After receiving such threats and giving a firm assurance that he would never reveal today’s events to anyone, Jae Kyung headed back first, feeling reassured as Na Eun’s car was already waiting in front of the cafe to pick her up.

Na Eun, who had been agonizing over the memory of Jae Kyung worrying about her first despite nearly dying together, forced a smile towards Mr. Yoon, the driver who got out of the driver’s seat to carry her bag.

“Na Eun, are you okay? What happened?”

Na Eun tightly closed her eyes at the driver’s words, saying that the house had been turned upside down because she hadn’t gotten in the car right at 11 o’clock as usual and they couldn’t contact her properly.

How many hours of nagging would she have to endure when she got home?

While such worries were flooding in, the whistling sound from beside her was irritating.

The blonde man, who was looking up and down at the sedan that seemed expensive even at a glance, said in surprise:

“So you’re rich?”

Ignoring the man’s joking remark that she didn’t look particularly expensive, she greeted Seung Joo, who was standing silently beside her.

“Thank you for today. Take care on your way home.”

“…Sure.”

The strange distance that had crept between them due to his failure to stop the man’s threats earlier did not narrow until the moment they parted.

Finding it difficult to even make eye contact as he seemed unlike the friend she knew, Na Eun averted her gaze and got into the car that the driver had opened for her.

As the driver headed back to the driver’s seat and just before the car started, someone knocked on the window where she was sitting.

Thinking it might be Seung Joo, she looked up to find the unnecessarily handsome face of the man with prominent glittering piercings.

Na Eun reluctantly lowered the window, trying her best to keep her face from scrunching up.

“What is it?”

“I’m the one who saved you today, aren’t you going to thank me?”

The threatening demeanor from earlier was gone, and he had returned to being the flirtatious thug who bothered just about anyone.

With a face as handsome as a movie star and dressed like a model, someone else might have been excited, but not Na Eun.

She disliked such frivolous types, and moreover, his earlier threats had maxed out her dislike for him. Na Eun threw out a perfunctory thank you in a businesslike tone.

“Thank you for saving me today.”

Not seeming to mind her stiff greeting that didn’t sound grateful at all, the man chuckled and then dropped something into the car.

Na Eun picked up whatever had fallen onto her lap.

As she stared with a dry gaze at the numbers hastily scrawled on the crisp paper, he said:

“My number.”

Call me when you fight with your boyfriend. I’ll comfort you.

His languid voice softly squeezed through the window.

“…”

She quietly looked down at the man’s contact information in her hand, then turned her head to stare at him through the window.

A person with superior looks and superhuman abilities.

That arrogance of someone who seemed to have never been a victim.

Na Eun, who had been looking straight into those eyes that seemed to have been imbued with the composure of a strong person from birth without ever avoiding them, quietly put strength into her hand.

The blonde man raised the corner of his mouth in amusement at his contact information, which had been crumpled up miserably in Na Eun’s hand.

Thud. Na Eun threw it out the window towards where he was standing as if throwing away trash, then raised the window without hesitation.

“Let’s go, sir.”

As she calmly spoke towards the driver’s seat as if nothing had happened, the sleek sedan quietly moved and left the road without lingering.

[This is the timeline separator]

In the car on the way home, Na Eun quietly took out her phone and sent a message to Jae Kyung.

[Jae Kyung.] [Don’t worry too much about what happened today.]

So that you don’t get caught up in something like this and get hurt,

[I’ll protect you no matter what.] [This is the timeline separator]

“She really is a rich young lady.”

It’s interesting how expensive she acts? Rather than feeling bad about the blatant disregard, he found it novel and grinned as he stared at the taillights of the car that had already driven far away.

“Hey.”

Thwack! His body bent forward for a moment as something hit his back hard.

It was strong enough that an ordinary person’s spine would have been dislocated.

When he turned around with disinterested eyes, he saw a weighted band sprawled on the ground.

It was something ability users wore on their wrists to control their grip and muscle strength so they could blend in naturally among ordinary people.

Throwing something that weighed over 40kg even for just one…

As he joked that an ordinary citizen would have died instantly if hit by it, Seung Joo, who had been staring at him seriously, walked up to him.

“Seo Hee Won.”

“You’re not even calling me team leader anymore.”

I’m above you in both age and position, you know.

As he smiled, pondering how to deal with this insubordination of calling him by his full name without hesitation, instead of his codename or position, Seung Joo spoke with an expressionless face.

“Who are you going to kill?”

“Why are you like this? You know I was just saying that.”

That’s why you stayed quiet when I was talking, right?

Hee Won laughed, saying it was all a staged game and why was someone who should know better making such a fuss. But Seung Joo didn’t laugh back.

“You were serious.”

