DI Ch 11

“…”

I don’t know what’s funny that makes the corners of Tae Seong-je’s mouth go up. je’s He didn’t seem offended, so I looked at him, grabbed his wrist, and sat him in a roughly suitable place. I set my backpack down next to him and wiped my face with a wet tissue. Then I took out a first-aid kit and began to bandage him, but first I sprayed disinfectant to wipe away the blood and ease the sting.

“…”

“I, I’m sorry.”

I sprayed too much. He spoke again nonchalantly when I was frightened and flustered.

“What. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

I nodded as I stared blankly at Tae Seong-je. I thought I had nothing to say even if I got hit.  Fortunately, he didn’t crease his brows and simply sat still. The ointment was smoothed over the scars on the back of his hand. I’m going to put a bandage on it now, but honestly, I was a little flustered because he was so calm. Unlike his temperament I knew, he was quite docile.

“What is your name?”

“… Seo Seung-won.”

I was a little bored, so I rummage through my bag. Books, tablets, and socks were scattered in the bag. My classmates were also curious, but they didn’t dig through the contents…

“Why do you carry so many things around? A runaway youth?”

“I’m a college student.”

“It seems that college students these days carry ropes as well. Why are you carrying this?”

I’m going to be kidnapped because of you, so I’m going to use it to run away? Of course, I shouldn’t be honest, but even if I actually say it, he will not believe me. I shrugged my shoulders and responded as casually as I could.

“I just want to use it when I need it.”

“What. Are you going to hang yourself?”

“…”

You speak so beautifully…

I don’t know what kind of expression I made, but Tae Seong-je seemed to have a lot of fun. Contrary to my expectation that he would leave immediately thanks to that, Tae Seong-je and I exchanged trivial words for quite some time. We had a really meaningless conversation while sitting on a flowerbed on a street without lights at night.

In that short time, Tae Seong-je cursed 3 times and said something that got on my nerves 5 times. As expected, his personality was not only not very good, but also extremely bad. It was a way of speaking that could come across as vulgar in some way. Was it because his voice was so nice? Rather, it felt more attractive.

Suddenly, Tae Seong-je stared at my face with his upper body slightly bent. After he hesitated at an embarrassingly close distance and stepped back, he opened his mouth.

“You’re not a high school student, are you?”

“I’m a college student.”

“Where. Korea University?”

“Yes.”

“Looks like you’re studying well. First year?”

“Oh? How did you know?”

Tae Song-je rubbed my cheek because he thought I was still young because of the baby fat, Tae Song-je nodded softly and replied.

“You look like it. You’re stupid.”

… What. Are you picking a fight?

I frowned, but then the moon poked its head through the clouds. It was the moment when Tae Seong-je’s face became clearly visible in the bright moonlight. He smiled coolly. Suddenly, my heart began to pound in surprise. It was nothing like the previous bloody smile I had seen. The handsome face remains the same, but the atmosphere has changed. Only his smile caught my attention as the space around him was distorted.

Tae Seong-je, he got dimples when he smiled…

I have a habit of looking at people’s cheeks. Before my father beat me, his cheeks squirmed or his jaw muscles stiffened, and I developed the habit of not offending my father at this time. As a result, I used to look at many people’s cheeks, and many of them had dimples, but no one had such beautiful dimples.

I followed him with a smile on my face, but my heart skipped a beat and I stepped back. Suddenly, my whole body felt hot, as if it had been covered with hot water. Huh. Uh, what was this? Woo Ji-min, what was this? You didn’t say that Tae Seong-je was this handsome. What was it, what kind of person is this handsome? Woo Ji-min and Kang Moo-hyun were also handsome, but they were incomparable to him.

I didn’t do anything, but my face was all hot. Suddenly, it was difficult to keep my eyes open and look at him, so I slightly lowered my head. I don’t know why I’m doing this. Does the world seem sweet now? My heart started beating wildly. Why? Why was it beating wildly? Was it beating wildly because of Tae Seong-je? Crazy, it seemed that this body was finally broken out of control.

“The nape of your neck is red.”

“I know.”

“So you know what.”

“Well, it’s because of alcohol. And I suddenly run…”

“It doesn’t look like it to me.”

Tae Seong-je smiled and laughed at me. I kept my mouth shut after replying to what he said. He seemed to be waiting for an answer, but I was in no mood to answer. No, what kind of person is getting more handsome when his eyes are folded? If I didn’t keep my mouth shut, I thought I’d spit out nonsense, so I shut my mouth as hard as I could.

Don’t laugh. I didn’t know what was so funny that he kept laughing. It would be less comfortable if he acted as scary as before… In an instant of realization, I lifted my head. Doesn’t that mean I’m not afraid of Tae Seong-je? I hurriedly turned my head toward him, and stared intently at his handsome face.

Tae Seong-je frowned slightly and opened his mouth shyly.

“Why do you open your eyes like that?”

“Wait. I’m concentrating.”

“What.”

I met his gaze without blinking and then covered my face with both hands. It was hard, but I erased the previous impression of Tae Seong-je in my head and evaluated him calmly. Am I scared of Tae Seong-je right now? The answer was, ‘He’s not as scary as I thought.’

I was on the verge of losing my mind because he looked so scary and bleak earlier, but when I was talking to him and we were together, it was just okay. Why I’m not scared? This was a really strange thing. Ah, could it be that this person is not Tae Seong-je? I thought it was a reasonable suspicion and asked him.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

“Are you curious about my name now?”

“And, by any chance, do you have complicated family relationships?”

“What are you saying now. Are you drunk?”

His face, which had been lightly smiling, had wrinkled. I flinched and hesitated for a moment, and suddenly he stretched out his hand to me. I instinctively closed my eyes. Then I woke up to the feeling of rubbing my head. Tae Seong-je laughed when I was dumbfounded.

