Chapter : 2
Smile, Hong Yumin.
Yumin desperately forced the corners of her mouth and her cheeks upward, which kept threatening to sag downward.
But perhaps because anger was boiling inside her, she couldn’t bring herself to smile easily.
What? He looked young?
“They say he’s 44, but he looks like he’s 33. Apparently, he exercises often, too. These days, it’s rare to find a wealthy man who takes good care of himself and still looks young, so go and do your best.”
Then why did the bald eagle sitting across from her look like he was in his late forties at the very youngest?!
The moment she remembered her aunt’s sudden sweet voice after Yumin had agreed to go on the blind date, she clenched her fists.
“His photo was misleading….”
At Representative Kim Byungtae’s first words, Yumin flinched.
“Yes?”
“I mean the photo was a scam, haha. You’re a million times prettier in person than in the picture.”
“Ah…. Thank you.”
Looking at Byungtae, who was only five years older than her father, Yumin forced herself to smile.
“May I take your order?”
Just then, an employee approached.
Before Yumin could even look at the menu beside her, Byungtae spoke.
“A vanilla latte and, hmm, do you have orange juice?”
“Yes. Would you like two drinks, then?”
Byungtae merely nodded.
Yumin looked at him in confusion.
Sensing her gaze, Byungtae met her eyes and burst out laughing.
“Ah. I thought the baby would like orange juice.”
Yumin’s mouth fell open.
……Baby?
“I ordered for you. Is that okay?”
Goosebumps spread all over her body.
Surely Hong Suji had seen this man’s photo beforehand, right?
That must have been why she passed him on to Yumin.
That nasty bitch.
Ever since Yumin had lived under her family’s roof, she had tormented her relentlessly. And now she was throwing this kind of shit at her, too.
Yumin wanted to get up and run away immediately, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her father, who was in the hospital.
If she failed to get an offer for a second date from this man, her aunt’s family would undoubtedly threaten her with her father’s hospital bills.
Her father was hospitalized because of severe aftereffects from a factory fire in the past. If he didn’t receive treatment, his life would be in danger.
Yumin let out a deep sigh.
“Phew.”
“Haha. You must be nervous.”
“…….”
“Cute.”
Yumin squeezed her eyes shut.
No matter how good she was at putting up with things, hearing an older man call her cute in a romantic sense made her head spin.
“Your drinks are ready.”
Fortunately, the drinks arrived.
Yumin downed the juice in one go.
Watching her blankly, Byungtae burst into laughter.
“Should Oppa order you another one?”
“No.”
Byungtae simply said, “Okay,” and then took a long sip through the straw in his own cup.
“Ahh. This place makes good coffee.”
“…….”
“That girl. Su… what was it?”
“Suji?”
“Ah, right. Suji. The girl I was originally supposed to go on a blind date with. You’re the same age as her?”
Yumin gave a slight nod.
“Haha. I don’t know if I should say this, but I really have to thank Miss Suji. Your face and figure are much more my type.”
“…….”
“Despite being so slim, you seem to have quite a generous heart, too….”
Byungtae’s lecherous eyes slowly drifted downward.
Phew, Hong Yumin. Endure it.
You’ve lived as an unwanted burden in that family’s house for ten years. You can endure something like this.
“So… what does our baby like?”
Yumin took another deep breath before looking at Byungtae and asking,
“What do I like? Are you asking about hobbies or something?”
“No, no. I mean what kind of food you eat.”
“Oh, food. I eat pretty much anything. I’m not picky.”
“Heh. If you eat everything, then you must be good at eating that, too?”
Byungtae’s gaze subtly dropped downward.
As Byungtae’s behavior increasingly crossed the line, Yumin’s patience was steadily evaporating.
Should she keep sitting here or not?
If she ruined the blind date and left like this, it was obvious they would threaten to stop paying her father’s hospital bills….
No, wait. Even if she worked at some factory and somehow earned enough to cover the hospital bills, there was still the problem of her father’s debt that her uncle had paid on his behalf.
A few years ago, when her father had fled Germany, her uncle had tracked him down through the people he had hired in less than two days.
They had told him not to even think about escaping until her father’s debt was fully repaid.
“Phew.”
“You’ve heard what kind of person I am to some extent, right?”
Yumin nodded half-heartedly.
“I’m telling you, I don’t need anything else. Wifely support? I don’t need that either. I’ve got enough servants to fill a truckload. What I mean is, all I need from my wife is for her to be good in bed.”
“…….”
“So, I was thinking… strike while the iron is hot. Upstairs.”
Byungtae stopped mid-sentence, and Yumin slowly raised her eyes.
