NOVEL NEXT Episode 36
Episode 36
“Of course!”
“I’ll cooperate, please let me do it!”
Their strange reaction was as if they ate something bad, but what can I do. It’s a shame I couldn’t use Blind Date Rule #1, “I’ll give you money so break up,” on them, but since I’m not fully prepared anyway, I have no choice but to let it slide. I just tilted my head and started with what I was going to say.
“Is there anyone here more skilled at media control and deceiving the public than me?”
“……”
“……”
When I attempted a bold preemptive strike, these guys were dumbfounded just as I thought. Fortunately, it didn’t seem necessary to swallow any more nonsense.
“If there isn’t, I suggest we coordinate the settings to be spread according to what I say. We need to get our stories straight so no messy words leak out later….”
“What, what trick are you trying to pull?”
“Why are you suddenly speaking to me respectfully, Lee Hyang? I’m scared of what the Daehan Royal Family Association will say if they hear you speaking up to me, so please stop.”
“You don’t think it’s scary when you speak respectfully to others…?”
“That’s what’s scary.”
“…..”
“Don’t tell me you wanted to intimidate me?”
Seeing her deny it with hand and foot gestures, saying it makes no sense, it does seem like she’s discouraged. But Hae Yuna didn’t relax the intensity in her eyes.
“…So what setting are you going to make up? I have no intention of playing along without knowing anything. If you’re going to wage a media war saying something like the Republic of Korea surrendered to you, I won’t just stand by, so be prepared!”
“Haha, what nonsense. If I wanted to achieve something like that, it would have been possible long ago. Easily, without any hassle.”
Huh. When I spoke arrogantly, it seems like the protagonists are looking at me strangely, but I don’t know why. But let’s just gloss over it.
I’m busy just explaining the setting. Does he know how much I struggled to come up with this idea, that jerk Ryuseong.
“I’ll have to end my early leave slip today. It’s time to become Cinderella, Ryuseong.”
“What?”
“Romeo and Juliet, and Cinderella. Isn’t it quite easy?”
***
The reporters who had been desperate to grab even a corner of Cassice Demillang and Ryuseong’s clothing in the area accessible to outsiders of the academy were now in a frenzy.
It was because Cassice Demillang and Ryuseong, who never even showed their faces in the outsider-accessible area as if to torment the reporters, were now openly walking towards them.
“Please look over here! Mr. Ryuseong!”
“Lord Demillang!”
The reporters shouting while frantically pressing their camera shutters were no different from a horde of zombies. It was understandable, as they were the ones who couldn’t write stimulating articles to gain views due to Demillang’s oppression. Who would know the pain of not being able to write a single line about Ryuseong and Cassice dropping a bombshell.
And in the midst of that, they even revealed their relationship with a kiss, so the reporters could easily gain views just by writing a single line about it. It seemed like it would only be possible to find more sensationalism than this if a famous monster tore down a country or something.
Well, actually, they just touched lips rather than announcing they were dating, but Korean reporters thought there’s no way they would kiss if they weren’t dating. They were unwittingly proving they were from a Confucian country.
However, foreign reporters were a bit different. Those who took a plane and crossed mountains and oceans as soon as the news of the kiss spread were considering a wider range of possibilities.
Partners, or blackmail, or even bribes.
As masters of fulfilling the public’s voyeuristic desires, the reporters shouted again today,
“Lord Demillang! What is your relationship with the prodigy of Daehan!”
They were wearing clothes divided into black and white. Cassice Demillang in a white coat, Ryuseong in a pitch-black military uniform – it was a visual that succinctly and exquisitely expressed their situation standing on opposite sides, so everyone continuously pressed their shutters.
Aiming their lenses at their clasped hands, they asked and asked again as if shouting,
“Is the dating rumor true! Please answer, Demillang!”
After walking for a while without answering, Demillang’s mouth opened right after they came out to the outsider-accessible area divided by barriers.
Cassice Demillang showed the hand clasped with Ryuseong’s and smiled thinly.
“You think I’d allow this with just anyone?”
The reporters who witnessed Cassice revealing his bare hand went wild and shouted something, but it was too noisy to hear. Cassice slowly moved his pupils and placed his index finger on his lips. And only when the reporters fell silent did he finally smile brightly.
“Well done.”
“…..”
“I’ll only take three questions.”
It was like training an obedient dog. It couldn’t be helped. The one who had the piece of meat everyone wanted was Cassice, and only if he threw it to them could they feast. All the reporters clenched their teeth and raised their hands to gain the right to speak, but the foreign reporter who had received questions in advance through Hae Yuna was the winner.
It was a rigged game, but what did it matter.
“May I ask about your relationship? I mean, I’d like to ask how you would each define the other with a word!”
Ryuseong, who was about a hand taller than Cassice, had a stiff expression, but the hand holding Cassice was firm. The man who stood with the air of never letting go of each other no matter what clearly spoke,
“We’re in love.”
Excited and slightly accusatory gazes poured on them. The accusatory tone was probably from the Koreans. However, direct accusations did not burst out. Because Cassice did not allow them to speak, simply because of that.
At that moment when the next answer was desperately awaited, Cassice Demillang did not disappoint expectations as expected. He grabbed Ryuseong’s hand with his bare hand and smiled faintly.
“Well, I’d say something similar.”
In a pose perfect for taking pictures.
Click click click click…!
The shutter sounds pounded as if they would burst eardrums instead of the noise coming out of mouths.
