Ensnared by the Trap (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 15
“Do you really have to do this?”
Dave, who had been following Kyle, finally spat out the words he’d been holding back, as if he couldn’t take it anymore.
“What? Want to go in together? Then go change.”
Kyle said expressionlessly to Dave, who was dressed in a suit.
“No. President. That’s not it. Right now…….”
But at the sharp glare Kyle immediately shot back, Dave shut his mouth.
Last time, during the Hatch incident, Kyle had issued a severe reprimand regarding Captain Marcus’s illegal customer surveillance orders.
He had also ordered that the matter of “the curse of the Zaina Ho” never be mentioned again.
Dave had thought that with Kyle’s strong measures, the whole affair was finally settled.
Yet strangely, after that incident, Kyle’s schedule had only grown busier.
On top of that, because he personally inspected every event on board, even Dave ended up frantically busy.
Today, as usual, after finishing regular work, Kyle headed straight to the event venue for an inspection.
However, Dave found it suspicious that Kyle was insisting on going in while even adhering to the dress code.
As if he were deliberately looking for someone.
Even if that were the case, there was no way to stop that stubbornness now.
With a resigned sigh, Dave stepped back.
Kyle was already fully prepared.
“Shall we enter?”
The staff member in charge of the main pool gate where the event party was being held quickly approached.
Kyle gave a light nod and handed the beach robe he was wearing to the employee.
Seeing Kyle in nothing but swim trunks, upper body completely bare, the male staff member’s mouth involuntarily fell open.
When Kyle raised an eyebrow, the employee finally snapped out of it and hurriedly opened the door.
Loud music and dazzling lights that made the eyes dizzy.
Countless people moving wildly, tangled together in ecstatic frenzy as the party raged on.
Yet the moment Kyle stepped in, every gaze in the place focused on a single point.
As if mortals were witnessing the descent of a god.
Even the music that had been loud enough to burst eardrums, even the flashy dancing lights.
Nothing dared to surpass Kyle’s overwhelming presence.
It was hard to believe this place had been a crucible of madness just moments ago.
Time itself seemed to have frozen.
Everything in the space he slowly claimed moved meticulously around him, as though it existed solely for Kyle.
Like being sucked into a black hole, people began gathering along the path he walked.
* * *
“Beach ball? Come on, everyone look here! Anyone want to play beach ball? Hands up!”
Sung Jae playfully bounced the beach ball.
“Can’t you see this big sister completely entranced, one with the seductive music right now? What’s with the childish beach ball?”
“Me? Me!”
But despite Jung Yeon’s scolding, Se Hee enthusiastically responded.
“Yes! Se Hee wins. Sold out!”
The moment Se Hee raised her hand, Sung Jae shouted that it was closed.
“What? Was this all planned?”
Jung Yeon rolled her eyes in disbelief.
“Ball games are always most fun with two people. I’ll play with you separately later, so keep listening to that ‘seductive’ music and stay in your trance over there.”
Sung Jae completely turned his back on Jung Yeon.
“Hey! Ban Sung Jae! You’re seriously doing this to our friendship…… Wait, what’s that? Why did the music suddenly stop?”
Jung Yeon, who had been yelling at Sung Jae, pointed toward the crowd gathered at the entrance.
“Why are so many people crowding over there?”
Sung Jae’s attention was also drawn to where Jung Yeon was pointing.
“Is there a performance? Looks like there’s something besides the DJ today? Some super famous guest?”
Jung Yeon stepped out of the water and suspiciously turned toward the crowd.
With so many people gathered and the constant shrieks of women, Se Hee’s curiosity exploded too.
The cloud-like swarm of people strangely seemed to be heading this way.
“It feels like they’re coming toward us, right?”
At Se Hee’s question, Jung Yeon nodded.
“Yeah, it does. Why this direction instead of the stage?”
And not long after, the two women understood exactly why.
“Ha.”
A sigh mixed with irritation burst from Sung Jae, the first to realize who it was.
Damn it.
Even a string of profanity.
He had assumed the guy was just another suit guy, as people crudely called them.
Sung Jae had thought that man, just slightly taller than his own 188 cm, owed his impressive physique to expensive tailoring.
That was why he had boldly provoked him.
Because here, that fancy suit couldn’t hide his real body.
Perhaps in his desire to show off his own trained body, he had even thrown a cocky gesture.
But the man was the real deal.
It wasn’t thanks to the suit; rather, the suit had been concealing his perfect body.
The man’s smooth white skin laid bare the well-developed muscles all over his body even more starkly.
Shoulders vast enough to be called the Pacific Ocean.
Chest muscles nearing perfection and the firm abs seated solidly below them.
Thighs thick as if ready to burst—enough to make even Sung Jae, a former competitive swimmer, jealous.
A terrifying presence that seemed to emit a light stronger than the flashy event hall lights, almost hallucinatory.
Sung Jae’s face twisted into a scowl.
“Oh. My. God!”
As Kyle drew closer, Jung Yeon was half out of her mind.
“This place is definitely paradise on earth. I could die right now without regrets, my friend.”
Jung Yeon’s gaze was already locked onto the man.
“Hey! Snap out of it, Jin Jung Yeon! Your jaw’s gonna fall off. Close your mouth and control your eyes!”
Despite Sung Jae’s irritated scolding, Jung Yeon couldn’t tear her eyes away from the man.
Her gaze slowly scanned down from the top of Kyle’s head, ecstatically fixing on the solid six-pack on his abdomen.
