Though spoken in a low, languid voice, it felt more threatening than ever before.
Her shoulders tightened and goosebumps rose along her nape.
But Cha Do Ha, looking at her in that state, appeared rather relaxed.
He was like a skilled leopard pondering how to devour its prey that had fallen into its hands.
There was no hesitation in his dark eyes.
As if following a predetermined sequence, he firmly grasped the hair in his hand and pressed his lips deeply against hers.
Along with the tangy scent of whiskey, Cha Do Ha’s body heat rushed hotly into her mouth.
Surprised by the sudden kiss, Yeo Eun parted her lips, and Cha Do Ha slipped in smoothly.
He enveloped her instantly with his passionate invasion. Her breath caught at his subtle movements, gently caressing as if savoring her taste.
She should have pushed him away, but she couldn’t.
Instead, she clutched his collar tightly and accepted him even more deeply.
The kiss wasn’t long.
Until the brief kiss ended and he pulled his lips away, Yeo Eun remained frozen, trembling while gripping his collar.
Cha Do Ha’s gaze upon her was burning hot.
“This is how I date. Think you can handle it?”
But even that heat didn’t last long.
As brief as the kiss was, he easily let go of the passion and spoke with a cool expression.
“So don’t get cocky. Get out.”
Cha Do Ha’s eyes no longer held her in them.
Having erased the intense desire that had been surging just moments ago, his face was now colder than ever.
As if the previous situation had been her delusion, even his voice was icy as he spoke.
“Driver, please pull over for a moment.”
With an expressionless face, he asked the chauffeur to stop the car briefly.
The car slowly came to a stop by the roadside, and Cha Do Ha drew a clear line.
“Let’s meet for the fourth time in broad daylight.”
Trembling with humiliation, Yeo Eun had to flee from the car, leaving behind Cha Do Ha who bid her a bland farewell.
* * *
The car that had spat out the woman quietly sped through the night streets.
Cha Do Ha, who had been casting an indifferent gaze out the window, clenched his molars.
Even though the woman was gone, his car was still filled with her scent. A fragrance that was like flowers, or sweet sugar candy, vibrated in the air.
He scoffed at how the woman always left such strong traces in his utterly personal space every time.
And what’s more?
Have a drink? With that innocent face?
Cha Do Ha mulled over once again how ridiculous a woman Seo Yeo Eun was.
Reeking of alcohol, she sat there without letting her guard down. So when he offered to take her home, she suddenly suggested coffee.
The reason was even funnier. That she couldn’t miss the third chance.
In the end, even their chance encounter was just a pitch for her desperate desire, without any other meaning, which slightly irritated him.
Despite that, he ended up impulsively kissing the woman who seemed to be trying to seduce him by suggesting they drink.
“Crazy.”
Cha Do Ha clenched his fist again, gritting his molars.
He felt a foreign sensation on the fingertips that had caressed the woman’s hair.
The same went for his lips that had tasted her.
It was irritating, as if a thorn had been lodged in him.
“Right, it was irritating.”
The inexplicable discomfort he felt every time he saw Seo Yeo Eun was because she was extremely irritating.
Then why was Seo Yeo Eun so irritating to him?
Women of her caliber were a dime a dozen around him.
That level of face, that level of figure, that level of manners, and that level of cheerfulness.
They were so common they could be kicked aside.
For such a woman, he urgently called for a chauffeur, paying double, to follow Son Gyu Won.
Not only that, he let Seo Yeo Eun into his car and even cracked unnecessary jokes.
Why did he… for that woman who acted so high and mighty despite not being particularly outstanding?
Why did he…
As he recalled Seo Yeo Eun, Cha Do Ha clenched his molars again.
An inexplicable heat slowly warmed the lower part of his body.
Even this was irritating. Infuriatingly so.
“If it’s irritating…”
He had a principle he had been keeping all this time.
No, it would be more accurate to call it a survival rule.
The iron rule he had maintained to become who he is now, after leaving the shelter of the Hanju Group.
If something is irritating, eliminate it or crush it.
Or possess it completely.
In Seo Yeo Eun’s case…
“…which would it be?”
As if trying to crush the irritating afterimage, Cha Do Ha tightly shut his eyes.
* * *
She couldn’t remember how she got home, or anything about the process. Her heart was pounding as if it would burst, and her mind was hazy.
When she came to her senses, she was already at the alley in front of her house.
