The Tough Guy Hides the Villainess - Chapter 119



119 – Bread2 # 3

119 – Bread2 # 3

“Ice cream! I like the alien flavor the best!”

Little Baek Yeoul, Mibbang couldn’t just pass by the ice cream shop while walking down the street.

“Ice cream!”

“I like ice cream too, but not now!”

“Why! Why not now…!?”

Baek Yeoul, who had to enter the Great Labyrinth through the ‘Abandoned Entrance’ this evening, had no time for ice cream.

But Mibbang was relentless.

“Ice cream! Ice cream! Nymph is an alien!”

Mibbang shouted wildly on the main street.

Already drawing people’s attention with his tattered white coat, Mibbang’s tantrum made a few people start whispering.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?”

“They look like siblings.”

“Seems like the older sister doesn’t want to buy ice cream for the younger one.”

“Hey! Stop it already!”

Baek Yeoul, increasingly flustered.

In a situation where he unintentionally became a kidnapper of Mibbang, attracting people’s attention was not a good thing.

You never knew when or how the government agency might target Mibbang.

‘I’m neither a kidnapper nor her sister!’

Mibbang was herself.

For Baek Yeoul, it still didn’t feel real….

When she thought back to her own childhood, there were many similarities.

‘I never gave up until my mom, dad, or friends gave in to my demands. I even remember lying on the floor.’

Knowing her own childhood personality well, Baek Yeoul had no choice but to enter the ice cream shop.

When she split her meager allowance to buy a pint cup, Mibbang was delighted.

“I’ve always wanted to try this! I’m so excited to see if it tastes exactly like I imagined! Ice cream in Chinese characters is binggwa (氷菓)…!”

Mibbang wanted to taste the ice cream herself, not just rely on the information shared and conveyed by Baek Yeoul.

Walking down the street, she took a bite of the ice cream-.

It was so cold that her long pink hair stood on end.

“Cold han (寒)…! It’s colder than I imagined…! Delicious…!”

Kyarururu-.

Mibbang laughed as if she owned the world just by eating ice cream.

Aguagu-.

After finishing the whole tub of ice cream, Mibbang shouted.

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“More! Let’s go get more!”

“No!”

“Why not? Ice cream is delicious! You should eat it too! You’ve been eating too little ice cream! I liked it when you used to eat ice cream often, why do you eat less now?”

There was a time when Baek Yeoul, like Mippang, was small and ate ice cream as dessert with every meal.

That’s how much she liked ice cream.

She loved it because it was cold and sweet, just like winter snow.

However, as Baek Yeoul grew older, she ate less ice cream.

“…Is that what it means to become an adult?”

“I don’t know! Really don’t know!”

Mippang, who was confined in a tank and shared experiences and information with Baek Yeoul, couldn’t help but feel regretful.

Mippang couldn’t understand why adults ate less ice cream.

“Ice cream is delicious even if you eat it every day! Good! Also, we used to go to the zoo often to see the cute raccoons, but why don’t we go anymore? Why do we do boring studies and training every day!”

Mippang had many complaints about Baek Yeoul.

Baek Yeoul ate less delicious food, didn’t do fun things, and was only focused on boring training and studies.

From the perspective of Mippang, who was a reflection of young Baek Yeoul, Baek Yeoul was becoming a more and more boring person as she grew up.

“If it were me, I wouldn’t live like that! Studying and training are no fun!”

“What did you say? I’m living hard too! And even if it’s not fun, I have to train to be able to help Hanamjin!”

“…Baek Yeoul likes Hanamjin!”

Mippang also liked Hanamjin through the emotions she received from Baek Yeoul. However, because of that, Mippang couldn’t understand adult Baek Yeoul.

“If you like him, you should confess…! Why are you hesitating without saying anything…?”

