episode_0586

586

“But apart from the academy, I did want to check it out personally…”

“The faces of slave bitches panicking when called to the police station due to problems related to the meeting and their children.”

“And what kind of reaction Siwoo would show seeing the mothers who were called in…”

“Including Ms. Yu Yena’s response to handling that situation…”

Cheoljin is talking to Siwoo, as if emphasizing that the incident at the police station was not a coincidence at all.

“You’re saying you wanted to check my reaction and Ms. Yu Yena’s response?”

Siwoo asks with a puzzled expression, as if he doesn’t quite understand what Cheoljin said.

Cheoljin seemed to have called the police that day, intending to check not only the mothers’ faces, but also Siwoo’s reaction and Ms. Yu Yena’s response.

“Yeah! Judging from Siwoo’s behavior and attitude so far, I thought he wasn’t directly related to the meeting, but I wasn’t 100% sure…”

“He might be acting perfectly in front of me, and he might have obtained new information or formed relationships at the academy or elsewhere in the meantime…”

Cheoljin was explaining the reason why he tried to check Siwoo’s reaction.

“And even now, but there are still many suspicious things about Ms. Yu Yena…”

“From the time she talked about the slave contract or the meeting and asked me for a favor related to it.”

Cheoljin is continuing to explain the reason why he tried to check Ms. Yu Yena’s response.

“At first, she called me out to talk as if she was worried about the rumors about the meeting, right?”

“But in the end, it’s just that she was leaking the internal circumstances to me, who is practically an outsider.”

“From some point on, I felt that Ms. Yu Yena might not be very interested in finding that thing.”

“If she had it, it would have been faster and easier to check with you directly through Shinbi or Seulgi, but I wondered if she really needed to tell me.”

Cheoljin continues to talk as if strongly expressing his doubts about Ms. Yu Yena’s request.

“When we all went to the police station, I thought Ms. Yu Yena would be the first to rush over among the guardians…”

“Because Ms. Yu Yena knew about the meeting and told them to contact her first if something happened.”

“I thought she might be secretly watching nearby or had some safety device in place…”

“If Ms. Yu Yena had gathered at the police station, I thought I could roughly guess her relationship with those slaves by seeing them greet or confront each other.”

“I was trying to see Ms. Yu Yena’s position among the slaves, or the hierarchy, by the way they treated each other.”

Cheoljin is telling Siwoo about the fact that he was even suspicious of Ms. Yu Yena’s intentions and attitude, and the plan to gauge her position or standing…

“Whether they pretend not to know on purpose and awkwardly look around… how they talk to each other, things like that…”

Siwoo was looking at Cheoljin with a dumbfounded expression, smiling in disbelief.

“Well… that’s why I ended up reporting it to the police…”

“It’s also true that I thought that was a sure way to save Sehee and Semi… that’s the biggest reason, but…”

At the end of the lengthy explanation, Cheoljin smiles awkwardly, following Siwoo, as if adding an unnecessary remark.

“Well, it seems Ms. Yu Yena didn’t come to the police station until I left…”

“But I realized something after seeing the reactions of the people gathered at the police station…!”

Cheoljin says with a faint smile, nodding his head greatly as if he is convincing himself.

“What did you realize?”

Siwoo asks, tilting his head slightly as if curious.

“First of all, those mothers seemed to know each other to some extent…”

“But it was obvious that they were awkwardly pretending not to know each other?”

Cheoljin begins to talk about the attitudes and reactions of those mothers that he observed inside the police station at that time.

“And at first, I was half-doubtful, but it seemed almost certain that they didn’t recognize me, Sehee, or Siwoo.”

“Even though our eyes met in surprise, it didn’t feel like they were recognizing someone they knew.”

“But the strange thing is, as soon as all three of them entered the police station, they immediately turned to us as if reacting to something…”

“It felt like they hesitated in surprise as soon as they entered, even before checking our faces, and then turned to us…”

Cheoljin continued to talk to himself, still questioning the situation at the time, as if recalling it.

“As soon as they entered, even before checking our faces?”

Siwoo repeats the first part of Cheoljin’s words questioningly, with an expression that he doesn’t understand.

