Chapter 290

I started running.

To be honest, I couldn’t quite recall what excuse I had made to Lim Seunghoon to leave. Was it something like, “ Something urgent came up, so I have to go “? Since something really had happened, it might not have been a lie after all.

‘Please!’

As soon as Lim Seunghoon disappeared from sight, I called Lee Chise. I figured he would be the quickest to pick up among the members and the most level-headed in dealing with the situation.

“Wow, you’re calling me first, hyung! Did the sun rise in the west today…….”

“You guys, can you contact Jay right now?”

“Jay? Why all of a sudden?”

I had no time to explain the situation. As my anxiety grew, I could feel my heart pounding as if it were about to burst.

“There’s no time to explain! Just check if you can reach him.”

“I told Hwon to try calling him first, since I don’t think he’ll pick up Woon-hyung’s call. Now, explain the situation.”

Seeing his usual playfulness vanish in an instant, it seemed he’d immediately noticed that something was wrong with me. Only after hearing the words, “ I told him to try calling “, did I begin to explain breathlessly in a low voice.

“Yoo Jay contacted Lim Seunghoon and got the safe password and key for Kang Hyukwoo’s safe. The edited video might be inside that safe!”

“Don’t tell me … are you talking about Inchan’s video?”

“…That’s right. He said he handed it over a while ago, so he might have already gotten his hands on the video.”

“I asked an employee I’m close to now, and they said he came by the company and left shortly after … what if Jay has already watched the video?”

As soon as Lee Chise finished speaking, I heard Jo Inchan’s voice quietly ask, “ …What are you talking about? ”. He must have had a pale, drained expression on his face. The hollow, weak tone of his voice made it instinctively clear just how shocked he must have been.

‘If it weren’t for the fact that Yoo Jay might cause an accident right now, I’d be going to Jo Inchan right away!’

“In the chaotic situation, I desperately ran my fingers through my hair. Finding some solace in the fact that other members were by Jo Inchan’s side, I continued the call.

“What else can we do? We have to catch him. Where is Kang Hyukwoo right now?”

“I don’t know. It seems like he’s had a lot going on recently, so he hasn’t been coming to the company much…….”

“Ha…….”

I wasn’t sure whether I should consider it fortunate or unfortunate that there was a high chance Kang Hyukwoo wasn’t at the company. If Kang Hyukwoo had been there, it might have been difficult for Jay to steal the video, but if he had succeeded in watching the video, he might have resorted to violence immediately.

‘F**k, I found out too late. If only I had known a little earlier!’

Even while running to catch a taxi, my mask and hat pulled low, all I could think about was Jay.

“Hyung, Jay isn’t answering any of our calls. I don’t think he’s in the middle of shooting anything right now…….”

The agitation he showed when he found out that Cha Woon was being blackmailed, and the hostility he revealed, even going so far as to injure his own hand with a shard of glass, when he became certain I was Seo Yutae. All those memories swirled together into complete chaos.

After telling the taxi driver I had an urgent matter and asking him to go as fast as possible, I only exhaled the breath I had been holding once I felt the wheels start to turn. Even then, my anxiety didn’t fade, and when I glanced out the window, I saw the sign for the psychiatry department.

And suddenly I felt a chill run down my spine.

I didn’t know the exact reason. Just like the gut feeling you get when your child is in danger, a sudden wave of anxiety rose within me.

In a shaky voice, I asked into my phone, “…His medicine?”

“…….”

“Is he taking his medicine regularly these days?”

There was no answer.

After a long silence, the answer that came from his mouth was this,

“…No, I haven’t seen him take them lately.”

“…What?”

“It seems like he doesn’t go to the hospital regularly either. Even when I tell him to go, he keeps saying he doesn’t want to…….”

‘Why, why does everything always turn out like this?’

“Agh…….”

My head started spinning again, and it felt like my insides were burning to a crisp. As I groaned in despair that I couldn’t get rid of, Cha Woon’s worried voice came through the phone.