Everyone wanted to ask so many things. However, the one selected by the tip of Cassice Demillang’s finger as the next questioner was a member of the rigged game like before.
“Um, there seems to be a slight difference in temperature between what you two said. Are you perhaps at the stage of envisioning a future together, or is this the playfulness of youth…!”
It was an interesting question, and the answer was also interesting. They looked at each other and answered like this,
“We’re testing each other. It’s not what I intended though.”
“How cheeky. If you say that, what do I become? You should answer with some embellishment. Geez.”
“That, that means…!”
Cassice laughed. Seductively.
“We’re gauging whether we can envision a future together or end it as playfulness. Because I want that.”
“I don’t know if I’m the only one thinking this, but isn’t he a bit underhanded?”
“I’m satisfied with having such a cute and mischievous person as my lover.”
The words exchanged were brutal, but their eyes gazing at each other were familiar like they had been dating for years. As the reporters went “uh, um”, Cassice selected the designated reporter this time as well, and he loudly shouted,
“I’d like to ask how you two ended up dating!”
And this time too, Cassice did not disappoint the reporters’ expectations.
“He’s the first one to crawl up to me.”
It was impossible to keep mouths shut after hearing this. Crazy questions and a barrage of shutters poured out, but Cassice really seemed to intend to answer only three questions as he leisurely boarded the limousine under the escort of bodyguards.
The questioners were later scolded for why they asked such things when they should have asked about the relationship between Demillang and Hanra or the difference in opinions between the family head and the young head, but in the end, everyone copied and pasted the answer content Cassice Demillang led and posted breaking news all the same. And the reporters who manipulated the questions to Cassice’s liking using Hae Yuna, Lee Hyang, and Ryuseong’s connections only said they didn’t want to die by Demillang’s hands and said nothing else.
They were just secretly pleased with their fattened bank accounts.
***
The reason I contributed to fulfilling voyeuristic desires, even if just for show like this, is because this way the public will flow into a “keep doing it because it’s fun” atmosphere. To prevent public opinion from directly flowing into “the relationship between Hanra and Demillang is a mess, what are you doing?”, I changed the track on which public opinion will react.
‘As expected, the “he’s the first one to hit me” cliche worked well.’
This way, although Cassice gained the emotional upper hand, I announced the fact that the two are sharing love. The key is love, not content that goes against the family head that much. The most exciting gossip transcending East, West, past and present.
I rode along with the gossip to make sure neither side gets too harshly criticized, in other words, so that Ryuseong or Hanra’s head disciple Jang Mun-in only get softly criticized, giving the nuance that Ryuseong is young so this might not last, and also leaving a hint that he didn’t surrender to me.
I left plenty of room for interpretation in that way.
Of course, this isn’t the end. My goal was to pour more stimulation onto the public’s tongues to make them feel like going crazy.
‘As expected, being an asshole as a calling seems to suit me better than I thought.’
It was too enjoyable to resist playing tricks on the universe. I leaned against the limousine and burst into laughter. Not frivolously, as elegantly as possible.
“Haha, the reporters seemed quite heated up, didn’t they? It was fun to see them barking.”
Ryuseong looked at me strangely as if I laughed at every little thing, but I was holding back laughter to the point of almost having tears in my eyes. I let go of his hand and dabbed the corners of my eyes with my sleeve so as not to roll on the floor holding my stomach in front of Ryuseong.
“Though not as much as the expression of the health teacher we saw earlier.”
In reality, when we went to see the health teacher saying we wanted to leave early, the teacher made a rotten expression.
Actually, well, we did pull a stunt deserving of that, so I have nothing to say, but usually the one who gives early leave slips is the homeroom teacher, and the health teacher is our homeroom teacher. So asking the health teacher for an early leave slip is much more logical and persuasive than going to find another professor. That’s all.
‘I have a conscience too. I didn’t go to mess with them.’
The important thing is that the professor assigned as the homeroom teacher of Class 1-1 that we were assigned to as the practice period began is none other than the health teacher, but honestly, with terms arranged so confusingly, I can’t really distinguish whether to call them professor, teacher, or instructor. I roughly call them health teach because the kids do, but the official title seems to be medical professor. But isn’t health teach easier to say than medical professor?
Seeing positions like teaching assistant and associate professor, it seems to follow the system of universities, but when addressing the cadets they say cadet, and there’s also a health teacher in this mixed worldview, so I thought it doesn’t matter what we call them. Of course, I did hear during the homeroom teacher introduction that the homeroom teacher also has a subject they’re in charge of. It was something related to first aid.
Anyway, that’s not what’s important.
The health teach’s reaction is what’s important.
‘That was the funniest part.’
The health teacher, who encountered again the kids found rolling around on the beds in the infirmary, first silently made a tired, destitute, and miserable expression.
And when I poked Ryuseong’s side with my arm linked with his, the teacher frowned.
“We’d like an early leave slip.”
The shameless couple who said they want to leave early together as soon as the practice period with learning by class began in earnest. The protagonists of the sensational topic that turned the academy upside down didn’t look sick at all, rather appearing as the very symbol of health to anyone’s eyes.
It would have been understandable to ask why at least once if they say they want an early leave slip, but the health teach took out paper without even nodding once and signed it before holding it out with irritation.
That was the entirety of issuing the early leave slip.
‘Guess the teach doesn’t even want to talk to us.’
I tried to make a sad expression, but no way, the corners of my mouth tore apart like a red mask. Because I was happy I could make good use of the homeroom teacher going forward.