CHAPTER 5
Hye-joo stammered back in a flustered voice, her eyes trembling so pitifully that it was almost heartbreaking to see.
“W-What are you talking about?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t remember?”
“W-What do you mean……?”
“We were pretty passionate that night.”
Muhyuk said as he gently caressed Hye-joo’s earlobe.
At his playful voice tickling her ear, Hye-joo’s back stiffened with tension.
“What are you talking about? You’ve mistaken me for someone el—”
Before Hye-joo could finish speaking, Muhyuk gently stroked down her waist.
“See? Your body is telling me. You remember me.”
“Your body can’t lie, you know. Mine’s telling me the same thing right now.”
At Muhyuk’s voice, Hye-joo widened her eyes in surprise and let out a hiccup.
“Hic, so……”
Muhyuk’s lips touched Hye-joo’s.
The kiss was not deep enough for their tongues to intertwine, but it was more than enough to remind her of everything that had happened that night.
When Hye-joo pushed against Muhyuk’s shoulder, he obediently pulled his lips away and looked down at her.
“……W-What are you doing?!”
“Your hiccups stopped.”
“So you kissed me just to make my hiccups stop……”
“That just now was simply a greeting.”
Muhyuk grinned and rubbed his finger over Hye-joo’s lips.
Then his lips once again covered hers, their soft warmth burning against her mouth.
Muhyuk tightened the arm he had wrapped around Hye-joo’s waist.
Holding her waist firmly against him, heat passed between their tightly pressed lips.
‘……I can’t. I really can’t.’
Even knowing she shouldn’t, Hye-joo could not push the man standing before her away.
Her body was responding to Muhyuk’s kiss before she even realized it.
Hye-joo wrapped her arms around Muhyuk’s neck.
Muhyuk pulled his lips away and looked down at her before speaking.
Slowly lifting her eyelids, Hye-joo seemed startled and released her hands from around his neck before taking a step back.
“I told you we should meet again.”
“……!”
“And here we are, meeting again, aren’t we, Ms. Kwon Hye-joo?”
They were standing at one side of the gopchang restaurant’s parking lot, and no matter how dark it was, someone could still see them.
Only now returning to reality, Hye-joo glanced once at the lights of the gopchang restaurant, cleared her throat, and spoke as calmly as she could.
“I-I thought you had forgotten everything……”
“There’s no way I could forget.”
“……Why, why not?”
“Because it was good. I was hurting enough to think about you every night. Something like lovesickness, I guess.”
From the beginning, Hye-joo had simply assumed that because he had never acted as though he recognized her, he must have forgotten.
Now she realized that had merely been an awkward and naïve attempt at rationalizing things for herself.
“So you remembered me all this time? Out of all the people in the world, how could you……”
At her flustered question, Muhyuk’s face began drawing close again.
Hye-joo stepped backward like someone growing increasingly anxious.
“I’ve never forgotten you for even a moment.”
Watching Muhyuk grin, Hye-joo hurriedly shifted her gaze away.
Just before their lips touched again, Hye-joo barely managed to turn her face aside and lifted her chin.
Then, pretending to be calm, she spoke to Muhyuk.
“Mr. Kang Sun-woo, if this is some kind of joke, please stop now.”
“……”
“We’re not children, are we? I strictly separate work from my personal life. So if you’re only acting like this because what happened that night is bothering you, you don’t have to.”
That’s enough, Kwon Hye-joo.
You handled this as calmly and maturely as you possibly could.
Hye-joo thought she had managed to bring the situation to a reasonable conclusion, but Muhyuk, who had been silently staring at her, finally spoke.
“I don’t want to.”
“……W-What?! Then what are you going to do?”
“You never thought about me even once? Not a single time since that night?”
“……Of course I did.”
She had, and she had thought about him a lot.
There had even been days when she happened to see a man of a similar height and instinctively turned her head toward him.
But he was a handsome man, the man from an intoxicating one-night encounter.
Nothing more and nothing less.
She had definitely thought that was all it was.
Muhyuk whispered into Hye-joo’s ear.
“Don’t you want to find out?”
“……Find out what?”
“Whether we really were that compatible that night, or if we only imagined it.”
“If you mean find out……”
“Shall we spend tonight together?”
“You and me.”
His sweet voice tickled her ear, making her lower abdomen grow heavy with desire.
Muhyuk slowly reached out and gently rubbed the back of Hye-joo’s hand.