Se Hee was just as shocked.
She had seen him before at the pool in a wet shirt, but this situation—him confidently approaching with his upper body completely bare—was on another level.
Truly a different dimension.
For the first time, Se Hee realized a man’s body could be this beautiful.
A fantastical body.
That single phrase perfectly suited this man.
Only Sung Jae stubbornly held his ground at the site of this catastrophe born of his own arrogance.
“There’s absolutely nothing I like about this.”
In the end, Sung Jae hurled the beach ball he was holding with all his strength.
As if he intended to smash the approaching Kyle to pieces.
The beach ball flying toward Kyle was caught effortlessly in one hand.
Gasps of admiration erupted everywhere at his astonishing athletic reflexes.
Kyle readjusted his grip on the ball and threw it back at Sung Jae with real force.
The instant the ball left Kyle’s hand and landed in Sung Jae’s.
Unable to withstand the speed and power, it burst with a terrifying bang.
“Gah.”
The impact nearly sent Sung Jae tumbling.
“Sung Jae, you okay?”
Startled, Jung Yeon finally came to her senses and ran to his side.
“Mr. Sung Jae.”
A shocked Se Hee also approached.
“I… I’m fine. Totally fine. The ball was just weak, that’s all. Looks like I put too much strength into it.”
Sung Jae, whose face had gone pale, quickly composed himself.
Insisting the ball burst because of him, not Kyle, trying somehow to turn the situation around.
“Quite the flashy entrance.”
Sung Jae muttered as if it were pathetic.
“I tend to draw attention, so this is nothing.”
Kyle replied arrogantly.
Then he turned his gaze to Se Hee and asked.
“You can’t swim—sure you’re okay?”
“Huh? Y-yes. Yes. The water’s shallower than I thought. I’m fine.”
As Kyle came closer, Se Hee’s ears turned red; she hurriedly looked away and answered.
“Then shall I teach you a bit here?”
Kyle moved even closer to Se Hee, who was avoiding his eyes, and took her hand.
Only then did a startled Se Hee look up at him.
When her gaze finally met his fully, the corner of Kyle’s mouth slowly curved upward.
“Looks like you know a little swimming?”
Sung Jae, unable to just watch, slyly interjected.
“A little?”
Kyle’s eyebrow twitched.
“Well… back in the day I was school representative in swimming and all that. If anyone needs lessons, I can teach you, Se Hee.”
Sung Jae boasted, swinging his arm as if showing off his solid muscles.
“Back in the day? I’ve rarely seen anyone who says that actually have real skill.”
Kyle snorted.
“Ha, what? Have you been living under a rock? Then want to go one round?”
Got him.
Sung Jae inwardly cheered.
As mentioned earlier, from middle school through high school and even university, Sung Jae had been national-team level in swimming.
He would flatten that arrogant nose right in front of Se Hee.
“What, scared you’ll lose?”
Sung Jae tried another childish provocation toward Kyle, who hadn’t clearly accepted.
“A bet. It’s been so long. Terms?”
Kyle slowly walked over to Sung Jae’s side.
“Terms?”
“A bet without stakes isn’t fun.”
Kyle’s lazy voice irritated Sung Jae further.
“Obviously the loser has to get-lost. The loser quietly disappears.”
Sung Jae’s lips curled into a long victorious grin, as if he’d already won.
“You’ll regret it.”
Kyle said nonchalantly.
“Regret? That’s my line. Swimming is my main event.”
Sung Jae laughed it off as nonsense.
“Yeah? I’m not particularly great at swimming, but… I’ve never lost a bet. I accept the terms.”
Kyle’s arrogant gaze turned to Sung Jae.
“Don’t make excuses later—you’ll have to disappear quickly.”
Sung Jae growled as if spitting curses, in a foul mood.
Without deciding who went first, the two lined up side by side on the swimming lane just behind the party area.
“What? They’re really racing right now?”
Jung Yeon’s eyes sparkled as if an entertaining show had begun.
Se Hee also came closer.
“Jin Jung Yeon, start us.”
Sung Jae shouted.
“Okay! Three. Two. One. Go!”
Jung Yeon yelled the start signal loudly.
“Ooh… look at him cutting through the water. Amazing. Ban Sung Jae’s still alive.”
Jung Yeon’s eyes followed Sung Jae rapidly slicing through the water.
In contrast, Se Hee’s gaze was fixed on Kyle gliding smoothly beneath the surface.
Kyle, closely chasing Sung Jae underwater, finally surfaced.
With powerful, straight arms, Kyle strode after Sung Jae.
The way Kyle moved, parting the splashing water, was elegant—like wings soaring through the night sky.
The light reflecting off his wet body made the motion even more breathtakingly beautiful.
The moment Se Hee was mesmerized by Kyle, the tide turned in an instant.
Truly in the blink of an eye.
The one who touched the finish line first was Kyle.
“No way!”
He had never lost a swimming race before.
Sung Jae arrived at the finish line by a hair’s breadth, staring at Kyle with a dumbfounded expression of disbelief.
What flew toward that Sung Jae was the same gaze Kyle had given when they first met—a thick aura of relaxed dominance from an apex predator.
Kyle’s large hand heavily pressed down on Sung Jae’s shoulder as he tried to climb out first.
Overwhelmed by an aura so overpowering it made everything until now feel like child’s play, Sung Jae froze solid.
Kyle’s cool, low voice seemed to pierce straight through Sung Jae’s head.
“Time for you to get lost.”
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
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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