“Tae-hyun, my uncle wants me to ask you something. About Donghwa Bio, is it true that they’re doing a rights offering soon?”
The school kids were desperate to read Joo Tae-hyun’s intentions from even the slightest twitch of his lips, and they assigned meaning to the smallest things. It was common for them to piece together their speculations like a puzzle, exaggerating rumors as they went.
“Oh, what are friends for? Let me get some of that chaebol friend’s benefit, huh?”
“Aren’t you, like, not Joo Tae-hyun’s friend…?”
“Yeah, Joo Tae-hyun doesn’t look happy. Stop it.”
“No, you guys don’t get it. Last time Joo Tae-hyun and I were in gym class—”
It’s no longer surprising that kids who aren’t even close to me keep pretending to be friendly. I’ve gotten used to them bringing news I’ve never even heard of and demanding corporate secrets, and to them going on and on about how DH’s Joo Tae-hyun is my friend, my best friend, just because we’re in the same class. That doesn’t mean I’m not annoyed anymore, though.
“Cut it out, seriously.”
Unable to bear it any longer, I said a word with a blank face, and the guy who was claiming to be Joo Tae-hyun’s best friend tucked his tail and ran. Judging by the way he was muttering “that bastard has no manners” as he left, I wouldn’t be surprised if a post goes up somewhere on the internet today.
DH Group’s youngest son, Joo Tae-hyun. Probably because he grew up spoiled at home, his personality is fucked.
But what can I do? I’m just not cut out to smoothly navigate situations with a flexible face like my Hyungs or older sisters. I especially don’t know how to overwhelm people with a smile like Seo Baek-han.
Besides, no matter how cold my face is, I can’t completely shake off those clueless bastards who cling to me.
So Joo Tae-hyun firmly resolved to manage his face like this in the future.
I used to get angry when I first found ridiculous nonsense about me online, but now I don’t even care. Maybe it’s because I know what kind of guys write those posts, but even pouring out anger feels like a waste.
‘It’s a compliment. It seems like you’re good at managing your expression even though you’re still young.’
‘People can’t read your thoughts easily, so what’s not to like?’
And Joo Tae-hyun has finally come to understand the meaning of the advice Seo Baek-han gave him in the past.
Anyway, my family is too busy praising me, saying I’m doing well and that I’m pretty, whether I narrow my eyes or square them. It’s enough as long as I don’t get misunderstood by the people who are important to me, right?
Well, I can’t just keep my mouth shut like this when there are royal family members or important people I need to impress… but I want to think about that when the time comes.
Now that all four of his wisdom teeth have grown in, the adolescent boy was just tired.
“Tae-hyun, I’m going to film a video for my social media, can you do it with me? I want to get some of your views.”
“……”
“It’s not hard. Just put your hand over your head like this to make cat ears—”
Ignoring the unfamiliar face who was rambling about a ridiculous request, Joo Tae-hyun adjusted the bag on his shoulder.
There must be a reason why they keep sticking to me like this, even though they know I’ll refuse.
Based on past experience, there’s a high probability that the same gang members who are awkwardly loitering nearby are secretly filming me, rather than the guy who’s trying to get me to take a picture or video with him.
“Hey, you there! Student! Put your phone down. Don’t take pictures!”
“I didn’t take a picture of Joo Tae-hyun, okay?”
“Then show me your phone for a second.”
“What are you talking about? Who are you to check someone else’s phone? Do you have the, uh, what is it? The right? Isn’t that an invasion of privacy? Huh?”
“Yeah, you wanna get reported for excessive security or something? Should I write a post on the internet?”
“Are you threatening me right now? And you probably already know, but because of the incident a few months ago, filming other students on campus is strictly prohibited. That’s why private security guards like us are hired.”
“I said I didn’t take a picture of Joo Tae-hyun! And who, who’s threatening who!”
“Yeah! Is this Joo Tae-hyun’s house? Is this the DH kingdom?”
“I told you, we’re not hired just for Joo Tae-hyun.”