“…”

Under his murderous gaze, he pondered for a moment before inevitably nodding and shrugging his shoulders.

“Your friend is smart. She won’t do anything to get herself killed.”

Isn’t that enough? As the man asked back with a shameless face, Seung Joo glared at him with frosty eyes.

In their group, he had never seen anyone work as heartlessly and ruthlessly as this man.

This psychopath, who was the only one who never counted how many civilian casualties there were on each mission, became the leader of Seung Joo’s team simply because his abilities were outstanding.

While Seung Joo agreed that his friend was smart, he couldn’t trust that man and warned:

Listen carefully.

“If you touch Yoon Na Eun, you’ll die by my hands.”

“…”

Hee Won scratched his head, now feeling a strange emotion. Looks like I’ve found an interesting weakness.

“Are you kindly letting me know that she’s your weakness?”

“Yes.”

“…”

“I’m kindly letting you know.”

Seung Joo, who had answered without any agitation to his sarcastic question, said:

“You think I’ll be the only one to go berserk if she gets hurt?”

You think you can’t be killed if Lee Sun Jin and I risk our lives to come at you? No, it’s fine even if we can’t kill you.

It’s enough if we cut off one of your precious limbs.

At the low voice warning him with sincerity, he scratched his cheek with a somewhat curious look and asked:

“That much?”

“That much.”

You must have something you absolutely don’t want touched either, right? For me and Lee Sun Jin, it’s her. So−.

“−Try talking about her life in front of me one more time.”

Then there’ll be no team leader or whatever.

“…”

Seung Joo muttered coldly and turned around without even picking up the band left on the ground.

As he watched the back of Seung Joo leaving without hesitation like that sedan earlier, Hee Won thought that friends really do resemble each other, and let out a low chuckle.

About half a year after they started dating, Na Eun suddenly received a breakup notice from Jae Kyung.

They hadn’t fought, nor was there any serious problem between them.

He just casually threw out the words that they should break up now while they were happily sharing vanilla ice cream at an ice cream shop.

At the time, it was her first boyfriend, and since Jae Kyung had confessed first when they started dating, Na Eun was very flustered, not expecting to be dumped so abruptly like this.

Even when she asked why, if he had come to dislike her, the only answer she got from him was,

‘I don’t want to meet you anymore.’

That was all. From that day on, Jae Kyung, who really cut off contact, didn’t answer calls, and refused to meet, was the coldest he had ever been in Na Eun’s memory.

Looking at just this much, most people would probably not be able to hold onto the other person in such a case, either because of hurt feelings or pride.

In fact, friends who listened to her concerns at the time took Na Eun’s side, saying what kind of trash would do that, and told her to absolutely not try to hold onto him first.

Apparently if she lost here, she would keep losing in the future or something.

But Na Eun held on.

She kept calling Jae Kyung, texting him, and eventually went to his school when she couldn’t reach him.

She was a little afraid of being mistaken for a stalker (in fact, she was close to being one at that time), but at that time, Na Eun couldn’t see anything else.

Although he had been the one to confess, she had never liked someone of the opposite sex this much in her life, so she only worried about how to change Jae Kyung’s mind.

As a noticeable uniform from another school lingered in front of the boys’ high school, the eyes of the students leaving school stuck to her, but Na Eun didn’t care.

Finally meeting Jae Kyung in front of the school gate, he looked down at her with cold eyes she had never seen before and said:

‘I told you I don’t want to meet anymore.’

If she had a slightly weaker mind, it wouldn’t have been strange to burst into tears right there, given how cold he was being.

And since Na Eun was not a person with a strong mind, she ended up crying.

‘Is it because I replied late during exam period?’

‘…’

‘I’ll reply promptly from now on. We always met around your tutoring schedule. If that was inconvenient, I’ll match your schedule from now on.’

‘…’

‘Tell me why you came to dislike me. I’ll fix it.’

I like you so much, Jae Kyung.

Saying that and crying as if wailing in front of the school gate, not only the students but all passersby glanced at Na Eun, but Jae Kyung looked down at her indifferently with eyes that showed no emotion.

There, she was like a child crying and throwing a tantrum for candy, and he was like a mother teaching the child that they wouldn’t get anything no matter how much they cried.

After crying for a long time like that, the one who finally gave in was, as always, Jae Kyung.

‘Stop crying.’

Na Eun, who had been crying for a long time, finally stopped crying when she felt a large hand wiping her wet cheeks along with a small sigh. Still unable to help feeling upset, Na Eun asked between sobs:

‘Then will you keep dating me?’

‘…Okay.’

Then.

Jae Kyung’s answer at that time, which was like a sigh, somehow seemed to be giving up on something, and even now, Na Eun couldn’t understand what Jae Kyung had given up on at that time.