girlfriend, right? And you asked why I was even saying that. Well, you just gave all the reasons yourself."
"What?"
Red’s gaze was indifferent as she looked at Seira, who had turned somber at the thought that she was too late. It was the expression of someone stating something perfectly logical and obvious.
"Keep your eyes off him."
Red already knew that Spacetro’s concepts of dating and marriage were different from Earth's. Seira, like A, probably didn't think of a harem as something overly complicated.
However, Red was certain of one thing: even if they didn't find a harem complicated, the importance of order would still exist.
Seira might say she didn't care if A had many girlfriends. Even though Red was considering that possibility, the reason she told Seira to keep her eyes off him was to firmly engrave the fact that she was the first girlfriend, even if it did become a harem.
Of course, Red, who currently disapproved of A seeing all the Hunter Killer members and was negative toward the idea of a harem, had no intention of listening even if Seira said a harem was fine.
"Hey."
Seira, who had been lost in thought and hadn't responded to Red’s words, stood up. She looked into Red’s indifferent eyes and spoke.
"So what if you're his girlfriend?"
Red’s face contorted. Seira now fully understood that Red was A’s girlfriend. But hearing her speak as if that weren't a problem at all made Red feel like a proper conversation with Seira was impossible.
Meanwhile, Seira continued to think.
Red was right. As Red said, Seira had been complacent in A’s unchanging environment, and she had used the excuse of stopping him from being reckless to keep saying things that hurt him.
The fact that A had been so angry at her on the day of the bombing was proof of that.
Seira knew this well enough. But no matter how much she thought about it, no matter how much she racked her brain, she saw no reason why she had to take a lecture from Red right now.
As they stood clashing, glaring at each other, the sound of a passcode being entered into the door lock rang out. The front door opened slowly, and A poked his head in cautiously, even though he was entering his own home.
"How much longer do I have to stay out—"
His childhood friend and his girlfriend were facing off in a murderous atmosphere inside the house. The situation clearly looked bad, and A could guess what was happening based on experience.
They weren't fighting physically, but they were engaged in an intense psychological war. It was a similar atmosphere to a few days ago when all his girlfriends had gathered together.
"Sigh..."
Only a sigh escaped him. Thinking it was his own fault for granting the request to let them talk alone, A stepped inside.