By Zephyria 
My heart plummeted. My chest began to pound wildly. My hand instinctively went to my sternum. I greeted him as calmly and politely as possible.
“Ah. Hello, Sunbae.”
“My dear, weren’t you going home?”
My mouth felt dry. I reacted calmly, trying not to show my agitation. Fortunately, a plausible excuse quickly came to mind.
“Ah. I, uh, remembered I left my textbook in the classroom because I had homework.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Yeon Su-hwan smiled kindly. It was the same face that had soothed me at the hospital when Seong Hae-min had his accident. If I weren’t being subtly interrogated, I would have just thought he was very caring.
But he was too suspicious to be that innocent.
Didn’t he run off when he heard the whistle earlier? When and why did he come back to school? When did he spot me? He didn’t see anything, did he? Like me with Do Yun-hyeok, or me hanging the whistle on the PE office doorknob…
Worries piled up, one after another. The palm covering my chest grew damp.
“Hae-jun…”
Yeon Su-hwan murmured softly. His lips curved into a smile, but his eyes held no mirth. My neck tingled as if a cold hand had brushed over it.
For the first time, facing Yeon Su-hwan, I thought I saw madness in his eyes.
“Why are you taking Do Yun-hyeok’s side so much? Hmm? My dear.”
“Gasp, …What?”
My neck stiffened, and I coughed. ‘My dear’! My eyes twitched.
I thought he was fundamentally a kind and friendly person, despite his strange ‘kuk’ laugh, but I was wrong. Just like his behavior at lunch earlier, Yeon Su-hwan was someone who could strangle a person with a smile.
“Why are you covering for that bastard so much?”
…What should I say?
But right now, I needed to buy time with words rather than find the right answer. My brain, which had been working so quickly moments ago, now felt as hard as a stone.
I had no choice. I quickly opted for a predictable, cliché, but therefore easiest and simplest course of action. I feigned ignorance as nonchalantly as possible.
“Covering… for whom?”
I even tilted my head, pretending not to understand what he meant.
Yeon Su-hwan, who had been looking down at me with raised eyebrows, smiled gently and reached out to pat my cheek. From Yeon Su-hwan’s sleeve, which drew closer, came the scent of dust and iron.
An unpleasant smell of blood. I instinctively turned my face away.
“Oh, dear. Did it smell?”
Yeon Su-hwan exaggeratedly raised his arm and sniffed his sleeve. All the while, he maintained his gentle smile. The discrepancy between his actions and expression sent shivers down my spine.
“……”
“Hae-jun.”
When I didn’t react, Yeon Su-hwan abandoned his theatrical act and took a step closer, calling my name kindly.
“I really like you. That’s why I’m letting this slide. You know, I’m very lenient with people I like.”
“……”
Like me, my foot!
Lamenting the irreversible past, I just blinked. He just rambled on, so I had nothing to say.
“My dear doesn’t know what kind of bastard Do Yun-hyeok is, right?”
“……”
What do you want me to do!
Although his face was smiling and coaxing me, it wasn’t hard to read that Yeon Su-hwan’s true intention was the opposite. He was reprimanding and criticizing me. Cold sweat trickled down my back.
I was filled with regret. I should have just gone home with Seong Hae-min instead of meddling.
Looking at Yeon Su-hwan’s gentle smile, I thought for the first time that the Four Heavenly Kings were angels. At least they didn’t squeeze the life out of someone while smiling like this, making my blood run cold. Of course, there was Min Si-hu, who showed signs of being a psychopath, but compared to Yeon Su-hwan, Min Si-hu was a watered-down version.
Lost in thought, I thought I misheard Yeon Su-hwan’s quickly spoken words.
“That bastard killed someone.”
“What?”
I snapped my head up in surprise.
What did he just say?
Yeon Su-hwan’s smile was gone. This time, as if to make sure I heard him clearly, he emphasized every word.
“He killed someone.”
“……”
First, my hands and feet went numb.
Then, my head went numb.
…What?
Killed someone?
It was the first time I had ever heard such a thing. I had read descriptions of Do Yun-hyeok being despicable in novels many times… but he killed someone? A murderer?
‘But how is he attending school without going to jail?’
The story was so far beyond common sense that it felt unreal. I realized Yeon Su-hwan was observing my reaction and quickly regained my composure. Suddenly, Do Yun-hyeok’s words about having a feud with Yeon Su-hwan came to mind. My intuition told me this was related.
The reason Yeon Su-hwan was so determined to eliminate Do Yun-hyeok, the presidential election seat, 10 billion in inheritance, industrial espionage, family enemy. One of the outlandish reasons I had conjured up was somewhat correct. Whether they were family or not, they were enemies.
