“Gyeongwon, you’re actually doing fine. My friend’s son is preparing for Stanford University and enrolled in an SAT academy, and they say it costs 5 million won every month. Money is one thing, but the real issue is whether a Korean studying in a foreign country would really fit in with our culture. In any case, whatever you do, Gyeongwon, choose a career that contributes to the national interest.”
Clover Prestige, 81-pyeong apartment.1[T/N: 81 평 (pyeong) is approximately 267.7 square meters. 1 pyeong ≈ 3.3058 square meters, so 81 × 3.3058 ≈ 267.7 m².]
On the 31st floor, in one household, Gyeongwon’s family of three was having dinner in a classic-style kitchen with a floor entirely made of marble.
At the center of it all, Gyeongwon’s father’s solemn lecture resonated around.
“Of course, our Gyeongwon also kept going to Daechi Street to attend an academy until midterms, but since the grades turned out well and he seemed to be doing fine on his own, I switched him to private tutoring. That tutor is a perfect scorer from last year’s CSAT, your dad personally found him and contacted him. This dad may seem old-fashioned on the outside, but everything I’m doing is for your sake. In the end, your mom and I aren’t expecting you to go to someplace like Stanford. Of course, with the kind of brains you had back when you went to the gifted academy, it’s not like you couldn’t do it, but talent can fade, you know. That’s why we’re not asking for more or less, just Seoul National University. All we want is for our son to get into Seoul National. That’s enough for you to—”
Snap!
At the dinner table, as Gyeongwon’s chopsticks crossed in an ‘X’ shape while reaching for a side dish during the lecture, his father immediately snapped his fingers at him.
“A high schooler can’t even use chopsticks properly?”
“…They just got twisted for a moment.”
“Do it again. Again.”
When Gyeongwon carefully adjusted his chopsticks into a proper ‘//’ shape, his father finally withdrew his hand.
Only then Gyeongwon was finally able to pick up the braised short ribs.
“…I was worried that if you used chopsticks strangely outside, people would say you weren’t properly raised and didn’t receive any education from home. If you’re looked down on outside, it’s like our whole family is looked down on.”
“Yes…..”
“Gyeongwon, you look delicate and fragile, and because you lack manly presence, people can easily look down on you. Stand tall and confident like your dad. Like this.”
In the middle of the meal, his father straightened his shoulders to a perfect right angle.
Of course, since they share the same blood, their shoulder widths were similar, but being an adult, his father was taller than him and carried himself with a much more imposing presence.
“Like this. Puff your chest out, just like Dad. Walk confidently wherever you go.”
“Yes……”
“Don’t use your chopsticks carelessly either. Even when you put something down, do it neatly and precisely so it shows your focus. Everything should be like that. Understand?”
“I understand……”
“Don’t let your voice trail off when you answer. Do you act like that at school too?”
“No……”
Gyeongwon answered grumbling but thought to himself.
‘On NamuWiki, they say you can use chopsticks however you want.’
According to what he saw online, chopstick etiquette was basically just a Japanese-imported bullsh*t, or at least, that’s what everyone online agreed on.
In fact, in old genre paintings from the past, there are clear records showing noblemen carelessly picking up food with their chopsticks.
However, his father, who worked as a manager in the finance department of Clover Corporation, was a very knowledgeable type, commonly referred to as the 586 generation.2[T/N: 586 generation” (오팔육 세대) refers to South Koreans who are currently in their 50s, was in their youth in the 1980s, and were born in the 1960s.]
That’s why Gyeongwon couldn’t bring himself to say anything out loud.
For him, the best course was simply to nod and agree and move on.
Soon after finishing the uncomfortable meal, Gyeongwon was the first to rise from the table.
“Thank you for the meal. I still have some online lectures left, so I’ll head to my room first.”
“Brush your teeth right away.”
“I was just about to.”
Instead of answering, his father nodded.
His mother beside him also silently chewed on a piece of fish.
Such suffocating manners, order, discipline. And the obsession with education.
The atmosphere in Gyeongwon’s house was as cold as the marble floor that stretched to the living room, this was the daily norm in his home.
“Haa.”
After brushing his teeth and returning to his room, Gyeongwon took off his slippers first.
His room had a comfortable wooden floor.
Maybe it was because of the different flooring, but he felt a little more at ease.
The flooring wasn’t the only thing that was different.