“Hey, hey, let’s just go. Don’t you remember Hwang Hee-joon dropping out?”
“No, seriously. Was I asking for something big? He’s acting like some kind of prince. So annoying.”
The strange thing is that while they want to get close to me, they’re also trying to find fault with me somehow.
At the beginning of the semester, Joo Tae-hyun had stared blankly at the classmates who were acting strangely in front of him. There was a low-class dance that was popular at the time… what was it called, anyway? Some BJ would dance it when they received donations, and Joo Tae-hyun had never seen anything like it in his life, so he was very embarrassed. He was just bewildered because he couldn’t understand why they were doing that in front of others.
And someone who was there secretly took a picture of Joo Tae-hyun looking dumbfounded and posted it on the internet.
Enjoyable Deokjil, Bandnet🐰🐉
The Holy Bone Prince’s bewildered face after seeing commoners’ clowning for the first time
(picture.jpg)
With a bizarre title like that.
Well, my parents, Hyungs, and older sisters have been suffering from strangely taken news photos for years, so I figured that was just how it was. To borrow the expression the school kids use when they’re talking shit about me, I was born with a cheat-level booster, so I figured I had to put up with this much inconvenience.
But I couldn’t stand the fact that the student who wrote that post demanded money from me in exchange for deleting the photo.
‘Hey, you know~ I don’t just have one picture of you.’
‘……’
‘You know that once something’s preserved on the internet, it follows you forever, right? You’re going to be in the news a lot in the future, so you don’t want weird memes popping up with you every time, do you?’
I don’t know why he added such a stupid line, but thanks to that, I was able to add a charge of extortion. Joo Tae-hyun, of course, didn’t put up with it, and he called a lawyer and presented the neatly organized evidence.
My family, of course, breathed fire and were furious. The DH Group took a hard-line legal approach, so the incident was widely reported in the news and articles.
To the public, who were dissatisfied with the DH family for keeping Joo Tae-hyun hidden and not showing him off, they were able to retort, “Does being a celebrity mean you have to put up with invasions of privacy and this kind of low-level extortion?”
As the incident came to a close, the student was no longer seen at school, and the number of Joo Tae-hyun’s photos circulating on the internet was significantly reduced.
And after this incident, Joo Tae-hyun was listed on the very first page, the first line, of the portal site’s biographical dictionary. This was definitely not something I was happy about.
‘Haha. I’m right, aren’t I? But you can seem kind even if you’re aloof, and you can seem endlessly difficult even if you’re always smiling. In a place like this, you just have to be in your most comfortable state, in your most confident form. It’s a battlefield.’
Whenever I see myself alienated among my peers, I repeat the words Seo Baek-han said.
Battlefield.
The reason why Joo Tae-hyun didn’t drop out right away, the reason why he decided to endure at least one grade because it was something he wanted to do, was because he was deeply impressed by Seo Baek-han’s expression of calling the act of living and interacting with people a war.
Was it easy for Seo Baek-han? He, too, must have gone through countless situations similar to mine, or perhaps even worse.
If so, Joo Tae-hyun didn’t want to give up on this war either. In this battle where Seo Baek-han realized something, I also wanted to gain my own realization.
Of course, I knew that continuing such a wasteful battle, where simply enduring was not the answer, would only wear me down, so I was planning to endure for only one year, then drop out and take the GED right away.
In the early days of enrollment, when I couldn’t adapt, I gritted my teeth and said I would graduate no matter what, but now I’ve realized that knowing when to retreat is also a wise tactic.
I also realized that expensive tuition doesn’t provide a safe filter.
“Young Master, are you okay?”
“Yes. Let’s go quickly. Are you hurt?”
“Oh, we’re fine.”
After taking the GED, I’ll go straight into high school courses, and if I get early admission to college… I’m planning to distance myself from people, using the excuse that I’m constantly out of sync because I’m younger than my peers.
This was how Joo Tae-hyun learned to protect himself on the battlefield.