Masquerader Chapter 13

The question clawed at her throat, ready to escape. What exactly do you want to confirm? A cynical voice within her countered immediately.

 

Seol-ah gazed at Seo Tae-shin with calm, steady eyes. Dressed immaculately in his tailored suit, he looked, as she had already noted, utterly unscathed.

 

Unlike her, whose body was still marred with bruises and scabs from wounds barely beginning to heal. His smooth, pristine skin gleamed without a single imperfection—like a finely sculpted marble statue.

 

Fragments of memory lodged in her mind, throbbing like splinters. A dull headache swelled. Seol-ah frowned slightly, enduring the pain pressing against her temples as she asked,

 

“Why are you here?”

 

Strictly speaking, she was the one who had taken refuge in the home he had provided, lounging about without a care. The question itself was somewhat ironic. But Seo Tae-shin, expressionless as ever, answered without hesitation.

 

“I was informed that the kid living here wasn’t eating. It was getting troublesome.”

 

She mulled over his words for a moment before asking,

 

“And the kid… is me?”

 

Come to think of it, this wasn’t the first time he had used such an odd term to refer to her.

 

“You’re quite a handful, aren’t you?”

 

A dry voice muttered as if annoyed, brushing past her ears, and with it, memories surged back all at once—the moment when the man kneeling on one knee in front of her reached inside his coat and tied her T-shirt.  

 

Their eyes met at the same level. The breath that touched her lips. The strange tension.  

 

She ought to have felt humiliation first, having wet herself in front of a stranger, but instead of the lost dignity of being human, what came to mind was the sensation of fingers brushing against her waist…  

 

Her thought process must have been completely broken.  

 

“Did Chief Yang Chi-wook say that?”  

 

“Yeah. He said you’re a troublesome type. You won’t listen to him either.”  

 

The patronizing tone was a bit absurd. She was already twenty-five, far from being a child, and she hadn’t done anything she wasn’t supposed to do—if anything, she had been more obedient than anyone else. To call someone like her troublesome felt like an unfair accusation.  

 

Following the rules set by Secretary Yang Chi-wook wasn’t difficult. The only tricky part was the rule about not skipping meals, but that was something she could manage on her own. There was no need to tire themselves out over such trivial matters.  

 

“It doesn’t matter. Just leave me alone.”  

 

“Hmm…”  

 

What should he do?  

 

Seo Tae-shin gazed at Seol-ah for a moment with a thoughtful expression. His eyes, reflecting the crimson glow of the setting sun, gleamed a vivid blood-red. His gaze, both eerily terrifying and excessively beautiful, unconsciously drew her in.  

 

“Since I picked you up, I might as well raise you.”  

 

…Raise? Picked up? What was he talking about?  

 

While Seol-ah was lost in thought, Seo Tae-shin stubbed out his cigarette. Then, in a leisurely motion, he rose from his chair. As his towering figure stretched upward, her chin naturally tilted back. Ah, right, he was this tall.  

 

“Are you planning to starve to death?”  

 

A flat, emotionless question. Seol-ah answered in the same indifferent tone.  

 

“I wouldn’t die so easily from this.”  

 

“Right. Humans don’t die that easily.”  

 

Seo Tae-shin murmured nonchalantly, then suddenly strode toward the sofa. Before she knew it, his long shadow completely engulfed her.  

 

“You know that from experience, don’t you?”  

 

A low voice, like a whisper caressing the curve of her ear, sent shivers down her spine. His cold yet gentle gaze locked onto her. She recognized those eyes.  

 

***  

 

“He wouldn’t have died from something like that.”

 

“Should I kill him?”

 

***  

 

Thump, thump, thump.  

 

Her heart pounded erratically, her blood surging through her body at an accelerated pace. Her temperature rose, yet she felt as if she had been doused in ice water.  

 

“Want one?”  

 

Seo Tae-shin asked from a distance so close that she could reach out and touch him. It took her a beat longer to realize what he meant.  

 

What he had pulled from his pocket was a cheap candy—the kind that could be found in any store, haphazardly stacked and given away for free.  

 

As if bestowing some great mercy, he arrogantly extended the cheap candy toward her.  

