Because I Like You

Jena had stopped in her tracks — and Jisoo and Hoyeon with her. Ryu Sungho's gaze traveled over the four of them, one by one.

"I understand one can hardly help but hope, seeing an S-Rank summoner emerge after all this time. But she is the child who used her power once in the assessment room and dropped where she stood, is she not?"

The three of them flinched and turned to stare at Sihyun. This was news to them.

Three pairs of eyes bored into her, sharp enough to sting.

Damn. Busted.

Startled as she was on the inside, Sihyun didn't let so much as an eyebrow move. Catching that reaction, Ryu Sungho clicked his tongue as though in pity.

"So one S-Rank comes along, and already you're dreaming the old dream. A guild is no neighborhood corner store, and an organization does not run on a single standout."

He took another step closer.

"How Seongyeon climbed its way to first place — who moved the people and the money behind it — you of all people know best."

In that instant, a voice from long ago stirred at her ear.

Back then, she had taken it for a promise — that each of them would hold their own post.

"Then again, the name Sung Jeyeon does carry considerable weight."

Ryu Sungho's smile deepened.

"Alive, she lucked into her awakening and swiped every last shred of credit that wasn't hers with nothing but her fists. Dead, she has become the very pretext by which you all avert your eyes from reality."

The years they had spent holding Seongyeon together while she herself was inside the Tower — had Ryu Sungho counted all of it, not as devotion, but as seasons robbed of his rightful share of glory?

Was that how you saw it, even back then?

Sihyun searched his face for an answer.

But Ryu Sungho's gaze had already swung back to Jena, Jisoo, and Hoyeon.

"Don't pour empty hope into her and break the child on top of everything else. If she comes apart trying to imitate Sung Jeyeon, who will answer for it then?"

He added, with practiced gentleness:

"Stop clinging to the past and live quietly. Hardly anyone is watching anymore."

He turned away.

Sihyun glared holes into the back of his head as it receded. The urge to chase him down and smash that face in surged up before she could stop it — and she had already taken half a step when the three beside her caught her eye.

Jena, Jisoo, and Hoyeon were barely holding themselves back too.

Fists clenched tight enough to tremble. Jaws wound hard.

It wasn't that they had no fight in them.

They're swallowing this because of me.

Start something here, and their spots on the survival show could be canceled outright.

Ryu Sungho could not possibly have prodded that sore spot unaware. He spat his poison precisely because he knew they couldn't afford to lunge at him.

...Fuck.

Head bowed, Sihyun choked the seething rage back down her throat.

A heavy silence was still drifting between them when—

"Still at it, I see."

The sharp voice, tossed out of nowhere, snagged Ryu Sungho's retreating back. It hadn't come from any of Seongyeon's people.

"Making a beeline for whoever happens to be on your mind, just to pick a fight. What a habit."

Seo Jeongchan was leaning loosely against the wall.

"Aren't you long past the age for that?"

Ryu Sungho's steps stopped dead. He turned slowly — and the sneer of a moment ago was gone from his face.

"...Guild Leader Seo Jeongchan."

"If you need attention, do express it in some other way. A grown man really shouldn't stoop to acting childish."

The skin around Ryu Sungho's eyes tightened, ever so slightly.

"How remarkable. To think Guild Leader Seo Jeongchan has leisure to spare for meddling in other people's business."

"I'm nothing but free, myself."

Seo Jeongchan smiled, serene as still water.

"After all, ever since you fell out of Giwon's favor, someone else has been busy looking after you all these years."

The smile drained from Ryu Sungho's mouth.

"That remark goes too far."

"Did I say something untrue?"

Seo Jeongchan tilted his head, just a little.

Ryu Sungho held his stony gaze for a breath, then ironed his expression smooth.

"This hardly seems the proper setting for small talk."

As though nothing at all had happened, he bowed with flawless courtesy.

"Then, everyone, carry on."

And without waiting for a reply, he walked off.

Sihyun's eyes flicked between Ryu Sungho's shrinking back and Seo Jeongchan, rooted in place without a care in the world.

Wow.

He'd dressed it up in talk of proper settings, but that exit had been, to anyone with eyes, a man tucking tail and running.

So that bastard is actually wary of Jeongchan?

Somewhere along the way, the whole map of power had been redrawn.

Sihyun was turning to study Seo Jeongchan anew when Jena abruptly popped forward.

"Jeongchan oppa! It's been ages!"

She closed the distance with a beaming smile, not a shred of hesitation in her step.

"Earlier, and just now too — that was seriously satisfying, right?"

"Mm."