“Why are you scared?”

“No…”

I closed my eyes without realizing it because I felt pretty good about the big hands that were squirming and messing up my hair. It hurt a little, but I could feel that his hand was relaxed. I couldn’t keep my fingers still because my body, no, my chest, felt itchy.

He was just stroking my hair, but I felt a tingle on the top of my head. Was it because of the size and thickness of his hands or the roughness of his palms… Anyway, he wasn’t all that frightening even now. That doesn’t mean he looked easy. What I mean is that he was very different from what I had read.

This was a different case with Woo Ji-min. The inside, not outside. That’s right, I think his personality is a bit different. How could that be? It’s Tae Seong-je. Contrary to the description which made me feel a knife in every word, enjoys creepy jokes, and only say coercive words in everything, Tae Seong-je in front of me appeared to be someone who kept the line even though he spoke harshly.

My veins were tangled with wonder and anxiety, and I felt like they were about to burst. Was it my mood that caused my heart to beat faster and faster? Unable to sit still, I scratched my forearm with my fingernails. Just because he appeared different shouldn’t mean the story has changed…

“Why do you look like you’re crying again?”

I was just standing still, and Tae Seong-je tapped me on the cheek asking why. The tension was relieved when I met his eyes as he slightly tilted his head to check my complexion. This man is not the Tae Seong-je I know. So, the man in front of me is not Tae Seong-je from the second part of the book.

Originally, he wasn’t such trash despite being a gangster, so it seemed that after some incident, his appearance in the second part changed.  It was natural given the circumstances, but I was too nervous and scared to notice it. Perhaps drinking has dulled my thinking…

“Ouch!”

I was deep in thought when he lightly flicked the tip of my nose with his finger. Tae Seong-je said this while I rubbed my nose and looked at him puzzledly.

“Why do you keep spacing out in front of people?”

Rather than glaring at him, I lowered my gaze and sighed quietly to myself. My liver wasn’t that big to look at Tae Seong-je. Ah, it hurts. He’s really strong. It seemed to hurt more as time went by. No, why are you hitting someone who didn’t do anything? Even though he has a smooth face and looks pretty normal now, Tae Seong-je was still Tae Seong-je.

“Give me your cell phone.”

Tae Seong-je, who had been staring at me for quite some time, suddenly reached out his hand. Cell phone? Secretly huffing, I gave him my cell phone as he said, and he began inputting the number on his own.

“Keep in touch.”

“Yeah.”

I was startled and stopped breathing. As if a strange silence had been created, I hesitated and finally parted my lips.

“But, why…”

“Why?”

Tae Seong-je hesitated. He continued with a refreshing smile.

“Thank you for saving me. Then I’ll buy you a meal.”

I was in a daze, and I was awakened by the thumb rubbing the tip of my nose.

“Weird. I didn’t hit hard.”

“Yes…”

“Did you know you now look like a Rudolph now?”

“Yes…”

Huh… Uh, this. Isn’t this that right now? What was it? Flirting? … Uh, wow.

I bit my tongue as I was amazed. It was not the time to admire, but rather to act quickly. Part 2 Tae Seong-je treats Seo Seung-won very well, just as he did when he first approached him, but after a while, he began to openly demean Seo Seung-won. He was the one who get close to Seo Seung-won but then he said he was not soft and that he has no interest in touching him, sarcastically saying that he was boring because he was quiet and not funny, and later comparing Seo Seung-won to Woo Ji-min and undermining Seo Seung-won’s self-esteem. 

Tae Seong-je doesn’t know Woo Ji-min now. If he doesn’t know Woo Ji-min, it’s the same as not knowing everything. If he doesn’t know Woo Ji-min, there’s no reason for him to meet Seo Seung-won, who was not to his taste. But he’s interested in Seo Seung-won? I began to examine various situations, but there was only one conclusion. Error. It all made no sense.

Then what should I do in this situation?

I swallowed my saliva down. I’m again faced with a choice. Accept it? Or not? What if the second part gets tangled after accepting it? But what if this is meant to be? While I was nervous, Tae Seong-je’s phone rang. Glancing at Tae Seong-je’s phone screen, Moon Gyeong-rok’s name appeared.

Tae Seong-je asked for my understanding by simply lifting a finger and started talking on the phone. It’s an ambiguous situation to run away like this. My cell phone somehow looked like a hostage. His hands were very big as he rolled my phone like a toy while talking on the phone.

Tae Seong-je is extremely confident, selfish, and even rude to the point of being crazy.

Even so, it wasn’t unbearably bad. Is it because he’s Tae Seong-je in Part 1? I know nothing about the young Tae Seong-je who didn’t know Woo Ji-min. How old is he? Woo Ji-min is in his third year, so Tae Seong-je would be twenty-eight. Seo Seung-won is twenty, so wait.

Wait… How old am I now?

My heart sank. Seo Seung-won is twenty years old, and I, I… My heart began to pound quickly as my pulse was rising. I was suffocated for a moment. No, don’t be afraid. I tried to touch my face with my fingernails, but then I pushed them down and gripped my forearm. My forearm hurt from being scratched by my fingernails, but this was better. I focused on the pain to force myself to wake up.

I couldn’t be afraid anymore. I had sobered up and was already stressed enough, but it was clear that if I piled up more here, I would see blood. Calm down. While trembling to calm myself down, I tried to brainwash myself. No problem. Because I wrote down my memories. There is a laptop in the bag, so I can look at it.

The anxiety did not go away, but I continued to comfort myself.  It’s okay. Let’s calm down and check it out slowly. There’s no rush, I’ll read it when I part with Tae Seong-je. Let’s read it slowly then. It’s all right. I’m all right…

“Ugh.”