141 – 141. Chaeryeong Min (1)
When Chae So-yeon and Kim Yong-bin fell asleep drunk, Cho Yu-ri and Bae Young-woong got drunk and ran amok, and Lee Tae-ho, caught between them, resigned himself to dealing with the two.
-Chic. Profit.
Min Chae-ryeong was smoking a cigarette leaning against the wall behind her in her shop.
“Whoop.”
Her minchae-ryeong’s face, after biting her cigarette, was stained with terrible boredom. As if to prove this, the paper cup she had left at her feet was already piled high with cigarette butts she had smoked alone.
Even though there was a smoking room in the first place, she dared to go outside and smoke, because her frustration and desire to go out into the open were the result.
When one cigarette burned out, a new one was lit. Her 7cm white rod burns her body and gives her 7cm of freedom and stability.
That one.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
And heat.
Cigarette butts don’t know how to stop and keep piling up.
Her quietly burning cigarettes brought her a sense of security while she smoked, but in the moment she burned out, they undoubtedly gave her a feeling of emptiness. Without the smoke filling her lungs, her chest felt empty and anxious, so she didn’t stop each time her cigarette burned out and smoked the next one.
At most, the sense of security that one cigarette gives is not a big deal, but it was better than not having it, so Min Chaeryeong continued to smoke.
Just when she realized that her smoking had already exceeded half an hour, her hands came to visit her just in time.
“…… How many cigarettes do you smoke?”
As she was about to light her 11th cigarette, she looked at Ahn Su-ho.
The strong smell of alcohol tickled her nose. Ahn Su-ho did not drink enough to get drunk, but because she drank a considerable amount, her face showed a hint of alcohol. As if to prove the truth of the saying that alcohol breaks people’s vigilance, his expression looking at Min Chae-ryeong was a little softer than usual.
“Sorry. I smoked for a while because I had something to think about. Are you all looking for me?”
“Only senior Taeho. Soyeon and Yongbin are busy sleeping, and Hero and Yuri are busy drinking.”
“I thought so.”
Min Chaeryeong lit up the 11th cigarette and inhaled deeply. Right after that, a faint haze of smoke spread in the air.
“Do you not smoke?”
“I hung up. Cigarettes don’t taste good these days.”
“Probably because it is a regular cigarette. I also smoke ready-made products that are too bland for super people.”
Min Chaeryeong held up her cigarette pack. In the corner of the wrapping paper of the unfamiliar brand, the words ‘for supermen only’ are printed in red letters.
“Do you want to smoke?”
“………… No. I’ll just hang up on this one. Originally, I smoked because of habit, and my girlfriends hate that I smoke.”
“You are very generous. Do whatever you want.”
Min Chae-ryeong smoked her cigarette alone. A cigarette burns in the quickening flame, and her boredom-stricken expression is once again slightly relaxed.
“How many sticks are there?”
“10. No, is it the 11th?”
“You really smoked a lot. Are you worried about something?”
“Worried? Under.”
Min Chaeryeong swallowed a laugh, saying that it was ridiculous. She raises her eyes and asks, looking up at her eyes.
“Why. If I have a problem, why don’t you give me some advice?”
“I don’t think I’m so cocky. But why, there is a saying that worries are halved when shared. If you have concerns that you can talk to me about, let’s talk about it.”
“It’s really funny. Why are you so kind today? Did you eat something wrong?”
“I drank a little. And it’s a party after all. Aren’t you tired of raising your claws and growling at each other until a good day like today?”
Min Chae-ryeong bit her mouth tightly at Ahn Su-ho’s joke. She takes the cigarette that she was burning by herself and exhales the haze of her smoke.
“…… But. That’s it.”
The words she spat out as if resigned were especially soft for her. If Ahn Su-ho’s personality softened thanks to his drinking, it was the same for Min Chae-ryeong. Her heart was a little looser than usual at the drinking party she hadn’t had in a long time, and the dinner she hadn’t had in a long time.
“So. What are you worried about?”
“I am not worried. I just have a lot to think about. I’m busy these days, but the police ask me to continue to cooperate with the Rising Team after the last succubus incident. I have to be careful about keeping my eyes on Kang Ha-neul in Yeoil. Besides, because Soyeon overlaps with her work, even 10 of her bodies are lacking. No, would ten be more than enough? Anyway… ….”
“Are you tired?”
“It’s not that I’m tired, it’s just……… …. I’m a little tired. It’s frustrating too. That’s why I didn’t feel like drinking at all, so I got out of it in the middle.”
Ahn Suho stared at Min Chaeryeong’s profile as she quietly smoked a cigarette.
