AGR 09

The new week had begun, but his mood was no better.

It would not be wrong to say that it was because of the woman he had met on Friday.

Even now, thinking back on it, he found the whole thing ridiculous.

Why had he lost sleep over a woman he had only crossed paths with briefly?

And it wasn’t just sleep he’d lost. He had even become aroused over a woman whose name he didn’t know.

That damn scarf was the problem.

He should have left it in the car or tossed it into a trash can. Instead, he’d gone out of his way to bring it home, giving himself yet another reason to think about the woman.

Suddenly, a conversation he’d had with Yoonki long ago overlapped with the image of her in his mind.

“If that’s how it’s going to be, then actually sleep with women. Stop making smoke in front of the raccoon’s den.”

Yoonki had been pointing out the absurdity of the situation. Jaeeon was notorious for scandals, the very man responsible for stirring up all sorts of rumors and earning himself endless abuse, yet he never actually did anything with the women in his so-called Monthly Girlfriend rotation.

“What the hell are you so reluctant about? All those girls would fall at your feet if you so much as lifted a finger.”

“They’re not my type.”

“Then why keep them around? Find someone who is your type.”

Keep a woman he liked by his side?

Then what would happen to his Monthly Girlfriend arrangement? He had to keep making smoke in front of the raccoon’s den, so to speak.

He had to replace one woman every month to earn himself the reputation of that lunatic.

He had to play the part of a loud, shameless playboy to become the disgrace of the otherwise dignified Taesung family.

Of course, he hadn’t encountered anyone who fit his tastes, either.

“It’s not easy to find a woman who’s my type.”

“Are you telling me that out of all the women who’ve passed through your Monthly Girlfriend rotation, not a single one has been your type?”

In response to Yoonki’s question, Jaeeon merely let out a derisive chuckle. Yoonki laughed incredulously in turn.

“Ha, fuck. Are your eyes stuck on top of Mount Everest or something?”

He’d been at this for two years already, and the number of women he’d kept by his side had reached roughly twenty-five.

Seriously, all kinds of beautiful women had passed through his life, regardless of nationality or age, yet not a single one had suited his tastes.

After lamenting the situation to himself, Yoonki asked,

“Let me hear it, then. What’s your type? What kind of woman are you looking for, exactly?”

Looking for someone? That wasn’t it.

It wasn’t something he could find simply by trying to find it.

It was something he had to discover.

“A woman who makes your heart tremble the moment you first lay eyes on her?”

Jaeeon had gazed into the distance, his expression faintly wistful. Yoonki had promptly called him a “crazy bastard.”

A crazy bastard.

Perhaps that was the most accurate way to describe Kwon Jaeeon.

Thinking that, he brought the scarf in his hand up to the tip of his nose.

A faint scent, reminiscent of roses, reached him.

It was the fragrance that had captured all his senses at the party when he’d followed the woman to where she had been sitting.

No, even before that.

It was the scent that had led him past the spot where she’d stood, along the path she’d taken, and ultimately all the way to her.

Perhaps he’d been intoxicated by her fragrance, because the moment their eyes met, an intense, tingling sensation had shot through him.

The problem was that he hadn’t felt it in his heart.

He’d pretended to remain composed, but the instant he held her gaze, his groin had tightened painfully.

What had been hanging limply over his left thigh was now standing at attention.

His body had been honed by all kinds of athletic training since childhood. He had better control over his body than anyone else, and he was quite adept at suppressing the ordinary lust that most men experienced.

A large part of that was probably because, starting in adolescence, he’d come to regard the women who flocked to him as though they were in heat as vulgar.

He also had a stubborn streak. Like a damn tree frog, the more someone begged him for something, the less inclined he was to give it to them.

As a result, at some point, he’d learned to control his body’s responses to lust.

All he had to do was switch it off, like flipping a switch.

Yet a single trace of scent on that scarf had broken the switch.

The mere suspicion that the woman had tried to seduce him just like all the others had been enough to extinguish his interest. He’d thrown away his chance to keep her close as casually as if he were tossing out the trash, then gone home.

And yet, the faintest trace of her fragrance had stirred his body all over again.

No matter how hard he tried to turn the switch off, he couldn’t.

If anything, the sensation flared more fiercely, as though it were rebelling against him. In the end, he had no choice but to relieve himself.

It was ridiculous, using his own hand until his skin was practically raw, when he hadn’t even done such a thing during puberty.

