Chapter 24

Yeo-eun gave Seung-do a look of utter disbelief at his immediate, unhesitating answer.

Seung-do merely shrugged.

There was nothing wrong with being honest.

“I think what that woman said earlier was right. Executive Director, you really are crazy.”

Kang Yeo-eun had now come around to agreeing with Hwang Yi-sook.

Seung-do lightly laughed as he took a piece of candy from the ceramic bowl on the side table and unwrapped it.

“Do you remember what she said I was crazy about?”

Seung-do melted the candy with the tip of his tongue.

The candy tasted like lemon preserved in honey, which wasn’t Seung-do’s preference.

Still, he decided it was better in every way than smoking or putting something else in his mouth in this place.

“Does it look to you, Kang Yeo-eun, like I’m crazy about you?”

The lips that had been about to say something closed.

Instead, Yeo-eun sighed.

“Not to me. But when you said, ‘Baby’ and all that, I really thought you’d gone crazy.”

The candy he had intended to slowly dissolve was crushed between his teeth once again.

Seung-do slightly furrowed his brow at the sweet-and-sour taste that clung to his tongue.

“Madam Hwang Yi-sook is unusually interested in my affairs. Who I’m going to date is practically the greatest concern of her life.”

“Oh.”

“And something like what happened today won’t happen again.”

“What about your jokes?”

Transparent.

Yet the more he looked into them, the less he knew what was inside.

Seung-do calmly met the eyes looking up at him.

A sharp fragment of candy slid down his throat as though poking at it.

“I can’t promise that. This is the first time I’ve been in a situation like this, and it’s more amusing and exciting than I expected.”

Contrary to his expectation that she would immediately snap back, Yeo-eun said nothing.

A brief silence followed.

“Something like this is part of what you need, too, isn’t it?”

The calm voice that finally came after a long while left him speechless.

It was hard to believe this was the same man who had been answering so casually moments ago.

Seung-do looked down at her and pretended to take a breath as he thought.

It had been so long since he had needed to choose his answers while talking to someone that he almost felt unfamiliar with the experience.

But Yeo-eun didn’t give Seung-do much time.

“Fine. Use me as much as you need.”

Her voice was matter-of-fact as she took off the shoes she had hidden beneath the hem of her dress.

Does she even know what she’s saying?

Seung-do loosened the tie that had been tightened all the way to his neck with one hand.

“Do you know how I might use you?”

A shadow fell over Yeo-eun.

Ki Seung-do gripped the back of the sofa and looked down at her.

Yeo-eun didn’t avoid his lower voice or the eyes that had lost their usual hint of amusement.

The shoes that had been so uncomfortable, almost like shackles, were gone, and the woman answered without hesitation.

“It ends once I’ve fulfilled what you need. If amusement is part of what you need… then the day will come when I’ve fulfilled that, too.”

“Do you even know what you’re saying right now?”

The woman laughed as though his question were absurd.

Like snow that fell in the middle of the night, it seemed as though the laugh would disappear without leaving a trace.

“I know that I’m not the one who can decide what my words mean right now. You are, Executive Director.”

There had been no point in eating a candy he didn’t even like.

“Then why don’t you start putting subtitles on whatever I do from now on and decide what it means?”

Seung-do grabbed Yeo-eun by the shoulder.

The shadow cast over Yeo-eun’s body grew even darker.

Unfortunately, Yeo-eun was perceptive.

At the same time, she was also very good at pretending not to notice.

It was a survival instinct developed by a child who had grown up constantly reading the mood of an abusive guardian.

From before she had even gone to school until now, there had been disgustingly many men who had tried to get their way with Yeo-eun.

That was the face Lee Hwa-shin had passed down to her.

Some people whispered that she had inherited not only her mother’s face but even her mannerisms.

Whenever she heard such things, Yeo-eun would shrink into herself with all her heart.

Pretending not to notice someone’s gaze or desire was something Yeo-eun had become extremely skilled at.

She had never possessed the fantasy that meeting a man would somehow change her fate.

If that were enough to make someone happy, then Lee Hwa-shin, who had changed men countless times, would be lying in some luxurious resort by now instead of a hospital bed.

Stories about falling in love, enduring hardships, and eventually reaching a happy ending didn’t exist in real life.

Yeo-eun had no desire to entrust the course of her life to desire or impulse, either.

Her life was already exhausting enough without doing that.

This time was no different.

Whether Ki Seung-do himself knew it or not, Yeo-eun had realized long ago that some degree of desire toward her lay beneath the reason he behaved this way.