“Yeah, all three of them! It was almost the same reaction…”

“As soon as they entered, they paused as if flustered and turned to us, then turned their heads as if nothing had happened and pretended not to know?”

“But I think I knew right away. Why those women turned to us and acted flustered…”

Cheoljin raises his hand as if giving a hint, and scratches the bridge of his nose as he speaks to Siwoo.

Siwoo frowned as if contemplating Cheoljin’s words for a moment.

“Why is that?”

Then Siwoo asks Cheoljin as if he couldn’t figure it out.

“This thing…”

Cheoljin appeals to Siwoo, tapping his nose with his finger as if to emphasize what he realized and give a hint…

“Nose?”

Siwoo asks, looking at Cheoljin tapping his nose with a puzzled expression.

“Smell!”

Cheoljin was staring intently at Siwoo, as if declaring the answer, in a tone as if he was convinced.

Siwoo momentarily recalls the smell of the perfume he broke at the room cafe that day, as if he was hypnotized.

The perfume that Seyoung gave him as a gift, saying it was made at the academy…

Did she say to spray it every three hours after going out?

If those women reacted to the smell of the perfume, it means they must have smelled that scent before…

Siwoo’s mind goes blank for a moment.

Siwoo couldn’t seem to recall what that meant right away.

“The perfume you were wearing then… did you get it from Ms. Yu Yena? Or someone who belongs to Ms. Yu Yena?”

Cheoljin asks, as if to divert Siwoo’s attention, who is dazed.

“Huh? Uh…”

Siwoo reacted absentmindedly and answered Cheoljin’s question.

Cheoljin seemed to be thinking about something for a moment.

“If so, we would have been destined to go to the police station that day, even if I hadn’t reported it to the police…”

Cheoljin says, as if drawing a conclusion in a confident voice.

At that moment, the preliminary bell rings throughout the entire academy, signaling the end of lunch break.

**

“Up to here is what I experienced, what I learned, and the things I was suspicious about.”

“Do you think those questions I asked at the beginning have been answered a bit?”

Cheoljin says to Siwoo, making a face as if he really has nothing to hide.

Siwoo is chewing over the words Cheoljin just uttered with a blank face, as if he had forgotten even the question he asked earlier.

“Tell me more about that thing later. Looking at your face now, it looks like it will take you a long time to sort things out.”

“I think I’ve told you everything I can tell you here. Let’s go down, we can’t be late for class.”

Cheoljin urges Siwoo as if he is uncharacteristically worried about class time.

Cheoljin throws the cup he was holding into the paper recycling bin on the rooftop and heads towards the iron door on the rooftop where the stairs are located.

Siwoo suddenly comes to his senses, takes a deep breath, and quickly moves his steps towards the iron door, following Cheoljin.

“But Siwoo, you and Sehee seemed to recognize those women?”

Cheoljin said to Siwoo in a passing tone while going down the stairs.

Siwoo is startled for a moment and loses the breath he had just taken.

“Well, maybe~”

Cheoljin laughs as if it’s nothing and lightly bumps Siwoo before going down the stairs ahead of him at a fast pace.

**

Siwoo returned to the classroom with an awkward feeling.

While the academy was ending, Cheoljin did not have any separate meetings with Siwoo or talk about magic academy-related matters.

Cheoljin is just spending his break peacefully, exchanging light jokes with friends around him as usual…

Siwoo takes out his smartphone and examines the pictures of the slave ledger’s contracts that he had taken.

The slave contracts, which he initially thought were just the perverted antics or dangerous games of adults, now begin to feel like part of a huge conspiracy or manipulated order.

A family photo that seems to have been taken of his dad and Ms. Yu Yena together when he was young…

And the beautiful middle-aged woman who was in that photo.

The slave contract with that middle-aged woman’s photo attached to it was located right after the ledger’s order paper.

That person is registered as the first order in the slave contracts.

Slave Shin Joohee and Yu Seokhyun, the owner of that slave…

The two figures, presumed to be Siwoo’s grandmother and grandfather…

Siwoo imagined and considered the conjecture and hypothesis that the beginning of all of this may have stemmed from those two.