Ch.99099 – Girlfriend 2

# 099 – Girlfriend #2

On the day of the summer vacation ceremony.

The world was quite abuzz.

“—Chairman Kwon Oseong Resigns Suddenly”

“Could Oseong Group Not Escape Owner Risk After All…”

“Whistleblower Submits Ledger of Politician Bribes…”

“Did Kwon Oseong’s Son Hold Drug Parties with Celebrities at His Villa?”

Both news and newspapers were hammering Oseong Group.

When the hidden dirty secrets of chaebol chairman Kwon Oseong were revealed to the world, people seemed to have been waiting for this moment, busy tearing open and gnawing at his wounds.

YouTube video comments exceeded 10,000.

“That’s how all rich people are lol. While hardworking people like me are breaking our backs paying off home loans. We should take all the rich people’s wealth and distribute it to those who have nothing”

“└What’s the threshold for being rich? From my perspective as someone without a home who pays monthly rent, you’re rich too, so shouldn’t you give all your assets to me?”

I thought this must be what they mean when they say a country is divided.

Who would have thought that the chaebol family, which seemed as solid as an iron fortress, would collapse overnight like this?

I hadn’t realized that Chairman Cheon Daegon’s power, which I thought would be at most equivalent to a Gaeryong daimyo, was this strong.

In fact, I could proudly say that besides the Cheon family, I, Ha Yeongwon, played a major role in Kwon Oseong’s downfall.

If I hadn’t interfered with whatever that ritual was, nobody could guarantee what would have happened to the world.

That means I’m quite an amazing person.

Though I don’t really feel it.

Besides Kwon Oseong and Oseong Group’s downfall, there was another incident that caused a stir.

Yeongji High students talked about this more than Oseong Group’s corruption or accounting fraud.

“Sojin, did you hear? They say Dorangmul Girlz is disbanding!”

“Dorangmul Girlz? I don’t really know much about idols…”

Some students were buzzing about the sudden disbandment news of “Dorangmul Girlz,” a girl group that had easily entered the American Billboard charts. Mostly students who were fans of idols.

“I heard there’s an issue with Sarang, the leader. According to Yeouido rumors, she’s pregnant…”

“Hey, how old are you to believe in such rumors?”

“Is the government trying to cover something up by creating celebrity scandals?”

Full of conspiracy theories.

I couldn’t say I had no part in Dorangmul Girlz’s disbandment either.

After all, I was the one who received a confession from Kwon Sua, a core member of the girl group.

“Is this reality?”

Even after several days, everything that happened still felt like a dream.

It was as if my brain had fabricated these fortunate events as hallucinations.

But “Sua” was clearly saved in my phone contacts.

Which meant I could contact her first if I wanted to.

“Hey, so what happened?”

On the morning of the vacation ceremony, with only the principal’s speech remaining.

Jeongseok sat behind me and asked.

I explained briefly, as if I had been waiting for this.

“Yesterday I sent only Jeong Sojin and Teacher Hong Miri into the corridor. They both seemed to escape safely. They earned 300 points and brought back items too.”

Recently, I had sent a reconnaissance party into the corridor.

A two-person party consisting of Teacher Hong Miri and Jeong Sojin.

With a two-person party, they could secure definite escape using talismans obtained from the basement and first floor.

“And as expected, Yu Dahui wasn’t there yesterday.”

Many things had changed since the second floor opened.

First, Yu Dahui’s forced participation gimmick had disappeared.

That alone could change many tactical aspects.

“The item Jeong Sojin brought back yesterday is called a ‘Straw Doll,’ and it’s an amazing item.”

“Straw Doll: Dolls have historically been used as human substitutes. This doll will block a fatal crisis once by being destroyed in your place.”

In other words, it gave you an extra life.

It was truly an awesome item, and I felt like giving Jeong Sojin a kiss for bringing it back.

Just a feeling, of course.

“I still haven’t figured out how the random matching works. Whether it’s truly random or if there’s some rule. We always need to be careful. And manage our quirks well.”

My current points were 788.

From the second floor on, there were too many variables, so I needed to save them carefully.

However, Jeongseok seemed to have let my words go in one ear and out the other.

“Not that. What did Kwon Sua say about you!”

“Ah. That.”

I had previously told Jeongseok over the phone about what happened between Kwon Sua and Oseong Group.

Jeongseok seemed unable to believe it.

I wondered if I should explain again.

# # #

After hearing my story, Jeongseok burst out laughing.

Now that I think about it, Jeongseok rarely laughed.

“Did you develop some quirk? Like ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ quirk? Or did you dream about dating an idol while watching music videos?”

“I’m normal.”

“Come on, you getting confessed to by an idol can’t possibly be true.”

Jeongseok couldn’t believe that Kwon Sua had confessed to me.

Honestly, I completely understood how he felt.

If Jeongseok had told me something similar, I would have suspected a mental illness too.

“So what are you going to do? Date her?”

Jeongseok asked in a low voice.

The reason I told Jeongseok the truth was to seek his opinion.

“I don’t know. Objectively speaking, I wonder if I’ll ever get another opportunity like this. But thinking even more rationally, we don’t know anything about each other.”

