“…!”
There was no stupid mistake of teeth clashing like on their first night.
After that spectacular failure that day, how many videos had Yeohwi secretly looked up to prepare for this moment?
Yeohwi’s light brown pupils glaring at Dowon were no longer those of a bright-eyed puppy. They were the eyes of a young beast staking everything and attacking.
From the skin where champagne had spilled right in front of Dowon’s nose came a sweet fruity scent mixed with the hot heat of a twenty-year-old youth.
His bare upper body exposed. Water dripped from his wet hair, and the wound on his cheek that had just been wiped was swollen red. Yeohwi forcibly pried open Dowon’s cold lips and entered. And quite passably, he moved his hot tongue to explore and ravage the inside of his mouth.
The smoky cedarwood scent, the bitter taste of alcohol, and Yeohwi’s desperation that shouldn’t mix all tangled together.
“Haah…”
Just exploring his lips wasn’t enough. Yeohwi put strength into the hand gripping the collar of Dowon’s robe and pushed him against the wall. His bare feet slid on the marble floor leading to the bathroom, making a wet friction sound.
Hot, unstable, and shocking.
The emotions that had rushed into passion finally paralyzed the reason he had been holding onto.
At the same time, an uncontrollable heat concentrated in his lower abdomen, followed by a painfully honest reaction. Between Yeohwi’s legs heated up and swelled. His dress pants became taut and his upper thighs heaved.
However, this fierce kiss didn’t last even a few seconds.
The next moment, Yeohwi’s body was roughly pushed away.
“Ugh…!”
Dowon grabbed his shoulder and forcefully separated him from himself. Pushed back by the firm resistance, Yeohwi stepped back a couple of steps and his back hit the cold bathroom tile wall.
Thud, a dull sound.
A heavy silence flowed in the large bathroom.
Only the sound of water droplets falling from the showerhead, drip, drip, cut through the painful silence.
Dowon slowly wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
“…Do you know what you just did?”
He exhaled the bursting breath roughly. His breath scattered white in the cold bathroom air.
“Do you know what you just touched?”
“Dowon-ssi.”
“You.”
Dowon glared at Yeohwi. His voice trembled unfamiliarly.
“Without any plan. Without any preparation or scheme whatsoever. Do you think you’re prepared to handle this?”
“…”
“Or are you going crazy like a dog in heat trying to spray your cum everywhere?”
Yeohwi couldn’t say anything in the face of that razor-sharp momentum.
“You’re not even worthy of being prepared for this marriage.”
Dowon drew low breaths like someone whose heart was torn apart. His eyes, which had always been pitch black, now seemed cracked and wavered as if fractured.
He had seemed like an impenetrable iron wall with no gaps to slip through. Perfect control and thorough rationality built up over a lifetime. He didn’t create weaknesses, and didn’t even have the slightest thought of creating them.
Dowon had lived his life painfully aware of how fatally luxurious it was to have feelings in this hellish family. To such a person, Seong Yeohwi’s existence was nothing but leverage to be caught and manipulated by others.
Yet that stupid wild beast bastard kept trying to jump into the flames without knowing better.
At this rate, he would be reduced to meat on bones and eaten alive by a pack of hyenas. Or else he would survive covered in wounds like himself and live a long life in an ugly pit.
So Dowon had to push Seong Yeohwi away.
He had to cut off the sprout.
Before he became entangled with him and turned into the same monster.
“Don’t do anything foolish anymore. This marriage has an expiration date, and it will end soon.”
“What?”
Yeohwi’s face hardened white. A greater shock than being rejected from the kiss shook his head. It was as if cold ice water was pouring into his heart.
“Ex-expiration date? What do you mean?”
“When my grandfather passes away, there will be no reason to maintain the arranged marriage. Divorce.”
“Divorce…?”
Yeohwi’s voice trembled out in despair. Dowon struck back even more fiercely. As if to completely tear out the dangerous affection Seong Yeohwi had secretly begun to harbor.
“That was the plan from the beginning.”
