.

Well, a few years ago, if that boy named Jung Yohan had been a close friend of Ban Hwee Ahn, who seemed to be Ban Hwee Hyul’s little brother, he would be aware of Ban Hwee Hyul’s real identity.

While I understood the reason why he spoke that way, Jung Yohan’s voice reached my ears again.

“… Don’t get it.”

I quickly raised my head. Furrowing his brows, Ban Hwee Hyul asked, “What do you mean?”

“The reason why you almost escaped and left your position. It was beneficial for you to keep your Number one ranking in order to gather information and find out the culprit. However, you didn’t,” replied Jung Yohan.

“…”

As if he felt very unclear, Jung Yohan continued “Why? You could have found the culprit and avenge your brother’s incident…”

Ban Hwee Hyul then cut off Jung Yohan’s words. “Let’s don’t talk about that story.”

“What?” asked Jung Yohan.

“I want to live without those memories.” Ban Hwee Hyul, blurting out the line like a secluded master of martial arts, turned around to our side. As he gave a look at the end of the hallway, we bent our steps falteringly in that direction.

Walking across the hallway, I scratched the back of my head for no reason. Geez, the nationwide Number one really had a rich network of friends. No matter where he went, there were always people who knew him or returning to Korea. His life would be like shooting the real ‘Godfather.’

Having those thoughts in mind, I kept throwing a glance at Ban Hwee Hyul’s side face. That was when Yoon Jung In suddenly cast me a question.

“Hey, what does it mean? His people? Beneficial to keep the Number one ranking?”

Then I finally realized that Yoon Jung In was the only one who had no idea who Ban Hwee Hyul really was. Thus, he wouldn’t be able to, of course, grasp the context of the conversation at all. Although the word, ‘Number one ranking,’ came out, it was just for a few seconds.

How could I prevaricate this situation? While I was wondering how to respond, surprisingly, Ban Hwee Hyul, who was walking beside us, dropped a cool response.

“I’ll explain everything.”

“Oh, really?” asked Yoon Jung In with a bright expression.

Ban Hwee Hyul replied, “Yeah, but first, let’s go to the rooftop.”

“…”

There was a weird silence for a while. On our way to the rooftop, Yoon Jung in whispered to me, “Hey, I can’t explain why but… I hate to go to the rooftop after him.”

I just nodded and thought, ‘Even if Ban Hwee Hyul retired from his position, the aura of nationwide Number one seems to exist forever.’

* * *

Staring at the empty hallway that Ban Hwee Hyul just left, Jung Yohan stood still and bit his lips. In the end, he burst into small laughter, rubbed his flat stomach, then directed his eyes back to the hallway. Wearing a self-deprecating smile, he murmured, “I knew it, but still… how can’t he remember me even a bit? It’s quite annoying…”

He changed his steps and went inside the patient’s room.

It was silent inside like underwater. In the middle of the room, there was Ban Hwee Ahn lying on the bed like the dead. His face showed no signs of movement as if it was a residue sunk down deep in the bottom of a lake.

Placing one side of his hands on the bedrail, Jung Yohan cast down his eyes toward Ban Hwee Ahn. The look in his eyes then suddenly turned frosty cold.

“I’ll never tell you how thankful I am.” He murmured, leaning his body over the bed. Only the sound of Ban Hwee Ahn breathing resonated around his ears. Listening to that regular sound, Jung Yohan knitted his forehead out of the blue as if he felt pain.

Shortly after, he straightened himself up while pretending that nothing had happened, then with a straight face, Jung Yohan murmured, “Yeah, I have nothing to be sorry for you because, as your brother said in the past, being weak is the problem, right?”

Searching for something in his pocket, he suddenly lost his temper. “Shoot, what a useless bastard! How can’t he even do me such a simple favor?!” Then he took out his phone and showed a cold smile.

“Now I’ll do it by myself.”

Browsing his phone for quite a while, Jung Yohan finally found an image file. He sent it somewhere without hesitation then began to type a message. Then at the moment, he checked the recipient’s number out of the blue and giggled.

He whispered to himself, “Was it you who sent that ridiculous message?” Lowering his voice to a colder tone, he added, “No matter what promise you made to yourself, it has nothing to do with me.”

