Chapter 248: Rebirth-3
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 248: Rebirth-3
Kang In-ho had vaguely guessed that Jin-tae harbored ill will toward him.
He had concluded that if he followed the stems of that animosity down to the tips of the roots, he would find things like inferiority, rage, and murderous intent toward the existence known as Kang In-ho.
But when he actually dug up those roots, what lay at the end was not what he had expected.
Worry. Entreaty.
Jin-tae hated him enough to kill him, yet he was pleading.
For what?
For the first time since possessing a body in this dimension, Kang In-ho felt a sense of genuine confusion.
It felt as though he were vividly witnessing the collapse of premises he had taken for granted.
Unaware that In-ho was looking down at him with a stunned expression, Kim Jin-tae screamed desperately, tears and snot streaming down his face.
"If you're going to take a kid who was doing just fine and drag her into your mess, shouldn't you at least take responsibility?"
Wait... hold on...
In-ho thought to himself.
"A girl who followed you because she liked you... a girl who gave you everything because she liked you... shouldn't you at least treat her with some basic decency?"
Shouldn't a person do at least that much?
Jin-tae added.
The things Shin Jeong-ah had said once before began to click together like puzzle pieces.
He wasn't certain of everything, but he began to vaguely grasp how things had started and how they had progressed.
"Hey... wait a second..."
In-ho spoke, his head spinning, but Kim Jin-tae didn't care.
"Since I've already started, let's lay it all out... Honestly, you knew, didn't you?"
Jin-tae stood up, staggering.
His legs wobbled like a newborn colt's, and he barely managed to force his battered body upright by bracing his hands against his knees.
He spat a glob of bloody phlegm onto the ground.
Though he was a tattered mess from their brief exchange, his eyes were fixed straight on Kang In-ho.
Kim Jin-tae took a deep breath.
Then, using anger and courage as his tools, he dragged out the truth he had kept buried deep within his heart.
"You knew how I felt about Shin Jeong-ah."
Like the cigarette smoke he used to exhale, the sentence left his mouth and drifted toward Kang In-ho, trailing a long tail behind it.
Kang In-ho squeezed his eyes shut.
The hypotheses that had been vague only moments ago were now crawling together to form a solid shape.
"Stop..."
In-ho tried to restrain Jin-tae.
But words alone couldn't stop him.
"You knew, and yet... no, you did it because you knew, didn't you?"
Jin-tae’s lips trembled.
"Holding hands in front of me, hugging, and then..."
As if he couldn't bear to recall the memories, Jin-tae grimaced.
"I told you to stop."
Suppressing the churning in his gut, In-ho grabbed Jin-tae by the collar and hauled him up.
Jin-tae gagged as he was violently jerked upward.
"I knew it... You're exactly who I thought you were."
Dangling in the air, Jin-tae threw a bitter, mocking smile at Kang In-ho.
It was as if he were saying, 'Who do you think you're kidding with this pathetic act of being a good person? This is the real you.'
Kim Jin-tae prided himself on knowing Kang In-ho well.
Now that he had provoked him, a punch would surely fly toward his face—or perhaps his stomach.
But even after waiting a long time, the impact never came.
The man holding him by the collar simply kept his eyes shut tight, as if enduring something.
"Just... be quiet for a second. My head is a mess right now."
Then, In-ho stepped back and let go.
As his constricted throat was freed, Jin-tae’s breathing returned to normal.
Jin-tae massaged his neck, watching In-ho warily.
A tense silence followed as they both looked at each other with mutual bewilderment.
In-ho was the first to move.
He sat back down on the bench and flicked his hand.
Unable to read his intentions, Jin-tae watched In-ho’s movements in silence.
"Sit down."
A weary voice followed.
Jin-tae considered being stubborn for a moment, but ultimately sat on the bench as In-ho commanded.
They sat facing each other.
Kang In-ho lowered his head and let out a long, heavy sigh.
He took several deep breaths.
Then he stretched, loosening his body.
After several minutes of this strange behavior, Kang In-ho looked at Kim Jin-tae with a slightly calmer face.
"Keep talking."
I'm ready to listen.
That was what In-ho’s expression said.
*
When Kang In-ho returned home, he looked utterly exhausted.
Part of it was the physical strain of walking up the hill with an injured body, but the real damage was internal—the mental blow of hearing, one by one, about the "dog-like" things the original owner of this body had done.
"Did Master call this a Heart Demon?"
He never thought he would experience in the modern world something he had never once encountered during his training in the Murim World.
After tossing his clothes into the washing machine and taking a quick shower, he flopped onto his bed.
The plain-colored ceiling filled his vision.
"......."
Habitually, he picked up his phone.
He re-read the conversations he had shared with Shin Jeong-ah.
These were messages he had read countless times after his possession to understand his surroundings.
However, he couldn't find anything in this chatroom regarding how his relationship with Shin Jeong-ah had actually begun.
"What a mess."
The word 'Karma' was the first thing that came to mind. Of course, it was awkward to call it karma since it wasn't a debt he had personally accrued.
It felt like someone else had taken out a loan, and he had suddenly been saddled with the debt.
"Dammit..."
A curse hovered at the tip of his tongue.
His stomach felt bloated, as if he had overeaten.
Though he hadn't wanted to know, the facts he had gathered were these:
Shin Jeong-ah had been a student who kept to herself in class.
One day, she caught Kang In-ho’s eye, and they started hanging out.
Gradually, she integrated into the group, and her personality brightened.
'Integrating into the group' was the polite way of putting it; to put it bluntly, the original owner of this body was the one who had ruined her.
[I feel disgusted with myself for acting like I care... but please, just do something.]
That was Kim Jin-tae’s final plea as In-ho left after hearing the gist of the story.
"I've never dealt with a case this complicated before."
The most trouble he’d had so far was getting tangled up with a BJ, but now, being presented with a problem of such hardcore difficulty made his head feel like it was about to burn up.
Kang In-ho thrashed around on his bed for a while.
"...Responsibility? How?"
Should he help her transfer schools to give her a fresh start? Or should he sit her down right now and make her study?
Absurd solutions floated to the surface only to vanish like popping bubbles.
"Ah... seriously, what am I supposed to do?"
In-ho fretted, stroking the phone screen with his thumb.
His finger lingered for a long time on Shin Jeong-ah’s profile picture, which was now completely blank.