Mr Mermaid | LK Adaptation

Chapter 16

Chapter 16: In Her Singing Voice

Jungkook sat at his desk, a pen in one hand as he looked at the test paper before him. His posture was very straight and proper, like a primary school student learning how to write in class. He scanned quickly through the reading comprehension text before his eyes, at times using a highlighter pen to mark words and phrases which seemed familiar but were still unknown to him. As for those words and phrases which were not at all familiar nor known, his time was limited so he was going to ignore them for now.

This was something Lisa had taught him. After he was done with the whole text, he would look up all the marked words and just remember what he could. If he encountered a word a few more times, he should be able to remember it.

And so on his desk, other than the test paper, there was also an electronic dictionary. This was a substitute for his handphone's translation software.

Jaehyun had not lied to Lisa. Jungkook was indeed doing his English reading, and he was taking it very seriously.

In comparison, Jaehyun was quite agitated. He kept running circles around Jungkook, like a restless dog without a master. Jungkook became a little annoyed. "Stop buzzing around me."

Jaehyun deflated like a balloon into another chair. He said dejectedly, "Sorry."

Jungkook's head was bent over his test paper, and without even raising his head, he said, "28th time."

This was the 28th time Jaehyun was apologizing to him.

Jaehyun sighed heavily. He really had not expected that his casual mention of Taehyung yesterday would incite such a uproar today. It was so inexplicable, a senseless catastrophe. The media's ability to stretch the truth was just too powerful, and the flaming capacity of the netizens was also too much. Still, at the bottom of it all, the root of the problem was that he had mentioned Taehyung.

Thus, Jaehyun was wracked with guilt right now — he felt that all this harm heaped onto his good brother his fault.

Jungkook saw Jaehyun curled in on himself and could only put down his highlighter. "Even I, the one being flamed, is alright, so what are you all twisted up about?"

"Sorry." Jaehyun repeated once more.

"You didn't do anything wrong. You don't have to say sorry." Jungkook shook his head. "Technically, those news outlets are not wrong. I'm indeed planning to challenge Taehyung, just not right now. To become the world champion, of course one must have to challenge the strongest opponent. As for those who are roasting me, they just don't understand my situation. Let them flame, they'll change their tune later anyway. For an athlete, results are the most compelling fact. Everything else is but transient clouds."

Jaehyun looked at him with disbelief. "You're not mad?"

"A little, at first, but now I've come to terms with it."

"Aren't you adjusting way too quickly? You haven't even finished one reading yet!"

"Because I don't want to waste time on being angry. That's completely pointless. A year later will be the Asian Games, two years later will be the World Championships, and three years later is the Olympic Games. My time is very tight. Oh, and there is less than two weeks before the level 4 exam. This big brother is very busy, and doesn't have the spare time to hold a grudge against netizens."

Jaehyun stared at Jungkook for a long moment, silent. In his eyes, there was incredulity, some admiration, and some relief.

Jungkook frowned. "Stop staring at me like that. Are you crushing on me?"