I'd Rather Not
The ending of the previous chapter has been revised.
The tattooed pork-bone-soup TS-freak has been cut, and a few women plus Han Ho-cheol have been added instead. Hehe...
Sorry for any confusion while reading.
Back in high school, Han Ho-cheol had run with a pretty rough crowd.
A handsome face that still managed to look wholesome, paired with an outgoing personality — those two things alone made it ridiculously easy for him to get close to people. That same sociability had stretched far enough to cover the so-called delinquents, too. Befriending them hadn't been particularly hard.
No — if anything, Ho-cheol had always clicked better with kids like that. Those aggressive friends manufactured a kind of charisma he'd never possessed on his own, filling in the gaps of that vaguely pushover face of his. And honestly, his personality had always meshed more naturally with the fearless types to begin with.
That was why he'd spent a good chunk of high school running around with guys like these. Which was probably also why, even after graduation, he could still rally this many people. It had cost him a bit in appearance fees, sure — but that was a price he could live with.
"Hey, so when's this guy supposed to show?"
One of the thugs asked while Ho-cheol was still sorting through his thoughts.
"...He'll be here soon. He said he'd definitely be coming this way."
He answered offhandedly and glanced around. The five women he'd gathered were clustered together in the alley — old high school friends, the ones who'd made a name for themselves back in the day. The wait was clearly boring them; they were killing time with the cigarettes clenched between their lips.
Every time someone exhaled, the smoke scattered in chaotic ribbons. The haze produced by five people was a spectacle unto itself — enough to swallow this cramped little alley in fog in no time.
"Ugh, look at that haze up front. Cut it out already, you assholes."
"Hey, put yours out first before you talk, you moron~"
While two of his friends bickered, Ho-cheol dropped his gaze to the ground. Cigarette butts piled thick across the pavement, along with glistening wads of phlegm. They clearly gave not a single damn about the sanitation workers who'd have to deal with it later.
On any other day it would have looked filthy and unsavory. Right now, Ho-cheol found the whole scene rather satisfying. Every little detail like this was another brushstroke painting the atmosphere.
Atmosphere mattered. Dress it up the right way, and you could steer a person's psychology to a surprising degree. Just making the air heavy was enough to make the other party shrink. They'd grow unstable, their imagination boxed into darker and darker corners. In short, you could make someone chicken out without them even realizing it.
Like a field-trip chaperone putting on an angry face, and the terrified students surrendering the booze they'd stashed in their bags. Dominate the atmosphere, and you could skip the hassle of searching their bags entirely.
Having hung out with the wrong crowd often enough, Ho-cheol knew the value of atmosphere intimately — and he was the type to use it rather than fall victim to it.
He lightly reviewed the plan while waiting for Lee Se-won. Honestly, it was so simple it barely qualified as a plan.
First, when Lee Se-won walked in, they'd apply some light intimidation. Shrink him psychologically. Scare him. Common sense said no man on earth wouldn't be scared when surrounded by five delinquent women. Then they'd drag the frightened Se-won to a nearby construction site. That was step one.
Can't teach him a lesson here.
He'd gotten his information through Lee Eun-byul — but that same connection had created a time limit named Lee Eun-byul. Drag things out in this alley and she'd eventually show up, and once she did, they obviously wouldn't be able to mess with Se-won anymore. She'd take one look at the situation and try to protect him. If it got worse, she might even turn hostile.
Can't have that.
The whole point was to peel Se-won off her side and attach himself there instead. Hostility was out of the question. So they needed to change locations.
Go to the construction site. Threaten Se-won. Intimidate him. And then cook up a new story. Lee Se-won had simply taken a different route home that day by chance. Han Ho-cheol had waited diligently, but Se-won never showed, so he'd eventually just gone home. That was the version the two of them would coordinate and feed to Eun-byul.
Of course the reality was completely different — but so what? When the parties involved said it themselves, Eun-byul would have no choice but to reluctantly swallow it. Se-won would fall away from her side on his own, and Ho-cheol would take his place. A truly simple, foolproof plan.
