Free Web NovelThe embodiment of patience.
If you personified that, it would be me.
"What... what is it! If you come closer, I’m going to scream!"
"Oh? Now that’s a threat I haven’t heard in a while."
"You think I can’t?"
Lee Jia was on guard like she was really about to scream, like I was some kind of bad person.
Whoosh!
Watching her, I lightly threw a bit of shadowboxing into empty air.
"Will my fist be faster? Or will your voice be faster? If you want to give it a try, I won’t stop you."
Lee Jia looked at my fist shooting out like the wind, then her eyes went round, and she couldn’t say anything, just opening and closing her mouth.
She probably had watched the Haan-dong Kim Duhan video before.
If she’d seen that precise jaw-spinning, she wouldn’t be thinking about getting confident in front of me and putting her own jaw up as collateral for a speed contest.
'Hmm.'
While Lee Jia had gone quiet, my head was turning fast.
A capable doctor decides on a treatment method after considering the patient’s condition, so I was agonizing over how to treat this cheeky little brat in a way that would spread as a rumor that I’d treated her well.
Honestly, the fastest way to fix the tone of a cheeky little brat who still thinks the world revolves around her is force.
-Say it again.
Back when I was a platoon leader, when a new recruit transferred into the company, interviewing them was one of the important duties.
Most of them were very naive, the kind where you could feel their enthusiasm, but once in a while there were guys who challenged you with eyes that said, 'I still haven’t been tamed.'
At first it threw me off, but as time passed, they became cute little guys who served as a boost of energy in that boring military life.
At times like that, I’d just say nothing and—
-Hojin, let’s clean the admin office.
-Yes, Platoon Leader.
If I ordered my faithful right-hand man, the admin clerk, to clean, the only CCTV in the admin office would get covered for a moment and a blind spot would be created.
If we used that moment to proceed with an interview with our wild wolf friends, it produced an amazing effect where every single one, without fail, would turn over a new leaf.
But,
"···."
Trying that kind of radical treatment method on a little brat who’d been cowering since earlier was, honestly, a bit awkward.
More than anything,
-Sion...!
Like a ghost, the illusions of Manager Yunsik and Jiu appeared over Lee Jia and looked at me with desperate expressions, blocking my fist. freewёbnoνel.com
'You’ve grown again, Lee Sion.'
Because of that, I ended up deciding to try talking.
In the past, I would’ve treated first and then tried talking after, but I couldn’t help admiring my patience as I decided to talk first and then decide whether to treat her or not.
"All right, today was our first time meeting, ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) right?"
Nod.
At my words, Lee Jia nodded with an expression like it was unfair.
Maybe because of the warning earlier, even if she was unhappy, she wasn’t showing the same dismissive attitude as before, which was excellent.
That was how it was—starting from small changes like that.
"Then why were you glaring at me like I was your enemy from a past life?"
"···I wasn’t glaring."
"Pow!"
"Ugh!"
When she told a lie that wasn’t going to work, I gave her a little threat, and Lee Jia immediately shrank back down.
"If you talk like that, I can’t help you, Jia."
"Help me... with what...?"
"I’ll give you a chance to say it again."
Aren’t Koreans the people of third time’s the charm?
Gentle Mode Lee Sion decided to grant Lee Jia one more chance.
"···Ayeon."
"Hm?"
"Give Ayeon back to me!!!"
But the answer that came out of Lee Jia’s mouth was far outside my expectations, and it threw me into a brief panic.
"Why is Ryu Ayeon coming up all of a sudden?"
"Ayeon! Because Ayeon keeps hanging out with you guys... no, with you... and doesn’t even come to LYNX, and just keeps getting weirder and weirder!"
Maybe she couldn’t control her emotions as she spoke, because she scrunched her nose and tears began to well up in her eyes.
"Hey, calm down! Why are you the one crying after saying it!"
"I’m not crying!"
I figured this wasn’t going to work, so I tried to calm her down. I was just about to bring my finger up toward her eye to wipe her tears.
Screeeech.
Along with the sound of the door opening, I heard managers calling for us from behind.
"Hey, what’s going on? Why aren’t you com—···."
At that sound, I startled without thinking and immediately turned around, and Jiu and LYNX’s manager, Kim Jeonghwa, came into view, staring at me and Lee Jia with horrified expressions.
Lee Jia was crying, and my hand was headed toward Lee Jia’s face.
Ah.
I had a gut feeling something had gone seriously wrong.
"You could misunderstand. It’s totally the kind of scene you could misunderstand. But I can explain everything."
"···."
"No, if you look at me like you lost the whole world, I’m seriously going to feel wronged."
