Ch.191191 – Santa Claus

# 191 – Santa Claus

A five-year-old girl and a thirty-four-year-old woman wandered around the yard, imitating raccoons.

While watching them, Yang Juhui felt an indescribable feeling when Jeongseok asked.

“Is that your daughter, ma’am?”

“I’m not a ma’am! And she’s not my daughter, she’s the boss’s daughter. Kang Nayu. Her parents are so busy they barely see her, so she thinks I’m her mom. Come in, all of you.”

Ha Chaeyeon invited Hong Miri, Yang Juhui, Jeongseok, and Jeong Sojin into the house.

The interior of what appeared to be a famous architect’s design was filled with glass cases displaying bows, samurai armor, and unidentifiable paintings.

To Yang Juhui, this place felt like sitting on pins and needles.

She disliked the smell of wealth.

‘So that’s why I was uncomfortable in that luxury apartment where my sister and parents all lived together.’

Just as she had this new realization, Jeong Sojin pointed at something.

It was a large family portrait hanging on the wall.

“Look at that.”

The family portrait showed a man, a woman, a girl, and a baby.

The face of the girl holding the baby in her arms looked quite familiar.

Only then did Yang Juhui realize who the owners of this house and their family were.

Vroom-.

Soon the sound of a car was heard, and a female student resembling the girl in the large portrait got out of a black car.

As the calm, cold-looking girl entered the house, little Nayu ran pitter-patter and clung to her legs.

“Unnie! Unnie! Play with me!”

Nayu clung to the girl. But the girl didn’t look at Nayu. As if she didn’t exist.

Yet they looked very much alike. Watching them, Jeongseok laughed, “Haha-“

“Yu Dahui.”

“It’s Kang Dahui now.”

“Yu Dahui!”

Someone shouted loudly.

Yang Juhui didn’t even realize it was her own voice.

When she came to her senses, she was lunging at Yu Dahui.

“Y-y-you… you biiiiitch!”

Crash-!

Yu Dahui fell to the floor, and the five-year-old girl screamed in surprise.

“Kyaak!”

“You! You dog! Because of you!”

Yang Juhui, like someone who had lost her mind, straddled Yu Dahui and repeatedly slapped her cheeks.

Slap slap-slap slap slap-with each flash of her palm, Yu Dahui’s head jerked left and right, but even as blood flowed from her mouth and nose, her expression didn’t change.

Yang Juhui shouted at such a Yu Dahui.

“You! You drove him to it!”

Yang Juhui thought Yu Dahui bore a large share of responsibility for this situation. Ha Yeongwon had disappeared trying to stop Yu Dahui from repeatedly dying.

She couldn’t stand that Yu Dahui was still playing the young lady in a mansion like a palace.

“Are you done now?”

Yu Dahui, pinned to the floor, asked Yang Juhui.

As Yang Juhui replied, “What did you say?” her body suddenly flipped over and she found herself pinned to the floor.

Thud-!

Now Yu Dahui punched Yang Juhui’s nose, and the unexpected counterattack left Yang Juhui bewildered. It felt like stars were flying before her eyes.

“Kugyaak!”

Thud thud thud-!

Yang Juhui’s face was pummeled by fists. Yu Dahui’s hands were surprisingly powerful, leaving Yang Juhui completely dazed. Just as she was thinking Yu Dahui must have learned boxing, Yu Dahui shouted.

“Yang Juhui! I’ve disliked you since long ago! You always do whatever you want! I never needed wishes or anything like that! I was fine just as things were! If only you hadn’t been so greedy about finding your sister!”

“I hate you too! You pretentious fox! It’s all because of you! Because of you! You’re the one who acted on your own! You kept dying!”

Back and forth.

Soon Yang Juhui and Yu Dahui were taking turns pinning each other down and fighting wildly. It was complete chaos, and even Jeongseok in his rebellious mode was bewildered, saying, “What the…”

Watching this scene, five-year-old Kang Nayu cried loudly.

“Stop fighting! Stop fighting! Nayu did something wrong! Unnie! Stop fighting! I’ll be a good sister! Waaah! I won’t ask you to play with me! Stop fighting! Hueeeeeng-.”

The atmosphere was chaotic in many ways.

Soon the housekeeper Ha Chaeyeon, who had been baking cookies in the kitchen, was startled.

“Hey, what are you doing!”

