Who Do You Think You're Talking To?

Sohee turned his words over in her mind. So, things had gone off the rails between their roles ever since he reincarnated Tenesa. And the regression narrative had been laid down so neatly that it was actually threatening the protagonist's seat, at that...

I did pretty well, didn't I?

Sohee pressed down the smile threatening to escape her lips and folded her arms with a snap.

"And how is that my fault? If the story hadn't been any good, the regression never would have taken."

"...What?"

"That's right, isn't it? I did what I was supposed to do. And did it very well, at that."

"Who told you not to do your job? If you were going to do it, you should have done it in moderation."

Chunrok loosened his collar, which had gone tight around his throat. The sardonic, dismissive expression he'd worn when they first met had cracked a long time ago. Gradually, the true nature of his prickly, irritable core self was showing itself by the second.

"Every novel is a story meant to be carried by its protagonist. Someone like Tenesa exists only to shine a light on the lead from a supporting role. And you cranked that up too far—can you really stand there and claim no fault?"

"Yes. Not a shred of fault."

Sohee, who could at least have mustered an apologetic expression, offered her denial without a word of excuse. Chunrok was so flabbergasted that a vein stood out on his forehead.

"Protagonists can change any number of times—that's the author's decision, isn't it?"

"Exactly, so things could have just followed the natural order. But no, world peace? Why did you go wedging a narrative like that in and making everything complicated?"

"It's the classic cliché, isn't it? A protagonist quietly farming, then swept up against her will into becoming the hero who saves the world. World peace fits the story like a glove. Tenesa only ended up helping a little—what's complicated about that?"

What's complicated is your own insides, I'd wager.

Sohee stared straight at him as though she couldn't perceive a single fault, a single problem anywhere. Chunrok's face, relaxed and easygoing until moments ago, had gone rigid.

The pride of a hotel general manager. The hotel's performance. The rumors. The trust of the leads.

Even reasoning it out in rough terms, Sohee could see how his position would grow tangled. But those were the concerns of a mere hotel manager, and honestly—since when was a shift in the supporting cast at the very start of a novel such a catastrophe?

Planting himself on the work's behalf here was nothing but an excuse.

Sohee looked at him with her eyes wide open.

"You're telling me I should have done it in moderation? That's absurd. Do you think Hoe-Bing-Hwan comes together as smoothly for them as it does for the leads? Most stories get cut off at the door."

She drew a vigorous breath.

"Do you have any idea how lopsided the RPR rules are? They climb hurdle after hurdle after hurdle, and only then—only then—do they manage a successful regression."

"Those hurdles aren't there to be cleared. They're there to make you stop. Don't you get the hint?"

"Why? Why should they give up? I want to clear every single one and see it through to the end."

Sohee pulled her spine ramrod straight.

Why do we have to give up? Why?

As she leaned in, radiating an absolute refusal to back down, Chunrok retreated instead.

What is she, a blowfish?

The more you poked her, the more venom welled up—a creature that met confrontation taut and bristling. Chunrok held her glaring gaze for a moment, then abruptly turned his head away and muttered,

"Ha. You have to know your place. I mean, why would a supporting character even attempt regression in the first place?"

"Don't you dare cross the line with that kind of disrespect. There's no story made up of leads alone."

"You crossed it first. The moment you started coveting the protagonist's seat."

"I swear on my life, I never once intended that. But."

For an instant, Sohee paused to consider whether she should say what came next. Then she decided there was nothing wrong with saying it.

"If someone cleared every restriction and every condition and still pulled off a regression—then I think they could covet not just the protagonist's seat, but something even greater than that."

Ah.

Chunrok pressed a hand to his head. This woman was simply not a person one could reason with. The moment that realization landed, he found himself unable to say another word. His mind was a tangled mess.

Why can't she just do things in moderation? The previous managers handled it fine. Well... they failed far more often than not, but that's what a normal situation looks like.

No, wait—wasn't it insane from the start, planning to get every client below supporting-character rank through Hoe-Bing-Hwan? Is that even possible?

Chunrok turned back to look at Sohee's face, irritated.

"That's why I'm saying, why do you have to go about things like—"

Bright, burning eyes. Lips pressed into a firm line. A perfectly straight back. And that... temper. Every last bit of it belonged to the lunatic standing right here, dead set on getting them all through Hoe-Bing-Hwan.

The moment the thought arrived, Chunrok narrowed his eyes into thin slits.

