JADE 11

Right, he said he teaches kids in some sort of sport… something similar to Taekwondo. No wonder the back of his head looked a little familiar.

Right, the beta vice director of the cheerleading academy that my sister-in-law was crazy about, saying his shoulders were so broad. The one she said was such a feast for the eyes…

Kwon Joowan, whose full name was suddenly called out, looked like his eyes were about to pop out the moment he saw Jin Sejun. It was an uncharacteristically big reaction. Even though he was the one who had been blindsided, he was annoyed with himself for thinking that Kwon Joowan seemed familiar.

Jin Sejun imagined mincing the handsome face before him like a Salisbury steak patty as he held out his hand.

“I’m Jin Yiseo’s uncle. Our surname isn’t exactly common, you didn’t expect this, did you?”

“Ah… I’m the vice director here, Kwon Joowan. So you’re Yiseo’s uncle.”

“Wow~. We were practically neighbors. I guess we’ll be seeing each other often from now on.”

He had clearly been pissed off at Kwon Joowan and had intended to crush his hand in their handshake. But because the hand he grasped was as cold as before, he found himself digging in as if to share his body heat without realizing it.

“……”

The hand, like a calloused tree branch, flinched and pulled away. It had been a while since he had seen that strangely dark-clouded face.

He had no idea what he was thinking, but it was certain that running into him here felt fucking awful!

The quiet and shabby satisfaction Jin Sejun had been enjoying was cut short by his nephew’s question.

“Uncle, why are you suddenly saying we’re like neighbors? Do you know John Teacher? John Teacher, do you know my uncle?”

Such a sharp kid. Your vice director came to your dad’s hospital scared shitless after some omega told him he was going to go bald, and he was flirting with me before he bolted from a hotel room… He couldn’t answer like that.

If the vice director’s resume had been posted in the lobby, he would have known sooner. Instead of revealing their annoyingly tangled relationship, Jin Sejun asked what he was currently curious about.

“John Teacher? Do you use an English name?”

“Ah… my name is… Joowan, so… when I was studying abroad, I just.”

And he’s over there explaining it. It seemed a little funny, but he didn’t feel like laughing. Jin Sejun prattled on as if he’d had a grand realization, solely to embarrass Kwon Joowan.

“Ah~ so you’re John Teacher because you say Joowan quickly.”

“When my uncle doesn’t come, John Teacher usually gives me a ride.”

“Aha~ The van~!”

Right, he had said he drove the academy’s van. He might have run away, but it seems he didn’t lie. The academy vehicle he had seen on the way was extremely flashy, with a hot pink ribbon made of a sparkling sequin texture attached, and the entire vehicle painted the same color. The pretty business name, ‘Blingz Cheerleading,’ was a bonus.

“I think it would’ve suited you and been nice if you had come in the van, too. I saw it earlier and I found that I quite like the academy van here.”

The bastard who took me in a sleek luxury sedan like he was trying to seduce me, then left me to miserably take a taxi. The pathetic bastard who said he’d come pick me up in the academy van if I wanted, then blocked me and ran!

“Hahaha, thank you for the compliment.”

Jin Sejun raised an eyebrow at Kwon Joowan’s feigned innocence.

A compliment? If he heard that as a compliment, there must be something wrong with his ears or his head. Right, this was no longer a meeting between a guardian and a vice director, but a masquerade ball between a bastard who wanted to run away and a bastard who wanted to fuck him over.

Jin Sejun held Kwon Joowan’s gaze for a long time, his tone filled with as much condemnation as possible. Was it okay for a vice director of an academy that teaches children to run a jerk-off sex account? Kwon Joowan himself would know that it was impossible for him not to have such thoughts.

Isn’t there an ethical problem? Did this bastard screw me because he’s a pedophile?

The latter was too disgusting, but it seemed it would be more beneficial to Jin Sejun’s personal mental health to believe there was such a problem.

As he walked out to the lobby, seeing the cheerleading uniforms decorating the wall brought to mind an image of someone like Kwon Joowan wearing a sparkly sequin mega-ribbon and shaking fluffy pom-poms.

But what gave him a headache was the fact that, perhaps because they had flirted once and he was now wearing rose-colored glasses, it somehow didn’t seem pathetic.

Jin Sejun walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Kwon Joowan, who was leading the children, and spoke cheerfully.

“So you did cheerleading. You have a cute and dainty side to you.”

However, it was not the subject of his words, Kwon Joowan, but his nephew, Jin Yiseo, who became righteously indignant.

“I’m sick and tired of your prejudice, Uncle!”

Sick and tired… Jin Sejun was certain the words coming out of the child’s mouth were likely his sister-in-law’s pet phrase, and he took a step back.

“Sorry. I told you, I don’t know much about this stuff.”

“John Teacher, this really won’t do anymore. Please teach my uncle cheerleading, too.”

“Huh?”

“Me? Puhahaha!”

Even though he had just been scolded, he couldn’t hold back his laughter. It was because he had imagined the mega-ribbon from his imagination of Kwon Joowan now stuck to his own head. Naturally, Kwon Joowan also mumbled a vague reply.

The two men, pretending with all their might not to be awkward, parted ways and headed to their respective cars.

‘Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.’

The small Kwon Joowan in the side-view mirror was helping children into the pink vehicle. Jin Sejun glared at him for a moment, then quickly turned his head to check the seatbelt of his nephew sitting in the back seat.

