But You Have No Demand

I've never received a filthy look like this in my life. It's throwing me off.

Memories of his past self surfaced—a robust adult man well over 180 centimeters, superior in every way. With his tall, handsome looks and a physique densely packed with muscle, he had never once experienced such blatant harassment.

The first crack appeared in Cha-heon's expression, and Ha-gyeong piled more words on without pause.

"Ah, it would have been better if you'd looked a bit prettier…. Still, since you're handsome, there will be demand. You should thank your mother. Ah, or not? In the current situation, being proud of that feels a little off."

Round eyes, an innocent gaze fixed on him. Cha-heon's face hardened. He had heard he was handsome plenty of times in his life, but never once in a compliment this insulting.

"…Right. Thanks for saying there's demand. I am pretty handsome because I take after my mother."

In the end Cha-heon clenched his fist tight and dragged the corner of his mouth upward, eyes narrowed.

"……."

A reaction completely different from what he expected. Normally by this point people got angry, lost control of their temper, or trembled with humiliation—one of the three. When the other side answered as if nothing were wrong, Ha-gyeong was the one left flustered.

Cha-heon, by contrast, cooled his head and quietly lowered his gaze, scanning the surroundings. After listening in silence for a long while he looked back at Ha-gyeong and tilted his head. Slightly wavy black hair shifted with the angle.

"But you wouldn't have any demand. What are you going to do about that?"

"…What?"

Noticing Ha-gyeong's eyes narrow, Cha-heon finally let the corner of his mouth curl up in a smirk.

…It's childish to do this to a kid…. But still, you don't get a free pass.

Everything else he could overlook, but touching someone's parents was unforgivable. Especially a dead parent.

"Never mind what you just said to me. Looking at the way you talk about your own brother, it's obvious you got a half-assed family education. Who would prefer you?"

"Are you talking to me right now?"

He had been the one to start it, yet the moment his mother was mentioned Ha-gyeong's voice dropped, as if he were the one offended. The leisure he had worn until a moment ago vanished.

"Why are you being so prickly? You brought up my mother and Baek Yu-gyeong's mother and then started lecturing about family education."

"……."

"From the looks of it, you two aren't close as brothers…. But I've never heard Baek Yu-gyeong talk about you. So between the two of you, which one is lower-class and more pitiful?"

At last the smile cracked. Even then Cha-heon carefully watched Ha-gyeong's reactions as he continued.

"Baek Yu-gyeong at least looks decent. Both your parents are alive, so why did you turn out so rotten?"

Cha-heon pointed straight at him and hardened his expression. He had meant to smile in the most annoying way possible, but the more he thought about it the angrier he became, and the smile simply would not come out.

Even when I bring up family education for the sake of discipline it feels disgusting. How could he say those things earlier?

He wanted to demand that Ha-gyeong take back every word, but he had already thrown some good remarks Yu-gyeong's way, so that was enough. Cha-heon was ready to wrap it up there.

That is, until the reactions he never expected began to spill out.

Atmosphere was like the wind.

When a fierce wind that had been blowing west was forced to turn east, people's opinions rode that current and began to turn with it…. And for still-immature minors, that was even more natural.

"That's right, Yu-gyeong's a decent kid. Honestly, what's with that guy?"

The timid girls nearby and a few Omega students easily agreed and began whispering.

—Is that the Baek Ha-gyeong who came back from studying abroad? From what I've been hearing, why is he suddenly trash-talking Yu-gyeong?

—The second he shows up he hangs out with thugs and ruins the class mood. He's really Yu-gyeong's little brother?

—But last time Yu-gyeong even helped carry our class president's documents for them. Don't tell me they're calling him a sister-obsessed weirdo over that?

—And isn't that the guy? The one who confessed to Ji-su, got rejected, then threw a tantrum saying she led him on, only to run off scared when Yu-gyeong showed up… that one.

—…Oh, so those guys are doing this because they felt humiliated by Yu-gyeong back then? Ugh, insane….

—Honestly, even Baek Ha-gyeong went too far bringing up Yu-gyeong's mother.

—And so what if he did? Yu-gyeong is super kind. Plus, like Cha-heon sunbae said, he's completely decent.

