Chapter 119
Chapter 119
The paparazzo's eyes narrowed.
That was understandable. Just moments ago, he'd been convinced he was the one getting caught, but now he was being told this wasn't an arrest; it was a negotiation.
"Oh yeah? How much are you willing to pay?"
"We'll figure that out as we talk."
Lee Su-a was buying time.
The truth was, Lee Su-a didn't actually know the going rate for this kind of photo. She understood the basics of capitalism well enough, when lots of people want to buy something, the price goes up. She knew that secret dating photos of famous celebrities or scandalous pictures of foreign royalty could fetch eye-watering sums, but that was pretty much the limit of her knowledge.
Normally, these photos would have been far too expensive for Lee Su-a to buy with her personal funds. Not every child of a giant corporation had the kind of immense private wealth that Sara did. For a number of reasons, there were assets under Lee Su-a's name, but they were more like holdings that had been set up arbitrarily than actual wealth she could freely access.
If the other side demanded an absurd price in the tens, or even hundreds, of millions of won, she wouldn't be able to buy them easily.
But she had a confidence of her own.
Because this man was decidedly not in a normal situation right now.
"You know it won't be cheap. I'm probably the only one who specifically trails the heiress of Yujin Group around, snapping photos of her. And besides..."
The paparazzo looked Lee Su-a up and down, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.
"...I know what kind of family you're from, but can a student really afford something like this with her own money?"
Perhaps thinking he'd turned the tables, the paparazzo said it with a note of bragging. He seemed to have forgotten they were in the middle of an amusement park.
A few passersby glanced over, their eyes full of curiosity. It wasn't that there were no other foreigners, but Lee Su-a, who looked foreign yet spoke fluent Korean, apparently intrigued them a little.
"But you won't be able to sell them for much."
Lee Su-a said it right to his face.
"What?"
The man's brow furrowed. Maybe he took real pride in his photography skills.
"There's no one left who's willing to buy those photos anymore."
Lee Su-a kept her voice calm.
"What are you talking about? What do you think you know?"
Ever since her father had summoned her and she'd seen the article with the photos of her and Sara, Lee Su-a had checked the online news every single day without fail. She hadn't specifically checked the newspapers, but pictures like these usually hit online articles before they ever made it into print.
Yet after that first one, not a single additional article about Sara had surfaced.
Sara had been moving around in a group with her friends ever since. Not just at school; she was with them when she arrived and when she left. Lately she hadn't even been taking a car at the end of the day, so it would've been dead simple to snap photos during their walk home.
And they certainly hadn't stopped showing each other affection during all that time. If anything, as time passed and they grew less self-conscious, their physical affection had become much more natural. They hugged more easily, linked arms more often.
"You've kept taking pictures this whole time, haven't you?"
Yeah, he definitely had never stopped taking pictures. And living off this kind of work, he sure hadn't been holding off on selling them.
But no one would have bought those photos.
The idea that a chaebol heiress was a lesbian, true or not, was a juicy enough piece of gossip to be on people's lips for a few days. And that was it. She wasn't a celebrity to begin with, nor was she forbidden from dating. Having a high-school romance wasn't that strange of a story.
If Sara were an agency trainee or a former child actress, the story would be different. Ultimately, in the public eye, Sara was just a wealthy private citizen.
Even if people knew she had huge personal assets, they wouldn't assume she was personally moving those assets. They wouldn't think she was locked in a power struggle with her mother, and they wouldn't care much that she'd grown up enduring horrific abuse from a young age.
Of course, if all those stories erupted at once, the reaction would change. But a single dating photo couldn't trigger that simultaneous explosion. The photo carried no such hints, and the article's content was just a brief description explaining the image.
Still, that didn't mean the gossip value was zero.
After all, Ha-neul wasn't the only kid glued to Sara's side. If this guy steadily released photos and follow-up articles, it would definitely grow into a bigger story than it was now: a chaebol heiress simultaneously dating multiple women. And one of them was the heiress of a famous company herself. Not exactly a great look, but easy filler for a slow news day.
But the media hadn't used any of those articles at all.
Lee Su-a could guess why.
"I wonder which company applied the pressure. Yujin Group? Or Homyeong Group?"
She took a step closer to the paparazzo.
