Dirty Switch

“Taehyun, my uncle wanted me to ask you something. You know Donghwa Bio? Is it true they’re doing a paid-in capital increase soon?”

At school, the kids watched Joo Taehyun like hawks, dissecting even the faintest twitch at the corners of his mouth. They assigned meaning to the tiniest things. It was normal for them to fit fragments of their guesses together like a puzzle and inflate them into rumors.
“Man, isn’t this what friends are for? Let me get some of that chaebol bestie advantage, huh?”
“You’re not even close friends with Joo Taehyun…”

“Yeah, look at his face—he’s clearly not happy. Cut it out.”
“You guys don’t get it. That time we had gym class together, Taehyun and I—”
It wasn’t even surprising anymore that kids he didn’t know well kept pretending to be close to him. They’d latch onto half-baked company gossip he’d never even heard of and demand insider info. They’d brag that they were in the same class as “Joo Taehyun from DH,” calling themselves his friend or even best friend. It had all become familiar. Not that it wasn’t still unpleasant.

“Cut it out. Seriously.”
The moment he said it with a blank face, the kid who’d been claiming to be his best friend backed off immediately. Yet even as he retreated, he muttered “that little shit” under his breath, so Taehyun figured there’d probably be some post online again before the day was over.
Joo Taehyun, the youngest son of DH Group. Grew up spoiled rotten and turned into an arrogant brat.

But what could he do? Unlike his siblings, he didn’t have the kind of friendly face that could smooth over a situation with a smile. He certainly didn’t know how to overwhelm others with a smile the way Seo Baekhan did.
And no matter how frosty his expression was, it wasn’t like those clueless jerks ever really backed off completely.
So Joo Taehyun decided—he would keep managing his expression like this from now on.

When he first found ridiculous nonsense about himself posted online, he’d been furious. Now, he didn’t even care. Maybe because he knew exactly what kind of people posted things like that, even feeling anger over it felt like a waste.
“It was a compliment. I thought it was impressive that you could control your expression so well even at your age.”
“What’s the harm in people not being able to read your thoughts? That’s a good thing.”

It was only now that Joo Taehyun understood what Seo Baekhan’s advice had meant.
His family would always love him no matter what shape his eyes took. All that mattered was not being misunderstood by the people he truly cared about.
Sure, there were royal figures and other important people he’d have to put on a smile for someday—but that was a future problem. He’d deal with it when the time came.

Now with wisdom teeth growing on both sides of his lower jaw, this adolescent boy was just… tired.
“Taehyun, I’m filming a clip for social media. Can you be in it with me? I need to piggyback off your views.”
“…”
“It’s super easy! You just put your hands on your head like this, and make little cat ears—”

Without a word, Joo Taehyun hoisted his bag up on his shoulder and turned away from the unfamiliar face pestering him with a ridiculous request.
There had to be a reason why people kept clinging to him even though they knew he’d say no.
From past experience, it wasn’t usually the person begging for a photo or video who caused problems—but someone from their group hanging awkwardly nearby, secretly filming.

“Hey! You there! Put the phone down. No pictures.”
“What? I wasn’t taking pictures of Joo Taehyun!”
“Then let me see your phone for a moment.”

“What the hell? Who are you to check someone else’s phone? Do you even have that right? Isn’t this an invasion of privacy? Huh?”
“Want me to report you for excessive security? Should I write a post about this online?”
“Are you threatening me right now? Also, you’re clearly aware of the incident from a few months ago. You should know that filming other students is strictly prohibited on school grounds. That’s why private security personnel like us were hired in the first place.”

“I already told you, I wasn’t filming Taehyun! And I never threatened anyone!”
“Oh right, what is this—does Joo Taehyun own the place? Is this the DH Kingdom?”
“We’re not employed solely for Joo Taehyun’s protection, as I’ve already explained.”

“Hey, let’s just drop it and go. You don’t remember what happened to Hwang Heejun when he tried this crap?”
“Seriously, fuck this. It’s not like I asked for anything major. That guy walks around like he’s some goddamn prince. So annoying.”
What was strange was how people desperately tried to get close to him while simultaneously looking for ways to drag him down.

At the start of the semester, Joo Taehyun had once stared in disbelief at his classmates acting like lunatics in front of him. There was a vulgar dance popularized by some internet streamer that they’d do whenever they got donations—and he’d never seen anything like it before. He was completely baffled. Why would anyone do something like that in public? It made no sense.
One of the students there secretly snapped a photo of Taehyun’s dumbfounded reaction and uploaded it online.
Joyful Fangirling, Bandnet 🐰🐉
The Crown Prince of Pureblood watching a bunch of lowlifes clown around for the first time in his life

(photo.jpg)
With a title that ridiculous.
Well, his parents and siblings had all been haunted by bad-angled media photos from years ago, so he’d accepted it as par for the course. In the words of his classmates, when you’re born with “S-rank boosters,” a little discomfort was the least of your problems.

But what he couldn’t tolerate was when the student who posted that photo demanded money to delete it.
“Come on, you know I’ve got more than just one picture of you.”
“…”

“Once something’s on the internet, it’s there ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) forever. You’ll probably be in the news a lot from now on—don’t you want to avoid having some weird meme pop up next to your name?”
Taehyun didn’t know why the idiot even added that last part, but it helped. It gave them grounds to add extortion to the case. Naturally, Joo Taehyun didn’t let it go. He called in a lawyer and presented neatly organized evidence.
His entire family erupted with fury. DH Group responded with full legal force. The case made it to the news and spread through media outlets.

The public, already annoyed that the DH family kept hiding their youngest son from public view, was forced to confront a different question: Should celebrities have to endure invasions of privacy and cheap blackmail like this?
The student in question disappeared from school soon after, and photos of Taehyun appearing online dropped drastically.
And after that incident, Joo Taehyun’s name appeared on the very first line of the portal site’s bio index homepage. It wasn’t a title he was especially thrilled about.

“Haha. See? Just because someone looks stoic doesn’t mean they can’t seem kind. And someone who always smiles can still feel unreachable. In places like this, just be your most comfortable, confident self. This is a battlefield.”
Whenever he felt isolated among his peers, Taehyun thought of those words Seo Baekhan had once said.
A battlefield.

It was the reason he didn’t drop out immediately. The reason he decided to stick it out for at least a year. Because Seo Baekhan’s metaphor—calling life among people a battlefield—had left a deep impression on him.
And surely, things hadn’t always been easy for Seo Baekhan either. If anything, he had probably faced even worse.
If that were true, then Joo Taehyun didn’t want to quit this battle either. If Baekhan had found some kind of meaning in that fight, Taehyun wanted to find his own.

Of course, clinging to a toxic, draining struggle wasn’t the answer. He had decided: after one year, he would leave and take the qualification exam.
Back when he couldn’t adjust during the early days, he’d gritted his teeth and vowed to see it through to graduation out of sheer stubbornness. Now, he realized that knowing when to retreat was also a wise strategy.
He’d also come to understand that expensive tuition was no guarantee of safety.

“Young master, are you all right?”
“Yes. Let’s go. You’re not hurt, are you?”
“Oh, no, no. We’re perfectly fine.”

Once he passed the exam, he’d move straight into high school-level studies, then aim for early university admission. After that… he’d keep using the excuse that he was younger than his peers to maintain distance from people.
This was the method Joo Taehyun had learned to survive the battlefield.