Siyun's Butler?
Siyun's Butler?
For a while, the dark circles under Lee Jin-seok's eyes showed no sign of fading.
"Si-yoon, you're here?"
"What, you thought I'd left?"
"Ha ha... I'm tired."
"Come on, your eyes look twenty years younger."
"Hahahaha!! Honestly, I am excited. This is fun—like you said, Si-yoon, I feel twenty years younger."
"Dad's bored. Spend at least a day hanging out with him."
"Of course. I want to do some serious fishing with your dad, too."
"What about the school issue?"
Seoul Jungang High School.
With most of the corruption exposed, it had been, in a word, obliterated.
They'd also been caught taking kickbacks from numerous chaebol families.
As for why Hanseong, which had put in kickbacks to get us admitted, was unscathed.
Taking advantage of the 'Butterfly Effect' that targeted the chaebol and powerful elite this time, Hanseong had ballooned in size, and no one had the guts to poke them to see if it was a bubble or the real thing.
And rather than poke at Hanseong, which showed no outward signs, the countless corruption scandals involving other companies and politicians were already consuming everyone's attention.
Lee Jin-seok wrote down a number and handed me a Post-it.
"Try contacting that number."
"You're just dumping work on me with the excuse that you're busy these days~ You're a real piece of work lately, you know that?"
"Heh heh heh... I'm sorry."
"What's with that stupid laugh?"
I checked the Post-it Lee Jin-seok had given me, then handed it back.
- Si-yoon, Da-yeon school matter 010 - XXXX - XXXX.
There were surprisingly a lot of Post-its like this, with only a purpose and a number, no recipient name.
He probably couldn't handle all this work alone, so he'd delegated it.
Lee Jin-seok naturally stuck the returned Post-it back onto his desk.
Seeing the dark circles that looked like they were about to droop down to his mouth, I decided to stop messing with him here.
"Should I peel you some fruit?"
"I have a wife and daughter, you know."
"Hey, fruit peeled by a pretty, well-behaved kid you don't see often is better."
"....."
Lee Jin-seok gave no reaction, wearing a look like he'd bitten into something foul. I tilted my head at him.
"...?"
"Ha ha ha, r... right! Of course~ Fruit peeled by our Si-yoon is obviously the best."
He'd definitely known me long enough to be well-trained, this Lee Jin-seok.
These days, Lee Gi-seok reacted the exact same way when I pulled this.
I washed my hands and brought a knife and two apples.
Shrrrk.
When I peel an apple, that's the actual sound it makes.
Da-yeon was practicing, but I was better than even Kim Seon-hwa, who you could call a master apple-peeler. I was at a level beyond that.
I peeled the skin off in one long, thin, almost circus-act-worthy strip, then cut it into four pieces.
Crunch!
I bit a piece of apple off the knife and peeled the rest, placing it on a plate.
"Si-yoon! Putting a knife in your mouth is dangerous."
"Have you ever seen me get hurt?"
"...No."
"I don't do it if I think I'll get hurt, either~ God, if Dad saw this, the fuss he'd make..."
"....."
"When I was little, I tripped once while practicing walking, and for a while after that, he never once let me off the bed. That's the kind of dad my dad is."
I chewed on the apple I was holding.
The apple was pretty good.
By the time my small mouth finished half a piece, Lee Jin-seok had already eaten three pieces.
I picked up another apple and started peeling.
"Honestly, it's hard to find an apple this perfectly round, like a soccer ball, you know?"
Lee Jin-seok looked at the apple with an appreciative look.
An apple that was entirely yellow, perfectly round, with no red anywhere.
There wasn't a speck of apple flesh left on the peel.
"Heh heh heh heh...."
I crunched on the apple I'd been holding and looked at Lee Jin-seok.
Maybe because I frequented this room so often, Lee Jin-seok could now focus on work even with me or Da-yeon around.
