Kill Your X Chapter 33

Knowing the whole story made me feel terrible. On the surface, there wasn’t anything wrong with me since I had continuously rejected Hyun Jin’s confessions. Still, seeing Hyun Jin get attacked for no reason other than liking men made me feel guilty.

Looking at the post again, the reason for Hyun Jin’s outburst wasn’t because he was targeted for being gay. It was because he couldn’t stand some rude people dragging me into it.

“Sunbae-nim, you’re going to sue, right?”

“Well. The school community is anonymous, so I don’t know if a lawsuit will work. The fact that it spread to other sites too… Even if I do, Hyun Jin should be the one to respond rather than me.”

I thanked the student for letting me know and sent him away. I couldn’t concentrate on my work anyway, and after hearing such an upsetting story, I really couldn’t do anything more.

At least it was a relief that my work hours were almost over. After some thought, I contacted Hyun Jin first for the first time. I felt uneasy that he hadn’t said anything to me and had gone silent after experiencing such a big incident.

[Where are you? I was going to have dinner with you.]

Fortunately, a text message reply came right away.

[Whoa, I’m home. It’s not every day you hear from the Hyun Jin.]

Whether he was doing it on purpose or not, Hyun Jin seemed fine through text. Even though he couldn’t possibly be truly fine inside.

Si Yeonho would probably get jealous in his weird way if he knew I was buying another man dinner, but anyway, I was involved in this too, so I couldn’t just ignore it now that I knew.

[Come out, I’ll buy you meat. I know you live in front of the school, so don’t hide.]

After a few polite refusals, Hyun Jin agreed when I wouldn’t give in.

After a long time seeing him, Hyun Jin looked a little pale. But he smiled brightly when he saw me.

“Hyung, isn’t it manners to ask someone out on a date at least a day in advance? You should give me time to prepare.”

“Our Hyun Jin, don’t you want to eat meat?”

“I get that you want to see me, but Sunbae, you’re too hasty.”

He joked flirtatiously as usual, but I don’t know why my heart sank.

Worried that he might be uncomfortable with people staring, I took Hyun Jin in my car and went to a barbecue restaurant a little further away from school.

“Wow. Sunbae, are you finally accepting my confession? They say kindness without reward goes only as far as pork.”

“Yeah. They say that’s the exception for American pork.”

“Tsk, you really don’t budge, do you.”

Hyun Jin grumbled and went into the restaurant.

I ordered 5 servings of meat and alcohol from the start. Hyun Jin, who said he wasn’t very hungry, sparkled his eyes as the grill was brought out. Hyun Jin is the type who has to guard the tongs in front of meat, so I just ate what he gave me.

We chatted well in the car, but once inside the restaurant, the conversation between us stopped. When we were somewhat full, Hyun Jin opened his mouth with a bitter smile.

“I’m sorry, Sunbae.”

His first words made me sigh. As expected, Hyun Jin knew why I had called him out.

“There’s nothing you did wrong.”

“As a result, even Sunbae ended up in people’s gossip. Those people with nothing better to do, really. If they’re going to dig up personal information, they should just dig up mine. They’re getting blinded by the ‘handsome’ comments and trying to dig up Sunbae’s information too.”

I had already looked it up. The revealed personal information was nothing much. It was just a blurry close-up of my face from a group photo they got somewhere. I never dreamed that staying away from social media would help me in this way.

“I should have been a little less handsome. Right?”

It wasn’t like it was splashed all over the media. As Hyun Jin said, it was only being mentioned lightly on a site full of people with nothing better to do. I was always a side note, and the personal attacks towards Hyun Jin were more serious.

“…Sunbae. I really…”

“Don’t blame yourself too much. And thank you for getting angry on my behalf in the comments. Honestly, I almost fell for you.”

At that, Hyun Jin dropped his head. He looked like he was about to burn all the meat, so I took the tongs from him. Until I changed the grill and put new pieces of meat on, Hyun Jin couldn’t bring himself to look up. Then I heard a small sniffling sound.

“Hyun Jin. I’ll say it again, but I don’t think you did anything wrong in this incident. But I have to say this.”

“Sniff, what is it?”

