*
Seon-u-gyeong approached the figure sitting by the path near the rear entrance of the Life Hall.
The figure was squatting and gazing up at the sky, muttering a lament.
“Why did I end up like this…? Ah, that four-year-old brat!”
Ham Hong-gi ran both hands roughly through his hair.
He was currently working as a laborer, unable to resist even once when Gru told him to help out at the café.
“Ham Hong-gi.”
“…Seon-u-gyeong?”
“You look tired.”
“Did you come to make fun of me too?”
“Haha! Make fun of you? Of course not.”
Seon-u-gyeong slipped his hands into his pockets and surveyed his surroundings. Since the building stood in such a remote location, there was no sign of anyone nearby.
After carefully confirming that no one was around, Seon-u-gyeong took something from his pocket and tossed it over.
“...?”
Ham Hong-gi reflexively caught the object flying toward his face.
The small syrup bottle, just large enough to fit in his palm, was filled with an unidentified liquid.
Ham Hong-gi frowned.
“What is this?”
“It’s your favorite.”
“Ah, I told you I’m not doing that. Don’t make things more troublesome for me. Take it back.”
Ham Hong-gi threw the syrup bottle back at him.
“You?”
Seon-u-gyeong caught the bottle and swallowed a sneer.
“Hong-gi, did your card get cut off again?”
“Huh? Card?”
“I’ll give it to you cheap. You’re a longtime customer, after all.”
Ham Hong-gi ran a weary hand through his hair.
Seon-u-gyeong was good at studying and played the model student well, yet he was even more hopeless than a delinquent like himself.
“You should stop living so virtuously too. How long are you planning to go on like that?”
As Ham Hong-gi said this, his mouth fell open.
Ah.
Ah?
Even as he spoke the words, thinking they sounded familiar, he realized he was parroting what the four-year-old had said.
The endless nagging his family had hammered into his ears came rushing back as well.
Ah, damn it. Ham Hong-gi scratched his head, feeling strange.
Experiencing firsthand, from the other side, the emotions others must have felt whenever they looked at him was a novel sensation.
‘…This is awkward.’
He rolled his eyes with an embarrassed expression, only to find Seon-u-gyeong glaring at him with a frightening look.
‘What the hell?! Why is he looking at me like that…?’
But Seon-u-gyeong quickly hid his expression and smiled again.
“Hong-gi, want to make a bet? Whether you’ll be able to quit or not. I’m betting that you won’t.”
“What?”
It happened in that instant.
Seon-u-gyeong opened the syrup bottle and splashed the liquid in Ham Hong-gi’s face.
“Ugh!” Ham Hong-gi’s brow furrowed sharply as he raised a hand, but he couldn’t block all the liquid from entering his mouth and nose.
“Ptooey, ptooey! Cough! You bastard—hey! Seon-u-gyeong!”
Just as Ham Hong-gi grabbed Seon-u-gyeong, who wore a vulgar smile, by the collar and shoved him against the wall—
Thump!
His heart pounded violently.
‘…Huh?’
Thump!
His chest felt as if it might burst, and his ribs felt tight and constricted.
Ham Hong-gi clutched his chest with a pained expression.
“Quit what, you fucking idiot?”
Seon-u-gyeong kicked Ham Hong-gi in the side.
“Don’t make me laugh. Just keep taking your drugs obediently and drive your life straight into the gutter!”
“Ghk!”
Ham Hong-gi doubled over like a shrimp.
The sight of him looking so pathetic sent a thrill all the way to Seon-u-gyeong’s fingertips.
Just as he raised his foot again with the corners of his mouth lifted—
A searing pain shot into his thigh.
“Agh!”
A little boy stood there holding a duck-shaped clothespin, glaring at him triumphantly.
“Stop doing bad things!”
*
Ham Hong-gi leaned his dizzy head against the wall.
“Honggi, okay?”
“…Ugh.”
He wanted to say that he felt even worse because of Gru, but his mouth wouldn’t open.
The pounding in his chest was gradually settling down.
He had grown numb to the effects of drugs, if anything. There was no way such a small amount should have caused such an exaggerated reaction. Had the concentration been especially high?
Seon-u-gyeong watched Ham Hong-gi’s complexion slowly return and made a displeased face, but soon spoke gently to Gru.
“You’re Dani’s little brother, right? You shouldn’t go around hitting your older brother.”
“He did bad things to Honggi.”
“What? You must have seen it wrong. We older brothers have something to discuss, so go inside. Or should I take you in?”
He extended a hand.
‘That bastard…’
Ham Hong-gi grabbed Gru and pulled him over to his side.
“Hey, cough! Leave the kid alone.”
Seon-u-gyeong glared at Ham Hong-gi with a ferocious expression again.
“A junkie like you is more dangerous than I am, don’t you think?”
