Delusive Fate

#099

Lee Han-sol pointed accusingly at Choi Tae-hyuk.

“Hey, you were secretly watching me from here yesterday too. You were creepily peeking from behind when I was beating up a guy doing the same thing as you here yesterday! Wow, you’re really unbelievable, aren’t you? Hey, why are you following me around? Did someone tell you to assassinate me? Were you hired? Ha, I want to beat the crap out of you just for illegal dumping, but stalking too? You’re really insane, aren’t you?”

“No, no! That’s a terrible misunderstanding…! I’m not a stalker or anything weird like that! I wasn’t hired by anyone to follow you, no, I wasn’t even deliberately following you in the first place…! Just, just calm down a bit and listen to me…!”

“What do you mean ‘no’? You’re really dead today. I thought your face was really annoying from the first time I saw you, you know? Especially those irritating eyebrows…! I thought I’d shave them off first thing if I ever got the chance, and I guess that’s today. Prepare to die, you pervert stalker bastard.”

As Lee Han-sol rolled up his sleeves and approached menacingly, Choi Tae-hyuk’s handsome face turned pale. He stepped back hesitantly and tried to explain.

“I wasn’t trying to do anything to you, really, and I wasn’t deliberately following you around. I understand why you might misunderstand, but I had reasons I couldn’t help…! And, and this trash isn’t really mine either…! Someone else dumped it here, so I was trying to clean it up, really!”

“You’re talking nonsense. Are you a street cleaner? Are you the building manager? Who are you to clean up someone else’s trash? What right do you have? Your excuses don’t even make sense….”

Choi Tae-hyuk shouted urgently.

“Yes! I’m the manager, the manager. I’m the manager here. That’s why I did it, I can prove it!”

Let’s go to my house, I’ll prove it to you. The stalking, no, it’s not stalking, anyway, I can explain why it happened like that too. Please come to my house for a cup of tea…!

That’s how Lee Han-sol ended up in Choi Tae-hyuk’s spacious apartment on the top floor of a five-story villa. If this exact same situation had happened on a normal day, Lee Han-sol would have thought, ‘This bastard is trying to weasel his way out of getting beaten up,’ and immediately delivered a front kick to his face.

But Lee Han-sol had spent the whole day wandering alone, using up a lot of mental energy enduring a depressing sense of defeat. And Choi Tae-hyuk’s eyebrows, visible through his bangs every time the wind blew, kept reminding him of someone….

I can beat him up later if I don’t like him.

It wasn’t really that he had softened or developed any interest. Lee Han-sol casually rationalized as he allowed himself to be led along by Choi Tae-hyuk, who grabbed his wrist and pulled him along.

Choi Tae-hyuk’s house, which they entered like this, looked spacious and nice. The interior design seemed carefully chosen down to each small item, everything in harmony with each other. The hallway leading from the entrance to the living room was lined with plausible paintings as if it were a gallery, and all the furniture filling the living room and kitchen looked ordinary yet expensive. Even to Lee Han-sol, who didn’t know much about these things, the designs made him think, ‘This must have been imported from overseas for a lot of money.’ The grand piano placed by the living room window especially caught his eye.

Lee Han-sol had no taste, and since his life had no future anyway, he didn’t care much how well someone’s house was decorated, but he still had eyes, so he could tell that everything filling this space was high-end. It seemed that what Mr. Bu Dong-suk from Bu Dong-suk Real Estate had said was true – the homeowner, Choi Tae-hyuk, was indeed wealthy. Of course, this was evident even without looking at the house interior, just from the property registration certificates he had brought out. The pile of documents he had presented to prove that he ‘had a duty to clean up illegally dumped trash because he manages the buildings in this area’….

Anyway, Mr. Bu Dong-suk’s assessment of Choi Tae-hyuk seemed to be unexpectedly objective fact. At the time, Lee Han-sol had thought it was just exaggerated fuss from a bored worker, but it was true that he was a young man, and seeing how wealthy he was at that age, it seemed obvious that his family must be supporting him. And it was true that he was handsome. Besides being reminded of Ki Baek-woo because of his prettily shaped eyebrows, looking at him up close like this, Lee Han-sol felt a strange familiarity, as if he had seen him somewhere before…. Hmm, why does he seem familiar? He looks a bit like someone.

