# Chapter 39
## “Have you been drinking?”
I pressed the end call button on my phone and put it in my pocket. The VIP silk patient gown rustled softly. Unnecessarily luxurious for a hospital gown… I approached him, dragging my IV stand along.
“No…”
His words and actions didn’t match—while saying no, his head was nodding yes. Seeing Kim Pyeonghwa, the king of inconsistency between words and actions, made me sigh. No, my ass. Where does this kid get off? The timing of his appearance at this early hour was just incredible, whatever nonsense he was planning to pull.
His silver hair fluttered in the dawn breeze. I don’t know how much he’d had to drink, but maybe it was the alcohol that made his expression somehow defenseless and disheveled, and his eyes—normally cold as a leopard’s—were now unfocused and blinking repeatedly. The smell of alcohol was so strong that my face involuntarily wrinkled. This bastard… it’s amazing he can even stand properly at this point.
“Haejin.”
……!
Thud-
Ugh.
As I feared, Pyeonghwa, unable to support his swaying body, finally collapsed against my shoulder. Damn it, fuck. Curses escaped from between my bitten lips. Ugh. Ugh, this bastard. Should I just beat him up now? Huh? There’s nothing more troublesome than someone causing a scene while drunk, and I seem to have gotten caught up in this mess. Shit. How did he even get here?!
“You fucking… you’re dead when you sober up.”
As if I could beat the number one ranked guy… Should I just punch him a few times now when no one’s watching? Such a nuisance.
With Pyeonghwa, who’s much taller than me, practically embracing me, I barely managed to rest my chin on his shoulder. One hand holding the IV stand, I wrapped my other arm around Pyeonghwa’s waist. I could feel his firm abs, and for a brief moment I thought ‘Oh,’ but that just made his body feel even heavier, which was worse. I’m absolutely not envious. Okay?!
I dragged him to the nearest bench and set him down on the seat. I collapsed beside him in the same motion. The IV drip that was unavoidably connected to me got in the way, draining several times more energy than usual. And to begin with, supporting someone who’s lost their mind to alcohol is never easy. That’s why I always abandon male drunks at drinking parties. Hmph.
Huff. I gently made him rest his head on my shoulder after unwrapping his arms that were hugging me. This is better now. I turned my head and stared at his face. His looks are seriously off-the-charts handsome.
His head is small, his silver hair mystical, his high nose bridge below his closed eyes, his tightly closed vermilion lips, and his sharp jawline—not a single flaw to be found, making me marvel anew. Kim Pyeonghwa’s face was… perfect, as if God had crafted him with the utmost care and detail. If only his personality matched his face genius status, that would’ve been nice. That’s the real error, the error.
“Hey, Kim Pyeonghwa. Wake up a bit.”
“……”
I poked his unmoving cheek firmly with my index finger.
What good is being a face genius and ranked number one when your personality is rotten? Tsk. Does being the male lead make you special? With a bit of spite, as if taking small revenge, I poke his annoyingly handsome face several times. Lucky he was drunk. Otherwise, he’d be raising hell about beating me up right now.
“The smell of alcohol… How much did you drink anyway? And you’re a minor high school student, for god’s sake… Please give me a break. I’m a patient, you know?”
I muttered to myself as if lamenting my fate, words that nobody would hear anyway.
Though it was summer, the dawn air was quite chilly. The bluish moonlight was casting a mysterious glow around us. The time was approaching 5 AM. How long do I have to stay like this? How on earth did Kim Pyeonghwa find his way here? Well, since everyone on the community knew that I collapsed, you probably knew I was hospitalized here too… right?
“…Yeah. I knew.”
Huh? I turned my head at the unexpected answer to my casually spoken words.
“That shitty HioIl, which only posts pictures of me, was pretty helpful this time.”
“……”
“Otherwise, I would have found out like an idiot much later that you had collapsed.”
I blinked stupidly. Kim Pyeonghwa’s characteristically cold, piercing eyes were staring straight at me as he leaned on my shoulder. I don’t know when he opened his eyes.
You, you, you bastard. When did you wake up?! Surprised, I unconsciously pushed him away.
“Fuck… that hurts.”
“Are you crazy! Don’t tell me you’ve been pretending to be drunk this whole time?”
“I told you I wasn’t.”
Suddenly pushed, Pyeonghwa muttered a small curse as if his side had painfully hit the armrest of the bench. For a moment, I tensed up, expecting Kim Pyeonghwa to go berserk like a mad dog, but fortunately, though annoyed, he remained still.
Certainly… he wasn’t someone who would take abuse from others—he was more likely to dish it out—so judging by this reaction, he probably wasn’t pretending to be drunk.
“It hurts, Haejin.”
“Whoa. Hey… HEY!!”
Shit! He must really be drunk. No, he’s properly wasted. This bastard!
Whining like a puppy throwing a tantrum, he suddenly lay down perfectly with his head on my lap. Fuck, creepy. Damn. My goosebumps! Kim Pyeonghwa has the worst drinking habit! Physical affection is the worst drunken behavior!
I was so embarrassed that my face turned red. Thankfully, there was no one around us. If someone had seen us like this… AAARGH!
“Heh. Gu Haejin, are you tensing your stomach?”
“Wh-what are you saying, you crazy bastard! Get your hands off me!”
I must have unconsciously tensed my abdominal area because he chuckled playfully in my arms. Aaaah! What’s wrong with Kim Pyeonghwa?! At this point, isn’t this practically character breaking?! Where did the rude-ass Kim Pyeonghwa I know go?? I felt like I was seriously going to die from the cringe. Fuck. Alcohol is the enemy!
Through my thin silk patient gown, I could faintly feel Pyeonghwa’s breath as he quietly buried his face. Then he fell silent again for a while. I was so embarrassed and ashamed of our current position that I couldn’t say anything. Ugh… I covered my face for no reason.
“Hey.”
“…What.”
“The alliance. You formed it.”
At the sudden mention of the word ‘alliance,’ I removed my hand slightly and looked at Pyeonghwa. He was hugging my waist with both hands, waiting for my answer.
“Yeah.”
Pyeonghwa’s body twitched slightly.
“As an Apex, you probably know. We… I mean Devil. It’s almost collapsed. I thought Oh Eundo’s proposal wasn’t bad. And he—Choigang—needs us too.”
“……”
“Unlike Focus, which is ranked first, Devil and Choigang…”
“……”
“We’re in a situation where we need to grasp at straws.”
“…I see.”
I guess I’ve really adapted to this world a lot.
At first, I thought I would die of embarrassment and did everything I could to escape from the School Gang Association, but the more time I spend here, the more relationships I build… Strangely, I noticed myself gradually accepting everything as if it were normal.
Geez, what am I doing? I couldn’t help but laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, just…”
Pyeonghwa, who had been calmly watching my inexplicable laughter, asked flatly.
“…You know what?”
“Huh?”
“That nickname, ‘Thousand-Year Prince.’ Whoever came up with it, they did a damn good job.”
Ugh…! W-why bring that up suddenly?
Ha. It felt like I was choking on nothing. Why the hell did that nickname suddenly appear in our conversation?! Once again, a chill ran down my spine. I was about to tense up wondering what he was going to say next, but his question was:
“Do you remember when we first met?”
Surprisingly nostalgic.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
