This World is too Cruel to Men – Chapter 45

This is just a side note, but when Yoonseo is sulking, there’s a kind of charm that makes you want to tease her.

‘Is it because she looks adorably ungrateful…?’

Thinking about how we had to go to some unknown warehouse in this cold weather was already exhausting me, and that’s why I couldn’t help but tease the gloomy Yoonseo.

“Ugh… are you really going to lose that?”

Is this what they call a sense of victory?

I knew better than anyone here how lively her reactions were when I teased her, so I just couldn’t hold back.

Anyway, with that kind of teasing, the response I got was an utterly baffled expression.

“What? I don’t think you’re in a position to say that.”

“Why?”

“You lost too… And while I managed to hold out until it was just the two of us, you lost as soon as the first round started.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“…What?”

“That doesn’t count as losing; I ‘let you win.’”

Truth is, I had been eliminated almost immediately, and I was just as bewildered, but admitting that here would only waste my chance to tease her further, so I boldly asserted myself instead.

“What… nonsense are you talking about…?”

“Why do you think that doesn’t make sense?”

“Dude, how can you intentionally lose at Rock-Paper-Scissors?”

Well, she had a point there.

Even if you wanted to throw a match, it’s hard to do so if the situation doesn’t allow for it in Rock-Paper-Scissors.

But still… what does that even matter?

“That’s just me doing things right.”

“Ugh… I know you well enough that certain lies won’t work on me… You really hate going outside in the cold like this.”

Tsk, this is exactly why childhood friends…

Even if I wanted to mess with her, we knew each other too well for that to be possible.

“This time’s a bit different, though.”

“Oh? So you want to explain why you went out of your way to lose?”

“Think about it.”

“I don’t think there’s anything to think about.”

“Hmm… the one who agreed to cook while we’re here is…?”

“That would be…”

Did she feel like I was cornering her a bit too much?

Yoonseo started to speak but then tightly shut her mouth.

Nevertheless, that alone was enough of an answer.

From the moment she looked at me, the game was already over, so to speak.

“Yep, it’s me.”

“…And?”

“Well, to cook, of course, you’ll need the right tools, right?”

“…”

“Right?”

“…Yeah. I suppose so. Is that enough?”

Yes, that’s enough.

“But you know, the methods to prepare the menu options while we’re here are only in my head.”

“Hah…”

“That basically means that unless I’m there to gather the necessary tools, they won’t be properly prepared.”

“So you lost on purpose?”

“Exactly. Are you finally beginning to understand why I ‘sacrificed’ myself to wear the shame of the first-round elimination?”

“Seriously, if only you could just say that…”

“The one who endured until the end but ultimately faced a disgraceful ‘defeat’ is totally different from you. Get it?”

I was probably having a rare moment of enjoyment in teasing Yoonseo like this.

It had been so long and the responses were so deliciously reactive that I felt full even without lunch.

Apparently, others didn’t feel the same way.

“Yeah, I’ve heard all the marital humor.”

“Oh, that’s not it at all. We’re not even in that kind of relationship.”

The moment I tried to retort back, it seemed that was just the start.

“Hey, haven’t you left yet?!”

“At this rate, we’ll starve to death… Who told those two to stay back?”

“What can we do? Those two lost.”

“Why don’t you just date already? Seriously, it’s frustrating watching this from the sidelines.”

“Sigh…!”

If they kept throwing around those kinds of jokes, it could make things awkward between me and Yoonseo, so I genuinely warned them to dial it back.

But the friends who had entered the comfortably warm indoors had turned into gluttons, completely ignoring my warning.

“Seriously, it’s all good, but let’s just say it straight.”

“Not happening.”

“Uh, Dogun? So about your actions, we’ve decided to call it not a sacrifice but ‘the pathetic excuse of a loser.’”

Fact, indeed, was fact.

The smackdown was just something else, I gotta say.

“Ugh… stop with the truth bombs!”

That was the last remark I made before leaving the pension.

With a deep exhale, as if finally deciding not to get beat down with words any longer, Yoonseo grabbed the back of my neck and began dragging me away.

“Why are you taking it in with words? Let’s just go.”

I had to take back any previous complaints about how annoying she was.

Seeing her be the only one who cared about me among all those enemies, childhood friends really are the best.

“Yeah, I guess I was getting a little tired of this anyway.”

“…”

“What’s up?”

“…Nothing.”

After she said that, she let out a sigh as if trying to get my attention, and I couldn’t help but feel it was a little worrisome.

Did she really not know that only made me more concerned?

Or maybe she knew but was deliberately trying to get me to worry?

“Hey, wait up!”

“Do you not think it’s your own slowness that’s the issue?”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing, trying to rush while only exhausting yourself?”

That’s how we were walking side by side along a path that could be nicely used as a walking path.

As I walked along the road, a certain thought that we had overlooked hit me hard.

“Hey, by the way…”

“What now?”

“Aren’t we actually going the right way?”

