I Bought the Male Lead with Money

30.

Keith’s gaze, which had been directed at Yu Jin, suddenly turned to Jinhyeon. His cold green eyes filled with murderous intent. As soon as Yu Jin realized this, his body tensed with anxiety.

It felt like something could happen at any moment.

‘What should I do?’

How should he respond if Keith attacks Jinhyeon? The deliberation didn’t last long.

‘I’ll block it with my body.’

Yu Jin wasn’t confident he could avoid getting stabbed in a vital area. Since he didn’t know which parts were dangerous and which were less so, he was prepared to sacrifice an arm if necessary to block an attack. He wasn’t a swordsman, so he could probably live well enough even if he lost the use of one arm.

Just as he was thinking this, Keith raised both hands. However, what followed was different from Yu Jin’s expectations.

Covering his face with both hands and lowering his head, Keith’s shoulders trembled slightly. The faint sound that escaped seemed like crying.

‘No, it can’t be.’

Keith was really crying? Unsure if what he was seeing was real, Yu Jin looked at the others, but it seemed to be true. San, who had been sitting quietly eating snacks, had his mouth wide open, and Jinhyeon was smirking unpleasantly with one corner of his mouth raised.

It seemed that others were seeing the same scene Yu Jin was witnessing. After hesitating, Yu Jin decided to call out to Keith.

“…Keith?”

At the cautious call, Keith’s shoulders flinched. Then, as he slowly lowered his hands, the first thing visible was his eyes, moist with tears. A tear that had been clinging to his eyelashes fell, wetting his cheek.

‘He’s really crying.’

For a moment, a thousand thoughts raced through Yu Jin’s mind. But when another tear rolled down Keith’s eye, Yu Jin moved without thinking. Pushing Jinhyeon away, he approached Keith and reached out his hand.

The tears wetting Keith’s cheeks were not an illusion. With his eyes slightly downcast, his long eyelashes fluttered, making his crying appearance inexplicably moving. Yu Jin removed his hand from Keith’s cheek and tightly embraced him.

Due to their size difference, he couldn’t fully envelop Keith, but holding his trembling body made Yu Jin’s heart flutter.

“Stop, stop crying.”

Though he tried to soothe Keith with a gentle voice, Keith couldn’t stop his tears. Yu Jin swallowed a sigh, overwhelmed by guilt. How had Keith managed to hide this emotional side of himself all this time? Come to think of it, Keith seemed to express his emotions more freely when he was younger. Thinking about the effort Keith must have made to hide all his emotions – laughing, crying, getting angry – was painful.

Just as Yu Jin had broken himself to protect the twins, Keith must have changed for Yu Jin’s sake.

“It’s okay.”

As Yu Jin slightly pulled away, Keith’s crying became more sorrowful. Still, Yu Jin wanted to look him in the eyes as he spoke.

“I’m okay now.”

So he hoped Keith would be okay too. Of course, he knew it wouldn’t be easy. The Lucid family was still a threat to Yu Jin, and in that situation, Keith loved him.

‘If only I could give him my heart.’

He felt sorry that he couldn’t. Yu Jin wiped away Keith’s continuously falling tears with his thumb. But no matter how much he wiped, the tears kept flowing endlessly. As he bit his lip in distress, Keith suddenly pressed his lips against Yu Jin’s while sniffling.

The wet lips pressed against Yu Jin’s tightly bitten ones and then pulled away.

“You’ll get hurt. Don’t bite your lip.”

Even while crying, Keith managed to say what needed to be said.

“Huh? Oh…”

Yu Jin blinked and released his teeth from his lip. What just happened? As he was processing this, Jinhyeon’s cold voice came from behind.

“Stop with the cheap tricks.”

“Cheap tricks?”

As Yu Jin dazedly repeated Jinhyeon’s words, Keith pulled Yu Jin into an embrace and covered his ears with both hands.

“Don’t listen to bad words.”

The last thing Yu Jin heard was Keith’s voice. Then, all sound disappeared.

Watching Yu Jin and Keith’s behavior made Jinhyeon’s blood boil.

‘Wow, look at that?’

Seeing the act and pretense, it was clear who the real fox was. It was impressive that he could fake tears so convincingly, but using it to deceive Yu Jin made Jinhyeon laugh bitterly.

From their first meeting, Jinhyeon had seen through Keith’s feelings. At first, it was just a simple guess, but it didn’t take long to become certain. No matter how much he served Yu Jin, Keith stuck too close and interfered too much.

