Chapter 4: The Sweet Potato Finally Leaves

“What? Senior, what do you mean you’ll never appear again? Where are you going?”

Apparently, this sweet potato had no intention of putting an end to this terrible relationship.
He just had to keep dragging the conversation out.
No, a criminal who had kidnapped you was saying he was going to leave, and instead of telling him to get lost as fast as possible, he was asking where he was going…
At this point, the protagonist was starting to get on my nerves.
No matter how beautiful he was, being this frustratingly dense and completely oblivious was a bit much…
And besides, you’re not even a rich heir yet.
If this sweet potato had been a rich heir as well as a beautiful, hopelessly dense idiot, I might have found him a little more appealing, but this body was already a rich heir anyway.
So shoo, shoo.
As long as this body was born with a silver spoon in its mouth, I had no reason to be attached to the sweet potato.

“Ha-min, what I did to you may have been ‘drunken behavior,’ but a crime is still a crime.
And even though you kept asking me to let you go, I still locked you up.
This is a situation where even apologizing to you and disappearing right now wouldn’t be enough.
Do you understand?
You’re the victim, and I’m the perpetrator.
Of course someone like me should leave.”

If I pretended to have tears welling up in my eyes, acted like I was drowning in guilt, and covered my face with my hand, that would make for the perfect criminal exit, right?

“No, Senior!
I’m fine.
So please don’t leave!”

No, I just want to leave because I want to leave.
You frustrating sweet potato.
He clung to my arm, insisting that he was fine, and that only made me more irritated.
Couldn’t we just end this already?
I felt like I was going to choke to death on sweet potatoes.
It was like eating a hundred sweet potatoes without a drop of water.

“No, Ha-min.
My sins can’t be washed away.
And if I stay, you might keep being reminded of the time you were imprisoned.
It’s better for me to leave.”

“B-but, Senior…”

“I’m telling you, it’s better for me to leave.
Okay?
Ha-min?”

“But still, Senior…
If you thought about it one more time…”

“Enough, Ha-min.
I’ve already made my decision.”

In the end, I cut him off firmly.
The protagonist’s head drooped.
If he’d had rabbit ears, they probably would have drooped right along with his head.

If I hadn’t spent all this time watching the sweet potato act so frustratingly dense, it would have been an unbearably cute sight.
But now I was reaching the limits of my patience.
And he’d actually managed to make me use the iron-gourd approach.
In another sense, the protagonist really was impressive.

“Senior, maybe you should think about it again…”

Agh!
Can’t you see you’re making my blood pressure rise right now?
I was so irritated I could die.
Stop arguing and just go home already!
Go!
At this point, I couldn’t even make my words sound nice anymore.

Then, fortunately, I heard a knock on the door.

“Young Master.
The car is ready.”

Wow!
Secretary Kim, you’re the best!
My savior!

“You heard him, right, Ha-min?
The driver is waiting.
Hurry up and go.”

“S-Senior…”

“Hurry.”

Only after I cut him off firmly several more times did the protagonist finally lift himself off the bed and stand up.
But even then, he moved unbelievably slowly.
Ah, seriously, this was driving me crazy.
Why was he hesitating so much?

The protagonist hesitated for a while before eventually stopping altogether.
Then he looked at me with pleading eyes…

“But…”

What now?
What do you mean, ‘but’?
At this point, I didn’t care how pretty he was.
The protagonist had spent the entire novel feeding me nothing but sweet potatoes, and now that he was physically moving around in front of me and forcing those sweet potatoes down my throat, he was driving me absolutely insane.
I officially hated you now!

“Ugh, fine, then.”

I gritted my teeth and said it.
If he didn’t leave right now, I felt like I was going to shove him out of this room myself.
Still, I forced myself to smile in an effort to maintain a good relationship until the very end.

Ah.
Wait…

“Hold on for a moment.”

Come to think of it, the protagonist was wearing nothing but an oversized boyfriend shirt and underwear.
Oh, my God.
And I had been getting annoyed at him for not leaving quickly without even realizing that.
I was being incredibly thoughtless.

I opened the wardrobe and looked through the clothes.
But there was a considerable difference in build between this lunatic and the protagonist, so the pants probably wouldn’t fit him anyway.
In the end, I pulled out a lightweight trench coat and walked over to the protagonist.

“Put this on, Ha-min.”

I smiled and held out the coat.
But the kid just stood there blankly again, so I eventually had to lift his arms and help him into the sleeves, tie the belt around his waist, and even straighten the collar for him.

Now I even had to dress him…
He really was a kid who required way too much work.
We really…
weren’t compatible at all, were we, sweet potato?

Maybe because the coat was too big, or maybe because the protagonist was too small, once the pumpkin sweet potato was fully dressed, the coat practically swallowed him whole.
His hands were barely visible, and only his pale ankles could be seen beneath the hem.
It was cute, too, but by now I just wanted him to leave as quickly as possible.
This kid was way too much trouble.

“Now hurry along.”

I squeezed out the very last of my patience, smiled, and sent him on his way.
I even waved goodbye.

Only then did the protagonist finally cross the threshold and follow Secretary Kim.
But even while heading out of the house, he kept looking back at me, hesitating.
In the end, I simply closed the bedroom door.

