Salt Society Chapter 4

“I thought your head coach had come and was kicking for you instead.”

“Are you joking?! Our coach is a grandfather!”

“Yeah, that’s my point. Right now, you have the muscle strength of an old man.”

The athlete starts shouting, saying that he is teasing him to the point of sapping his energy. Kihyun does not respond, but simply unbuckles the straps and gives the back of the athlete’s head a light flick, telling him to come down. The athlete grumbles while rubbing the back of his head.

The afternoon flowed by in a somewhat busy manner like that. The routine after that was circuit training. Kihyun, who had created different circuit groups based on the severity of injuries, caught a glimpse of Team Leader Lim playing Minesweeper with a serious face and blew his whistle twice.

Injured athletes from various sports moved in perfect order to carry out circuit training tailored to their respective rehabilitation areas and sports.

The senior trainers were all out on medical support or were massaging athletes with more severe injuries. It was a circuit they rotated through, but Kihyun had been in charge of it for three weeks as of today. However, Kihyun showed no sign of dissatisfaction. He had just finished changing the routines so that the athletes wouldn’t get bored.

“Teacher, this is hard!”

The athletes started screaming at the top of their lungs. Kihyun replied while slightly raising one eyebrow.

“That’s strange. Why do you still have the strength left to speak?”

“Argh, Psychopath Teacher!”

The athletes looked like they were dying, calling Kihyun a psychopath. Kihyun finished the afternoon work with a stoic face, half-listening to their complaints and half-ignoring them.

Even though it was rehabilitation training, he had to demonstrate the movements, so he would often be sweating by the time work was over. The rehabilitation room after treatment was bound to be messy no matter how much it was cleaned in between sessions, so he tidied up roughly and hurried into the office in time for the closing meeting.

Team Leader Lim, who had been sitting all day, was drinking an iced mocha coffee brought by an athlete who had come to the hospital to pay his respects.

On the table, there was a cup of caffe latte with the ice already completely melted. It was Kihyun’s share. The ice had melted, and the water droplets condensed on the surface of the cup had all dripped down, creating a small puddle underneath. Kihyun, who hadn’t even known there was a share for him, stared blankly at that puddle.

Looking at Kihyun, Team Leader Lim spoke mockingly.

“I didn’t call you because you seemed busy, Mr. So. That swimming kid, what was his name again? The one with the rotator cuff tear. He’s the one who bought it.”

“It is Park Cheoljin.”

“Yeah, who said otherwise? He bought it, so drink it. Cheoljin likes you so much, Mr. So. I’m telling you, he bought it for you to drink, but I couldn’t call you because you looked busy.”

Team Leader Lim, responding sarcastically, added a grumble about why he was making him say things twice. He could see Seunghee sitting at the opposite desk, shifting her eyes anxiously. Pretending not to know the name of South Korea’s star 400-meter freestyle swimmer was behavior typical of Team Leader Lim.

Cheoljin had visited the hospital for rehabilitation due to a minor rotator cuff tear and had returned to his team after treatment ended. He had said he would drop by once he was fully recovered, so it was a shame he had left without them even seeing his face because he was busy.

Kihyun merely nodded without a word and took the wet cup to place it on his desk. Since the ice had all melted, it had turned into a murky something that looked like neither caffe latte nor water.

Kihyun looked away from the cup and focused on the words of Team Leader Lim, who was conducting the meeting. While discussing who to send out for the medical support next week, he glanced at Kihyun and clicked his tongue.

“I don’t know if I’m serving a superior or what, but I can’t even send a single subordinate out for medical support as I please. Having a powerful background sure is nice.”

It was a comment aimed at Kihyun, but since the subject was omitted in the casually dropped words and it wasn’t a blatant remark, he just let it be.

After the meeting ended, he headed straight to the staff shower room. He was in a sweaty state from demonstrating personally for the youth athletes who were whining about hating circuit training. His clothes were soaked with sweat underneath, and he felt it would just be uncomfortable to go home like this.

He was walking toward the shower room with the thought that he should wash up before leaving work when someone called Kihyun.

“Mr. So.”

“Director.”

It was Director Lee Bumhee. She was holding a portable shockwave machine as lightly as a box of crackers.

“Goodness, you really have a knack for creating distance. Who’s watching? Just call me by name, what’s with the ‘Director’ again, it’s embarrassing.”

Bumhee grumbled. Lee Bumhee, a friend since high school, was a Dominant Alpha. People were often surprised when told there were two Dominant Alphas, which are said to be rare, around him.

In any case, since Team Leader Lim had once again mockingly brought up the friendship between Kihyun and Bumhee during the meeting, it was necessary to be careful at the hospital. Therefore, Kihyun did not say anything despite her scolding and turned back from his path to head toward Bumhee.

He was about to approach her as she just stepped off the elevator to take the portable shockwave machine when someone was standing behind her. It was Cho Yeonoh.

