Ch.30Chapter 30. I Don’t Understand What You’re Saying

“Alicia~ Time to wash up and go to bed.”

“Okay!”

Alice flopped down on the bed after answering in a loud voice.

“Ah…”

Come to think of it, she forgot to ask for Cuss’s phone number.

Alice gestured in the air, and a hologram screen appeared before her eyes.

She decided to look for Cuss on a social media app.

“Cuss? Is it spelled C-U-S-S? No, that’s a swear word. Then is it Curse? That doesn’t sound right either…”

She was troubled by the spelling of the name.

She hadn’t thought about it when calling her, but now that she was trying to figure out the spelling, it struck her as an odd name.

It seemed like a name someone had given with malicious intent.

No way, that can’t be right. There must be some hidden good meaning behind it.

But even after convincing herself…

“She’s not here?”

Alice failed to find Cuss on any social media app.

It was quite shocking that a kid these days didn’t use social media.

“I don’t think… I thanked her properly.”

Alice covered her eyes with her arm.

After the incident, the classroom atmosphere had remained cold until school ended, so she completely forgot to express her gratitude.

Cuss had used violence all for her sake.

Letting out a deep sigh, Alice recalled what had happened.

*

“You orphan.”

“What?!”

Alice’s head whipped around.

Tom had been saying nonsense for a while, but now he had finally crossed the line.

Orphan?

To a child who had clearly come to the entrance ceremony holding her parent’s hand.

“Orphan?”

But Cuss just tilted her head, not showing much agitation.

Is she not falling for this jerk’s provocation?

A hint of respect mixed into Alice’s gaze as she looked at Cuss.

“Yeah. Orphan. Weren’t you an orphan until recently? Or maybe you still are?”

“…”

Even as Tom approached with his hands in his pockets, Cuss continued tilting her head, not understanding what he meant.

Wasn’t an orphan a child without parents?

She was officially listed as Jinsoo’s child on the surface.

She felt tense, wondering if she had shown some flaw that revealed they weren’t actually related by blood.

“Hey! That’s going too far! Apologize to Cuss right now!”

“She doesn’t even call him father. That makes her an orphan, doesn’t it?”

Indeed.

Cuss newly realized how important names and titles were in human society.

“Jinsoo is father.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he is. Even though your hair colors are different.”

“…”

“So tell me what your father does for a living. I bet it’s nothing special.”

“Hmm…”

Cuss fell into thought.

Work? She certainly understood the concept of labor to earn money in human society.

Jinsoo was definitely doing something called work.

But she had no idea what kind of work it was.

Whenever she asked where he was going, he would only say:

-Goldbricking Life

That’s all he would say.

No matter how much she looked through the dictionary at home, she couldn’t find such a word.

Although she didn’t know what he did, she knew where he worked.

Some factory called Tac-something.

“He works at a factory.”

“What, a factory? A fac-to-ry? Pfft! Haha! Hahahaha!”

“…?”

Cuss couldn’t understand why Tom was laughing hysterically.

But she felt an inexplicable anger boiling up from inside her chest.

She couldn’t tell if it was because of what this rude kid said or because of his infuriating laughter.

“How can a person work at a factory? Robots work in factories, you idiot. Oh, I guess people do work there! As safety supervisors! Haha! But isn’t that just part-time?”

“Stop it, Tom. Using someone’s parents to…”

“Stop what? Both the kid and her parent clearly look low-class. The car you came in had tires, right? How far out in the boondocks do you live that you need wheels on the ground? Your father is really pitiful. Living so poor and miserable, yet going out of his way to raise a stupid kid like you…”

“Tom! I said stop it!”

As Alice raised her voice, eyes in the hallway gradually began to gather.

Tom’s shoulders rose proudly, thinking all those gazes were in support of him.

They probably all wanted to say something similar.

A smelly commoner entering a school exclusively for nobles.

While everyone else was being hypocritically quiet, Tom firmly believed that such words should be spoken by the son of a politician representing the citizens.

‘Should I kill him?’

Meanwhile, Cuss was facing Tom with wide eyes, not even realizing she was getting excited.