* * *

Yoon Jung In reacted just the way I had expected.

“You are the nationwide Number one?!!” he asked in astonishment.

Ban Hwee Hyul replied nonchalantly, “Uh-huh.”

Clenching his first, Yoon Jung In seemed to have made up his mind about something. He then looked back and forth between us.

Wondering, I asked, “What are you waiting for? Oh, no, you aren’t thinking about fighting Ban Hwee Hyul and checking out his true ability or so, are you?” I added, “Dude, believe me, you’ll end up in the coffin…”

Yoon Jung In shook his head valiantly then replied, “Okay, bring it on. I’m ready.”

“Bring it on? You’re ready? For what?”

“Tell me that you’re joking. I’m ready to show you the greatest reaction of all times.”

“…”

I stared at Yoon Jung In with mixed feelings. Geez, I knew things would turn out this way, but he had no trust in this story at all… However, I decided to, first of all, persuade him quietly and deliberately.

“Come on, even his name is Ban Hwee Hyul which isn’t a commonly used name in the world…”

“No way, that’s not enough. How can I trust the story just by some rare name? No matter how unique or weird it is, there will be, at least, someone using the same name. Don’t you think so?”

Gosh… I clicked my tongue while turning my head away from him.

It seemed easy to persuade him, at first; however, I forgot that Yoon Jung In was, unlike his easygoing and bright personality, a good fighter in words. Well, now I had come to think of it, only the logical Kim twins were able to barely beat him in debating classes.

However, I didn’t give up but continued to speak. “What about his eyes? Red eyes are so rare you know.”

In fact, as a person who has been seeing Eun Jiho’s natural, platinum blond hair and Yoo Chun Young’s blue eyes for a long time, I wasn’t assured that red eyes were actually rare in this world…

As I came up with another reason, Yoon Jung In tilted his head and stared at Ban Hwee Hyul’s red eyes.

‘Oh, thankfully, red eyes aren’t that common here, right?’ The moment I tried to sigh in relief, Yoon Jung In switched his gaze to me with a look that seemed to say rare eye colors were a matter of no importance to him.

Showing unconcern, he replied, “Hey, what’s the big deal of having the same eye colors? We all look different.”

“But that’s…”

“In that point of view, you and I both have black eyes, right? Then if I change my name to Ham Donnie, would other kids get confused about you and me?”

“Gosh, dude, do you think that makes sense? Why would you change your name into Ham Donnie?”

That was such an awful metaphor! Yoon Jung In, called by my name, Ham Donnie… I didn’t want to even imagine such a thing. Shaking my head in disgust, I saw Yoon Jung In laughing slyly. That was when I realized that I was dancing to his tune.

While I was at a loss for words, he replied with a shrug, “Hey, I never saw the nationwide Number one’s face in person, but I did hear about him. They say he looks so attractive and captivating that girls are always around him.”

After those words, I quietly turned my head and had eye contact with Ban Hwee Hyul. As soon as our eyes met, he shook his head as if he had never heard about that story.

In fact, even in my eyes, Ban Hwee Hyul looked like a huge bear staying in the cave for a hundred days while only eating mugworts and garlic for life… No, maybe a Buddhist monk would be a more proper term to describe his look. Anyway, Ban Hwee Hyul was far from the fantastic playboy-type guys common in web novels.

Then how could those rumors spread all over? Shortly after, Yoo Chun Young’s case flashed through my head. I nodded, ‘Oh, so that’s what happened.’

Recalling my memory of Ban Hwee Hyul’s face without glasses, his appearance was gorgeous enough to draw people’s attention just like Yoo Chun Young. In that case, people wouldn’t just leave him that way even if Ban Hwee Hyul himself had no interest in getting along with others.

At that moment, Yoon Jung In winked at Ban Hwee Hyul like a male KPop idol on TV shows. He uttered, “Hey, I’m sorry to say this, but let’s be honest. You aren’t the type of character that girls go crazy no matter how you behave. So that proves the story is false, huh? I won, right? Any objections? Nah, can’t counter this at all, can you?”