I'll Take the Beating With Him

How much time had passed? It was only once Kang I-hyeon's house had slipped out of sight that Shin Chae-il finally opened his mouth.

"When you leave the house, you tell someone first. Even when you stay over at a friend's, you ought to understand that your parents worry."

"...Yes..."

Shin Chae-il kept his eyes fixed on the road as he drove. Not a scrap of music or news filled the car—only empty silence, as if the quiet itself were an extension of the man's character.

"That was a friend's house, then."

"Yes. Kang I-hyeon. A friend I made a few days ago."

"His grades are low, and he has nothing particularly outstanding about him... Just some flashy exterior. Not a particularly good friend, from what I could see."

The high-handed tone came down on Cha-heon like a hammer. For a moment he almost answered back, then shut his mouth in the end.

...There's no real reason to pick a fight with Shin Chae-il.

From what little he had overheard, Shin Chae-il was the sort of man already being mentioned as a candidate for the next Deputy Prosecutor General. Thinking about it calmly, a father taking an interest in his son's circle of friends wasn't strange. Plenty of self-important parents looked askance at friends who weren't good students—especially when the father was a prosecutor.

Ah. So that's why he came running the moment he heard I was staying out overnight.

Cha-heon neither agreed nor argued. He simply stared out the window in silence.

Following Shin Chae-il home with practiced ease, he opened the front door and immediately spotted someone standing behind the inner door at the far end of the long entryway.

...Shin Jae-heon?

The thought that the guy might be waiting to beat him up made Cha-heon flinch and step back. Shin Chae-il, coming up behind him, gripped his shoulder once—firmly—then released it and strode ahead to open the inner door himself.

"...Ah, Father."

"Shin Jae-heon. Get down."

Cha-heon was still looking around, trying to figure out what on earth was happening, when Shin Chae-il picked up the golf club that had been standing beside the sofa. Cha-heon blanched and hurried over.

"W-wait a second, Father."

"Shin Cha-heon. Go to your room."

"No, I—"

"Shin Cha-heon."

"......"

His body felt as if it had frozen solid.

What is this feeling?

Those frost-edged black eyes were still as fierce as a predator's, untouched by the years. The air around them grew heavy; even breathing became difficult. A scent like winter dawn air coiled around his nose, sharp enough to be frightening.

Perhaps it was the still-broad, solid frame even at his age. The man carried not the ordinary weight of age, but the seasoned, middle-aged authority of someone who had spent a lifetime commanding rooms.

Cha-heon forced out a short, shallow breath, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again and met Shin Chae-il's gaze.

...Is going to my room the right call here? Because it's parental discipline?

Shin Chae-il seemed to be a strict father who took household education seriously. He had come to collect a son who tried to stay out overnight, and the moment he heard the brothers had fought, he stepped in at once—even going so far as to pick up a club.

...Still, a golf club? Getting hit with that actually hurts like hell.

Cha-heon glanced at the club clenched in Chae-il's hand, cold sweat prickling at the back of his neck, and finally spoke.

"Then... then I'll take it with him."

"...What?"

"We fought together, so... it doesn't make sense for only... hyung to get hit."

Shin Chae-il stared at him with a strange expression—as if he were looking at something utterly bizarre.

A minute that felt like ten passed. Then Shin Chae-il set the golf club back against the sofa.

He seemed to study Cha-heon once more, told Jae-heon to act in a manner befitting his station, then gathered his outer coat and left the house again.

The moment Shin Chae-il was gone, the oppressive air lightened a fraction. Only then did Cha-heon let out a breath and look toward the door where the man had disappeared.

Don't tell me... he had work outside and still came because of Shin Cha-heon...

He had heard that the Eastern District Prosecutors' Office was extremely busy lately with a case big enough to make the news. He had only overheard scraps of a phone call, but still.

A man serving as chief prosecutor there would be busier than most.

...Coming home in the middle of all that just because of Shin Cha-heon. Looked at that way, he wasn't entirely a bad father. At least not to Shin Cha-heon.

"Hey. What the hell are you doing?"

Just as the thought finished forming, a sharp voice cut through the air. Cha-heon quietly turned his head.

Shin Jae-heon was glaring at him, face twisted into a scowl.

"...What."

"Now that Father's here you suddenly play the good kid? After you went and snitched?"

Watching Jae-heon reverse the blame without a shred of shame, Cha-heon let out a sigh. He had stepped in so the guy wouldn't get hit with a golf club, yet there wasn't the slightest hint of guilt or reflection.

I'm the idiot for worrying. Who was looking out for who here?

Shin Cha-heon shot him a sidelong glance and walked into his room.

The next day, the moment he arrived at school, Cha-heon spotted Kang I-hyeon already in his seat. He walked straight over and set his bag down beside him.

"...Hey. You okay?"

Cha-heon had been about to apologize for leaving the way he had the night before, only for I-hyeon to ask after him first. He tilted his head.

