UAI Chapter 45

Episode 45

When everyone had been distracted earlier because of Jiwon's situation, Sejin secretly took something from his uncle's room.

Since Hajin usually used his phone or laptop, he kept his tablet PC in a drawer and rarely touched it.

Knowing this, Sejin secretly took the tablet and hid it in his own room.

After taking out the tablet PC and turning it on, Sejin entered Hajin's email as if he had done it many times before.

The members of B-One used separate emails for work and personal matters; the work email was shared with their managers.

Back when he was a road manager, Sejin had memorized the email ID and password, and that was coming in handy now.

When he typed in the ID and password, Hajin's inbox appeared on the screen.

He clicked into the email that had arrived earlier that afternoon.

Judging from the short greeting, it was sent by Uncle Seongjun.

Seeing that, he immediately knew this was exactly what he had been looking for.

'Hmm. If it's from Uncle Seongjun, it's definitely about Kang Seunghwan. Let's take a look.'

Sejin quickly downloaded the attached file and opened it.

There was quite a lot of information, but he carefully checked through it all, slowly, line by line.

'Ha! So that's why the uncles reacted like that earlier. With someone this vile, it's no wonder the threats he made to Jiwon hyung didn't sound like a joke. How can a person like this even exist? And he's still so young, too. I've seen all kinds of terrible things and bad people while living as an orphan until twenty-one in my past life, but I've never seen someone as wicked as Kang Seunghwan.'

What he found in the file was a huge shock even to Sejin.

Kang Seunghwan was only seventeen years old.

He had been a trainee at the company for only three months before he started gaslighting, threatening, and physically assaulting other trainees.

And since his family was wealthy, whenever something happened he would probably do what he was doing now, cover it up with money and slip away from trouble.

The adults, parents and relatives who should have disciplined the boy, were instead stepping in to hide his crimes, so Seunghwan acted without hesitation.

He knew very well that the adults would always clean up his mess.

If he had actually debuted as an idol and gained popularity… it was terrifying to imagine what worse things he might have done.

'If this gets out, the company will explode. Now that they know the truth, there's no way they'll try to protect him… right? Someone like him must never debut.'

Thinking that, Sejin deleted all the downloaded files, emptied the trash, and erased the evidence.

After turning off the tablet PC, he put it back inside the nightstand drawer, then lay down on his bed and pulled the blanket over himself.

But the information was so disturbing that the scenes kept replaying in his mind, making it impossible to fall asleep.

As he tossed and turned, he sensed movement near the door.

When he looked up, Bbokdol—yawning—slowly walked toward the bed.

These days, even if Bbokdol started sleeping in the living room, at some point he would always end up in Sejin's bed to sleep beside him.

Seeing him, Sejin quickly lifted the blanket to let Bbokdol crawl in.

"Ddol-ah. You came to sleep with hyung?"

Sejin whispered softly and pulled Bbokdol into his arms.

Feeling the warm body heat, the tangled mess in his heart gradually eased.

After shifting around in Sejin's arms a few times to get comfortable, Bbokdol finally settled down and buried his head against Sejin's chest.

A moment later, the room was filled only with the quiet sound of the two sleeping.

The next morning.

Sejin woke up early and checked the clock.

6:30 a.m.

It was still a bit too early to get up, but if he wanted to erase all evidence, he needed to move now.

Carefully avoiding the still-sleeping Bbokdol, Sejin slipped out of bed and took the tablet PC out of the nightstand drawer.

Quietly stepping toward the door, he peeked his head into the hallway to check.

The house was silent, seemed like everyone was still asleep.

He tiptoed into the room across the hall, whose door was slightly open, and approached the bed. Hajin was fast asleep, wearing an eye mask and earplugs.

Seeing that, Sejin let out a small breath of relief and moved over to the desk by the window.

He gently opened the drawer and placed the tablet back exactly where it belonged, then silently walked back to his own room.

"Whew…"

Only then did Sejin finally let out a full sigh of relief. He climbed back into bed and lay down again.

Two hours later, Hajin woke him up.

"Sejin-ah, time to get up."

"Uuung…"

He softly soothed his sleepy nephew until he woke, then washed him up and brought him out. Jaewon and Joomin, who had woken up earlier, were already preparing breakfast.

"Uncles. Good morning."

At Sejin's greeting, both smiled warmly.

"Did you sleep well, Sejin? We're having a simple breakfast, bread and salad. But if you want rice, we can make rice for you."

"It's okay. I like bread."

"Haha, alright. Let's eat something light for breakfast, and for lunch we can have Auntie's delicious cooking."

As Hajin helped set the table, he asked.

"Aren't Hwan hyung and Roy hyung up yet? Should I wake them? We should bring Jiwon down so he can eat too…"

"They're already awake. Hwan is washing up, and Roy went upstairs to get Jiwon."

"Oh, both of them woke up early today, huh."

"Right? I was surprised too."

While they were talking, the three of them came downstairs.

"Good morning, sunbae-nim."

Jiwon bowed politely as he entered the kitchen.

"Oh. Did you sleep well? I was worried since you were in a different room than usual."

"I slept better than I have in a long time. Maybe that's why I feel so refreshed."

"That's good to hear. Breakfast is just some bread and salad. That okay?"

