Unexpected Ch 6

“Ugh.”

ChaYoung woke up to the sound of her alarm. She gripped her head and groaned. She thought she got home just fine, but it looked like the liquor she had gulped down had done quite a lot of damage.

For a moment, she hoped today was Saturday, but her alarm only rang on weekdays when she had to get up and get ready for work.

“It’s my own fault.”

ChaYoung forced herself to sit up as she mumbled. She was the one who drank without thinking about going to work the next day.

Her mouth felt dry, and she wanted to eat some kind of warm stew. Did she have some frozen soup in the freezer? As she pondered this while sitting on her bed, her phone notified her of a new message.

Who was texting her at this time of day? She grabbed her phone and nonchalantly opened her messages. Her eyes suddenly widened.

「I left some haejang-guk¹ at your front door.」

Haejang-guk? She blinked her eyes. Another message popped up on the screen.

「It probably cooled on the way there, so make sure to heat it up before you eat it.」

Could it be…

She was about to ask the sender if they had the wrong number, but a familiar face popped into her head. There could be a connection between this message and the events of last night.

But Do KunHyung of all people?

Although he had sent desserts to her office, he sent someone else to deliver them. As she recalled the kind of man he was, she felt that there was no way he had personally delivered haejang-guk to her door at this time. 

But a sliver of anticipation began to rise. She swung her feet off the bed and burst up. This could easily be answered with her own eyes.

She quickly made her way to the foyer and unlocked the door before opening it. As the lock beeped, she quickly looked outside. However, all she saw was the silent, empty corridor.

Just what was I expecting?

She felt hollow with slight disappointment. She held onto the doorknob and turned back to close the door, but the door felt slightly heavy. She looked out and saw that there was a bag hanging on the doorknob.

She snatched the bag and closed the door behind her. She unzipped the bag and saw a stainless steel thermos inside. Although she knew that there was haejang-guk inside, it wasn’t the usual takeout container that one received from a typical haejang-guk restaurant, so she grew a bit suspicious.

She ran to her balcony and opened the veranda doors. She saw him leave the building and walk towards his car.

“Ah…”

He was too far away for her to call out to him. She ran back inside her room and grabbed her phone. She found his number in her messages and tapped the ‘Call’ button.

As she heard it ring, she walked back to the balcony. She was putting her slippers on when she heard his voice say ‘Hello?’. She quickly looked outside and saw him look up with his phone held to his ear.

Her mouth wouldn’t move, and she didn’t know what to say. She tightened her grip on her phone. Her heart was racing inside her chest. She wondered if it was because she had just run all around her apartment.

— I don’t know why this makes the heart race so much.

Had he heard her heart through the phone? For a moment, she was shocked. But then she quickly realized that he was talking about himself.

— Now then. What will the first words of our first phone call be?

She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or if he was joking. But one thing she was certain of was that he was correct about this being the first phone call between them. Last night, he had asked for her number, and she had given it to him.

“What is all this?”

A question mark floated in her head as she asked. The biggest question in her head was whether he had cooked this himself or not.

— I asked a favor from a chef I know.

“I’m sure that chef doesn’t work at a 24-hour haejang-guk restaurant. How did you get this so early?”

— That’s not something you need to worry about.

He cleanly shut down her concerns, so she asked her next question.

“How did you enter the building? Do you know the password?”

— Opening a door is basic magic.

As she swept her hand over her forehead, ChaYoung frowned.

“Magic?”

— You didn’t know? If a man is still a virgin after turning twenty-five years old, he can do magic. Once you’re over thirty, you can even do dark magic.

For a moment, she was in such disbelief that her mouth closed shut. Do KunHyung. When she recalled that name, she often thought of the cold aura that seemed to follow him everywhere. This was quite a shock.

Was he someone who could make jokes like this? He seemed so different from the man she knew him to be that she suddenly felt dizzy from shock. She lifted her hand and gripped her temple when she heard his voice through the phone. It no longer held any trace of laughter.