Even at my words, Jiu’s eyes were unfocused, like her soul had left her body.
"I just looked away for a second, and it’s assault..."
Was she not even hearing me? Seeing Jiu stand there blankly, like a parent who came to visit a child who committed a crime, made indignation explode inside me.
"Let’s talk about what happened later. Right now, other people might see, so let’s all move back to our waiting rooms."
It was so unfair.
Without even a chance to explain what kind of situation this even was, LYNX’s manager took Lee Jia, watched the surroundings, and disappeared in an instant.
Thanks to that, I had to bring the spaced-out Jiu back to our waiting room, and—
"Did you have a good bathroom break?"
I tried as hard as I could, practically dragging the limp Jiu back, and when I opened the waiting room door, Manager Yunsik—who had gone to take care of something for a moment—was already back.
"Manager Yunsik..."
"What is it, Park Jiu? Why do you look like that? Did something happen?"
"Sion hit a LYNX member..."
"What?!"
"Lee Sion!"
"Boss?"
"Sion!"
I felt like I was going to lose my mind.
***
"Jeonghwa. I can’t take this."
"Esther, let’s just let it go."
"How can we just let it go when our Youngest got bullied by a member of another group?" freeωebnovēl.c૦m
Esther was angry all the way to the top of her head.
From the moment Jeonghwa came back with Jia after going to the bathroom with her, with a cold, stiff expression, it felt bad.
Somehow, Jia’s eyes looked red, and that made it feel even worse.
-Jia might have had some kind of conflict with Iam’s Lee Sion.
Even after they returned to the waiting room, Jeonghwa and Jia stayed stiff and silent for a moment.
But then Jeonghwa opened her mouth, and what she said was shocking.
Jia, the team’s Youngest, and Lee Sion, a member of Iam, happened to run into each other in the hallway and went into the bathroom together, but strangely, they didn’t come out for a long time, so Jeonghwa went inside.
And what Jeonghwa saw was that Jia had been shoved against the sink wall and was crying, and Lee Sion had her hand raised toward Jia’s face.
"Jia, why aren’t you saying anything? Did she really hit you?"
"···No."
"Then why were you crying, and why was Lee Sion’s hand toward your face?"
"···."
The instant Jeonghwa finished speaking, the other LYNX members rushed over to Jia, checking if she was hurt anywhere and if she was okay, and it turned into a whole commotion.
'Anyone would think she threatened Jia, wouldn’t they?'
Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any visible injuries, but Esther’s anger flared up.
Just thinking about what the hell someone could’ve done to a Youngest who was only seventeen to make her burst into tears made it feel like every nerve in Esther’s body was standing on end.
But,
"If we make this big, it won’t be good for us either."
"Why?"
"Even if they were in the wrong, if this rumor spreads, both sides’ images will get chipped away, and people will talk about it for a long time."
"Jeonghwa!"
Esther knew Jeonghwa was making an extremely rational call.
One of the topics heating up the online entertainment news lately was the rival narrative between LYNX and Iam. If this got out, regardless of whether it was true or not, it was obvious everyone—from reporters to the public—would tear it apart.
But,
'We can’t just let this go!'
As LYNX’s leader, Esther couldn’t just let this go.
Iam.
To LYNX, Iam wasn’t just a rival group.
Because Ryu Ayeon was in that group, LYNX members’ feelings about Iam were different.
'Ryu Ayeon...'
The Youngest-line members like Jia might not know Ryu Ayeon well and might not think much of it, but Esther and a few others weren’t like that.
-If you’re going to act like that, go home. At the very least, you shouldn’t get in the way.
Back when they were trainees, Ryu Ayeon didn’t hang out with other trainees, didn’t even talk to them, ignored everyone, and only focused on practicing, so nobody had good feelings toward her.
And because she would spit out harsh words at trainees whose skills were even a little lacking, how many trainees had burst into tears?
Esther also vividly remembered what she’d suffered because of Ryu Ayeon.
That was why Esther couldn’t stand the thought of LYNX’s Youngest being bullied by Iam, the group Ryu Ayeon belonged to.
'Birds of a feather.'
Lee Sion was definitely messed up somewhere too, just like Ryu Ayeon.
"Let’s go."
"What? Where?"
"To their waiting room. I need an apology."
Thud.
Esther grabbed Jia’s hand, and Jia made a flustered expression.
"Uh... Esther! I’m really fine!"
"I’m not fine."
How badly did she get it, for her to be unable to speak properly, and to be afraid of going to the other group’s waiting room?
Esther felt sorry for Jia, who refused with all her might.
'I’m the leader.'
Seeing Jia like that made Esther firm up her resolve even more.
