Kill Your X Chapter 43

Is he a YOLO type? I wondered how someone could live without thinking about the future. If other kids said the same thing, I would have just found them pathetic, but coming from Si Yeonho, that pessimistic attitude seemed rather cool. Being handsome sure helps.

Unlike my expectation that he would leave soon, Si Yeonho stayed by my side all day. I sat him down in front of me like a folding screen and studied, making small talk whenever my concentration wavered. It was strangely addictive how he would give slightly off-point answers to everything I asked. I felt like I was getting to know him, but not quite.

Evening came, and I ordered a simple meal from the cafe. It was better than the academy or the study room, but sitting in one place for so long made me restless.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Just.”

Si Yeonho said, munching on the same sandwich I ordered as if it were animal feed.

“I feel like we’ve met before, but I’m not sure.”

“We’ve met? When?”

“I said I’m not sure.”

I might know if I observe a little more. He murmured softly. The gaze that would occasionally pierce me intensely, despite his seeming lack of interest, now felt different after hearing those words.

“That’s strange. There’s no way I wouldn’t remember someone like you if we had actually met.”

“It might not have been in this life.”

He put down his half-eaten sandwich. The way he leaned back comfortably in his chair looked strangely alluring for some reason.

“If not this life, then… a past life? Past lives don’t really exi….”

Right. He said he could see ghosts. I had no way of knowing if it was true, but the world Si Yeonho saw seemed to be somewhat different from mine.

“That sounds very romantic.”

“What’s romantic?”

“That we have a connection from some unknown past. With a little exaggeration, isn’t that fate?”

Si Yeonho stared at me with empty eyes as I admired the idea by myself. If he had just frowned, I would have teased him more, but his lukewarm reaction spurred my perverse competitiveness.

“Ahem, well, that’s not important. So, you were concerned about me at first because you thought you knew me?”

“I guess so.”

“You should’ve told me earlier. I’m telling you this now, but I was really stressed. I was secretly cursing you, worried you might spread strange rumors about me.”

Then Si Yeonho laughed. It was closer to a sneer, but I welcomed the unfamiliar change.

“Why are you laughing? Does it seem like a joke that I cursed you?”

“You should love me, not curse me.”

“Huh?”

Unable to avert my gaze in time, I was embarrassed to have him see my flushed face. My heart, which had been fine just a moment ago, pounded loudly. Si Yeonho’s lips curved upward a little more as he looked at me.

I’m definitely not the weird one. If a pretty, handsome guy talks about love, anyone with eyes would naturally be flustered. Plus, I originally liked men. I didn’t like Si Yeonho, but considering how well he’d treated me recently…

“You said fate earlier, right?”

I turned my head towards the window. The sky, transitioning from evening to night, was dark enough to hide any secret.

“I wish Sunbae was my fate.”

I don’t want to waste time.

Despite my efforts to avoid his gaze, the heat rushed to my ears this time. I covered the parts of my face that I knew would be flushed, even without looking. I had a few more problems to solve in my workbook, but it seemed like the rest of my studying for today was ruined.

“I think it’s true.”

From the middle of his sentence, I was so caught up in my own feelings that I couldn’t hear him properly. Is it too strange to fall in love with someone just because they ask you to love them? I was dumbfounded by myself for being completely swept away by just a few words.

I barely managed to calm my racing heart and looked straight ahead. Si Yeonho was looking at his phone, seemingly oblivious to me. The phone in his hand was a different model from the one I had seen a while ago.

“I have something to do, so I’ll get going.”

“Oh? Oh, okay. Bye, Yeonho.”

After making my heart flutter, Si Yeonho left the cafe without a second glance. The image of him frowning slightly as he checked his phone lingered in my mind.

“He changes his phone often….”

And driving with a fake license, and skillfully hitting people with a metal pipe before…

Si Yeonho, is he… involved in something illegal?

A sudden suspicion arose, but I didn’t have the courage to ask him directly. I simply assumed vaguely that he had hit those people to save me, and that there must have been a reason for him carrying a fake license.

If it were anyone else, I would have cut ties with them long ago, but even I thought my reaction was overly generous.

✽✽✽

Although the peculiar person named Si Yeonho had entered my life, that was as far as it went. I was busy with my studies, and he was busy in his own way, so it wasn’t easy to maintain consistent contact. The special feeling I experienced at the cafe quickly faded, buried under the weight of daily life.

