Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
63. Surveillance (2)
Evening, Yu Sang-hun’s home.
Yu Sang-hun was laying down on the living room’s sofa, watching a basketball broadcast.
As the youngest out of the four-member family, Yu Sang-hun didn’t have channel selection rights, and it was usually difficult for him to watch the basketball matches on the high quality hologram in the living room, but recently the days when he occupied the living room alone increased.
At first that situation was welcomed.
That’s because being stuck in his room and watching the basketball matches on the device he received from school wasn’t very satisfactory.
But as those days kept happening, he started to become uncomfortable in a corner of his heart.
‘She is late today too.’
Yu Sang-hun’s parents-nim, who were both working, were frequently absent due to overseas business trips.
But Yu Sang-hui would return home at the time Yu Sang-hun came back home or earlier, yet for some reason she kept being late these days.
Looking outside the window — excluding the places illuminated by the artificial lighting — it was completely pitch black.
As it was November, the days grew colder, sun set early, and it quickly became dark, so even though it wasn’t that late, it felt like it was middle of the night.
Even after the basketball broadcast ended, and even the broadcast of the match analysis ended — Yu Sang-hui didn’t return.
Yu Sang-hun left the news he wasn’t going to watch running, and just stared blankly for a while.
Beep.
Only after the main news all finished, and even the weather forecast was almost finished, did he hear the sound of the front door opening.
Yu Sang-hui returned home.
As if Yu Sang-hui had no time to change into daily clothes after finishing school, she was still in her uniform.
‘The 3rd years don’t do the Student Council’s activities and with not much time remaining until SAT, the classes should also be reduced. What was she doing in the meantime.’
At the beginning of the 3rd year, Yu Sang-hui said she wanted to go to a university and look for future job prospects at the same time.
As if those thoughts haven’t changed, she finished her SAT application and was diligently preparing to take an exam.
He thought that she could be studying for SAT outside, but he changed his mind.
It was because Yu Sang-hui usually studied at home to avoid running into Tao Wonu, who was always ready to appear, pretending it was a coincidence.
“I’m back.”
“…you are.”
The voice of Yu Sang-hui, who greeted Yu Sang-hun was full of fatigue.
Yu Sang-hui took off her shoes and was about to immediately head to her room.
Usually, when Yu Sang-hun spoke so tersely, Yu Sang-hui would say ‘what manner of speaking you’re using towards your noona?’, and nag him about laying on the living room’s sofa and eating snacks.
But it seemed that Yu Sang-hui didn’t have energy to bicker with Yu Sang-hun right now.
“Hey, wait.”
Yu Sang-hun unknowingly called out to Yu Sang-hui.
Yu Sang-hui stopped in her tracks and weakly said:
“What ‘hey’ to your noona…. What’s the matter?”
Right, why did I call her?
Yu Sang-hun thought like that inside, but it felt like if he honestly stated that, Vital Point Strike would fly his way.
Yu Sang-hun racked his brain.
He thought of the common conversation topics he had with Yu Sang-hui, when he abruptly thought of his friend, whose birthday was not a long time ago, Jo Uisin.
If he was at the dormitory on the weekend, he wanted to go see him and congratulate him over a meal, but Jo Uisin was absent, so he drew a line on sending a device message.
As it didn’t seem like Yu Sang-hui saw Jo Uisin’s face or congratulate him, it seemed like a good excuse to pick up a conversation right now.
“Jo Uisin’s birthday was yesterday; gave him a gift?”
Though he thought it was a really lame excuse, it was a plausible one.
Hearing Jo Uisin’s name, Yu Sang-hui made a startled face.
Yu Sang-hun knew about Jo Uisin’s birthday because when Jo Uisin came to play at their house in the past, Yu Sang-hui asked about them.
The person who actually asked about his birthday seemed to have completely forgotten about Jo Uisin’s birthday.
“Right, it was Uisin-i’s birthday… What am I gonna do. I completely forgot.”
“…”
“Should I contact Uisin-i right now? No, it’s so late, I should go to see him in person tomorrow and congratulate…”
Yu Sang-hui repeatedly turned on and off the device hologram, flustered.
Usually, if Yu Sang-hui forgot something, he would tease her, saying ‘is your brain already so old?’.
But looking at the tired Yu Sang-hui, those words abruptly came out:
“That kid doesn’t bother with such things. Just congratulate him at any time.”
“Right, Uisin-i isn’t a kid to be remorseful about such things…”
They talked about Jo Uisin for a moment, but the conversation was cut off again.
