Summer Vacation.
The first-floor hair salon run by the lady who used to breastfeed me.
Last time I was here, I'd shaved Ji-hoon's head. Today I'd come down to get Kim Tae-oh's head shaved, and I was lying on the couch for a bit, looking at my phone.
After a while, Tae-oh walked in right on time...
But someone else came in behind him.
"".....""
The woman behind Tae-oh was Kim Tae-oh's girlfriend, the one I'd only ever seen in pictures.
Why the hell would he bring her here and make things so fucking awkward... this goddamn prick.
Supposedly she's two years older than me, and seeing her in person, she really was pretty.
Prettier than Dubu, the visual ace for Twatch.
"Hello...?"
"....."
Maybe she'd been holding a lot of grudges against me, because Tae-oh's girlfriend flat-out ignored my greeting with a sour expression.
Tae-oh saw that and told his girlfriend, face completely blank,
"Go home. Yeon-woo."
"...What?"
The moment her boyfriend—who should've been on her side—told her to go home just because she'd ignored my greeting, Yeon-woo's eyes instantly reddened.
With that kind of mental fragility, I honestly wondered how she'd managed to date a piece of trash like him for four months.
"I'm... your girlfriend..."
"Did I not tell you not to come."
"....."
She hung her head like she'd been caught committing some crime, and finally a tear dripped down. Tae-oh looked mildly pissed when he saw that.
"Did you not say you'd follow me? Just get the fuc—"
Smack!
I smacked Kim Tae-oh upside the back of his head—really fucking hard.
"This shithead really talks like a fucking asshole."
"Agh!!!"
Smack! Smack!
"Did I or did I not tell you to treat your girlfriend right, you dipshit?"
As I was stomping the shit out of Kim Tae-oh while he was curled up, I felt someone's gaze staring blankly at me from the side.
I ignored that gaze for the time being and kept stomping Kim Tae-oh for a good while. Once I was satisfied enough, I swept my long hair back.
"Ahaha. Sorry about that. I'm Kim Si-yoon, Tae-oh's employer."
"Yes... I'm Lee Yeon-woo."
I handed Yeon-woo a tissue and smiled.
"Um, can I call you sis...?"
"Yeah..."
"Sis, you look like you've got a lot of questions, and honestly I've got more than you'd think. Would you like to go talk at a café for a bit?"
I put on a black mask and walked outside with Yeon-woo, who looked drained.
Yeon-woo wiped her tears with the tissue I'd given her and followed me out.
And Tae-oh came trailing along behind us.
Once we were inside the café, Tae-oh naturally ordered my food separately.
Yeon-woo looked like she was about to cry again when she saw that, so I quickly separated her from Tae-oh.
"That bastard... he's never once done anything for me on his own..."
I sat there fidgeting in front of Yeon-woo as her tears started falling again.
And inwardly, I resolved to absolutely destroy Tae-oh.
When I went to get the coffee, I handed an Americano to Tae-oh outside and came back in.
Yeon-woo seemed to have calmed down a bit.
But then she looked at Tae-oh waiting for me outside, and apparently something surged up in her again.
"Tae-oh... I'll just give up..."
"Sorry?"
Yeon-woo suddenly tried to stand up, so I quickly grabbed hold of her.
She glared at me with eyes swimming in tears, and I was losing my mind.
Because if anyone saw us, I just looked like some two-faced bitch who'd seduced someone else's boyfriend...
"Look, I think there are a ton of misunderstandings here. Could we maybe... talk things through slowly?"
"I have nothing to say...?"
She'd apparently made up her mind about something, because her voice came back cold—completely different from before.
Finally, this seemed more like the sharp-looking Yeon-woo I'd imagined.
"I really have a lot. If you don't want to, I won't hold you."
"....."
Instead of hanging onto her from a position of weakness, I deliberately added a slight edge to my words to make her sit back down of her own accord.
Yeon-woo looked like a vein was bulging in her forehead. She stared down at me, then took her seat again.