The two wouldn’t separate no matter what.

Only after Ha Chaeyeon brought a large plate of cold water and poured it over them did the strange fight finally end.

# # #

“Well, fighting happens at that age. I used to fight a lot with Inna, the lady of this house, when we were in high school. Seeing you reminds me of those days. I don’t even remember why we fought.”

Ha Chaeyeon applied medicine to Yang Juhui and Yu Dahui’s faces and put bandages on them.

“Still, did you have to be so fixated on each other’s faces? It’ll leave scars on your pretty faces.”

Yu Dahui and Yang Juhui were still glaring at each other.

They could finally be honest now.

Originally forced to be together, now that their center of gravity was gone, they had no reason to stay together.

Originally, they were people who would never have met, with different living places and tastes.

“Unnie! Unnieeee!”

Kang Dahui’s younger sister Kang Nayu clung desperately to her sister sitting in the chair. Of course, Yu Dahui, now named Kang Dahui, didn’t even look at her sister.

Her little sister Kang Nayu became very depressed.

Watching this, Yang Juhui shot out.

“See that? There’s her nasty personality. Her sister is begging to play with her, and she won’t even play with her. If I had such a cute little sister, I’d carry her on my back and play with her every day.”

“…”

“Grrrr, don’t insult my unnie…!”

“Ack! She bit my foot!”

Watching this chaotic situation, Jeongseok realized something.

‘Dahui can’t accept her suddenly acquired sister. Is it because her past memories and current memories are causing confusion? No, it seems a bit different from that.’

Whatever the case, the pirate crew members were gathering one by one.

Jeongseok thought this was a good thing.

The problem was that everyone’s hearts were scattered.

“Well, enjoy your time together, friends. Nayu, want to play with auntie?”

“Yes, yes!”

Click-.

The door closed.

Soon Yu Dahui opened her mouth.

“I left a message thinking you would find Bong Jiyeon, and you found your way here well.”

Yu Dahui was living under the name Kang Dahui.

Her father, Kang Bada, was a famous game director in the industry, and her mother was an artist specializing in classical art. In this life too, she had no shortage of money.

Perhaps she was destined to live as a rich young lady from the beginning – Jeongseok thought so, but there was no way to prove whether it was true or not.

Dahui touched her bandaged nose bridge and said.

“A free-spirited father and an affectionate mother. A cute little sister. It’s certainly a life others would envy. But in the end, these are just dreams. Dreams that will disappear when you wake up.”

Yu Dahui felt that all of this was fake.

So she couldn’t get attached or pour affection into it.

Even her suddenly acquired little sister Kang Nayu was originally a non-existent being.

And because she would disappear when she woke from the dream, it was difficult to give her affection easily.

“When morning comes and I wake up, everything will return to normal. No one pours affection into a one-night dream. That’s how it is.”

It was a pleasant life, but that was all.

Yu Dahui felt bored with the idea of simply graduating high school, going to college, graduating, and getting a job or working.

Although Yang Juhui truly disliked Yu Dahui, she understood that feeling.

Even though Yang Juhui had obtained the family union she had so desperately wanted, she couldn’t stand the yawns and boredom that soaked her body every day.

Yang Juhui thought, very frustratingly, that she had no choice but to join hands with Yu Dahui.

But she needed to establish some things clearly.

“Let me tell you in advance, I dated him first. I’m above you.”

“That became a non-event, so it’s invalid.”

Originally, Yu Dahui would have wanted to curse but couldn’t find the right words and would have had to mumble her lips, but perhaps because she had been through a lot, she was having a good match with Yang Juhui.

People change.

“So what are we going to do now?”

Asked Jeong Sojin, crossing her arms.

Teacher Hong Miri, who was stuffing cookies into her mouth, also asked as if it was an interesting story.

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m cut off from the Cheon family and living in a cramped room with my twin Hong Yeri. It’s literally hell. I need to get back to the original world quickly to at least find my place as a servant in a noble house.”

It was time to make a plan.

It could also be seen as a course of action going forward. Jeongseok, who had thought about this direction, began to speak with a confident voice.

“We’re going to create an urban legend about ‘Yeongwon’s Clock’ in this world. Make people believe that such a thing really exists. For that, we need a step-by-step buildup.”

“So me playing the role of a missing high school girl is part of that buildup?”

Hmm- Jeong Sojin opened her narrow eyes.

