Chapter 17
“How about breaking up with him soon.”
“…….”
“With Kim Minjun.”
I’m not usually the type to get intimidated, but this time was a bit of an exception.
Just look at the expression rising on Seo Ahyeon’s face after I uttered those two brief sentences.
‘That’s chilling…….’
I was worried I might be dragged off somewhere without a trace and quietly killed.
Of course, I was speaking figuratively; Seo Ahyeon wouldn’t actually harm me.
Even so, the glare she was giving me right now was absolutely vicious. Probably the fiercest it had ever been.
We had never exactly been on good terms. But situations like this were much rarer than one might expect.
That was only because I never deliberately provoked her or crossed the line……
But today, I’d set the first precedent. Should I celebrate the occasion?
Snicker-
When I let out a hollow laugh at such pointless thoughts, Seo Ahyeon’s eyes grew even more ferocious.
I knew perfectly well why she was reacting like this.
‘Wouldn’t I be the crazy one if I didn’t?’
Let’s think about it. Even if our relationship had been generally amicable—say, that of reasonably close friends—
if I suddenly came out with something like, ‘You should probably break up with your boyfriend now,’ wouldn’t the atmosphere obviously go to hell?
And our relationship wasn’t even remotely that amicable, so there was no need to explain how awful the current situation was.
But.
‘So what?’
If I had cared enough to worry about something like that, I wouldn’t have brought it up in the first place.
The same went for Seo Ahyeon merely glaring at me in silence as though she wanted to kill me.
She wore a thoroughly murderous expression, but she didn’t seem particularly flustered.
There was no doubt that what I had said was excessive.
But if it was Han Taeyang, it wasn’t particularly surprising.
“You know he doesn’t like you. After being dragged around by him for a whole year, you can’t still be unaware of that.”
Satisfied that I had done an excellent job of playing the part of a proper delinquent last year, I continued.
Seo Ahyeon’s expression grew colder still, and the atmosphere between us naturally froze over.
As I said earlier, I didn’t care.
If anything, I sneered openly right in her face.
“It’s not as though he feels no affection for you. If he didn’t even find you attractive as a woman, he wouldn’t keep you around as his girlfriend. Even so.”
“……You fucking bastard.”
Then, when I began speaking as though I intended to add something even worse, Seo Ahyeon stopped holding back and exploded.
With an expression more murderous, vicious, and downright hostile than usual, she cursed under her breath.
“This is my first and last warning. If you say one more word, I’ll kill you.”
“……”
Saaaaa-
Seo Ahyeon openly threatened me in earnest, even raising her mana.
A fierce violet haze rose from her entire body.
I looked at her with eyes that betrayed no particular emotion and moved my lips.
“You know, don’t you? Kim Minjun only sees you as something like a replacement for Baek Seol-ah……”
KRAAAANG!!
That was the end of her verbal warning. Seo Ahyeon immediately made her intentions clear through action.
In other words, she swung her fist at a speed my eyes could barely follow without using mana.
It passed by my cheek, missing it by precisely about one centimeter. Her small fist displayed destructive power utterly disproportionate to its size.
With a piercing whoosh that sent a chill down my spine, her punch cleanly demolished the wall behind me.
Rattle, rattle……
The only thing worthy of pity was the academy wall, which had suddenly acquired a hole about the size of a girl’s fist.
I surveyed the wall and Seo Ahyeon with a sympathetic expression and a blatantly two-faced gaze.
It was certainly a violent reaction, but still.
Even after I had gone this far, all she had managed was a warning punch that merely grazed my cheek.
‘Still the same, huh.’
It was pitiful and heartbreaking. There was a reason I was particularly concerned about Seo Ahyeon, even though I had always been wary of growing too close to the heroines.
The others…… Baek Seol-ah or Ryu Chae-eun, for instance, at least knew how to fend for themselves.
Seo Ahyeon wasn’t like that. She couldn’t be.
Her personality was simply far too timid.
Someone might ask where exactly the timid part was in everything she had shown me until now.
But I could state this with certainty: the woman narrowing her eyes at me right now was the most timid girl in the academy.
Even while knowing how her boyfriend regarded her and how he treated her.
Unable to bring herself to abandon her affection for him, and lacking the courage to do so, she clung to him against her better judgment.
‘She’s basically a battered wife…….’
Whenever I looked at her, she was such a pitiable girl that I couldn’t help giving her a sympathetic look.
Look at her now. Just seeing those endlessly wavering eyes was enough to make my own eyes grow moist.
Our distance had become extremely close in the process of her throwing that punch.
We were close enough for her to use physical force against me with either her fists or her feet whenever she wished.
Even so, Seo Ahyeon merely stood there.
As if keeping that distance was all she could do.
“Naturally.”
At that point, I continued, shrugging my shoulders at the flinching Seo Ahyeon.
“I have no intention of forcing or compelling you. This command authority and all that—if I’m being honest, using it would be overstepping. What could I even do with a bet from a ranking match?”
Did I really plan to make Seo Ahyeon break up with Kim Minjun using such paltry command authority and that level of coercion?
I had never entertained such a flimsy idea in the first place.
My aim was merely to shock Seo Ahyeon at least once.
And, if possible, to plant some hesitation in that opening as well.
“If you don’t want to break up, do as you please. It’s your choice and your responsibility. Honestly, we aren’t close enough for me to worry about something like that, are we?”