I said goodbye to Lee Jin-seok and, on my way out of the study, dialed the number written on the Post-it.
The other person picked up in less than two seconds.
- "This is Kim Yong-tae, handling the Seoul Jungang High School matter."
I was curious how he'd been on standby to say that the instant I called.
"This is Si-yoon. I was told to call this number."
- "Ah! I'll explain from the beginning."
To summarize his story roughly:
Seoul Jungang High School had returned all the kickbacks and tuition it had taken. Due to a court ruling and worsening finances, it could no longer operate as a school.
In the end, we had no choice but to transfer to another school.
Despite that, Seoul Jungang's education level was so high that, except for the chaebol heirs who were the center of this incident, admission to any other school seemed possible.
So, they said they'd enroll us in 'Jeil High School,' a famous prestigious school.
"Got it~ I'll tell Da-yeon. Take care~"
- "Yes, miss. Have a nice day."
I hung up first.
You could ask, 'Is it polite to hang up first when you're on the phone with an adult?'
But if I don't hang up first, these are people who'll keep the phone glued to their ear for well over an hour.
Da-yeon used to hang up first out of habit, too, so much that she'd even hang up on me and other adults. I had to teach her not to.
I took Da-yeon and headed to our house.
"Sheen, are you playing ROL?"
-"Of course. Why?"
"Thought I'd join."
Sheen's streams had always had some recognition, but recently they'd started gaining massive popularity.
That was only natural, since he was gaming with Hanseong's Lee Da-yeon and superstars like me and Dad.
Sheen was the only streamer with any ties to us, so whenever a video went up on Neotube, it drew an overwhelming number of views.
"Have you played ROL with Dad?"
-"No? Ji-ho plays ROL?"
Da-yeon was so focused on taking down a boss next to me that I couldn't bring it up.
"Anyway, Da-yeon's expression is getting dark, so finish it off already."
-"Oh, uh, sorry, Da-yeon."
"It's... fine."
Da-yeon answered half-heartedly because she was focused, but Sheen, thinking she was actually angry, was beside himself.
After finishing Maple Leaf Game, we switched over to ROL.
In conclusion...
Sheen, who went bottom lane with me... refused to play ROL with me after that.
But after watching Da-yeon's superplays, he'd only play if Da-yeon was there.
Though even then, he absolutely avoided being in the same lane as me...
Leaving Da-yeon to her game, I headed for the living room sofa.
Dad was sitting there watching TV.
I casually moved Alpha off Dad's lap, laid my head down, and used his thigh as a pillow.
Dad, still focused on the TV, naturally started fiddling with my ear.
"Dad."
"Hm? Why'd you come out? You're not playing with Da-yeon?"
"You're firing questions at me one after another, huh~ More importantly, Lee Jin-seok said he wants to go fishing with you."
"Really? I want to go too... But Jin-seok is busy, you know."
"Yeah, so before we start the new school, we decided to take a fishing trip overseas."
"Really? Where to?"
"Remember? That trip that got canceled way back because of C-19."
"Ah! The Great Barrier Reef?"
"Yeah, we decided to go."
"For real?!"
Dad tore his gaze from the TV, lifted my head, pulled his thigh out from under it, and laid me down on the sofa.
Then he suddenly vanished.
"....."
Reacting like that the instant he heard about it...
Feeling like Dad had been neglecting me lately, I resolved to get revenge on him.
Time passed, and we went through the transfer process.
Unavoidably, we ended up placed in separate classes.
I don't know how they handled things so that we ended up separated, but we'd have to be apart for the two months remaining until winter break.
And one week before the transfer, I was at home, wearing a swimsuit.
Putting on a bikini in front of Dad, only to have it cut to pieces by scissors and thrown in the trash, was standard procedure at this point.
Last year's rash guard felt tight in the chest area. Feeling that, I ran to Dad to brag about it and almost actually got hit.
