DTL Ch 2 part 2

When SeonJae encountered that deaf woman again, he wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse. He saw her at an opening party of a restaurant in Cheongdam-dong two days later. He had only gone to briefly show his face. He merely gave sufficient replies to all the guests who chatted as they bragged about their wealth and was on his way out when he saw her. When he walked into the parking garage, he saw a woman hanging around. She looked very familiar…

Among the lines of expensive, foreign cars stood a junk car that seemed to be about ten years old. Next to it stood a woman who was gravely observing one of its tires. Looking closer, SeonJae realized she was definitely the annoying deaf woman.

SeonJae recalled yesterday’s morning briefing. According to Han SungTae, they offered to increase her wage by 200%, but she still refused.

“Lee YeonJung-ssi?”

SeonJae approached her. His shadow stretched across the floor. When the woman raised her head, surprise flickered across her face. He gave her a devilish smile as he looked down at her.

“It’s been a while. Ah, we met last week, so maybe it hasn’t been that long. What are you doing over here?”

She merely looked flustered and didn’t answer him.

“Oh, dear.”

It was a shame she couldn’t hear the derision in his voice. SeonJae flashed her an exaggerated scowl.

“It’s completely punctured. This shitty car…”

After taking another look at the completely deflated tire, SeonJae clicked his tongue. Judging from all the things packed into her back seat, she had just finished packing up at the event venue and was heading back. No wonder. Judging from the decorations, he thought the owners had thrown money at the restaurant opening today.

“Do you want me to call someone on your behalf?”

Unable to hear the smug tone in his voice, the woman shook her head.

“Tha’s okay.”

Her soft voice rang in the air. After nodding her head at him, she opened her trunk. She bent down, and her upper body completely disappeared into the trunk. Scowling, SeonJae crossed his arms and stared at her. A few moments later, he watched as she struggled to take out a spare tire from her trunk.

“Hey, what are you trying to do right now?”

He had only approached her in order to taunt her over her punctured tire.

‘No way. Is she planning on changing her tire here?’

Afraid that she’d dump the task on him, he took a step back. Just imagining the black smudges on his face as he crouched down on the floor to change that tire gave him goosebumps. He couldn’t even imagine it ever happening.

“L…Listen, I never said I’d help you……”

“S-S-ah-rry…but…can…you please…move?”

Holding the spare tire against her chest, the woman murmured to him as she panted for breath. Her small teeth flashed as she spoke. SeonJae glanced at the wrench and other tools that were placed on top of the tire. He couldn’t believe it. She was really going to change the tire herself.

SeonJae crossed his arms and frowned as he looked around at his surroundings. No one was here. He could just get in his car, pretend he never saw her, and leave. He wasn’t sure if she had ever changed a tire before, but it was none of his business. So what if she was panting on the ground from all her efforts?

“Seriously……”

The woman stared at him in confusion, wondering why he wasn’t moving. Her eyes held no deceit. He glanced at her high ponytail and her round forehead. His eyes were drawn to the baby hairs sticking out from her hairline. He had a strange, sudden urge to poke her pink cheeks.

“You’re seriously annoying.”

Seeing a sleek sedan enter the parking garage, he murmured. Then, to his own shock, he snatched the tire from her arms and tossed it back into her trunk before slamming the trunk closed. The woman’s round eyes stared at him in shock. SeonJae proceeded to speak to her in a sharp voice.

“It seems that you’re pretty good when it comes to your work, but are you seriously that tactless?”

The woman seemed to understand what he was saying and sharply raised her eyes. Her puppy-dog eyes blinked up at him.

“Your client, in other words, the owner of this restaurant… His father is the president of the CS Group. In other words, the youngest son of the largest food industry company opened up this restaurant on a whim. That’s why so many people showed up to the opening. And now you’re going to be changing the tire of this junk car in a place like this. Do you think that kind of image is going to be appreciated by people like them?”

The woman was lost in thought for a moment. Seeing all the foreign cars that had begun to enter the garage, SeonJae frowned and grabbed her arm. No good would come from others seeing him struggle to speak to this woman in front of this junk car.

“Get in for now.”

SeonJae walked over to his car parked on the other side and opened the passenger side door. He gestured for her to get in with his chin. He didn’t forget to give her an annoyed frown.

“If you’re that worried, I’ll call someone to have that car towed. I’m only saying this for your sake, but staying here in this state will not help you in any way.”

Only after he told her that he’d have that shitty car sent to the front of her workshop did the woman cautiously enter his car. When he asked her for her home address, she told him to just take her back to her workshop.

