Gentle Giant 32

Gentle Giant Chapter 32

“Hyung, is your stomach really bothering you? Should we go to the hospital instead of a cafe?”

“No. I just want to drink something cold.”

“Okay, then.”

Even after leaving the snack bar, Dain’s expression didn’t improve, so Juho led Dain into a cafe. And instead of ordering a sweet latte, he ordered an ade with carbonation.

Only after seeing the sour ade that he didn’t like did Dain’s expression change.

“Lemonade…?”

“Yes. You said your stomach was bothering you. Ade is better for an upset stomach than lattes with milk and such.”

“Really…? Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. Hyung, if your stomach keeps bothering you, let’s go to the hospital after class. Okay?”

“Mm. But it’s really not bad enough to go to the hospital…”

Dain wasn’t actually having stomach problems right now – his mind was troubled, but it was difficult to tell Juho that directly.

And Juho, who seemed to roughly understand the situation, was also a bit spiteful toward Dain for keeping secrets from him.

Just when a slight silence had settled between the two who were each keeping small secrets from each other.

Click.

The moment they heard a camera shutter sound, Dain’s shoulders visibly flinched. Juho also quickly looked around at the grating electronic sound.

Most were students studying alone. However, among them, he could see two female students awkwardly lowering their heads.

Juho clicked his tongue briefly. He couldn’t move rashly based only on the suspicion that a photo had been taken. As he was wondering what to do and trying to check on Dain first, the shutter sound was heard again, and when he turned his head toward where the sound came from, his gaze met exactly with the female students’ lens and eyes.

“Hyung. Just a moment.”

Juho lightly patted the frozen Dain’s shoulder and headed toward the table where the female students were.

The female students who had been excitedly looking at their phones together suddenly looked up at the shadow cast over their heads. And at the end of that gaze, they discovered Juho with an extremely handsome but menacing look in his eyes.

The intimidating appearance was enough to make them gasp, and the female students’ mouths fell open. Juho extended his hand and said,

“You just took my picture.”

“Huh…?”

The female students looked flustered and didn’t know what to do. At their reaction, Juho inwardly sighed and continued speaking gently.

“If not, I’m sorry, but if you did take my picture, please delete it and absolutely don’t transfer it anywhere else.”

“Uh… ah… yes, yes. Uh…”

“And you shouldn’t casually take photos of other people, especially ordinary people like me.”

At Juho’s low, growling voice, the female students’ faces turned bright red.

They hadn’t had bad intentions. He was just the most famous and handsome person at the university these days, so they just wanted to show off to their friends. They didn’t know the person in question would talk to them so seriously. They thought it was okay because other people had been taking photos little by little until now.

The female students quickly deleted the photos from their phones and apologized to Juho.

“We’re, we’re sorry. We deleted all the photos.”

At the two female students’ apology, Juho nodded and returned to his seat. Dain’s face, watching from behind, was full of bewilderment.

“Ju, Juho. Are you okay? What happened?”

“It seemed like they were taking my picture. The first few times were okay, but now it’s getting on my nerves.”

“I see… that must have felt bad. You did say you don’t like having your picture taken… Actually, I was starting to get bothered by it too when I was walking around.”

“Really? Hmm, I think we need to prevent people around from taking these kinds of pictures from now on.”

“Yeah. Let’s do that. If I see it happening, I’ll tell them not to do it too!”

Dain said with force in his eyebrows. Juho let out a snicker at the truly unreliable sight. As if Jung Dain would actually say mean things to other people.

Actually, if this had been when he was in America, the female students’ phones would have already been smashed to pieces, but now he couldn’t show such violent behavior. Especially not in front of Dain. The already cowardly Jung Dain might get even more scared and hide away.

Juho took in the sight of the female students once more. Starting with those two, it seemed like he’d need to gradually clean up his surroundings.

Especially that bastard who was talking shit at the snack bar earlier.

Juho clenched his fist tightly under the table. The vile smile that had looked down on Dain while spouting nonsense had been ruining his mood the whole time.

Meanwhile, Dain was deeply impressed by Juho’s resolute appearance – not shrinking back even in front of strangers and saying what needed to be said. As expected, it seemed like he should follow Juho’s example and resolve this matter himself.

“Juho. Tomorrow’s the day you go to the company, right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Mm. I was wondering if you could sleep at the dorm today and tomorrow, and we could meet on Wednesday.”

Dain said while just chewing on his lemonade straw.

At the sudden suggestion to part ways(?), question marks appeared on Juho’s face. What? Is he mad because I bought him lemonade instead of vanilla latte…?

Since no immediate reason came to mind, he couldn’t figure out how to respond.

“Hyung…?”

“I have an assignment to do, and it’s really important. I, I have to solve it alone.”

“An assignment? Is there already a class that gave out assignments?”

“Yeah. There is! It’s not a class you’re taking, Juho, so it’s definitely an assignment you wouldn’t know about!”

“Hmm?”

“A, anyway, sleep at the dorm today and tomorrow. Got it? Thank you, Juho.”

Before even hearing Juho’s answer, Dain said thank you and slurped his lemonade. Even while frowning, he didn’t take his mouth off the straw. It was a silent declaration that he wouldn’t say anything more.

Another obvious trick. Juho stared intently at Dain’s face, which was scrunched up from the sour taste and might not smooth out anytime soon. Even so, Dain didn’t give Juho his attention.

Should I just tell him right now that I noticed he has something going on with that male student and offer to solve it for Dain instead? Or should I watch a bit longer?

While Juho was conflicted inside, Dain was already mentally listing the things he needed to do when he got home.

“Oh, Juho, it’s time for the afternoon lecture. Let’s hurry!”