It must be my imagination. As Lee Han-sol was thinking this, Choi Tae-hyuk, who had been watching him carefully, fidgeted with his strongly defined lips before speaking.

“Um… There’s another misunderstanding I’d like to clear up….”

“Why did you stalk me?”

“I didn’t stalk you…!”

Choi Tae-hyuk jumped up. He fidgeted nervously before seeming to make a decision and picking up his phone.

“It’s true that I followed you a little… but I wasn’t deliberately seeking you out or anything.”

“You say you weren’t following me, but you were always watching from behind like that?”

“I just heard loud noises somewhere and when I went to check, you were always there…! I did want to meet you separately, but stalking… it wasn’t like that. If I made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry. I’ll apologize.”

“Hmph.”

Choi Tae-hyuk frantically tried to explain to Lee Han-sol, who was crossing his arms indifferently.

“I had reasons I couldn’t help. There haven’t been issues like this while managing the building before, but lately I’ve been getting too many calls from tenants. So….”

So what, why are you telling me this? With exactly that expression, Lee Han-sol sniffled as Choi Tae-hyuk thrust his phone in front of his face. There was a message window on the screen.

chat

[Building A, Room 101: Landlord, there’s a crazy person wandering around the neighborhood these days. Can you do something about it?]

[Building B, Room 202: The neighborhood crazy person isn’t a tenant in our building, is it? ㅜ]

[Building C, Store 403: Landlord, do you know there’s a strange madman appearing around the houses? The neighborhood was nice and quiet, but one madman is muddying the waters. As the building owner, I think you need to manage this. Please at least increase building security]

Choi Tae-hyuk’s face turned red as if embarrassed, and he exclaimed softly.

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you a bit, but I was too scared to approach you and could only watch until now. I’m sorry…!”

***

There were no ups and downs in Choi Tae-hyuk’s life. He was born into a wealthy family, and his father, who had a military background, skillfully dealt with the post-apocalyptic situation. His mother, who was a music professor, maintained her educational attitude and romanticism even in dire circumstances. Choi Tae-hyuk and his younger sibling were relatively safe and happy even then.

Later, when awakened individuals appeared and his father awakened as an A-rank hunter, becoming a key figure in government reconstruction, or when his younger sibling also became a high-ranking hunter following their father a few years later… anyway, various events occurred, and through all this, Choi Tae-hyuk became an adult. He grew up seeing only good and beautiful things in the stable environment created by his reliable parents and cute sibling. Whether he had a knack for it or was just born lucky, Choi Tae-hyuk had a talent for investment and thus achieved financial freedom early on.

If he had a modest dream, it was to live uncomplicated. He believed the world could function without competition, thought everyone could be satisfied with the present, and believed in the inherent goodness of humans. In short, he was a young master who grew up delicately in a greenhouse full of flowers, naive about the ways of the world.

Anyway, following his ideology, he wanted to live stably and comfortably, satisfied with the present without struggling, so he focused on the monthly rent business. Choi Tae-hyuk, who had bought several villas and commercial houses in the B district area where he lived, could thus be said to have achieved his lifelong dream despite still being young.

Choi Tae-hyuk’s life was too easy. The reason he believed in the inherent goodness of human nature was largely due to the influence of the people around him, as the vast majority of people were kind to Choi Tae-hyuk. Even people with bad reputations elsewhere acted docile and friendly in front of Choi Tae-hyuk. To tell the truth, he had never really met a strange person in his entire life. The most peculiar person he had encountered was his own younger brother, who always used to say to Choi Tae-hyuk:

“Shit, and you call yourself my brother…. What? You say people are actually nice if you get to know them? Hyung, at that level it’s not innocence, it’s fucking low intelligence. That bastard is obviously just being nice to get something out of you, why are you sitting there laughing? You’re my brother but you’re really so low-quality I can’t associate with you. How can someone who shares DNA with me be like this? Ah, get lost, don’t stick to me! Don’t even think about coming close, I might get an allergy attack from the flower petals flying from your head. Live properly before I have you declared legally incompetent. If we weren’t related by blood, I would have cut ties with you long ago. You know that?”