Chapter 20: The Night She Came Looking for Him

She couldn’t focus.

No matter how many times she checked the clock, only two or three minutes had passed.

She had already endured waiting for two whole days, and yet there was still another half day before Chae Ju-han would come.

It felt like being a child who had already slept through two nights and still had to sleep through one more before the day of the field trip arrived.

But she couldn’t help the endless questions that kept surfacing.

Even after lying down at night, she would suddenly sit upright again. In the middle of the night, she found herself checking her phone for no reason at all.

Even though he had never once contacted her by phone.

She had even gone so far as to tap in his old number before catching herself and flipping the phone face down.

She felt like she was going crazy with curiosity. She desperately wanted to know who he had asked her to make that bouquet for.

The most beautiful woman in the world.

Yes, she knew perfectly well that she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world. But she wanted to know who Chae Ju-han thought was.

She didn’t think she had ever been this curious in her entire life.

“By any chance… when you think of the most beautiful woman in the world, who comes to mind?”

She found herself asking customers at random.

“Audrey Hepburn.”

“Kim Tae-hwi.”

Despite the sudden survey, everyone answered earnestly.

Of course, none of the answers were ones Yi-jae wanted to hear.

Still, she was grateful that they had played along, so she ended up eating cup noodles with them. She waited through the agonizing three minutes for them to soften and stuck her chopsticks in.

“Oh! Right. There was a really beautiful woman at that club over there yesterday.”

“…The club?”

Yi-jae set her chopsticks down again.

As she swallowed nervously, Mrs. Yoo, who delivered yogurt, vividly recalled the scene.

“A woman with long, flowing hair got out of a ridiculously expensive-looking car. You don’t see cars like that around here very often, right? So I watched for a bit. She was wearing a dress so short it barely covered her backside, and a fur jacket on top, and I wondered how she wasn’t freezing. But her figure, honestly, she looked like she wasn’t even human. Long legs, perfect body.”

“Really?”

“But she went into the club almost immediately, so I didn’t get a good look. I only saw her face in the club’s neon lights, but even at a glance, she was unbelievably beautiful.”

“I see…”

Yi-jae poked at her cup noodles.

The noodles had already gone soft, but she couldn’t focus on eating.

“Though honestly, if you saw her in proper lighting, our Boss Go might be prettier. Really. You’re gorgeous too. Like a fairy.”

Mrs. Yoo belatedly tried to comfort her with exaggerated praise.

Then she pulled out a yogurt drink from her cart and handed it over.

She must have heard the rumors that Yi-jae had some kind of relationship with the owner of the club.

“Drink it.”

“Thank you.”

Yi-jae drank the yogurt to soothe her aching stomach.

Apparently, the owner of the bouquet had gone to the club in person.

That was probably why Chae Ju-han hadn’t come to pick up the flowers himself. He must have been busy entertaining an important guest.

“But it must’ve been someone really important.”

Mrs. Yoo started talking again.

“They suddenly kicked all the customers out. Said they weren’t open today. Young people came pouring out into the streets. I saw the tofu shop owner’s daughter there too, and honestly, my blood pressure nearly exploded. Why won’t that girl go to college? She’s always hanging around there. And don’t even get me started on her clothes. She was wearing something even shorter than that woman from earlier. Her backside was practically hanging out!”

Mrs. Yoo had long had feelings for the widowed tofu shop owner.

But because he was busy raising his only daughter, he never had time for anything else.

And the daughter, believing she had grown up neglected, kept acting out.

For all her complaints, Mrs. Yoo’s frustration was proof of how much she cared.

Once upon a time, Yi-jae had envied girls like that.

They had everything she didn’t, and yet they acted as though they were miserable.

She had no one to call if she lost everything in a fire. No home to return to in an emergency.

But after having something that resembled a home, she’d learned what comfort a home could bring.

A home where breakfast was waiting every morning.

