A Relationship of Convenience - Chapter 31

A sigh escaped from the mouth biting down on the heavy index finger.

Should I set my teeth and bite down hard? But that would make me no different from a beast, so I just gently pulled it out of my mouth.

The man who hadn’t stopped laughing during all this now began to laugh in earnest.

Finally unable to bear it, Da Hae whirled around to face the man behind her. As if he had never laughed, the man suddenly stopped and stretched his lips into a smile. As if this was what he had been waiting for.

Even when she looked at him with thinly opened eyes full of exasperation, the shameless Kang Jae Kyung didn’t budge an inch.

“What shall we eat?”

“…I’ll get breakfast on my own. I really have to go now.”

“Take a day off. Reason: Kang Jae Kyung.”

The man, whose face was attractive even freshly woken, slightly furrowed his brow.

When he asked her to attend couples’ gatherings, she would make up business trips, illnesses, and even traffic accidents, yet she was so stingy about taking one day off, he complained in a low voice, saying the company would run fine without Team Leader Kye.

It was cute. Even lovable, to the point of thinking so.

Lost in this unfamiliar sentiment, Da Hae quietly looked at the face close by. The jet-black eyes looked back at her.

“Um. Mr. Kang Jae Kyung.”

Her hesitant lips moved slightly.

“That… Last night…”

“I’m sorry.”

Her words were suddenly cut off.

…As expected. It was a mistake. The slightly parted lips were bitten lightly, then quickly closed when she became aware of the man’s gaze.

He was good at peeling apples, and even his verbal apology was impeccably proper.

Her throat burned as if scalded.

It felt like swallowing a hot sweet potato without realizing how hot it was. It was a bit painful too.

What words did she want to hear? Perhaps this was the best he could say, the best she could hear.

While he left room on the Post-it with his phone number, his apology for their night together left only emptiness.

Da Hae wanted to leave the bed quickly. Before the darkness she used as a shield gave way to the morning light.

Her back, which she had half-raised while feigning composure, sank back into the mattress.

Her view of the ceiling was suddenly filled with the man’s face as he took control above her. It was an unexpected action for someone who had just apologized.

“I meant to tell you last night, but things were hectic, in many ways.”

The fingers that had been gently cradling her cheek as if touching something precious brushed her eyelashes lightly as they moved up, tenderly pushing back the hair scattered across her round forehead.

As he gazed at Da Hae, who was looking up at him with docile bewilderment, focused solely on him, his chest felt tight.

It felt like something indefinable was welling up to fill his throat.

The moment he left the hotel yesterday, he had made up his mind.

That he would do whatever it took to keep this woman. That he would keep her by his side till the end, even if it meant doing something beyond the contract.

To do that, he needed to clear up any misunderstandings first.

“About that older woman.”

Her small brow twitched. Jae Kyung smiled like a breath at her immediately reactive expression.

His lips, which had pressed against her forehead, kissed her eyelid with a soft smack, then pressed her cheek and moved to her ear.

“She’s my mother.”

“What??”

As her lips silently mouthed the word “mother?” as if asking again, Jae Kyung also silently mouthed “mother” in response.

“No, wait… So you’re saying that Choi Ae Jung… is your mother?”

The Choi Ae Jung who had cheered him on to treat his wife well…

…was his mother?

“I’m sorry for hiding it.”

So the apology was for concealing the older woman’s identity?

“Huh.”

A puff of air escaped involuntarily. Somehow, she felt deflated. A sigh followed.

It was relief. She felt relief. That his apology wasn’t about what happened last night.

Even as she felt dumbfounded, wondering what kind of son would describe his mother that way, she first felt relief.

Jae Kyung, who had been silently gazing at her blinking white face, briefly kissed her slightly parted lips.

“I’ll explain everything.”

His low voice gently coaxed. She became curious, a little, no, very curious about Kang Jae Kyung’s story with its many complications.

Was the story about to begin now? What about going to work then? As she was thinking such thoughts.

“But you know.”

A voice tinged with laughter burrowed into her ear. Even one corner of his mouth was raised oddly, with the exact expression of someone who had found something to tease about.

“How did you know it was Choi Ae Jung?”

“…”

He meant how she knew the name of the older woman he had never told her.

Should this be called sharp? Or petty? He never lets even a casually mentioned name slip by unnoticed when excited.

Da Hae opened her eyes a little wider. Her eyebrows naturally raised too. It was the perfect expression for playing innocent.

Her face, disguised with innocence, tilted in confusion as if she truly had no idea what he was talking about.

“You were paying attention, weren’t you?”

“No, that’s…”

“It’s understandable.”