And with HSW's active recommendation and persuasion, Ji-hoon had ultimately joined Team 7.
Of course, it happened with his parents' permission.
It's not that Ji-hoon's family is short on money, not by a long shot, but the undeniable fact was that the money he could earn as a student was substantial.
More than anything, seeing how happy he was, saying he could train more seriously, we didn't stop him.
Thanks to that, Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-oh got to join our trip as well.
We headed to the airport early in the morning.
We ended up flying on a private jet, the very symbol of the super-rich.
Dad could easily afford a private jet, too, but he never got one.
Because whenever he needs one, he just uses the aircraft JSM owns outright.
According to what I heard from Jang Seong-man, if you frequently use your personal private jet, the maintenance costs alone run 300 million won a month.
But the aircraft with the blue lettering HANSUNG painted on it was more than twice the size of the private jet Uncle Jang Seong-man had once taken.
There are many reasons to fly private, but the biggest is that with fewer people, the procedures are fast.
You just pass through a separate, dedicated departure screening area, and you can board without any holdups, like hailing a taxi.
With an excited heart, I climbed the steps of the plane.
As expected, a private jet was different, from the entrance onward.
Where you'd normally have to pass the flight attendant rest area to get to the seats, this one opened right into a hall.
Starting with the wine bar visible first, the entire interior was breathtaking.
Past the wine bar, a dining table and sofas were visible, and behind them were seats that looked like sofas.
And at the end of the corridor were private rooms for sound sleep.
Da-yeon and I tried to go straight into the same bedroom, but they said it was dangerous during takeoff and we had to sit, so we took our seats.
And so, Hanseong's private jet lifted into the sky.
Lee Jin-seok wore a reassured expression as he looked at Ji-hoon.
"Ji-hoon, was it? It's the first time I've seen you since that day at the baseball field."
"Yes."
"I wanted to express my thanks again."
"It was only natural. No big deal."
"I've heard... you're the strongest with your bare hands in HSW..."
"Nah, that's just within sparring. Under official rules, I have a much bigger advantage, since I trained professionally~"
In Lee Jin-seok's eyes, Ji-hoon would look like a genius in his field.
A very humble one, too.
Even in the old days, Lee Jin-seok had really liked geniuses.
That was part of why he picked Tae-oh as Da-yeon's dedicated bodyguard.
"Still, knowing you're dedicated to protecting Si-yoon... I couldn't feel more reassured."
"Ah ha ha... Thank you."
As an employee, he couldn't treat Lee Jin-seok the way Da-yeon and I did, but that was Park Ji-hoon's choice.
Dad, who'd watched him since he was young, treated Ji-hoon like a son.
Of course, he still kept his guard up around Kim Tae-oh because of his striking good looks, like he'd stepped right out of a comic.
I felt a bit sorry for Ji-hoon, but... Dad seemed to find Ji-hoon quite reassuring in that regard.
A short while later, the plane bound for Australia took off.
Since it was our first trip to Australia, you might wonder if Park Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-oh would be able to communicate.
But Park Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-oh, naturally, spoke English well.
Back in the past, they'd used English often while going around with me, and they could also speak some Russian.
On top of that, following their parents around, given their professions, they'd had no choice but to become fluent.
Unable to resist Da-yeon's coaxing, I eventually headed to the bedroom with her.
Between enjoying all kinds of food, playing card games, sleeping, and watching movies, we arrived in Australia before I knew it.
And HSW security personnel waiting at the airport...
We went through immigration, boarded the prepared vehicles, and headed to the hotel we'd reserved.
Korea was welcoming winter, but here it was summer.
I was in a T-shirt and shorts, rolling around on the bed with Da-yeon, when Dad asked for Da-yeon's okay.
"Da-yeon, is it okay if I turn on my stream?"
"Yes, it's fine~"
"Thanks~"
I turned to look at Dad and spoke.
"Why don't you ask me?"
"Ha ha, my daughter, may I turn on my stream?"
