Chapter 201

My radius of activity was extremely small. I was almost always at home, and occasionally went out for a walk. If I needed something, I usually bought it online, and I hardly ever went out unless it was to a hair salon or a supermarket.

The only exceptions were when acquaintances called for me, but even that wasn’t very frequent, and now it was even less than before. I had very few remaining acquaintances, and most of them just came over to my house if they wanted to meet up, while Han-bom even lived in the same building.

Now that I had become much healthier, I rarely had to go to the hospital, so there really was no reason for me to go out.

My life wasn’t particularly boring. Eun-a, who had decided to just coast through this semester, visited me more often than I expected, and Mira, although not as frequent due to her part-time job and studies, occasionally showed up. Han-bom, who lived next door, visited often, and sometimes I went to her place. I saw Park Chan-wook when he occasionally visited Han-bom’s house.

Then, unexpectedly, a friend of mine came back to my house…

“Hey, why aren’t you opening the door? I made time to come visit!”

Suddenly, a thoughtless brat barged in.

And of all times, he came when Mira and Eun-a were at my house.

“Who is it?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Open up!”

Damn it, don’t knock on the door while singing.

In the end, I had no choice but to open the door. Ji Kang-hyeon, disguised with sunglasses, a hat, and a mask, came in and naturally settled into my house.

“Oh, Mira noona is here too. Hello! Who’s this?”

“Oh, um? Ah, hello. This is Seo Eun-a… a friend.”

“Who?”

Hearing that, Ji Kang-hyeon dropped his disguise. Naturally, Eun-a didn’t recognize him.

“Hey, we watched TV together before.”

“I don’t remember.”

“When I said I was jealous of how tall he is, and you freaked out and said not to be jealous about that and not to grow either, it was him!”

“Oh, that… Ji Kang-jin’s son?”

You can’t remember his face or name but can remember that? Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen Eun-a show much interest in this kind of thing. She was always watching weird stuff online. Professor Seo must have really messed up his parenting.

“I’m Ji Kang-hyeon! Nice to meet you, Eun-a noona.”

Does this kid lack self-esteem? He gets treated like that yet smiles and greets her. Is this the kind of personality you need to survive in showbiz?

What annoyed me was that Eun-a’s face turned a bit red after seeing that. So you only need to be good-looking, huh?

“By the way, why are you here?”

“I’m bored.”

“Don’t be rude; don’t you have any friends?”

“Except for the kids from my agency, I don’t really have any. They are busy lately.”

If he says he doesn’t have any, then I don’t know what to say. Sigh, even so, that’s still not acceptable. I was already annoyed by the nonsense people were saying about me on the internet, and I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if dating rumors broke out here.

“Are you out of your mind? Are you hoping for more dating rumors to come out?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I can handle at least one of those.”

“Are you crazy?”

That was such a crazy statement that both Eun-a and Mira looked at Ji Kang-hyeon with cold expressions. Mira at least had a more mildly disappointed look, but Eun-a looked like she was about to hurl.

“Well, if it comes to that, they’ll probably say I’m being flirty again. But it’s fine; I already laid the groundwork when I appeared on the show before.”

“Was that a big plan?”

“Really, I thought it was a concept.”

Maybe it was… No one would have thought we would end up in such a relationship at that point, so what big plan could it have been?

“Aren’t you supposed to have a schedule as a celebrity?”

“Oh, I’m about to shoot a drama soon, but until then, I’m completely free.”

“A drama?”

“Something called ‘Sky Mushroom’ or whatever. It’s based on some famous novel, but I don’t really know the original. The script is good, though.”

…It figures that a name like that would come up here. It might just be a coincidence, but I didn’t feel good about it. It wasn’t Ji Kang-hyeon’s fault, so I didn’t let it show. But rather than just annoyance, I felt a bitter emotion stronger than that.

Eun-a, who understood the situation, looked at me with a worried expression, so I signaled that I was fine. In contrast, Mira, who didn’t know the situation, was talking to Ji Kang-hyeon with admiration, so it seemed she found that book quite interesting.

“Is it true? What role? The male lead? No, that would have too much of an age difference, right?”

“I’m playing the younger brother of the female lead. Ah, don’t say anything about this anywhere yet. It’s still a secret.”

“If it’s a secret, don’t say it.”

It’s not like I’m thoughtless. Why are you going around saying such things? Do you want more articles to come out? Of course, Mira isn’t that kind of person.

“But aren’t you in high school now? That role must be a university student; can you pull that off?”

“I can act really well, so it’s fine.”

Don’t say that while smiling cheerfully. Wait, Ji Kang-hyeon can act well?

“No matter how I think about it, you don’t fit that image.”

“I received all kinds of awards during my child actor days. I’m not kidding.”

“That’s true.”

Looking up Ji Kang-hyeon after Mira’s comment proved that his words were surprisingly true. It felt like he had received every award available? Of course, I’d heard that acting as a child is completely different from adult acting, but still, this was an impressive resume.

I was even curious about why such an amazing guy was only appearing in variety shows now.

“With so many awards, why have you only been in variety shows until now?”

“There weren’t any projects I liked, and I had a hard time during my child actor days, so I planned to return to acting slowly.”

“Hard time?”

“My agency back then had a bit of a bad reputation. Well, it’s in the past.”

Ji Kang-hyeon didn’t seem to want to say more. Naturally, that topic ended there, and the four of us became a group.