I came from an all-boys middle school.

When I found out that Yeongji High was co-ed, and when I learned it was a rough school where two students enter and three graduate, I honestly had some expectations.

The expectation that maybe I could become friends with girls during the semester and possibly get a girlfriend—that kind of expectation. Honestly, any guy would have had such expectations.

But getting a girlfriend was harder than I thought, and I didn’t know how to go about it.

In such a situation, receiving a confession from an idol might seem like something I should immediately accept, but I wondered if that was really the right thing to do.

As I said earlier, we knew very little about each other.

Of course, I knew that Kwon Sua was Kwon Suho’s cousin, an idol, and a girl who could see ghosts like me, but I didn’t know what movies she liked, what food she enjoyed, how she spent her holidays, what she wanted to do in the future, or if she had any favorite novels.

The reverse would be even worse.

How much could Kwon Sua know about me, Ha Yeongwon?

Probably nothing.

Her confession was also for the specific reason: “You’re the first person I’ve met who can see ghosts like me.”

Thinking about it now, it wasn’t because I was handsome, or funny, or because she liked me.

In my opinion, Kwon Sua wasn’t in love with me or liked me, but it might be better to say she had “started to take an interest” in me.

“Once we start dating and she gets to know me better, she might realize I’m not that great, things could get awkward, and we might break up quickly.”

Also, if Kwon Sua got to know more about me.

If she learned all about my family circumstances, could she still claim to like me then?

If we broke up that way, would my heart be okay?

I might end up crying my eyes out from sadness.

I know myself well.

I was someone who easily fell into one-sided love and got hurt easily.

Of course, Jeongseok frowned and showed his anger openly.

“Hey, who thinks about failure without even trying? I really don’t understand. Why you of all people? The status window, the idol confession… why do all these good things keep happening to you?”

I don’t know either.

Even Jeongseok, who was devoted to Bong Jiyeon, seemed somewhat uncomfortable and mentally confused about idol Kwon Sua’s confession to me.

Was he envious of me?

“Hey, at least you have Bong Jiyeon.”

“Bong Jiyeon’s been flirting with some older guy she knows. They’re going to see a movie together soon.”

What?

Is that for real?

For the past few days, I had been keeping a low profile.

I was watching the situation, worried that chaebol chairman Kwon Oseong might launch a full-scale corporate retaliation against me for the ‘ritual interference incident’ on the night of the new moon.

After staying quiet for a few days, I only began to feel a bit relieved after the chairman and that Dr. Ji completely disarmed Kwon Oseong and exposed him naked, figuratively speaking, in front of reporters.

While I was lying low, it seemed the relationship between Bong Jiyeon and Jeongseok had taken an unexpected turn.

“Wait, where did this ‘older guy’ Bong Jiyeon knows suddenly come from?”

“I couldn’t ask, but from the circumstances, it seems they connected through Instagram. Remember when we went to our villa recently? While we were digging, the girls were playing in the pool and taking pictures.”

“Right.”

“Apparently he’s one of the people who commented. Seems like he’s a senior from the track team that Bong Jiyeon has liked since middle school. At that time, he had a girlfriend… but it looks like he’s single now.”

Oh, shit…

I had nothing to say.

At this point, shouldn’t Jeongseok give up on Bong Jiyeon?

To be honest, Jeongseok came from a good family, was a good student, and was quite handsome.

That meant he had no negative factors in terms of likability.

Bong Jiyeon, who had lived as a queen bee, would surely know that Jeongseok liked her.

I wondered why she wouldn’t accept Jeongseok’s feelings.

I scrolled through the Instagram friend page Jeongseok showed me and looked at the photos of the “older guy” who was supposedly flirting with Bong Jiyeon these days.

He had a fierce look at first glance, and there were photos of him playing soccer shirtless or posing with women in swimsuits at the beach, which showed quite a lot of charisma.

Slim and muscular. The very definition of fashion muscles.

At that moment, a realization popped into my head.

Bong Jiyeon likes men with good bodies.

Both Kwon Suho, Bong Jiyeon’s ex-boyfriend, and this flirting older guy.

They both had bodies that would impress even other men.

Bong Jiyeon, from the athletic track team, was undoubtedly attracted to men with better bodies than her own.

“Jeongseok, you need to start exercising.”

Jeongseok was slightly thin.

Not muscular at all.

“What are you going to do?”

Jeongseok asked me.

He must be asking about Kwon Sua.

I had been thinking about it a lot too.

“We’re planning to meet in a few days to try various things. Watch movies together, go shopping at the department store… just spend time together to get to know each other better…”

“That’s a date.”

A date?

I suppose you could call it that.

However, Jeongseok seemed concerned about something as he looked around and spoke quietly.

“What do Yang Juhui and Dahui say about it?”

“Those two…”

The back door slid open.

Yang Juhui, who had been absent during break time, perhaps to the bathroom or on some errand, approached us and said to Jeongseok:

“Hey, that’s my seat.”

Jeongseok got up from the back seat.

Soon, the principal’s speech was broadcast on the screens installed in each classroom, and the first semester ended.

The hot summer vacation of my first year in high school had begun.