Chapter 4: Congratulations, My Divorce Is Trending

Jin-yeop stared at the commercial as if possessed, doubting his own eyes.

It was because he knew this advertisement all too well.

At the same time, it was also his sworn enemy.

Because it was that very matchmaking agency, Gaae, that had matched him with Kang Jung-hoon.

“Those crazy bastards are inserting their own ad here?”

A couple they had arranged and married off was now facing a breakup, yet they were placing a commercial in the middle of the coverage?

He wondered if they were in their right minds.

This was truly noise marketing.

It was incomprehensible unless they had gone completely mad for money.

Until recently, Gaae had even run extensive advertisements touting Jung-hoon and Jin-yeop as a fated couple who had tied the knot through their company.

Of course, it wasn’t done without conditions.

Gaae had covered all wedding and honeymoon expenses in exchange for that advertisement.

But still, that was that, and this was this.

In the end, it wasn’t fate at all, and the fact that their unharmonious marriage had been packaged as sweet and used as a marketing tool was already infuriating enough, but now they were using the divorce too?

It was absurd.

No matter how much one loved money, how dare they plaster such an ad on a broadcast about a divorce press conference?

Was that any way for a human to act?

Jin-yeop wanted to immediately call Gaae and unload on them, asking if they couldn’t tell when to run an ad and when not to, and if their heads were just for decoration.

But at that moment, a brilliant idea flashed through Jin-yeop’s mind.

“…No.

Not like that.”

Muttering, Jin-yeop immediately dialed the company number displayed on the screen.

Instead of a ringtone, the same god-awful CM song that had just been playing flowed out, followed by the voice of an operator.

– Yes, this is Gaae, Guide-Esper matchmaking agency.

How may I help you?

***

“Did you really come all the way here dressed like that?”

The Director let out a deep sigh as he looked at Jin-yeop, who was wearing shabby black tracksuit.

Unfazed, Jin-yeop took the cup of coffee a secretary approached to hand him and gave a slight nod.

“Director-nim, you’ve aged a lot since I last saw you.”

“You crazy…

Whose fault do you think that is!”

“You’re saying it’s my fault?”

“…What’s with you?

Did you take some pills?”

Flustered by Jin-yeop’s tone, which anyone would describe as incredibly cheeky, the Director scrutinized Jin-yeop’s complexion as if he’d seen a ghost.

Director Im, the head of the agency Vibes where Jin-yeop belonged, found the Jin-yeop who had suddenly shown up to be extremely unfamiliar.

In fact, Director Im had felt a strange sense of unfamiliarity even that morning when he first saw the problematic restaurant video that was shaking up the internet world.

Because the Cha Jin-yeop that Director Im knew was never this kind of person.

After coming to the office, Director Im watched the video over and over until just before Kang Jung-hoon held his bizarre press conference.

He wondered if it might have been fabricated.

But given the numerous witnesses appearing, the video was definitely not fake.

Honestly, if he bent over backwards, he could understand Jin-yeop doing something like that in a fit of anger.

But seeing Jin-yeop now, sitting in front of him with his legs crossed and toes wiggling, an indescribable feeling washed over him.

All day, Jin-yeop hadn’t answered his phone, so Director Im had been plagued by all sorts of thoughts: ‘What if he did something drastic?’ ‘What if he’s crying his eyes out because he doesn’t know how to handle this and calls?’

And now, in the midst of all this attention, Jin-yeop shows up at the office dressed like he’s just going for a neighborhood stroll.

Director Im’s feelings were beyond just being dumbfounded.

‘Has he done drugs?

Or has that bastard really lost his mind?’

Director Im’s lower lip trembled as he asked Jin-yeop.

“Have you lost it?

Is it too hard for you?

Sh-should we go to the hospital first?”

Seeing Director Im’s shaken gaze, Jin-yeop snorted.

It wasn’t like he could say no, so he kept his mouth firmly shut, and Director Im’s anxiety became visibly undeniable.

But Jin-yeop had no response because he had indeed lost his mind.

Having endured a long time that neither Director Im nor even Kang Jung-hoon knew about, he had become a completely different person.

They say mountains and rivers change in ten years.

Repeating the act of pouring water into a bottomless pot for ten years straight wasn’t something you could do without going insane.

Even after witnessing the Director’s anxiety, Jin-yeop calmly drank his coffee.

Soon, he lightly placed the cup on the table, leaned back into the sofa, and spoke.

“Kang Jung-hoon says he won’t sign the uncontested divorce papers.”

“Things have come to this state, and you think he’d just sign and file them nicely?

The whole world is talking, calling you trash!

Now that you’ve been irrevocably branded the guilty party, wouldn’t he want to squeeze out every last won of alimony?”

Director Im suppressed his anger, which was piled up and ready to explode, and spat out quickly.

Seeing this, Jin-yeop’s eyes widened.

“Director-nim, you could be a rapper.”

“You crazy bastard, is that what you should be saying now!”