And then Yeon-woo shot me a razor-sharp look and asked,
"What exactly is your relationship with Tae-oh?"
"Mm... just childhood friends. We've known each other for eleven years now."
"There's no way you're just friends."
"I can see where the misunderstanding's coming from, but I do have a boyfriend, you know?"
"...Huh?"
"Although he's in the military right now..."
I showed her a photo of me with Park Ji-hoon like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"What do you think? Reliable, right?"
Yeon-woo checked Park Ji-hoon's face.
Park Ji-hoon was a total punk and looked like a brute, but he wasn't ugly, especially after his double-eyelid surgery.
I hate to admit it, but he was on the handsome side too.
Especially his body—it was so over-the-top that it could make any beastly guy look like a herbivore.
The only men around me were Kim Tae-oh, Park Ji-hoon, and Han Su-ho, and Park Ji-hoon was the only one I had a lot of photos with.
"Also, Tae-oh's not just a friend to me—he works as my friend's bodyguard."
"...He's not guarding you?"
"It's partly that too, but the one assigned to me is Da-yeon—she exists, you know?"
I showed her a photo of Da-yeon, and Yeon-woo went rigid.
As for me—I was a celebrity, so she probably found it somewhat understandable that I looked the way I did.
But Da-yeon's overwhelmingly powerful body combined with her incongruously cute face overwhelmed Yeon-woo with a completely different kind of charm.
"Haah..."
"Pretty, isn't she? But don't worry. We know Tae-oh's feelings better than anyone."
"...?"
"Maybe because he's been moving with our protection as the goal ever since we were kids, I kind of get the sense he's got some paternal affection for us."
I fed her a bullshit excuse, but Yeon-woo seemed to understand it to some degree and started to calm down.
Yeon-woo swept her hair back and drank her coffee.
She really was seriously pretty.
To the point where you could count her among the prettiest ordinary people I'd ever seen on the street.
"So neither you nor your friend are interested in Tae-oh?"
"What? I wouldn't take him if you handed him to me."
"...So I gave up everything trying to get something you wouldn't even take if it was handed to you...?"
Fuck... I'd touched a nerve with a deeply resentful woman with one careless remark.
Still, the good news was that I'd burned into her brain that I had zero interest in Tae-oh.
To calm this resentment-filled woman down, I sold out Da-yeon too.
"A long time ago, Da-yeon liked Tae-oh and confessed, but she got rejected. But now you've got him, Yeon-woo?"
"....."
Seeing her mood lift right away, I guess the hostility she'd shown me hadn't been all that deep.
Yeon-woo gulped down her Americano...
"Haah... I'm kind of pathetic, aren't I...?"
"A little?"
She shot me a glare, but I needed to establish our relationship clearly.
No matter what anyone says, I hate being on the back foot...
"Haah... so he really does hate clingy women?"
"Tae-oh does?"
"Before... I tried playing a little hard to get and stopped contacting him... and I didn't hear from him for two weeks..."
I don't know why there are so many seriously flawed people around me...
Kim Tae-oh had always been a master at treating women like they were rocks.
"But I did like that he never so much as glanced at other women..."
"And the one single woman he did glance at was me?"
"Yeah."
If the one thing she'd thought was his only good point turned out to mean he'd liked someone else all along, it was no wonder she'd gone crazy.
"Well, I'm a superstar, you know? It's only natural I've got a lot of fans."
"....."
"What do you even see in him that you're dating him? Don't tell me—the mask?"
Yeon-woo shook her head and told me about the day she first met Tae-oh.
Unlike Hanguk University, at Ose University, freshmen through seniors all go on the MT trip together.
She said some scary-looking fourth-year seniors got drunk and started harassing her there.
And Tae-oh, who was passing by, casually took care of them—that was the start of everything.
After that, Yeon-woo had completely fallen for him, blinders firmly in place.
Kim Tae-oh...
Honestly, from an ordinary person's perspective, it made sense that he'd look like some kind of prince.
