Knowing Brother-Chapter 56

The first blow to the guy was the signal to start. Dae-young grabbed the guy’s neck tightly before he could even put his head back in place.

And then one.

Thud, the punch that hit the guy’s stomach was much heavier than the blow just now. Kang Jong-hyuk swallowed his breath backwards.

Immediately after, two.

Won Dae-young swung his arm without giving him a moment to rest. The second hit was right where Choi Seol-woo was injured. The condensed power hit the guy’s left cheek. Kang Jong-hyuk slammed Won Dae-young’s arm while he still hadn’t fully recovered from the shock of being hit in the stomach.

Next, three.

The guy’s legs flew up from the punch that landed hard on his eyes. The guy who hit the back of his head hard against the tree began to gasp for breath and lose strength in his limbs. The skin under his eyebrow burst and blood flowed down the left side of his face.

He felt no pleasure from the punch. All that filled Won Dae-young’s consciousness were the swollen eyes and bruises he had seen in the hospital room. So he couldn’t enjoy it. The bruises on his face and the bruises on Choi Seol-woo’s face had different meanings.

He imagined the sight of Choi Seol-woo’s neat neck being grabbed and he grabbed the bastard’s hand hard and lifted it up.

“Ahhh-!”

“If it wasn’t the kid next to me, but just me, it would have ended here.”

Next, four.

Kang Jong-hyeok’s jaw, which had been dazed for a moment trying to understand the words, snapped and snapped upwards in shock. The bastard, whose neck was suddenly snapped hard, lost his balance and fell against the tree.

What am I so angry about? Is it just because I was trying to get on the school and to get a friend? Something with a stretched breath, I can't do it. The last fist kicked his chest and fell into the ribs. It was a force that brought his weight down from above. Crack. The guy’s eyes widened as he was hit in the chest with a fist that was so strong that his wrist hurt.

Crack! Cough! Kang Jong-hyuk, who had coughed and started to salivate, leaned his back against the tree. Won Dae-young crouched down and spoke calmly.

“If you withdraw the lawsuit against Choi Seol-woo, it’s over here. What are you going to do?”

The guy who had been twisting his neck here and there grabbed his left chest and grimaced in pain.

“I think not filing a counter-suit against the whistleblower would make it look like he’s reflecting on himself to people.......”

“...It’s over. I’m withdrawing it.”

The guy answered while groaning. After hearing the answer he wanted, Won Dae-young took something out of his pocket and put it in the guy’s hand. Kang Jong-hyuk blinked at the blood dripping down his eyelids and looked into his own hand.

What Won Dae-young put in his hand was a folding mountaineering knife.

“Do you know what I’m going to say? Surely you wouldn’t be telling me in front of your friends that I hit you one-sidedly. It was a fierce fight between the two parties. You threw the punch first, and I fought the weapon.”

“.......”

“So it was all self-defense, and if you don’t want something bigger to happen, you won’t report it. Do you understand?”

Kang Jong-hyeok answered by tightly closing his eyes. Won Dae-young snatched the knife back and stood up. Before turning around, he said one more important thing.

“And, Choi Seol-woo lives in 000 Apartment. His mother is a 42-year-old daycare teacher, and his father is working in the Middle East. That’s true, but I think something went wrong. I don’t know how the police leaked your personal information, but there must have been some mistake and it must have been swapped with someone else’s information....”

“.......”

“But if that misinformation is circulating somewhere... it can only be you, the one who did it.”

He must have understood that Won Dae-young’s ridiculous sophistry meant that he shouldn’t even open his mouth. Kang Jong-hyuk quietly got up from his seat and dusted off his clothes.

He told his friends to definitely call the police. It was to prevent them from changing their statements later. When Won Dae-young approached the bench with blood on his clothes, his colleagues called the police as they had told them.

Kang Jong-hyuk staggered out a few seconds later, covered his messy appearance with his mask, and made a pathetic excuse, saying, “That bastard, I only hit him viciously, mainly in the face.”

In front of the dispatched police, their statements were consistent. “Won Dae-young came to receive an apology, but he got hit first, and then they fought back, and when the knife came out, I had no choice but to respond strongly in self-defense.”

The two agreed not to report each other. When his parents heard that his ribs were broken, they were furious and foaming at the mouth, but Kang Jong-hyuk expressed his intention to close the case because he did not want to create any more controversy.

A few days later, Mrs. Choi received a piece of mail from the police station. Choi Seol-woo heard the news while preparing to be discharged from the hospital. Mrs. Choi ran into the hospital room with a cheerful gait and handed him a white envelope.

“What’s so surprising about this? What’s going on with those people?”

It was a notice that the theft and defamation charges had been dropped during the investigation stage and the case had been dismissed. Choi Seol-woo was not punished at all.

* * *

Two or three days later, I heard from my classmates that there had been a fierce fight between Won Dae-young and Kang Jong-hyuk. Won Dae-young beat Kang Jong-hyuk until his ribs were broken. I thought I would stop breathing when I heard that he had pulled out a mountaineering knife during the fight.

Despite all the warnings, Won Dae-young still stepped on him. Whether it was self-defense or something else, was he so angry that his body trembled to the point of blood seeping from his eyes because Choi Seol-woo had been hit, or because he had dared to insult his girlfriend?

It would be a strange question to ask why, so I quickly gave up.