Granted, there was the small problem of having to threaten Se-won into fabricating the story in the first place...
It's fine.
Fortunately, he was confident about that part. He had the chewing-out stat he'd honed all through high school. He'd cracked the whip on a junior's discipline good and hard once. He'd even ripped up some weeb bitch's notebook. With that kind of experience, educating one person should be more than enough.
"Huh? The hell's that. Someone's watching us."
They'd been waiting a good while when the woman in neon hot pants standing in front of him — Yu-ra — spoke up. Her gaze was locked on the corner at the far end of the alley.
Ho-cheol turned his head to follow her line of sight. And there he was. Peeking around the corner of the alley, looking their way — Lee Se-won.
Their eyes met. Two pairs of dark, deep pupils staring straight at each other.
Han Ho-cheol grinned. Finally. Time to execute.
He called out first, keeping it light.
"Hyung, what are you doing over there? Come over here~"
Hearing Ho-cheol's call, Lee Se-won let out a quiet sigh.
"Ah, so I got spotted."
He could've sworn he'd hidden pretty well. Was it because he'd been staring too obviously? He'd been standing there wondering why Han Ho-cheol was even here, and then their eyes had locked.
From his perspective, it was a regrettable blunder. He'd planned to stroll in casually, pretending it was a coincidence — and instead he'd gotten caught watching the whole time. It was kinda embarrassing. And embarrassment was a serious matter.
"What are you doing? Aren't you coming in?"
Ho-cheol called out again while Se-won was still lost in thought. Se-won hesitated for a beat, then walked into the alley.
He did wonder why Han Ho-cheol was here, but he decided to just roughly accept it.
Must be the helper, I guess.
Good-for-nothing Me — that is, Lee Eun-byul — had mentioned that a friend had helped her put this little play together. She'd only passed along the information; most of the actual planning had been that friend's work. Apparently that friend was Han Ho-cheol. He hadn't seen that coming, but it was something he could accept.
Which was why Se-won walked into the alley without a shred of suspicion. Honestly, his head was in roughly this state:
Heheh. I'm so pumped.
The fact that he could get a closer look at these women in their slutty outfits! The fact that he could take in those deep valleys of cleavage right in front of his face! That alone was reason enough to walk in. Someone offering to upgrade him from 480p to 1080p — what kind of idiot would refuse?
And besides, Se-won thoroughly believed this whole situation was a play, so he didn't feel particularly averse to any of it.
"Oh."
A short gasp of admiration slipped out from among the women as he came closer. They'd just been told they were going to mess someone up — they hadn't known who'd actually show. Lee Se-won was quite the unexpected arrival.
They looked him over, eyes traveling between his face and his body as if they were appraising merchandise. A few of them even leaned in to whisper their reviews to Han Ho-cheol.
"Oh, damn? He's way hotter than I expected?"
"Hey! You should've told us about this beforehand."
Hearing that, Han Ho-cheol clicked his tongue inwardly.
Tsk.
Women, seriously. The second a guy's face was even halfway decent, they started throwing goodwill at him. The fact that someone he hated was receiving that goodwill was pretty irritating. So he grabbed Se-won's arm and pulled him further in.
"Ah."
In a single instant, the formation shifted. The women who'd merely been leaning against the walls began drawing a circle around Se-won. As if to declare that he would not be leaving, a small prison of human bodies snapped into place. The alley had been narrow to begin with, so boxing him in on all sides took no time at all.
Han Ho-cheol smiled faintly at the sight. The escape route was as good as sealed.
The thick phlegm and cigarette butts stuck to the ground painted a delinquent atmosphere, and the women around him generated a heavy sense of intimidation. Nobody could stay calm in an atmosphere like this. Look — the guy was already so scared he was making those whimpering sounds.
"Ah— ahh. You guys. What. Why are you. Blocking the path all of a sudden?"
...For some reason the way he said it was incredibly awkward, though.
