Chapter 284

I clenched my fist so tightly that my fingernails dug into the flesh of my palm.

“…….”

I had bad luck.

I felt like questioning the heavens about why, of all times, Gong Seonghwa had to bring up Dalli in front of Jay, and why I had to hear news about Lim Seunghoon then.

‘If it was a member of Pantheion, they would have just thought my condition happened to worsen at this timing by chance.’

It didn’t have to be Pantheion; even among the Prism members, Cha Woon would have been too preoccupied with taking care of my body to think of anything else. Jo Inchan might have sensed that something was off, but he wouldn’t have been able to piece together what was actually happening. And Nam Yihwon … well, would he have just stood there, his mind going completely blank?

The only ones I absolutely had to avoid were Yoo Jay and Lee Chise.

Choi Jeokhyeon would surely notice that something was off about me, but it didn’t matter.

‘He’s seen me at my absolute worst so many times, he’s probably already sick of it…….’

Meanwhile, Yoo Jay and Lee Chise still didn’t know the full story—but the real problem was that they were the kind of people who could figure it out on their own through this situation.

Jay had a deep understanding of my personality.

I had never even considered dragging in unrelated people to accomplish my revenge. So, Jay must have long since realized that I would either take matters into my own hands or use someone I wanted to see destroyed along with me.

However, choosing the former was difficult, as I was now in the body of a much younger child—one I might have to return someday—and, just like in my original life, I held the status of a celebrity.

Therefore, the more plausible option was the latter. But there was a condition that came with the latter.

I needed a pawn who had committed enough evil deeds that I could justify not treating them like a ‘ fellow human ‘ to lessen my guilt. Someone easy to control and likely to be ostracized by society was even more ideal.

And just now, Yoo Jay heard about him.

“Oh, there’s this weird stalker who’s been following Seungbeom-ssi, and it seems like he’s been near him lately. He needs to be careful.”

“…Ah, really? I didn’t know that.”

When Gong Seonghwa brought up the stalker, Yoo Jay immediately shot me a look. His gaze was a mix of questioning whether it was true and reproaching me for not saying a single word about it to the other Prism members despite what had happened.

From the moment I hesitated, too conscious of Gong Seonghwa’s gaze to deny it, I had practically admitted to the stalker’s existence myself. If Jay had picked up on emotions he wouldn’t normally see from me—like anxiety or guilt, rather than just a simple feeling of ‘ I didn’t want to worry you ‘—then he had likely already reached a conclusion.

And the moment he saw my reaction upon hearing about Lim Seunghoon’s accident, he must have been even more certain.

‘It would have been better if I had just shown a mild sense of shock after hearing about Lim Seunghoon, but my body betrayed me by revealing my stress…….’

Unless Dalli said something about me himself, I had handled everything meticulously to make sure that neither the police nor the general public would ever find a clue leading to me. And yet, Yoo Jay had managed to piece things together this far based solely on what he knew about me.

“It’s okay. You were with me that day, hyung. Right?”

“…What?”

Just as I feared, as I watched Yoo Jay casually say the very words I had dreaded the most, I felt my mind grow hazy.

“Yes, it’s my gift for you. Do you like it?”

It felt eerily similar to when Choi Jeokhyeon drove that journalist to suicide.

It was the same despair I felt every time I watched people commit wrongdoings without hesitation for my sake.

Whether it was thanks to Prism or the high-profile contestants, this season of Legendary Singer was making waves in a way no previous season had. Perhaps this could even mark the beginning of Prism’s second golden era.

It was a success that the members, whose hard work had often been belittled as ‘ thanks to Seo Yutae ‘ while they were with me, finally achieved entirely with their own efforts.

But if they got caught up in another incident like this, everything would have been for nothing.

You know what it feels like, you’ve been there time and time again.

But why … why are you giving it up so easily?

…Because of me?

