.
Yi Ruda quietly closed his eyes after watching her leave. That was when he opened and clenched his pale fist. His phone vibrated suddenly.
Kids, who walked past him by, bid farewell to him with smiles or sometimes with sad faces. Yi Ruda responded to all the goodbyes while taking out his phone from his pocket. When he checked the text that he received, his face slowly stiffened. The message was from someone he never anticipated.
Sent by: 010-xxxx-xxxx
Hi, I’m Woo Jooin in Class 1-1. Do you know me? I saw you many times with Donnie and heard a lot about you from her lol
Sent by: 010-xxxx-xxxx
I have something to talk about. Do you have time right now?
Yi Ruda’s blue eyes, fixed on the phone, gradually glowed deep. He looked so apathetic, which differed entirely from his usual character, that someone in the class might find it very surprising to see such an expression.
Putting his phone into his pocket, Yi Ruda fell into thought, ‘Woo Jooin, he was probably one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Ji Jon middle school, those boys that I’ve heard nothing but praise.’
Among the Four Heavenly Kings, the one whom he shared the most conversation with was Yoo Chun Young, the boy who had blue-black hair and eyes as blue as his who also was a model. Yi Ruda only exchanged a few words with Eun Jiho, the impressive silver-haired boy known as the leader of the Four Heavenly Kings. He, however, never met the rest of the boys who were Kwon Eun Hyung, who was well-known for his friendliness, and Woo Jooin, who had a reputation for being cute and socially outgoing, personally. That was why Woo Jooin’s approach was very unexpected to Yi Ruda. He kept wondering, ‘Why…?’
As soon as he recalled Woo Jooin’s name, the hair of the boy who had a bright smile on his face came across his thoughts. The slightly disheveled hair shone a gold-brown color within the flowing dust. His monolid, purely gold eyes with large pupils looked so innocent that no one in the world would have such a naïve appearance as him.
However, Yi Ruda caught Woo Jooin as he changed his expression to reveal a frigid hostility that the friendly-looking boy had towards him for a split second when Ham Donnie wasn’t staring at Woo Jooin. In his eyes, there flowed malice instead of a cordial atmosphere, and a cold smile emerged on his face. Frankly speaking, Woo Jooin was the person whom Yi Ruda didn’t wish to come across the most among the four boys. Having somewhat similar eyes to Yi Ruda, Woo Jooin was the most challenging opponent that he had to deal with.
While he touched his phone in silence, another message arrived. Yi Ruda opened his phone.
Sent by: 010-xxxx-xxxx
It’s something related to Donnie. Why don’t you spare us some of your time?
Yi Ruda furrowed his brows. ‘Perhaps he’s getting me wrong. Does this boy think that I’ll roll up my sleeves whenever Donnie needs help?’ he thought. He, however, just pressed the call button. Within a second, a cheerful voice came over the phone.
“Oh, hey! Are you Ruda?”
“Yeah, where should I go?”
“Hmm, where should we meet? Since we have to talk about something attentively… Oh, do you remember that empty classroom on the sophomore’s floor where you and Donnie used when you tried to escape from us?”
“I do.”
That was where he bumped into Yoo Chun Young’s mouth against their wills, so although he tried to forget about it, that place would never slip from his memory. Woo Jooin replied shortly in a sweet voice to Yi Ruda, who was frowning.
“Then, I’ll see you there!”
The call then disconnected. ‘What kind of novelty is it to embody frostiness while talking in a bright and high tone?’ wondered Yi Ruda. He then slowly moved his steps to the designated location.
“Hi, I’ve wanted to talk to you for a very long time.”
Woo Jooin, who spoke like that while standing against the window, showed a grin. The burning sunset over the window stained his shoulder red. The pair of gold eyes staring at Yi Ruda within the dimness looked like those of a beast; however, his face itself belonged to none other than a naïve looking boy.
Gazing at Woo Jooin for a while, Yi Ruda responded with a smile.
“Yeah, I did wonder about Donnie’s middle school friends too, but why did you call me?”
“I want you to help us.”
Removing the smile on his face, Woo Jooin replied shortly. This was somewhat unexpected since Yi Ruda thought he would stall for more time.