— I waited patiently in front of the door. Until someone came out from inside.

She froze and asked back.

“Then how did you know what floor and what apartment number I lived in?”

She had given him her phone number, but she had never given him her apartment number or her floor number. Last night, after being driven back to her apartment in his car, she waved him goodbye and went straight into the building before getting on the elevator. She had definitely been alone when she got into her apartment.

— After you went up, I noticed the lights in the apartment on the right side of the seventh floor turn on.

“Ah.”

A faint sound escaped her lips. Why hadn’t she thought of this? She scoffed.

— I can hear the disappointment in your voice. Should I have learned to teleport instead?

Another scoff burst out of her lips as she chewed on them. A part of her was in disbelief, but she also found that a lot of the negative impressions she had of him were slowly collapsing. Her lips opened with hesitation.

“I don’t know if I can ask you to come up to eat with me just yet…”

— I told you. I haven’t mastered teleportation yet.

Although he wasn’t close by, she felt like she saw his eyes soften. She used to think that he was the type of person who did not care about others. The collapsing image she had of him made a part of her heart sting.

— I wish you’d stop standing me up.

His low voice caused her to become alert. The moment she heard him say ‘stand up’, she recalled the ‘thing’ that was associated with it.

Although he could be asking her to stop keeping him standing there and eat her haejang-guk, after what they discussed yesterday, her thoughts took a strange turn.

Usually, one would say ‘standing here’ instead of ‘standing up’. Maybe he was intentionally saying it like this.

Now that she thought about it, she recalled the conversation they had in front of her apartment the other day…

“Looks like you’ll be standing me up all day.”

“I wouldn’t call that ‘standing you up’…”

“You stood me up, so it’s a problem.”

“Your lower body strength must be lacking.”

“If you’re really curious, there’s a way we can check to see if that’s true.”

Is that what he meant? As she put the puzzle pieces together, her cheeks flushed. Hmm, she drew in a deep breath and spoke in a terse voice.

“I’m sorry. I forgot that you have weak lower body strength.”

Then her lips stretched into a big smile. She heard the sound of laughter coming through the receiver of her phone.

— Anyways. You have a knack for making people’s hearts race.

He ended the call and gave her another look before getting in his car and driving away. Even though they had only shared a brief phone call, she felt exhausted as if she’d been electrically shocked.

“Ah.”

She recalled the haejang-guk she had placed on top of her dining table and realized that she hadn’t even thanked him for it. She looked down the balcony too late. His car had already disappeared.

Feeling grateful and apologetic, she scoffed at his ability to leave her so high strung even though she had been the one to call him first.

Unlike the way he slowly exited the apartment complex, as soon as he reached a main street, KunHyung picked up speed. Because of the precum flowing out of his erect penis, his underwear was now damp.

If he didn’t change his underwear soon, he’d be in a tough situation. Therefore, he began to head back home. Thankfully, it was still early. He wouldn’t be late to work if he made a quick stop back at his place.

This was already the third time today. As soon as he opened his eyes in the morning, he had an erection. He had taken care of it twice in the bathroom.

Psychologically, he did not get aroused by the opposite sex. However, physically, he was still a healthy male who got the same amount of erections as any other man. That’s why all the hospital tests stated that there was nothing wrong with him. The average duration of his erection, his sperm count, sperm mobility… They were all showing excellent numbers. 

He was a healthy, red-blooded male, but he had remained chaste for over thirty years. It shouldn’t be surprising that his body was making all this fuss now as if the chains had gotten loose.

However, he never expected to be shaking his own cock around in the bathroom at his age. He clicked his tongue in disbelief. They say that thieves who learn to steal later in life don’t realize when the morning comes². This was exactly how he felt.

Either way, after finishing a round in the bathroom, he had let his guard down and went to her apartment. He had already taken care of it, so he didn’t think it would happen again.

But when he heard her voice through the phone, his lower half had become uncontrollably hard.

