* * *
Woo Jaehyun tilted his head calmly, staring down at the boy’s slack-jawed face.
His gently curved eyes held a dangerously sharp gleam.
“Still, you should be more careful with that mouth of yours.”
Whoa—he’s going way too far for a kid.
The boy looked only around fifteen, but Woo Jaehyun’s demeanor was far too menacing.
The atmosphere was turning deadly, like he might cut out the boy’s tongue right then and there.
Hadn’t he once crushed a man’s vocal cords in a warehouse just because he was being too noisy?
Granted, that probably wouldn’t happen this time—but still, this was Woo Jaehyun.
Letting your guard down around him was never a good idea.
“Woo Je—”
Just as he stepped in to intervene before things got out of hand, a commotion erupted outside.
He thought someone might’ve cut in line, but the yelling and cursing were way too intense for that.
“Get lost!”
“Do you even know where you are?!”
Everyone—including Woo Jaehyun—immediately turned toward the source of the noise.
Woo Jaehyun’s expression twisted with disgust, the same way Inho looked at debt-dodging customers.
What the hell is going on out there?
With the oppressive energy in the room easing, the pale-faced boy collapsed to the floor with a thud.
He looked genuinely shaken, which was a bit concerning, but Inho had to figure out what was happening first.
“Quick! Take a picture for evidence!”
“I’ve been filming since earlier.”
Something was off.
After politely excusing himself from the customers and heading outside, he found people furiously snapping pictures and filming someone with their phones.
What the hell?
He squeezed through the crowd to get a better look—and was met with the last person he expected to see.
Wait… Hedgehog?!
Gelled-up hair like a porcupine and that obnoxious swagger—it was that same hunter he’d seen back in China.
The guy looked thoroughly annoyed and barked in Chinese, clearly not pleased with the crowd’s reaction.
“What the hell is he doing here…?”
He never thought they’d cross paths again, let alone right in front of his shop.
How long had it been since he got back from China?
Judging by that smug expression, the guy had assumed Inho would be alone—probably didn’t expect Cha Rui or Woo Jaehyun to be working in a cheap little snack shop.
Funny, considering he ran out of a restaurant like a whipped dog not too long ago.
And now here he was, showing up all bold and arrogant.
Ignoring the people trying to hold him back, Inho sighed and stepped forward.
Ever since he’d been kidnapped once, it felt like the whole country now thought of him as some fragile pushover, even though he was S-class.
“What are you doing here?”
The moment he showed himself, Hedgehog’s face lit up like a bulb.
As if he’d been waiting for this moment, he ran over and immediately started fiddling with the translator on his earpiece.
“Seo Inho!”
And without warning, he reached for Inho’s arm—but Inho smoothly dodged to the side.
Being on equal footing in terms of rank, he wasn’t about to lose out in speed.
In China, there were already three kids vying for attention, so I just hadn’t needed to step up.
Between me and Hedgehog, it wasn’t about anything personal—just a difference in roles.
He was a dealer, and I was a support.
“Ahem.”
At my firm response, Hedgehog gave an awkward little cough and casually folded his arms, as if that’s what he’d meant to do all along.
“Why? I told you I’d see you again soon, didn’t I?”
“Doesn’t seem like the best timing…”
People already half-believed I’d been kidnapped in China.
Having a Chinese hunter—an S-rank one, no less—show up in front of me now would only fuel the misunderstanding.
There’s no way he didn’t know that, and yet he wasn’t even bothering to put up a barrier.
That meant he didn’t take the controversy seriously at all.
“What? You think I care what those people think?”
Hedgehog blatantly gestured with his chin at the people recording us on their phones, scoffing.
That’s not what I meant.
When I said it wasn’t a good time, I wasn’t talking about the onlookers.
I meant the two guys watching from inside the shop, pretending not to care.
“Seo Inho, think about it.”
Not knowing they were there, Hedgehog lifted his chin, taking on a preachy tone.
His lips curled upward, revealing sharp canines.
“You’re switching your nationality to China, right? Then you won’t have to deal with this trash treatment anymore. These small-time countries don’t know how valuable you are.”
With no barrier, his words went straight into the ears of the crowd, unfiltered.
And since he didn’t hesitate to point rudely downward, as if referring to the people themselves, it wasn’t long before they erupted in angry shouting.
Still, Hedgehog kept that smug expression, not even glancing their way.
