Choi Jeokhyeon, hearing my answer, stood frozen as if unable to believe what I’d said, like a machine that had broken down. Then, hesitating, he stepped back and sank onto the sofa in a daze, murmuring as if replaying my words in his head.
“….You won’t resent me.”
Until just a moment ago, he’d been effortlessly persuading me with his overly clever arguments, but now he looked as if he’d suddenly given up all his intelligence. That guy kept repeating the words I had said over and over again, and as soon as he confirmed that I wasn’t denying them, he collapsed onto the sofa like a puppet with its strings cut.
‘What’s wrong with this guy?’
As I was thinking that, I suddenly wondered if something serious had happened to him, causing him to collapse, so I hurried over to him. But the moment I saw his chest gently rising and falling as he lay on his side, I blurted out a string of curses.
“What are you laughing at.”
“Ahahaha!”
Choi Jeokhyeon was laughing so hard, even shedding tears, as if something was incredibly amusing. When I snapped at him in annoyance, he burst into even louder laughter, this time with sound. I scratched the back of my head, dumbfounded by his out-of-nowhere laughter, but eventually he managed to calm down and catch his breath.
Then, he stared at me with clear eyes, glistening with tears, and spoke.
“Don’t be angry. I’m just happy.”
“…….”
At his words, I shot him a sharp glare and smacked his head. He let out an exaggerated “Ouch!” and whined, only to grin brightly afterward. I clicked my tongue, annoyed by his slightly unhinged, drunken behavior, and spoke curtly.
“I knew this would happen, you drank too fast. How did you manage to make no improvements at your age?”
“I’ve improved. In the past, I used to live in a drunken state every day.”
Seeing him casually mention his past, I frowned deeply. Since I knew firsthand how messed up Choi Jeokhyeon’s life was back then, I found it quite uncomfortable to bring up that time, so I didn’t comment on his words and continued.
“Anyway, stop drinking every time something happens. It’s becoming an addiction.”
“Are you changing the subject?”
‘This f**ker…..’
I felt like my skull was going to explode as I looked at Choi Jeokhyeon, who was grinning so carefree. I was itching to throw a sharp remark his way, but knowing this childish young master would never be influenced by anyone’s words, I quickly gave up and responded lightly.
“Your drunkenness is particularly annoying today.”
I pushed myself to my feet, and he asked with his eyelids drooping.
“…Going?”
“Yeah, I have another schedule.”
“You’re busy.”
“Well, during this insanely busy period, my one and only friend had to go and cause trouble. Thanks to that, I can’t even get any sleep and now I have to go back out for another schedule.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry.”
“If you’re going to say something like that, at least say it smoothly.”
Contrary to what I had said to Choi Jeokhyeon, I actually had some time to rest before the next schedule. However, since Dalli’s parents had persistently contacted me, saying they wanted to apologize in person, I was planning to meet them now.
“I’m going. Don’t fall down in the bathroom.”
“I’m still in my thirties.”
“Yeah, got it.”
Knowing that Choi Jeokhyeon wouldn’t be too happy about it, I purposely avoided mentioning it in front of him. I wrapped up our trivial conversation and walked out of the door.
***
I returned to the dorm and immediately joined the manager to head to the company. As soon as I opened the door to the meeting room and entered, I noticed a middle-aged couple sitting inside suddenly jump to their feet.
“Han, Han Seungbeom-ssi…..”
Without much of a reaction, I lightly bowed my head in greeting, then walked to the front of the table and sat down. I placed my phone on the table and openly started the recorder, asking for their consent to record.
Perhaps they felt they were not in a position to refuse, the couple responded that it was fine. Then, as if they had made some sort of silent agreement, they suddenly rushed toward me and kneeled down in front of me.
“We’re truly sorry for the trouble our son caused you this time, Seungbeom-ssi. We’re here today to apologize for that.”
“We asked the company several times to meet you in person to apologize, and we’re grateful that you agreed. We’re truly sorry.”
I couldn’t just arrogantly sit back and watch from my chair after seeing people much older than Han Seungbeom kneeling, so I had no choice but to awkwardly rise from my seat. It hadn’t even been 20 seconds since I sat down.
‘Let’s just sit down and talk … I’m so tired.’
People often said that when someone who wronged them kneeled, their heart softened or their resentment eased a little. But for me, the other person’s attitude didn’t matter at all.