She felt like Min Chae-ryeong was an unreliable boss to him, and she was like a reserve army of villains who would one day become enemies. However, today’s Min Chaeryeong was quite different. Whether it was because of the alcohol, or because she saw her struggling with work, she felt strangely more human than usual.
“At the very least, it would be more comfortable if my subordinates helped me well. Doesn’t So-yeon create something that didn’t exist and bring it back? The one she picked as her youngest has two girlfriends, but she’s anxious because she can’t eat me every day……. Will I exhaust myself without getting tired?”
And she felt more comfortable with her partner than usual, as did Min Chae-ryeong. She was sarcastic, but the fact that she joked like this was something I would normally never have imagined.
Min Chae-ryeong smiled as Ahn Soo-ho opened her eyes wide in surprise.
“Why can’t I even joke?”
“…… It’s surprising that someone who doesn’t even joke about it usually does this. I thought he didn’t drink much, did he drink a lot?”
“I am also a person who knows how to joke and make jokes. You only treated me with a sharp attitude, so I didn’t have a chance to show you.”
“It’s all the team leader’s fault. Who lives where he threatened Yewon by planting a bomb in his neck while swinging at me while spitting out suspicious teas?”
“………… Are you doing this on purpose, or are you blind? Would it be a little worse if you take the words thrown in a joke as a joke?”
“Was that just a joke?”
“Are you a bit cocky when it comes to jokes with your boss?”
“Is that so? Then, as an apology, I will bear with it once even if the team leader jokes with Mr. Seon. Come on, let’s try it.”
“Huh… ….”
Min Chaeryeong looked up at Ahn Su-ho with a puzzled look.
‘…… Is he drunk?’
Min Chae-ryeong opened her eyes and checked his complexion. I can feel the alcohol, but I don’t think I’m drunk to the point of being unreasonable. That would mean that his original personality is like this.
“You really… …. It got very cheeky.”
“I’m being cocky, haven’t I been like that since the interview?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
The image of Ahn Su-ho on the day of the interview passed through Min Chaeryeong’s mind. In a job interview, he was the one who insisted on the academy professor’s corruption by betting on whether he passed or not.
‘Come to think of it, that was the moment I started getting involved with him.’
It was arrogant to see him boldly ask if he was right, but it was true that he was more interested than that. Because of this, Min Chae-ryeong put her own name on her own and accepted her An Su-ho’s offer, and at the end of this and that, she eventually managed to attract him to her team.
“…… Still, it was pretty cute back then. Right now I have a very black stomach and it’s a headache. I’m really going to die. It’s my fault for staring at this guy…….”
“Is this my story?”
“Then who else would it be?”
When Min Chae-ryeong scolded her with a laugh, Ahn Su-ho shrugged her shoulders.
At that time.
“Look for me!!”
The two heads turned at the same time at the refreshing cry that resonated in the alley. On the other side of the alley, vegetable kites were running towards the two of them with a loose appearance.
Ahn Su-ho was surprised at the unusual speed, and she blamed it, kicked off the ground and jumped up. Then, with her arms open, she ran into Min Chae-ryeong’s arms as she ran.
“Is Chaeryeong unnie here? I searched for it, but I couldn’t find it. Why are you hiding and smoking, sister? She wondered if she had a breather??”
“…… Soyeon was drunk a lot?”
“Wow!”
Chae-yeon Chae-yeon rubbed her cheeks into Min Chae-ryeong’s arms like a puppy welcoming her owner after work. She didn’t know what to do, and as if Min Chae-ryeong’s arms, which vaguely stopped in the air, soon gave up, she patted her on the back.
“…… Chaeryeong’s ‘sister’?”
On the other hand, Ahn Su-ho was puzzled by the innocent title. He quietly asks Min Chaeryeong.
“Were you two close in private?”
“Maja! Chaeryeong unnie and I are very close! Waaah, I’ve known her since she was little, Geelong!”
It was Vegetable Yeon who answered. With one cheek buried in her voluptuous chest, Chae-yeon Chae-yeon turned her head to look at Ahn Su-ho, smiling brightly as she recalled her memories with Min Chae-ryeong.
“Chae-ryeong unnie is absolutely my life’s unnie… …. When I was in elementary school, the kids who bullied me were also scolded by my sister! When I was in middle school and high school, he always helped me with my studies! Also, thanks to Chaeryeong unnie, you can enter the academy and graduate well? Was it because of her sister that she joined the guard like this? Hee hee. Chaeryeong unnie is so amazing, right? If I do my sister’s up, she can’t live…….”
“Is it true?”
“………… All in all, it’s not a lie.”
It was an ambiguous answer, but seeing as he didn’t deny it, it seemed almost true.
