WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The S-Classes That I Raised ◈
Chapter 27: OFF (3)
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“Han Yujin?”
Kim Seonghan looked worriedly at the man across the table.
The wineglass that had slipped from Han Yujin’s hand rolled across the table before catching against a plate. Spilled alcohol dripped beneath the table.
“Are you all right?”
Han Yujin gave a small shake of his head, then let out a deep sigh.
“Kim Seonghan.”
He raised his head after sighing repeatedly. His half-lidded eyes and flushed skin made it obvious that he was thoroughly drunk.
“You seem quite drunk. Let’s get going.”
“No, wait a moment.”
Han Yujin waved his hand back and forth.
His pronunciation was too precise and his voice too clear for someone drunk, leaving Kim Seonghan briefly confused. Was he really drunk?
“There’s still something I need to do.”
“Something you need to do?”
“Yes. I don’t want to, but... I have no choice. Ah, seriously, why this, this kind of...”
Han Yujin muttered something under his breath before rubbing his dry face with both hands. He looked so genuinely unwilling that Kim Seonghan found himself wondering just what he intended to do.
“If you tell me about it, I may be able to help.”
“Help... Hmm, no. Just sit still, please. Don’t laugh. And don’t treat me like I’m insane. Just sit there with your usual stern expression... Yes.”
Then he let out another series of heavy sighs, as if the ground might cave in beneath him.
Looking as though he might burst into tears, Han Yujin took ice from the pitcher and rubbed it against his burning cheek. He seemed to be trying to sober himself up.
“This really isn’t how I truly feel, Kim Seonghan.”
“Yes.”
“But if you’re all right with it, could you listen seriously? I really don’t want to do this. But I think I have to say it now, while I have the chance.”
“Go ahead.”
Kim Seonghan unconsciously straightened his posture. Han Yujin certainly seemed drunk, but he was speaking far too coherently for this to be mere drunken rambling.
Could he really be about to reveal something important?
Over the last few days, Kim Seonghan had found Han Yujin to be a man with many secrets. If not for the certain fact that he was the Haeyeon Guildmaster’s older brother, Kim Seonghan might have questioned his identity. He knew too much and acted too skillfully for someone who had only just registered as an Awakened.
That was why, now that alcohol had stripped away his caution, Kim Seonghan could not help but listen closely when Han Yujin said there was something he had to say.
“Kim Seonghan.”
“Yes.”
Han Yujin’s lips trembled slightly. After hesitating, he finally voiced his true feelings.
“I love you.”
“...What?”
Kim Seonghan asked with the most foolish expression he had worn in his thirty-odd years of life. The words that had struck his eardrums seemed unable to reach his brain, circling pointlessly around him instead.
Then a burst of emotions followed, as varied as fireworks.
He was flustered, dumbfounded, and amused. His expectations collapsed, leaving him empty, but at the same time, he felt an oddly human fondness at the thought that even this man could not help himself when drunk.
Overall, it was not bad.
No, it was rather entertaining.
“So confessing really was drunken rambling.”
Kim Seonghan said, swallowing the laughter that belatedly threatened to escape.
“If that was what you needed to do, you’ve done it. Let’s go home now.”
“What I needed to do? Ah, right.”
Han Yujin rubbed his face again.
“Did I perhaps say I loved you?”
His serious question finally made Kim Seonghan laugh aloud. Clearing his throat, he nodded.
“You did.”
“Really? This is insane. No, that outburst wasn’t aimed at you, Seonghan. But did I say I loved you?”
“Yes.”
“Really? But why... Ah, there it is. When did that happen?”
After saying something incomprehensible, Han Yujin gave a hollow laugh.
As Kim Seonghan watched him, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
This was the first time they had shared drinks. It was definitely the first time, yet somehow it did not feel unfamiliar. He felt as though he had seen Han Yujin drunk like this somewhere before.
No, he had definitely seen it.
Kim Seonghan searched through his memories. It was not a particularly old memory. He had seen it about two years ago. He had seen it even further back, when he was a child.
‘...Grandfather.’
The memory suddenly came to him, and Kim Seonghan drew in a quiet breath.
His grandfather.
A skinny old man who, after getting pleasantly drunk, would laugh and tell the grandson abandoned by his heartless son that he loved him.
He vividly remembered those wrinkled, wooden hands that rubbed his head and patted his back.
‘...He’s nearly ten years younger than me. Am I drunk too?’
It was such an absurd thought that he blamed it on alcohol, despite an A-Class Hunter having no reason to get drunk from ordinary liquor. To look at a youth in the prime of his life and think of a seventy-year-old man. There had to be limits to a mistake.
Yet that strange sense of dissonance soon vanished, as though erased by a powerful force.
Leaving behind only his deep feelings for the old man who had been such a wonderful guardian to him.
Of course, Han Yujin was not truly Kim Seonghan’s grandfather. He was someone else. Kim Seonghan knew that clearly.
But that did not matter.
What mattered was that he had found someone he could trust without reservation, someone he could think of now and then and lean on.
In a world where even blood relatives could not be easily trusted, the existence of someone who felt perfectly safe was inevitably tempting.
And the reason to resist that temptation had been removed.
Kim Seonghan smiled.
“You’re very drunk.”
He rose from his seat. Han Yujin blankly looked up at Kim Seonghan as he approached.
“...I’m sorry, but I need to say that I love you.”
“You already did.”
“Ah... I said it. I did? Damn it, that’s not what I meant...”
Kim Seonghan took hold of the drunkard’s arm and helped him to his feet as he continued rambling nonsense.
Surprisingly, Han Yujin walked without even a stumble. If not for his talk of love and his unfocused eyes, no one would have known he was drunk.
“I’m sorry. It isn’t as though I want to act like this.”
