“What’s wrong with you? What a mess.”
At those words, the ‘customer’ who had monopolized the bar, Im Taewhan, slightly lifted his heavily bowed head.
The smell of alcohol permeated the air around him.
His eyes were only half-open.
Cha Taeyang, making a face of disgust at how much he must have drunk, fanned himself with his hand and sat down beside him.
The answer came back very slowly.
“What about me?”
“Weren’t you on a date with Jaehee? I thought you’d be ecstatic and flying high, so why are you sitting here looking like you’re attending a funeral?”
He roughly asked the bartender, who was lingering nearby to take his order, for ‘the same thing.’
Then, he noticed Im Taewhan chuckling to himself, finding something amusing.
It was absolutely astonishing.
Cha Taeyang had never seen Im Taewhan laugh out loud before.
During their time at the training center, and for quite a while after Cha Taeyang’s unique ‘gut feeling’ began to function, he had observed Taewhan, but he had always been expressionless and unresponsive, as if walking around with walls put up everywhere.
He even turned to look at him with a face that was clearly smiling, his eyes curved.
Goosebumps immediately rose on Taeyang’s arms.
‘…Has this bastard finally gone crazy?’
He seriously considered whether he should have just punched him when Taewhan asked him to hit him last time.
“Ah, you knew?”
“Of course, I know. I mean, ha. Even though I completely missed the mark with you and the Director, I have a really good gut feeling, you know?”
“I see. Do other people think so too?”
“No. Who would think that the only son of a prominent family would risk his life doing charity work? The rumors briefly surfaced as a joke when you were running rampant, but they’ve completely disappeared now.”
Aside from the fact that the Management Bureau rarely intervened when he was being openly bullied, the Hunter called ‘Grey Coat’ was known as the ‘Joker of the Management Bureau,’ but he never exercised significant power despite his skill or popularity, nor did he make extraordinary amounts of money.
He never even showed his face in popular dungeons where the real money was made.
He was a secret agent of the Management Bureau who occasionally appeared in crises and then disappeared like the wind.
It was naturally difficult to conclusively confirm that he was the same person as the Director of the Management Bureau’s son.
Because of this, some of Im Taewhan’s self-proclaimed fans simply insisted on the theory, pouring their own romantic fantasies into it.
Most people ridiculed them, saying, ‘Isn’t that overrating Im Taewhan too much?’
The theory that he was the Director of the Management Bureau’s second identity was even more popular.
Cha Taeyang was the only exception; he could deduce the truth because he knew the relationship between the person ‘Jung Jaehee,’ the ‘Grey Coat,’ and ‘Im Taewhan.’
“…Is that so?”
“Jaehee seems to have no idea in her wildest dreams, either. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Yeah. I guess not.”
“Jaehee seems smart, but she’s completely oblivious when it comes to things like this. It’s not like she’s particularly insensitive in human relationships, but it’s especially true when it comes to you.”
“…Jaehee is, yeah.”
Im Taewhan, who had been bowing his head, lifted it, sat up perfectly straight, and quietly stared down at his glass.
His lips slightly curled up.
“Jaehee rarely thinks that I would lie to her.”
The side profile that added, ‘For now,’ looked somewhat bitter, yet at the same time, it held a very soft and warm light.
At this level, you didn’t need to have a good gut feeling to know.
It was clearly the expression of someone deeply, hopelessly in love.
The words, ‘You crazy bastard,’ naturally rolled around in Taeyang’s mouth.
Who could have ever imagined that Im Taewhan was so madly obsessed with his childhood friend?
If he were to approach anyone who knew him during the training center days and bring up the topic, they would all laugh at him, calling it nonsense.
“You like Jaehee that much?”
“…You like her too, don’t you?”
“Are you insane? You’re not comparing your ‘like’ to mine, are you? I like women.”
“Jaehee is cute. She’s kind, and she has a tendency to help people, which is similar to you.”
“I agree with all that, but I’m telling you, I like women!”
“…?”
Im Taewhan, glancing sidelong at him, had a face that clearly didn’t understand.
As if asking, ‘Isn’t it obvious to like Jung Jaehee?’
He truly was a proper, crazy bastard.
Taeyang let out a hollow laugh.
“Enough of that. Tell me about the date. What happened?”
“Date…”
After muttering the word softly, Im Taewhan remained silent for a long time.
Then, he called the bartender and had a lot of alcohol brought over.