Yeo Eun, who had stopped at the end of the alley, pressed the back of her hand to her lips. Goosebumps rose as if all the nerve cells in her body had rushed to her lips, creating a strange sensation.
The tip of her tongue was the same.
“I must be crazy.”
Every time she moved her lips, every time she swallowed, she could feel Cha Do Ha.
It was sweet as if she had swallowed pure honey, yet stiff and tingling as if stung by something.
She felt as if Cha Do Ha’s scent was emanating from her lips.
Once again, heat rushed to her earlobes.
Embarrassing sensations were raising their heads from just one kiss.
“Just from one kiss…”
Yeo Eun bit her lower lip hard.
Come to think of it, she couldn’t understand the reason.
Why on earth did he kiss her?
Did she look easy because she suggested drinking?
Or was she really… Cha Do Ha’s type?
Yeo Eun shook her head.
“What type? Did you see his expression after the kiss?”
[This is how I date. Think you can handle it?] [So don’t get cocky. Get out.]The face of Cha Do Ha as he said those words wouldn’t fade away.
The gap between feeling as if her whole body was burning up and her heart freezing over was even frightening.
Yet at the same time, her heart fluttered with a strange expectation.
Just as she was about to step into the villa complex:
“Hey, Seo Yeo Eun.”
A rowdy voice echoed ominously through the villa parking lot shrouded in night.
Brought back to reality by that ominous voice, Yeo Eun looked to the side.
From the inner part of the villa parking lot, men in shabby cheap suits were slowly approaching.
Yeo Eun’s jaw tightened.
They were all familiar faces. They were In Tae’s creditors.
No, to be precise, they were employees of Sanwoo Capital. Even more accurately, they were illegal loan sharks.
“You’re home late?”
The man who appeared to be the leader among the three approached with a threatening face. He was a man with a long, ugly scar on his left cheek.
“Still can’t get in touch with your brother? He’s not answering our calls at all.”
Yeo Eun flinched and took a step back, shaking her head.
“He’s not answering my calls either.”
A sinister smile spread across the man’s face.
“If he’s that hard to reach, it must be troublesome for you too, Seo Yeo Eun? If your brother took the money and ran, it’s only natural for you to pay it back. You’re his sister after all.”
“Isn’t that right?”
As the man sought agreement from his colleagues, the men let out vulgar laughs and nodded their heads with boisterous words.
“See? That’s how it is. In Korea, a country of propriety, a younger sister naturally should pay her brother’s debts.”
The man who spoke mockingly snatched Yeo Eun’s handbag.
“What are you doing?”
As Yeo Eun cried out in surprise, the man put his index finger to his lips.
“Keep it down. You’ll wake up all the residents in this cheap villa with poor soundproofing.”
“Give it back.”
She reached out to take back her bag, but it was useless. One of the other men had grabbed her arm. Another man covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming.
The dirty palm smelled of filth.
“Does our pretty Seo Yeo Eun usually carry some cash?”
The man with the sinister smile opened the handbag.
Then he took out her wallet and pulled out the cash one by one.
“Tch, only 60,000 won? I heard you were a capable manager, but what’s this?”
This was clearly illegal.
But there’s a world where such laws don’t apply.
Knowing this all too well, she no longer resisted.
She could only watch helplessly as the man crumpled the cash and stuffed it into his pocket.
Just 60,000 won. The realization that she couldn’t even protect that 60,000 won and was powerlessly having it taken away was her reality.
The heart that had been fluttering because of Cha Do Ha sank in an instant.
“I’ll deduct this from your brother’s interest, so don’t make that face. You’ll get wrinkles on that pretty face.”
The dirty hand lightly tapped under her chin.
“Carry more cash next time, and if you really don’t have money, figure something else out. I’ll pay you well.”
The man who had examined her body in detail with a disgusting gaze gestured to his colleagues.
The men, who had made a ruckus when approaching, left the villa complex with equally boisterous farewells.
Watching the men walk away, Yeo Eun muttered weakly.
“This is reality.”
A reality like a gutter, she thought.
She felt as if her body was emitting the stench of a sewer.
Yeo Eun entered her home and staggered into the bathroom.
Though it was only September, she felt chilled to the bone.
Yeo Eun filled the bathtub with hot water and immersed herself in the tub where white steam was rising.
Only after soaking for a long time like that was she able to fall asleep.
__________
“Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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