At that level, it wasn’t loyalty but love. Jinhyeon wasn’t interested in other people’s love. What did it matter what others did as long as they didn’t interfere with him?

‘There was a time when I thought that way.’

That was before becoming Yu Jin’s bedroom slave. After being sold to Yu Jin, Jinhyeon focused on gathering information. As he learned more about Yu Jin, he thought he might be able to use him. Yu Jin, who knew information from the modern world like himself, was being cooperative.

The problem was Keith. Other people’s love began to interfere with Jinhyeon. At first, he laughed it off, but as it happened repeatedly, he started to get irritated. He messed with Yu Jin partly out of jealousy and partly for revenge, but each time, Keith became more persistent.

‘But to think he’d resort to tears.’

It was a pathetic sight, throwing away all pride. That’s why Jinhyeon laughed at Keith’s behavior, but soon the smile disappeared from his face. Because Yu Jin completely fell for the act that Jinhyeon thought was ridiculous.

Watching this made him feel irritated. In that situation, when Keith even covered Yu Jin’s eyes and ears, Jinhyeon’s lips twisted involuntarily.

“Does that make you happy?”

At Jinhyeon’s mocking voice, Keith curled his lips upward.

“Of course. Yu Jin is only looking at me.”

Keith’s words sounded like boasting. Even though it was nothing to boast about, it strangely made Jinhyeon’s blood boil. Jinhyeon wanted to turn Keith’s insides out like his own.

“But I’m the one who stuck my dick in his hole, aren’t I?”

Even at Jinhyeon’s words, Keith didn’t show any sign of anger. He just smiled strangely.

“In the end, I’m the one who’ll remain.”

You’re just someone passing by. It wasn’t wrong. Although Jinhyeon thought Yu Jin was quite cute, he had no intention of staying by his side forever. Once he took control of the back alleys and gained power, he planned to break away.

He would need some management and cooperation, but basically, he had thought of Yu Jin as just a stepping stone. But the moment he heard Keith’s words, a sense of defiance arose in Jinhyeon’s heart. As his insides boiled with anger, a cold voice of reason whispered.

‘He’s not wrong, is he?’

I know. I know, but why does it make me feel so bad? Thinking about Yu Jin doing with Keith what he had been doing with Jinhyeon made him indescribably uncomfortable.

‘Why?’

Jinhyeon tried to find the reason. But even though Jinhyeon was quite intelligent, he was still just a young man in his early twenties, and above all, he had overwhelmingly little experience in this area.

He hadn’t been particularly interested in romance in the modern world, and even after falling into this world, he had never thought about love. So it was natural that he couldn’t guess where this growing sense of possessiveness was coming from.

Jinhyeon roughly ruffled his hair. It was something he never did, as he generally liked to be neat and clean, but right now he felt like he needed to do something like that to feel better. As he looked ahead, he saw Keith gazing at Yu Jin with a happy expression.

His chest felt tight.

“Crazy bastard.”

After muttering this briefly, Jinhyeon left the room. San gave him a confused look halfway through, but he didn’t even notice.

By the time Yu Jin was released from Keith’s embrace, the room was already empty. Neither Jinhyeon nor San were visible, having apparently left. What on earth happened? Yu Jin just blinked before looking at Keith. Perhaps from crying so much, the area around his eyes was slightly swollen, but it didn’t look unsightly at all. Rather, he looked like a beautiful, sorrowful person.

“Where did they both go?”

When Yu Jin asked, the answer came quickly.

“Jinhyeon is at the training ground. The child called San went back to his room.”

“Did something happen with Jinhyeon?”

When Yu Jin questioned Keith about Jinhyeon’s sudden departure, he shrugged.

“Nothing special happened. It was similar to usual.”

So they fought, exchanging harsh words. At least they didn’t grab each other by the collar. Yu Jin breathed a sigh of relief. But to run out in the middle of discussing future plans, Keith must have really gotten under his skin.

Jinhyeon wouldn’t back down easily with his nasty personality either, so what could Keith have said? Yu Jin looked at Keith with a puzzled expression, but he just smiled sorrowfully.

“Well, we can discuss the plans again later.”

They had already established the broad framework, so they could decide on the details when Jinhyeon returned. For now, Yu Jin decided to address Keith’s swollen eyes first.

Yu Jin instructed a maid to bring cold water and a towel, then had Keith lie down on the bed and placed the cooled towel over his eyes. Even with his eyes covered, a beautiful person remains beautiful.

“What are you so happy about?”

As Yu Jin poked Keith’s cheek with his finger while asking without much thought, Keith grinned and answered.