Someone who should not be here — who could not possibly be here — was standing right in front of her. With a chilling expression that made it unmistakably clear he had heard every word of the conversation.
“…What are you doing here.”
Rep. Chu concealed her flustered expression and forced herself to speak as she normally would. As though nothing had happened.
“I was under the impression you had meetings from this morning — why―”
“Because of someone, I threw everything aside and came running.”
“What?”
“Why is my mother meeting with him.”
Haejeong looked down at Rep. Chu with a face utterly devoid of warmth.
“What was it you just said.”
“…….”
“…I’m asking you what you said!”
The thunderclap of a shout rattled all the way up to the café ceiling. It was a loud, raw roar — loud enough to reach people passing by outside.
“What about his hands?”
“…….”
“What compensation?!”
At his undisguised fury, the corners of Munyeong’s eyes twisted in quiet anguish. His eyes — eyes that had truly known nothing of any of this — clouded over with more emotion than Haejeong had ever seen in them. But Rep. Chu, who had brought this entire situation about, held her expression steady and fired back without flinching.
“So you’re angry at your mother… over something as trivial as this.”
If anything, it seemed to be that fact which enraged her — she ground her teeth and snapped her eyes up with dangerous intensity.
“……You even dragged his mother’s weakness into it. Didn’t you?”
“Ha. Fuck….”
At the sight of her turning her fury back on him, Haejeong let out a hollow laugh. A low, disbelieving ha escaped him, and then he looked at his own mother as though he were staring at something monstrous, and spoke again.
“Is that what matters right now…?”
“Trivial?”
“Right now… he… I……, fuck……”
Haejeong’s face was a tangle of confusion as he stumbled over his words, eyes shifting back and forth between Munyeong and Rep. Chu. He couldn’t easily piece together in his head whether what he’d just heard was true, or how it had all come to pass. But there was one thing he could understand. That day. Im Munyeong writhing with his face twisted in agony, enduring the pain, choking out sounds of suffering — it was him who had caused those aftereffects that had lasted more than ten years.
“So… he…… he. Back then… he’s the one who saved me.”
“What nonsense are you spouting right now. Saved you — saved you from what!”
“…….”
“I told you. Nothing happened that day! It was all a delusion of yours!”
Rep. Chu snapped back, her eyes flaring with cold ferocity. Haejeong, by contrast, only let out a crooked, hollow laugh and held his mother’s gaze with an expression of utter exhaustion.
“…Still saying that?”
“You’ve spent over ten years making everyone around you miserable using that as your excuse. Isn’t that enough? Are you still trying to blame your mother?!”
It was Rep. Chu who was the one unleashing her anger. It was an excuse dressed up as fury — an evasion. She had consistently dismissed the entire incident as Haejeong’s delusion, his persecution complex, and as she persisted in doing so now, something gradually began to circle in Haejeong’s eyes — something close to madness.
“What I’m asking right now is―!”
“…….”
“Whether that person back then — whether it was Im Munyeong.”
“Stop this. Can’t you see people are staring?”
“I’m asking, I’m fucking asking — is that him?! Is it Im Munyeong?!”
“Yeon Haejeong!”
In the midst of the screaming back and forth, Munyeong slumped and dropped his head, pressing a hand to his face. It felt as though some catastrophic disaster had descended. Two people with rage blazing sky-high were at each other’s throats, voices cutting like blades. The knowledge that he was the reason flesh and blood — mother and son — were tearing into each other this savagely was draining Munyeong dry.
He was frozen there, hands trembling uselessly, when Haejeong roughly seized Munyeong’s arm and yanked. When Munyeong looked up at him with pale, shaking eyes, the expression on Haejeong’s face was more frightening than he had ever seen it. So frightening it was almost murderous — Munyeong could neither follow nor pull away, and he hesitated.
“Get up.”
“Don’t you dare take him out of here.”
It was Rep. Chu who issued the warning. She fixed her gaze on him with cool steel and threatened.
“Do you still have more to say to me?”
“Are you really taking that thing’s side in front of your own mother, right now?”
“What did you say to him?”
“And what if I did — so what!”
“Madam Chu Yeonan.”
Haejeong looked at her with eyes brimming with murderous intent, as if he would swallow her whole, and Rep. Chu’s jaw began to tremble almost imperceptibly.
“Do I look sane to you right now?”
“…Is that a threat?”
“Shall we just see how far this goes?”
Similar faces, similar killing intent radiating off both of them as they stared each other down like they might actually go for the other’s throat — Munyeong wanted to run. Anywhere. He wanted to get out of this place and disappear somewhere far from both Haejeong and his mother.
“Get up.”
Haejeong pulled at Munyeong’s arm again. Under the gaze of his mother watching him as though he were a traitor, Munyeong couldn’t bring himself to stand and follow. He felt like a criminal. Like someone who had ruined her son.
“I said people are watching.”
Rep. Chu moved to stop him once more, and Haejeong ground his teeth. At the repeated mention of people watching, Haejeong shot a cold glance toward the café entrance — and he could see employees passing by, and through the full-length glass windows, a handful of people outside watching them as though observing a fight. Haejeong twisted his mouth into a crooked smile and looked down at Rep. Chu — still furiously gnashing her teeth — with cold provocation.
“Is that so? Then shall we do this in front of all of them?”
This was the most devastating thing he could do to Rep. Chu right here and now. He wanted to properly destroy what his mother — what she — valued above money: her pride.
“What?”
At the cryptic words, Rep. Chu’s eyes pinched together for a moment — and in that instant, Haejeong grabbed Munyeong by the collar. And then, without mercy, he crashed his lips down onto his.
Munyeong’s eyes went wide in an instant.
Their lips were pressed together, and through Munyeong’s parted mouth, Haejeong’s tongue pushed in as though it had been waiting. Licking into every corner, swallowing him down, twisting his head the other way to go even deeper — he threw himself into the kiss with single-minded focus. Munyeong’s body was half-lifted awkwardly as he had no choice but to receive the one-sided kiss. In his shock, he even dropped the misutgaru he had been holding.
“Mmph…!”
Munyeong grasped the situation and pushed at Haejeong’s shoulders with trembling hands. But Haejeong didn’t so much as budge. If anything, he pressed in harder, closing the distance between their bodies even more. Then, eyes shut, he tilted his head further and shifted his position to make the kiss easier. Munyeong’s gaze moved to Rep. Chu sitting directly across from them. Her eyes, flooded with shock and contempt, were fixed precisely on them. Munyeong was mortified. To be made to look like this in front of the other’s parent — in front of someone who looked at him with such revulsion…. The shame of it was enough to make him sick, and Munyeong shoved him away with everything he had. It was the first time. That he had pushed him away this forcefully.
“…Ha….”
The violent motion came to a halt and Haejeong’s lips slowly peeled away. Munyeong wiped at his mouth — wet with Haejeong’s saliva — with frantically scrubbing hands.
“S-stop it…!”
Haejeong’s face went slightly blank as he registered Munyeong’s anger. He stared back at him with eyes that had gone still.
“…Im Munyeong.”
The humiliation and degradation dealt to him by Haejeong’s mother — those were not what troubled him. He had thought it perfectly natural that she would react that way, and this kind of insult was something he was used to. It didn’t matter.
“Ha…….”
What he didn’t want was to be used like this — as a tool for Haejeong’s fury. No matter how easy he was to Haejeong, he hated that Haejeong treated him this carelessly even in a moment like this. He understood the shock, the rage — all of it. But this action, he didn’t want to understand. It was something that sent him plummeting somewhere even he himself couldn’t see. It felt like proof of just how disposable and laughable he was to Haejeong.