“Why, why!”
Yeohwi’s voice shook desperately. He poured out his emotions like someone who didn’t know what he was saying.
“I don’t agree! Wh-who gets to decide divorce on their own? I have no such intention at all. I don’t want to! You can’t!”
“Ha.”
Dowon let out a hollow laugh. And firmly, perhaps with a very faint compassion, he clearly drew a line.
“Really? You flirt, you plead, and now you even throw your body to want to occupy the seat next to me that badly?”
“…!”
“What are you trying to gain from that? Pathetic attention? A sense of belonging as a member of this family? Or are you coveting the management rights of KD Group in the future?”
He turned away from Yeohwi’s despairing face, his wounded eyes. The intention behind throwing his body to take the champagne glass probably didn’t stem from such vulgarity. Because he knew that, Dowon couldn’t face him and turned his head.
“It was a marriage my grandfather wanted. The one person in this world I absolutely don’t want to disappoint. When he takes his last breath and departs far away, you’ll leave too.”
He picked up the first aid kit.
“Seong Yeohwi, if you’re really lonely, find someone else good, not an unrequitable man like me. If you promise to keep it moderate, I’ll even allow you to go out playing at night.”
“What…? Are you, are you telling me to have an affair…?”
“Yeah.”
“Dowon-ssi!”
“You’re young. Your life hasn’t even bloomed yet. Don’t waste even a single second on me.”
Leaving only those words, Dowon left the bathroom.
Even while hearing the door close and the sound of him leaving, Yeohwi remained frozen in place, unable to say anything.
Dowon’s lips that he had attacked no longer came to mind. His sincerity, which he hadn’t been able to fully show, was mercilessly shattered to pieces.
***
After that, time flowed endlessly.
The mansion was locked in suffocating silence. As if the child who had been laughing loudly all day had disappeared.
At the breakfast table, Yeohwi no longer came to Dowon saying “Good morning!” in greeting. He came down to the kitchen long after Dowon left for work and forced himself to chew and swallow a piece of toast. Or he didn’t come out of his room at all.
Dowon’s cell phone, which had been ringing annoyingly, no longer responded either. The texts that he had so desperately pleaded to send just once a day, just one, were completely cut off after that night.
KD Group Building, the director’s office submerged in suffocating silence.
Dowon sat at the massive black walnut desk. Beyond the glass window, Seoul’s city center could be seen far below. Due to the monsoon that had continued for several days, the streets reflected in the blurring neon signs shone wetly and vividly.
Today too, terrible fatigue marked his face. The darkly shadowed eye sockets proved that he had pulled another all-nighter. He had been reviewing documents for a while, but his gaze had been staying on the same letters for some time without actually reading the content.
Thud. He put down the fountain pen he was holding.
His long legs that had been languidly crossed uncrossed, and his dry fingers pressed firmly on his temples before slowly sweeping down his forehead. His restrained black pupils, eyes whose depth was unknowable, slowly closed and opened again. Boredom and irritation could be read in Dowon’s psychology.
The necktie strangling his throat was particularly bothersome today.
“Director-nim, here are documents for your approval.”
“…”
“Director-nim?”
“…Right. Leave them.”
Dowon realized he had just missed what his secretary said. He had lost concentration.
“And, Director-nim.”
The secretary adjusted his glasses and carefully opened his mouth.
“Regarding the founding party incident, requests from media outlets are flooding in through the PR team.”
“Is it about President Do Jingyu?”
Dowon asked without taking his eyes off the documents.
“No. The response to that matter was excellent. The internal and external reactions are also positive but… that’s exactly why.”
The secretary flipped the tablet.
“Media interest in Director-nim and your spouse, Seong Yeohwi-nim, has exploded. Several magazines, including major economic journals, have officially requested joint interviews and pictorial articles of the two of you. How should we handle this?”
“…”
“Some media outlets appear to be preparing exclusive articles. We need to proactively respond to this flow from our side…”
“No.”
Dowon raised his head. His lightless pupils pierced through the secretary.