He had said before that I had a lot of pent-up desires. It must have been because of that, misdirected somehow, that I felt something akin to a crush on Si Yeonho. Even if it was love, what could I do? Whether now, or a few years later as an adult, I couldn’t easily imagine myself in a relationship with a man.

Si Yeonho said he didn’t think about the future at all, but I was the opposite. Days continued where I wavered countless times between my parents’ expectations and my true feelings. I wished someone would just decide my future for me.

“I’m home.”

I greeted everyone out of habit as soon as I entered the house. I wondered, ‘What’s going on?’ when no one answered, then I remembered what I had heard during breakfast. It was the day my mother was away from home, on a trip with a friend for once.

A sense of loneliness washed over me. I was about to go up to my room on the second floor after just having some water when I realized there was someone else in the house. My father’s voice, a man usually too engrossed in his work to even come home, was leaking very faintly from the direction of his study.

I should greet him since he’s here.

It was the wiser choice than being scolded later for being disrespectful.

But I couldn’t help but stop in front of the study. It was because what I overheard by chance was unsettling.

“You misunderstood that, Chief Kang. I know there’s talk going around the station because my promotion was rather quick considering my experience, but it’s troubling if you treat me that way too.”

Judging by the title, the person on the other end of the call seemed to be a fellow police officer. My father’s tone was quite different from what I usually heard. At home, he was always authoritative and rigid, but now he was gentle, as if soothing a child. He even sounded as if he was nervously appeasing the other person.

“Huh, this person really…”

I could see my father through the slightly open door. I was about to skip the greeting and go straight up to my room when a specific word caught my attention.

“Then come out. If you really can’t believe me, what choice do I have but to prove my innocence? I’ll show you proof that I have absolutely nothing to do with the Kumto gang. Those ridiculous rumors about me colluding with gangsters will disappear as soon as you meet me today.”

Kumto gang, gangsters?

The conversation the thugs had while I was kidnapped a while ago came to mind. I had considered it a series of coincidences, even though there were some questionable aspects, but hearing it again from my father’s mouth made my thoughts flow in a different direction.

My father, who had been quite anxious, quickly regained his composure. The wicked smile that spread across his face was extremely unfamiliar.

“Right. Let’s meet there. Why the mountain, you ask? Because the Kumto gang has something hidden there. I also acquired definitive evidence not too long ago. I’ll report it to my superiors soon, and I’ll give you some of the credit, Chief Kang, so take this opportunity…”

The father I had known all my life was the very image of a righteous police officer. He was dedicated to his duty, never hesitating to put himself in harm’s way at dangerous crime scenes, and a man who found more satisfaction than anyone else in catching criminals.

To think that such a father was being suspected of secretly colluding with gangsters and engaging in corruption. It was unbelievable, even hearing it again. It couldn’t be true.

Could it really… not be true?

“Fucking bastards!”

Thud! As soon as he hung up, my father threw something. Those leech-like bastards, I’ll tear them limb from limb. I crept up to my room on the second floor, avoiding my father who was muttering curses under his breath. I lay down on my bed without changing out of my school uniform. I couldn’t stop trembling, even though it wasn’t winter.

How long did I endure in the darkness? The door opened not long after. I could easily guess that my father had come to check on me after seeing my shoes by the front door. He quickly left the room after confirming that I was asleep.

After holding my breath for a while, I peeked out the window cautiously. A car leaving the garage smoothly passed through the main gate. Late at night, my father drove off somewhere.

My father returned home in the late hours of dawn. I watched from the second floor as he entered, his face looking colder than anyone else’s under the faint moonlight. I stayed up all night, consumed by an unknown anxiety, yet desperately hoping for my father’s innocence. At the same time, I kept pondering whether it was fortunate or unfortunate that I hadn’t immediately spoken about the kidnapping.

“Honey, have you heard anything from Chief Kang?”

A few days later at breakfast, my mother started the conversation. The familiar title brought back the memories of that night, which I had almost forgotten.

“No. It seems he’s not taking any calls from his family for the time being. He did often talk about wanting to go away somewhere far off, but…”

“I still can’t believe it. He was just as responsible as you. You relied on him a lot too. How can someone disappear without a trace overnight like that?”