Yoonseo’s snappy reply came out because she thought I was just joking again, but it seemed she couldn’t ignore that particular question.

The moment those words slipped out of my mouth, she abruptly stopped in place, completely still.

“…Are we not going the right way?”

As soon as I asked, even though I knew there was no way that could be right, I spoke up cautiously.

“Do you know the way…?”

“…I thought you knew so I was following you.”

Wait, are you really throwing this back on me when you were the one walking beside me all along?

I was shocked, but at least it was fortunate that I had realized this early on.

If I hadn’t, I might have ended up walking from the world directly into the mountains or into the countryside.

“Uh… Let’s just follow the path and see if we can find something.”

“Well, it does feel a bit weird to just stand still here.”

Well, whether we’d find the warehouse safely remained uncertain, but as long as we didn’t cross the entrance of the camping ground we noticed when we came in, we should be fine.

“Still, it’s really spacious…”

“Indeed…”

Just looking at how there were four other pension-sized buildings similar to the one we were staying in scattered around the campsites confirmed it’s quite a large area.

However, it wasn’t just an empty expanse spread out before us.

I had imagined that there would be absolutely nothing to do here before we arrived.

“Oh? There’s something over there.”

As it turned out from Yoonseo’s observation, there indeed seemed to be something.

Well, actually, quite a lot.

“Hm… that doesn’t look like any storage I’ve seen…”

What Yoonseo discovered was a small building covered in black cloth and surrounded by barbed wire.

Given that it wasn’t really a storage facility, I thought it wasn’t worth the trip, but the peculiar-looking building had piqued Yoonseo’s curiosity to the point where she insisted we check it out.

“Just in case, let’s go check it out.”

So she said, and quickly moved ahead as if telling me to follow, and well… I took the bait.

As I reluctantly took my steps, Yoonseo reached the building first and widened her eyes in surprise.

“What’s wrong? Is there something weird inside?”

Seeing her shake her head indicated it was thankfully nothing strange.

“This is that thing, isn’t it?”

“No, what do you mean by that? How should I know…?”

“You know, what do you call it again?”

It seems she was struggling to recall the term.

After a slight frown, Yoonseo suddenly exclaimed, “Aha!”

The problem was the word she followed that with…

“Right! Bouncy-Bouncy!”

That was what she meant.

Bouncy-Bouncy, huh?

What on earth kind of naming sense is that, like something a seven-year-old would come up with?

Forget everything else; I couldn’t for the life of me understand what “Bouncy-Bouncy” meant from my perspective.

Seeing how Yoonseo expected me to respond with, “Oh! That thing?” when she said that, how could I empathize without knowing what she was talking about?

I couldn’t help but wonder who would give something such a pitying name, but upon arriving next to her, I decided to check inside the building.

It soon became clear what Yoonseo was referring to as the “Bouncy-Bouncy.”

“No way… how is this a ‘Bouncy-Bouncy’? It’s a trampoline.”

“What? Who calls it that? Everyone just calls it a Bouncy-Bouncy.”

“No, I mean… technically it’s called a trampoline.”

“Who doesn’t know that?”

Well, whatever the name may be… Yoonseo seemed genuinely delighted to see a childhood attraction she hadn’t seen in a while.

Her eyes sparkled as she gazed at it gleamingly—

“Why? Do you want to try bouncing on it?”

“…What? That’s for kids, right? I think an adult like you would set it up for children to play with when they come by with their parents.”

“Sure, that’s right. But if you were to jump on it now and break it due to your grown-up weight… Huh?!”

Wait, I was talking, but what the…

“Hey!”

“Are you asking for another hit?”

“N-no… not at all…”

As Dogun, the ‘underachiever,’ knelt down before the capable Yoonseo, his heart was racing with excitement as he began to step forward without realizing what he was doing.

*

“Ugh…”

Who doesn’t know that?

And if it could only withstand the weight of one girl bouncing on it, it would’ve been demolished well before due to safety reasons.

“Seriously, how annoying…”

What made it even more exasperating was that even while Dogun pulled these kind of pranks—which I could not hate despite their mischievousness—I was unable to dislike him one bit.

“…Since the kids are waiting, maybe we can just postpone for now… How about we come back after lunch to goof around?”

Look at him now.

When he was teasing me about how it would crumble, now that he sensed I was getting a bit upset, he cleverly offered to come back after lunch as a peace offering.

How could what bothered me just melt away instantly like that?

As absurd as it seemed, I began to worry again.

Was I perhaps letting my guard down too easily around Dogun?

But even so, suddenly changing my attitude at this point was tough—

‘What can I do if I like him that much…?’

That’s why in the end, all I could do was resolve to do something about it in the future.

‘Just you wait…’

Once I successfully confess, from then on, I will make him fall head over heels—

Once I’ve made him fall for me—

All… ah…

It’s so embarrassing that in that fleeting moment, my face heated up, and I fanned my face repeatedly in an effort to clear my thoughts.

But someday, I will definitely make sure to see Dogun acting all lovestruck over me.