Yu Sang-hun tried to rack his brain again, but he didn’t know what he should say to Yu Sang-hui.
She just looked tired, but a friendly sound like asking ‘what happened’ couldn’t leave his mouth.
In the end, Yu Sang-hun gave up on talking and grabbed a snack to put in his mouth, when Yu Sang-hui looked at him, hesitated and then said:
“Yu Sanghun-ah, maybe…”
But Yu Sang-hui close her mouth again.
Yu Sang-hun tried to wait for Yu Sang-hui to speak, but because of the suffocating feeling, he couldn’t endure ten seconds and asked back.
“If you have something to say, do it.”
“No.”
“Ah, what is it.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Why are you talking and not talking.”
Yu Sang-hui didn’t answer back.
Instead, she sharply turned around and headed to her room.
Yu Sang-hun abruptly stood up and called Yu Sang-hui.
“Hey, Yu Sang-hui!”
But Yu Sang-hui didn’t comment on Yu Sang-hun’s rude attitude until the end, and disappeared.
Left alone, Yu Sang-hun forgot about even eating snacks and fell into thoughts.
‘Something is not right…’
Yu Sang-hui spoke frankly and honestly, to the point she seemed violent.
It wasn’t like Yu Sang-hui not to say what she wanted to say in such a manner.
‘No, wasn’t there such a time in the past?’
While repeatedly combing through his thoughts, he recalled the time when Yu Sang-hui showed similar behavior.
Yu Sang-hun’s young days.
To be precise, it was a time when Yu Sang-hui behaved strangely for a while, when he was fighting with the disease.
‘… Wasn’t it the time when she brought me to the superpower center?’
It was a time when even controlling his body was difficult, and he was bound to a wheelchair.
Taking an opportunity of their parents-nim being absent, Yu Sang-hui pushed Yu Sang-hun in a wheelchair and headed to the superpower center.
‘I remember going there, but… I can’t really remember what happened there. But I think I saw TC Research Institute logo.’
The day after visiting the superpower center, Yu Sang-hun fell seriously sick.
Yu Sang-hui was seriously scolded by their parents-nim for taking sick Yu Sang-hun out, while Yu Sang-hun just repeated a few times that he was fine.
Luckily, the scolding ended quickly.
Because Yu Sang-hun suddenly awakened superpowers and the strange illness Yu Sang-hun suffered from disappeared like it was washed away.
‘… Is it related to that time?’
He didn’t have proper evidence for it, but it somehow seemed that way.
Yu Sang-hun started to seriously worry.
Like that day when Yu Sang-hui sat him down in the push wheelchair, like the affair that ended, because he suddenly awakened superpowers, he hated to helplessly let things pass by, without being able to do anything.
‘If it’s connected to the TC Research Institute, I can’t solve with my power alone…’
Yu Sang-hun made a cold judgment.
He was a Player from the Korean most prestigious superpower special highschool, but he was just a student who was attending there.
It didn’t seem like he could solve a problem that Yu Sang-hui, the top-ranking Player Eungwang School boasted about, couldn’t solve.
As such, Yu Sang-hun thought who he should ask for help.
‘… It’s TC Research Institute, so should I talk to that fucker?’
The one he recalled at the word ‘TC’, was the Eungwang School’s previous Student Council’s president, and the sole first place of the 3rd, and TC Group’s child, Tao Wonu.
If it was something related to Yu Sang-hui, it was certain that Tao Wonu would actively step forward.
However, Yu Sang-hun immediately erased Tao Wonu from his head.
‘I hate to owe that fucker. Moreover, recently he was acting out of it…’
The fact that starting with the exchange with Military School Tao Wonu wasn’t acting corruptly was known to anyone to be a close acquaintance of his.
Bothered by Tao Wonu’s sudden change in attitude and hating to owe him, he excluded him from targets that he could ask for help with it.
In addition, he recalled Tao Sihu, who was related to TC, but because he heard rumors that Tao Sihu’s position in the TC Group wasn’t particularly good, he decided not to trouble Tao Sihu for no reason.
‘Should I ask homeroom teacher-nim..?’
The 1st year class 1’s homeroom teacher Yu Sang-hun belonged to was Kim Sinrok.
Kim Sinrok was a fair, sincere and talented homeroom teacher.
Because Kim Sinrok seemed to draw a subtle line between him and the class children, there were some remorseful children.
But if class children faced trouble or asked for consultation, Kim Sinrok would respond with full sincerity, so he had good reputation, and Yu Sang-hun also knew it very well.