“Hyung, are you okay?”

“…Yeah, I’ll go to his house first. That guy always locks himself up at home whenever something happens ……. If you guys find him, contact me right away.”

“Okay.”

***

After getting out of the taxi and arriving near Jay’s house, I was fortunate enough to spot him coming out of the front door at what seemed like a miraculous timing. Seeing the face I had been anxiously searching for, I felt the tension in my body loosen, but it was still too early to feel at ease.

I quickly left a text for the members and then ran toward Yoo Jay. He must have sensed my presence, because he slowly walked in my direction.

“Yoo Ja…….”

Before I could even finish calling his name, he took a small object from his left pocket, clenched it in his hand, and held it out in front of me. Then, in an unexpected move, he opened his clenched hand, and I reflexively took the object that was in his palm.

‘This is…….’

The object that fell onto my palm with a light sound was a USB. It was also the same USB that Kang Hyukwoo used.

As soon as I recognized what it was, I blankly looked up at Jay, and he smiled faintly before speaking.

“Take it. I’ll give it to you.”

“…You want me to take it?”

“You came all the way here because you need it, right? Take it and go back.”

His voice was quiet and steady. Someone else might have mistaken his deadly composed demeanor for genuine calmness, but to me, it was the complete opposite. I clenched my fist and bit down on the inside of my cheek.

‘He’s already watched the video.’

There was no need to ask something like ‘ Did you watch it? ‘. It was clear that Yoo Jay already knew the contents of the video, and any question with the obvious intent of testing him would only provoke him further.

“Hyung, you knew everything all along. That’s why you were always so nervous and fidgety whenever I was about to figure something out … You were trying to keep me in the dark. You just wanted me to stay dumb and clueless forever, didn’t you?”

Sure enough, the words he muttered with a chilling tone were filled with faint resentment and self-loathing.

Right now, Jay had completely lost his rationality. The shadowed expression on his face radiated an eerie chill, and his eyes, dull and lifeless, were deeply sunken, unable to focus even with me standing right in front of him.

As soon as he handed me the USB, he turned and headed toward his car as if the matter was settled. In a panic, I urgently grabbed his arm.

“…Where are you going?”

“You already know the answer.”

From the first time I saw him until now, Jay had kept his hand in the right pocket of his long, hanging coat.

“What are you hiding in your pocket?”

When I asked with a trembling voice, Jay didn’t answer; he just took a step back. Normally, if it was just an ordinary item, Jay wouldn’t have cared if I dug through his pockets and took it, but seeing his reaction this time, I could easily guess what the object in his pocket was.

‘…A knife.’

As soon as I realized that, I quickly ran toward him and reached for his pocket, but the moment my fingers touched it, Yoo Jay roughly grabbed my wrist, preventing me from taking the knife.

I gritted my teeth at the sharp sensation of the blade that brushed against my fingertips through the fabric and then spoke, “Don’t do something you’ll regret. No one will be happy if you go through with this.”

“I don’t care. I’m not doing this to make anyone happy.”

“…So you’re saying you’re going to commit a crime for your own sake? Don’t say something so absurd. Come to your senses!”

I took a firm stance to stop Jay by any means, but he simply looked down at me with cold, lifeless eyes, as if he couldn’t hear anything I was saying, offering no response whatsoever.

“You’re a celebrity. You can’t act recklessly like this!”

When I shouted again, he slowly released his grip on my wrist and simply left me standing there as he walked to his car. My heart sank, and with my stiffened legs, I rushed to stand in front of him.

Then, the tip of my forehead lightly bumped into his shoulder, and Yoo Jay’s steps came to a halt. The sound of his shoes, which had seemed like it would never stop, went completely silent in front of me, and I felt a faint glimmer of hope.

“Get out of the way.”

However, all that rained down on me were cold words, with no trace of emotion.

“…Jay-ya.”