That didn't matter in the slightest. Han Ho-cheol took a step forward and opened his mouth.
"Hello, hyung. Didn't think we'd run into each other in a place like this, huh?"
"Ah, yeah. Right. What's going on?"
Se-won asked in response to the greeting. Hearing that question, Han Ho-cheol let out a disbelieving little laugh. What's going on? Well......
Before answering, he took a drag of his cigarette. Sssuup—huuu. After one full cycle of breath, a ribbon of gray smoke uncoiled into the air. Ho-cheol watched it for a moment, then wiped every trace of expression from his face, leaving it ice-cold.
"What's going on? Obviously I'm here to fuck you up, you piece of shit."
Not the bright, cheerful voice people usually heard from him. This was his original voice, back in its natural register — a tone and cadence that could send a chill of tension through anyone listening. With every syllable that hit the ground, the atmosphere seemed to grow sharper.
Oh.
Even Se-won couldn't help being a little surprised by that sudden change in attitude. He genuinely hadn't expected to get cussed out so bluntly. Even so, at this point he was still just thinking that things were getting interesting.
It's working.
Han Ho-cheol mistook that reaction for fear. Emboldened, he pressed on. They were going to coordinate their stories from here anyway, so he decided to just be honest.
"I'll be straight with you. I fucking hate you."
"Ah."
"So I sweet-talked Eun-byul a bit and found out the route you take to your senior's place. To mess you up on purpose."
"Ahh, I see."
Se-won, who'd been listening with genuine interest, suddenly caught something off.
"...Huh?"
Wait. Why was Eun-byul coming up here? He knew Eun-byul was involved, sure — but wasn't that information you weren't supposed to reveal?
Confusion swirled through his head for a moment.
Wait. Come to think of it...
There was something slightly weird about this. According to Good-for-nothing Me, the original scenario was that Se-won would be walking along and coincidentally run into some street thugs. That was what Eun-byul knew, and that was what she'd passed on to Se-won. There shouldn't have been any mix-up in their communication.
But now, for some reason, the moment he'd stepped into the alley they were volunteering information about Eun-byul. The street thugs being here was the same — except they were saying they'd been waiting for him on purpose. Not a coincidence.
Something was clearly, unmistakably off.
In that instant, Se-won painted a grim hypothesis in his mind. And he asked it out loud without thinking.
"Wait. Is this not a play? Is this real?"
"What? Pffthah!"
Han Ho-cheol burst out laughing in sheer disbelief. He took Se-won's words as a kind of reality escape born of fear — a person backed into a corner, painting a fantasy path that didn't exist in this world. It never occurred to him even for a second that Se-won might have heard the plan from Eun-byul.
He thought: This is the moment.
The timing to shrink the frightened Se-won even further. The optimal opportunity to shove a cornered person one step deeper into the corner. Shatter the fictional path he was imagining.
Thinking that, he swung his hand hard at Se-won's cheek.
SMACK!
A thick, meaty crack rang out through the alley. Ho-cheol's palm stung slightly, and Se-won's head tilted to the side. He'd put quite a bit of force into it — Se-won's cheek was already flushing red.
Looking at that, Ho-cheol spoke as coldly as he could manage.
"Does this look like a play to you?"
In that instant, Se-won's eyes trembled. His pupils blew wide, then contracted, then blew wide again. Those jet-black irises vibrated faintly from side to side.
Watching it, Ho-cheol continued.
"Follow me if you don't want to get hit again."
So I can mess you up in peace — he kept those words hidden and piled on as much menace as he could. He had the surrounding thugs take a step closer, as if they'd actually start beating him if he didn't comply. Direct violence was the best device there was for inducing fear. Having established superiority in both atmosphere and psychological position, Han Ho-cheol was certain the guy would follow.
But.
What came out of Se-won's mouth was an unambiguous refusal.
And what's more—
"You fucking bastard."
Accompanied by a scathing curse that didn't match his situation in the slightest.