I Became the Chaebol Family’s Delinquent in an NTR Game
A massive chandelier hung overhead as if it might crash down at any moment. The hall was packed with lavishly dressed men and women laughing and chattering over the sound of classical music, the sharp scent of perfume cutting through the air. What the hell? My head throbbed and my stomach churned. Just last night I had been circling the streets chasing one last call. I remembered cracking open a bottle alone in front of a convenience store after my shift, but waking up here? I had driven three drunk passengers until three in the morning. One vomited in the back seat, another spent the whole ride complaining that the fare was too expensive even while swiping his card, and the last one kept talking down to me, demanding to know how old I was. I smiled through it all and answered politely. Without those few tens of thousands of won, I would not have been able to cover that month’s rent.
Still dazed, I looked down at my hand and found a crystal champagne glass. “…What is this?” It was too extravagant to be a case of wandering into the wrong hotel wedding. The air itself smelled of money. A grand staircase leading to the second floor, white roses arranged beside a fountain, and in the center of the party a single woman drawing every eye. She looked familiar.
“Lee Soyul?”
Shit. It was that game. The adult NTR title I used to kill time with, Secret High Society. A filthy game where money and power pretended to be salvation while slowly destroying people. And among all the scum in it, Han Seojun was the worst. The type who pretended to help, bound you with contracts, and erased every possible escape route one by one. I remembered this scene too. An early party event where Lee Soyul was publicly humiliated, and that humiliation caught Han Seojun’s attention.
“Young Master, you seem to have had too much to drink.”
A middle-aged man in a black suit approached and spoke quietly. Young Master? The alcohol cleared from my head in an instant. I turned toward the glass display case beside me and caught my reflection. It was a stranger’s face. Strikingly handsome, yet carrying an unmistakably foul temper even in stillness. Han Seojun. The bastard who would dig up someone’s weakness and bury them in the gutter while laughing. That man was staring back at me from the mirror.
“Ha.” A hollow laugh escaped me. Of all people, it had to be him.
I looked away. A flashy-looking man was approaching Lee Soyul. Some distant relative of a corporate owner, the kind who threw his family name around like it meant something. He grabbed her wrist while drunk and started making a scene. That commotion was the excuse Han Seojun used to step in. In reality I had spent every day bowing my head to drunk troublemakers for the sake of a few tens of thousands of won. Even when someone grabbed me by the collar I had to apologize first. And if a single payment went wrong, I was always the one left begging. Still, I had no intention of standing by and watching someone get trampled right in front of me, even if this was a dream.
I staggered forward. “Let go of her.”
Lee Soyul’s voice was sharp. The extra sneered and yanked her wrist harder. “Acting expensive, are we? I was just trying to be friendly.”
“I said let go.”
“If you’re not on our level, you should know to crawl. Where do you get off raising your eyes like that?”
His grip tightened. Red marks bloomed across her slender wrist. A wine bottle on the nearby table caught my eye. My body moved before my mind caught up. Whether it was my own temper or something already soaked into Han Seojun’s body, I could not tell. I swung the bottle straight at the man’s head.
Crack! The sound was vicious. Glass shards flew in every direction. Red wine ran down his scalp like blood.
“Guh…!”
He crumpled to the floor and his grip on Lee Soyul’s wrist went slack. The noisy party fell silent in an instant. For a moment I stood frozen, but what I felt was not fear. It was relief. Whether because I had refused to endure what I would have swallowed in reality, or because this body was already starting to affect me, it did not matter. I had already swung. And right now, I was Han Seojun, the host of this party.
I slowly raised my head. Every gaze in the room was fixed on me, wide with shock. “What are you looking at? Turn around.”
It was not only because I had struck someone with a bottle. It was because I was Han Seojun. The unhinged heir of the family no one dared cross. At my single command, everyone hurriedly looked away, coughing or staring at the ceiling, pretending they had seen nothing.
Only then did Lee Soyul’s wrist come back into focus. The spot where the man had gripped her was swollen and red. I dropped the broken bottle neck onto the floor with a clink.