Even though they hadn’t even slept together yet, even though he had only heard her voice, he continued to leak. Seeing this, he could only compare himself to a rutting beast. Until last night, his body had been under control. But now, it had lost all semblance of discipline.

Unlike the situation inside his pants, a refreshing smile hung on the ends of his lips.

Despite his painful erection and the state of his underwear, he had left his house two hours earlier to run an errand and feed the person that was the cause of his discomfort. However, he had been giddy the whole time. He hadn’t felt annoyed or uncomfortable at all.

He looked at his reflection in the rear view mirror and rubbed his lips with the hand that wasn’t on the steering wheel. He was fascinated by the expression on his face. He had never seen it before.

If this is what it means to date…

“Looks like this will be a lot more fun than I thought.”

He murmured with a hint of disappointment. Why hadn’t he acted on his feelings earlier? He was filled with regret, and his brow furrowed.

If he knew this was how things could be, he would have told her everything when he first grew interested in her. He shook his head. No, back then, he didn’t have a reason to, and she wouldn’t have been able to take all this information in as easily as she did now. If things had worked out back then, he might have only been interested in the way his body reacted to her.

He probably needed the time. Time to understand how something that was lost could be so precious. And whether it was back then or now, he had come to realize that the message was the same, but he was just expressing it differently.

He recalled the things he had withheld from her. His lips stretched into a faint smile, and he slowly swept his tongue across them.

It wasn’t that he lied to her. He wasn’t sure if she was special because she had remained in his memory or whether she had remained in his memory because she was special. Either way, he thought about her for a long time. In order to see her, he had attended a wedding of a classmate he wasn’t close to.

But that was not the end of it. There was an unfriendly side to the story he had told her.

After their short meeting at the wedding, there was a time when he had impulsively gone to her office building. He could have just gotten her phone number easily through other means, but he wanted to see her face and speak with her directly.

Waiting outside the building without making an appointment and waiting for a particular person to come out was an unfamiliar experience for him. To him, meetings only happened through appointments at a set time and place.

Even though he was at an age where his life should be dominated by logic and reason, whenever it came to her, he found himself wavering. Therefore, he felt that she had come into his life as a special existence. He smiled at the thought.

He wasn’t even waiting in the lobby. Waiting outside the building made him feel a bit shabby, but he wondered what kind of face she’d make when she saw him.

I’m sure her eyes will widen as she purses her lips. Just like she did before. Almost as if she were in disbelief.

And so he waited like that for a while. As people began to pour out, he saw her in the crowd. Just as he was about to start walking over to her, he saw that she had discovered something. She looked surprised as she came to a halt.

He suddenly felt strange. Even though he was looking at her, her gaze was turned elsewhere.

Suddenly, it felt like his body had been drenched in ice water. Her wide eyes crinkled prettily as a bright smile formed on her lips.

It was the prettiest expression he had ever seen on her face, but her eyes were not looking at him.

He slowly turned his head as he followed her gaze. An unfamiliar man was standing at the other end. He had a wide smile on his face.

That’s him?

As a frown formed on KunHyung’s face, her curt ‘Yes’ from the wedding resounded in his ears.

He tensed his eyes as if he were trying to look through the man. However, he couldn’t see anything special about him. He knew that judging a man by his looks was a ridiculous thing to do, but when he saw the man’s sloppy looks, fireworks went off in his eyes.

So her special person was this man? He was the one who made her eyes look like that? He was the reason for that expression on her face?

He wanted to race over to them and yell, but his feet seemed to be glued to the ground. He couldn’t even move a finger.

Meanwhile, the couple lovingly linked arms and walked further away. The office workers who were now getting out of work glanced at him. He didn’t react to any of it as if they were merely a part of the scenery and continued standing there.

It was an indescribable feeling. It was kind of like anger, but it also felt like a hole had been punched into his heart. His legs couldn’t move.

