The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 227

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Civil Servant Who Hides His Strength Is Exceptionally Good at Possession – Episode 227

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The Taekwondo Dojang typically attracted two types of children.
One type was the shy children.
The kind who didn’t play much at the playground, had no friends, and worried their parents because of it.
The other type was the children who were always coming in bruised and scraped from tumbling somewhere.
The kind whose parents thought they needed to burn off energy somewhere.
I belonged to the first category, and Seon-i belonged to the second.
“You couldn’t do your roundhouse kick today either? Idiot. Idiot Lee Yu-ji. Even your name sounds stupid!”
When the younger children teased me for reasons I couldn’t comprehend at the time, Seon-i suddenly appeared from nowhere.
That was the kind of person Seon-i was.
She was always involved in every situation.
You know the type of kids like that, right?
The ones who show up wherever there’s trouble, wherever it’s fun, wherever it’s dangerous.
“Why? I think Lee Yu-ji is a nice name. Better than mine. Your name sounds stupid, Jeong Chan-su!”
And children like that usually changed the atmosphere wherever people gathered.
With just one comment from Seon-i, the fickle young children instantly changed their minds.
“That’s right. Jeong Chan-su’s name is stupid! And you fell over yesterday while filming that side kick video!”
“And Jeong Chan-su pooped in the shopping mall restroom yesterday.”
“I did not!”
“I smelled it!”
Then I would quietly slip away from the noisy children and head to the spot next to where the instructors had neatly stacked the mats—a space perfectly sized for me to squeeze my body into.
Back when I had just started elementary school, I always loved places like that.
Spaces that felt disconnected from the world.
Gaps where no one paid attention to me.
Only in such places did I feel like I truly existed as myself.
My parents were Police Officers, and they were always busy.
I grew up being passed from hand to hand—from my daycare teacher to the neighbor ladies.
When the neighborhood children loudly watched TV or ate delivery food, I always felt like I didn’t belong there.
I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Without me, they formed a perfect picture, but I felt like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit.
A brushstroke the painter had mistakenly applied to a perfect painting.
An intruder who had wandered into the wrong room.
I always thought of myself that way, so I always hid in the most inconspicuous places.
But Seon-i had a talent for hide-and-seek.
Or maybe she had a talent for finding the odd one out?
“Why is your name Yu-ji?”
“…What?”
That child, dangling between the mats with her body wedged in, would years later…
He would become my rival and my closest friend.
But not at this moment.
Right now, he was just my pursuer.
And I was the criminal.
‘This person has an uncanny talent for finding people….’
I furrowed my brow with that thought.
“My name means ‘good Seon-i,’ you know. Good. That’s what it means.”
I answered curtly.
“So you’re talking to me because of that? To be good?”
“No. I’m just curious. What does Lee Yu-ji mean?”
“…Why should I tell you that?”
I didn’t know what it meant.
It was difficult for an eight-year-old to know the Chinese characters of their own name.
“You’re really not good, are you? Don’t worry. My uncle says that good people aren’t predetermined.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not like there are predetermined good people and bad people. You just have to be good when you can be good.”
If I asked what that meant one more time, I’d really look like an idiot.
So I held back the question I wanted to ask again.
“Courage is similar. There aren’t people who are inherently courageous. You just have to be courageous when courage is needed.”
Honestly, I don’t think I fully understood what she was saying—
“Hey!”
The next day, I showed courage.
I demonstrated a kick in front of everyone.
It was my first time.
The instructor’s face, who had long seen me as a troublemaker at the academy, brightened, and I felt a quiet sense of pride blooming within me.
I wasn’t someone with inherent courage, but I could be courageous when courage was needed.
Then couldn’t I do other things as well?
Seon-i and I became friends.
It wasn’t necessarily that day that sparked it.
Around the time we became similar, we transferred dojangs and began training taekwondo seriously.
We competed together in the Youth Games, the Middle and High School Federation tournaments, and the National Games, and naturally attended the same schools every time.
Schools with girls’ taekwondo teams were all much the same anyway.
