This World is too Cruel to Men – Chapter 618

A bolt of lightning flashed across the dark night sky, illuminating the depths of my mind, which had been shrouded in darkness.

There was something that could make Chae-rim act in such a manner, even if it wasn’t directly related to her.

Only one possibility came to mind.

That possibility was… a secret Chae-rim held that was connected to another person.

No matter how I thought about it, it seemed there was nothing else that could provoke such behavior from Chae-rim.

Ah, of course, when I mention “another person,” I mean those who had a certain level of familiarity with Chae-rim.

‘The real issue is…’

The question surrounding who that person was…

Who could it be?

Who passed a secret onto Chae-rim?

To be honest, the list of faces that came to mind wasn’t very long.

Thinking like this felt a bit like gossiping, which honestly didn’t sit well with me, but Chae-rim’s social circle really wasn’t that vast.

Sure, if we defined human relationships simply as “knowing someone,” considering her status, it could be incredibly broad.

But truly, that couldn’t be helped, as one of the main duties of Chae-rim, the vice chair of the association, was to participate in various events and show her face.

However, if we were to exclude all the people she met through such events and limit it to those with a certain level of intimacy?

Chae-rim’s social connections were undeniably quite limited.

That was to be expected, as Chae-rim was rather picky about making friends.

Not that she screened people based on status or anything like that; it was just… her criteria were particularly firm when compared to others.

You know those types, right?

They may seem very picky on the surface, but once someone crosses the threshold into their inner circle, they become incredibly generous.

Chae-rim was exactly that type.

Thanks to that, I had greatly benefited.

Anyway, given Chae-rim’s strong criteria for making friends, it was evident that there were only a few people maintaining a ‘personal’ friendship with her.

To the extent that I could count them on my fingers?

And among those few, one was the Sprinter.

So, could the secret Chae-rim was trying to hide from me also relate to the Sprinter?

Perhaps it was simply because the first face that popped into my head was indeed that of the Sprinter.

Suddenly, that thought arose, but I shook my head.

While I couldn’t completely rule out that possibility, it seemed highly unlikely in reality.

So instead of getting hung up on that, I needed to consider other possibilities.

And speaking of other possibilities, there was only one.

That was… if the secret Chae-rim was trying to conceal with lies she never told me was related to someone around me.

Yes, that was the only other option.

Yoonseo.

Senior Baeksulhwa.

And Bora.

I lined up the faces of the three in my mind.

And among those three, the first to leave the lineup was, without a doubt, Bora.

From my standpoint, I couldn’t help but come to that conclusion, as Bora had once possessed more secrets than anyone else, but that was now a thing of the past.

To be precise, it happened after she escaped from the grasp of the Association Chairman.

Thanks to that, she was now completely vibrant and enjoying the things she had always wanted, living the happiest days.

I heard that after some good negotiations with the platform where her ongoing series was serialized, her debut work, which could be considered her first hit, was set to be animated… In a way, among our group of five, it might be Bora who was enjoying life the most.

Of course, while she still occasionally displayed some of her previous impulsive antics, at least recently, Bora was savoring her happiness.

So I didn’t think she would bother creating any secrets about me.

Even if she had, it probably wasn’t serious enough for Chae-rim to go to such lengths to hide it.

With that rationale, I was able to eliminate Bora from my list, leaving only two people remaining.

Yoonseo.

And Senior Baeksulhwa.

While I had managed to narrow it down from three to two, unlike with Bora where I could judge relatively lightly, I couldn’t do the same with these two.

That was because… I had seen enough to raise concerns.

What can I say?

I already knew.

I knew that Yoonseo occasionally fixed her gaze on my left arm, looking as if my arm being in such a state was somehow her fault, and would wear a pained expression.

And I also knew Senior Baeksulhwa, who had seemed to spill all the pent-up feelings that had been buried within her, was still suffering from nightmares based on the events of that day.

Because of this, I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that either of them would act in secrecy regarding me.

And if the concern I had was indeed coming true… then it would completely explain why Chae-rim was acting the way she was.

Honestly, this had to be the case; if either of them was truly taking action, the person they’d seek help from would inevitably be Chae-rim.

Thus, Chae-rim’s reaction made sense.

Did Chae-rim want to lie to me?

Probably not.

Yet, the reason she had to hedge her words in front of me was that even if she didn’t want to deceive me, she couldn’t just reveal another person’s secret without reservation.

Thinking this way made me feel a bit guilty toward Chae-rim, who was caught in the middle…

But what truly mattered now was determining which of the two was currently active.

My personal wish was for it to be Senior Baeksulhwa moving rather than Yoonseo.

Although quite some time had passed, Senior Baeksulhwa had her own justification, and from a broader perspective, it wasn’t an act that would go against her hero activities either.

Furthermore… I had confidence that I could persuade her.

In contrast, with Yoonseo… honestly, I wasn’t so sure.

No matter how many times I told her it was okay, that my arm had become this way purely by a combination of accidents, and that she wasn’t at fault, it didn’t seem like it would resonate with her.

This was simply my intuition, but at least that was how it felt to me.

Therefore, I had started wishing it were Senior Baeksulhwa…

Still, if there was a sliver of comfort during this time, it would be that, judging from our successful contact this morning, the likelihood of something happening with Yoonseo seemed relatively low compared to what I was worrying about.

‘But just in case…’

Before calling Senior Baeksulhwa to sneakily check in, should I confirm where she was and what she was doing?

I pulled out the mobile phone that I had intentionally put away in my pocket to avoid unnecessarily stressing over it, just for that purpose.

Then, grasping the phone in my hand, I activated the location-tracking app, which I had never manually opened since Yoonseo had installed it on my phone.

‘Honestly, this feels a bit… uneasy.’

As I waited for the location-tracking app to start up, it felt like I had somehow become a husband from a reenactment drama, plagued by jealousy.

In that strange, unshakeable sensation of being tormented in real-time, it felt like I was experiencing something I wouldn’t get to feel again any time soon.

Even though I had set the app to update automatically when I downloaded it, perhaps because it had been so long since I had last activated it, the loading felt unusually lengthy.

Eventually, the loading finished, and Yoonseo’s location began to appear on the screen of my phone.

Yes, it was indeed displayed, but… for some reason, Yoonseo’s location seemed a bit off.

Well, no wonder—

‘What the heck, why is this happening? Is it broken?’

Initially, Yoonseo’s location was clearly indicating the outskirts of Seoul, but suddenly it shifted to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, showing constant wild fluctuations in real-time.