RFT 3

First, the possession from three years ago.

At that time, Do Ye-jun was a graduate student. I have no idea why on earth Do Ye-jun made such a choice, but Baek Yu-min, who suddenly had to undergo a graduate program in a major he had never encountered before, felt like his head was about to explode.

Fortunately, he was in the final stages of his master’s program, and the thesis was nearly complete. By squeezing everything he had out of the drafts Do Ye-jun had left behind, he barely managed to get approval and graduate safely.

That took a total of six months.

During that time, because he was busy cramming major-specific knowledge into his brain, he could hardly pay attention to the main couple’s narrative.

That was likely the point when Cheon Sa-hyun, who had been working as a director at a Cheonryung Group subsidiary based overseas, was appointed to the head office and appeared like a parachuted executive.

Since that was the time when the two were starting to flirt, playing out a romantic comedy of bickering and tension, there wasn’t much room to intervene anyway.

It was only when Han Si-yeon approached the energy-drink-soaked Do Ye-jun to request ‘dating advice’ that he began to intervene in the storyline in earnest.

This was the scene where Do Ye-jun first appeared in the novel as the female protagonist’s friend.

Since it was a point where Cheon Sa-hyun had not yet removed his angelic mask, the dating advice was utterly mundane. In short, from the perspective of a dying college student, it was just a story about a couple acting all lovey-dovey.

Throughout the stories about Cheon Sa-hyun—a man who had everything: kind, considerate, stolen Read on Read BL Novelscontenttasteful, and even handsome, an egoistically perfect man—Do Ye-jun’s eyes remained dead.

Han Si-yeon’s concern was: ‘I’ve fallen for someone, but I’m worried because he’s so popular. He’s truly a perfect person. And he’s kind to everyone… does he really like me? Am I just delusional?’

In a fit of impulse, Do Ye-jun wanted to tell her, ‘Yeah, you’re delusional. He’s a fucking psychopath and he’ll kidnap and imprison you later,’ but he exercised patience, suppressing his true feelings to offer this advice:

‘There is no such thing as a perfect person in this world.’

He meant that what Cheon Sa-hyun was wearing was a mask, so she should look closely at the truth beneath it.

‘If you want to know a person’s feelings, look into their eyes.’

He meant that even if the bastard pretended to be normal, his eyes were crazed, so she should watch out and avoid him.

However, that advice worked in the exact opposite direction of what Do Ye-jun intended, and the romantic front between the two grew deeper and deeper. Shortly after, Do Ye-jun was invited to a meal with Cheon Sa-hyun in his capacity as Han Si-yeon’s friend.

Since it was the first meeting with that Cheon Sa-hyun, Do Ye-jun spent several days preparing thoroughly.

And on the day the historic first meeting with Cheon Sa-hyun took place, Do Ye-jun did his absolute best to obstruct Cheon Sa-hyun and Han Si-yeon from start to finish.

It was still the early part of the story, a period when Cheon Sa-hyun had not yet revealed his true nature. He had to make the most of this timing.

Once Cheon Sa-hyun turned into a villain, there would be no way to handle him.

So, Do Ye-jun sat right next to Cheon Sa-hyun, intentionally acting distracting, asking useless and annoying questions, and spouting nonsense—like how Han Si-yeon’s family was strict, or how any boyfriend she dated had to pass a test by her childhood friend, himself—in an obnoxious manner.

But…

As a result, Do Ye-jun’s operation was a complete failure. The cause of the defeat was underestimating Cheon Sa-hyun while he was wearing the mask. The description of Cheon Sa-hyun as a perfect lover was merely a depiction in the novel.

He had overlooked that.

Cheon Sa-hyun’s personality didn’t change in the latter half; he had been hiding his personality in the beginning.

As the meal reached its peak, Do Ye-jun stood up, saying he was going to the restroom. The mistake was that he had drunk too much alcohol from the start in an attempt to overact.

On his way out of the restroom, Do Ye-jun was suddenly grabbed by Cheon Sa-hyun.

Cheon Sa-hyun looked down at him with a face so chilling it made his spine freeze—an expression that had not been seen until then. The moment he faced that look, Do Ye-jun couldn’t help but hold his breath.

“I don’t know why you’ve been acting like that for a while now…”

Cheon Sa-hyun scanned Do Ye-jun up and down. He made it very clear that he found him annoying.

Sensing a threat, Do Ye-jun instinctively checked Cheon Sa-hyun’s hands. Cheon Sa-hyun’s aura was as cold and terrifying [unauthorized copyclass="wm" style="opacity:0;font-size:1px;user-select:all;">unauthorized copy]as if he were holding a knife. It was a pressure so intense that if he had been holding a weapon, Do Ye-jun would have been killed in an instant.

