Chapter 112: Chapter 112

<"AHYEON-ah, our Hee-ya is running late, isn’t she? Is everything alright?">

"Please don’t worry, sir. Everything is alright," Ahyeon assured Mr. Seon Chang-ho, Jang Semi’s husband, whom he was talking to on the phone. "Wony Noona is just talking to a friend, sir. We will head there as soon as it’s over."

Yeon Soobin and Jang Semi already sent Wonhee’s clothes and other stuff to Jang Semi’s house where Wonhee would be staying in the meantime.

Jang Semi was still in the laboratory with Graham, so her husband called in her place.

<"I see. Then we will be waiting for you. Call me if anything happens, Ahyeon-ah.">

After hanging up, Ahyeon sighed and turned to the car that he covered with his barrier.

Wonhee was inside the car with Lee Seodam.

Ahyeon wanted to give Wonhee and Lee Seodam some privacy, so he volunteered to step out. Fortunately, the two chose to park the car in front of the Han River, so he could enjoy the beautiful view while having some fried chicken and cider.

Wonhee ordered that for him.

[Noona, is this a bribe? You know that I don’t like Lee Seodam for you. I don’t understand why you still care about him...]

Well, Ahyeon was surprised when he saw Lee Seodam cry.

[My Wony Noona cried a lot because of Lee Seodam and his family during their entire three years of relationship. Why would I care if Lee Seodam shed a few tears? I still don’t like him for my noona.]

Ahyeon may not look like it, but he was the type to hold grudges.

[Plus, I’ve always thought there was something off with Lee Seodam that I can’t just pinpoint.]

His thoughts were interrupted when his phone rang.

It was Shin Geon, so he answered it right away.

<"Ahyeon-ah, let’s meet tomorrow. I’ll come to Semi Noona’s house.">

<"Our Hee-ya sent me a message earlier. She said she wants me to check on your status level, so let’s do that tomorrow.">

Ahyeon tilted his head to one side. "My status level?"

[I’m just a C-Class Hunter who has no chance of leveling up since I don’t raid dungeons...]

THE SILENCE in the car was deafening.

Wonhee was sitting behind the wheel while Lee Seodam was in the passenger seat.

To be honest, it wasn’t a strange situation.

Back when Wonhee and Seodam were still dating, they would often spend their time eating in the car while facing the Han River.

It was a usual dating spot for celebrities, after all.

But it felt weird to be in the situation when they already broke up.

"Have you calmed down, Oppa?" Wonhee asked carefully. "You should drink your tea."

She ordered food delivery earlier.

Fried chicken and cider for Ahyeon, and chamomile tea for her and Seodam.

"Thank you, Wonhee-ya," Seodam said, and then he sipped his matcha before he spoke. "I still don’t like tea, though."

"I know Oppa prefers coffee, but tea is better for you right now."

"You’re really good at taking care of other people, Wonhee-ya."

He nodded thoughtfully. "And it’s so natural for you to take care of others without expecting anything in return."

She didn’t know what to say, and it seemed like he wasn’t done talking yet, so she just continued listening in silence.

"I love and hate that part about you, Wonhee-ya."

To say that Wonhee was shocked to hear that would be an understatement.

And, to be honest, hearing that from Seodam hurt more than she thought it would even though they had already broken up.

"You hate that part of me, Oppa?"

"Because it makes me feel bad about myself. About how I feel towards my family," Seodam confessed in a whisper. "I’m the breadwinner of my family. I worked hard all this time to provide for them. During the time that I hadn’t awakened yet, I worked three part-time jobs just to make sure we wouldn’t starve. Even now that I’m an A-Class Hunter, more than half of the salary I receive goes to my family. And I’m starting to get really sick of it."

Wonhee’s guilt for living well when almost the entire country suffered during and after the Outbreak made her heart heavy once again.

"The thought of abandoning my family to live my own life crossed my mind many, many times," Seodam confessed, his voice full of remorse. "But every time I see you look after my family, I feel guilty. My mother and sister are both mean to you. And, yet, you never get tired of taking care of them. That’s why I feel bad for even entertaining the idea of leaving my family when I know that they still need me."

Wonhee’s chest started to tighten.

It felt like an invisible hand was squeezing her heart painfully.

She could empathize with Seodam, but she wouldn’t pretend that she could relate to how a breadwinner struggled to carry the burden of his family on his shoulders.

"I shared these thoughts with Park Ruda once."

Wonhee gave Seodam a look of disbelief. "But we were still dating back then, Oppa. Why didn’t you come to me?"

"Because you wouldn’t understand, Wonhee-ya– you never struggled financially."

[The truth really hurts, huh?]

"That was when Park Ruda said he never liked people like you."