‘No, homeroom teacher also seemed to blank out today a bit, so it seems he has something going on.’
Kim Sinrok had a lot of worries about the matters related to Seong Gukeon.
It was even more so that he had to meet Seong Gukeon with the head of the Ho tribe, disguised as an elementary school student.
Yu Sang-hun didn’t know the details of the circumstances, but he knew well that his homeroom teacher’s mental state wasn’t very good anyway.
As he eliminated the candidates one after another, only one person remained.
The first person that came to mind, but as he seemed to only accumulate much too many debts, he couldn’t think of readily asking for help.
‘Is Jo Uisin not busy…? Should I consult…?’
Yu Sang-hun roughly noticed that Jo Uisin was busily moving behind the scenes.
The beginning of the 1st semester, he dealt with the illegal admissions in Yu Sang-hun’s class.
He wasn’t at the list of Players, who participated in the otherworld conquest on the stern of Cymopoleia, so he was doing something else then.
At the time when the summer break Youth Training Camp, he did something to solve the exploding incidents.
At the time of the exchange with the Military Academy, he did something for Tao Sihu and Jang Namuk.
Yu Sang-hun thought about a few other suspicious incidents Jo Uisin was related to besides those.
‘Moreover, seeing how the number of kids in the 1st year class 0 are gradually increasing, Jo Uisin probably did something.’
It was certain that Jo Uisin did something to get the 1st year class 0’s children to attend the school.
But the person in concern didn’t want to reveal that, so he didn’t trouble himself with talking about it.
‘… What should I do?’
Yu Sang-hun contemplated it, then opened the group chat with Jang Namuk and Jo Uisin.
Jang Namuk was sending the minute and earnest messages in the chatroom.
The Ju-Oh Dragons finished this year’s winter baseball season as runner-ups.
During the last 16 years, the Ju-Oh Dragons were runner-ups 11 times, only runner-ups — but if your mentality wasn’t shaken by that situation, you weren’t a fan, but a fake fan or a buddha.
Jang Namuk, who was a die-hard fan of Ju-Oh Dragons, certified that exploding mentality with dozens of hundred lines messages.
[Jang Namuk] The big factor was that the pitcher, who finished the pennant with the best records was injured and couldn’t go forward. However, I think the key factor in the defeat was that Ju-Oh Dragons athletes’ were physically or mentally shaken when the Korean Series 7th game came. As a fan I had to support, but I guess my cheering was insufficient.
Jang Namuk continued to repeat similar words.
Yu Sang-hun who swiftly read Jang Namuk’s messages, sometimes typed in and responded with short ‘ㅎ’, ‘ㅋ’ and ‘k’ [1].
As if Jo Uisin didn’t check the messages, the mark ‘unread’ remained beside them.
‘Is he busy…?’
When Yu Sang-hun was just about to fold the chatroom.
The mark stuck beside Jang Namuk’s messages, filled with long sentences, disappeared.
It was a sign that Jo Uisin checked the messages.
‘I guess you’re checking the device right now.’
Yu Sang-hun hesitated for a moment, then pressed the call button and opened his mouth.
“Hey, Jo Uisin. It’s me…. Can we talk for a moment tomorrow?”
*~*~*
[1] ‘ㅎ’, ‘ㅋ’ — ‘ha’, ‘keke’ laughter respectively.
Translator’s note: Yu Sang-hun is once again the sharpest and extremely intuitive character.
Patron thank you note:
Thank you patron, Nobody, please accept this Impatiens niamniamensis’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Al, please accept this Impatiens noli-tangere’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Dust, please accept this Impatiens pallida’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Maru, please accept this Impatiens capensis’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, kamisonk, please accept this Impatiens platypetala’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Kasimir Ilmonen, please accept this Impatiens cordata’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Tara Hess, please accept this Impatiens pseudoviola’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Ice, please accept this Impatiens psittacina’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Hematite, please accept this Impatiens dendricola’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Deflubs, please accept this Impatiens ecornuta’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, TheFloorGuy, please accept this Impatiens repens’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Akemidy, please accept this Impatiens sakeriana’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, vicky moch, please accept this Impatiens flaccida’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Thank you patron, Diana-Maria, please accept this Impatiens scapiflora’s flower as a token of my sincere gratitude.
Links to support this translation and access to 8 advanced chapter (Patreon & Kofi)
> Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LibraryKeyTranslations
> Kofi-Euro: https://ko-fi.com/wanthetranslator
> Kofi-USD: https://ko-fi.com/wanthetranslatorusd
Did you see a mistake? 🐞
Leave a Reply