.
Honestly speaking, as I shook Ban Yeo Ryung to wake her up, I worked myself up to get her feet under her. Female protagonists usually had such a vulnerable state of mind, so as a friend of the heroine, I decided to play my role of bracing Ban Yeo Ryung, the female protagonist of this novel.
Law of the Web Novel, Article 23. When getting kidnapped, female protagonists become very confused and frightened. They say, the darker the night, the brighter the stars. That’s how the hero, who came to the rescue, looks completely radiant!
A delicate, fragile princess just waiting to be saved seems quite out of fashion; however, as far as I’ve been through, the style of this author is certainly too old-fashioned. With that said, here is Ban Yeo Ryung’s reaction that I guessed earlier.
‘What’s going on here, Donnie? Are we able to get back home? I… I’m so scared…’
‘Please don’t cry, Yeo Ryung. Jiho will come to save you.’
‘Really? But this place is so dangerous.’
‘He will because Jiho… likes you.”
And how did it turn out in reality?
‘I’m gonna fold your spine like a flip phone.’
‘Hmm… indeed,’ I murmured. Eun Jiho and Ban Yeo Ryung didn’t have something deeper than friendship; besides, it was my big mistake to expect fragility from the superb Yeo Ryung.
From earlier, she had already cried out to me in the car, ‘I’ll gain time for you to run away!’ When thinking about those reactions of her, I couldn’t deny that I came up with the heroine in martial arts novels, my father’s favorite, instead of a female lead in romance stories.
While I was lost in those thoughts, Ban Yeo Ryung seemed to recover her vision. Glancing around with clearer-looking eyes, she then turned her head in my direction and flaunted a smile. It made me feel a different kind of horror than the one I had before.
If a roaring tiger suddenly acts charming while rubbing its cheek on its neck, will it feel the same as this?
Wouldn’t Ban Yeo Ryung be a hundred or thousand times scarier than the kidnapper who would show up later? Thus, shouldn’t we be concerned about them rather than us?
That was when I seriously wondered if the balance of this novel was on the right track.
Speak of the devil and he shall appear––just like the phrase, a vrooming sound flew over the thick warehouse wall.
Ban Yeo Ryung and I turned to look in the direction simultaneously as if we burned ourselves on fire. A yellow light, which appeared to be the headlights of the car, was pouring through the gap in the loose warehouse door.
Still, I wasn’t afraid of them. What I just feared was Ban Yeo Ryung’s unpredictable behavior, which could be suddenly jumping into the kidnappers to bite off the nape of their necks.
What if she really kills them then? When considering about Ban Yeo Ryung’s marvelous athletic and physical ability, that was able to happen by chance. ‘I must stop such a thing taking place!’ With that thought in mind, I went on my knees toward her and sat right beside Ban Yeo Ryung.
Her face, which was directed on me, however, turned strange. It looked as though she was misunderstanding my moves.
“Donnie,” she called me calmly. Her attitude was so different that I wondered if she was the same person who roared at the kidnappers earlier.
“Huh?”
“Everything’s gonna be fine.”
When her solemn voice resonated in the air, I, at last, turned my head to the side. Ban Yeo Ryung’s eyes, which were on me, looked surprisingly serious. Only then did I realize that she was comforting me.
“Um, I am okay,” I replied with an awkward smile.
Nothing mattered to me. Everything was okay. As I mentioned a few times before, as long as I kept hanging with the female protagonist, I really reckoned on getting kidnapped some day; besides, I had in mind that this novel was––probably––rated G.
We would definitely be rescued, and I didn’t even think the end of this kidnapping case would be tragic. Honestly, I was a bit freaked out by our hands being tied behind the back and being abducted at a closed warehouse in a remote area. The fear I had from those facts, however, just flew away after Ban Yeo Ryung’s remark.
‘She would feel different though…’ I murmured, ‘Ban Yeo Ryung doesn’t know that we’re in a world of web novel…’
I diverted my eyes back onto her. She was talking in a calm voice.
“You can lean on me.”
At that moment, I heard a car pulling over outside and footsteps coming out from it. The number of people was undetectable, but I knew that it wasn’t just two or three people. And all of a sudden, the footsteps approached the warehouse door.
There was a stained atmosphere around the space. Hunching my shoulders instinctively, I switched my gaze to Ban Yeo Ryung.
“What about you…?”
“Huh?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
Answering shortly, she was, surprisingly, smiling somehow.
I hesitated for a second then replied, “Really? Are you sure?”
“Of course. What will I be afraid of? I’m athletic, and my brother taught me several judo skills to use to strangers approaching me.”
‘I don’t think those have anything to do with this situation, and you… won’t you end up going to jail when attempting to do such things?’ I thought. Her hilarious remark, however, took the edge off my nerves.
Besides, nothing could be solved by being anxious. Above all, as long as this situation was taking place as an episode in a web novel, I did not doubt that things would go on as I had guessed. Even Yeo Ryung, who had no idea that this was happening inside a novel, was behaving so brave that I was ashamed to feel nervous. That was when I shrugged my stiff shoulders with those thoughts in my head.
Throwing a glance behind Ban Yeo Ryung unconsciously, I stopped talking. Her fingertips were trembling hard.
It felt like getting hit by a blunt weapon on the back of my head.
‘Of course, she is…’ I said to myself.
Yeo Ryung’s both hands were tied just like mine. It was clear that she would not be able to use even her confident judo skills properly. Just like me, she was feeling powerless.
Ban Yeo Ryung didn’t seem to know that I had noticed the tremors in her hands. In other words, she was up against a wall to observe the look on my face. She then continued with a smile.
“Donnie, you aren’t that athletic, so just stay right here. I’ll knock them down for you.”
“…”
“Donnie, do you hear me? Donnie??”
Repeating those words, Yeo Ryung then looked behind her and gave an uneasy laugh. Turning around from me, she replied, “No, it’s not what you think. I’m really fine.”
She still didn’t look frightened, but her face was slightly covered with a veil of bewilderment since her acting wasn’t working. As I became speechless, she continued her words again.
“Um, Donnie?”
“Yeah?” I barely responded with a very suppressed voice.
“This is just… my hands are numb… ever since I opened my eyes.”
“The rope on your hands… it ain’t that tight.”
My hands weren’t also that tightly tied to the rope; however, it wasn’t that loose too. Yeo Ryung then bit her lips without saying anything for a while.
Looking at her face at a loss of words, I said to myself, ‘Why? Just say that you’re not okay.’
As if soothing a child, Ban Yeo Ryung told me repeatedly that she was fine. What suddenly overlapped on that face was none other than the look of Eun Hyung that day.
Back then, when I almost got hit by a car in front of him… his torn coat hems that got swept off the road… and his rarely disheveled look…
Right, I once happened to almost die in front of him; however, that incident didn’t leave me any big impact.
After it happened, I still used my phone carelessly in front of the crosswalk; when I saw a dump truck passing me by, I did nothing but just slightly stepped aside. I never freaked out upon that incident coming up in my head.
It was rather Eun Hyung who struck dumb at that accident. Whenever a dump truck passed by me, he studied my face to see if I was okay. Sometimes he pulled me back behind the pedestrians even though I was staying behind the safety line.
It was enough to annoy me that I even asked him, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Regardless of myself acting unusually irritated at him, Eun Hyung couldn’t stop to do so. Well, that incident was in my expected range, but unlike me, it wasn’t for Eun Hyung.
When I was wearing a solid armor named ‘fiction’ between myself and the real world, Eun Hyung and Yeo Ryung were, however, in a defenseless state. In short, when something happened, it wasn’t me but them who got more shocked.