“No one speaks of what happened tonight.”
The air in the hall froze. I nudged the back of the man’s head with the tip of my shoe and swept my gaze across the room.
“If a single word leaks out, you’ll all end up just like this bastard.”
Dead silence. Exactly the reaction I wanted. Lee Soyul looked shaken but did not collapse into tears. Instead she backed away from me slowly, her guard raised. To her, the name Han Seojun was far more terrifying than the violence she had just witnessed.
“You…” Her eyes never left me, but her voice trembled. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Looks that way to me too.”
She frowned. Far from gratitude, she was looking at me like I was a madman she needed to avoid. “You step in pretending to help, then demand something later. What excuse are you going to use to trap me this time?”
Of course that was the first thing out of her mouth. “If that had been the plan, I would have pulled out a contract right here.”
Her eyes flickered. She clearly had not expected the word “contract” from me.
“There is no contract right now. Get some ice on your wrist.”
She clutched the swollen spot with her other hand and snapped, “The moment you got involved, everything became worse.”
Good. That meant she was not the type to cling to someone just because they saved her. At that moment someone approached cautiously. It was the secretary from earlier. Kim Manager.
“Young Master. I will handle the party. You should return now.”
His tone was clipped, as if he had cleaned up after me countless times before. When I left without argument, his eyebrows twitched for the briefest instant.
Outside, the night air was cold. Once I was seated in the back of the waiting sedan, exhaustion hit me all at once. I had half-expected to wake from the dream at any second. The car stopped in front of a grand mansion. Massive iron gates, soaring ceilings, servants bowing in silence. This was not a place for someone who used to worry about monthly rent on a studio apartment. The sheer unreality of it made me laugh. I grabbed a bottle of liquor from the bar and poured myself a glass. The first sip burned down my throat.
“If this is a dream, I might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”
Staggering into the bedroom, I collapsed onto the bed. The mattress sank beneath me with a softness I had never felt before. As I closed my eyes, the sensation of swinging that bottle returned. It had felt good. Disgustingly so, for just a moment. With that thought, I passed out.
---
When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was not moldy studio wallpaper. It was the same wide room, the same luxurious bed, the same expensive liquor bottle rolling on the table. Last night’s mansion, exactly as I remembered it.
“…Huh?”
A chill ran down my spine. Knock. Knock.
“Young Master, are you awake?”
Kim Manager’s voice came from the other side of the door. Before I could answer, the handle turned and he stepped inside, immaculately dressed.
“The Chairman wishes to see you in the study before breakfast.”
My hand tightened on the blanket. Kim Manager continued without so much as glancing at my expression.
“The matter with Director Choi’s son, who was injured at last night’s party, is being quietly settled. However, the Chairman is quite displeased.”
Last night’s party. Lee Soyul. The broken wine bottle. And this mansion.
“…It is not a dream.”
It was real. I had woken up inside the very game I played, as Han Seojun, the chaebol family’s most worthless trash, the one who ruined himself fastest and most thoroughly. The morning after causing trouble at the party and being summoned by his father. That was the first square on Han Seojun’s path to destruction. This was where his funding would be cut and his authority halved. Cornered, he would turn to dirtier schemes to fill the gap, only to be betrayed and end up in prison. I knew how it ended. The problem was that I was now the one being pushed down that path.
“I’m fucked.”
But I had no intention of sitting here stunned. If I cowered and stayed quiet, I would simply repeat every miserable step the original Han Seojun had taken. Funding cut. Authority stripped. Driven into a corner until I touched filth, then betrayed and imprisoned. I knew the entire sequence. “If I already know the ending, why the hell should I walk into it quietly?”
There was no way back to my studio. No escape, no reset button. The only option left was to charge straight through. The first move would be decided in the Chairman’s office. I had to turn this morning from the start of ruin into the first move that would put a leash around their necks. Today, in front of that old tiger, I would show him not a drunken delinquent who caused trouble, but a usable heir. If anyone was going to be torn apart, it would be them, not me.