The house with marble floors stretching from the living room was spacious, but the space was filled with the watchful, admonishing eyes of his parents, making it an uncomfortable space for the heart.
However, his room, which had a wooden floor and was filled with books, was the only space where Gyeongwon could feel comfortable, even though it was the smallest room in the house.
Gyeongwon soon approached the interior desk right in front of him.
‘I should turn on the computer first.’
Putting aside the workbooks he had been reviewing, Gyeongwon quickly sat down and turned on the main power unit next to the desk.
True to his parents who valued order above all, they always knocked before entering their son’s room, so here, more than anywhere else, Gyeongwon could safely do his own thing without worry.
He could browse the internet freely, and when he heard a knock, he would just quickly switch to an online lecture site.
“Let’s see… nothing unusual……”
Soon, the computer screen returned from sleep mode, and Gyeongwon quickly skimmed through the SNS.
And among the quickly passing information, he immediately caught onto something.
[마성의은하계@masungalaxy: I went to the Fourincess’ fan signing, and the manager there was super rude. He wasn’t even nearby, but when I was about to leave, he was like, ‘Ah~ Just go~!’ and started pushing me. lolol Like, what the actual f*ck? So ridiculous. WTF lolol]
“Fourincess, manager……”
Hmm, after thinking for a moment, Gyeongwon searched the keyword.
Soon, several pieces of information related to it appeared in the search results.
[원건영@onegun: Just now, I was passing by the building when some guy pushed me aside, telling me to move, turns out, Fourincess was passing by lol. But like, I work here… Maybe he thought I was a fan because I was holding a camera……]
[월령@moonghost: People can make mistakes, but if you shoved someone, shouldn’t you apologize?]
[렌치!@renchi!: While waiting backstage at a music show, someone was cursing like they had a rag in their mouth as the staff ran around, and it turned out to be the manager of Fourincess. But haven’t they only debuted a few months ago? How long could they have possibly been in the industry to be acting like this….. huhu; Something’s bound to blow up soon.]
Attitude controversy surrounding the manager of Fourincess.
It hasn’t surfaced to public yet, but it was a keyword quietly circulating beneath the surface on social media.
Gyeongwon quickly opened his bookmarked wiki and typed in the keyword.
“Fourincess… manager……”
Click-
[Fourincess Manager Search Results: 0]
Related Keywords: Girl Group / Idol
“No one has written anything yet.”
Gyeongwon quickly logged in and began writing an article himself on the topic.
[Fourincess Manager Personality Controversy]
According to some social media users, the personality controversy surrounding the manager of rookie girl group Fourincess, who debuted in early 2019……
“…Although such controversy exists, the truth of the matter has yet to be confirmed.”
After wrapping it up like that, he finished it by capturing the earlier SNS posts and pasting them into the main body, and just in case anyone might be curious, he even kindly added footnotes with links to each of the original posts.
After that, Gyeongwon returned to the main page for Fourincess.
[Fourincess (Idol)]
1. Introduction
2. Details
3. Members
3.1. Cha Jiwon
3.2. Lee Boram
3.3. Park Seryun
3.4. Seo Dasom
4. Activities
5. Albums
6. CFs
7. Variety Shows
8. Trivia
The table of contents for the new girl group Fourincess, meticulously organized by fans.
With entries up to number 8, Gyeongwon added a new number 9.
9. Incidents/ Controversies
And then, swiftly, he linked the newly created Fourincess Manager Personality Controversy entry as a subpage under it.
9. Incidents/ Controversies
9.1. Fourincess Manager Personality Controversy
Gyeongwon gazed at the neatly organized document with brief satisfaction, then went on to one of his frequented sites and reposted the entire story, neatly summarized once again, this time in a community-style tone.
Excluding any personal opinions that could lead to lawsuits, sticking strictly to what had actually happened. The so-called ‘facts.’
Along with it, he included the attached links and screenshots of the SNS posts.
“Wow, that’s neat.”
Gyeongwon murmured in admiration as he looked at his well-organized article.
He had a great talent for organizing scattered information like this and conveying it to others.
Of course, Gyeongwon himself didn’t realize that he had this talent until recently.
Ghost Story Club.
It was only when he started sharing his accumulated knowledge with the club members while working there that he finally realized his talent.
