Chapter 2: He Forgot Her But She Never Did

“Not like that.”

The man’s steps came to a halt. When he turned around, the hem of his bathrobe brushed against Yi-jae’s calf before falling away. Just the briefest touch.

If that was all it took to be a reason, then it was reason enough.

Without hesitation, Yi-jae reached out and grabbed the belt around his waist. She tied it tightly.

She lowered her head to secure the knot a second time. Above her, she heard the faint sound of an exhale through his nose. It sounded as if he were laughing at her, but she ignored it and finished the knot. It wasn’t one that would come undone easily.

“My apologies. You may go now.”

“What a shame.”

The moment Chae Ju-han touched it, the carefully tied knot came undone with absurd ease. As though all of Yi-jae’s earnest effort had meant absolutely nothing.

Deliberately, he swept the robe open again and shoved his hands into his pockets. The robe fell back, exposing his broad chest.

Chae Ju-han wore a crooked expression. The kind that said he had no problem showing off his body, and that she alone was making a fuss over it. In other words, she had only embarrassed herself.

“If you’re that bothered by my body, there can only be one reason.”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. His face carried the confidence of someone who believed he could see straight through her thoughts.
As she’d always thought whenever she looked at him, even years ago, that composed expression of his was unfairly handsome.

Because Chae Ju-han had stepped closer, the heavy scent of his body enveloped her. It was a familiar smell, yet somehow it felt more intimate now. Perhaps because he was nearly naked.

“In that short amount of time, what did you imagine doing with my c*ck?”

“…”

“Did you imagine putting it in your mouth and s*cking it? Or putting it somewhere lower and squeezing it?”

“…”

For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t believe those words had come from Chae Ju-han.

He had been a gangster from the moment she’d first met him, but he had never used vulgar language in front of her. He had always tried to speak properly, gently, when addressing her.

Whenever he accidentally let a curse slip out, he’d smile awkwardly and mime zipping his lips shut. He’d call her a kid and insist that kids should only hear good words.

As though she were someone who needed to be protected, he’d even stop his subordinates from swearing around her.

“Did you get wet just from imagining it? Did you soak your panties?”

“…”

“Want to make a bet? My money’s on yes.”

And yet now, Chae Ju-han was openly mocking her with obscenities. The filthy words rolled off his tongue as naturally as breathing.

Yi-jae held her breath until her face burned red. She’d thought that after five years of delivering flowers to a nightclub, she’d become accustomed to crude language. But hearing those words come from Chae Ju-han left her completely shaken.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Chae Ju-han wasn’t supposed to tease Go Yi-jae like this.

Because once upon a time, Go Yi-jae had been special to Chae Ju-han.

“…”

But not anymore.

The crushing reality made the ground beneath her feet feel unsteady. Her pounding heart felt as though it might leap out of her chest.

Chae Ju-han pressed a folded fifty-thousand-won bill into her hand.

“Stop worrying about my cock and go change your panties.”

The man recited the words with merciless calm and walked down the stairs. His movements were smooth, like a snake’s.

The banknote crumpled in her hand. Starting from her eyelashes and spreading down to her legs, her entire body trembled. Yi-jae grabbed the edge of the table, but her strength gave out. She sank to the floor and rested her head against one of the table legs.

Realizing once again that Chae Ju-han had completely forgotten Go Yi-jae sent a chill through her entire body. A coldness that reached all the way to her bones.

The Chae Ju-han she had known remained only as an empty shell.

No.

Even that shell no longer resembled the man she remembered.

His gentle smile was gone. In its place was a cold, dry face, with lips that only curled crookedly. It wasn’t a genuine smile. It was little more than a sneer, or a false smile.

Like someone who had broken somewhere inside.

****

A long while later, Yi-jae finally carried in the flower basket and started working. But after lining up the vases, she kept making mistakes, her hands moving without purpose.

Her mind was too full of distracting thoughts.

“Please. Let’s just finish and go.”

She didn’t want to run into Chae Ju-han again.

She’d already been reminded once more that, to the man who had lost his memories, she meant less than a stone lying in the road.

Besides, just imagining seeing Chae Ju-han half-naked again was stressful.

If she’d seen him on the street, she might have turned around just to admire how firm and beautiful his body was. But the Chae Ju-han she knew had never been someone who flaunted his body.

In the past, he’d always buttoned his shirts all the way to the collar and never allowed himself to appear disheveled.

Yi-jae wanted to scold this version of Chae Ju-han. To tell him he was behaving improperly. To tell him to close his robe and dress himself properly.

But Chae Ju-han wouldn’t listen to her.

After all, she’d tied his belt once already and gotten nothing but vulgar words in return.

“Haa… Focus.”

She immersed herself in arranging flowers again. Gradually, she found her rhythm, and one arrangement after another took shape beautifully.

