This World is too Cruel to Men – Chapter 202

What should I say?

It was somewhat fascinating.

It couldn’t be helped.

In the current situation, I agreed with Chae-rim’s words that creating such a setting where the two could sort things out separately was the best course of action, but I wondered how effective this method would be from my perspective.

After all, we weren’t truly drinking alcohol; we were just having non-alcoholic beer, which only gave me the feeling of drinking beer.

In reality, it felt like I was just sipping on barley tea mixed with carbonated water, so it seemed strange to think that it would provoke any change in emotions—

‘What is this…? Is this really working…?’

As always, reality was different from what I expected.

The first change I noticed was the sound of clinking cans, followed by the contents of the cans entering our mouths.

Until then, I felt as if I were sitting on a bed of nails, but once something entered my mouth, I sensed the awkwardly stiff atmosphere soften just a bit.

‘Is this… the power of non-alcoholic beer…?’

Indeed… there was a reason for the price tag on what was nothing more than barley tea with bubbles.

As time passed, I could feel the atmosphere loosening up around me, so much so that such thoughts crossed my mind.

“What’s going on…? Did you two have a fight or something?”

“Shut up, you idiot.”

In the midst of it all, whether she had some awareness or not, Yoonseo, sitting next to me, quietly asked in a voice small enough just for me to hear if the two had fought, while I couldn’t help but halt her.

As I was locked in an invisible battle with Yoonseo under the table—

“Hehe…”

An unexpected response popped out from Yoonseo.

If it had been any other time, I would have gotten irritated and told her to cut it out, but now she was emitting that silly laugh.

Even now, while I was having such thoughts, she was still giggling, her shoulders shaking.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

Naturally, such thoughts crept up on me.

Thanks to that, I momentarily shifted my gaze from Chae-rim and Bora over to Yoonseo, and an odd sight caught my eye.

The odd sight was none other than Yoonseo’s face.

Just a moment ago, when I had checked, she seemed completely fine, but in the brief moment I looked away, her face had turned a bit rosy.

And with her constant giggling since earlier, it looked as if—

‘She looks like she’s drunk.’

That’s how it appeared.

But that couldn’t be.

There was no way, considering we were drinking non-alcoholic beer.

And it wasn’t even like any of us had drunk a lot.

While I had already stopped after remembering what real beer was like, Yoonseo, along with Chae-rim, and Bora, were already on their second cans.

So I thought there was no way, but why were everyone’s faces getting redder as time passed?

With a feeling of suspicion, I glanced at the nearly emptied can, but it was undoubtedly non-alcoholic beer.

‘Wait a minute, could it be…’

And at that moment, a thought flashed through my mind, and I reached over toward Yoonseo, specifically the can she had just put down…

But before my hand could touch the target can, an interruption came.

“What’s this…? It’s mine…”

The voice was practically slurring, suggesting her tongue was half-tangled.

The instant it flowed into my ears, I instinctively sensed it.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

And the one responsible for this mess was probably…

“Isn’t drinking just beer a bit boring? Since we’re at it, let’s give soju, or rather, somaek a try.”

It had to be Chae-rim, who, after downing two cans just like everyone else, looked like it wasn’t even a warm-up for her.

She’d been stationed in the kitchen while I had taken the time to call Bora and the senior over, so it would’ve been easy for her to swap the original non-alcoholic beer for the real deal.

With no one watching and no interruptions, it would be a piece of cake since the designs of non-alcoholic and alcoholic beer cans were practically identical, differing only by the small label stating “zero alcohol.”

And if that’s the case?

It meant they were not simply tipsy from the atmosphere but genuinely getting intoxicated.

At that point, I could only give up on thinking about it.

Honestly, what could I do here?

Maybe it would have been different if no one had drunk anything yet, but everyone had already polished off their second can long ago.

“Alright, everyone, take a shot.”

And what drove me even crazier was Chae-rim, who had finished preparing the somaek and was now distributing it on the table.

Beer is practically no different from a beverage for people who drink, but somaek?

That was something I absolutely couldn’t let slide.

Already, I felt like I might die from anxiety after realizing the truth, and if they added bomb shots to the mix, it would go beyond tipsy— they’d be genuinely drunk.

“Hey, wait a minute—”

I called out to Chae-rim in a panic, but before I could finish my sentence, the two people sitting beside her grabbed their respective glasses faster than I could complete my thought.

And just like that, the drinks delivered right up to their mouths went straight in.

After that, it was nothing short of chaos.

It was as if the two, who clearly looked awkward with the concept of alcohol, suddenly couldn’t handle the force of the somaek.

In an instant, they were completely drunk.

And they started the phenomenon known as “drunk talk” for the very first time.

“I… you can’t hate me, okay…? You know…? I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t intentionally angry…”

Unlike how it was when this gathering first began, Bora’s drunk talk, filled with many words yet strangely timid, was somewhat cute.

“I… don’t hate me, okay…? Huh? Huh…?”

“Y-yeah…”

Before I could even answer, she kept changing the question slightly and relentlessly firing them at me, but at least she quieted down a bit once I provided a reply.

On the other hand, how about the senior…?

She was the ‘real’ deal.

First off, her speech had drastically dwindled.

Of course, that had been the case before, but that was only because of the stiff atmosphere, and she would still reply when I or Chae-rim spoke to her.

But now?

“Uh… senior…?”

When I cautiously tried to call her, there was no response.

But unlike the usual drunken people, she didn’t seem hazy in her consciousness.

Other than the fact her face was reddened, the rest of her looked perfectly fine.

Her eyes were clear and bright without a hint of cloudiness, and even her sitting posture was impeccably straight. Just looking at how she sat made it hard to believe she was drunk at all.

Despite that, the reason I described her as ‘real’ was simple.

With that upright posture and those clear eyes, what she was doing was merely staring silently at me.

Just staring without saying a single word felt oddly chilling.

If she could just say anything, this feeling wouldn’t have crept in.

“Senior…? Do you… have something to say…?”

Even as I carefully asked in the softest voice possible, she remained silent, those two steady eyes fixated on me.

And given the grim reality, I became acutely aware again.

“Geez… I wanted to drink too…”

Just a little while ago, when Yoonseo was mumbling beside me in her tiny voice, I felt slightly guilty for treating her differently, but now, that thought was long gone.

Instead, I felt like I had done well by stopping her.

If I hadn’t thrown myself in to prevent that somaek from reaching Yoonseo…

I imagined we would have ended up in the Yoonseo triangle, comparable to the Bermuda Triangle.

And in the middle of that, I would have been suffering.

‘By the way…’

I thought I should slip away a bit now so some conversation could flow between the two, but what excuse should I make to leave?

Just then, my gaze landed on Yoonseo, who seemed to have succumbed to intoxication and was nodding off.