If he hadn’t just stood there, if he had run after her, what would have happened? He shook his head at the thought. He knew better than anyone that he wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Although he said that the fact that she was dating someone else had stopped him from going after her, the truth was that the strong bond she had with the other man wasn’t something he could meddle in. The couple had the same smile plastered on their faces. They looked as if they were filled with happiness.

She could make that kind of expression?

They had taken classes for two years, but this was the first time he’d seen such a pretty expression on her face. ‘She never made that face while we went to school…’ When this thought passed through his head, he suddenly realized that she was making it because of the man by her side.

Now that he thought about it, the two of them had been like oil and water. Most people approached him because they wanted something from him. Therefore, he had never needed to initiate a conversation before.

Thinking back on it now, he was being needlessly prideful. The only thought that stayed on his mind was, ‘Why should I?’. Whenever their eyes met, he had been certain that she was the one who was looking at him. Of course, he had realized his misunderstanding on graduation day.

That man did the things I could not.

Suddenly, the back of the sloppy man seemed to look more dignified. Feeling frustrated for the first time in his life, a scoff left his lips. The outfit he had carefully picked out suddenly felt so shabby.

He tried to forget about her, but it was meaningless. He felt that if he did not depart for somewhere else, he wouldn’t be able to endure it. Therefore, he volunteered to go work at the company’s branch in the United States.

It was the first time he wanted something, and it was also the first time he could not obtain it with his own hands. Time passed, and he thought it was getting better, but the thirst merely grew worse.

He hated himself. He felt like a loser who couldn’t even say one word to her. But whenever he wanted to fly back to Korea, he recalled ChaYoung’s happy face next to that man’s side.

So what if you go back? Are you going to split them up?

Even if he had been an immature teenager, he would not have done something like that, much less being a man of his age. The tempting thought that they might have broken up continued to make him waver, but whenever he recalled her happy face, he knew that chances were slim.

Either way, there was nothing he could do. In the end, he returned to Korea two months ago. And the firm belief that she would not be available was finally broken when he had gone on an errand to pick up a gift at his mother’s request. It was at a department store.

After parking his car in the garage, he entered the elevator and saw a familiar face. Unlike the past sloppy look, he now looked a lot cleaner. However, he clearly remembered the man’s face. This was the man who had been the root of his frustrations two years ago.

But the man was with another woman who was not ChaYoung. And anyone could clearly tell that the two of them were romantically involved. They were overflowing with affection.

Suddenly, his heart began to race.

Did they break up? No, they must have definitely broken up. If not, there was no way this man would be looking at another woman with so much affection in his eyes as he lovingly stroked her cheek.

As this thought popped into his head, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of relief. Pfft, he swallowed back a laugh. For a moment, the man’s eyes met his.

KunHyun’s sharp eyes had already relaxed by this point. He gave the man a faint smile. As if he were telling him not to mind him and continue what he was doing.

He wanted to see her right away. It was as if a dam had burst. His heart could not contain the feelings that were pouring out.

He was furious at himself for working like a madman in the United States, unaware of what had happened here. All this time, he had come to the hasty conclusion that there was no way she’d break up with him. Not after seeing the loving look in her eyes.

Things were always changing. Even though he considered this a fact when it came to his work, he had been unable to apply it to Kang ChaYoung.

He barely managed to stop himself from running to her. If he stubbornly charged at her like he did in the past, she was definitely going to reject him. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

First things first, he needed to find out what she had been up to while he’d been away. Although he didn’t want to, he had no other choice but to get help from someone else.

How should he reach out to her? As he pondered over the ways he could get closer to her, he received the report that ChaYoung had not broken up with the man after all. They hadn’t broken up. The man was cheating on her.

It was as if his world had been smashed with a blunt object. His head went blank.

That son of a bitch…

He began to curse at the man. He thought about ChaYoung, who still trusted that man’s faithfulness. He couldn’t let her continue to be deceived like this, but he also couldn’t tell her. He didn’t want her to get hurt.