“That’s… because adults have their reasons! What if I confess and fail? We won’t be able to go back to the way we were! It will be awkward since we have to see each other every day. And…”

Baek Yeoul was amazed to learn that Hanamjin had recently been incredibly successful and that he was actually the grandson of President Nam Taegon, so his family was very influential.

If she were to confess at such a time─.

“…Do you dislike it because it seems like they only fell for you because of your family background?”

“Exactly! That’s exactly what I think!”

“Puhehe, this Baek Yeoul knows Baek Yeoul’s thoughts well! But I still can’t understand why you hesitate and don’t confess if you like them…!”

Baek Yeoul looked at Mi Bbang, who was speaking with strange Chinese characters mixed in, and recalled her childhood.

Was she such an annoying little kid?

But everything was happy during those days.

She was close with Seo Ga-eul, and there was always something fun at school.

“But still, you never know if there will be a tomorrow in this world…! You have to live as if today is the last…! That is life…!”

For a little kid’s story, it had a lot of depth.

For Mi Bbang, today would be a brilliant moment that would never come again.

“Puhehe! This Baek Yeoul can help with Baek Yeoul’s love…!”

“You?”

“When defeating the ‘Red King,’ this Baek Yeoul can help Han Namjin…! But you have to promise one thing…! If this goes well, you have to confess without hesitation…!”

“Confess?”

Blush-.

Just imagining it made Bbangdae’s face heat up.

Mi Bbang puffed out her flat chest towards such a Bbangdae.

“Baek Yeoul’s happiness is Baek Yeoul’s happiness! If you’re happy, I’m happy! If you eat something delicious, I feel delicious too, and if you like it, I like it too! I am you, you are me!”

Could there be anything greater than helping Han Namjin with Mi Bbang’s help?

Mi Bbang possessed the concept called ‘Life,’ which was considered a top-tier concept.

If it is cherished at the national level, it must have great power and could help Hanamjin.

‘If this goes well, Hanamjin might look at me instead of Seo Ga-eul.’

It was when the house was getting closer and closer.

Mibbang, who had been walking along the white paint on the asphalt road, stretching out her thin arms and legs, began to dawdle.

Wasn’t Baek Yeoul just like that when she didn’t want to show her low-scoring report card to her mother and her steps home kept slowing down?

“I’ll wait here! Go and have a delicious dinner with mom and dad! And tell mom you love her! And dad too! Then Baek Yeoul will feel better too…”

Ah─.

Baek Yeoul understood why Mibbang was hesitating.

She could somewhat empathize with the feelings Mibbang was experiencing.

Mibbang seemed to miss her mom and dad. However, she seemed to know that she shouldn’t meet them.

Baek Yeoul’s mom and dad were also Mibbang’s mom and dad, but strictly speaking, mom and dad were not Mibbang’s parents.

‘Is it okay to show her to mom and dad? They would be surprised. I didn’t even know that mom was involved in the establishment of the underground laboratory.’

“Ugh, Baek Yeoul’s head is getting complicated too!”

The worries increased.

At that moment, Baek Yeoul thought of Hanamjin.

What would Hanamjin have done in this situation?

“Mibbang, let’s go.”

Baek Yeoul took Mibbang’s hand.

Then Mibbang was greatly flustered.

“To… mom and dad?”

“Yes! If it were Hanamjin, he would have done it that way! You miss Mom and Dad too! If you have something to say, say it yourself! You are me, but at the same time, you are not me.”

“If Mom and Dad hate me… this Baek Yeoul… is actually not a real person…”

“I don’t care about that!”

Baek Yeoul grabbed Mibbang’s hand and went into the house.

# # #

Seo Ga-eul, who had returned to the old house, finished her bath and changed into clean, refreshing clothes before leaning back on the sofa.

There had been many things today, and there were many more things to come.

“Puhuhu, it was cute.”

Seo Ga-eul laughed involuntarily as she thought of Mibbang.

Seo Ga-eul liked cute kids.