Once the door shut and the protagonist disappeared from my sight, I felt as though my entire field of vision had suddenly opened up.

‘Phew.
I finally feel like I can breathe.
I thought I was going to die from frustration.’

I felt like I had suddenly gulped down a refreshing glass of soda.
The moment I was free of the protagonist, I flopped down onto the bed.

At this point, I didn’t care about the plot, the poor grandmother, or anything else.
I didn’t want to do a single thing.

But then there was another knock on the bedroom door.

What?
Could the protagonist have come back?

I instantly panicked, shot upright, and sat on the edge of the bed.
I stared intently at the door.
For some reason, I suddenly felt tense.

‘Who is it?
Who is it?’

Maybe because I didn’t respond, the person outside knocked again.

“Young Master, it’s Secretary Kim.”

“Ahh…
Come in.”

Only then could I finally let out a relieved sigh.

As soon as I spoke, Secretary Kim quietly opened the door and entered.
Just in case, I looked behind him, but there was no one there.
I let out another sigh of relief.

“Phew…”

“I’ve just put Ha-min in the car and sent him on his way.”

“Ah, Secretary Kim, good work.
And tell the driver to take the longest possible route.
Have him stop by a department store on the way and buy Ha-min some clothes, some clothes for his grandmother, and plenty of groceries, then send everything over.”

“Yes, sir.
But I think Ha-min will refuse.”

“If he refuses, force them into his hands and send them with him.
Or just leave them in front of his house.
The only thing that matters is making the trip take as long as possible.”

Maybe it was because I was irritated, or maybe my irritation had short-circuited my brain and awakened this lunatic’s instincts again, but casual speech and downright rude words just kept spilling out toward Secretary Kim.

Yet Secretary Kim merely bowed his head and replied as though nothing had happened.

“Yes, understood.”

For a moment, I felt like a terrible villain for snapping at him.
Considering how much the original lunatic must have ignored and bossed Secretary Kim around…
This level of irritation was probably practically saintly by comparison.

“And we need to go see Ha-min’s grandmother right now, so have the car wait.
We need to arrive as quickly as possible and finish talking to her before Ha-min gets there.
Prepare a gift, like a fruit basket, and brief me on Ha-min’s grandmother’s current condition.”

“Yes.”

I glanced at Secretary Kim, wondering if I’d just ordered him to do far too many things far too quickly…

As expected of Secretary Kim, man of determination.
He was already making calls and taking care of everything without the slightest change in expression.

Wow.
Secretary Kim looked incredibly cool when he was working.
I really will make sure to send him on vacation, Secretary Kim!

I was deeply moved by Secretary Kim’s competence when he finished his call and looked at me, giving another small bow.

“The car is ready.
I’ll brief you on Ha-min while we’re on the way.
Shall we go, Young Master?”

A-already?

At this point, I was practically ready to worship Secretary Kim.
This was completely different from the pumpkin sweet potato’s sluggishness.
Such crisp, refreshing efficiency!
The sparkling coolness of soda!

Thanks to the capable Secretary Kim, I quickly got into the waiting car.
I didn’t know much about cars, but this one had to be ridiculously expensive too.
Even the feel of the seat and the smoothness of the ride were completely different from an ordinary taxi.

Some people didn’t even have enough money to buy a car, which was why they lived their entire lives without even getting a license…
The world of rich heirs was truly enviable.

‘If I didn’t know this was all just a dream, I could have enjoyed it so much more.
But instead, I’m cleaning up after the pumpkin sweet potato because I’m convinced I’m going to wake up eventually…’

As I enjoyed the luxurious feel of the car seat and thought about what an idiot I was for not knowing how to appreciate something when it was handed to me, Secretary Kim, sitting in the front, began his briefing.

“Ha-min’s grandmother is currently at home.
After looking into the matter, we found that she had been searching for Ha-min because she believed he had gone missing, and her health has deteriorated considerably as a result.
We were told that she has been unable to get out of bed since yesterday, so I’ve already sent one of our personal physicians to examine her.
If there are any problems, I’ll arrange for her to receive treatment at a hospital affiliated with our group.
As for the missing-person report concerning Ha-min, it was filed three days after he came to your residence, but it was dismissed as a simple runaway case.
Then, yesterday, after a full week had passed, another runaway report was filed.
However, since cases of high school students running away from home are fairly common, and we’ve taken separate measures, there’s no need for you to be overly concerned.”

So my body had kept Ha-min locked up for eleven whole days…

During that time, his grandmother had collapsed from worrying about her grandson…

And Secretary Kim, this kid’s captor was a complete lunatic, yet because he was a rich heir, he could even make reports disappear…

And if eleven days had already passed, the original lunatic probably would have been on the verge of doing something far worse to the pumpkin sweet potato.
Thank God.
I had escaped becoming a criminal.

Since the original lunatic had apparently treated the pumpkin sweet potato well during that time, it had all ended as nothing more than drunken behavior.
And fortunately, his grandmother hadn’t suffered anything truly serious yet.

‘Successfully escaped being a criminal!’

Thinking that, I felt completely relieved.

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