He drank an entire bottle straight from the neck, emptying it completely, before putting it down with a thud.
Did he swallow a lot of worries and words along with the alcohol?
The words that finally came out after he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand were completely unexpected.
“Jaehee decided to leave the house. No… she’s already gone. She’s not coming back.”
“…What?”
Furthermore, the content itself was utterly preposterous.
“How could that… happen? Why?”
The fact that the two S-class individuals, Im Taewhan and Jung Jaehee, were living together in a fancy detached house was something known to Cha Taeyang and the entire ‘Sun’ Guild.
It had been about a month since Jung Jaehee became his mentor.
With her neat appearance and polite personality, Jung Jaehee was adored by all the guild members and was always the center of attention.
And Jung Jaehee was not the type to hide her feelings; she always proudly spoke of her childhood friend and enjoyed sharing stories about him.
She would mention how tall, fit, and handsome he was, how he was like family who took care of her since she was young, how devotedly he cared for her during her hospital stay, and what a wonderful home he had prepared for her.
Her every word was filled with praise, honestly leaving Cha Taeyang, who remembered Im Taewhan from the training center days, speechless with astonishment.
In any case, thanks to her, he was certain that the two held each other in a very special regard.
Inserting ‘Jung Jaehee’ into the ‘suspicion’ he had felt about ‘Im Taewhan’ since the training center days had solved quite a few mysteries.
He realized he had completely misunderstood and had been reflecting a lot on his previous reckless actions, watching for an opportunity to apologize.
That was also why he had subtly pushed for ‘Jung Jaehee’ and the ‘Grey Coat,’ or ‘Im Taewhan,’ to succeed.
He had been expecting things to work out well and result in a sweet outcome… so what was this bolt from the blue?
Jung Jaehee suddenly left the house they cohabited?
“Di-Did she reject your main identity because of your secondary one?”
“Impossible. She cleanly rejected ‘Grey Coat.'”
“What…? No, why?”
“Anyway… Jaehee left, and I just couldn’t stand being in that house, so I blindly walked out. But even after leaving, being alone drove me crazy. And… I realized I had no one to call.”
Meaning, he called him.
He called the very person who had been bothering him for so long with his needless misunderstandings.
Of all people.
Cha Taeyang rolled his eyes in disbelief.
“You don’t mean to say you have no friends other than Jaehee?”
“Yes. I don’t.”
His answer was so cheerfully delivered that Taeyang was utterly speechless, his mouth hanging open.
No, was this bastard always like this?
No matter how much he drank, he shouldn’t be that drunk.
“I just… have nothing other than Jaehee.”
“You’re a popular guy. It’s not that you don’t have them; it’s that you didn’t make them.”
Both ‘Im Taewhan’ and ‘Grey Coat’ could easily find people who wanted to be friends with them.
If they just wanted to, people would probably be lined up.
However… if he didn’t want it himself, it probably meant nothing.
Noticing the suddenly silent Im Taewhan, Taeyang decided to change his direction of comfort.
“And you have both your parents, don’t you? You’re not alone.”
“Haha.”
He was about to suggest that if things were tough, Taewhan should go stay at his family home, but a dry laugh suddenly erupted from Im Taewhan’s lips.
The sound of that laugh, even though he was clearly laughing, was so eerie that it made Taeyang’s hair stand on end.
And when he spoke again, Im Taewhan’s voice, unlike before, clearly held a sharp sense of anger.
A sound like a sharply honed blade scraping against metal pierced Taeyang’s ears.
“The people who insisted I be rescued quickly and made the rescue team leave Jaehee at the gate. F***, am I crazy? To confide in those people about Jaehee’s situation.”
“Ah.”
The incident was so famous that Cha Taeyang had heard similar rumors.
It was rumored that Director Im Jaewoo and his wife impatiently demanded that their son be rescued quickly, making the hurried rescue team leave the other child behind.
In the meantime, the gate closed, and the two children’s lives were completely changed…
‘The rumor was true?’
Because the incident was the center of attention for a while, all sorts of people commented on it, so Taeyang assumed the rumors were exaggerated during the process.
It didn’t even fit the image of Director Im Jaewoo.
Was that man the kind of person to prioritize the rescue of his own son so openly, even if he engaged in behind-the-scenes manipulation?
Such a label would not look good for a public official.
Was he foolish enough to act so rashly?
But Taewhan’s reaction suggested otherwise.