Until then, he had just thought he was good at studying and polishing his writing, but he had no idea he possessed a talent for teaching.
His parents only saw Gyeongwon learning something, and they had never seen him teaching others, so they only wanted him to become a judge, prosecutor, lawyer, or doctor.
Perhaps, given his knack for refining information, Gyeongwon’s true path was destined to be a teacher or a journalist.
‘Of course, if I said something like that to Dad, I’d probably get scolded badly.’
His dad urged men to dream big, and if he said he wanted to be a teacher, he would advise him to become a professor, not an elementary, middle, or high school teacher.
Or if he said he wanted to be a journalist, his dad would urge him to aim for the director’s position and go for it.
However, Gyeongwon did not want to rise to a position with such great responsibility.
‘This is also a recent change in my thoughts.’
At first, Gyeongwon also dreamed only of being a leader and elite among the elites.
But that wasn’t a plan he made on his own, it was a goal instilled in him by his parents, who absolutely could never stand to see their son working under someone else.
After Gyeongwon came to Nakseong High and spent time with Lee Joon, his thoughts changed a lot.
‘I can never be like the Club President.’
Back in middle school, he had served as class president a few times because he was good at studying, but he remembered how his personality became extremely sensitive during those times.
‘Hey, are you kidding me? I told all of you yesterday that we had homework. How does it make sense to not do it?’
‘F*ck. If I don’t do the homework, I’ll be the one getting scolded. Who are you to be talking sh*t about?’
‘I’m the class president! Of course it’s my job to point out things that are wrong!’
‘Man, seriously… Ugh, whatever. Just get lost.’
Back then, he thought acting like that was okay.
Just as his parents taught him, being above someone meant you could lecture them and point out their mistakes whenever you want.
But the Club President, Lee Joon, wasn’t like that.
He brought along all kinds of strange friends and mingled around with them, but not once did he point out or criticize anyone’s flaws.
On the contrary, the person who hung out with them and played with them and treated them like real friends was the President, Lee Joon, as Gyeongwon saw him.
‘How can he handle people so well like that?’
If Gyeongwon had been in the position of the President, as he had initially desired, instead of Lee Joon.
If that had happened, he would undoubtedly have pointed out Sunah’s stuttering, corrected Hayoon’s tendency of unnecessary teasing, and tried to fix Jinhee’s bad manners.
‘And every morning, I would hold a morning attendance check, and before leaving school, there would be a daily meeting to review the day’s goals..…’
He would have made them study ghost stories every day, and make them write reflection letters if they didn’t.
At the end of each day, he would have them write their thoughts and determination, and if they failed to meet their goals, they would all go on a night hike together as punishment.
Gyeongwon couldn’t help but giggle when he imagined that.
The Ghost Story Club led by Lee Joon, free-spirited and friendly, was completely different from the one that was all about order and discipline. A suffocating framework revolving solely around the goal.
‘Just like my home.’
Since that was all Gyeongwon had learned from his parents, he could only stand above others in that way.
That’s why Gyeongwon hated his parents.
He respected the fact that they were successful as members of society, but he never wanted to become like them.
‘I’m not the type of person who should be above others.’
If Gyeongwon were in a position of authority over someone, he would once again criticize his subordinates, act overly sensitive, and be unable to tolerate anything that annoyed him, just like in middle school.
Just like his father.
‘I’m fine with just being the second-in-command, someone who organizes and hands over what I’ve accumulated to the President.’
While he was thinking that, a few nibbles on the summary post he left on an online community started to appear.
[SeasonedSalt: Fourincess, seriously lolol why’s the manager freaking out when it’s only been a few months since they debuted lolol]
[JudoongHori: What do these kids even know? The manager was just acting up on his own, so no need to drag everyone into the hate lol]
[Onlooker: The company should cut ties with the manager ASAP, no? These kids are just starting to blow up what if this turns into a scandal?]
Soon, the recommendations steadily piled up, pushing the post to the Best section, and someone even left a comment admiring the summary.
[Yuhanul: But seriously, the summary is really well done. The writing is super clear and neat.]
Gyeongwon smiled happily in his room as he read the compliment.
Soon, people who’ve read the post across the entire community would naturally start searching on Google, and the Namu Wiki article that Gyeongwon compiled would be sitting right there at the top of the results.
Gyeongwon went back to the page to check how many people had visited the wiki page.