Ahn Su-ho looked at Min Chae-ryeong with strange eyes. If all of that is true, it means that she has actually been behind her since she was a kid in elementary school.
‘That’s not going to happen. So-yeon will never try to leave me. She’s not intimidated or coerced, because she was raised to follow only me in the first place.’
At that time, Suho Ahn suddenly remembered what Chaeryeong Min had said on Wednesday. Min Chae-ryeong’s confident answer to the question of what she would do if Chae-yeon voluntarily left the guard.
I wondered what it meant at the time when I heard the word ‘raised’, but now I know what it means. Literally, Min Chae-ryeong had been raising vegetable kites since childhood.
Tailored to her own taste.
She only follows herself.
To make her depend on her endlessly and depend on her.
“Vegetable Smoke!!”
Just then, she heard another shout from the other side of the alley. This time it was Lee Tae-ho.
As he approached with strides, he staggered and pressed against the wall, perhaps because he was drunk. He touched his forehead for about 3 seconds, then raised his head, quickly approached and apologized to Min Chaeryeong.
“I’m sorry, manager. While I glanced at it for a while, Chae-yeon was a nuisance to the team leader…….”
“It’s okay. It’s a dinner date, so it could be like this.”
“Maja! Why are you calling me a nuisance when I’m not a nuisance?! Thanks to whom is today’s dinner party! If you don’t like me, spit out all the alcohol and meat you ate today! Spit it out! Spit it out! Spit it out, baby!”
“… ….”
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Lee Tae-ho’s tightly clenched fists trembled. The sign that he had been struggling with alcohol just a moment ago had disappeared. For Lee Tae-ho, Vegetable Yeon’s sh*t was more effective than most hangover cures.
“………… Manager. It looks like Chae-yeon is very drunk, but can I take her in?”
“I hate it! I’m not going in! I’m going to play hide-and-seek here with Chaeryeong-“
“Yes. Take him in.”
“…… Det?”
“Follow me. Vegetable Yeon.”
“Chae-ryeong unnie? Oh no. Manager…… ?”
Chae-yeon Ga looked up at Chae-ryeong Min with her pitiful eyes, but Chae-ryeong Min only waved her hand, saying that he would be entering soon. Like livestock being led to a slaughterhouse, the vegetable-yeon caught by the scruff of her neck was helplessly caught by Lee Tae-ho and taken to the store.
Ahn Soo-ho, who had been silently watching the scene, alluded to Min Chae-ryeong.
“The team leader must have suffered a lot too.”
“What do you mean?”
“So-yeon. It’s like that even now, but I wonder how damned it must have been when I was younger.”
“Well? I think it was the same as it is now when I was younger.”
In other words, that kind of nature of Chae-yeon was not much different from when she was in elementary school and now. Ahn Soo-ho, who grasped the meaning, shed a wide smile.
“Anyway, it’s surprising that I’ve known her since elementary school. Did she even live in the same neighborhood?”
“No. I approached it intentionally. I accidentally found out the information of a young superman with the ability to tolerate, and prepared from a young age to make him my own person later.”
Min Chae-ryeong confidently revealed the truth as if she didn’t have a fact to hide. Suho Ahn’s expression reminds me of surprise.
Chae So-yeon is 24 years old. She, Min Chae-ryeong, was 27 years old. And if you listen to Chae-yeon’s words, the relationship between the two began no matter how late it was when Chae-yeon was in her 6th grade of elementary school.
In other words, Min Chae-ryeong was a story that she approached Chae-yeon from at least the third year of middle school, thinking about her future. She couldn’t help but be surprised.
“The team leader has been thorough since he was very young. I don’t think that’s when you started building the 2nd team…….”
Ahn Su-ho, who was trembling in a joke, blurted out the end of his words at the sudden question.
“Why?”
“…… I suddenly have a question. With the team leader’s skills, he could have easily entered a much better job than the security guard, so why did he choose the academy guard?”
“… ….”
At Ahn Su-ho’s question, Min Chae-ryeong bit her mouth tightly. Her attitude was in contrast to what she had said without hesitation about the vegetable-yeon a while ago.
‘…… Well, it doesn’t matter if it’s revealed. If Ahn Su-ho investigates my background, he will know right away.’
Min Chae-ryeong, who was worried for a while, started talking about her life to An Su-ho, who was staring at her with her curious face.
“…… I joined the guard when I was 20 years old. At that time, I didn’t have the strength, back, or anything, so I wasn’t in a position to cover things up. In the first place, the guards also parachuted into the company through connections.”
“Is that so?”
“Are you pretending not to know when you know? Or do you really not know?”