He deliberated on what to do, but he could not come to a satisfactory answer. Whenever it came to Kang ChaYoung, his mind became narrow. And because he unconsciously knew that there was no way she would not be hurt by this, he could not come to a decision.

And while he was dawdling around this problem, he was suddenly asked to go on a business trip. Because it had to do with an important contract, he couldn’t send someone else in his stead or postpone it.

Even though he wasn’t dating her or even seeing her in person, when he received the news that he was to fly out of the country, he grew nervous as if he were leaving a child at a riverbank all alone.

Worried that something would happen while he was gone, he ordered someone to keep an eye on her. While nothing could be done while she was at work, he asked this person to check up on her when she was done. But he still couldn’t relax. And because of the distance that would be between them, he felt even more impatient.

He decided that he’d see her as soon as he returned to Korea. He wondered if it was all a fortunate turn of events. Because of this sudden business trip, he now had the courage to face her.

He wasn’t sure how he managed to get the work done. When he arrived back at the airport, he was finally able to let out a sigh of relief. Just as he returned home, he received a phone call that made him grab his keys and head right back out. He was told by the person who was surveilling ChaYoung that she seemed to be making her way to the man’s studio apartment. The informant also reported that the man’s affair partner was with the man at his studio apartment.

Although he did want this affair to be revealed as soon as possible, he never wanted her to find out like this.

He did not want her to witness such a disgusting sight with her own eyes. He was certain that this act of betrayal would scar her and give her a big shock.

If there was a way to stop her, he would have done it. He raced over as fast as he could, but it was too late.

When he entered the cafe, the two of them were in the middle of a conversation. He thought she’d be crying and shouting at him, but she looked calm. He was a bit flustered by this, but he was also relieved.

However, he saw her clenched fist trembling under the table. She wasn’t calm. She was only pretending to be calm.

When the man apologized, KunHyung felt the urge to smash his fist into the man’s face. But all he could do was clench his teeth.

“Evil bastard.”

She murmured, her voice filled with hatred. Her back looked sad as she watched the man walk away.

The man did not turn back once, even when he opened the glass door of the cafe as he walked out. KunHyung finally let out the breath he had been holding in. He watched as ChaYoung wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

“Tsk.”

He had only planned to watch over her from a distance, but he soon found himself revealing his presence. Now that things had taken quite a turn, he felt that he could not back off.

She was obviously very taken aback. He watched as her face flushed with embarrassment. She didn’t look very happy to see him… Her watery eyes seemed to scream, ‘Why him?’.

Unaware of the fact that he had sent someone to keep an eye on her, she probably felt that this was an unfortunate coincidence. As expected, her eyes were filled with hostility as she stared at him.

He wasn’t familiar with such eyes. Nevertheless, he nonchalantly stood up and sat down across from her. Even thinking about it now, he wasn’t sure where that courage came from. It was quite fascinating.

Either way, because he had pushed himself towards her, he was able to get as close as he got with her. Now that he had nothing left to hide, he didn’t need to hesitate anymore.

After telling her all about the trauma he had incurred as a child, something he had never told anyone else, he felt even more relieved.

For the most part, everything he told her was the truth. However, the explanation strayed a bit from what had actually happened.

She thought they had met at the cafe by coincidence. He didn’t want to tell her that he had actually sent someone to keep an eye on her. He didn’t want to tell her about the time he had waited for her in front of her office building, that he saw Kim SeungHoon there and therefore recognized his face. She mustn’t know that he had witnessed Kim SeungHoon’s affair before she did.

Therefore… He had come to the conclusion that telling her all this wouldn’t help her in the slightest. So he had merely withheld the truth in some parts of his story.

Maybe this was a form of cognitive dissonance from trying to rationalize his actions. However, no one was hurt, and it had given him the results he had right now.

More importantly, it was the first time he had gotten ahold of a priceless treasure. He did not want to let it escape due to his stupid mistakes. If she got scared and ran away, it would be a disaster.

With his eyes looking forward, KunHyung turned the steering wheel and let out a laugh.