Click–
“Huh? Where did it go?”
He had clearly organized the manager’s personality controversy well and included it in the main Fourincess page.
When he looked again, it had completely disappeared from the table of contents.
“What the. Who deleted it?”
Given NamuWiki’s open-edit nature, where anyone can freely modify content, these kinds of incidents happened all the time.
Gyeongwon quickly checked the revision history of the article in question.
2019-05-13 21:03:37 (View | RAW | Blame | Revert to this revision | Compare) DASOMLOVE
Sure enough, someone using the nickname DASOMLOVE had left traces of editing on Gyeongwon’s document.
“Fan’s obsession, really…..”
Seeing the nickname under the youngest member of Fourincess, Seo Dasom’s name, it was clearly one of those fanboys.
‘No matter how much you try to shield them, you can’t pretend something that happened didn’t happen.’
Muttering to himself, Gyeongwon restored and reuploaded the document.
9. Incidents/ Controversies
9.1. Fourincess Manager Personality Controversy
“Don’t mess with it and leave it alone. I organized it well.”
The document was deleted again the moment he finished speaking.
“Oh, so that’s how you’re gonna play?”
Gyeongwon reported the user to the admins, claiming they were vandalizing documents recklessly, then quickly restored the page again.
However, the article was deleted again in an instant.
“Again?”
Biting his lip, he checked the revision history, this time, it was a different username.
Multiple people were now swarming the document, blocking him from making any edits.
“So that’s how you wanna play it.”
Gyeongwon reported every one of their usernames, then launched a macro program and began running it.
Soon, no matter how many fans swarmed in, Gyeongwon’s custom-made wiki macro restored the document to its original state at an overwhelming speed.
Leaving the computer running like that, he simply turned off the monitor and collapsed onto his bed.
This time, he checked the reactions on his cell phone while lying down, and as expected, several quick-witted melon-eaters had already taken the bait.
[Rookie girl group Fourincess’ ‘Personality Controversy of the Manager’]
[Shoving and insulting when fans visited… ‘Fourincess Manager’]
[‘Outrageous’ Idol girl group manager, verbally abuses and assaults fans]
Soon, those keywords started trending in real-time searches, and within an hour, an official statement was posted on Fourincess’s agency’s official SNS.
[W&U Entertainment @w&ue: We have confirmed the parts of the controversy involving the manager’s verbal abuse and assault. Upon fact-checking, these incidents were found to have occurred several weeks ago and involved a manager who has already resigned.]
[W&U Entertainment @w&ue: The manager currently in charge of our Fourincess is a different person, who approaches the role with utmost sincerity and courtesy. We kindly ask for your understanding and support.]
[W&U Entertainment @w&ue: Furthermore, the former manager involved in this controversy left abruptly without notice. Since they are no longer with us, we had been monitoring the situation, but it has now come to light that his actions were indeed of a nature that could provoke controversy. We are currently preparing legal action. We kindly ask the fandom to continue supporting Fourincess with a kind heart. Thank you.]
Pheww~
Gyeongwon whistled while lying on the bed.
A feeling of pride lingered in his heart.
Successful, arrogant, and haughty. People who speak carelessly to others. People who think they are superior and believe others should learn from them.
Every time he saw those arrogant strong ones crumble, an indescribable pleasure rose up inside Gyeongwon’s chest.
‘Why do you go around speaking recklessly? Do you think you’re the best in the world? Have some humility.’
His father, who always spoke harshly to him and insisted that he should constantly be learning something from him.
His father, who was convinced that he would never fall.
The truth was, the kind of people Gyeongwon really wanted to bring down were people like his father.
People who looked down on him with disapproval.
‘You used to be such a good student when you were young… tsk tsk.’
But Gyeongwon couldn’t find any fault to pick on, because his father had indeed never faltered well into middle age and had risen to the position of department head at Clover Corporation, just as he always said, he had succeeded through sheer effort.
So Gyeongwon relieved that resentment by watching similar types of people fall apart.
His friends simply thought he was a person with a lot of miscellaneous knowledge because he spent too much time online, but the real reason he had come to know so much was rooted in his desire for revenge against his father.
‘Ahn Gyeongwon, come sit here. I’ll tell you the secret to a long life for a lone wolf like you.’
‘When an eagle turns 40, it pulls out its own beak, feathers, and claws, all of it to let them regrow. It goes through a process of complete transformation and rebirth.’