—Right, right.

Fortunately Baek Yu-gyeong had quite a bit of goodwill stored up. Enough that the situation improved without Cha-heon having to offer any long-winded defenses.

"Yeah, everything Cha-heon sunbae said sounds right…."

After gauging the mood of the students from other classes mixed in with Ha-gyeong's, Cha-heon finally realized something.

I see. …So that's why Seo Ha-ra got bullied by the girls.

In the original, after Seo Ha-ra's relationship with Baek Yu-gyeong soured, she faced snide remarks and isolation from certain girls for exactly this reason.

Unlike ordinary high-school boys who were immature or a little gross and annoying, he could roughly picture how Baek Yu-gyeong had conducted himself. Something close to a fan club had formed around him.

Unlike those beast-like types who never knew the line of a joke, he could read the room just enough, so he was enormously popular with Omegas and female students. From the conversations, he even helped with heavy work like moving documents without a second thought.

…If this much reaches the kids' ears, his usual conduct is pretty clear.

He did not swagger around like a rich young master, and while the kids knew he came from a well-off family, they did not seem to know he was the son of the Baekyeong Group.

Moreover, among the earlier talk was the story of one of those boys harassing a girl named Ji-su and getting thoroughly schooled by Baek Yu-gyeong….

What? The more I look, the more he really is a proper guy?

Yu-gyeong's popularity clearly was not based on looks alone. If that accumulated fanbase had continued into third year, it was only natural that Seo Ha-ra, who had carelessly said something without knowing, would end up with a target on her back.

Huh? Wait, then am I in danger?

Remembering the somewhat harsh things he had said to Baek Yu-gyeong so far, Shin Cha-heon felt a sudden chill and casually glanced behind him.

When their eyes met, the girls either averted their gazes slightly or simply giggled that their eyes had met.

…Or not?

It did not feel like hostility, so that was a relief.

When the rumor spread that Baek Yu-gyeong had fallen for some third-year Omega male sunbae and was chasing after him, nothing had come of it for a reason.

That was thanks to the way Cha-heon responded.

"Hm? Ah, sorry. Was I blocking the way?"

When those girls had come swarming into the third-year hallway to check on things and bumped into him, Cha-heon had simply smiled and stepped aside in the wide corridor. There was no special reason. Watching young girls run around noisily just felt like kids their age, and it was nice to see.

"…You should be careful. You're going to get seriously hurt like that."

He had scolded them once, too. The next day they had come swarming again, and when one student almost fell he had caught her. That time Cha-heon had supported the nearly falling girl with his arm, checked that she was unhurt, and only then sent her off.

"I hope Cha-heon sunbae accepts our Yu-gyeong soon."

"Right, Cha-heon sunbae must like him too. He took Yu-gyeong's side."

On top of that he had neither turned hostile toward Baek Yu-gyeong nor looked like they were on bad terms, so things had passed without trouble.

Once the atmosphere had roughly improved and the morning assembly bell rang, Cha-heon hurriedly left the second-year classroom and, after asking around, made his way to Class 8 of the second year—Baek Yu-gyeong's class—only to find Yu-gyeong was not there.

…Don't tell me he skipped school entirely because of Baek Ha-gyeong?

It was possible. The Baek Yu-gyeong of the original timeline had not enjoyed a particularly good reputation, yet the girls' reactions earlier had been almost the complete opposite.

…If the reason was Baek Ha-gyeong…?

Cha-heon had blocked it this time, but if the original Baek Yu-gyeong had simply been absent and avoided school, the story was different.

If things like this had kept happening…. Rumors aren't something you can ignore.

Starting from that point strange stories about Baek Yu-gyeong would begin circulating, and if the hallway incident had occurred as well, a bad image of him would naturally take root.

…Right. In the end, at the starting point Yu-gyeong beat a student up in the hallway.

Even so, among the girls Yu-gyeong still seemed to have held a good image. Of course some negative talk would have circulated in certain circles.

The problem is that I can't properly remember it now. Those kids even gave Seo Ha-ra advice. What was it again.

