Chapter 20
“Ugh!”
Sehyun clutched her stomach, retching. Nausea welled up inside her. She felt like her insides had been churned.
Beep-
At the same time, a notification sounded, signaling the end of the spar. It was triggered by Sehyun falling out of the ring. However, Jooho covered one ear.
“Damn it, who said it was over?”
Jooho muttered through gritted teeth, stepping off the ring and looking at Sehyun sprawled on the floor.
Sehyun was in a terrible state.
Blood splattered across the sparring ring, and Sehyun couldn’t even get up properly.
He had clearly won.
But… but why?!
This unsettling feeling!
Because this lowly bitch had the same skill as him?
Or because she had forced him to use a skill he hadn’t planned on using?
Or was it something else…!
Jooho stood in front of Sehyun, his eyes bloodshot with rage.
“No. It’s none of that.”
“…”
“It’s just you.”
“Cough, cough.”
“Just you.”
Jooho’s voice was chillingly low.
Just Kim Sehyun.
Kim Sehyun, who had always been good at everything since she was young, making him look incompetent in comparison. That’s who she had always been to him.
Just an annoying, unpleasant, uncomfortable existence.
He wished she would just disappear.
Disappear from his life forever and never cast a shadow on him again…
Driven by the insidious whispers in his heart, Jooho silently raised his hand.
He didn’t even have time to think about how crazy his thoughts were.
He couldn’t recognize that part of his explosive hatred towards Sehyun stemmed from his fear of the past.
Jooho was simply consumed by the anxiety that if Kim Sehyun continued to rise like this, he would be trapped in the darkness of his past once again.
He never wanted to go back to that gloomy past.
Jooho’s fist was once again tinged with silver. It hardened as if it were coated in metal.
The fist, which had returned to its original power because the level adjustment of the sparring ring was no longer in effect, gleamed dangerously.
Jooho’s hand cut through the air.
Bang!
The floor cracked under the force of his punch. Unlike the sturdy sparring ring, the floor below was just ordinary flooring.
But this wasn’t what Jooho wanted. The person he was supposed to hit had slipped away like a loach. Sehyun, who had been lying on the floor, had used ‘Dodge’ to move away.
“Do you think anything will change if you run away?”
Jooho asked in a low voice, walking towards Sehyun.
Sehyun smiled faintly.
“Of course.”
As soon as she finished speaking,
Beep- Beep- Beep- Beep-
Sharp alarm sounds started ringing throughout the sparring center.
Jooho, left alone in the meeting room, slowly retraced his memories, his mind still dazed.
What happened…?
As he came to his senses, the events that had just transpired came back to him bit by bit.
An instructor, who had been nearby, arrived at the sparring room shortly after the alarm sounded.
“Stay where you are. We will subdue you if you disobey.”
The instructor carefully assessed the situation and then picked up Sehyun with a hardened expression.
“A spar between an A-grade and an F-grade…”
His muttering, laced with suspicion, reached Jooho’s ears.
The instructor then formally asked Jooho if he was hurt or if there was anything wrong.
“No, there isn’t.”
“Then follow me.”
Jooho swallowed the curses that were about to burst out of his mouth and followed the instructor.
The moment he saw the sign on the second floor of the main building, he felt the blood drain from his body. The meeting room meant an urgent meeting had been called, and he quickly realized that the topic of the meeting was the incident he had just caused.
The instructor told Jooho to stay put and wait before disappearing.
Jooho, left alone, realized something belatedly.
He had been played by Kim Sehyun.
That cunning bitch must have known.
That the alarm would sound throughout the sparring center if an incident occurred outside the sparring ring.
She knew about the level adjustment on the sparring ring, so there was no way she wouldn’t know this.
No, maybe she had even deliberately fallen out of the ring. The thought filled him with resentment.
He was just a victim of Kim Sehyun’s scheme. She was the one who had requested the spar, and she was the one who had challenged him despite knowing her place.
So why was he the one being punished like this?
It was all Kim Sehyun’s fault.
As he was grinding his teeth, the instructor and Sehyun, who had received emergency treatment, entered the room.
“Normally, we would review the situation through CCTV footage, but it seems that the recording failed due to unforeseen circumstances.”
The instructor frowned. This kind of thing had been happening frequently lately. Errors were occurring in various devices, not just CCTV cameras.
“So we will hear your statements about the incident that occurred in the Gaon sparring room today. You are both obligated to answer the instructor’s questions truthfully, and I must warn you that making false statements will put you at a disadvantage.”