Just as she finished the twelfth arrangement, Madam Yoon returned to the office.

“Our Yi-jae is here?”

Madam Yoon, who effectively ran Bull’s Bullet Club, flashed a V-sign and boasted that she’d won an argument over contract renewal terms with a distributor. Madam Yoon managed the old club diligently, despite the fact that the real owner probably didn’t care much about it.

“Don’t you think it’s unfair?”

“Me? What’s unfair?”

“You do all the work, and the boss takes all the money.”

“Haha, Yi-jae. Look at this.”

Madam Yoon held out her hand. Her nails, painted with glossy black polish, gleamed under the light. Colorful jewel decorations sparkled on top. They were the hands of someone who no longer did menial labor.

“It wasn’t like this five years ago.”

Yi-jae remembered that time as well.

Back then, after divorcing her abusive husband, Madam Yoon had worked at a factory during the day and at restaurants at night. She had always looked as though she were on the verge of collapsing from lack of sleep.

Then one day, she started working as the club’s live-in housekeeper and quit the factory.

After that, she’d risen quickly. From kitchen assistant to head chef. Then to distribution manager.

Eventually becoming the woman everyone called Madam Yoon.

It was a rough, glamorous life that no one could have imagined when she’d first gotten divorced.

“I’m just grateful that I got the opportunity. That’s all.”

Even if Yi-jae didn’t know exactly what a distribution manager did, she knew one thing, a woman who could carve out a place for herself among hardened gangsters was no ordinary person.

And if she’d been trusted enough to act as the boss’s representative, she had to be capable.

“You look happy. I’m glad.”

“Yi-jae.”

Madam Yoon plucked a rose and tucked it behind Yi-jae’s ear.

“I want you to be happy too.”

“I’m happy enough as I am.”

“Does that look like the face of a happy person? If you dated someone, you’d smile a lot more. Unfortunately, because of my line of work, all the men around me are bastards, so I can’t introduce you to anyone. But don’t you think you should try dating at least once while you’re still this young and pretty?”

“What dating? I’m busy.”

Yi-jae replied casually and sped up her work. Perhaps because the topic made her uncomfortable, her head hurt. Or maybe it was the stale air unique to clubs that never got proper ventilation.

“Come on. What’s your ideal type? I can’t introduce you to a good man, but I can at least help you avoid the bad ones.”

“A man so wonderful that you’d want him for yourself, Madam.”

“That’s a problem. I don’t have any eye for men. The man I thought I’d spend my life with turned out to be garbage.”

And on top of that, her ex-husband had gotten out of prison and come looking for her, vowing revenge.

The reason Madam Yoon felt safe among gangsters now was because she saw the men of the club as the people who had driven her ex-husband away that day.

“Still, I hope you don’t think one bad example represents everyone.”

“Madam.”

“Come on. At least tell me your ideal type.”

“…A man who’ll live at least one day longer than me. A man who’ll hold my funeral.”

“What kind of answer is that? That’s weird.”

“That’s my perfect type. Seriously.”

“Mmm. Should we have a drink to celebrate your perfect type?”

“Sounds good.”

Madam Yoon was half right.

There had been one bad example.

But it wasn’t Madam Yoon’s story she was thinking of.

It was the bastard who made her realize only after losing him that he had been her first love.

The bastard who had taught Yi-jae, who had always been alone, what it meant to be loved, and then suddenly abandoned her.

Forgot her.

Yi-jae had broken up without ever having had the chance to love him back.

“Haha! That’s right! Oh my god, that happened too! Haha!”

As they shared drinks, old stories naturally began to surface.

The idiot from the kitchen who’d quit years ago. The idiot who’d placed an order at another flower shop and then demanded Yi-jae hand over flowers anyway.

Looking back, all of them had become little more than drinking stories.

They laughed with the relief that even the hardest moments eventually passed.

By the time they had finished half a bottle, Yi-jae felt pleasantly sluggish. The loud music rose in volume once more, beckoning customers inside.

The club was opening.

Before she’d realized it, it was time for Madam Yoon to work.

“Here. Today’s pay. And I added extra for the bouquet you rushed over earlier.”

“Thaaank you.”

Her words slurred slightly from the alcohol as Yi-jae accepted the envelope. After exchanging an especially clingy hug today, she headed downstairs.

She gripped the handrail tightly to avoid tumbling down the steep staircase.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the hem of the man’s robe brushing against her calf earlier. It felt as though it were still catching against her leg. As though she might lose her footing and fall.

The man had glided down these stairs like a snake.

Tch. She was drunk. That’s why she was having such ridiculous thoughts.

She focused on each step, one by one, and managed to descend safely.

Only to discover that the floor below was a complete disaster.

Platters of fruit and ice had been overturned. Colorful flower petals were scattered everywhere. Broken stems lay strewn across the floor.

They were the bouquets Yi-jae had made.

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