She is not someone to take lightly.

At that instant, Sohee shot to her feet.

"If you have nothing more to say, I'll be going. I've got time to spare, but keeping a busy man waiting any longer would be rude of me."

"Ha ha. Now she decides to mind her manners?"

"I have been minding them this whole time, thank you."

"What?"

"You look about my age, yet you've been dropping banmal left and right—if I've kept using honorifics this entire visit, I'd say I've done my absolute best."

"I got here a good ten years before you did, you know."

"Consider that the respect I've shown you, then. Nobody even ages in Wicheon, so who cares."

Sohee whirled around. Her black hair swept past Chunrok's eyes and turned with her in a soft arc. By the time he'd frozen in place and blinked a few times, she was already through the door and gone.

Click.

When the door shut and silence settled over the room, Section Chief Choi emerged from the bathroom, clearing her throat.

"Ahem, Chunrok-ssi."

"......"

"Chunrok-ssi."

Only then did Chunrok turn to look at her.

"Yes?"

"Your taxes."

"Ah."

Chunrok hauled his sagging spirit back into order and fished a gold ingot out of his pocket.

Let me get this straight!

Sohee's temper kept boiling over, and she pedaled her bicycle hard to work it out of her system.

Do a half-hearted job at someone else's work, don't do it at all—what gives him the right to stick his nose in?

Does he think I coast through my days like he does? Does he think the RPR happens if you just stand at the entrance smiling all day? It's because I do my job well and the supporting characters do theirs that we barely—one single time, and nothing even certain yet—got a mention in the protagonist's seat.

Before she knew it, Sohee screeched her bicycle to a halt in front of the motel. Then she spun around to glare at the hotel across the road.

The entrance where Chunrok so often stood to greet arriving characters sat empty now. She glared at the spot for no particular reason, then turned her head away.

"Guts the size of a bean, that's what he's got."

It was a first meeting utterly unlike the gentle, easygoing image he'd shown her before. She huffed out a sharp breath and stepped inside the motel.

Chunrok, for his part, was laboring under the same uncomfortable feeling. He'd sensed by instinct that So Sohee was no pushover, but she had blown past his expectations, and the bewilderment ran deep.

The woman would sometimes stand in her empty motel and stare holes through his bustling hotel across the road. Sometimes she would shoot him eyes that positively blazed.

Occasionally, meaning to press her spirit down a little, he'd flash her a light smile—and the woman would turn away burning from head to toe with heat, then not show her face for days.

I assumed she simply admired and envied our hotel.

Had all that observation been research—her trying every which way to break the hotel down? Had she been watching us pull off all those Hoe-Bing-Hwans?

Had Sohee heard that thought, she'd have bellowed what on earth is there to research?—but Chunrok genuinely believed it.

As he walked along, lost in these thoughts, Chunrok arrived in front of his hotel without realizing it, and his eyes drifted of their own accord toward the motel across the way.

The door stood firmly shut, as it always did. Not a guest in sight, just the shabby signboard beaming out its welcome, as garish as ever.

"So the beans have swollen."

Unable to find the thought anything but absurd, Chunrok let out a short laugh and stepped into the hotel.

The joy of having received a guest while she was out paying her taxes lasted only a moment. Peering through the narrow gap of the counseling room door, Sohee crept quietly backward, then made her way to the front desk a short distance away and dropped her voice to a hush.

"When did she get here?"

"Two hours ago. Or thereabouts."

"So she's been sitting like that the entire time?"

"Yep."

The schoolgirl in her uniform had her eyes locked on her book, the hand clutching her pen moving without pause. Too fired up with passion for studying to interrupt, Sohee carefully eased the door shut instead.

She looked down at the file folder holding the girl's life record.

Sohee scrunched up the back of her neck.

She finally claimed first place, and then died. Sohee had once studied until she was sick of it, so she could well imagine how the girl's insides must be churning right now. It was entirely understandable that the shock was so great she couldn't bring herself to accept her own death.

With a heavy heart, Sohee closed the file.

"...I think it's better to tell her that everything is over. By now she should accept her death and—"

"No, she already accepted it. Completely."

Moon Jar remembered the very first words out of the schoolgirl's mouth when she'd come rushing in, breathless. Panting for air, she had rattled off her words even faster than her breathing.

"Hello. I'm going to do the Hoe-Bing-Hwan thing. First, I need somewhere to study right now—could I borrow a room?"