“Lee Yu-ji! Where are you going, skipping training!”
“Ugh, shut up.”
My personality changed completely as I went through middle school.
Was it Seon-i’s influence?
Was it taekwondo’s influence?
Honestly, I’m not sure.
Seon-i was just taekwondo to me, and taekwondo was just Seon-i to me. The two were like conjoined twins stuck together—
I never thought of them separately.
“I’m really going to quit sports now. For real….”
When I said that, it was Seon-i who grabbed hold of me.
“Then what are you going to do? You’re not good at studying.”
“Should I try a different sport? Basketball?”
“Haven’t you seen those basketball kids? They run all over that court like crazy. You hate running anyway.”
“Why? I do cardio all the time.”
“Bullshit. Let’s just eat this and head back….”
That day when we’d run away and all we did was go to the bus terminal to eat tteokbokki.
I realized that taekwondo was everything to me.
And I thought that Seon-i would always be there in my world filled with taekwondo.
We both entered the Athletes’ Village together in high school.
We were both promising athletes, but I qualified for the Asian Games team a bit faster.
I was twenty years old.
The training intensity was beyond imagination, and every time I came back to my room, I’d collapse from exhaustion.
Still, I’d sometimes go to Seon-i’s room and eat chicken, and from around that time—
“Hey, you…. Why are you here?”
Seon-i was hiding.
She’d be crouched beside the bed, inside the shower, or near a pile of clothes.
Every time that happened, I felt strange.
It was like I’d become a detective hunting down a thief.
The look in Seon-i’s eyes was the same as the eight-year-old me.
Eyes that looked like an intruder who’d wandered into the wrong place. Eyes that looked like she’d been caught hiding in secret.
She looked unstable and afraid.
That feeling was far too familiar to me, and so I couldn’t just stand by and watch her feel it.
I had to find the person who made that girl run away.
“Did you see where Seon-i goes after training ends?”
“We don’t really know.”
Even when I asked the juniors, the answers were similar.
The only one who could give me an answer was Seon-i’s roommate.
That girl from a different sport hesitated before speaking.
“Don’t you have a player named Kim Ha-jin among your seniors? He seems to visit her often. Are they dating? Or—”
“Or what?”
“Well, Kim Ha-an is the Association chairman’s nephew. We get a lot of that kind of thing. You know.”
Kim Ha-jin was a twenty-five-year-old male taekwondo national team reserve.
I couldn’t understand it.
Seon-i said she didn’t like older men, and she said she didn’t like athletes either.
So Seon-i couldn’t be dating that person.
“I have to train. Please stop calling me out at night. Please… just….”
“Your training records have dropped a lot. How much longer do you think the coaches will use you? Are you trying to end your athletic career like this? Is taekwondo a popular sport? If you quit this, you’ll need to open a dojang, but do you have the money to open one?”
And my prediction was correct.
One night, I secretly followed Seon-i and witnessed her contorted expression, saw how that bastard was treating her, and I couldn’t hold back.
That bastard had her cheek clenched in his grip, and with his other hand—
Should I have restrained myself?
I don’t know.
My feet just moved on their own.
The fortunate part was that I had decent form back then, and that bastard wasn’t in any position to fight for various reasons.
I beat him senseless, breaking every taekwondo rule in the process.
“You fucking bastard. You goddamn piece of shit. Where the hell do you think you’re putting your hands! You fucking asshole. Your athletic career? Should I destroy your athletic career right now? You goddamn bastard.”
Words I’d never spoken once in my entire life came pouring out of my mouth.
Still, I couldn’t contain myself.
Because it was Seon-i.
Even if there are no truly good people in this world, there are moments when one can be good.
If you do good deeds in those moments when you can be good, then you become a good person.
That day, I believed I had done something good.
“You’re a promising prospect… We’re different… Your parents are police officers, right? I don’t even have parents… If I quit this… I won’t have money to open a dojang. Why did you do that? Why on earth….”
Until Seon-i came looking for me in tears.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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