 

“Open your mouth.”  

 

With one hand, he unwrapped it effortlessly. The rustling plastic crinkled as the candy peeked out—a sharp lemon yellow, sour enough to make her tongue tingle just by looking at it.  

 

“I don’t like candy.”  

 

“Why not?”  

 

“Because I’m not a child.”  

 

Seo Tae-shin’s eyes curved slightly in amusement at her response, and he let out a short laugh. A shallow dimple appeared on his smooth cheek. The change in his expression was so unexpectedly captivating that she was momentarily stunned. But at the same time, it felt dangerously unsettling.  

 

“You seemed like one to me.”  

 

He reached out and touched Seol-ah’s cheek. Even such a fleeting contact made her nerves go on high alert. Why did he keep treating her like a child? His fingers traced along the damp remnants of her tears. His touch, lightly scraping across her skin, made her bristle.  

 

“And how much of an adult do you think you are?”  

 

She suddenly regretted not asking Chief Secretary Yang Chi-wook about his righteous superior. At the very least, she could have found out his age—some basic information about him.  

 

He seemed to know quite a lot about her, but she knew almost nothing about him. The imbalance of knowledge made her feel uncomfortable.  

 

“Want me to tell you?”  

 

Seo Tae-shin spoke in an overly indulgent tone, as if coaxing a child. He spread his fingers and lifted her chin, his firm grip not only holding her jaw but covering the entire lower half of her face.  

 

His cold, ashen eyes glowed sharply without a hint of softness.  

 

If he wanted to, he could easily shatter her jaw.  

 

Of course, Seo Tae-shin wouldn’t break her jaw. But a different kind of tension filled the space between them. She couldn’t deny the shift in atmosphere—the physical tension radiating from where their skin touched.  

 

The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.  

 

“Tell me what?”  

 

The precarious standoff, as if the tension might snap at any moment, held their gazes tightly locked, each scrutinizing the other.

 

“You said you were curious about how much of an adult I am.”

 

From the moment she first heard it, she had thought his voice was unbearably lewd. The deep tone that scraped at her insides made the hairs on her ears stand on end, and she was well aware that the man was aroused as well.

 

Was it from the moment a shallow dimple appeared on his cheek? Seo Tae-shin was already hard.

 

The custom-tailored suit, fitting snugly to his body, was inadequate to conceal the massive swelling in his groin, and Seo Tae-shin made no effort to hide it.

 

“Open up while I’m still being nice. sweetie.”

 

As if he would force them open otherwise, his thumb pressed firmly against the center of Seol-ah’s lips. The tip of his thumb, lightly pressing against her slightly parted lips, barely brushed her tongue.

 

“Unless there’s something else you’d rather suck on.”

 

“Who talks to a kid like that?”

 

Her reproach was met with an indifferent response.

 

“If you’re all grown up, you should learn bad things too.”

 

The grip on her chin throbbed dully. Since Seol-ah was seated on the sofa and Seo Tae-shin was standing diagonally in front of her, she felt as if she were making direct eye contact with his erect member.

 

The outline of his shaft, stretched long to the left along his thigh, was fully exposed through his taut pants. It was so close that if Seo Tae-shin applied even a little more pressure to her chin, her nose would be pressed right against it.

 

“Bad things, huh…….”

 

As soon as Seol-ah parted her lips, a round candy was shoved between them, as if he had been waiting for the opportunity. The overly sweet and sharply sour lemon flavor exploded in her mouth, and at the same time, his fingertips followed the candy inside, pressing heavily against her tongue. Saliva pooled instantly at the mischievous play.

 

“It’s not something you need to learn though. You just do it directly.”

 

Speaking with the candy in her mouth muffled her pronunciation. In her head, she recalled the worst thing she had ever done in her life. The hard feel of the radio in her grip. The heavy impact when she had struck a person’s face with it.

 

With the candy in her mouth, one of her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel preparing for hibernation. Seo Tae-shin lazily rubbed the round bulge with his thumb and suggested leisurely,

 

“So, do you want to give it a try?”

 

“A bad thing?”

 

“No. Something fun.”