“Now that you know, stop covering for that murderer, Hae-jun.”
“……”
“If my dear keeps doing this… I might really lose my mind.”
‘Lose my mind’? If I had a ‘mind’ to lose, it felt like it would have already spun off and fallen away.
Yeon Su-hwan smiled. The eyes, curved gently, glinted. Just as a hidden knife cannot be eternally concealed in one’s belly.
“Understood?”
“……”
“Your answer?”
“Yes? Yes…”
I answered obediently to get out of the situation. I didn’t want to provoke the madman. Even in the face of shocking news, my own safety was the most important thing.
Yeon Su-hwan didn’t seem to intend to punish me immediately for helping Do Yun-hyeok, and his expression softened as he patted my back. It felt like he was granting me a generous pardon, forgiving me this once. Although he smiled like a kind and gentle person, seeing his true nature, I didn’t feel that way. He was a sinister and suspicious person, whether he smiled or not.
“Kuk. Well then, let’s go home.”
Yeon Su-hwan walked me home.
There was no conversation on the way. The path we had walked countless times felt incredibly long.
❖ ❖ ❖
“Hae-jun! Why are you so late? If Su-hwan Sunbae hadn’t contacted me, I would have gone to the police station to report you.”
“I just realized I left something in the classroom.”
When I finally arrived home, Seong Hae-min rushed out barefoot to greet me. Despite the late hour, he had waited for me and hadn’t eaten yet. His excessive worry was still the same.
Even while eating, my mind was elsewhere.
‘Do Yun-hyeok and Yeon Su-hwan, murderer Do Yun-hyeok, Yeon Su-hwan’s enemy.’
What on earth did Do Yun-hyeok being a murderer mean? Did Do Yun-hyeok physically kill someone? If so, as long as Korean detectives were doing their jobs properly, Do Yun-hyeok should be in prison. But he was attending school perfectly fine, and wasn’t he even called the ‘face’ of Jeseong High School?
Was he merely involved in a death case?
Or does Do Yun-hyeok have powerful backing that allows him to get away with murder?
Or, was he talking about social murder?
“Hae-jun, is the food not to your liking?”
“No, it’s delicious.”
“Then why aren’t you eating well? Aren’t you hungry? Are you feeling unwell?”
I considered various possibilities, but thinking alone was pointless. I looked at Seong Hae-min, who was asking me questions with a worried expression, and asked,
“Hae-min.”
“Yes.”
“Do Yun-hyeok… have you ever heard anything about him killing someone, or anything similar?”
“What? I knew the mad dog was a scoundrel, but was he that wicked? That bastard dared to… our Hae-jun…”
“Huh? No, no! That’s not it.”
“Then?”
Is this not it?
Seong Hae-min seemed to be hearing this for the first time. If Seong Hae-min, one of the Four Heavenly Kings and a central figure among delinquents, didn’t know, it meant most ordinary students wouldn’t know either.
In that case, either only Yeon Su-hwan believed Do Yun-hyeok committed murder, or someone stepped in to completely suppress the story, or Yeon Su-hwan was outright lying without any basis or possibility. One of the three.
I changed my question.
“Do you know Yeon Su-hwan Sunbae well?”
“Hmm… I think I know a little more than others do.”
Seong Hae-min answered readily, as if he wasn’t curious why I was suddenly asking this. He even looked at me expectantly, waiting for the next question.
“Then, do you know why Yeon Su-hwan Sunbae hates Do Yun-hyeok so much?”
“I don’t know that either. Someone asked him once, and Sunbae’s demeanor was incredibly menacing.”
Seong Hae-min’s explanation followed, seeing my disappointed expression.
According to Seong Hae-min, Yeon Su-hwan had disliked Do Yun-hyeok from the start, long before the Four Heavenly Kings entered Seoyeon High School and learned of Do Yun-hyeok’s existence. The rapid deterioration of relations between Seoyeon High and Jeseong High was also something Yeon Su-hwan initiated.
While Jeseong High and Seoyeon High had been rivals in the past, they weren’t so hostile that they tried to destroy each other. However, the situation changed when Yeon Su-hwan declared Jeseong High an ‘enemy’ this year.
This was something I had never known before.
The novel had portrayed the rivalry between Seoyeon High and Jeseong High as if it had always been that way, and this hidden history was not introduced. So, was the conflict between Do Yun-hyeok and the Four Heavenly Kings an unavoidable fate? I looked at Seong Hae-min, whose innocent eyes blinked like a cow chewing cud. It was a headache.
‘Then… how am I supposed to resolve the issues related to Seong Hae-min’s death?’