"Oh, you're just humoring me now~ Sure~ Go ahead~ Do as you please~ Father."
"What's with you, Si-yoon~~~"
I took my T-shirt off.
"Turn it on! I'll take my underwear off, too."
At my sudden outburst, Dad quickly put his phone down.
He and Da-yeon urgently grabbed my hands as I moved to unhook my bra clasp.
My chest, heavier with age, swayed.
"You. Just try unhooking that. You'll be in big trouble, with Da-yeon watching, you know..."
"Wow, not long ago you didn't even care. You totally ignored me~!"
"You! What do you mean, 'totally ignored' me, to your dad?!"
I wrestled and joked around with Dad until he eventually turned the stream on.
Da-yeon and I messed around on the bed, pulling the blanket over ourselves.
Then, maybe wanting to see Dad streaming, Da-yeon opened Neotube on her phone.
"People are curious about what we're doing behind you. Want to show our faces?"
"Should we?"
Da-yeon peeked her face out from under the blanket.
As expected, an explosive reaction.
At comments asking why Da-yeon, not Si-yoon, was in the bed, Dad explained the situation.
This time, I poked my face out, and after messing around a bit more, we came out from under the blanket.
And behind Dad, who was streaming, Da-yeon and I started messing with him to draw attention.
There were no fishing plans today, so as soon as evening came, we headed straight for the pool.
Park Ji-hoon and Kim Tae-oh were already there.
After getting slashed a few times, their bodies already looked like they'd been through every hardship imaginable.
Kim Tae-oh, with only faint scratch marks left, was still okay.
But that dumbass Park Ji-hoon's body was covered in stitched-up wounds all over.
It was a relief medical technology had improved; otherwise, Park Ji-hoon would've ended up with a grotesque body like in the old days.
Seeing that, Da-yeon flinched and made an apologetic face again.
I pressed both hands against Da-yeon's cheeks.
"You make that face, it makes the other person more uncomfortable, you know?"
"Mmkay..."
With her cheeks pushed in, Da-yeon's face and pronunciation, like a crucian carp, got even cuter.
I smirked and went over to Park Ji-hoon.
"Wow, look at those scars. No need for separate tattoos, huh."
"Sick, right? Cool as hell, huh?"
Park Ji-hoon suddenly flexed, as if showing off his body.
"Sick...? Looks like it'd fucking reek, actually."
At my words, Park Ji-hoon suddenly started sniffing his own armpit.
Even in the past, being someone who liked things clean, I used to beat the hell out of Jae-hyeong whenever he acted like that.
Maybe because I hadn't beaten him in the 17 years since he was reborn as Park Ji-hoon and I'd kept him close, his old habits were creeping back in.
I stared at Park Ji-hoon with a disgusted expression.
"Fucking nasty... Dumbass, just go over to that corner and play by yourself."
Even with plenty of muscle-bound foreigners around, people admired Park Ji-hoon's physique.
And Kim Tae-oh had said Park Ji-hoon's shrimp had grown quite a bit... but from my viewing angle, it was still cocktail shrimp.
"Hey! Where are you looking?"
Once he was an adult, though, it would probably be about the same size Jae-hyeong's had been in the past.
Still, that's the average for an Asian guy.
It was a dark night, but the pool was filled with pretty lights illuminating it.
In Korea, a knife-like winter wind would be blowing around now, but here, the night was rather warm.
While I was enjoying this tranquility and warmth for a moment, a waiter approached from afar.
Lee Jin-seok must have ordered food.
Kim Tae-oh and Park Ji-hoon, who'd just climbed out after enjoying a long swim, ate together.
Normally, the food would've been shoveled down and vanished...
But Park Ji-hoon, conscious of being in front of Lee Jin-seok, ate with more restraint and composure than expected.
Still, watching that son of a bitch eat with any kind of manners...
The rising disgust made me put my fork down.