"Huh? About what?"

"No. Your dad... didn't seem to like me much."

Kang I-hyeon glanced at him, then recalled Shin Chae-il as he had passed by the day before.

A black sedan parked in a quiet, wealthy residential street. The man standing in front of it had looked completely out of place. Traces of age marked his face, yet his features were elegant; unlike Cha-heon, he had a solid chest and large frame that could have belonged to an athlete. He had given off the kind of presence you only saw in movies.

...The expression.

For all the refined exterior, there had been a strange hostility mixed into his eyes. It had been close to expressionless, and yet somehow charged with feeling. Shin Chae-il had looked him over less like a son's friend and more like something contemptible, then taken Cha-heon to the car—as if even proximity might leave a stain.

Kang I-hyeon scratched the back of his head, suddenly awkward.

Watching I-hyeon's reaction, Cha-heon also recalled what Shin Chae-il had said the night before. He thought it over carefully, then spoke.

"Ah. That. He probably doesn't like you because your grades are mediocre. You're not in the top ranks of the school. My father's pretty into that sort of thing."

"...Ah. ...Yeah, that tracks."

"Yeah. But my grades suck too."

Cha-heon said it, then rummaged through the memories in his head. Shin Cha-heon's report card had been full of sevens and eights. Right—seventh and eighth grades. Roughly the same as Cha-heon's own high-school marks in the original world.

This kid isn't even an athlete. Why are his grades like this?

Cha-heon's eyelid twitched. From prosecutor Shin Chae-il's point of view, of course it would be irritating to see two poor students hanging around together.

Come to think of it, that bastard Shin Jae-heon goes to a pretty good university for a thug.

Considering it was one of the best private universities in the country, he was far more outstanding than Shin Cha-heon. Even the department had seemed like one of the stronger ones on the liberal-arts side; Jae-heon apparently studied reasonably well.

...So do I need to start studying, or just keep things as they are?

He couldn't decide whether to be relieved that this useless head didn't have to match anyone's standards, or to feel sorry, as an adult, that a student's grades looked like this.

Finished with the thought, Cha-heon spoke to I-hyeon, who was watching him with a slightly vacant expression.

"So of course he'd hate watching a bunch of dumbasses flock together... Looking at it that way, you're still better than me. You at least do kendo. I can't even manage that."

"Pfft."

Kang I-hyeon let out a short laugh and shook his head for no particular reason. Then, as if the previous night had come back to him, he snorted again.

"Shin Cha-heon. My mom really likes you, you know."

"I like your mom too. Can I come over again sometime?"

"Dude, don't say stuff like that..."

"I know. If the chance comes up, just text me."

"Seriously, don't say that. It sounds way too genuine."

"......"

Cha-heon looked at I-hyeon with a meaningful smile. Kang I-hyeon clamped a hand around his face and shook him by the side.

During PE, the third-year PE teacher had some issue and had to step out, so they were told to form free teams with the second-years for either foot volleyball or dodgeball. The boys seemed to be heading for foot volleyball, the girls for dodgeball. Cha-heon had fully expected an excited Kang I-hyeon to be the first one charging out, but no matter how he looked around, I-hyeon was nowhere to be found.

Come to think of it, this guy's missing every PE class... Or maybe he got permission to use it as personal training time?

It was a plausible enough guess. After thinking it over for a moment, Cha-heon decided that since things had turned out this way, he would quietly excuse himself with the claim that he wasn't feeling well.

First, he couldn't play foot volleyball. Second, he had realized that Shin Cha-heon's body wasn't particularly sturdy. The day after he had taken down those thugs, he remembered waking up sore in places he didn't even know he had.

The body's just weak, that's all.

It wasn't unendurable, but there was no need to go looking for trouble. The frame itself was thin and far from robust—that seemed to be the core problem.

He was about to drop himself onto the tiered spectator seating that ran along the edge of the school field when someone grabbed him around the waist and hauled him upright.

"Whoa—what the—"

Shin Cha-heon felt his body lift into the air and whipped his head around in surprise.

Lately there had been so many kids rushing around in packs and bumping into people from behind that he half-expected it to be them again. Strangely, it was especially second-year girls who kept clustering near the third-year classrooms, then tripping over themselves; he had been privately curious why.

...Sure, it's the age when they want to run around and play, but... they look like they're going to fall flat on their faces.

Just the other day he had even caught one girl who nearly went down. He worried someone would get seriously hurt.

If he ever got back, he would have to figure out a way to stop kids from sprinting like that. That was part of a teacher's job, after all.

No—wait. I probably died in the real world, didn't I?

...Maybe it was because he was still alive here that the idea felt unreal. The thought that his original self might already be dead made his chest tighten all at once.

Pulling free of the thought, he turned to see who had lifted him by the waist. It was none other than Baek Yu-gyeong. Yu-gyeong wore his usual bright expression, smiling as he gave a little wave.

"...Baek Yu-gyeong?"