Back when Ryu Ayeon was throwing her weight around, Esther herself lacked skill and couldn’t protect other trainees, but—
Not anymore. Now she was LYNX’s leader, so she had a duty to protect the other members.
"Hoo... Fine, I honestly didn’t want to let it go either. But only me, Esther, and Jia, the victim, will go."
"We’ll go too!"
Jeonghwa must have thought it would be hard to break Esther’s will, because she ended up allowing them to go to Iam’s waiting room.
The moment Jeonghwa allowed it, the other LYNX members raised their voices, saying they would go too.
"No. If everyone goes, it gets too big. We don’t know how they’ll react, and it’s dangerous for everyone to go."
"Still..."
"No. This is my last compromise."
But Jeonghwa didn’t allow that, all the way to the end, so the other members had no choice but to back down.
And so, the expedition to Iam’s waiting room was formed, with Leader Esther, Manager Kim Jeonghwa, and the victim, Jia.
"Esther! Really, nothing happened! I’m fine!"
"Then why did you cry?"
"That’s..."
"You can’t even answer, and you’re saying nothing happened?"
Jia, the victim, looked like she truly didn’t want to go, like she was terrified of Iam—no, terrified of Lee Sion—but in the end she was being forcibly dragged along by Esther.
And finally, they arrived at Iam’s waiting room.
Knock knock.
Esther was angry, but she figured she should still keep basic manners, so she knocked.
'Huh... Looks like they knew we’d come.'
When there was no reaction, Esther immediately grabbed the doorknob and swung the door open.
She wasn’t going to come all this way and then go back just because there was no response.
But,
"Kyaaaah!!"
"Die, you enemy!"
"You left the waiting room to do this, didn’t you?!"
"How do you cause an incident on the day we debut?!"
"Boss seriously needs to get it!"
"Sion needs to get properly educated once!"
"Everyone! Yunkyung! We should at least listen to what Sion has to say!"
Esther couldn’t say anything after seeing the scene in front of her.
"What is that..."
"Ayeon!"
Jeonghwa and Jia were the same. Both of them covered their mouths with their hands, unable to continue at the shocking sight.
What they were seeing was, of all things, a beating scene.
They had Lee Sion up on the table like a criminal getting caned, and the Iam members and people who looked like managers were pounding her back.
At a glance, it looked like it could be a joke, but the strength in those hands, and the impact sounds, didn’t look like a joke.
And in reality, Lee Sion was screaming "Kyaaaah!" every time she got hit.
***
"I told you it wasn’t me, didn’t I?"
"···."
I stared at the five mutt members and the two mutt managers, excluding Shinyu, with an icy gaze.
Maybe they had a conscience, because they kept avoiding my eyes and staying silent.
"I’m sorry! How am I even supposed to apologize for this... I had no idea something like that happened."
Inside this waiting room, only LYNX’s manager, Kim Jeonghwa, sounded like a civilized human being, saying the right thing.
"It’s fine. Honestly, we misunderstood too, just from hearing it."
"It’s not a misunderstanding! You didn’t even give me time to say it wasn’t me, and you tried to kill me!"
"Shh! Sion, we’ll talk about it later, later!"
When I poured out how unfair it was, Manager Yunsik hurriedly stopped me.
I definitely saw Yunsik’s palm earlier, smacking my back, and now he was trying to calm me down. It was disgusting beyond words.
'I almost got seriously wronged.'
The one saving grace was that Jia told the truth.
-I’m sorry! Really, nothing happened!
A bunch from LYNX suddenly came to our waiting room while I was being sacrificed to group violence.
Thanks to that, the beating stopped for a moment, and after things calmed down somewhat, it became clear why LYNX had come.
It was Esther, LYNX’s leader, who spoke first, saying, with a solemn expression, that she’d come to receive an apology for bullying their group’s Youngest.
At those words, the faces of everyone except me went pale—both the Iam members and our managers—but I just stared straight at Jia.
With a look that said, If you’re human, tell the truth.
And maybe that look got through, because Jia confessed everything that happened in the bathroom, exactly as it was.
"Only Shinyu, come here."
"Yes, Sion! I believed you."
At my words, Shinyu came trotting over to my side.
Anyway, thanks to that, the truth finally came out and I restored my honor, and I immediately started thinking about how to punish the heretics who didn’t believe me, excluding Shinyu.
"Sorry, Ayeon..."
"Jia... no... I mean, I—haah..."
I saw Jia apologizing to Ryu Ayeon while leaving me, the victim, right there, and I saw Ryu Ayeon looking like she didn’t know what to do.
And,
"···."
I caught Esther in my field of view, watching that scene with a silent, ambiguous gaze.