That bastard, seriously. Ham Hong-gi bit down on his lip.
At that moment, the cell phone in Seon-u-gyeong’s pocket began to buzz.
[NAG Gu Sin-hu]
Damn it.
Why does he keep calling?!
It was already the tenth call that day. Normally, he could avoid answering by claiming he was in class, but on a day like this, he had no convincing excuse.
Swallowing his irritation, Seon-u-gyeong answered the call.
“…Hello, Guildmaster Gu.”
While he was taking Gu Sin-hu’s call, Ham Hong-gi wiped the liquid off himself and said,
“Hey, four-year-old. Cough, cough! Don’t stand around alone. Hurry and go inside.”
The pounding of his heart, which had raced the moment Gru appeared, subsided in an instant.
That was fortunate, but Seon-u-gyeong, who had suddenly gone completely off the rails as though he had eaten something wrong, was more than a little alarming.
He needed to get the four-year-old away from Seon-u-gyeong first.
But Gru shook his head vigorously.
“That bad-glasses man is going to hit Honggi again.”
“I-It’s because I let my guard down!”
Ham Hong-gi protested, his face turning bright red. Gru drooped his brows sadly, feeling sorry for Ham Hong-gi, who looked especially frail today.
‘Should I bring that out here?’
As Gru pondered, a familiar voice reached them.
“Gru-gru. Why are you here? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Big brother!”
With a smile, Gidan looked at Ham Hong-gi, who was awkwardly getting to his feet, and Seon-u-gyeong, who was speaking to someone on the phone.
Seon-u-gyeong waved toward Gidan, but his discomfort was written plainly across his face.
“…Hmm.”
He quickly approached and picked Gru up.
‘This is quite a strange combination.’
It had been the same when he’d gone to the third-year classroom to meet Ham Hong-gi before. The strange tension between Seon-u-gyeong and Ham Hong-gi as they looked at each other naturally came back to him.
Just as he was trying to gauge the relationship between the two—
To make matters worse, Gu Sin-hu’s voice could be heard from not far away.
“Come on, Gyeong. It’s not that hard to show me your face once in a while, is it? Huh?”
Gu Sin-hu, who had been clutching his phone anxiously, spotted them and opened his eyes wide.
Seon-u-gyeong’s face went pale in an instant.
“No wonder everyone kept coming to this building. I guess it’s because all the celebrities are here?”
With Gru in his arms, Gidan bowed politely to Gu Sin-hu.
“Guildmaster Gu Sin-hu, did you come to see the festival?”
“Yeah! Dani, you go to this school too, right? Looks like you know Gyeong as well?”
That nasty mackerel man? Gru narrowed his eyes into triangles and gripped Gidan’s collar tightly.
Gidan patted his back to soothe him.
“This really is a good school—the caliber of the students is different. A school like this was unimaginable when I was young. The world’s changed for the better.”
Grinning broadly, Gu Sin-hu slung a friendly arm around the pale Seon-u-gyeong’s shoulders.
“Wow, what’s this? Don’t tell me Senior Seon-u-gyeong is going to NAG?”
“…Well—”
Before Seon-u-gyeong could get the words out, Gu Sin-hu cut him off.
“Well, Gyeong says he’s still thinking about it, but I’m wooing him as hard as I can.”
“Oh, is that so?”
If he remembered correctly, Seon-u-gyeong was a C-rank. It wasn’t a low rank, but it wasn’t as though NAG needed to humble itself that much to recruit him…
“Our class is running a café in this building, so please come by for a drink. I’ll give you Guildmaster Gu a ton of special extras.”
“Won’t you give it to me for free?”
“Ah, Guildmaster. If you like freebies too much, you’ll go bald. You’re the face of NAG, so you have to protect your good looks.”
At Gidan’s teasing, Gu Sin-hu chuckled and cast a sidelong glance at Seon-u-gyeong.
Seon-u-gyeong fidgeted with his elbow and looked this way and that, his displeasure plainly visible.
Gu Sin-hu clicked his tongue. He had been careful to keep things from becoming a rumor, but was Gidan acquainted with him too?
Was Hyeonak also trying to recruit Seon-u-gyeong?
Was that why he was with Gidan?
Was that why he had been avoiding his calls?
Perhaps he was testing the waters between NAG and Hyeonak.
Should he drive the final nail in?
No, don’t jump to conclusions.
With a sly grin, Gu Sin-hu first tried to casually find out whether Gidan knew.
“So our Jjapso has been getting contacts here and there, I see.”
Gidan flinched and pulled Gru more tightly into his arms.
“What are you talking about?”
Seeing Gidan’s startled expression, Gu Sin-hu raised the corners of his mouth in feigned reassurance.
“You didn’t know? Gyeong is Jjapso. You two aren’t actually that close, are you?”