The moment their gazes locked in midair, Byungtae’s lips twisted cruelly.
Then he brought both palms together with a sharp clap.
“Once.”
Clap.
“No, wait. Twice.”
Clap, clap.
“Let’s see how we match.”
The surroundings suddenly fell silent.
Even as he watched the heat rise to Yumin’s face, Byungtae continued speaking loudly.
“How about we go to the department store and buy gifts for your parents-in-law—no, wait. For the baby, it would be your big family, right? We can buy gifts for all of them and go together. Wouldn’t it be nice to get everything done directly? We’re having the wedding next month anyway.”
What? A wedding? Next month?
“……What do you mean? A wedding?”
“You didn’t hear? We’re getting married next month, and then you need to get ready to have a baby right away. My father was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer. He needs to see his grandchild before he goes. There’s a lot I’m supposed to inherit from him.”
Yumin felt dizzy.
Judging from how casually the man said it, it seemed like this had already been agreed upon with her big family.
She was 44. So she was supposed to marry a man 19 years older than her and give birth to his child within a month?
Was that why they had sent her instead of Suji, their precious daughter?
Yumin felt sick to her stomach at the intentions of the family that continued to treat her as less than human until the very end.
She closed her eyes again.
Even though she tried to suppress her anger, it wouldn’t subside. Her hands and jaw trembled.
Tap, tap.
Just then, Byungtae kept snapping his fingers in the air.
Yumin cautiously opened her eyes, and Byungtae spoke.
“And there’s something else. Do you know that Yun Bosal alone was paid 2 billion won because of this marriage?”
……Yun Bosal?
Could he mean the Yun Seonnyeo Bosal whom her uncle blindly believed in?
When Yumin looked puzzled, Byungtae whispered expressionlessly.
“They said there was barely any luck with women in my saju. Yun Bosal found a woman who could make up for that. And that woman is you, baby.”
The more she heard, the stranger it became.
Suji was supposed to be the original heroine of this blind date.
Then did that mean Suji and Yumin had similar saju?
“Anyway, baby. I’ve spent quite a lot of money bringing you into this. So shouldn’t you show me something in return that’s worth what I spent?”
Before Byungtae had even finished speaking, he pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it onto the table.
The moment Yumin realized what it was, her pupils began to tremble.
A hotel room key.
Yumin slowly lifted her gaze toward Byungtae.
Byungtae twitched his eyebrows and gave her a lecherous look.
“If you understand, shall we go?”
Byungtae stood up first.
“Ah. I… I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. Why don’t we stop here for today? I’ll go home and confirm everything with my uncle—”
“Hey, hey. Baby.”
Byungtae clenched his teeth and whispered threateningly.
“Don’t act expensive and just follow me. I told you, I bought you. You don’t have a choice. You understand?”
Yumin shook her head firmly.
Byungtae bit his lip viciously, then reached toward her.
In an instant, he grabbed Yumin’s wrist tightly and tried to drag her away from the table.
Yumin struggled with all her strength, refusing to stand.
The moment her bottom left the chair, it was over.
But Byungtae was so strong that her body was lifted into the air several times before dropping back down.
What… do I do?! I don’t want to sleep with that bastard!
Should I just go all out and scream, turn everything upside down?
But then what would happen to Dad?
And that was when it happened.
CRACK—!
With a sound like something breaking, a scream burst from Byungtae’s mouth.
“Argh, shit! Who the hell was that?!”
At the same time, something went tumbling down beneath Byungtae.
Startled, Yumin hurriedly looked at the floor.
It was a napkin holder—the kind placed on every table.
Byungtae turned around furiously.
“You, you did this?!”
But Byungtae was so enormous that Yumin couldn’t see who had thrown the napkin holder at him.
Besides, the entire restaurant had gone silent, and everyone’s attention was focused on them, which suddenly made Yumin afraid.
She didn’t even want to know who he had gotten into an argument with.
“Hey, you bastard! Why the hell did you throw my napkin holder at someone else’s head?!”
“You’re the one making a scene. Could you move your head out of the way?”
Unlike the raging Byungtae, a low and calm voice rang out.
“W-what, what, what?!”
At the eerie voice that gave her an intense sense of déjà vu, Yumin’s heart seemed to stop.
“Let me see if the woman sitting in front of you is the woman I know.”
Soon, heavy footsteps began approaching the table.
“Uh? Hey…! You bastard!”
Someone appeared beside Byungtae, who seemed to be trying to stop whatever was happening.
As a familiar shadow fell over Yumin’s head—
“It is.”
Yumin’s heart, which had stopped, began beating faster than she could bear.
“My runaway assignment.”
It was Seol Jaejun.