She shouldn’t give in.
Even knowing she mustn’t, Hye-joo wanted to throw herself into his arms right then and there.
“We can’t do this. We’re going to keep seeing each other, aren’t we?”
“Then I’m going to keep doing this.”
“……You mean you’ll do this every time we see each other?”
“Yes. And I’ll do things even more than this.”
Muhyuk lightly kissed Hye-joo’s cheek.
Hye-joo pushed Muhyuk away in surprise and looked around them.
“I came all the way here because of you. So you should take responsibility.”
“So take responsibility for me tonight.”
Muhyuk’s dizzying provocation continued.
—
Everything Muhyuk had said to Hye-joo was sincere.
Muhyuk had never forgotten that night, not even for a single day.
Although he enjoyed drinking, Muhyuk did not enjoy noisy places, and he had only reluctantly attended the gathering because an acquaintance whose birthday it was had repeatedly asked him to come.
After offering a brief congratulations, Muhyuk grew bored and walked out into the hallway alone.
He then leaned lightly against the railing and looked toward the stage.
‘It’s noisy and boring. What on earth do people even like about coming to places like this?’
Because the entire VIP floor had been rented out, the stage was packed with drunken people, unlike the quiet second floor.
Soon, someone entered Muhyuk’s field of vision.
She wasn’t dancing, nor was there anything particularly special about her, yet somehow she kept catching his eye.
So Muhyuk leaned farther over the railing and quietly observed her.
‘What’s with that woman?’
Not long afterward, the woman whose gaze met Muhyuk’s began staggering toward him.
Before long, only a few steps separated her from Muhyuk.
Muhyuk stopped the guard who moved to block the woman’s path.
It was purely out of curiosity.
“……!”
Still staggering, the woman climbed the stairs and immediately wrapped her arms around Muhyuk’s neck.
Even that was fine.
As Muhyuk silently looked down at her, the woman rose onto her toes and pressed her lips directly against his.
Under normal circumstances, Muhyuk would have pushed her away, but instead, he went along with her lead.
And he was completely sober while doing so.
As they kissed, Muhyuk skillfully lifted the woman into his arms.
As soon as they got into the car, the woman seemed to sober up a little and glanced at Muhyuk.
“Is it okay to drive after drinking? Isn’t that a criminal offense……”
“So someone who worries about that is okay with having a one-night stand?”
Muhyuk gave a small laugh and asked her in a fairly serious tone.
Throughout the drive to the hotel, Muhyuk occasionally glanced toward the passenger seat.
He wondered whether something had happened to her, or perhaps whether something was going on.
The woman simply kept the window open and silently let the wind blow against her face.
She was a woman who kept drawing his attention in more ways than one.
Even though he had brought her to the hotel intending to take things all the way, Muhyuk found himself worrying about her.
It was rather absurd.
He had only gone along with the woman who had made the first move.
While they were kissing deeply, Muhyuk suddenly pulled his lips away slightly and asked,
“Do you think you’ll regret this?”
There was no set type of person who did or did not have one-night stands.
Yet, strangely, this woman did not seem like someone who would do something like that at all.
“……I won’t regret it.”
Muhyuk quietly watched her squeeze her eyes shut as she said she would not regret it.
‘Is she nervous?’
She had suddenly kissed him and acted as though she was ready to go even further.
Yet seeing her nervousness struck him as rather cute.
Muhyuk, who was usually the one to make others desperate for him rather than beg anyone himself, spent the entire night wanting this woman, whose true name he did not even know for certain, over and over again.
The next morning, when he heard someone moving, Muhyuk forced open his sleep-heavy eyes.
The woman, who had been tiptoeing around like a stray cat, suddenly froze in place.
Even at his casual words, the woman showed her nervousness without the slightest attempt to hide it.
Muhyuk wanted to stop her one more time and kiss her, but he did not.
The woman, now completely sober, looked as though she wanted to leave this place immediately.
“She’s cute.”
After the woman left and Muhyuk was alone in the hotel room, something small caught the light in his field of vision.
As though telling the story of the passionate night they had shared, a pearl-decorated blouse button had fallen to the floor.
Muhyuk picked up the three buttons that had been sent flying by the force of his movements.
“I guess I’ll have to see her again.”
As though he had found something he absolutely needed to return, Muhyuk rolled the buttons around in his hand and gave a quiet chuckle.