‘That’s the secret to a long life.’
‘Gyeongwon, I hope you too, like the eagle, go through a process of shedding all your weaknesses and undergo a complete transformation. Your dad observed that you’ve been having some issues lately. That’s why I’m telling you this.’
That was nonsense.
According to what Gyeongwon found on Wikipedia, an eagle has never done anything like that.
A story that is fake from the very beginning, with no phenomenal evidence at all.
‘Ahn Gyeongwon, come sit here. You know how a lion throws its cub off a cliff. This father is also raising you a bit strictly with that same heart.’
‘It’s true that you’re worse than you used to be. The more you do that, the more you need to understand that it is the natural order for your father to teach you strongly, just like a lion raising its cubs.’
‘If you understand, don’t even think about playing during vacation, go to the boarding academy. No complaining. They lock the door from the outside and make you study there.’
But lions don’t throw their cubs off cliffs.
On the contrary, even with the utmost care, their survival rate is not high.
‘Europeans used to import a fish called herring, but by the time it crossed the sea, they were all either too weak or dying. So they added the herring’s natural enemy, the catfish. Do you know what happened then?’
‘Surprisingly, because they were desperately trying to escape their natural enemy, the herring were alive even after crossing the sea!’
‘Gyeongwon, you should keep that in mind too. An environment that’s too comfortable and easy will make a person wither and die. When you were little, you swept all those academic contests and were so smart, but now look at you. It’s because things got too easy. Push yourself harder! Like the herring!’
That was bullsh*t too.
If you do that, the fish just die faster from stress.
‘Gyeongwon, when I look at your generation, it’s truly pathetic. Every day, all you think about is playing games, dating, traveling, finding popular restaurants, YouTube, Instagram, and so on.’
‘They don’t put in any effort, just spout pathetic, half-baked nonsense about YOLO or whatever.
‘All they do is whine about how hard it is to earn money, or why they can’t find a job, piling up complaints without a shred of remorse. Absolutely pathetic…..’
‘If they were your dad’s kids, I would’ve beaten them half to death to fix them. Growing up without knowing any hardship, they just lie around on their phones all day long. Today’s people in their 20s are endlessly weak, both physically and mentally.’
‘Always saying they’re tired, that they want to rest…..’
‘Gyeongwon, even when I look at you, I can’t help but wonder why do kids these days lack spirit and passion.’
‘Where did our Gyeongwon go, the one who used to sweep all the academic competitions and couldn’t stand to lose, even in a simple game of rock-paper-scissors with a friend? I thought a genius had been born into our family.’
‘Don’t disappoint dad. Throw away your weak heart and create adversity yourself. It’s not hard because you’re young, you should have it hard because you’re young. Gyeongwon, when I look at you, I start to think that maybe today’s younger generation needs a national-level enlightenment movement and unity campaign or something.’
‘Keep this in mind. The determination of your father’s generation, who achieved industrialization with nothing but passion, spirit, and a drive to challenge. The spirit of our democratization generation……’
“……”
Gyeongwon bit his lip tightly, recalling his father’s repertoire that he had heard so many times it felt like his ears were covered in scabs.
There was also the story about putting a frog in a pot and slowly heating it so it stays unaware until it dies, or how ants always work diligently.
‘Gyeongwon, you got a bit cocky after winning awards and ended up like that numb frog, while others caught up and surpassed you. Do you think others will just stay still if you do nothing? Don’t be mistaken. What can you achieve with such a complacent mindset? Your head is rotten. Live like an ant! I’m telling you, live diligently like an ant, always working hard!’
Frogs and ants aren’t stupid.
In fact, when the frog feels it’s getting too hot, it just escapes, and only 3% of the entire ant colony works nonstop.
And Gyeongwon hated hearing that kind of thing, he had already worked hard enough to die.
‘I don’t believe you anymore. Ahn Hyunik, you swindler.’
Gyeongwon recalled his father’s name and bit his lip.
According to what he found on Wiki, all the things his father preached to him were wrong examples.
Every time Gyeongwon searched the internet and found one of those things, he clenched his fist tightly and said, “Just as I thought, you fraud.”
It wasn’t that he was incompetent.
‘Just because you were a genius when you were young, do you have to be a genius for the rest of your life?’