The reason Seo Ga-eul could quickly become close to Baek Yeoul was because young Baek Yeoul looked cute in young Seo Ga-eul’s eyes.

Like a raccoon or a red panda, a small and quirky creature.

Why did the relationship with Baek Yeoul go bad?

Seo Ga-eul had her own reasons.

Someday, it would be nice to tell Baek Yeoul about it, but—

It would probably be a burden she would carry alone for the rest of her life.

“Let’s focus on what needs to be done today.”

Sreung-!

Seo Ga-eul drew the sword “Maple” and checked the sharpness of the blade.

The red blade, like a well-ripened maple leaf, was a fierce sword.

“Defeat the ‘Red King’….”

As far as Seo Ga-eul knew, the Red King was the king of the fairies.

If Seo Ga-eul’s assumptions were correct, and the fairy princess Kore was Han Nam-jin’s mother, then the ‘Red King’ would be his maternal grandfather.

‘He doesn’t seem to know, though.’

Even the usually arrogant Han Nam-jin had things he didn’t know.

Seo Ga-eul found that fact quite amusing and felt good about it.

Since the kidnapping, she had always felt like she was playing in the palm of his hand, but now she felt like she had the upper hand.

But she couldn’t be entirely happy.

‘Is it okay to make him fight his own grandfather? It’s his family, after all.’

Family.

Seo Ga-eul thought of her mother.

Her mother, who suffered from an incurable disease and slept for long periods. To Seo Ga-eul, her mother was as beautiful as a princess.

But as time passed, her hair fell out and the dark circles under her eyes grew darker.

─My daughter, what did you learn at school today?

She always showed a kind face to Seo Ga-eul.

But Seo Ga-eul knew well that her mother writhed in pain every night.

─Seo Do-cheol, just kill me! It hurts too much! I can’t take it anymore…!

─Ha-yeon, just hold on a little longer. You said you wanted to live until Ga-eul got married.

─Ahhh, it feels like my whole body is on fire.

Every time that happened, Seo Ga-eul would cover her ears in her room and pray for a miracle.

Wishing for mom’s illness to be cured as if washed away-.

However, Seo Ga-eul’s “miracle” was a step too late.

So, Seo Ga-eul became twisted.

Though wounded, she pretended not to be, and though she wasn’t okay, she pretended to be.

She wasn’t a bad person, but she became one from that moment.

Swoosh-.

Seo Ga-eul looked at her reflection in the mirror.

Everything felt broken and malfunctioning.

And then, she was even kidnapped.

“Since I was kidnapped, my daily life has been ruined.”

No-.

In fact, it wasn’t like that.

“I was already broken long ago.”

Crack-!

Seo Ga-eul clenched her fist and shattered the mirror with all her might.

As if she didn’t like who she was now.

The mirror shattered into pieces.

Seo Ga-eul slowly turned her eyes away from the sight.

At that very moment-.

━There wasn’t much time left.

In the shattered mirror, like a spider’s web, several fragments reflected Seo Ga-eul’s moving lips.

His hair stood on end.

“What? Did the me in the mirror just speak?”

━Yes, because your “miracle” is becoming more like me. It didn’t take as long as I thought. When I reached that level, I was about twenty-two years old.

“Twenty-two? What? Who are you?”

Seo Ga-eul felt as if he were hearing and seeing hallucinations.

Some kind of trick?

While he was on guard, thinking such thoughts, the Seo Ga-eul in the mirror spoke.

━I am you. The future you. The one who chose Han Nam-jin.

“You chose Han Nam-jin?”

The reflection in the mirror uttered words he didn’t even know.

His face in the broken mirror was full of scars, and his expression was a bit more ruthless.

━Yes, I chose. You would have too. We must give him a chance to choose. A chance for him to atone and repent. But if Han Nam-jin doesn’t make the right choice…

Sreung-.

The blade of “Maple” reflected in the mirror shone unusually red.

━You must be prepared.