Thanks to the lawsuit being dropped, my final exam results were pretty good. I had missed a few days of school and was anxious, so I obsessively reduced my sleep, and I ended up dropping my spoon while eating breakfast and feeling dazed. It was a malfunction due to lack of sleep. When Mrs. Choi, with a worried face, nagged me to study moderately and asked if someone was chasing me around with a whip and harassing me to study, Choi Seol-woo responded with an extreme answer.

No. I won’t do moderately. But if I just work hard, my grades will be what I want. I can control them. If even that is taken away, there’s no point in living.

And the beastly bastard who was on the exact opposite axis of the elements that were controlled at will, who could never do what he wanted and for whom the laws of nature were useless, often went to the counseling room even during the final exam period. He said that even though the school violence case in which Won Dae-young had bullied Kang Jong-hyuk for political reasons was concluded as not guilty, Kang Jong-hyuk’s parents were gritting their teeth and filing an administrative appeal. They were clinging to this because they couldn’t report the assault.

That’s how rich guys harass people. They keep filing lawsuits even though they know they’ll lose. There’s no charge anyway, so don’t worry about it.

Won Dae-young answered lightly. The back of Won Dae-young, sitting alone in the counseling room without his mother, kept flashing before his eyes.

Every time he saw the bruises on Choi Seol-woo’s face, his expression hardened, which made him itch, and he was bothered by his frequent visits to the guidance office, so he often went to see him when he was at school.

But Won Dae-young had become noticeably blunt these days. Is it because I didn’t apologize for the harsh words I used when we fought? Or is it because I broke up with Ha Young-seo and I’m depressed?

— I said let’s break up. I can’t hurt the company or the members... I’m sorry. My brother said he understood. I didn’t hold her back, so we quickly finished talking.

While comforting Ha Young-seo, who was wiping away tears bravely, Seol-woo’s thoughts were also complicated. I know Ha Young-seo’s decision must not have been easy. What would I have done? If I had to choose between Won Dae-young and my dream, what would I have done if I had been at that crossroads?

... ... If it were Choi Seol-woo, no matter how much he stood on stage and achieved great success, he would have switched to being a vocalist, dance trainer, or YouTuber because life without Won Dae-young would be meaningless. It’s hard to say since he’s not the person involved, but it seemed like that would have happened. Instead, I’ll tie Won Dae-young up with marriage, tattoo your name so that you can’t break up with me anymore, and I’ll meticulously set up insurance, loans, and real estate titles for months so that divorce won’t be easy, even though I don’t know much about it.

... ... It seems like something that would appear on the news and society pages.

Whenever this kind of corrupt nature would break through reason, Seol-woo would sometimes hate himself. The main characters in dramas are all good and moral, but why am I so persistent and twisted?

Anyway, Won Dae-young caught my eye for various reasons. On the last day of final exams, classes ended in the fourth period. Choi Seol-woo sent his friends off first and went across the cloud bridge to the third-year hallway.

The third-year class 1 classroom was already locked. Just in case, he went to the student guidance office, but it was locked there too. There was no response to his message for a long time, so he went out to the playground. As I was crossing the sunny sports field to go to the track and field club, a black car stopped next to me.

“Oh, isn’t that Daeyoung’s younger brother? Where are you going? Track and field club? There’s no one there!”

It was Won Daeyoung’s personal coach. Choi Seolwoo shook his head, shielding himself from the sunlight with his hand.

“...Not your real brother.”

“Yeah, your close brother, your close brother. Where are you going? I’m going to see Daeyoung right now, so if you’re going, let’s go together.”

“Where are you, hyung?”

“Daeyoung moved today, didn’t you tell him?”

“Moving? I didn’t hear anything.”

Are you going to a better place from that fancy apartment? Did you win the inheritance dispute? Why the hell aren’t you telling me?

The question quickly turned into annoyance. The coach pointed to the back seat and rolled up the car window.

“Daeyoung found a room by himself and came out. It’s hot, get in first! Let’s go together.”

Choi Seol-woo got into the car as the coach said and wiped the sweat from his face. Thanks to the coach's explanation, he was able to the symptoms subsided quickly.

“I can’t go into detail, but because of that guy Kang Jong-hyuk, my relationship with my family has gotten worse. Even sitting down to eat together is shit... no, it’s hard work. I need to become independent to maintain my mental health and my career as an athlete. That’s why I found a room right near the school. It’s right in front of here.”

That’s why he’s been blunt lately. Given Won Dae-young’s personality, there was a high chance that Choi Seol-woo wouldn’t tell him because he was afraid that he would mess up his final exam. The resentment disappeared as if it had been washed away.

... Riding in the coach’s car, I could really feel how grateful I was for Won Dae-young’s body scent. Won Dae-young values ​​his ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ image management, so he always applies shower gel and washes himself. Thanks to that, the unique, rough scent from his body is always mixed with a nice scent. I was so used to it that I forgot that it was normal for athletes to have such a strong body scent.

Choi Seol-woo was already very sensitive. I can't tell you how lucky I am that Won Dae-young smells like shower gel.

Choi Seol-woo and the coach got off in front of the officetel. When he rang the doorbell, Won Dae-young opened the door late and hesitantly. His hair was messy, as he had just woken up from a nap. A green bruise faintly remained on his right hand when he opened the door.

Won Dae-young, who had been furrowing his thick eyebrows, smiled. It was amazing every time I saw him. That face, whose fierce expression melted away in an instant when his chin was cut off.