Rather, those who insist on such things and criticize for bad performance are the ones who are wrong.
So, everything his father said is wrong.
But his father, unfortunately, is actually a successful and accomplished person in society.
That’s why Gyeongwon had no choice but to keep his mouth shut whenever he heard such lectures.
Instead, whenever Gyeongwon heard his father’s misguided words, he would look them up online to refute them in his mind, or find happiness in watching someone like his father fall apart.
‘What the heck. You acted so arrogant, but you’re nothing special, huh?’
It was one of the people from the news who just got owned.
You were the one lecturing others on how to live their lives, but now you’re the one who ended up stuck in a pit yourself, aren’t you?
‘Wow, he went around preaching to others while doing this kind of stuff?’
Whenever he heary news like that, a strange thrill would rise inside him.
‘Strutting around acting like he knows everything about life. Serves him right. Hope he falls even harder.’
Ahn Gyeongwon, he secretly wished his father would fail a little.
Of course, since they were his parents, he didn’t want them to die or get fired from their jobs.
Still, he often prayed that at least something thrilling would happen that would break their arrogant pride.
However, nothing like that happened in his 17 years of life.
So Gyeongwon searched the internet for things that could give him that thrilling feeling instead.
A steadfast and arrogant powerhouse.
The thrill that comes from seeing a crazy strong person, who loudly boasts they’ll never fall, collapses without resistance.
‘Huu~ how embarrassing, so embarrassing.’
All that arrogance!
Serves him right!
That had become a kind of obsession for Gyeongwon, who had been suppressed by his stubborn parents for the past 17 years.
Gyeongwon satisfied that obsession in various ways.
He wandered the internet looking for arrogant people who spoke recklessly, and also searched through novels for stories of those who trusted only their own fists but ended up falling to their deaths.
That’s when he got hooked on ghost stories.
Ghost stories often featured the arrogant strong person he longed to see helplessly collapse.
Like the story of a bunch of hot-headed teenagers, who thought their fists alone could save them and broke into an abandoned house, only to end up brutally murdered.
Or the story of a father, who dismissed carelessly when his family claimed that strange things were happening in the house they moved into, only to end up begging for his life in tears.
Or the story where a boyfriend dismisses repeated warnings from a shaman, saying he doesn’t believe in religion and acts recklessly, only to end up sobbing and begging desperately in the end.
‘I want to see them fall in real life too……’
Please, just once, let me see it!
As he lay tossing and turning, Gyeongwon suddenly remembered something, so he opened the Instagram app on his phone and started browsing through posts from his middle school friends.
Now they’re all in prestigious schools, tagging each other and showing off, the arrogant kings and queens of the school hierarchy.
‘I want to see these guys fall too.’
His first love, who humiliated him and left for a prestigious high school, and the elite friends who followed along.
They didn’t show any consideration for Gyeongwon’s feelings.
After he enrolled in Nakseong High School, a regular school, he lost contact with them.
Those faces that looked oddly uncomfortable when he tried to say goodbye after their admissions were decided.
Gyeongwon looked through his first love’s recent posts.
[Lee Hyejin: I totally messed up in my midterm exam ㅠㅠ our @Fam, are you all doing well!!??]
The ‘Fam’ tagged below had comments from class presidents who studied together in middle school.
[Ah haha I messed up too, but it’s just first semester of freshman year so who cares lol]
[Should we get together sometime soon? Hehe]
A conversation among successful friends from a prestigious high school.
Gyeongwon couldn’t bring himself to join in.
So he closed his phone.
‘Let’s see how long you guys are going to be so arrogant.’
After defeating the Demon King and saving the world as a member of the Ghost Story Club, he imagined those guys bowing before him in admiration and respect.
Next to them were his father, the friends who left for prestigious high schools, his first love who rejected his confession, the relatives who used to whisper that he seemed like a genius as a kid but nothing special now, the cram school instructors who compared him to top students, and even the Fourincess’ manager.
All the arrogant powerhouse in life would bow down to him.
‘Gye, Gyeongwon… I never knew you were doing something so incredible. As your father, I always looked down on you… this dad has wasted his life as a parent…..’
‘I’m sorry, Gyeongwon… Telling you not to be such a loser, yeah, I was way too harsh back then… Th-that wasn’t how I really felt. I apologize… Let’s start over… as friends again….’
