Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can - Chapter 76.1
“Are you friends with Jihwan and Hanrim?”
Kim Jihwan’s father asked.
“Yes! We’re friends! Right? Jayoon-ah?”
Kwon Jayoon just sneered at my desperate expression. Then he lifted his head toward the table as though he were about to cause a scene. Just as I tensed up, wondering what the hell he was going to say.
“We’re friends, yeah.”
Kim Jihwan spoke first.
“If you came here to make money, then work. You.”
Kim Jihwan looked like he was barely keeping himself under control in front of his parents. Kwon Jayoon didn’t avoid Kim Jihwan’s glare and glared right back.
“Kim Jihwan, if you came here to eat, then eat. Stop getting waited on.”
They hadn’t even been around each other for a few seconds, and I could already tell.
These two were definitely incompatible.
“I’m going to step out and talk to Jayoon for a second!”
In that case, I was the only one who could mediate.
I immediately dragged Kwon Jayoon outside the restaurant. There was nowhere else to go, so I pulled him into the alley right beside it.
Fortunately, Kwon Jayoon followed without putting up much resistance.
“Hahaha. Jayoon-ah, you worked here?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re regulars here.”
“Yeah, you come pretty often.”
I tried to soothe Kwon Jayoon by telling him it was good to see him working hard, then send him back inside. But that resolve crumbled at the words that came out of Kwon Jayoon’s mouth.
“Are those really your biological parents?”
“…Huh?”
The night streets of the bustling downtown district, and the alley tucked inside them. The sound of the barbecue restaurant’s exhaust fan seemed unusually loud.
The greasy smell of meat that I had gotten used to after thinking it smoky all this time seemed to creep back up around me. A sense of crisis came over me, as though the self I had hidden so carefully was about to be dug up.
“What part makes you think that?”
He talked roughly by nature, so maybe he had just said it without meaning anything. If he did know something, then I could fix it. I should be glad I had learned what was wrong while there was still time. Let’s think of this as a chance to become a little more perfect.
“I dunno, just a feeling.”
A feeling. He didn’t know. What kind of vague answer was that?
My chest felt blocked up, and emotion suddenly surged inside me. It felt like every sensation against my skin had gone dull.
“What kind of feeling?”
“Why are you asking? You just look like that. Seeing you today, that’s what you looked like.”
For no reason, I grew impatient. If I couldn’t find what was strange about me here, it felt like everything would go wrong, like a tape winding itself farther and farther while already tangled.
“What should I do so I don’t look like that?”
“What?”
“What do I have to do to look normal… to look like their real son….”
Even after saying it, my mind stayed blank for a while.
I couldn’t remember what I had just said. It wasn’t until I saw Kwon Jayoon’s brow scrunch up that I came back to myself a little.
What am I saying right now? Wasn’t that a little dangerous?
“Haha! There’s no way I’m adopted. I look this much like my father-.”
I forced myself to regain my composure, but I couldn’t do anything about the cold sweat prickling across my back. You could fool your mind, but there was nothing you could do about your body’s reactions.
“You….”
Flinch.
Kwon Jayoon studied me closely and opened his mouth, and my body jerked before I even realized it. What was he going to say that made him hesitate like that? Time seemed to be moving slowly. Please, don’t let him have noticed anything. Please, let me have looked like nothing more than Baek Hanrim.
“You look like an adopted kid awkwardly trying to get people to love you.”
Kwon Jayoon was the type who spoke without filtering himself.
Words with no cushioning struck directly, and the impact without any buffer shook my mind mercilessly.
An adopted kid. Trying to be loved. Did everything I had done look awkward in your eyes?
It felt like everything had been denied in a single instant.
“It’s not even like an adopted kid…. This is….”
Kwon Jayoon opened his mouth again without giving me any time to breathe. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. What was going to come out of that mouth? I wanted him to stop talking.
“You look like someone who killed a person.”
Thud.
My heart dropped.
A ringing filled my ears.
Please, I don’t want to hear anymore.
“Those guys who kill someone and start going to church. The ones who become excessively kind to everyone else because they’re trying to atone. That’s exactly what you’re like.”
“…Why.”
The words came out before I could even think.
“Why are you hurting me…?”
I only stared at the ground. Even looking him in the face felt overwhelming.
Why was he talking to me so carelessly? Did he even understand what he was saying to me right now? An awkward adopted kid, someone who killed a person. Someone who became excessively kind because they were trying to atone.
I, I was only….
“I’m doing well…. I’m trying to do well…. What, what do you even know….”
The more I spoke, the more pathetic I felt. I felt myself shrinking, becoming desperate and pitiful, until I could barely even hold my body upright. It felt like everything I had struggled so hard to maintain was pointing at me, telling me to know my place.
“What am I supposed to do….”
“I can hurt you?”
My body jolted at Kwon Jayoon’s voice suddenly cutting me off.
“Me? You?”
I could barely move my fingertips.
Even though no one was scolding me, it felt like I was being scolded.
“Baek Hanrim?”
Kwon Jayoon grabbed my shoulders.
My body shrank in further.
For a moment, I forgot to breathe.
“What are you two doing?”
The familiar voice snapped me back to my senses.
I lifted my head and saw Kim Jihwan, lightly dressed, standing there. Only then did my vision return, along with my ability to grasp the situation.
“Ah, Jihwan-ah….”
It was Kim Jihwan. The center of my world. Kim Jihwan, the protagonist of this story.
The moment I saw Kim Jihwan, everything that had been making me anxious suddenly settled, and my head grew calm. Everything I had been reacting so sensitively to until just moments ago suddenly felt insignificant.
Right, this right now was just…
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
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