Fortunately, there was nothing in Cheon Sa-hyun’s hands. Instead of a weapon, he saw white, straight fingers. He thought that if those knuckles were hit, it would probably hurt quite a bit.

Do Ye-jun cowered. It was a survival instinct.

Cheon Sa-hyun whispered in a cold voice into Do Ye-jun’s ear.

“Know when to stop. There’s a limit to my patience.”

It was a common warning, but the moment it came out of Cheon Sa-hyun’s mouth, it was practically a death threat.

Do Ye-jun staggered before finally managing to lean his back against the wall. Cheon Sa-hyun was looking down at him with an expressionless face.

“As I thought, you’re quick-witted, but you were just pretending not to be.”

It was then that Do Ye-jun first realized there was something more terrifying than a master’s thesis.

Why hadn’t he known that Cheon Sa-hyun not removing his mask was just the story within the novel? Why hadn’t he realized that there were definitely stories outside the novel that the author did not describe?

Why hadn’t he considered how Cheon Sa-hyun found out every single move Han Si-yeon made and approached her under the guise of coincidence?

That day, Cheon Sa-hyun’s eleven-digit phone number was saved into Do Ye-jun’s [Read on Read BL visit our siteNovels]phone. They were numbers that Cheon Sa-hyun had entered one by one himself.

After that, Do Ye-jun lived each day with the mindset of mere survival.

He endured, believing he had fallen into a massive apocalyptic world and that if he slipped up even slightly, he would be devoured by Cheon Sa-hyun, who was scarier than a zombie.

While gradually leaking information about Han Si-yeon—who was a close friend of the original owner of the body he possessed—he constantly rationalized it to himself, saying it was all for the sake of survival.

Then, there were nights when he stayed awake in tears, overcome by a sudden sense of self-loathing.

From the point the story moved into Part 2, Han Si-yeon grew more haggard by the day…

But by then, Do Ye-jun had already become a walking corpse.

Do Ye-jun, who unintentionally witnessed how a client’s employee who tried to harass Han Si-yeon met his end, gradually lost his voice.

He lost his vitality, too.

In the novel, the process was dismissed with a single sentence: [Cheon Sa-hyun did not leave him alone.]

After that, only the ‘result’ was mentioned—that the employee later sought out Han Si-yeon with a completely swollen, ruined face to beg for forgiveness.

At the time, he had read it without much thought, seeing it as a common ‘satisfying’ [unauthorized copy]stolen contentwm: unauthorized copy -->scene typical of a male protagonist…

But seeing it from inside that reality, it was nothing short of a thriller.

Watching a man who already had no hair lose even his seed, Do Ye-jun re-evaluated Cheon Sa-hyun.

First of all, when handling matters, Cheon Sa-hyun prefers to move personally rather than using other people. The numerous ‘hands and feet’ by his side seemed to be mere screens set up to take the fall if something went wrong and the police or other authorities got involved.

In the novel, the results appeared so quickly that he assumed his subordinates had handled it, but everything had gone through Cheon Sa-hyun’s own hands and feet.

Cheon Sa-hyun didn’t trust people to begin with. Not even the people by his side.

As befitting a character who was the main male lead in the early part of the novel, Cheon Sa-hyun had gone through an unhappy childhood and a growth process surrounded by enemies, becoming a typical psychopath lead with a lack of empathy.

The kind of character who only begins to become human after receiving love for the first time from the female protagonist and experiencing the emotion of love.

Everyone who reads such stories has probably thought this once or twice:

‘He’s a psychopath? Then how does he learn to love? Is rehabilitation even possible?’

The truth, which could be called a plot hole that was romantically glossed over by literary license…

Do Ye-jun found out firsthand. To be precise, he found out semi-forcibly.

To put it simply: people cannot be fixed.

The male lead simply loves the female lead so much that he hides his original personality and spends his entire life acting to be the perfect lover for her. It doesn’t mean he is rehabilitated or becomes a new person.

People who have read a fair amount of romance novels might say, ‘That’s actually better.’ A man who hides his nature for a lifetime for the sake of the female lead—how romantic.

But what if that becomes reality?

What if you aren’t the female lead who is fooled by the act, knowing nothing, but a side character who has to watch all of it with wide-open eyes?

Do Ye-jun was essentially in a state of ‘The King has Donkey Ears.’

Unintentionally, he came to know Cheon Sa-hyun’s past and his antagonistic figures—things even the female protagonist didn’t know. Don’t ask how he found out.

Because he found out ‘by chance,’ truly.