CHAPTER 7
“Stop drinking. You’re drunk.”
When Seo Jae took the glass away, Ha-eun pouted.
The swelling in her lips had gone down, and they had returned to normal, looking as luscious as bright-red cherries.
Her large, clear eyes, glazed with drunkenness, sparkled moistly, while her small face illuminated by the lights looked exceptionally lovely, making it impossible to take one’s eyes off her.
Ha-eun raised her index finger to her lips and acted coquettishly.
“Just one more drink, okay? Today is the first time I’ve realized tequila could taste this good.”
Ha-eun, who had just discovered tequila—sprinkling salt on the back of her hand and licking it before drinking, then cleansing her palate with lime juice—had completely fallen for its charm.
Her small plate was piled high with lime wedges.
Ha-eun blinked her large eyes pleadingly.
Her eyes, like those of a pitiful puppy whining for something to eat, seemed almost hypnotic.
His heart softened.
“Your girlfriend is really lovely.”
“You two look good together.”
At the bartender’s words, Ha-eun rested her head on Seo Jae’s shoulder and asked,
“Do you really think so?”
“Do we really look good together?”
The bartender nodded and added,
“Judging by how your boyfriend can’t take his eyes off your face, he must be head over heels for you.”
Ha-eun glanced up at Seo Jae and waved her hands dismissively.
“That’s because you’re mistaken, sir.”
“We’re not that kind of relationship.”
Mumbling in Korean, Ha-eun quietly took the glass from his hand.
“This is the last one.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you, oppa.”
After finally getting another glass of tequila, Ha-eun held the glass out to the bartender with both hands, and the man poured her another drink while shaking his head.
As if there was simply no stopping her.
“You’d better take good care of your girlfriend.”
“She seems to have a talent for captivating people.”
The bartender was smiling, but Seo Jae couldn’t bring himself to smile so casually.
At the provocative sight of her licking salt sprinkled across the back of her hand, Seo Jae quietly looked away.
Ha-eun emptied the glass of tequila in one go and bit into a wedge of lime, juice trickling down from her lips.
Looking at Seo Jae as he wiped the juice away with a napkin, Ha-eun complained sulkily.
“Jung Ha-jun is such a jerk.”
“I came all the way to New York, scraping together every penny I had because I was worried he might be up to something bad, and he’s living with a woman?”
“How can he be thirty years old and still be so immature?”
“Doesn’t he care at all about his family worrying about him back home?”
She had spent the entire afternoon going from one gallery to another in Chelsea, searching for Ha-jun’s whereabouts, but she had gotten nowhere.
He was such a conspicuous person that some employees remembered Jung Ha-jun, but none of them knew where he lived or when he would come by.
Unable to hide her disappointment, Ha-eun barely ate dinner and instead sat at the bar drinking, so she became drunk much faster than the night before.
“All he had to do was make one phone call, and he can’t even do that?”
“Does his finger break if he makes a call?”
“How can a person… how can a person be like that?”
“Try to think positively.”
“At least he doesn’t seem to be planning to die.”
“Ha.”
“When I see him, I’m not going to let him off the hook, Jung Ha-jun.”
The sight of her huffing in frustration was so adorable that an impulse to bite her suddenly surged within him.
“I’m going to tear all his hair out.”
“That’s okay, right?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll beat him half to death, so don’t worry.”
Perhaps she didn’t like the idea of beating him half to death, because her eyes wavered.
“Just… don’t hurt him too much.”
A hollow laugh escaped him.
“Look at your muscles, oppa.”
“If you hit him once, I think he’ll pass out.”
After touching Seo Jae’s solid arm, Ha-eun shook her head vigorously.
“But you must be busy, oppa.”
“Is it really okay for you to be here with me like this?”
“Shouldn’t you be going back to Florida now?”
“I can stay a few more days.”
Of course, he had a mountain of work piling up, but there was no way he could leave Ha-eun alone in New York.
“That’s a relief.”
“Let’s go now.”
“Already?”
“Then I need to use the bathroom…”
Seo Jae caught Ha-eun as she staggered to her feet and stayed on high alert all the way to the bathroom so she wouldn’t get hurt.