Kim Tae-oh's mask—and I'm someone who's lived inside JSM— was something I could honestly say was better-looking than any celebrity I'd ever seen in my life.
With makeup on, I'd consider him one of the top in the country.
Maybe Yeon-woo got drunk on her Americano or something, because she suddenly floored it.
"He's a silver-spoon kid who drives foreign cars at twenty, he's handsome, he's smart, he's got a job, and his body is fucking insanely hot."
"Do you know what it feels like when someone doesn't have a single thing less than you and yet you can't even get their attention?"
"It makes a person feel fucking devastated and miserable. So I put out, and I was the only one who was more satisfied... fuck!"
The sudden burst of spiciness nearly made me shoot smoothie out my nose.
"Cough... hck..."
"...? You didn't already know? You called that day."
"Ah... I know."
"Anyway... what kind of twenty-year-old... are you sure I'm really his first girlfriend? Why is he so good at it?"
Kim Tae-oh...
Even back when he was Park Gi, with that ugly face of his, he made dozens of women cry and even had the nickname Emperor of the Night.
There was even a rumor that if you slept with him, you wouldn't be able to get up the next day...
I'd never actually seen him do it with my own eyes, but I'll admit his popularity was seriously something else.
"You are his first girlfriend. As far as my memory goes, anyway."
"...Really?"
"Yes."
"Liar. I thought you were just telling me what I wanted to hear to make me feel better."
Yeon-woo suddenly got lost in her own thoughts, then let out a sigh.
"Well... there's no way he'd pay me lip service just to make me feel good... haah..."
Yeon-woo, suddenly gloomy, stared openly at my chest.
"....."
"Wh-why...?"
"Haah... they're really big..."
She'd probably never seen Da-yeon in person, but even after seeing a chest like that in photos, mine were still big enough for her to compliment.
The fruit of ten years of effort, I suppose?
Honestly, they aren't that big, but my small frame makes them stand out even more.
"The power of being mixed-race, I guess...?"
"Haaaah... right... what fault is any of this of yours..."
"Haha."
"He stopped in the middle of sex to take a call, then bowed his head and apologized at a single word from you... the feeling was really..."
Yeon-woo was insulting me in a roundabout way, but I didn't have anything to say in return.
Just when I was getting worn out by the sustained back-and-forth, I called Kim Tae-oh in from outside.
He naturally tried to sit next to me, so I cocked my fist, and he sat down next to his girlfriend Yeon-woo.
That one action brought Yeon-woo's mood crashing back down...
"Do you want to shave Tae-oh's head yourself?"
"I don't want to."
"Shut the fuck up if you don't actually want to die."
"....."
Tae-oh looked like he had a lot of grievances.
I gestured with my chin as if to tell him to say whatever it was he wanted to say.
"I clearly told her before we started dating that I wouldn't be able to give her much attention."
From the moment Tae-oh walked in, Yeon-woo had gone as meek as an Alpha doused in water. When she heard that, she apparently couldn't take it anymore and rushed outside.
Watching Tae-oh like this, a headache came crashing down on my head.
This bastard is so incredibly stubborn that unless I said it directly, even Park Ji-hoon couldn't do anything about what Tae-oh had set his mind on.
His girlfriend had stormed out, and he didn't even go after her.
This fucking asshole...
"Tae-oh."
"Why are you calling me?"
"What did I say to you on the phone before?"
Tae-oh hesitated for a moment, then started to stiffen up.
He apparently remembered what I'd said I would do if his actions ever caused me trouble.
"Right now I want to drag you there and cut that thing off... If you want to keep it attached from now on, you only do it with Yeon-woo... If I catch you pulling that shit anywhere else, should I tell Cho-a?"
"!!!!!"
"And get out there right now, soothe her, and bring her to the salon."
"Understood."
As expected.
In the past, plenty of people thought I was the one keeping Tiger in check...
But I only managed a few select top-level close associates—everyone else kept in line because they were scared of Cho-a.
Tae-oh went outside, and I picked up my mango smoothie and followed after him.