"People "like me?" What does that even mean, Oppa?" Chapters first released on NoveI-Fire.ɴet

"Park Ruda said that privileged people like you can afford to be nice because you don’t have to worry about anything else," Seodam said. "And, at that time, I agreed with him. I thought you were only nice to me and my family because you weren’t struggling to survive."

Now Wonhee was clenching her hands so tight that her nails started to dig deep into her palms.

Seodam was only stating facts, and yet it hurt.

"I know that my mother and my older sister were giving you a hard time, but I pretended not to know because I wanted to see how long you could play nice with people who were being mean to you," Seodam confessed, and he had the audacity to look Wonhee in the eye this time. "I wanted you to give up on my family and stop being nice, Wonhee-ya. All because I wanted to prove to myself that even people like you could break and become mean when pushed to the brink. So I wouldn’t feel bad if I suddenly become a bad guy who abandons his family."

"Are you saying that you and Ruda Oppa hated the fact that I’m "nice?"

"There’s a thin line between love and hate," Seodam said softly. "I love that you remain kind even after the world turned crazy. But, deep inside my heart, it seems like I hate the fact that you could afford to be nice when I couldn’t. You became a reminder that the world can go crazy and a person can still remain kind. And, as a result, it became apparent to me that changing for the worse was a choice I made voluntarily."

"Because you think that abandoning the family who needs you is you being a bad person, Oppa?"

"No good person would abandon their family in the middle of an apocalypse just so he could live his own life."

Wonhee couldn’t really say anything.

She didn’t have the right to console Seodam.

[Because whatever I say right now will only come across as either arrogant or ignorant.]

After all, it was true that Wonhee managed to remain kind because she didn’t have to struggle to survive.

"But I realized that I got it wrong, Wonhee-ya."

"What do you mean by that, Oppa?"

"The higher I advanced as a Hunter, the more prominent people I became acquainted with," Seodam said, avoiding Wonhee’s gaze as if he was guilty. "I’ve met a few people like you– people who belong to the top 0.01. They can afford to be kind and generous, but they choose not to. Some of them are the nastiest people I’ve seen in my life. It made me think that you were so different from them, but I still refused to acknowledge it. And then I saw it. Your grandfather made me watch the video of your confrontation with my mother."

She specifically asked APA to delete the video after she played it during the press conference.

[Did the video get leaked?]

"I heard the things that you said to my mother– about the reason why you took care of my family in secret," Seodam said, smiling bitterly this time. "I finally realized that you truly loved me, Wonhee-ya. That you were serious enough about us that you already pictured us becoming a real family."

"And you didn’t?" Wonhee asked, hurt. She already accepted the fact that her relationship with Seodam was long over, but it still hurt to hear that from him. "Oppa, was I the only one who thought we were going to get married in the end?"

Seodam’s silence hurt more than all the harsh things he said to her combined.

"So, Oppa didn’t love me enough..."

She should have known.

[But I guess I was too in love to see that Oppa didn’t reciprocate my feelings the way I wished he did.]

"I was blinded by my prejudice towards you, Wonhee-ya," Seodam confessed, turning to her with a sad look on his face. "And I regret it now. I realize that we can’t choose how others treat us, but we can choose how we treat others. And you always choose kindness, Wonhee-ya. Not because you can afford it, but because you choose to be."

"I can’t believe you were feeling that way towards me all this time, Oppa," Wonhee said in a cracked voice. "The thing about Ruda Oppa and the Advanced Treatment was just an excuse– you wanted to break up with me simply because I reminded you of the choice that you didn’t take. And that makes you feel bad about yourself."

"Like I said, there’s a thin line between love and hate," he said, pausing for a moment. "I loved you, Wonhee-ya. And maybe I still do. But now I know that I’ve hurt you because of my inferiority. I’m so sorry about that, Wonhee-ya. I didn’t mean to hurt you."

"No, you hurt me on purpose because you wanted to test the limits of my kindness, Oppa."

"Don’t worry, Oppa– I’ll stop being kind to you, your mother, and your older sister," Wonhee said firmly while wiping the tears off of her face. "You don’t deserve me."

Her Status Window suddenly flashed brightly, but it disappeared as soon as it appeared.

She didn’t know if it was just her imagination or not, and she didn’t have the luxury to check on it because Seodam suddenly clutched his chest as if he was in pain.

Wonhee trailed off, and then she shook her head.

[No, I shouldn’t concern myself with him anymore.]

Wonhee turned to the other side to avoid looking at Seodam. "Please get out of the car, Oppa. You’re an A-Class Hunter, so I’m sure you can get home safely on your own."

Unbeknownst to Wonhee, the A-Class Hunter beside her was no longer an A-Class.

Lee Seodam’s status level dropped to its original state, and it was a fact that would only be revealed later.

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