Seo Ha-ra had been bullied, but as expected of a high-teen story there had been helper characters too. Those kids, however, had been rather skeptical of Baek Yu-gyeong—or rather, they had been scared and kept their distance.

Ha-ra, you have to be careful of that Baek Yu-gyeong.

…Careful of what?

Baek Yu-gyeong, that guy Min… from the window….

What on earth had it been?

Ah, damn. I must have scrolled too fast because it seemed like an unimportant scene.

Cha-heon felt the limits of his own memory and squeezed his eyes shut. If he thought a little longer it felt like it would come, but it kept slipping away, which only irritated him.

Ah, whatever. Anyway the original Baek Yu-gyeong seemed pretty prickly, so the girls must have been scared too.

Yu-gyeong had grown sensitive to these incidents, and if something like what happened when he met Seo Ha-ra had actually taken place in the hallway….

Of course Baek Yu-gyeong's reputation would suffer. Even if he had some recognition, to the teachers and certain students he would look bad.

Teachers especially tended to be conservative. They might think Baek Yu-gyeong was just going through a late puberty. Even if his popularity among the girls held to some degree, that could actually make him look worse to everyone else. And if those near-fan club kids had bullied Seo Ha-ra, Yu-gyeong's reputation would drop even further. On top of that he had never explained himself and their relationship had only continued to sour, so there was nothing more to say.

In that case Baek Yu-gyeong would naturally become the problem child, and Baek Ha-gyeong would be cast in a contrasting light. Yu-gyeong the accident-prone headache, Ha-gyeong the little brother who protected his older brother, or something of the sort.

…He could picture Yu-gyeong's cold expression. The complete opposite of the face he wore now.

…For some reason it feels like a picture I've seen before….

Cha-heon recalled the past, then frowned hard. He shook his head repeatedly and wiped the thought away.

…Anyway, Baek Yu-gyeong is the victim in the end. He got into a fight back then because of the trash talk, and if we leave things like this the rumors will only get worse….

If things continued this way, growing sensitive was only natural, and even someone who usually endured well would eventually reach a moment he could no longer take if it kept happening.

Then he would fall out with Seo Ha-ra, and later when he came to like her he would clearly suffer for it.

Suddenly Yu-gyeong's face floated up. That look of pure delight as he clung to Cha-heon's side like a puppy wagging its tail…. The thought that a boy who liked people that much would suffer from unjust accusations in the future made Cha-heon distinctly uncomfortable.

If he's skipping school entirely now, he must be pretty scared too….

After the Min Ha-seong incident he had been suspicious of Baek Yu-gyeong, yet the more he watched the boy's every action the less he seemed like the ominous character he was supposed to be. The spoiler comments had definitely said Baek Yu-gyeong was bad, but from what Cha-heon had experienced he was not that rotten a kid.

The fact that this boy was the regretful male lead remained hazy in his memory. There would surely be a scene later where he reconciled with Seo Ha-ra, but given how thickly the spoiler comments had been filled with curses at Yu-gyeong, Cha-heon was worried.

First of all, whether it had been Baek Yu-gyeong's intention or not, Seo Ha-ra beginning to be isolated in class had appeared even in the parts Cha-heon had read, and there had been an episode where she was framed as a thief and caught up in bad rumors—with implications that it was Baek Yu-gyeong's doing. The comment section had exploded with theories and fights over it, but Cha-heon, having already been spoiled, had just skimmed past it.

Thinking about it now, Baek Yu-gyeong did not seem like the type, and maybe he had simply been wrongly accused back then as well. From a reader's perspective, because he had been cast as the one at odds with Seo Ha-ra he had naturally looked like a villain.

…In that case, without knowing a single circumstance, did I treat the kid based on prejudice?

It had only been a few days, but looking back, yes. The attitudes he had taken toward Baek Yu-gyeong until now weighed on him.

Keeping his distance because of things that had not even happened yet, …treating him strictly….

Strictly for no reason….

…Wait. I pushed him away because that bastard kept clinging to me. And I was strict because he kissed me on the cheek without consent.

Thinking about it again, he had not actually treated him all that strictly. He had simply been dealing with an immature high schooler.