Dain led Juho toward the lecture hall. First, he needed to listen perfectly to today’s afternoon lecture and steel his resolve.

* * *

“Are you really going to the dorm?”

“Yeah! Really going to the dorm.”

“Hyuuung…!”

“Ah, no way. Juho! I really have an important assignment today, okay? You can’t look at me like that.”

While avoiding Juho’s desperate gaze, Dain struggled to get him in the car.

When even his aegyo-filled voice didn’t work since he was so firmly resolved, Juho eventually surrendered.

Honestly, if it was just about physical strength, forcing his way into Dain’s house wouldn’t be difficult, but he didn’t want to force anything on Dain. Still, he felt hurt that Dain wouldn’t say even a word to him.

Juho sighed as he got into the driver’s seat.

“Hyung, if anything happens, call me, okay?”

“I know, I know. Don’t worry, and do well with your company work tomorrow too. Got it? Listen to what the adults say!”

“Okay.”

Hearing Juho’s lifeless response, Dain patted Juho’s shoulder comfortingly. It was an apology for not being able to take care of Juho for just two days.

What was that small gesture supposed to be? Juho felt the corners of his mouth lifting as he started the engine.

“Then I’ll see you Wednesday! Drive safely!”

Dain watched until Juho’s car disappeared around the alley corner. Then he raised and lowered his shoulders dramatically.

Now all that was left was to faithfully carry out the plan he had thought of earlier.

First, he decided to report all the posts with Juho’s photos to get them taken down.

Over the weekend, quite a few posts with Juho’s photos had appeared. Most were reposts of last week’s photos, but he could occasionally see photos taken today too.

Dain thoroughly scoured even the old pages, pressing the report button. He diligently wrote at least three lines for the reason for reporting.

Just doing that took quite a lot of time. In between, it took more time to respond to messages from Juho.

“Phew.”

Although he couldn’t tell Juho exactly, this assignment had to be finished by his own hands. Seeing Juho become a victim of absurd rumors because of him made him not just upset but angry at himself.

By deleting posts like this, interest in Juho would decrease and such rumors would gradually disappear too.

Dain resolved to report every single post until then.

After finishing reporting posts from last week and returning to the front page, there was a newly written post titled <Ho-nim spotted at the snack bar!>.

Dain slightly furrowed his eyebrows as yet another post about Juho appeared. He realized the students’ interest was greater than expected.

[Saw Ho-nim at the snack bar in front of the main gate today. He was eating tteokbokki so skillfully ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Oh, and that gray-haired friend was with him again today. They seem like best friends. ㅇㅇ. Of course, I’m such a coward I didn’t take a picture]

It was an eyewitness account from a student who had been at the snack bar together. And below it, comments saying he was cute were lined up.

[Anonymous2: So our Ho-nim likes tteokbokki!! I’m going to make royal tteokbokki with Korean beef right now (I’m serious, this is in formal font)

└ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Give me some too ㅋㅋㅋ

Anonymous3: Do I have to wait for Ho-nim at the snack bar this time..? Won’t he appear on random chat…? I do random chat every day…ㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠㅠㅜㅠㅜㅠㅠㅜㅠ

└Crazy ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Anonymous6: He seems like best friends with that gray-haired guy 22

└Seems like best friends 333333

└Seems like best friends 444

└Seems like best friends 555555

Anonymous7: That gray-haired bastard. He’s probably just thinking about hitting on girls by sticking to the tiger ㅋㅋㅋ Or maybe they share tips on how to flirt while eating??! Birds of a feather science ㅇㅈ??? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ His personality was completely trash too]

Anonymous7.

Dain’s gaze lingered on that comment for a long time. It was exactly the same tone as Anonymous 14 from the post a few days ago. It was definitely that bastard spreading malicious rumors about Dain and Juho.

Dain immediately opened his eyes fiercely and clicked on reply.

[Our Juho isn’t that kind of lowlife, okay?? Don’t spread false rumors >:( ]

After pressing the post button, Dain let out the breath he’d been holding with a “whew.” It was his first time writing a comment on the community. Dain’s face was full of tension as he checked if he had made any typos.

After refreshing several times to see if there were any new comments, an alarm rang saying a reply had been posted to his comment.

[Our Juho??????? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Acting so close, damn. Idiot ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Your Juho doesn’t even know who you are, okay? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

“Hah…”

Dain let out an incredulous laugh. It was a comment with a completely dismissive tone, as if he hadn’t even considered that the gray-haired guy himself might be writing comments.

Dain’s fighting spirit rose. He wiped the cold sweat from his palms on his pants and replied once more.

[└I’m way closer to him than you are, okay????

└Yeah, live in your imagination with our Juho forever like that ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

└And you’ll regret writing baseless stuff like this!

└What do you mean baseless? I saw it directly, you bastard. Have you been living deceived your whole life??

└What did you see directly???? Did you directly see him meeting girls???? When? Where? With whom?

└Fuck, why should I tell you that????

└You can’t even say that?? You need to provide believable evidence??

└I said I saw it!!!

└Just saying you saw it is the end? So when did you see it! With whom? Where?

└Ah!!! Such a persistent bastard!! Fine, your Juho is a fucking clean virgin!!! Go wash your feet and sleep!!!]

In response to comments that ignored him and Juho, Dain also worked hard to post comments to not lose. And after persistently holding on, the male student’s comments stopped appearing. Only other students’ laughter-filled comments continued to pile up.

“It’s, it’s done…!”

It was just an argument on an internet community, but he had beaten ‘Anonymous7.’

Dain’s face filled with some satisfaction.

He had been so nervous and moved his fingers so intensely that his thumb was trembling and shaking.