Chapter 311

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Sinking his head on his chest, Lucas continued, “I’d be lying if I didn’t care about the successor position; however, I didn’t want to fight with you more than that.”

“Then…”

“If you didn’t want to become the successor, you could have just surrendered at the fight that was supposed to take place the next day, but that wasn’t even allowed to you since you’re Yi Jenny’s only son. Like a lion, she’s a person who can push her child over a cliff for training her kid to become physically and mentally strong. Everyone knew that fact.”

While Ruda fastened her gaze at the floor in silence, Lucas heaved a sigh at a slow pace and spoke further.

“However, I couldn’t declare surrender too. You would definitely get injured by fighting against other kids after me. Thus, what I thought was…”

Yi Ruda, who remained silent until that moment, blurted a remark. His words were daunted like a paper plane and dropped to the floor.

“Disqualify me for cheating.”

Lucas replied without hesitance, “Yeah.”

“…”

“I never had in mind that Yi Jenny would consider nastiness and cool-headedness as key requirements for a successor. I thought she would place a premium, at least, on honesty. That was my mistake.”

Geez… Even I, who had nothing to do with this story, was listening to their conversations while holding my breath. That suffocating story finished, at last. The truth of the case became clear in the end.

I recalled Yi Jenny’s confident attitude. She might have considered that Ruda would be cold as hell, which was why Ruda was a perfect fit for her successor.

Just as what she had been thinking, cold-heartedness was one of Ruda’s strong natures; however, that only applied to the people out of Ruda’s league.

With those thoughts in mind, I stared at Ruda’s face. She looked a little different now. Her face was showing a sign of relief and slight resentment at the same time. Watching the look on her face, I suddenly flung a question.

“Um… excuse me?”

“Huh?”

Lucas switched his gaze to me. Hesitating for a second, I asked, “Earlier, why didn’t you say anything about this in front of Yi Jenny?”

With a shrug, Lucas replied nonchalantly, “Yi Jenny was aware that I was aiming at her successor position. Thus, even if I reveal the truth now, she won’t be paying attention to it, will she?”

“Oh…”

“So, I tried to pretend that I was blaming her. That would make her trust me then.”

Speaking that way, Lucas turned his head to look at Ruda.

“… That I would betray Ruda.”

At that moment, Ruda, who was staring at Lucas with relief for quite a while, opened her lips that she bit until just now.

She then jumped into him and took Lucas’ clothes off from his flank. I shoved my face onto my palms in surprise while thinking, ‘What the heck is she doing although they are close?!’

Lucas was also struck dumb. He shouted in bewilderment, “What… what’s wrong with you?! I told you I’m sorry!”

Regardless of Lucas’s cry out, Ruda pointed at his long scar around his flank and yelled, “How could you stab yourself this deep, idiot?! You might have bled insanely!”

Well, even though ten years had passed from that incident, the scar across Lucas’ side and stomach still looked very painful. It might have been worse a decade ago. In order to look persuasive upon Yi Jenny, Lucas would have stabbed himself with all his soul and might.

Being slightly appalled at Ruda’s assumption, Lucas replied, “No, it was tolerable. Who do you think I am? I was one of the front-runners among the successor candidates.”

“But that doesn’t mean it isn’t painful.”

What Ruda said while pulling Lucas’ clothes made me have a stiff heart.

Lucas, who pretended to make an excuse, stopped doing such a thing. Displaying a severe look on his face, Lucas soon flaunted a smile. He then lifted his hand to pat Ruda’s head. Ruda didn’t avoid his hand. Instead, she came closer to Lucas and buried her head on his shoulder.

Watching the two facing each other in that way, I thought, ‘I was told that the two were like close brothers. That was true.’

No, Lucas was thinking Ruda more than just a little brother.

After a moment of realizing their brotherhoods, Ruda seemed to make up his mind once Lucas revealed the truth of the incident, which happened a decade ago, and his intention.