Her clenched fists were trembling.

Half of what Tom said was difficult to understand, but she could easily tell it was an insult.

And not just directed at her, but at Jinsoo as well.

Thinking about that, her vision strangely narrowed, her heart pounded, and her teeth clenched involuntarily.

Jinsoo had told her not to tolerate severe injustice.

But he had also said not to hit kids unless absolutely necessary.

Pondering these contradictory pieces of advice, Cuss finally made her decision.

She would do as she pleased.

“Hey. You stay out of this. Why do you keep defending this slum dweller? Are you poor too?”

“What? Did you just finish saying…”

At that moment, Cuss’s body suddenly lunged forward.

Her knee was aimed directly at Tom’s solar plexus.

***

“What’s this? Why are you back? Date didn’t go well?”

“…”

As soon as she entered the office, her superior snickered.

Juliane tried hard to ignore her, but the corners of her eyes were inevitably trembling.

“Well, meeting for lunch was strange to begin with. If you were planning to take him to a hotel, you should have obviously met for dinner…”

“Please stop, I beg you…”

“Hahaha! Sorry. So was there any progress? Well, seeing how quickly you came back, I guess you failed again today.”

“I’m dating Jinsoo now.”

“What?”

Her superior’s eyes widened.

No, that couldn’t be right.

Kim Jinsoo had clearly been putting up walls against Juliane recently.

Almost as if he knew she was from the Justice Department.

And now suddenly they’re dating?

Did she jump him in broad daylight and conquer him with passionate sex?

This modest Juliane?

“W-w-what? How? Did you sell your body or something?”

“God, why are you being so vulgar? It’s nice weather today, let’s talk while going for a drive.”

“…”

Seeing Juliane’s meaningful expression, her superior nodded silently and followed her out.

It meant this wasn’t something they could discuss here.

Even as they left the office and went down in the elevator, an awkward silence hung between them.

“Phew! I thought I was going to suffocate!”

“We can talk about other things…”

The silence broke as soon as the two got in the car.

As Juliane grabbed the steering wheel and pulled out of the parking lot, she suddenly realized her superior was staring at her intently.

“W-what is it?”

“Nothing. We came out to talk, but you’re not saying anything.”

“I’m concentrating right now.”

“Why not use the auto-driving feature?”

“Just… I feel more comfortable holding the wheel when we’re not on a straight road.”

“Hehe. So Juliane has an old-fashioned side too.”

“Don’t call me old-fashioned…”

As the car entered a straight road, Juliane switched to auto-driving mode and turned to the side.

In the car, they could talk about anything.

She obsessively checked for bugs or cameras every week.

“I told Kim Jinsoo everything. That you were framed. I asked him to help clear your name. In return, I’m pretending to date him.”

“…”

“By the way, senior, where did you really get that recording tape? If I knew the source, it would be a bit easier…”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Stop pretending… Honestly, whether Kim Jinsoo is the real culprit or not isn’t important. What matters is that he was forced to confess through coercive investigation without evidence. Can’t you just tell me the name of the person who recorded that material? I’ll handle the rest myself.”

“I really don’t know what you’re suddenly talking about.”

Juliane was left speechless at her superior’s relaxed smile.

She’s going to keep playing dumb even here where no one can hear?

If that’s the case, why did she provide the material in the first place?

“Are you really doing this?”

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but give it your best shot. Just don’t involve me. I know nothing about it.”

“And the material from before?”

“I don’t remember providing any such material.”

“So that’s how you’re going to be… Fine.”

The note that came with the material back then.

It said she would forget about the material from now on.

Hearing those words directly to her face made it real now.

It was a bit disappointing.

“I… have too much to protect now. I can’t get involved. I’m sorry.”

“Sigh. I understand. I’ll stop bothering you. I’ll do it alone…”

Her superior’s help was gone now.

Even if she fell into crisis, her superior would never help.

More likely, she would take the opposing side.

So from now on, she needed to be careful.

Now she had only one ally…

“Let the coward stay out of it.”

Only Kim Jinsoo.