“……The bastard who knows that is saying this now……”
At my brazen follow-up, Seo Ahyeon let out a hollow breath in a voice full of resentment.
To be fair, even I thought it sounded a little shameless after hearing myself say it.
Even so, wasn’t I a blonde tanned delinquent, at least in name?
This level of shamelessness had to be a basic requirement.
Well, if not, then never mind.
“Anyway……. Think it over. Try questioning yourself about why I’m going this far, too. Don’t you think it’s time you came to your senses?”
Feeling that I had said everything I needed to, I wrapped up the conversation with a leisurely stretch.
Entirely on my own terms, of course. When I casually started to turn away, Seo Ahyeon snapped at me.
“Hey! You suddenly spout all that nonsense and try to leave just like that? Are you seriously insane?”
“What, then? Shall we have a proper conversation? Go to a café and have an honest-to-goodness date?”
“What the hell……!”
Of course, she and I were as incompatible as ever. From my perspective, it was pretty good value.
At my lightly mocking reply, Seo Ahyeon looked ready to boil over.
With that final remark, I put the finishing touch on things by thoroughly rubbing her raw.
“Even if you glare and scream your head off, without something like the ranking match as an excuse, you’re too much of a coward to even throw a proper punch at a bastard like me.”
“……!?”
“I’m leaving. If you ever decide to break up, let me know. I’ll at least give you some advice as a friend.”
All things considered, of all the conversations during the year since I had fallen into this world and gotten to know Seo Ahyeon, this was the one that had made her angriest.
Seo Ahyeon shouted at my retreating back, ‘Who said I’m your friend!?’, but I answered simply, ‘A friend in the same grade~.’
She sure gave an incredible reaction. I chuckled and walked out of the building.
*****
“Phew.”
There wasn’t much I could do while the ranking match was underway. We didn’t have classes today, either.
If anything, I usually returned to the dormitory and sprawled out for a nap.
‘I’m feeling a little tired.’
For some reason, I wasn’t in the mood to do that today. Had I used up some of my energy without realizing it?
It wasn’t as though getting into a battle of nerves with Seo Ahyeon was anything new, but……
Earlier, I had blatantly crossed the line to provoke her.
I was confident nothing would come of it, but I couldn’t help feeling tense as well.
What if Seo Ahyeon, blinded by rage, had really decided to hit me? I probably would have had to spend at least a few weeks in the hospital.
Of course, if I went all out, subduing her wouldn’t be difficult, but I did have a conscience.
‘If I tap-danced all over a line I had a moral duty to respect, I had to accept some punishment.’
Anyway, nothing had happened in the end, so it was a good thing for me.
No matter how dainty her fist was, even one punch to the face would inevitably have left me with a black eye.
I had said everything I wanted to say without suffering any meaningful physical damage(?), so how fortunate was that?
Good, good.
“……”
After that little bout of self-praise, I slouched down on a bench and looked up at the sky.
The sky above Cheongun Academy was blue and serene, completely indifferent to what was going on inside me.
I reluctantly wore a bitter, self-deprecating smile.
“……What the hell am I doing?”
That really was the question. Seriously, what was I doing?
Hadn’t all my resolve become pointless this way?
How long ago was it that I vowed not to interfere with the lovey-dovey couples of Part 1 of the original story and swore to maintain my status as a thorough outsider?
Somehow, all those resolutions, determinations, and vows looked set to be shattered within this very month.
Baek Seol-ah, whom I had already taken to bed—with the male protagonist’s official approval, no less—was beyond question.
And now, I couldn’t deny that I seemed to be interfering with Seo Ahyeon beyond what was necessary, too.
‘Still, it couldn’t be helped.’
It wasn’t that I had no excuses. The former could be chalked up entirely to Lee Hyunseong’s fault.
In the latter case, the relationship between Seo Ahyeon and Kim Minjun had turned out to be quite different from what I had expected.
I believe I mentioned it in passing at some point.
This world was certainly based on the novel I had read, but it wasn’t a place that simply copied and followed the original.
To put it another way, the novel felt more like a written record of this world, which differed somewhat from my own……
Strictly speaking, if we were being precise about which came first, this world came first, while the novel might not have come first at all.
That was simply my intuition. I had no clear evidence or anything.
Anyway, Seo Ahyeon x Kim Minjun in this world was, well, how should I put it?
It didn’t have the same feeling as those lovey-dovey couples from Part 1 whom I had cherished and loved. It would be fair to say that I couldn’t feel it at all.
Entirely because of the way Kim Minjun had changed.
Maybe the original had failed to properly portray his true nature, or perhaps his nature had been corrupted by the butterfly effect caused by my presence in this world.
Either way, that bastard didn’t love Seo Ahyeon. He merely kept her around like a plaything.
In other words, I found it deeply distasteful. That was how I felt as someone who had loved this world and been fond of its heroines.
“Should I just steal her away……”
For me, who had always been wary of NTR developments beginning at my own initiative, to mutter that—even as a meaningless soliloquy—
That pretty much said it all, didn’t it? And then.
“S-steal her away……? W-what?”
“……Huh?”
It was right then that the voice of a male student I knew fairly well reached my ears as I lounged against the bench and stared up at the sky.
I lifted myself away from the backrest and returned my gaze to where it had been, where a man stood frozen in an awkward half-crouch.
I said, looking bewildered,
“Lee Hyunseong?”
“Uh, um……. Hello, Han Taeyang.”
“……Why are you here?”