‘With this, I’m sure she feels like she owes me a favor.’

SeonJae attempted to justify his uncharacteristic show of kindness as he focused on driving. He felt a sweet fragrance tickle his nose, so he deliberately blasted the air conditioning inside the car.

SeonJae glanced at her. Clutching a tote bag that was almost as big as her on her lap, she was intently focused on the scenery outside the window. When he saw the faint goosebumps that had formed along her arm, SeonJae felt irritated. The woman was acting as if she were being kidnapped.

Her workspace was close to the hotel. As he entered the maze-like alleyways, he was once again struck with a sense of awe. How could a neighborhood like this exist in the heart of Seoul?

As soon as the car silently stopped in front of the workspace, the woman hung the bag on her shoulder. The woman gave him a nod and stretched out her hand to grab the door handle.

“Lee YeonJung-ssi.”

He grabbed her wrist before she could exit the car. He felt her flinch. SeonJae’s grasp tightened. He asked in a languid tone.

“Don’t you know how to thank someone?”

“Th-ah-ank you.”

Her strange voice flowed out of her lips once again. Whining. It sounded like the whine of a small animal begging for its life. Although it wasn’t his first time hearing it, SeonJae still felt strange. With his other hand, he loosened the necktie on his throat.

Was it going to rain? It felt as if the humidity was clinging to his skin. Her fearful puppy-dog eyes were guarded. His sadistic side flared up once again as he stared into those eyes.

“……Do you think words are enough to repay your debt?”

Blink. At his provocation, the woman’s eyes blinked in confusion. She had put her long hair up into a ponytail today as well. She was wearing a pastel pink knitted top with jeans. This hairstyle made her look a lot younger than before. How could this kid be twenty-eight years old? And she was even married?

Suddenly, he was curious about her husband. What would it be like to live with a deaf woman? What kind of sounds did a deaf woman make in the middle of sex? SeonJae frowned at the sudden turn in his imagination.

‘Why did I think of that all of a sudden?’

When his grip on her wrist loosened, the woman didn’t waste any time and quickly escaped his grasp. SeonJae’s mouth went dry.

“W-Would… you like me too… buy you ah meal?”

She observed his expression before she finally opened her mouth. Her small lips wriggled, and the voice that left them was a pitch higher than an average person’s. When he heard it, he felt as if his whole body was suddenly flushed with heat. SeonJae swept his tongue over his dry lips.

“I don’t eat meals with a married woman if it’s just the two of us. When it comes to a person like me, rumors swirl wherever I go. I don’t want anything unfavorable to start spreading.”

The woman suddenly began to chuckle. Her small front teeth flashed as she smiled. Her round eyes narrowed. Lee YeonJung was snickering as if she’d heard a funny joke. Was the air conditioning broken? It wasn’t getting any cooler inside the car. SeonJae loosened his necktie even more in frustration. His sturdy arms were tense.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m…not m-ah-rried.”

Her expression was strange. She was smiling, but there was a darkness behind her eyes. Seeing this, SeonJae suddenly felt parched. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.

“Then what are you?”

When they first met, she had definitely told him that she’d been married before. So now why was she saying she wasn’t married?

“We broke uh-p… a long time ah-go. I’m… a div-vorced sing-gle. Huhu…”

“……What?”

Her slender shoulders shook as she continued to laugh at him. Desire began to flare up from the deepest depths of SeonJae’s body. He felt the blood rush to his groin for no reason. This sensation thoroughly confused him. No, actually, he found it absolutely shocking that he was sexually attracted to this deaf woman.

He finally realized why he put the woman inside his car at the parking lot as if he were kidnapping her. It wasn’t out of sympathy. He had never once felt sympathy for anyone in the thirty-two years of his life. He was sexually attracted to her. Unbelievably attracted.

SeonJae mocked himself. Suddenly, he felt the urge to fool around with this woman. He reached out and grasped her wrist once again.

“How about some liquor instead of a meal?”

The woman stopped laughing. Her round eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Do you dislike liquor?”

SeonJae noticed the way her eyes shook for a moment. She pouted her lips as if he were proposing a dangerous bet.

“Pay back your debt. The debt you owe me for helping you today, Lee YeonJung-ssi.”

“……”

“Do you not want to?”

“……No. I’ll… pay it bah-ck.”

She eventually nodded her head slowly.

Well, of course she would. Until now, SeonJae had never been rejected by a woman. Even if the woman was deaf, she was no exception.

SeonJae chuckled as he turned the steering wheel and headed in the direction of his hotel. He couldn’t think of another place where they could meet away from prying eyes other than the private lounge of his hotel.