That was separate from the fact that she herself had misunderstood something about Ki Seung-do.

Pretending not to notice that desire until the very end wasn’t difficult.

Wasn’t Ki Seung-do doing the same thing when he talked about “needs” and “preferences” regarding her?

So Yeo-eun had been prepared to quietly live according to Ki Seung-do’s wishes and simply wait for the day when she had fulfilled her role and could disappear.

That would be better for Ji-on, too.

Living as an illegitimate child would already be difficult enough, and then having an older sister and older brother…

But on impulse, her heart changed.

The moment she looked at Ki Seung-do standing over her and chewing on his candy, anger surged inside her.

She couldn’t endure it.

Something inside Yeo-eun crumbled, and her feelings spilled through the crack.

Just once, she wanted to provoke a man who casually toyed with something that was only a passing source of amusement to him.

That was why she had deliberately acted vicious.

She knew he was a man who wouldn’t be hurt by even a single hair being touched, yet she wanted to struggle against his grasp just once.

She hated the man who kept making her expect things that didn’t exist in this world.

And she hated herself just as much for being shaken by a man’s fleeting interest that would disappear after they shared their bodies once.

“I suppose I do have a taste for taboo relationships, but… does something like this count, too? What do you even call a relationship when there are half-siblings and maternal half-siblings between the two people involved? Incest?”

Her heart pounded at the man’s words.

The rhythm was mixed with an irreverent sense of guilt.

Whether she cared or not, Ki Seung-do continued talking however he pleased as his hands moved.

Red fingerprints remained on the shoulder where he had grabbed her.

His hand moved downward without hesitation.

He caught Yeo-eun’s ankle, which had been hidden beneath the hem of her dress, in one hand.

His fingertips brushed over her small ankle bone as he asked,

“Kang Yeo-eun, answer me. What are we supposed to call this kind of thing?”

Yeo-eun’s single response seemed to pull the trigger.

Trapped between Ki Seung-do and the sofa, Yeo-eun had nowhere to run.

All she could do was wait for the bullet to come.

Inside his coldly burning eyes, there was nothing but Yeo-eun.

“If I decide to use you, do you know how I might use you?”

Yeo-eun finally looked away.

She felt as though she had been trapped inside a completely burned-out wasteland.

She couldn’t move.

But Ki Seung-do gently caught her chin and turned her face back toward him.

Unable to escape, Yeo-eun became trapped in those eyes once again.

Inside the man’s eyes, where not even a breeze stirred, the only way to escape was to close her own.

What would happen next was obvious.

Her breathing grew ragged.

But what she expected didn’t happen.

Instead, she felt a familiar touch across her closed eyes.

The hand that had grabbed her wrist and waist so many times was now brushing gently over her eyelids.

For just a moment, Yeo-eun remembered the faint scars on the back of that hand.

She didn’t know when she had become capable of drawing even those details with her eyes closed.

The places his fingers passed over felt damp.

“Kang Yeo-eun.”

Only then did Yeo-eun realize that she was crying.

She wanted to disappear just like this.

If she could melt away wherever his touch reached her, if she could become nothing but a bubble and vanish—

As though she had never existed in this world at all.

“Open your eyes.”

But she couldn’t keep her eyes closed forever.

Yeo-eun opened them.

His gaze had already moved away.

Ki Seung-do had straightened up and was wearing his familiar expression again.

“I have a taste for taboo relationships, but I’m not interested in rape.”

The way he casually tossed out the words with a faint smile was no different from usual.

His tone was light, almost as though he were making a joke.

The man checked the time on his wristwatch and clicked his tongue.

Then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he took off his jacket and draped it over Yeo-eun’s shoulders.

The jacket was saturated with his cologne and his scent.

“I have another appointment. I’ll send someone. Take a car home.”

Yeo-eun didn’t answer.

“You were talking so well earlier. Don’t you feel like talking anymore?”

“That’s not it.”

She simply didn’t want her voice to come out choked with tears.

“Then it’s fine. It would be troublesome if my partner is an interpreter who can’t speak.”

“……”

“You know we still have work to do, right?”

Yeo-eun nodded.

Her head was spinning.

“I know. I won’t let anything interfere with the work.”

Ki Seung-do nodded as though he understood and turned toward the door.

“Ah… and one more thing.”

Even after grasping the doorknob, Ki Seung-do didn’t turn around.

Instead, he strangely took a moment to choose his words.

“Next time, say you don’t want it.”

The door closed, and Ki Seung-do disappeared.

No more tears came.