In time, relationships build up. There was never a relationship that was consistently smooth. If there were, it probably wouldn’t be a normal relationship.
That said, it’s not easy for a relationship to be as rough as this either, especially if a long time has passed.
“There’s a reason they say ‘hate mixed with affection’…”
Jung Tae-ui muttered as he finished the rest of his beer in one gulp.
He was spacing out for a moment when suddenly there was noise—some trivial quarrel had broken out somewhere up ahead.
A man sitting two seats away from Christoph and another man sitting diagonally across were raising a hostile atmosphere.
“What’s with them now?”
“Maybe one kicked the other after bumping feet a few times.”
“...There might actually be such a petty fight.”
Jung Tae-ui clicked his tongue. He was about to open another beer can but with swearing flying around in the dining hall, the mood wasn’t right for drinking.
That quarrel didn’t seem like it would settle quietly, so maybe it was better to grab a couple more beers and head back to his room.
He quietly stood up and pulled his chair back. Just as he tried to ignore it and head toward the door, a man who had been cursing across the table suddenly stood up in a fit of anger and came around toward him.
Since the seat was a little apart, the fallout probably wouldn’t reach him, but the way to the door was blocked.
Jung Tae-ui scratched his head and tried to gauge the situation.
The two men had already stood and were gripping each other’s collars but no one was trying to stop it.
Sighing, thinking he might just have to watch the fight until it ended, Richard spoke from across.
“Stop it now. There are many people here; better to take it somewhere else.”
His voice was gentle, like advising a friend, but carried undeniable authority.
The man gripping the other’s collar hesitated, then, when Richard called his name again—“Günther”—he clicked his tongue and shoved the collar away, letting go.
“Hmph. Rat like you.”
But he didn’t leave quietly, instead shouting curses as he stormed off. The other man snapped and grabbed his shoulder.
“What’s your problem?!”
“This bastard—”
Just then, as the man tried to shake off the grip, his elbow swung back sharply, hitting the back of a person sitting beside the chair and the chair itself.
“Ah…”
“……”
Jung Tae-ui involuntarily frowned and opened his mouth in shock. Several others looked the same.
The atmosphere grew icy.
Christoph, who had been wiping his mouth with a napkin and trying to stand, suddenly got hit on the back of the head and froze in place.
The man who elbowed him glared hard, realizing who he was hitting. He seemed to forget to shake off the hand holding his shoulder. That hand went limp.
Christoph slowly raised his head and shot the man a cold look.
The man, who should have apologized there—though the result might have been the same even if he had—shuddered at the gaze.
Then realizing he had flinched just from that look, he blushed with shame but puffed out his chest and came closer.
“What? If you finished eating, why are you lingering like a starving rat? Your plate’s cold anyway. Get lost.”
He sneered, lifting his chin, eyes flashing fiercely as he looked down on Christoph. Yet Jung Tae-ui noticed a fearful excitement glimmering in his eyes and clicked his tongue. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“...Your plate’s cold already?”
Christoph said quietly.
Hearing that calm muttering, Jung Tae-ui almost perfectly predicted what was about to happen. But before he could warn him, it happened.
Like holding a friend’s hand, Christoph nonchalantly grabbed the man’s wrist and pressed it down onto the hot iron plate where his own meat had been.
It was a very quick action.
“Ah, ah... Aaaah!!!”
The man’s scream burst out like an animal’s roar.
Though the plate had cooled a bit since being placed on the table, it was still sizzling faintly under the meat.
The sound of raw flesh burning carried to the edge of the table.
“You just touched the plate you said was cold with your mouth, yet such a fuss?”
Christoph said indifferently, pressing the man’s hand firmly onto the iron plate despite the man’s thrashing.
With his other hand, Christoph grabbed a knife lying nearby. A butter knife.
“Hey, rather than that, just use a knife—”
But before Jung Tae-ui could shout a warning, the butter knife flew down vertically onto the man’s hand on the plate.
“...!!”
The blunt blade, without a sharp edge, ripped deeply into the back of his hand, cutting through muscle and landing in the flesh between bones.
The man screamed and wildly flailed, but a fork stuck into his hand.
From there, chaos erupted.
The injured man thrashed like a wounded beast. Other men rushed to help him, their faces changing. The dining hall turned into a chaos of conflicts involving men who had all had tensions during the meal.
Watching from afar, Jung Tae-ui saw Christoph calmly taking down each attacker in turn, while Richard knocked out others in one clean blow.