Seo Jeongchan's answer was a single lift of his brow. There was no warmth in it — but nothing that pushed her away, either.

"Hello."

"Thank you for earlier."

Jisoo and Hoyeon greeted him with an ease that spoke of long habit. They didn't merely know Seo Jeongchan; they seemed genuinely close to him.

Sihyun studied the three of them, bewildered.

Were they always this chummy with him?

Jena caught her expression a beat too late.

"Oh, right — you wouldn't have known, Sihyun. Yasang and our Seongyeon have always been close."

"They have?"

"Well — more like we're the ones leaning on them, one-sidedly."

Jena smiled, a little sheepish.

"Jeongchan oppa helped us a lot with paying down the fines we'd fallen behind on, too."

Seo Jeongchan did?

Sihyun blinked.

He certainly followed me devotedly, of course.

Still, she'd never imagined he would put up that kind of money for a guild that wasn't even his own — let alone openly take her side in front of the cameras.

...How am I supposed to pay all of this back?

Her lips pushed out in a pout she never noticed.

"Hoo."

The breath stirred her bangs, lifting them for just an instant.

In that instant, Seo Jeongchan's gaze whipped around.

"The S-Rank summoner, was it?" he asked, light as passing small talk.

"Yeah — I mean, yes."

The casual tone had escaped first, pure habit. A beat behind it, Sihyun tacked the polite form on and pressed her tongue to the inside of her lip. The inverted age gap grew more absurd the longer she dwelt on it.

Seo Jeongchan looked at her a touch too long.

It was the look of a man searching for something.

Then he turned away with a wry smile.

"Do well out there."

He was already moving off down the corridor when he threw in one last line.

"Because I like you."

The Yasang vice guild leader's eyes went saucer-wide.

And that was the moment.

A faint heat-haze washed over Sihyun, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. Her skin prickled once — and the fatigue lifted from her as though rinsed away.

Her gaze jumped to the far end of the corridor.

Seo Jeongchan was already gone — after dropping a supreme-grade healing art on her as casually as one tosses spare change.

What a strange feeling.

Sihyun let out a hollow laugh.

The ones she had once trusted with her back had turned their backs on her. And the kids who should have been sheltered in her arms were the ones standing in front of her now.

Turns out I was the one who couldn't read people.

It was meant as a joke to herself. It wasn't funny in the least.

The studio lights came back up one by one.

With the studio audience and guild officials cleared out, only the thirty contestants of the survival program remained on set.

"...Wow. So curious."

Someone sapped by the long shoot sent back a response with no soul in it.

The giant screen brightened.

The corner of Sihyun's mouth curled up slightly as she watched the screen.

Even back when she'd first reviewed the rules in advance, this had been the clause she liked best.

Whatever other tricks might be in play, it meant one thing for certain — no one who failed to conquer the Tower would be left standing.

Even knowing the rules already, small sighs leaked out here and there.

Reading them in a contract, it seemed, was a different animal entirely from facing them on a screen the size of a wall.

The screen went black — then threw up a single enormous sentence.

"...Yes."

The contestants, contracts long since signed, answered just as listlessly as one would expect.

The production team began marshaling them along.

"We'll be taking a bus to the dorm."

A huge coach bus was waiting in the parking lot.

"It's a long ride, so anyone who needs the restroom, go now. Please be on board within ten minutes."

Sihyun decided to skip the restroom and get some air instead.

She had just left the crowded parking lot for a quieter path when footsteps fell in behind her.

"Hey, Lee Sihyun."

Do Suho.

When she turned, he tipped his chin toward a stretch with nobody around.

"Come talk for a sec."

What's with the sudden friendly act?

Curious to hear what he had to say, Sihyun followed him.

Where no one's eyes could reach, Do Suho stopped walking. He turned without warning, and a sigh came first.

"What the hell are you?"

"Mean what?"

"At the Association, and again here too. Why do you keep turning up everywhere I go?"

To Do Suho, every bit of it looked like her angling for his attention.

He spoke with his temper ground down between his teeth.

"I didn't come on this show to mess around. I have no intention of wasting focus on nonsense because of you."

Having no way of knowing any of that, Sihyun picked at her ear as she answered.

"Then quit paying attention to me."

"What?"

"I told you. From now on, we play strangers and live our own lives. No clinging, either."

"Says the one who swore she'd trample me first."

"It's a survival show. Some petty provocation? Ignore it and it's done."

Sihyun shrugged.

"Today, too, I was standing there minding my own business. You came over and started this."

Do Suho found himself without a comeback.

Half of it was true, after all.