Eventually, Jaeeon shoved the scarf into some corner of the laundry room and left the house, heading straight to Jeju Island.

Saturday and Sunday, without a break.

He tore around the racing circuit he owned, driving at brutal speeds.

Driving with an erection was a novel experience, to say the least. It was so unpleasant that it left him feeling almost disgusted with himself.

When he returned after that filthy weekend, a scandal involving another man was waiting for him.

That was novel, too.

As Yoonki had said, he’d finally managed to get himself involved in a scandal with a man.

His family home must have been thrown into an uproar.

Under normal circumstances, this wasn’t a bad thing.

In fact, the situation might have aligned perfectly with his intentions.

This would become the worst scandal ever caused by Taesung’s youngest prince, branding him a problem child in the eyes of the executives once and for all.

His grandfather would be furious, and his father would be ashamed of him.

His older brother would give up on him, and his enemies would… let their guard down.

Ha. That bastard. What a piece of trash.

Yeah, just go bury yourself in a car and live quietly.

Something along those lines.

But why had the woman’s eyes come to mind at that very moment?

He’d unconsciously recalled the woman who had looked at him with contempt and called him a slut.

And suddenly, he wasn’t happy about this latest scandal.

Would she misunderstand? Would she think he liked men?

If they met again, he’d hear it all over again, wouldn’t he?

Slut.

Even while being cursed at, his body would react. No matter how hard he tried to switch it off, he’d fail.

Look at him now. He was reacting just from thinking about her.

Even during his meeting with Director Bang, Jaeeon had been thinking about these things the entire time.

Then another thought occurred to him.

Meeting her again…

That wasn’t a bad idea.

He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it sooner.

It wasn’t as though he had absolutely no way of finding her.

In that regard, he could only be grateful to the junior lawyer on his grandfather’s legal team.

“Hyung.”

Jaeeon had just finished an afternoon meeting when he addressed Yoonki by the familiar, informal title.

Yoonki, who was organizing some documents, raised his head and asked, “What is it?”

“Club Ryun. The CEO, Jeongwon. You’re close to her, right?”

At his question, Yoonki’s eyes widened.

“How do you know about that…?”

“I recognized you just from your silhouette in that ridiculously blurry video.”

The junior lawyer on the legal team had ultimately relied on his connections to get results.

Not only had he recognized Do Yoonki, but he’d also identified the person who had filmed the video.

“He probably went through the CCTV footage and cross-referenced it with the guest list.”

All of those resources would have been available to Jeongwon, the club’s CEO.

“So you should try it, too.”

“Try what?”

“Put those connections of yours to work.”

“…?”

“I can’t exactly go crawling to a junior lawyer on the legal team for help and make myself look pathetic, can I?”

Jaeeon lazily lifted one corner of his mouth into a crooked smile.

Sports cars in particular.

Eleven years ago, she’d witnessed her older brother’s accident right before her eyes.

Even now, whenever her thoughts drifted back to that day, the memories of that hellish moment came rushing back with painful clarity.

Every time the brightly colored, extravagantly decorated racing machines roared around the circuit, the heat of their engines reached her alongside their acrid smell.

They were driving so fast. If an accident happened, who could guarantee that the racers would survive?

She had been consumed by worry.

“Don’t worry. Even if they crash and roll over just like that, they’ll be fine because they’ve got all sorts of safety equipment.”

The team’s technical coach had explained this to the anxious Iseo.

He assured her that various safety devices, including equipment designed to protect the head, would bring her brother back safely.

He’d even told her that racers always climbed out unharmed, even when their cars overturned.

But on the day of the accident, Hyunwoo hadn’t been able to walk away unscathed.

The speed had been too high, and the impact energy too great. The entire chassis had collapsed, destroying the survival cell around the driver.

That alone would have been fatal. But then another car, its tires having lost traction, slammed hard into the area immediately beside Hyunwoo’s cockpit.

Track marshals and engineers rushed over and began practically tearing the machine apart.

Only then did they reveal Hyunwoo’s body, clad in a red racing suit.

Iseo ran as she watched several people lift his limp body.

She pushed past the people in her way, running all the way to the fence directly in front of the crash site.

The red racing suit made it difficult to distinguish what she was seeing at first glance, but there was no way she could mistake it.

The dark, reddish-black substance enveloping Hyunwoo was blood.