The current chairman of Green House was Min Chaeryeong’s stepfather. It is not a fact that has been revealed externally, but it is an open secret known to those who know it. Min Chae-ryeong, who thought that Ahn Su-ho would already know, thought he was deliberately acting out.
“…… Anyway. It wasn’t until I joined the guard that I started to develop my strength and personal connections in earnest. I thought about moving to another job in the middle, but after living there, the National Academy Guard wasn’t too bad. It doesn’t draw attention from others like famous guilds, but there are many places where you can show your strength. It is connected to quite a few national institutions across a bridge or two, and there are many opportunities to meet high-ranking officials…….”
“I’ve been curious about this for a long time, but why is the team leader so obsessed with things like power, networking, connections, and subordinates?”
“Okay. Are you living with an impossible dream in your heart?”
“Dream…… You mean?”
Ahn Su-ho asked back, but Min Chae-ryeong did not answer. It was a look she didn’t want to answer. Min Chae-ryeong, who turned her head away from Ahn Soo-ho, took out her twelfth cigarette and asked, as if to stop asking her anymore.
“Are you smoking again?”
“Because this is a mast.”
Perhaps because it was her last cigarette, she inhaled her smoke poisonously deeply and embroidered her hazy clouds in the air. The faint smell of apples through the acrid cigarette smoke tickled the tip of An Su-ho’s nose.
‘Dream…… Is it.’
Ahn Suho wondered what Min Chaeryeong’s dream was. She’s a dream she talks about like that, so it will never be anything out of the ordinary. She thought that if it was Min Chae-ryeong, she might be aiming seriously, even if it was an absurd goal that ordinary people would dismiss as a joke, such as the most powerful person in Korea or a tycoon from the underworld.
But.
‘It wouldn’t be such a simple dream.’
A kind of intuition…… The same tickled Ahn Su-ho’s instincts. It was close to impossible to reason about Min Chae-ryeong’s dream without any clues, but the luck ability that reached B rank informed Ahn Su-ho of the truth in the form of a premonition of instinct.
“Could it be that it’s a dream… …. Is heaven also involved?”
At those words, the air froze in an instant. The soft atmosphere of a moment ago had disappeared. When Ahn Su-ho looked at Min Chae-ryeong, she was looking at him with a cold face and sharp eyes.
“…… Well? Don’t you want to answer that much? I wish I hadn’t told you more…….”
We decided not to dig too deep into each other, remember?
After adding that, Min Chae-ryeong gently placed her hand on Ahn Su-ho’s shoulder. A cold chill permeates An Su-ho’s shoulder. Ahn Su-ho wanted for a moment that Min Chae-ryeong could be a cold-blooded person like Midsummer, but he couldn’t.
Nevertheless, the identity of the clear chill was that An Su-ho’s senses mistakenly misunderstood the murder she was emitting as cold.
“…… I asked you something. I won’t ask any more than this.”
“Yes. Well thought out I had a good atmosphere with you today, but in the end it ended up like this.”
I’m really sorry. Min Chae-ryeong lowered her hand from her shoulder and ran her fingers through Ahn Su-ho’s body. It was an action that could have been seen as a seductive gesture at first glance, but from Ahn Su-ho’s point of view, it seemed like a sharp blade was grazing his skin.
‘Looking at this reaction, I think my hunch is correct… ….’
The ‘dream’ that Min Chaeryeong refers to is related to Kang Ha-neul in some form.
Ahn Su-ho felt the need to investigate Min Chae-ryeong as soon as possible. She asked Illyana to investigate her, or she told me to find a way.
‘Status window.’
While thinking so, Ahn Soo-ho read Min Chae-ryeong’s status window for no particular reason. It was a really meaningless action because even though it was a status window, it didn’t say anything about the subject’s psychology or hidden secrets.
However.
—–
[ Status window of ‘Min Chaeryeong’ ]
Name: Min Chaeryeong
Gender: Female
Height/Weight/Age: 171.9Cm/52.9Kg/27 years old
Occupation: Academy security team leader
Affiliation: Green House Guard Special Response Division
Possessed Superpower: Absolute Defense (A)
[ Abilities ]
Strength A
Agility A
Durability A
mana A
Fine A
Will A
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Lucky A
[ Possessed skills ]
1. Melee Fighting (Common. A)
2. Speech (Rare. A)
3. Intimidation (Unique. A)
[ Holding Artifacts ]
1. Wish stone.
—–
That meaningless action coincidentally worked as luck for Ahn Su-ho. Ahn Soo-ho, who was able to check the artifact possessed by the target by raising the level of the security guard skill, made an expression of disbelief at the words written at the very end of the status window.
‘Wish Stone? Why does Min Chaeryeong have this?’
His two eyes trembled.