Whether they groveled at my feet or vanished off the face of the earth, what did it matter? What mattered was what what wrong they had done to me and whether they would repeat it in the future. We hadn’t even talked about what had happened, so for them to suddenly kneel like this put me in a very uncomfortable position.
I rubbed my palms over my tired eyes and said, “Please have a seat first. We need to have a conversation.”
“No, thank you. We don’t deserve to sit down.”
‘….I’m having a really tough day.’
I could barely sit, eat, or sleep today.
I felt like a fool for wasting my energy so unnecessarily like this.
I was tempted to just casually sit down, look down at them, and say, “
Go ahead, confess
“. But since saying that could easily give them something to hold against me, I kept my mouth shut quietly.
At that, Dalli’s parents nervously shifted their eyes, quietly watching me.
‘Ah.’
Apparently, they were saying that for show, thinking I’d make a fuss and try to talk them out of it several times. Having easily read their intentions, I let out a light sigh and formally spoke in a dry manner.
“Mother-nim, Father-nim, I know it’s not your fault. If you continue like this, it will only make me more uncomfortable, so please get up.”
At that, Dalli’s parents immediately got up from the floor, awkwardly walked to the table across from me, and sat down. It seemed they instinctively realized that I wasn’t the type of person who would put up with repeating the same thing again.
I sat back down in my chair and opened my mouth, “So, you came here to apologize?”
“That’s right. We’re so ashamed, we can’t even look you in the eye … we’re so sorry.”
I quietly watched them as they bowed their heads deeply, then asked, “Did only the two of you come?”
I was asking why it was just the two of them, leaving Dalli behind.
Since failing to reach a settlement would result in a criminal record, usually in this kind of situation, the person would come themselves, offering all kinds of apology letters and pleading for forgiveness. It was really strange that Dalli wasn’t even showing his face.
When I pointed that out and asked, it was Dalli’s father who answered on behalf of the hesitant mother.
“As soon as I saw what that blighter did on the internet, I beat him until he was almost dead with a club. Because of that, he’s not in a condition to appear in front of people, so he couldn’t come with us today.”
“…What did you just say?”
Hearing those words, I was taken aback and couldn’t believe my ears.
The man’s face, as he spoke about beating his own child, was so confident that for a moment, I thought I must have heard wrong. It was incredibly bizarre that he was so nonchalant about admitting to the assault, even as I was recording the whole thing.
But as if to contradict what I was thinking, the mother immediately opened her mouth.
“We’re going to use this incident as an opportunity to get his head straight, so please help us just this once. Also, the reason we couldn’t bring him here to apologize today is because we were doing it for your sake, Seungbeom-ssi, so I hope you won’t take offense.”
She didn’t seem to think anything was wrong with what her husband had said or done.
I shook my head firmly, disagreeing, as I felt that this was not right.
“No, I never wished for that. I never asked for it. I just hope that your son will be punished through the proper legal process, reflect on his actions, and never repeat the same mistakes.”
“Ah, of course, he will be punished. Don’t worry about that.”
Without understanding the meaning of what I had said, Dalli’s father confidently responded about the punishment. Even worse, it was something I hadn’t expected at all, so I asked them, a little surprised.
“Didn’t you come to see me hoping for a settlement?”
“…No? Didn’t you tell the police that you wouldn’t be accepting a settlement? We’ve already been informed of that.”
What I got back was a question-filled answer, as if they didn’t understand my question at all. Usually, parents would try to rectify their child’s wrongdoing in any way they could, but these people seemed completely uninterested in whether Dalli’s life would be ruined or not.
‘.…What the hell?’
I wondered if they were really here to take responsibility for their son’s misdeeds and ask for forgiveness as his parents. But. for some reason, I had the gut feeling that it wasn’t the case.
‘It doesn’t seem like they truly feel sorry towards me.’
It was too obvious that they were trying to flatter me, exaggerating for show because they wanted something from me. But instead of cutting to the chase, they kept beating around the bush, so I furrowed my eyebrows slightly and just asked.
“Then, what exactly is the purpose of your visit?”
They smiled slightly, looking a bit embarrassed, and then cautiously brought up the subject.
“People are throwing trash at our front door and kicking the door, and our innocent second child is having a really hard time because of it. We are also in a situation where we can’t work right now. Our second child is a student preparing for CSAT, and we can’t have him constantly distracted. So…..”
“If Seungbeom-ssi could just say something along the lines of,
don’t harm the rest of the innocent family because of that one person
, wouldn’t people’s anger lessen a lot?”
