Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can - Chapter 44.1
To raise my Karma, I needed to do good deeds, but if I did that, I couldn’t meet Kim Jihwan. Wasn’t there a way to raise both my Karma and Affection Level at the same time? For example, volunteering with Kim Jihwan….
“Haha, there’s no way Jihwan would do that.”
Kim Jihwan was the type to donate blood until he became anemic just to forcefully fill his volunteer service credits, but he avoided troublesome outside activities. He already found moving around bothersome, so volunteering was out of the question. I couldn’t even imagine it.
Float-.
While I was lost in thought, a child’s back surfaced in the deep end of the pool.
“Hey! I think he’s dead?! Saint B! Move out!”
“Ugh…! Please stop going into the deep end…!”
Once again, I plunged into the pool, where accidents were breaking out one after another with unstoppable momentum. Why were these damn K-high schoolers so bad at listening? That saying about men remaining children even after they grew up was complete nonsense. There were so many mature and clever kids these days.
Slap, slap-.
“Hey, buddy, buddy, wake up…. Haa….”
I continued performing CPR for the second time that week. I knew you were doing this because it was fun, but please reconsider drowning. You’re making me suffer. You came here to learn survival swimming, remember?
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Bang!
“Oh, fuck, you scared me. Close the door more gently.”
“Sorry.”
I apologized to the guy who had been startled by the sound of me closing the locker room door.
After swimming class ended, I had taken out my phone as usual to check who had messaged me today, only to discover that my account had been reported and deleted. The sound escaped me before I realized it.
“…I don’t know who did it, but I’m truly grateful.”
I meant it.
If I hadn’t infiltrated the app in disguise myself, I would have welcomed this deletion. I could simply make another account, but I wasn’t getting much out of it, and sending those chat guys to the police station wasn’t as satisfying as I had expected. I should stop here.
“Bleached hair, and around my age….”
I carefully thought over the clues Chat Guy A had left behind.
Had a teenager who kept their hair bleached even during the school term in June bullied Kim Byeongjun and made him take photographs of me? To find that out, I should probably start by digging into the fact that Kim Byeongjun had been assaulted.
“Guys, does anyone know Kim Byeongjun from Class 11? Is anyone here from Class 11?”
I called out to the boys in the locker room. Byeongjun didn’t seem to have much of a presence at school because most of them reacted by asking who that was.
“Isn’t Kim Byeongjun that kid? Short, with glasses.”
Then one boy who seemed to know Kim Byeongjun spoke up.
“Right. Is there anyone bullying Byeongjun?”
“Does our school even have delinquents?”
“He just walks around by himself.”
Usually, when people weren’t interested in bullying, or when the methods were subtle, it didn’t appear visibly on the surface. But just because no one could see it didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Kim Byeongjun was undoubtedly being victimized.
“Has anyone talked to him?”
“A little at the beginning of the semester? But he was always absent because he was sick, or he came to school and left right away, so I dunno.”
“But I have seen Kim Byeongjun going somewhere with your friend, Saint B.”
“Who?”
The category of friend was far too broad, so I couldn’t guess who he meant. Did he mean someone from my class, or someone I was frequently with? If he meant the person I spent the most time with at school….
“Jihwan?”
There was no one other than Kim Jihwan.
I had been doing a decent job socializing since entering high school, so I thought Kim Jihwan might have started talking to Kim Byeongjun too.
“Kim Jihwan is your Master.”
Mm, I guess not. So I looked like his foot rag to everyone else too.
“Ah, you know, that guy.”
Aside from Kim Jihwan, there was only one person I had spent the most time with during the first semester….
I hoped my guess was wrong. I thought there was no way it could be true. Whether the boy knew what I was thinking or not, a cruel answer came from his mouth.
“The transfer student in Class 4.”
Cha Gwonhyeok.
Why were you involved with Kim Byeongjun?
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After finishing my volunteer work as a survival swimming lifeguard and waiting for the sun to set, I stepped out into the humid, warm summer night. The blazing daytime sun was gone, but its traces remained in the temperature. It was like the fading residual heat of a stove after the flame had been turned off.
Ring, ring- Click.
“Hi, are you enjoying your vacation?”
Once I was out on the nighttime street, I called someone. The person on the other end remained silent without answering.
Was it difficult for him to talk right now? Or had I called someone else’s number?
Just as various thoughts passed through my mind, the other person opened his mouth.
―I didn’t think you’d call me first.
“It’s a phone number meant to be called. I can call it sometimes.”
I climbed onto the motorcycle and rubbed the smooth surface of my helmet with my finger, making squeaking sounds. It wasn’t because there was a dirty stain on it. The conversation was moving slowly, so I had grown slightly bored.
―I’m not Kim Jihwan.
“Right, you’re Cha Gwonhyeok. Who said otherwise?”
Looking at my reflection in the glossy helmet, I brushed back my bangs, ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth, and puffed out my cheek as I continued listing obvious facts.
“The person who’s so handsome that he got a lot of numbers at the festival, the person who gives me tasty side dishes when we eat, one of the few people at school taller than me, and the person who has someone at home specifically to prepare his meals.”
What else was there?
Someone who might kill a person, but wouldn’t commit a low-grade cyber-sex crime. Someone with no lingering attachment to human relationships who didn’t associate with anyone he didn’t need. Someone with too much to lose to do anything disadvantageous, but who lost his mind when it came to the bottom. An obsessive top, a regretful top, a chaebol top, a handsome top, and a virile top.
“And the transfer student in Class 4.”
He didn’t make a sound, as though he were watching some performance. Cha Gwonhyeok’s reaction felt unfamiliar today. Was I simply seeing him differently, or was Cha Gwonhyeok acting unusually? I couldn’t tell the difference.
“Gwonhyeok-ah.”
―Yeah.
There were two things I had realized from what happened with Jihyeok-hyung. The first was that I shouldn’t think too much by myself and suffer in silence.
“Did you bully Byeongjun?”
The other was that pointlessly talking in circles only put me at a disadvantage.
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