‘Wow, Ahn Gyeongwon. You were doing something like this? I seriously never imagined… Turns out, we were the ones who were incompetent and retarded.’
‘I apologize for deliberately asking you questions about why you couldn’t go to a prestigious high school during the last holiday…I’ll get on my knees with my kid too… Please forgive me……’
‘That time I compared you to the top students and said you were worse by comparison, no matter how many times I think about it, that was my mistake. It was me, the teacher who didn’t recognize your worth, because I had gone senile…..’
Hearing the apologies from the people in his imagination, Gyeongwon felt a little better.
The trophies on the bookshelf caught Gyeongwon’s gaze as he lay on his bed.
They were awards he had won at various competitions when he was praised as a genius.
Before, every time he saw them, he didn’t feel good.
Because seeing them would make him remember how people were clicking their tongues in disappointment when he had gone from being a genius to just an ordinary good student at some point.
But now, things are different.
The time to reclaim all the suppressed and shattered self-esteem was right around the corner.
From now on, the center of the world wasn’t those people outside, but the hero, Lee Joon, beside whom he’s working.
‘You guys who are always talking about studying hard and living a good life are not accomplishing anything just because you are all gathered together.’
The only one truly protecting the world, doing good deeds, and meaningful work are right here.
In the Ghost Story Club he belonged to now.
‘I’m standing by the most important person in the world. I’m standing by the most important person in the world……’
Whenever he thought that, he could quietly feel his self-esteem rising again.
The most important person in the world.
The warrior chosen by God, Lee Joon.
‘… How can there be someone like that in the world?’
He was really cool.
Lying in bed like that, Gyeongwon thought.
‘He’s really cool.’
Of course, it was not that kind of feeling where you like a guy.
It was the kind of admiration you have when you see a celebrity or a role model and think they’re cool.
Without asserting his authority as the club president, he gets along with everyone like a friend.
He doesn’t care about other people’s flaws and isn’t bothered by showing his own flaws.
And yet, at the same time, an indomitable man who can overcome any crisis.
His judgment and instant wit were beyond imitation. And a true warrior of this era with a noble purpose.
That was exactly who Gyeongwon thought Lee Joon was.
But in a corner of his mind, a quiet, mischievous thought arose.
‘… Does a guy like Prez ever get frustrated?’
Since he had always lived in the timeline where Lee Joon survived, the warrior Lee Joon in Gyeongwon’s eyes was a man who did not know what failure was.
While Gyeongwon respected the hero Lee Joon, a hidden, bad habit that had already taken root in his heart made him secretly want to see the President fail a little.
‘What kind of expression would Prez make when he gets frustrated?’
‘Would Prez ever give up and collapse?’
No one in the world is perfect.
Maybe even Prez, just once……
The moment he thought that, a feeling of guilt stabbed Gyeongwon in a corner of his heart.
The President was a strong person who was different from others and was not arrogant.
Yet, despite that, an excitement surged inside him at the thought of seeing him break down just once.
It wasn’t an unusual feeling.
Everyone in the world has a desire in the corner of their hearts to see a saint collapse to some extent.
For now, all he could do was secretly imagine the panicked expression of the President when he abandoned sleep and sneaked into their classroom at night. But someday.
Someday, he really wanted to see it just once.
Even though he knew it was a bad thought.
“I’m curious, really……”
Lying there with his arms behind his head, Gyeongwon slowly drifted into the dreamland.
The remaining 5 levels of understanding, which Lee Joon still hadn’t grasped.
The origin of all his actions, such as liking ghost stories, accumulating a lot of miscellaneous knowledge, and chasing to be an elite.
It was a twisted mindset born from his childhood self-esteem being shattered despite being praised as a genius, driving him to want to bring down the strong ones who looked down on him.
‘If you show off in front of me, you’ll be in big trouble, if you show off in front of me, you’ll be in big trouble……’
Gyeongwon slowly drifted off to sleep like that.
And next week, Gyeongwon’s first love transferred to Nakseong High School.
hahahaha
thanks angry birdddd and authorrrrr
this is the first time we’ve been given information that joon himself doesn’t know about
Hmm such an interesting guy, glad we had a chapter about him
Interesting guy. Seems like it’s not that hard to take someone beyond a one-dimensional character if you find something to do. Fat guy, you’re next.
Don’t worry gyeongwon , lee joon gonna take your revenge for u