“They said the culprit hit Lim Seunghoon and fled immediately. He’ll probably be caught soon. Once the investigation starts, it’s only a matter of time before the police figure out the connection between you and him. Fortunately, since the culprit was a stalker who had been following you around, we can frame it as a case of delusional obsession.”

There wasn’t the slightest hint of agitation in Yoo Jay, who calmly laid out his words at length. His calm, steady eyes met mine without a hint of wavering, and the hand gripping me carried both a firm strength and a reassuring warmth.

“If we don’t want to arouse the police’s suspicion, we have to quickly get our stories straight and make sure everything lines up. There’s no time to lose.”

“…….”

“So tell me everything from start to finish, so I can protect you, hyung.”

It meant that he wasn’t saying those words out of panic.

Right now, Jay was completely in his right mind.

“Did you ever contact the culprit using a device registered in his name? Did you meet him in a place with CCTV, or did you ever talk about him to anyone around you?”

“…Go back.”

“Right, you’re not that careless, hyung. You wouldn’t want to turn Han Seungbeom into a criminal, so you must have been extremely cautious in handling this. You wouldn’t have left any physical evidence behind. Even if there were some minor mistakes, Lee Saehwa could take care of them. That means, aside from Dalli running his mouth, there’s nothing they can use against you. I think we can easily cover that part by setting up an alibi. Luckily, ‘ Trainee Han Seungbeom ’ and I are close enough to meet in private…….”

“I don’t need your help!”

I shook my head and tried to stop him, but he refused to listen, so I grabbed the hem of his clothes and yelled at him. Then, he finally stopped talking and tilted his head a little to the side.

“Why?”

“Do you … do you even realize what you’re about to do?”

When I asked that, he smiled, his cheeks slightly puffing up beneath his eyes, and casually replied, “Yes”. That short answer made me feel like my whole world was crashing down, and my grip on his clothes slowly weakened.

“…….”

Thoughts like “Why on earth do you have to do something like that?” , “You’re a celebrity, someone who lives off their image! What the hell are you even saying?” , “Do you have any idea how painful it is to get caught up in an investigation?” , and “What will you do if things go wrong?” , along with “I’d rather die than watch that happen.” , all flashed through my mind in that fleeting moment.

But I couldn’t bring myself to say a single word.

I had the feeling that no matter what I said right now, Jay would simply brush it off.

“…Do you think I’d be happy about that?”

In the end, that was the only thing I managed to say. It was because I held onto the hope that, at the very least, I could persuade Yoo Jay that I wasn’t happy about this at all.

But Yoo Jay’s reply that followed immediately crushed even that last bit of hope.

“No, you’ll hate it. But it doesn’t matter to me.”

His words, spoken without a hint of hesitation, left me speechless. As I stood there, dumbfounded, Jay let out a soft, deflating sigh before giving a weak laugh.

“I know everything, hyung. I know what you did at the sea that day.”

The moment I heard those words, a dull weight settled over my limbs. Then, like a carefully spliced film, the memories of the day I recalled Seo Yuseong’s death started replaying in my head, one frame at a time.

The seawater lapping near my neck and the chilly dawn air brushing against the tip of my nose.

…I felt so good when I thought of it.

Just as I was unconsciously sinking into deeper and deeper memories, as if being pulled into deeper water, Choi Jeokhyeon’s sharp voice suddenly broke through.

“Seo Yutae!”

And when a hand suddenly yanked me back, I gasped in surprise, sucking in a sharp breath. That’s when I finally saw them; amber eyes staring straight at me. My senses were still hazy, not fully grounded in reality, leaving me feeling disoriented.

“Ugh!”

As I clutched my throbbing head and silently stared at Jay’s face, which was tangled with faint resentment and simmering anger, the smile that lingered on his lips gradually faded. His smiling face turned expressionless, and that expressionless face soon twisted into a miserable grimace. Then, Jay spoke again.