Ordinary yet extraordinary days spent with someone who would suddenly buy her the newest phone and insist she use it.

The fact that it never changed.

The fact that no matter what happened outside, home remained the same.

That certainty made her heart ache.

And now that she knew an extraordinarily beautiful woman had gone to see him, now that she knew Chae Ju-han might not come before dawn, there was no way she could simply sit in her flower shop and wait.

She had to see this uncertain situation with her own eyes.

She didn’t want to sit alone, staring at the clock, only to be startled by an alarm telling her he wasn’t coming.

****

“Yi-jae, you’re here? Didn’t you come a few days ago too?”

“Hello.”

Ignoring Manager Kim, who still jingled with gold jewelry, she hurried upstairs.

“Wow, Yi-jae’s got a fire under her a*s today.”

Manager Kim cackled behind her.

Even though she’d deliberately brought a heavy flower basket as an excuse, he seemed to know the real reason she’d come.

Her face burned.

The spiral staircase felt unusually steep today.

It took forever to reach the second floor.

She hoped Madam Yoon would be in the office.

Then she could ask about the mysterious guest from the other night.

Someone important enough to make them kick paying customers out.

If Madam Yoon was there, she’d know.

Then Yi-jae wouldn’t even have to see Chae Ju-han.

But if Chae Ju-han himself was inside…

She still had to ask.

Whether he wasn’t coming tonight.

That was all she needed to know.

She clenched her dry hands and raised them to knock.

Then she heard a sound.

A woman’s m*an.

Her hand froze.

The flower basket slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.

“…”

In the end, the thing she’d feared had happened.

The quiet m*ans continued.

Slowly, she understood what those choked sounds meant.

She blinked.

She couldn’t breathe.

She struck her own chest instead of knocking on the door.

Forced herself to inhale.

Behind the black door, the woman was still making those sounds.

Yi-jae turned and grabbed the stair railing.

She felt so dizzy she thought she might tumble down the stairs.

She couldn’t move.

“F*ck. I was having such a nice dream.”

A man’s low voice echoed out.

There was something terrifyingly cold in it.

Then came a horrible sound.

A desperate, choking gasp.

“S-sorry… ngh… please…”

“How dare you touch what’s mine. F*ck.”

“P-please… spare…”

“No. I don’t think I can forgive you. You should’ve known that touching someone else’s c*ck gets you killed. I warned you.”

“Ghk- ! Hrk!”

The gasping grew more frantic.

Something crashed to the floor.

Yi-jae opened the door.

Chae Ju-han had his hand wrapped around a woman’s slender neck.

His expression was cold.

Emotionless.

Then he saw Yi-jae standing there.

And his expression changed.

Relaxed.

Familiar.

“You came.”

It was such a gentle expression that no one would believe he had just been doing something horrifying.

“Let her go.”

“Wait outside for a minute. I’ll finish up.”

“Let her go.”

“Tch.”

Chae Ju-han released her immediately.

The woman scrambled away across the floor, clutching at his handprints on her neck.

At last, only the two of them remained.

“…”

Yi-jae couldn’t even begin to process what she’d just seen.

Chae Ju-han grabbed her waist and pulled her close.

He rubbed his cheek against hers.

“I’ll say this since you caught me in the act. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Weren’t you about to kill her?”

“Not ‘about to.’ I was trying to. She tried to steal your c*ck.”

“…”

“But since nothing actually happened, I let her off.”

He buried his face against her chest and rubbed against her, deliberately brushing her b*easts with the bridge of his nose.

Yi-jae pushed him away.

“Why are you pushing me? Didn’t you come here to have s*x?”

He leaned back with the utterly innocent expression of a man who truly believed he had done nothing wrong.

His erection was still partially visible through his trousers.

She had noticed it the moment she’d entered.

His body was obviously fully recovered.

Anyone could make him hard.

She had known that already.

But seeing it with her own eyes made her mood sink into the mud.

“So now you just get hard whenever, and for whoever?”

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