“It’s all right.”
“If it’s all right, then I’ll say just one more thing.”
Saying that it was only one more thing, Han Yujin seriously looked up at the man supporting him.
“I love you.”
Kim Seonghan had intended to laugh it off again.
But then he suddenly remembered that, after growing up and becoming a stiff person who cared about appearances, he had always let the old man’s drunken rambling pass without a response.
“...Me too.”
So he spoke words he had not uttered since his teens.
“I loved you too.”
Grandfather.
* * *
...It felt as though my head had split open. As though some crazy bastard had shoved a hand through the crack and was gleefully smack, smack pounding on my brain.
My head throbbed and ached badly enough for such nonsense to come to mind. My head hurt.
My head. Damn it. What the hell happened before I fell asleep... Sleep... Damn it.
“Ugh, idiot, ah... Urgh... My head...”
I tried to sit up with a cry, then buried my face back in the pillow. I, I think I’m dying...
‘Right... I turned off the skill.’
This was insane. Why would a passive skill turn off? Though it was not like the system had ever said, This is a passive skill. People had just decided it was passive.
Still, it turned off. Ugh, I should turn it back on first.
‘Activate Poison Resistance.’
...What? No response.
‘Why isn’t it working? Poison Resistance ON. Can’t you hear me, system?’
The message window still did not appear. What was this? It had not been permanently disabled, had it? If so, I had done something truly idiotic.
‘Turn Poison Resistance back on. Poison Resistance ON!’
Turn on already...
[Poison Resistance (L) has been activated.]
As soon as the message window appeared, my headache vanished like magic. My body, which had felt as though several chunks of iron were piled on it, grew light as well. Wow, the skill effect was good. It even cured hangovers. As expected of a Legendary skill.
‘But do passive skills need to be said twice to turn them on and off?’
Was it some kind of safeguard? To check, I tried turning off Fear Resistance. I absolutely could not turn off Poison Resistance.
‘Deactivate Fear Resistance. Deactivate Fear Resistance.’
[Fear Resistance (L) has been canceled.]
Oh, it turned off. Why did the system not tell me things like this? Whoever made it was incredibly unhelpful. It should at least include an instruction manual now.
‘But yesterday... I didn’t say anything weird while I was completely drunk, did I?’
Once my mind cleared, worry suddenly struck me.
First, I was in my bedroom at the guild dormitory. And my clothes were... pajamas. Who changed me? Did I throw up?
I picked up the phone on the bedside table. A day had passed, and it was a little after ten in the morning.
Please let me have simply passed out quietly.
Praying, I opened my status window and checked My Kid Is the Best.
[My Kid Is the Best (L): Growth speed of a target influenced after hearing the Keyword +100%
Duration: 3 days
Can be used without the Keyword on targets already influenced
Cannot stack on the same target
Reuse cooldown for the same target: 30 days
Keyword: I love you
※ Cannot be applied if the target is aware of the Keyword’s effect
Fully influenced targets (4)
Han Yoohyun (S), Yu Myeongu (F), Park Yerim (S), Kim Seonghan (A)]
...Hahaha, insane.
Kim Seonghan was on there. Why was he on there? System error, right? Tell me it was an error.
‘...At least I apparently didn’t tell him about the skill.’
If I had spilled everything while drunk, the skill could not have been applied to Kim Seonghan. ...It wasn’t that it failed to apply retroactively or something, right? Please let me not have said anything stupid.
I sat up and turned on my phone again.
‘I need to check...’
I did not want to call him. I had said confessing my feelings was a drunken habit, but I had actually gone and said I loved him while drunk.
...I only said it once and stopped, right? I did not say anything unnecessary, right?
After swallowing dryly several times, I solemnly pressed the call button. It was fine. Nothing had happened. It was fine...
[Yes, this is Kim Seonghan.]
“H-Hello, Seonghan.”
My voice naturally came out thin and trembling. I would not have been this nervous even talking to my first love for the first time in ten years.
“Um, did I... go home quietly yesterday...?”
Please say yes.
A quiet laugh came through the phone. Fuck. I had a bad feeling about this.
[You were rather composed for someone who was drunk.]
“R-Really?”
Whew, what a relief...
[Other than telling me you loved me about thirty times.]
...Thirty ways to kill myself flashed through my mind.
Insane, what had I done? Could I not be sent back in time just once more? God, please. If only I could blast that drunken idiot away with a shotgun, I would ask for nothing else.
“I was... extremely... truly, extremely rude...”
I forced out the words. I was insane. Seriously insane. Han Yujin, you crazy bastard. Saying it once should have been enough, but thirty... Damn it.
The back of my neck burned. I was so embarrassed I could die. I already felt half dead.
“I’m truly sorry... I really, truly was not in my right mind. It must have been very unpleasant. I sincerely apologize.”
[It’s all right. It was not unpleasant at all.]
...Pardon?
My mind froze for a moment. W-Wait a minute. What did he mean, it had not been unpleasant? If it were me, I would have said, Fuck, this lunatic cannot even get drunk properly, and kicked him. Yet it had not been unpleasant at all?
...Was that his preference?
A chill ran down my spine. I would rather he got angry. Why was he saying it was all right? Please get angry. I wanted to hear him call me insane.
“U-Um... Even so, considering the place and everything... it could not have felt good...”
Kim Seonghan laughed. Do not laugh. You are giving me chills.
[If it had been someone else, I might have found it troublesome and unpleasant. But.]
But, but... But what?
Suppressing the urge to throw my phone away, I waited for what he would say next.
[Hmm, I know this may sound strange.]
...Should I throw it now? W-What was this strange thing he was going to say?
[For some reason, when I look at you, Han Yujin, I am reminded of my late grandfather.]
...What? What did you say? Your grandfather?!
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