“I told you to get out of the way.”

“Yoo Jay!”

Normally, when I called his name this firmly, he would have relented at least a bit, but the current Yoo Jay didn’t budge an inch. Perhaps he was so blinded by his intense rage that he couldn’t even see me anymore.

As I stood my ground and blocked his path without backing down, he fell silent for a moment before speaking in a monotone.

“Hyung, you know I could easily overpower you with force right now, don’t you? It’s not that I can’t, I’m just choosing not to. I don’t want to do that to you, hyung. So, let’s stop this and move out of the way.”

It wasn’t just an empty threat. It was a warning that if I tried to stop him one more time, he would push through with force.

‘…Damn it.’

If I were in my original body, I would have had the strength to forcibly restrain Jay, but that wasn’t the case now. Realizing this reality as I looked at Han Seungbeom’s frail physique in my line of sight, I clenched my fist so tightly that my nails dug into the flesh.

‘I didn’t want to feel this way again.’

The feeling of loss that had often plagued me since losing my original body seemed to be making my head go numb again.

Pull yourself together. I need to pull myself together. Having repeated those reminders to myself several times, I finally managed to open my mouth again.

“…Talk to me.”

“Get out of the way.”

I tried speaking again in the gentlest tone I could manage, but the response I got was nothing but the same infuriating words. I could tell that he had no intention of talking to me at all right now.

If stopping him by force was out of the question, then the only way to stop Yoo Jay now was through persuasion. But what on earth was I supposed to do if Yoo Jay completely refused to even talk?

‘Besides, even if Yoo Jay were willing to hear me out … there’s no way he’d be persuaded.’

Realistically speaking, there was really nothing to explain.

Jo Inchan was filmed in the video, and Kang Hyukwoo used it to blackmail me and the other members of Prism. That was all there was to it. There was nothing more to clarify from what Jay already knew.

‘Even I would kill Kang Hyukwoo right this instant if I could.’

If the situation right now was one where Yoo Jay was about to harm Jo Inchan, explaining that ‘ Actually, Kang Hyukwoo orchestrated everything and forced him into that situation ‘ would have been helpful. But unfortunately, Yoo Jay’s anger was solely directed at Kang Hyukwoo, so that explanation would only worsen things.

‘Then should I just lie to him? … Again?’

My vision went black. It was ironic how the tables had turned. Before, I had been the one refusing to talk, and Jay had been the one seeking an explanation, but once he figured out the truth on his own, the situation completely reversed.

But no matter how difficult the situation was, I couldn’t let Jay become a criminal.

“….I know perfectly well you’re not in your right mind right now, so there’s no way I can just let you go. I won’t move out of your way. I’m going to stop you, no matter what.”

”…….“

“If you don’t like that … then, fine, just like you said, you’ll have to overpower me with force. Wouldn’t breaking my leg at least do the trick?”

The moment I uttered those words, Jay’s eyes finally focused on me again.

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Translator’s Corner:

This chapter is for the people who used to ask why MC just don’t tell Jay … hahaha … who wants to make bet whether Jay would actually hurt Yutae or not …..

Also, I’m pretty sure this blog only gone for a day yesterday, not even full 24 hours, so why someone already reported it to NU as dead links asdfghjkl I’M SO BAFFLED. If you look it up on NU right now, it’s all gone. Well, not really, it’s hidden since it’s marked as dead links. BUT SERIOUSLY, HOW T_T even the site that got permanently closed down still got their releases up on NU until like … almost a month. I only went private for a day oh my goddddd guys, let’s take patience class together with our MC T_T

Just yesterday someone on the same server with me told me that, from their perspective, I seemed to be unlucky in everything … and today it was proven again, like, why do all these ridiculous things always happen to me asdfghjkl we’ll see if the mods will put them back … and if I’ll need to submit a new request for the automated update once more … sorry for constantly troubling you, mods-nim T_T I also don’t know why my day always went this absurd…..

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