Perhaps the hospital elevator was a bit small for Yeonoh, as the inside of the elevator, which had a capacity of about ten people, looked packed. …He wondered if the guy’s head would hit the entrance, and sure enough, he came out with his head slightly bowed.

Kihyun glanced that way and spoke to Bumhee first.

“I didn’t know you were returning today. I understood the competition hadn’t ended yet.”

“Ah, I went to the competition and met Director Cho at the gallery. Their side is the sponsor.”

Bumhee looked back at Yeonoh and shook her head. Then, in an exasperated tone, even mixing in formal language she didn’t usually use, she began to tattle to Kihyun.

“Mr. So, do you know this? This son of a bitch you see before you got into another verbal argument and fought with our Pro Han.”

Kihyun looked at Yeonoh at Bumhee’s words.

“Did you hit someone again?”

“Hit someone, my ass.”

Yeonoh furrowed his brow. While Kihyun silently watched Cho Yeonoh, who was being annoyed and asking how long ago that was, Bumhee stepped in instead and answered that it wasn’t that.

“You know that one Pro, right?”

When that name came out of her mouth, Kihyun nodded as if he understood. If it was Pro Han, he was famous for having a foul personality.

—Has that leg been crippled since birth? Hey, it’s bad luck, so tell someone else to come instead of you. Fuck, what kind of hospital hires a disabled person.

Leaving aside the feeling of loathing toward Kihyun, when he heard those prejudice-filled, trashy words, Kihyun actually kept his mouth shut. This was because it was obvious that if he went back there, Team Leader Lim would make sarcastic remarks about him being a preferential hire or whatever.

Although he had been excluded from all medical support schedules involving overnight stays, it was a bit of a stretch to talk about preferential hiring based on that alone. Nevertheless, Team Leader Lim always maligned him simply because of the fact that Kihyun was close with Bumhee, the Director, and Cho Yeonoh, the Chairman of the Foundation.

In any case, as long as Team Leader Lim was his superior, he had to avoid giving him any grounds for fault-finding. For Kihyun, he had no choice but to just keep his mouth shut even after hearing such insults.

However, as if proving there wasn’t only one reason he was called trash, Pro Han was an all-around madman who used to commit atrocities against others as well.

He was a guy who did nothing but pick out the worst things to do, such as habitually sexually harassing the Omegas among the therapists out on medical support, and picking fights with and hitting the Betas and Alphas. Since he was an Alpha from a fairly well-to-do family, there was more than one or two cases that were hushed up with money.

There was no way such a guy would get along with Cho Yeonoh. He probably went there and made sarcastic remarks for no reason again. Since it was a place he attended as the representative of the Haeseong Foundation, which is the sponsor of the competition, Pro Han’s side would have acted submissively, but it seemed Cho Yeonoh had provoked him to the point where the opponent couldn’t stand it at all.

“Do you know what this guy said to Pro Han? He told him that since he goes around swinging nothing but a rotten dick-bat instead of an iron, his scores aren’t coming out, and that if he holds a retirement ceremony, he’ll send champagne, so he should just drop dead when he’s feeling pressured.”

Kihyun shook his head just like Bumhee did earlier. There was no way Pro Han, with his personality, would have endured those words. Naturally, the atmosphere would have frozen over, and only the therapists caught in the middle would have suffered.

When he looked at him wonderingly, thinking why he did such a thing when he could have stayed still, Bumhee furrowed her brow and spoke with a smirk.

“I heard that guy insulted Mr. So last time. Cho Yeonoh, you picked a fight on purpose to get revenge for that, didn’t you?”

No matter how much of a pro he was, there was no way the Athletes’ Association would look kindly on a golfer who openly fought with a sponsor. Only then did Kihyun realize that Cho Yeonoh had known about the incident where Pro Han insulted him by calling him a cripple.

…It didn’t feel very good, as it felt like only the things he specifically didn’t want to disclose were being caught. Kihyun let out something like a sigh and murmured lowly.

“Why did you do that. You should have just left it alone.”

At those words, he saw Yeonoh’s handsome eyebrows slowly rise.

“Then why do you not even vent to me about that bastard? Are you keeping me at a distance? Are you practicing asceticism or something, So Kihyun?”

It was absurd to see him arguing with a face full of irritation as if he were dissatisfied, and it was also funny how he was getting worked up over someone else’s business, so Kihyun let out a pffft, the sound of escaping air.

Yeonoh looked at Kihyun, wondering if he might have laughed at that sound. However, since even the faint smile had already vanished without a trace, Cho Yeonoh looked to the side again and nudged Bumhee.

“Your mouth is awfully loose, Director Lee. I’m hesitating to recover my investment seeing as I put someone like you in the Director’s chair. Stop blabbing and move. I’m taking the kid and leaving work.”

“Is your mouth a rag, Director Cho? And, is Kihyun a kid?”