“Who says I’m the guilty party?”

“Who?

Who?

Do you want to go outside right now and do street interviews with me?

This bastard really…

What kind of pills did you take?

Please, let me in on it too.

What kind of amazing drug makes a person do a 180-degree turn and spout nonsense?”

“…..”

“Jin-yeop, these days medicine is so good that even if you take it, you don’t die easily.

Did you down a bunch of pills and lose your mind?

Is that why you’re acting like this?”

“I’ve never taken any pills, and I already know how to die easily, so it’s fine.”

“What?”

“The Hao side has hired a lawyer.

It’s not like that bastard hired a personal lawyer just for this petty divorce; seems like the agency itself provided one.

They told me to meet with them, each bringing our own lawyer.”

“…..”

“So I came to ask for your opinion, Director-nim.

If you don’t want to get entangled in this matter, I think it would be best to terminate my contract with the agency today.

I have no intention of dragging you, Director Im—no, Vibes—into this.”

“Now this sounds sane again…”

When he was spouting nonsense left and right, it was one thing, but now this was fairly sensible and seemed sane.

However, the strange aura emanating from Jin-yeop itself was so different from before that Director Im found it impossible to gauge what he was thinking.

“Is this the kind of thing that can be solved by hiring a personal lawyer?”

“That remains to be seen.

With all the attention focused on this, if the two of us bring our respective agencies and go to court, all sorts of stories will pour out.

Whether we want it or not, Vibes’ name will be dragged through the mud throughout the lawsuit.”

Although Jin-yeop wasn’t actively doing anything right now, before his marriage, he had been Vibes’ flagship Esper.

Fifteen years had passed since the world changed.

In that time, only four S-class Awakeners had appeared in Korea, counting both Espers and Guides.

Among them, the number of S-class Espers was two.

Due to their characteristics, even with a Guide, guiding them wasn’t easy, making it impossible for them to participate in every dungeon raid.

It was said that unless it was a disaster-level S-class dungeon or a special case of an A-class dungeon, it was hard to even see their faces.

Moreover, one S-class Esper and one S-class Guide were affiliated with the Dungeon Management Department of the Special Disaster Agency, making voluntary participation in dungeon raids difficult unless they were dispatched.

One S-class Esper who could be considered relatively free to participate in dungeon raids was Lee Ah-sung, the head of the top-ranking agency, Baekdu.

And the last S-class Guide was his wife.

With so few S-classes, the treatment of A-classes was bound to be good.

Because the highest grade that could practically clear dungeons was A-class.

As long as the matching rate was decent, two or three C-class Guides could guide an A-class Esper, so most agency heads, except for Baekdu, were A-class Awakeners themselves.

In other words, if Cha Jin-yeop had been a little less foolish and had only been ambitious, it wouldn’t have been strange at all for him to own an agency by now.

“You know that even if you’re an A-class Esper, acting like this will make things difficult, right?

Of course, you wouldn’t lack work… but honestly, it’s not good to become known as a person with character issues while doing things that get people talking even when you keep quiet.”

“Having experienced it, I’ve learned that being excessively kind isn’t all that great either.”

“…..”

“Me giving you, Director Im, a chance to choose right now will probably be the last kind act of my life.

I won’t do things like that from now on.”

“So you’re saying you’re going to go all out in the end.”

Director Im groaned and pressed his hand to his forehead.

If he wanted to keep Jin-yeop in the agency, he absolutely had to prove his innocence.

With Cha Jin-yeop now clearly pointed out as the perpetrator, simply keeping him in the agency was itself worthy of criticism.

Of course, Jin-yeop was someone worth keeping, even bearing that loss.

Even if Jin-yeop ended up paying a huge alimony to Jung-hoon and being branded a ‘home-wrecker’ in this era where Awakeners were practically celebrities.

Because ultimately, Espers and celebrities were different.

A controversial celebrity could somehow be replaced by someone else, but not an Esper.

Their job was to save people’s lives.

No matter how rotten and broken one’s character was, they were absolutely necessary to stabilize dungeons.

Although the Cha Jin-yeop that Director Im knew wasn’t someone who understood this.

In the past, Director Im had proposed recruiting Jin-yeop not because he was A-class, but simply because of his character.

Because watching him made him feel anxious and worried.

Among the A-classes, who were confident to the point of being arrogant, Jin-yeop was the biggest pushover.

Not only could he not even properly claim his own share, but he didn’t even know his own worth.

It was an open secret that the agency Jin-yeop was in before transferring to Vibes had been exploiting him.

‘That’s how he used to be…

What on earth happened after marriage to make his eyes so full of venom…’

Like a cicada molting late, Jin-yeop now seemed to Director Im like a true A-class Esper, reborn, having finally shed his pre-awakening self.

“To deal with Hao, you’d need a agency at least the size of Vibes.”

“…..”

“You wouldn’t be planning to hire a personal lawyer without any sort of plan, would you?

Right?”