The instructor spoke formally.
“Yes.”
“Then I’d like to hear how you came to spar in the sparring room.”
The instructor’s eyes gleamed sharply as he asked the question in a low voice.
Sehyun and Jooho gave similar answers to the instructor’s question about how they came to spar.
That they had sparred at Sehyun’s suggestion.
“So you’re saying it was just a mishap that happened during sparring?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Jooho replied with a smile.
“I see. Alright.”
“That’s not true.”
The sudden interruption brought the amicable atmosphere to a chilling halt.
The instructors and Jooho’s gazes all turned to Sehyun.
“Guard trainee Shin Jooho attempted to harm me even after he knew I could no longer continue the spar.”
Jooho immediately retorted,
“That’s ridiculous. Of course, I admit that I injured her, but how can you have a spar without any injuries? We might as well be playing house.”
Some of the instructors nodded at Jooho’s words.
Jooho’s eyes lit up, sensing an opportunity.
“You didn’t ask me for a spar without knowing that, did you, Sehyun?”
The instructors’ gazes changed subtly as he suddenly dropped the formalities. Jooho quickly waved his hand, as if he had made a mistake.
“Ah, Sehyun is my cousin, and we’re the same age. She told me not to mention our relationship, so I kept quiet. We used to be quite close, but I guess she’s been upset about the difference in our grades, so she’s been distant. But when she asked me for a spar, I readily agreed. But this is really awkward.”
Jooho grimaced as if he was truly embarrassed and then forced a smile.
It wouldn’t be good for their relationship to be revealed, but there was no other way to get out of this situation.
The instructors wouldn’t go around spreading the news about his and Sehyun’s relationship anyway.
“She wanted to become an A-grade so badly…”
Jooho muttered softly, deliberately.
You bastard…
Trying to manipulate public opinion?
Sehyun clenched her fists and glared at Jooho’s profile.
With that small mutter, he had painted her as someone who was persecuting her cousin because she couldn’t become an A-grade.
He was a natural at playing politics, just like his bloodline.
Some of the instructors didn’t react, as if they already knew, but others looked back and forth between Sehyun and Jooho with strange expressions.
It seemed like the incident was about to be brushed off as an overly enthusiastic spar between cousins.
This is bad.
Sehyun took a deep breath and spoke slowly.
“It’s true that I asked Shin Jooho, an A-grade, for guidance.”
“…”
“But that doesn’t excuse breaking the rules.”
The air in the meeting room turned cold at Sehyun’s words.
The instructor also looked at Sehyun, caught off guard.
“The rule is to stop sparring when the alarm sounds.”
“…”
“The rule is not to use skills privately outside the sparring ring.”
“…”
“He even damaged the floor outside the sparring ring.”
“Sehyun.”
Jooho, flinching, called out to Sehyun in a desperate attempt to stop her.
But Sehyun ignored him and looked directly at the instructor.
“Furthermore, I’ve never envied Shin Jooho’s grade. There are plenty of A-grades. If I were to envy anyone, it would be Cha Haejoon.”
Jooho’s eyes twitched at Sehyun’s words.
Envy? You, envying me?
He could sense the clear disdain in her tone.
Jooho gritted his teeth for a moment and then put on a pitiful expression.
“Ah, Sehyun, you misunderstood because of that. I was so focused on giving you guidance that I got carried away. I didn’t even hear the spar ending alarm. It’s common to miss things when you’re focused, right?”
The corners of Sehyun’s lips curled up slightly.
“Missing things?”
“Sure, it can happen when you’re focused.”
“Yes, it can happen.”
Sehyun’s voice was agreeable.
But that made Jooho even more uneasy.
“But it doesn’t make sense to miss seeing things. Did you follow me out of the sparring ring because you were so focused?”
“That’s also part of it.”
“You swung at my head with a skill because you were focused? Ah, hard enough to crack the floor?”
“…”
“Such concentration.”
Sehyun’s expression turned strange.
At that moment, Jooho realized he had been caught in her trap, but it was too late.
“You really wanted to kill me, didn’t you?”
Jooho’s face went blank for a moment at Sehyun’s words.
Sehyun looked away from Jooho and at the instructors.
“I understand that there’s no way to prove the truth about the difference in our accounts of this spar. But what I’m curious about is the disciplinary action for breaking the rules.”
“…”
“Of course, I didn’t use any skills outside the sparring ring. You’ve already checked and know that.”
The instructors looked at each other with complex expressions.
Haha