“The moment you naturalize, all of us Chinese will welcome you with open arms. You like money, right? You’ll be showered with cash and expensive gifts every day. So what’s there to hesitate about?”
For the record, I’d never hesitated.
Not even once.
What kind of delusion brought him all the way here?
At this point, it was clear—“Seo Inho” must’ve taken every single thing he offered and strung him along, pretending he might say yes.
“I don’t know what you’re doing in this dump of a place, but you don’t have to struggle like this anymore. Just sign a contract with me, and I’ll make sure you live your whole life being revered by everyone, with just the occasional support work.”
“……”
“You’ll be a hunter of a major power. Don’t you get it?”
Did he just call our precious snack shop a “dump”?
I almost headbutted him out of sheer rage.
Listening to him, everything sounded identical—word for word—to what Pyeon Song-gyeong proposed back in North Korea.
Who said I wanted to be revered?
All I wanted was to live quietly with my dad, unnoticed, and without being cursed for things I never even did.
I mean, sure, the shop’s doing a lot better than expected, but still.
More importantly, as Woo Jaehyun had said, that guy had zero capacity to deliver on his promises.
His influence barely scraped the bottom of the barrel, so I had no idea who he thought he could make into someone worthy of reverence.
“You lunatic! What’s that damn ch*nk babbling about? Get lost already!”
“Right! Hunter Seo Inho, you don’t have to listen to garbage like that!”
And really, if you’re going to make an offer like that, the least you could do is have the decency to put up a barrier.
People boiling over like pots at Hedgehog’s offensive speech was a totally predictable outcome.
Still, even in the heat of the crowd’s fury, a few people looked visibly anxious, worried I might actually take the offer.
“What if… he really leaves?”
“There are still people accusing him of faking the whole kidnapping…”
“If I were getting trashed that badly, I’d leave the country too—just not to China.”
“Hey, don’t jinx it!”
The whispers, though quiet, pierced my ears with startling clarity.
No matter how much I didn’t want to hear it, unless I physically plugged my ears, I had no choice but to take it all in.
A fake kidnapping, huh…
It was one of those moments when you find out something you really didn’t want to know.
This is exactly why I never go on HunTube…
A sudden wave of exhaustion hit me, and I rubbed at my eyes.
“Ha… Hedgehog.”
“Hedgehog?”
“Yeah, you. Hedgehog. You’re the one who doesn’t get it.”
At my words, his face turned bright red, and he stuttered, his lips fumbling.
He must’ve hated the nickname because he practically jumped out of his skin and threw a tantrum.
He yelled at me to take back the “insult,” acting completely outraged, but from where I stood, the whole thing was ridiculous.
I mean, if you hate it that much, at least tell me your name.
I’m sure he did at some point, but I wasn’t about to go digging around just to remember it.
Anyway, we couldn’t waste more time here, so without another word, I stepped aside—to reveal the shop behind me.
Hedgehog’s eyes, which had been sharply angled like clock hands at 10:10, flew wide open. He must’ve spotted the two guys inside.
“What—what the hell! Why are those three here?!”
Yeah, the thre—… Huh? Three?
Startled, I spun around—and sure enough, there was one more person standing in front of the shop.
Next to Woo Jaehyun and Cha Rui, who had stepped outside at some point, was Do Soohyuk, quietly watching us.
“What—what the hell. Why is Do Soohyuk here?”
I was so shocked that I ended up saying the exact same thing as Hedgehog.
Not surprising, really—ever since that incident at the hardware store, things had shifted between me and Soohyuk in a way I couldn’t ignore.
We were already a bit awkward before, but now?
This was a whole new flavor of awkward.
Right after we escaped the dungeon, we’d been close enough for him to fly back with me and drop me off at home.
At the time, I convinced myself it was just out of necessity—we were both trying to survive.
But the more I thought back on it before falling asleep, the less sure I was.
Even if I wasn’t in my right mind, the things I said to him, the way I clung to him—it didn’t feel like something someone did just to stay alive.
That doubt only added to the chaos in my already messy head.
Was Soohyuk really okay with all of it?
I couldn’t meet his eyes, so I kept glancing at him from the corner of mine.
He stood there quietly, watching the scene, wearing the earmuffs I’d given him—a completely unseasonable accessory.
The weird thing was, Woo Jaehyun was glaring at those earmuffs like he wanted to burn them.
…What’s up with him?
Anyway, the unintentional gathering of three S-ranks had turned the front of our shop into absolute chaos, like some kind of black market free-for-all.
* * *