It’s okay, it’s okay. The voice that added this as if soothing a child was quite arrogant.

His face, flickering like a mobile hanging from heaven, kept smiling and smiling like a madman.

Da Hae’s brow furrowed tightly because of the man who insisted on getting on her nerves.

His long, outstretched fingers forcibly smoothed out her furrowed brow.

Saying there was nothing to worry about now so why the frown, he smirked again. Da Hae stubbornly defended herself.

“My vision is 20/10. In both eyes, no less. What can I do if I see things clearly?”

Her words about suggesting he apply a protective film if he wanted to conceal things were swallowed up by his warm breath before she could finish.

The soft sensation of slowly savoring her lips. It was an impatient yet gentle kiss.

The warmth that collided several times like pecks brushed her nape and approached her ear.

His heated breath that had become hot tickled her tender skin.

“Don’t go to work.”

Da Hae smiled without resistance, finding his voice cute as it mumbled something between a whine and a plea.

The beast-like silhouette, clear even in the darkness, was a stark contrast to his voice just now.

Her heart was moved, but she had to go to work, so she couldn’t give a definite answer. Slowly, the pitch-black eyes that had been hidden by lowered eyelids were revealed.

The hand that had been holding her cheek traced her eyebrow, then slid down the bridge of her nose and lightly brushed her slightly swollen lips.

The boundary between dawn and morning. The time when the world that had been quiet all night begins to stir.

“Stay with me. Today.”

The sensual voice urged her to skip work.

* * *

Daldal Dental Clinic.

The smell of disinfectant wafting inside and outside the treatment room and the fear-inducing drill sound of the handpiece.

“It hurts! It hurts, you bastard!”

An angry elderly woman.

“Patient, if you keep talking, your gums will get hurt?”

A dentist with sharp words.

Oh Se Dong grinned, imagining Bae Jung Soon’s dissatisfied face behind the dental bib with only her mouth exposed.

Even after finishing treatment and moving to the reception room, Jung Soon clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction. This time, the lukewarm Solomon’s seal tea was the problem.

“Ugh, it’s so bland. You could even use it for ramyeon.”

“Big baby! You’re whining just like an 8-year-old, 8 years old.”

As always, Se Dong sat close beside her, intertwining their arms and resting his head on her small, thin shoulder.

Although she grimaced and complained it was heavy, her hand with its fine wrinkles stroked his fluffy hair affectionately.

“Se Dong is havin’ a hard time. Wrists achin’, legs wobblin’.”

“Why don’t you rest a bit?”

“What vacation for a first-year paid doctor?”

Se Dong giggled, imitating Jung Soon’s way of speaking.

At his playful grumbling, the old woman’s eyes flashed. Come to think of it, her baby’s face did look a bit thin.

“Is that bastard director givin’ you a hard time?”

Before he could even answer, she had already made the director out to be a terrible person and declared he should quit right away.

My Se Dong, who’s like a daughter to me. He refused to learn management under me, insisted on becoming a doctor, and even declined when I offered to set up a clinic for him.

Oh Se Dong, who specialized in science and engineering, had already solved all the high school math formulas by elementary school.

He was also good at making programs with self-taught coding. He had an impressive track record in that field, such as defeating a hacker who had planted ransomware on the university server.

When such a person said he wanted to become a dentist, it was a bit puzzling. I thought he would do something even more eccentric.

Just look at how he checked the teeth of all the executive secretaries guarding the reception room and sent them to the treatment room saying they needed scaling.

“So, anyway.”

The topic naturally shifted to their common interest, Kye Da Hae. The “anyway” was asking for his impression of Kang Jae Kyung.

Oh Se Dong, his lips protruding like chicken gizzards, thought for a moment.

He was debating whether to mention that Kang Jae Kyung had suggested he get a psychiatric evaluation.

In any case, Kye Da Hae, that girl, was the worst. The traitor General Kye. They say even cats can be docile troublemakers.

Apart from feeling sorry that his fellow single friend had suddenly left, he couldn’t understand why she had abruptly changed her mind.

Last night, knowing she would be at their newlywed home, he had called her.

Partly to give her information that the Old Master’s suspicions were growing day by day. But he quickly hung up, creeped out by the icy low voice calling his name.

Just as he was about to lie down to sleep, the doorbell rang. Tteokbokki that he hadn’t ordered was delivered.

The orderer on the receipt was “Da Hae’s husband”.

It was a bit thrilling that he had the sense to add plenty of glass noodles to the Hell’s Taste series, his favorite, but still, Se Dong grumpily said, not wanting to praise him:

“Kye Da Hae is too good for him.”