“From now on, don’t try to show off that you like men. I’m saying this as your sunbae, as a hyung who truly cares about you. If you become a school teacher like you wish and this kind of thing happens, the controversy won’t end like this.”

There was nothing that could be done about the fact that he had already come out, but he didn’t need to volunteer to stand out so that the whole world would know.

If you hit on the same-sex librarian who’s there every day in the school library, a public place, more than twenty times, of course people are going to notice. It was surprising that it had become a controversy only now.

“You said I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Hyun Jin choked out the words, his voice laced with tears.

“Those words just sound like you’re saying it’s a sin that I like Sunbae. My actions may have seemed frivolous, but I was sincere.”

“It’s not about you and me. Living life, I’ve seen that some people simply can’t accept the fact that a man likes a man. To the point where they feel they have to insult and humiliate.”

I piled the grilled meat high on Hyun Jin’s plate. Sadly, that’s how reality was. A self-deprecating murmur accompanied my actions.

“You know gossip dies down quickly, right? If you’re considering suing someone because they crossed the line, I can help you with that.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Hyun Jin replied calmly. I intuitively knew from the heavily subsided atmosphere. That he would no longer confess to me.

“Okay. Let’s eat more for now.”

It was definitely what I wanted, but now that it had happened, instead of feeling relieved, my heart felt even more complicated. However, I didn’t regret giving him the nosy advice. Because I really didn’t want Hyun Jin to get hurt any more because of his feelings for me.

On the other hand, I was scared. What Hyun Jin experienced could possibly happen to me in the future. If, for whatever reason, the fact that I like men came to light, if it became known to the world that I had lived so promiscuously because of it…

Could it really end with shallow personal information digging like this?

Even if it wasn’t a crime, in a conservative society, the issue of sexual orientation was something people loved to tear apart. Suddenly, I imagined myself rising to the position of Chief of Police as my father wanted, only to have the fact that I’m gay come to light at the same time. Just the thought of being criticized nationwide made me not want to live anymore. I realized once again that it wasn’t just my father who was obsessed with honor.

When I dropped Hyun Jin off at his place and returned home, it was dark night. The guy who always contacted me around the time I got off work was quiet today.

Did he put a tail on me again? If so, was he sulking after seeing me with Hyun Jin? Plausible hypotheses floated around in my head. Even if it was an action that could cause a misunderstanding with my lover, I didn’t regret taking care of Hyun Jin today. Because it was the only kindness a coward like me could offer.

Before going to bed, I opened my laptop and searched for my information again on the portal site. The information released on the web was not much different from when I quickly glanced at it earlier, but a few bothersome comments caught my eye.

B University gay ㅎㅎㅈ personal info, librarian’s face

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heh heh sns [link]

comments(999+)

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Anonymous123 Central Library male librarian seems rich. The clothes he wears are all expensive. How much is a librarian’s salary lol

⤷ He drives a Genesis and a Jaguar alternately. Seems like his family is well-off?

⤷ He went to a prestigious high school too. If he didn’t falsify his address, it means he lives in that neighborhood, so it’s a sure thing.

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It was none other than my school hoobaes who were talking about me carelessly on an anonymous message board.

My father is a National Assembly member, a lawyer. More than half of the speculations surrounding me weren’t even true. It was very unpleasant, but I felt that if I stepped up here, I would only get more unnecessary attention.

Let’s just ignore it, as always. Carving the character for patience (忍) into my mind, I turned the web page. It was unsettling to be suddenly tossed around in the mouths of an unspecified number of people, but the matter was too vague to go to the extent of filing a lawsuit.

“Well, Hyun Jin will take care of this himself.”

I took care of him out of a small amount of consideration, but it was entirely his choice to get involved in the commotion online. Then, for better or worse, the consequences are entirely Hyun Jin’s to bear.

He probably said he loves me so easily because he doesn’t know this cowardly side of me. I felt Si Yeonho was strange for wanting to stay by my side even though he knew my crappy true nature.

My stomach was churning in the middle of the night because of unnecessary curiosity. I was about to close my laptop and go to sleep when a headline written in bold letters on the portal site caught my eye.