“Just making up your mind to get better doesn’t guarantee it will actually happen, I know that. Unless the cause is dealt with, you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life. But hyung, the reason you died wasn’t Kang Hyukwoo. It was Yuseong-hyung’s death. No matter how many times you kill Kang Hyukwoo or Lim Seunghoon, the problem won’t go away.”

“…Yoo Jay.”

“Then what will happen to you once everything is over, hyung?”

When I couldn’t answer that question, Jay took a long stride toward me, closing the distance until he was right in front of me. Then, he bent down and whispered in my ear.

“You’re going to live because you can’t die … because of us. Isn’t that right?”

I fell silent again. Jay didn’t show much reaction, as if he knew I would.

Instead, he began to block off every possible escape route so that I could no longer run away.

“Hyung, you just can’t forgive yourself. You hate yourself so much that being alive feels unbearable.”

“…It’s not like that!

“Then why didn’t you deny what Lee Danbi said back then?”

It seemed Jo Inchan had overheard the entire conversation. Like a criminal caught with irrefutable evidence, I had no chance to fight back and could only watch as Jay tightened his grip on me.

“Hyung, why are you so shaken up, even throwing up after hearing about Lim Seunghoon? Lim Seunghoon is one of the people who killed Seo Yuseong, and he’s still making Prism suffer. Given your personality, hyung, there’s no way you still feel sorry for him … Is it to teach Yuseong-hyung what’s right and wrong in society? But Yuseong-hyung is no longer in this world?”

“…The things you’re saying don’t give me a free pass for everything I’ve done. I broke the rules I was supposed to follow as a member of society.”

“The most effective way to prevent people from resorting to private justice is to ensure that the judgment made through the criminal justice system doesn’t betray the trust and expectations of its citizens. But, hyung, you are the one who’s been betrayed the most by that system. Look, the perpetrators keep repeating the same crimes, growing richer, while the victims wither away right before our eyes. You already know this, don’t you? That respecting a flawed system, which repeats the same injustices without any reflection, only serves as a tool to defend the interests of the guilty.”

“…Yoo Jay.”

“If someone else were in the same situation as you, hyung, you wouldn’t have driven them into a corner like you did yourself. Instead, you would have desperately tried to defend their position. So why, then, are you throwing away even the slightest justification to protect me and imposing such harsh rules only on yourself?”

Ah, this wasn’t good.

“You just needed an excuse to attack yourself, didn’t you?”

I felt as if I were being stabbed in a vital spot with a blade, and I was falling apart with no way to stop it.

It felt as if blood was rising to my throat, ready to gush out with just a single cough.

“I know all that, but you’re telling me to just leave you alone, hyung? You might as well tell me to hand a rope to someone about to hang themselves.”

“…….”

“Let’s take it slow together. Lim Seunghoon can’t move his legs anyway … he won’t be able to run away.”

As I watched Jay say that, I realized why I had unconsciously grouped Choi Jeokhyeon and Seo Yuseong together with him all this time.

“I’m not Yuseong-hyung. But, if the situation calls for it, I could become someone worse than Yuseong-hyung.”

Choi Jeokhyeon was a guy who happily embraced his inherent abnormality and exploited it cleverly, while Seo Yuseong was a guy who couldn’t care less about his own abnormality.

And Yoo Jay…….

“People are controlled by their circumstances. So don’t feel guilty, hyung.”

He was a guy who could act out any abnormality as long as the situation called for it.

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Translator’s Corner:

This is what happens when 6 not-quite-sane guys attempted to raise a kid who’s way more smarter than them……….

Anyway. I finished the offline backup for 283 chapters … so I guess everything is good now. But I think something went wrong during the online backup because my wordpress streak went back to 0 …. it was on 130 days when I posted chapter 283, now I need to start for 1 for idk what reason … might get back if I complained to wordpress, but … I guess it’s better. I felt pressured to continue streak everytime I saw the days amount asdfghkfl

The last one I screenshooted was this number….. so long my streak……

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