Secretary Ju watched Munyeong’s shoes disappear through the closing door and shook her head slowly from side to side with a pitying look. He puts me through enough — I can’t even imagine how much that person is going to suffer…. With an expression that made clear she’d rather not imagine it at all, she shuddered and tore her gaze away from the direction of the office.
**
He slammed the office door shut, shoved Munyeong inside, and immediately pulled the blinds so no one outside could see.
“Hey, you want to die?”
At that — a murder threat, delivered completely out of nowhere — Munyeong could only produce a dull, stupefied “Ah….” He had no idea what reaction was called for when the man came out swinging before Munyeong had even done anything.
“…Did I do something wrong….”
“You sneak off on your own without a word?”
Now understanding why he was angry, Munyeong pressed his lips shut.
“You sneak off and then stand around flirting with a woman out here?”
“……Th-that’s not what happened….”
“It was. I saw it. Just now.”
How much did I even smile? And I wasn’t even smiling. Just as Secretary Ju had said — it had been nothing more than ordinary small talk, and a brief mention of Yeon Haejeong.
“Fuck. You spend the whole night rolling around with a man and in the morning you’re grinning at a woman?”
“No, I — when did I ever—”
“You were all smiles.”
“…….”
Munyeong stared at him slack-jawed, his expression utterly stunned. But Yeon Haejeong didn’t stop.
“Grinning from ear to ear — hm? What the hell were you so happy about?”
“……Ha……, wh-when did I ever—”
“What kind of man goes around smiling like an idiot like that. You look incredibly cheap, you know that?”
“…….”
“What, are you trying to prove you’re a real man too? Being a man means you naturally go after women?”
Munyeong tried to argue back, aggrieved, but Yeon Haejeong had his jaw set in full sulk.
“Or — after a night of getting it from a guy, you’re curious about women next?”
“…G-getting it — what do you mean getting it, what kind of thing to—”
Munyeong couldn’t even finish the sentence, his face crumpling. It was too crude and too obscene for him to have in his own mouth.
“After going at it for hours like that — yeah, you got it, what else would you call it.”
“……Do you have to… say it like that……?”
“There you go, playing innocent again.”
“…….”
“You always do this, don’t you.”
Munyeong looked at him with wronged eyes, genuinely at a loss for what he’d done to deserve another earful.
“Obviously. You’ve been grinding away, you shot everything you had — and the next morning you were planning to act like it never happened.”
“…….”
“That’s why you snuck out without waking me, isn’t it.”
“…….”
“And today too — you were obviously going to act like nothing happened the moment you saw me.”
It was an uncomfortably accurate observation. But to Munyeong, that seemed like the only natural thing to do — and he stared at Yeon Haejeong with a genuinely uncomprehending look.
He himself was rattled and confused because this was a first for him — but he knew that Yeon Haejeong was someone who had been through this kind of thing so many times it was almost laughable. He had seen it with his own eyes. He had assumed Yeon Haejeong would treat him the same way he treated everyone else. Just a night spent following the mood — eyes meeting, bodies meeting, one night. That was all it was.
Munyeong knew, better than anyone. His own place in the world. And that he needed to be careful — needed to look at who he was dealing with — before letting himself feel anything. It was the person standing right in front of him who had taught him that. And precisely because of that, Yeon Haejeong’s reaction made no sense to him, and Munyeong stammered as he asked plainly.
“…Th-then what am I supposed to do?”
“What?”
“……It was just a one-time thing…… a mistake, basically.”
Munyeong avoided the burning gaze drilling into him and stumbled through the words as though murmuring to himself. He said it quietly, doing his best to sound composed, but the other man was wound up tight.
“Ha. A mistake?”
“…….”
“You’re going to try to brush past it like that?”
“……No, that’s not what I—”
“A mistake? A miiiistake?”
Yeon Haejeong let out a baffled sound and burst into a loud, exaggerated laugh. He grabbed his own waist and bellowed it out — haha ha! — deliberately, at full volume. Every time he threw his head back laughing, the bird’s-nest tangle of his hair shook with it.
“I knew it. I knew you’d try to write it off as a mistake!”
Munyeong had no idea why Yeon Haejeong was this worked up. He could only stare blankly with eyes that said he had absolutely no idea — and then Yeon Haejeong’s eyes flashed again as he straightened up.
“And who said anything about once?”
“…….”
“Couldn’t even get it in — we barely fooled around.”
It was shocking to hear him reduce that entire long stretch of last night to “barely fooling around.” To Munyeong, last night had been nothing short of the Kama Sutra. It had been wild and depraved beyond what he could even put into words.
Munyeong told himself he couldn’t keep getting swept along like this — and with a look of quiet resolve, he swallowed hard and spoke haltingly.
“…From the s-second time on… it’s not a mistake anymore….”
The moment those words landed, the bravado in his face flickered and went stiff. Sensing total rejection to the end, the hot flush of agitation drained from Yeon Haejeong’s face and went cold.
“Ha.”
“…….”
“It’s always a mistake.”
“…….”
“If it stops being a mistake from the second time — then yesterday was obviously a mistake, wasn’t it.”
He muttered the curse in a voice that had gone flat and cool, unlike his usual self. Whether Munyeong’s refusal had gotten under his skin, he ground his back teeth once, hard — and then spoke in that signature arrogant tone.
“Fine. It was a mistake.”
The one who had been raging as if he’d never in a million years agree to that word now added in a deliberately quieted voice:
“It was a mistake — so that’s why I slept with something like you.”
A gaze sharp enough to cut came straight at him. Munyeong’s expression stilled, and he slowly dropped his eyes. Right. This was correct. This was the natural thing for him to say. Yeon Haejeong was that kind of person — it was only natural — but his stomach turned anyway. An involuntary roiling took hold inside him. But Yeon Haejeong wasn’t finished.
“By the way — you know you’re hilarious.”
“…….”
“Calling it a mistake or whatever — like you screaming and writhing under me all night, rolling around like an animal, just disappears?”
“…….”
“If you play dumb, act like it never happened, pretend to be above it all — then all the sucking and licking and coming just vanishes, does it.”
Again. He always turned nastier when he started losing ground. At the aggressive flood of words, Munyeong went dizzy and squeezed his eyes shut. His voice was starting to echo as if through a fog, and Munyeong dragged a hand slowly down his face.
“St-stop…….”
He murmured it almost to himself, wanting nothing more than for that sound in his ears to stop — and Yeon Haejeong’s raised voice cut off. In the sudden quiet, Munyeong slowly lifted his eyelids. He met directly with Yeon Haejeong’s eyes, brimming with barely contained fury.
“If you don’t want it, drop it.”
“…….”
“What do I have to lose that I’d need to deal with someone like you. Hm?”
Munyeong struggled to get his eyes to focus through the haze and looked at him — and Yeon Haejeong continued in a cold, flat tone.
“I don’t…… I don’t touch people who don’t want me.”