As they walked, the lingering gazes of men followed behind Ha-eun’s smiling figure.
He wanted to tear out the eyes of every man looking at Ha-eun so lecherously, but he supposed he had to restrain himself.
He could understand why Jung Ha-jun had always kept such a close watch on Ha-eun to prevent her from drinking.
Even after she entered university, Jung Ha-jun had set a curfew for her and always gone to pick her up if she was even a little late, and Seo Jae had thought he was being unnecessarily overprotective.
Waiting for Ha-eun outside the bathroom, Seo Jae slung her over his shoulder when she came out, unable to properly support herself, and carried her across the hall.
“Eek!”
Laughter erupted from various places.
“Put me down.”
“I’m embarrassed.”
Ha-eun pleaded and struggled, but he pretended not to hear her.
“If you knew you’d be embarrassed, you shouldn’t have drunk until you couldn’t even stand properly.”
He put Ha-eun into the waiting limousine and headed toward the hotel.
“Wow, snow.”
Ha-eun opened the window and stuck her hand outside, letting the snow fall onto it.
The New York nightscape spread out beyond the window like a painting.
“New York really is such a romantic city.”
“At least it looks that way from the outside.”
“If I weren’t here to find Ha-jun oppa, I would have enjoyed it so much more.”
“……”
“Oppa, do you remember?”
“When I was in elementary school, Ha-jun oppa always teased me, saying he’d found me under a bridge and asking whether I should go find my biological parents while I still could.”
“So one day, I really went around looking for my parents, got lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood, and some man told me he would help me find my way and tried to take me to his house.”
“How could I forget that?”
Jung Ha-jun had searched the entire neighborhood until late at night, nearly in tears.
“I barely managed to escape and was hiding inside a box in a pile of recyclable trash, crying, when I heard oppa’s voice calling for me.”
“I was so happy to hear him.”
After that day, Jung Ha-jun never made that joke again.
“When you carried me home on your back, your back felt so incredibly broad and warm.”
With her head resting against the headrest, Ha-eun looked at Seo Jae with drowsy eyes.
“Do you know what I was thinking back then?”
“What were you thinking?”
Ha-eun murmured with her face slightly flushed.
“That I should marry you, oppa.”
“……”
“I thought that if it were you, you would protect me reliably, no matter where or when.”
That might have been a terribly mistaken thought.
All I can think about is somehow taking you to bed and kissing and biting you until I’m completely satisfied.
Burying my face in the nape of your neck and breathing in your scent, tasting every inch of you, and thrusting deep into the innermost parts of your body.
Until you burst into tears, begging me to stop…
I really must be crazy, Seo Jae.
If I truly don’t care whether Jung Ha-jun kills me or lets me live, then perhaps I really have lost my mind.
I’m supposed to get you home safely, yet I’m the most dangerous person in the world for you, Ha-eun.
And you still don’t realize that.
You’re so hopelessly innocent.
“You know, when I was a little girl, I thought an older oppa like you was so incredibly cool…”
“But now I know how absurd that thought was.”
“What’s absurd about it?”
“Is it because of the big age difference between us?”
Considering the difference in their ages, there was no way he could forgive himself for harboring such desires for Ha-eun.
“That’s not it.”
“You’re in a position I could never even dream of reaching.”
“……”
“Does a marriage between the heir to Seo-guk Group and an intern employee even make sense?”
“Actually, I’m not even an intern yet.”
Ha-eun muttered self-deprecatingly before turning her gaze back toward the window.
“Still, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the days I spent here with you, oppa.”
“They’ll probably become good memories….”
After that, she fell silent, apparently having fallen asleep.
Other women would probably have done everything in their power to gain something from spending a night with Seo Jae, but Jung Ha-eun merely intended to treasure it as a good memory.
Being rejected before he had even gotten started did not leave him feeling particularly good.
- Ha-eun, unable to fight off her drowsiness, began to slump to one side.
He pulled her body toward him and laid her across his thighs.
Heat surged through his body.
Seo Jae opened the window and let the icy wind hit him, forcing down the desire that was frighteningly swelling inside him.