Blinking, Yi Ruda asked, “What is it?”
“You know ‘Reed System,’ the globally renowned security company, right?”
Yi Ruda’s face stiffened after hearing the name that suddenly came out from Woo Jooin’s mouth. The air around them froze with a noise. A silence that suddenly poured out began to prevail throughout the whole space. ‘How could he…’ Yi Ruda murmured to himself.
Reed Company mainly worked to guard high-profile figures rather than working on a security system; therefore, neither the company nor Yi Ruda’s face was well-known to the public. That was why Yi Ruda wondered how Woo Jooin came across such sensitive information. While he grimaced, Woo Jooin just grinned leisurely alone. He continued with a swiveling smile.
“I could see the answer from your face.”
“Did my mom send you?”
“Come on… People get me wrong sometimes because of my eyes and hair color, but I’m 100% Korean. How can I know who your mother is if she’s busy running a company in the States?”
Yi Ruda then closed his lips with a face full of discomfort. Woo Jooin kept on his words with a smile, regardless.
“The men in black chasing you all had equipment from Reed, and your father’s name is Ian Reed. I also browsed other things too. Every piece of information I’ve collected pointed out that you are the only heir of Reed System.”
He didn’t say anything about how he was only half guessing. Woo Jooin never saw Ian Reed, Yi Ruda’s father, so there was a massive chance of him being wrong, but he deftly deceived Yi Ruda. ‘Well, once I get the answer, that’s all I ever need,’ Woo Jooin thought without pressure.
Yi Ruda gazed at Woo Jooin for quite a while absent-mindedly; however, at the next moment, he stood up straight before putting a smile on his face. He also was brilliant in controlling his emotions.
“So?” Yi Ruda asked with a grin.
“I told you, we need your help for Donnie.”
“What does it have to do with me being the heir of Reed System and helping her?”
Yi Ruda’s question made Woo Jooin flash a grin. It looked somewhat different from the naïve smile he usually had. The lights from the tilted sunset shed red shades on his face.
Woo Jooin crossed his arms as he separated himself from the windowsill before bending his upper body forward.
“Do you know Ban Yeo Ryung?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“What about the recent rumor? You know, the haters’ club or something like that.”
“I know about it,” Yi Ruda answered nonchalantly.
His tone already turned flat and tepid since he was revealed as the heir of Reed System. Woo Jooin spoke to him while smiling mischievously.
“We found out the owner of the ID who created Yeo Ryung’s haters’ club.”
“Found it? How?”
“That’s not the point now, is it?” Woo Jooin shrugged.
“Well, it matters since it relates to who actually made the haters’ club on the web. If you took an uncertain way to approach that, then do you think that the kids will believe it?”
“I have my ways of handling things reliably, so there’s no need for you to worry about it.”
‘Hmm…’ Yi Ruda narrowed his eyes before crossing his arms. Now, both were facing each other with crossed arms inside a dark classroom.
A red light entered through the piled desks and chairs in the corner. The summer afternoon still had sunset crawling over from the window, but the air within seemed rigor. They both knew why.
Yi Ruda didn’t continue his words but stayed silent. It was, eventually, Woo Jooin, who broke the ice. He smiled and spoke to him as if he lost the quiet game.
“Cool, so you want me to tell you everything to gain your assistance, right? Got it.”
Instead of an actual response, Yi Ruda just perked the corners of his lips upwards slightly to hint a smile.
Woo Jooin kept on, “We hacked the site and scraped for the user’s personal info from the database. Since it was someone unexpected, we searched his email and cafés to know more about him.”
“You guys hacked the nation’s number one portal site just to catch a girl who spread false rumors and made a haters’ café?”
Woo Jooin replied with a smile, “As soon as the people knew about the existence of that haters’ café, bad rumors would spread about Donnie. Do you know what this means?”
“…”
“The person exposed his or her existence while accepting the risk. Based on the rumors so far, what the person wants is obvious: giving Donnie a bad name and isolating her, so she can’t get closer to Ban Yeo Ryung or the Four Heavenly Kings. The person did this by showing the presence of the haters’ café. Do you really think that this will be the end? That is why I called you. There are more things to come.”