"Yes. I ate a lot last night, so I'm still full."

"Alright, take a seat."

The table was set with various breads, sandwiches, jam, marmalade, cream cheese, and a salad topped with fruit.

Joomin, who was frying eggs, ham, and bacon in a pan, plated the cooked food and set it on the table.

"Eat this with it too."

"Wow! Ham!!"

Sejin shouted excitedly, delighted. Then he stabbed a Vienna sausage with his fork and popped it into his mouth.

Sejin chewed eagerly, amazed by the burst of juice from the meat inside his mouth.

"Aigoo. I knew it, our Sejin is definitely a meat-lover."

"Haha, seriously. He always goes for the meat first."

"Meat is the best!!"

At Sejin's enthusiastic shout, everyone burst into laughter.

Sejin and the members ate according to their tastes, and before long, every last bit of food on the table was gone.

"Whew! I'm full."

"I was only planning to eat a little, but somehow we ended up finishing everything."

After working together to clear the table and load the dishes into the dishwasher, the members headed to the living room.

Hajin came out with coffee and drinks on a tray. When he set it down on the living room table, everyone thanked him.

"Oh! Thanks."

"I'll enjoy it, Hajin."

"Here, Sejin, you drink juice."

After a moment of relaxing, Jaewon turned to Jiwon and asked.

"What time do you want to head home? It's a weekday, will your parents be at home during the day?"

At that, Jiwon quickly replied.

"Yes. Any time is fine. Last night, when I went up to the room, I called my mom. I told her I'd be coming home today with my senior because there's something we need to talk about. My mom's a homemaker, so she's always home, and my dad said he took the day off to wait."

"Oh, really? Then it's better to go earlier. If we go late, your parents will worry while waiting."

"Yeah. We should take him sooner rather than later."

"Right. Let's do that. Jiwon-ah, we'll leave in about an hour. Go pack your things."

"Yes, sunbae-nim."

As they spoke, Roy suddenly remembered something and asked.

"By the way, something I was curious about all day yesterday… Why did that Kang Seunghwan kid hate you so much? It didn't seem like it was because you were being loud or showing off, something felt off."

Hwan nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. He was quiet at first, so what made him flip like that?"

Hearing the question, Jiwon fell silent for a moment, thinking deeply.

"…Well, I'm not completely sure either. But when I thought about what might have triggered it… I think it was because of that incident."

"That incident?"

"Yes. When he first joined, there were rumors that his skills were incredible, so everyone was really interested in him. I mean, the company even scouted him directly. At first, everything was fine… but a few weeks later, during vocal class, he got criticized. The coach said he had talent but lacked all the basics. That if he wanted to debut later, he needed a solid foundation, so he should start building it up immediately."

"Well, that's true."

"But what does that have to do with you?"

"Um… the coach compared him to me at the time. He pointed at me and said that when I first came, my vocals weren't that good either, but through intense practice, I reached my current level. He emphasized how important practice and basics were and told him to follow my example and properly work on his fundamentals."

"What? So he bullied you because he was offended by being compared to you?"

"Wow, that's ridiculous!"

Everyone was dumbfounded by Jiwon's explanation.

To think someone would destroy another person's life over something so trivial…

"I seriously can't believe it, so I have to ask, there really wasn't anything else? No other incident between you two?"

"No. Nothing else. I had no other connection with him. At first, I really couldn't figure out why he was targeting me… but when I thought about it later, that was the only thing that made sense."

"Holy shit! He's actually insane!!"

Hwan exploded in anger, and Joomin quickly tried to calm him.

"Hey, calm down. And Sejin is here. Don't swear."

At that, Hwan immediately snapped back to his senses and apologized to Sejin.

"Sejin-ah, I'm sorry. Uncle got too worked up and said a bad word. What I said just now was a really bad word. So Sejin shouldn't ever say it, okay?"

"Ung. I know. I'm not a baby."

Everyone burst into laughter at Sejin's confident answer.

"Hehe. That's right. Our Sejin is really smart. Smarter than Hwan uncle."

"Yeah. He's smarter than me."

Even Hwan admitted it, making everyone laugh even harder, filling the living room with warmth.

After feeling a mix of disbelief and frustration at the ridiculous reason Jiwon had been bullied, the group shifted to light, everyday conversations to shake off the heaviness.

Time passed, and Jaewon and Jiwon came out to the living room with their bags, ready to head out.

"Thank you for taking care of me yesterday and today, sunbae-nim. I'm sorry for the trouble."

"What trouble? Visit anytime."

"Yeah. Talk with your parents well when you get home. Just wait a bit."

"We'll talk with the company and try to resolve things as soon as possible. It might feel frustrating, but endure it for a few days, okay?"

"Yes. I'm not worried anymore."

Seeing Jiwon smile so brightly, everyone felt relieved.

Jiwon then held out the teddy bear he had been carrying and gave it back to Sejin.

"Sejin-ah, thank you so much for lending me the teddy bear. Thanks to you, I wasn't scared at all and slept well."

"Ung! If you get scared again, tell me. I'll lend it to you again!"

"Haha, okay. If I'm scared, I'll tell you. I'm leaving now, so until we see each other again, stay well, okay?"

"Ung! You eat well, sleep well too. See you next time!"