Taking her head off from Lucas’ shoulder, Ruda turned her body immediately and asked, “Where should we go? To the rooftop?”

Lucas also turned nonchalant again and replied in a clear voice, “Yeah. I was about to drive the helicopter, but I heard from Donnie that you can also drive the chopper. Should I check out my little brother’s driving skill then?”

Ruda frowned at Lucas’ naughty remark. She then turned around to look at me. Eh? Although I didn’t do anything wrong, I flinched in astonishment.

I asked, “Why?”

“Heard from ‘Donnie…’ Is that what you just said?”

“… Oh, was it a secret that you can drive the helicopter?” I carefully asked Ruda. She shook her head and directed her eyes back onto Lucas. What she spoke after with a grimace made me have a fit of coughing.

“When did you two become that close?”

Ay-yay-yay… Ever since I entered this building, urgent situations kept occurring that I forgot something quite critical. I realized what it was just now.

The ‘heart-looter,’ it was the term that Lucas used to describe Ruda.

Perhaps Lucas and Ruda were more than just brothers or friends. I should have noticed it when Ruda lifted Lucas’ clothes to check out the scar on his flank without the slightest compunction!

That was when Lucas waved his hand in the air and denied clearly, “Oh, that’s because I wasn’t used to Korean culture. Are you jealous, Ru…”

“Stop that bullshit!” With an immediately reddened face, Ruda shrieked. She then turned her head and read my countenance.

‘Come on, you don’t have to show concerns but just do whatever you want to do with Lucas…’ I wondered quite a while whether I should drop these words or not.

Once I entered the world of web novel, I prepared for viewing a romantic sequence during an abduction scene or escaping scene; besides, didn’t Lucas say that Ruda stole his heart?

“…”

However, now I had come to think of it, this story wasn’t an episode in ‘Tales of Zara.’ Thus, why would Ruda loot his heart? Anyway, if that was what had been going between the two, what else I could do? Turning my head as if nothing had happened, I heard Lucas’ words.

“Um, hold on. If we leave the room like this, we’re gonna get caught right away, so change into this outfit. I did incapacitate the surveillance cameras, but the employees will still keep their eyes on us.”

“Huh?”

So, that was why Lucas had been typing something on his laptop earlier. Having that thought in my head, I looked at what Lucas handed out to me. It was the uniform, which would probably belong to the employees of this building.

The clothes were sealed inside a compression bag like wrapped meats. There wasn’t anything sharp inside the room, so we used our teeth to barely take the clothes out from the pack.

Lucas said to me, “We’re gonna change our clothes here, so you can go use the bathroom.”

“Um, okay.”

I thought he was considerate about my gender; however, I soon felt something weird. Squinting my eyes, I turned my head back again and met Ruda’s eyes. She blinked swiftly in wonder and asked me, “Why?”

As if something flashed through her head, Ruda’s neck turned red. Shaking her head, she uttered, “No, I will never ever look at you. I promise I won’t peep into the bathroom.”

“Um, that’s not what I was thinking at all…”

“Not even through the keyhole…”

Oh, lord. What was he thinking about me? Apart from my trust in Ruda, why would she peek at me?

I just wondered why Yi Ruda wasn’t following me to the bathroom. Was she so close to Lucas that they didn’t care about changing clothes together? If that was the reason, there would be no problem. Rambling such thoughts, I bent my steps toward the bathroom.

Inside the bathroom decorated with purple tiles and gold adornments, there was something manipulative like a film set of a thriller movie; however, it still looked cool somehow. Aside from that, the size of the bathroom was equivalent to my room. Feeling a little ashamed for a moment, I changed into the new outfit.

As if Lucas got the uniforms at the last minute, it didn’t fit me at all, so I had to roll up the pant cuffs as much as possible. After a while, the tip of the pant cuffs turned big that it looked like bell-bottoms. Well, I broke into a security service building and was bulldozing an escape plan; therefore, I should bear this kind of stuff. Heaving a sigh, I opened the door without a second thought.