“So what were the three of you doing?”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable for you, surrounded by older girls?”

Well, he’s not thick-skinned or anything; he really doesn’t care.

“I’m used to it.”

“We weren’t doing much, just chatting.”

“Really? You three just gathered to gossip?”

“Is that strange?”

“I think it’s more appropriate to call you noona rather than hyung.”

“If it were the past, I would have really kicked you, but I’ll let it slide today.”

I’ve really calmed down a lot. Part of it is because I have to restrain myself in front of others.

“Since there are four of us now, shouldn’t we do something together?”

“We have Monopoly.”

That was something Hwa-won had bought on a whim. It was something she got to entertain others when they came over, but I didn’t even know the rules and had never actually used it because no one in our group was into board games.

“Oh, great. Let’s play that! What does everyone think?”

“But I don’t know the rules.”

“I’ll teach you. It’s not that hard.”

It wasn’t something so strange that everyone would refuse, right? Naturally, we started to play Monopoly. While setting up the game, Eun-a offered a suggestion this time.

“It’ll be boring if we just play without some sort of punishment, how about that?”

“What kind of punishment?”

After a moment of thought, Eun-a proposed something, and it was accepted without much opposition. The rule was that the one who came in first had to make the last place do one thing they wanted. A fitting punishment.

After roughly learning the rules, we started Monopoly without any issues. Ji Kang-hyeon led the game naturally with his typical outgoing style. It was surprisingly fun and went smoothly; I thought he would be great as an MC.

“Please, don’t let it be 60, not 60! Just not 60!”

“Oh, it’s a 6.”

“Ugh!!”

Honestly, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Watching Ji Kang-hyeon’s exaggerated reactions was entertaining, and the game itself was fun. It was my first time playing a board game, but for some reason, playing together with three other people gave it a fresh feeling I hadn’t experienced before.

In the end of the first game, Eun-a won overwhelmingly, and Ji Kang-hyeon came in last dramatically. Even though it was a new experience, Ji Kang-hyeon’s luck was so disastrous that I barely managed to avoid coming in last. But the important thing was that I wasn’t last; Ji Kang-hyeon was.

“Loser.”

“Hey, roll again.”

“Speak.”

“Roll again.”

There was no way we were going to end it with just one game. I glanced at Eun-a, curious about what kind of punishment she would assign, and she seemed to be pondering for a bit, wearing a somewhat dissatisfied expression.

“Well then, last place… do 20 push-ups.”

“The punishment is really boring.”

“Boss, you usually die after doing twenty!”

“You won’t die.”

“I was thinking of asking you to buy me a drink from the convenience store nearby, but what if you get filmed while doing that? So I couldn’t think of anything good.”

That was definitely true. Thinking about it, it was better to assign a punishment to Ji Kang-hyeon that could be resolved within the house. I thought Eun-a might come up with something like “take off a piece of clothing,” but the fact that Ji Kang-hyeon was the only guy made that kind of punishment impossible.

It wasn’t a punishment that Ji Kang-hyeon could really refuse, so he accepted it without a word and straight away began his push-ups. But… wow, he did them better than I expected.

“Wow…”

Looking at his arms, he actually had some visible muscle. Well, he must take care of himself since he’s a celebrity. And for a moment, I glanced at Eun-a and Mira, noticing that Mira was slightly blushing.

…No way, right?

After Ji Kang-hyeon finished his push-ups, we started the second round of Monopoly. Once again, he guided the game happily. Another fun round came to an end with the surprising conclusion:

“Yay! I’m in first!”

“This must be a lie…”

Mira was in first place, Eun-a was in second, I was in third, and Ji Kang-hyeon came last.

Did he sell a country or something in his past life? His luck is unreal.

“So, what punishment should we have?”

Mira seemed to be figuring out a punishment with a rather joyful expression. Is it that fun to hand down punishments? After some contemplation, the punishment Mira chose was actually rather cruel.

“For the entire next round, you have to attach ‘nya’ to the end of everything you say.”

“Noona, please spare me.”

“I don’t see that attached, do I?”

“Please save me, nya.”

Eun-a seemed to realize that Ji Kang-hyeon could be such a pitiable figure…! Her expression seemed to suggest she had discovered a new side of him. And she looked at me for a moment. I felt like I absolutely couldn’t lose in the next round, or I’d have to suffer through that.

Anyway, as a celebrity, Ji Kang-hyeon reluctantly carried out the punishment. Even while speaking in that tone, he continued to engage in the game at a high energy level. His luck was still terrible, though.

Thanks to that, we couldn’t stop laughing at Ji Kang-hyeon’s way of speaking, and we were able to play the third round pleasantly.

And for the highly anticipated results of the third round:

Eun-a came in first, Mira second, Ji Kang-hyeon third, and I was in last.

…What?

“I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

Eun-a laughed. I protested the outcome.

“No, that’s strange!”

“Please accept your defeat, hyung.”

“Damn it, you cheated, didn’t you?!”

“What’s ‘cheated’?”

Or was it… damn it. I was clearly in second place and at worst third, but at the last moment, Ji Kang-hyeon struck gold, causing me to suddenly go down in flames. Looking at Eun-a, she was watching me with a mischievous expression.

And the despair I had anticipated arrived.

“For the next round, you have to attach ‘nya’ to the end of all your sentences. It doesn’t have to be ‘nya,’ just act like a cat.”

“Are you insane?”

“That’s exactly it.”

Damn it.