Jung Tae-ui felt a faint sense of déjà vu.
He’d seen minor quarrels escalate into gang fights before. Once at the military academy—leading to a group punishment—and more frequently at UNHRDO.
He had hoped to live peacefully now, without witnessing such scenes.
Feeling nostalgic yet unsettled, Jung Tae-ui narrowed his eyes.
Yeah, this was pretty much the scene that guy usually thrived in.
Lost in memories of old comrades he hadn’t seen in a long time, he murmured bleakly,
“Damn, what are you doing? Just eat quietly and calm down.”
Beside him, Johan, who took a relatively neutral stance, clicked his tongue and reflexively grabbed his fork.
Jung Tae-ui moved away a bit and watched the fork quietly. Johan waved his hand as if to say it was just for defense.
“No, no, this is just a defensive move. You never know when the sparks will fly. Damn, can’t this calm down? A couple guys, maybe, but a whole bunch acting like this is tough.”
“How to calm this down...”
Jung Tae-ui gazed at the empty air with distant eyes.
I wonder what Alta’s doing now. Still in the Asia branch, probably at joint training with the Europe branch.
Thinking he’d ask his uncle later, Jung Tae-ui got up.
“This is something a guy I knew used to do... Hey, step aside, step aside.”
The next moment,
A loud crash drowned out all the commotion.
A massive mahogany table toppled, spilling dishes, food, and glass bottles all over the floor with a shattering clatter.
The men fighting up front stopped mid-move and stared wide-eyed.
After all the spill and breakage, a small stainless steel vase rolled about half a turn before stopping.
In the deathly silence, Jung Tae-ui shrugged and looked at Johan.
“This always quiets things down for a while. There was a guy who did this often; he said it’s hard the first time, but easy after that.”
After toppling the table, Alta had added,
“Three seconds to knock it over, three hours to clean up, three months to deal with.”
But thinking of Alta, who faced cold stares and scolding every time she went to the dining hall afterwards, Jung Tae-ui guessed it might take at least three years to recover.
If it were a wife, she’d have to endure a lifetime of scolding, said Chaison, one of the few married men in the branch.
Jung Tae-ui, who had helped clean up until just now under the cold eyes of the butlers, firmly decided never to do this again.
Though the crashing sound had put a damper on the fight, the aftermath remained.
The cold stares of the men who suddenly saw him as a public enemy, the pale eyes of the rushing butlers, the people leaving like a receding tide—all while he and the butlers tidied up in the silence—felt like countless invisible blades stabbing his back.
He never wanted to go through that twice.
“I’ve done this several times now. Alta must be incredibly bold…”
Jung Tae-ui muttered hollowly.
The deepest wound came when Christoph, who had just watched quietly while Jung Tae-ui cleaned, suddenly said as he left,
“Just charge the broken utensils to Kyle’s debt, right? …Looks like it’ll be hard to get your book back.”
Jung Tae-ui had only been in this house for half a day—less than that—and already his body and mind were completely worn out.
That ominous remark foreshadowed he would never get the book back smoothly.
Still, Christoph survived the brawl without a scratch and, after watching Jung Tae-ui slump and slide against the dining door, finally left satisfied.
Dragging himself back to his room, Jung Tae-ui collapsed on the bed without even taking off his shoes.
He felt like a soaked cotton ball.
Though it felt like years had passed since coming here, he couldn’t believe he had just arrived today.
“Maybe time flows differently outside...?”
Mumbling, he buried his face in the blankets.
As soon as he collapsed face-down on the bed, the blanket seemed to swallow him whole. It felt like he was melting into it.
He was so tired that his face was buried deep into the pillow and blanket, making it hard to breathe or even turn his head—but he had no strength to move.
He didn’t remember being this exhausted in a long time.
Actually, the few hours spent cleaning weren’t that bad. Occasionally on holidays, he helped Peter with gardening all day under the hot sun. Sometimes he helped neighbors fix roofs and ended up taking on big repairs.
Compared to that, a few hours of cleaning was nothing—
“People are about the mind, not the body, after all...”
Moving unwillingly and trying to watch everything, he felt like his head was full of muscle pain.
Even visiting a happy family would be mentally exhausting after a day among strangers. And he’d barely arrived before getting caught in a rough brawl. Now he was labeled as part of Christoph’s faction, whether he liked it or not.
When Kyle said getting the book wouldn’t be easy, Jung Tae-ui had thought it was just because of the person who took it. Maybe it also included this entire situation.