I had already heard from the manager that Dalli’s parents were unable to go to school due to protests from other parents and the disdain from students, and that his younger sibling was already being ostracized, so it wasn’t that surprising.
But as soon as I heard their explanation, I felt an indescribable sense of unease. I realized that his parents didn’t care about Dalli at all, and were only concerned about the well-being of the rest of the family.
‘It doesn’t seem like they’re doing this to guide their son in the right direction……’
I wasn’t saying it was strange for them to ask me to do this in order to protect their own daily lives,. I just kept feeling that the abnormality between Dalli and his family wouldn’t work out in a good direction for me.
“….I’ll post a message asking people to stop causing harm to your family. After all, I don’t want the other siblings to suffer as well.”
But the reality that innocent children were already being harmed was in front of me, so I could only nod my head in agreement to their request.
“Thank you. Thank you!”
As I watched Dalli’s father bow to me repeatedly, I emphasized once again that I didn’t want him to resort to violence in matters concerning me. With a heavy sigh, I got up from my seat.
***
After Dalli’s parents left, I shared an update via the official Pantheion account, stating that I had cooperated with the police to identify the stalker, completed actions such as adding him to a blacklist, and that the perpetrator was now awaiting punishment. The post also urged the public to refrain from excessive criticism or threats toward the perpetrator’s family.
As always, the public’s attention died down incredibly quickly, and Dalli’s family and my members regained their peace. However, even as I felt relieved to return to my daily routine and continued my busy activities, I couldn’t quite shake off the lingering sense of unease.
‘Is this really how it ends?’
And before I could dwell further on such thoughts, COMA-1 started their activities.
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Translator’s Corner:
Had a lunch with my friend today, and bought new charger cable so I can use my phone again omg live is worth living again : D
Also CJH probably has many enemies but his the second thing he feared the most is Yutae hating him … we cheered….
Actually I saw people wondering why he’s called lunatic when he acted just like the others, very not normal about the MC … i’m not sure if you’re missing on that part, but MC had repeatedly described him as someone who didn’t have “normal human emotion”. Like, nothing. In modern society, we called that psychopath. For the order, tbh I suspected MC ranked them by age, but the scariest thing about him is … can you image a psycho that charming omg this isn’t even Psycho by Red Velvet. (Hey now we’ll not be okay)
Like when he first appeared, I remember many of you shocked that he’s so charming. In MC’s mindset, what’s so charming about someone who can kill other person and not feel anything about it, guys T_T You remember how that journalist guilt-tripped his family right … in reality, when something like that happened, even if the deceased was the one who commited the wrong, the person who refused to forgive them will be blamed by the society too. And they will feel guilty. So how can the person who’s directly responsible not feeling anything?
But tbh he’s so charming that I can 1000% forgive and support everything he does. Personally, I think Seo Yuseong is scarier lol You remember how the MC can still say its okay our Muses sing well ❤ when it’s actually not, but he can’t even bring himself to say anything good about the personality of his younger brother that he loves so much (and if you think about how Lee Chise complained Yuseong didn’t answer him but MC didn’t have any idea about it and only thought Chise was only saying nonsense, that baby is only trying in front of his brother, but even his trying is still BAD) T_T but it’s okay Seo Yuseong, you will always be my baby star ❤ You can do whatever you want. A baby is never wrong.
And Jay is … honestly, the thing about Jeokhyeon is, he’s pretty rational. He doesn’t feel much emotion that’s why he can think coldly what is the best for the MC. While Jay is really driven by his emotions and anxiety. The others don’t have emotions, but this kid is straight up EMOTIONALLY EXTREMELY UNSTABLE. Like that brat was so ready to attack Frick even when MC already told him the camera is recording everything. People wondered “why can’t MC just tell Jay?”, but you guys … you already saw how he reacted to the Cha Woon case. Can you imagine what will happen if he learned what actually happened to the MC … personally I didn’t want to imagine it, I support world peace. We should pray no one stupid enough to mess with the rookie Han Seungbeom, we don’t know what our highly respected Yoo Jay-sunbaenim would do ….
This story will end in 1 chapter if just one of these trio lunatics took action to burn down RH Entertainment … the problem is …. haha … our MC …. he’s really the MC for a reason
And if you wondered why so many shitty parents appearing in this family … you haven’t seen the worst yet
Anyway let’s leave the past for a moment, we’re entering Pantheion debut promotion arc : D