Yiseo already had a pair of full-size noise-canceling headphones over his head and was focused on his smartphone. Just how passionate was he about cheerleading? Even on the screen, a person in a cheerleading uniform was appearing.

Knock, knock.

The person who had been a small figure in the side-view mirror had approached before he knew it and was now knocking on the passenger-side window. The tinting was too dark to exchange a proper glance, but he could see Kwon Joowan pointing at his phone while looking this way. It seemed to mean that he should check his phone later.

This is a completely ridiculous bastard. Jin Sejun, who rolled down the window immediately, mouthed his message with large movements.

‘This bastard only tries to get in touch when he’s in a bind.’

But it seemed the communication hadn’t gone through properly. Far from getting the desired reaction, all he got back was a dumbfounded expression.

“…Get in for a moment. Just for 30 seconds.”

“Ah.”

Even though Kwon Joowan awkwardly sat in the passenger seat, Jin Yiseo just kept looking at his phone with surprising concentration. Jin Sejun pulled Kwon Joowan’s ear and whispered.

“You screwed me and even blocked me, and now you want to get in touch whenever you feel like it?”

“That…”

“Do you take me for an idiot? What, are you scared because the person who knows your secret is one of your student’s guardians?”

“Secret?”

“The sex account, you bastard. You even proudly rambled on about tax issues. Are you even qualified to teach kids?”

Kwon Joowan’s face, now at a loss for words, slowly turned red. The moment he was backing away, having failed to even get his investment back, Jin Yiseo lifted his head.

“Oh! Is John Teacher riding in your car too, Uncle?”

“No, Yiseo. Bye now, see you tomorrow.”

The shameless bastard. Kwon Joowan’s face as he responded affectionately to the child was clear, as if nothing had happened. He was deserving of a year-end acting award. Was there anyone in the world who could even control the blush on their cheeks?

But seeing Kwon Joowan, after getting out of the car, trip on the curb and almost fall over was both funny and pleasing. To make matters worse, Kwon Joowan stumbled on the curb once more on his way to the van and almost toppled over.

“Huh?”

No one would have expected Kwon Joowan’s spectacular tumbling to unfold right before the eyes of pedestrians, students, and Jin Sejun. Though perhaps the students might have known.

Kwon Joowan’s face, which had turned fair again as if he had never blushed, was now burning red. As soon as Jin Sejun saw him get into the driver’s seat, he turned on his hazard lights and clutched his stomach.

“Puhahahahaha!”

Fucking bastard… But what was even more fucking annoying was the fact that him falling over like that looked cute. Even though he was still pissed off that he had been ditched.

Had his taste now changed to betas, or did he just become a pushover once he developed a liking for someone? Was this a personality trait he never knew he had?

‘I wasn’t like this when I was younger.’

In the past, he was sure that others were the desperate ones, and Jin Sejun was the cool one. Then again, among the people who used to be desperate for him, those who were going to get married all got married, and those who were going to date were all dating, so maybe it was about time for him to get desperate.

It’s no big deal. It was right to treat everything, from getting rejected to meeting again, as no big deal. Guys who are good at dating have a high success rate because they repeatedly hit on people, get rejected, hit on them again, and get rejected again.

Perhaps because it was the first time since the accident… no, since he had become a little more desperate, that he had placed expectations on a relationship with someone working out, he had thought of it as a lifelong connection.

So, it was okay to get Kwon Joowan out of his thoughts now.

‘Isn’t it a good thing no one got murdered?’

Wouldn’t even people who have dated a lot get pissed off and go crazy if they came out of the shower in a hotel and their flirtationship had bolted? But while people say alphas are aggressive, there would be nothing more damaging to one’s pride than harming a beta, who wasn’t even another alpha.

Jin Sejun imagined himself punching Kwon Joowan and appearing in a courtroom. Then he even thought of his older brother being sad, and so he lifted his foot from the brake, a little dejected.

Then again, before he started just subscribing to sex accounts, Jin Sejun himself had acted like he was about to meet up with someone and then ghosted them more than once or twice, so maybe this was karma.

✶⋆.˚

“Hello~! You didn’t have a lunch get-together planned, did you?”

Even if they did, they could just cancel. The vice director was good at getting out of things during his lunch break anyway. With that mindset, he had shown up unannounced at the academy, but there were more people there than he expected.

‘Is it still school vacation?’

It wasn’t something to worry about, as he had bought much more lunch than the number of people he had anticipated.

Kwon Joowan took the bag Jin Sejun handed him and made that ambiguous expression he usually only showed to Jin Sejun. Jin Sejun, while feeling like he was lost, spoke cheerfully.

“The teachers are always working so hard. I wanted to at least buy you some snacks. And for the students, too.”

If he could make Kwon Joowan feel like shit with the cost of some snacks, it could be seen as the expenditure with the highest rate of return among all the investments he had ever made. Seeing as how it was so satisfying, it would be a way to save on potential future medical bills, too.

Yes, Jin Sejun had a lot of time because he wasn’t dating and had no hobbies. He also had a lot of money because he earned well but had nowhere to spend it.

‘I will become an incredibly bothersome presence. A dirty stain in your life that you can’t scrub out even if you want to, like a clam that hasn’t been purged of its sand!’

The young Jin Sejun would never have dreamed that his future self would be this kind of adult. It was a sad thing.