As Jeongseok’s cousin, she understood faster than expected.

“Yes. We’re going to create artificial and deliberate non-daily life and ghosts. And also the existence of a wish-granting clock and a male student operating in the darkness…”

Jeongseok closed his eyes.

The times when he talked about games with a certain male student or chatted about trivial things came back vividly as if they had happened just yesterday.

“Come to think of it, I don’t think Yeongwon ever refused our requests. That’s the kind of being he was. Like Santa Claus…”

Santa Claus was a being who granted wishes and gave presents.

Perhaps Ha Yeongwon had been such a being from the beginning, Jeongseok thought. Everyone just didn’t notice because he looked like a naive high school student.

‘Then who should grant Santa Claus’s wish?’

With that feeling, the pirate crew’s meeting ended.

Yu Dahui decided to transfer to Yeongji High School.

“A sudden transfer student. It’ll make a good story.”

Swish-.

Everyone who finished talking got up from their seats.

It was to return to their respective places.

Ha Chaeyeon waved to them as they left the house.

“Come again sometime. Seeing you makes me think of the old days and feel good. I always felt like I had lost something great, but seeing you makes me feel better.”

In this life, Yu Dahui had never mentioned Ha Yeongwon to Ha Chaeyeon. It was a kind of consideration, as they didn’t know what would happen if she regained her memories.

They parted ways like that, and the time approached when the cherry blossoms that had bloomed so profusely were now dropping messy petals on the ground.

On a day in April, facing midterm exams and following the successive disappearances of female students.

“…Gong Yerin hasn’t been coming to school for days. The police came to school earlier. Do you think Gong Yerin has gone missing like Jeong Sojin?”

“Shouldn’t they cancel school instead of having exams? I heard Gu Hyena from the next class has disappeared too…”

The students were terrified by the continuing disappearances of high school girls.

Lim Huiyeon, timid as a rabbit, was even more withdrawn thinking about how her best friend Gong Yerin had been unreachable for days.

At 8 PM, Lim Huiyeon returned to school from home.

“Yerin: Huiyeon, come to our classroom, it’s urgent! Don’t tell anyone! Hurry! Check my locker!”

Lim Huiyeon was slightly tense and scared looking at the message she received from Gong Yerin. A message from the missing Gong Yerin.

She thought she should report it to the police, but she couldn’t because of the message saying not to contact anyone. So she entered Class D alone when no one was there.

Click.

She pressed the switch to turn on the lights in the dark classroom, but strangely, the classroom lights wouldn’t come on.

The corridor lights were brightly lit, but for some reason, only the classroom remained dark.

“Kiririk, kiriririk-.”

Then a strange sound was heard from the dark classroom.

“Kiriririk-.”

“…Yerin?”

Wondering if it might be Gong Yerin, Lim Huiyeon slowly raised her phone light and felt her breath stop. A girl with blood on her face was grinning, showing her white teeth.

“Kirik, kirirririk!”

She kept making incomprehensible sounds, and her face and smile didn’t seem human at all.

She even approached Lim Huiyeon while twisting her body in a strange direction!

“Hieeeek! Ghost!”

Lim Huiyeon wet herself and collapsed.

She had fainted.

Soon Jeongseok, Yang Juhui, and Jeong Sojin, who had been hiding in the classroom, jumped out.

High school girl Gu Hyena, who had blood all over her face, also laughed, “Hehe-“

“How was my acting? I must have the Best Actress award reserved, right?”

Gu Hyena felt satisfied with her ghost performance.

She didn’t know why she could act as a ghost so realistically, but it felt like she had become one with the role through method acting. It was truly method acting itself.

“You guys, don’t forget your promise to connect me with Kwon Sua? I’m just going to school for the diploma anyway, and my dream is actually to become an actress, so it’s good to expand my connections in the entertainment industry early.”

Gu Hyena had received promises of money and connections from Jeongseok, the mayor’s son, to act as a missing high school girl and ghost.

It was a lot of money, so she couldn’t refuse.

‘What are they trying to do? More importantly, I can’t believe she wet herself looking at me. Was my ghost acting that perfect? What is this? This ticklish feeling in my lower abdomen…?’

For some reason, Gu Hyena felt good when others were scared of her.

After some time, Lim Huiyeon, who was found unconscious by the security guard, began refusing to attend school from the next day, and rumors about “ghosts” started spreading around the school.