Freedom of the press aside, this country was a capitalist one. A country where individuals could earn and spend money for their own desires, so long as they followed a bare minimum of laws. And it was also a country where you could spend money to hide information that didn't work in your favor.
Directly threatening the press was difficult. The press, after all, was the press. They were the very people who wouldn't hesitate to paint you as the scum of the earth if you crossed them.
But even the press couldn't go up against companies far larger than themselves.
Because media outlets were, at the end of the day, businesses that existed to make money.
No matter how many newspapers they sold or how high their online article views climbed, if there were no ads attached, no money came in. The price of a single newspaper was too cheap to turn a profit, and readers didn't pay money just to click on something online.
And the companies that paid the most in advertising fees were, naturally, the handful of conglomerates you could count on one hand.
Yujin Group's Choi Na-kyung cherished Sara in a strange way. Even if she might ruin Sara with her own hands, she absolutely wouldn't want anyone else to do it. Or perhaps she simply couldn't stand the sight of her target carrying on with romantic antics with someone else.
Homyeong Group's heir was engaged to Sara. Even if they weren't on good terms, they hadn't broken off the engagement yet, and the plan was to marry once they became adults. If too many of these articles came out, it would definitely be talked about even after the wedding. In fact, it might blow up even bigger then.
If it blew up in a way that was unfavorable to Sara down the road, it might benefit Homyeong Group. But right now, it was nothing more than a bomb with an unknown fuse. Naturally, they'd prefer the story not to come out at all.
And—
"Yiwon Trading Company, maybe?"
Yeah. Yiwon Trading Company too.
Admittedly, it was a much smaller company compared to Yujin Group or Homyeong Group. But that didn't mean it wasn't a client of the media outlets. It was also a solid enough company to always appear in the rankings whenever people talked about the country's corporate giants.
If they'd only made an enemy of one of these three, it might have been easier. Advertisers preferred articles with high view counts, after all.
But three major conglomerates were grinding their teeth at a story that might not even become an issue, and one that would require a steady stream of articles to build any momentum in the first place. Moreover, two of them were monsters with a vast web of affiliates, subsidiaries, and sister companies under their groups.
The fact that the article hadn't been taken down and was still up was a miracle in itself.
"It's fine if you refuse here. I'll just find another way."
If this person refused, she'd have to go down a much more exhausting path, but it wasn't impossible.
Lee Su-a said that and then looked squarely up into the paparazzo's face.
"But I wonder if you'll be able to sell them anywhere else if you turn down this offer."
"......."
The paparazzo looked down at her with an expression that seemed slightly fed up.
"......Well, even so, selling them right here on the spot is..."
He meant that even if that was the case, he was still going to negotiate the price properly.
Truthfully, Lee Su-a wasn't in a position to pay right this moment either, so for now she simply nodded at his words.
"Alright, then. Shall we exchange contact information?"
Lee Su-a smiled brightly at the paparazzo.
*
They took a while.
I thought it as I watched Yang Hye-in and Su-a walking back from a distance. I couldn't exactly say that out loud to the girls. Though, I'm a woman now too.
Now?
"......."
I pressed my lips firmly shut....Actually, they'd already been shut.
Still, sitting around for a while like this had made my stomach feel a lot better.
"Sorry, I got a little lost..."
Su-a said, jogging over to us with light steps. Her face was so bright—Ah, never mind. Let's not think too deeply about that.
I stood up from the bench.
"So... shall we head somewhere else?"
Everyone nodded at my words.
"Let's go to the flower field up there."
Ha-neul said it and naturally grabbed my hand, tugging me along.
"You sure? There aren't many rides if we go up there..."
"It's fine, it's fine."
So-hee smiled.
"We came here to hang out together. Being together is the most fun."
Su-a nodded in agreement.
"......."
I found myself smiling at that. And then I felt a little guilty.
Because I'd seen, clear as day, just how much fun these kids had been having on the rides earlier.
There was nothing more disappointing than an outing where one person kept the group from fully enjoying themselves. But no one got annoyed. Everyone was looking out for me. They weren't leaving me behind; they were trying to find something we could all enjoy together.
......Yeah. Everyone was looking out for Sara.
.......
Sara didn't say anything.
But the feeling of a corner of my heart growing inexplicably brighter; I couldn't help but think it wasn't just my imagination.