TMYRA Chapter 28

Fuck, You Are Laughing?  

 

Mun-hwon was watching Jun-hyun. He was staring endlessly at the spot where Moon Soo-ah had disappeared, waiting for her. It was obvious at a glance that they liked each other.  

 

You could tell from the way their smiles spread across their faces. The two of them exchanged glances and laughed for a long time, as if they found everything amusing.  

 

Come to think of it, this was the first time he had seen Moon Soo-ah laugh. He hadn’t known the corners of her lips could curve so beautifully. That her eyes would fold like crescent moons and her pupils would shine like stars.  

 

She was so beautiful that no man would be able to look away. She had never once laughed when she was with him. Most of the time, she was expressionless, or she was suppressing her anger.  

 

Sometimes, she struggled desperately not to lose, and other times, she couldn’t hide her fury and let it show.  

 

Either way, none of the emotions she had shown him were good ones. And now, she was blushing, laughing out loud between her red lips.  

 

“…Fuck,you are laughing, huh?”  

 

The curse slipped from his mouth naturally. Even as he watched her laughing so prettily, he felt like absolute shit. His mood wouldn’t improve no matter what, so he pulled out a cigarette—but before he could light it, his phone rang.  

 

Rrrr Rrrr.

 

When he pressed the call button, Jang Ji-cheol’s voice came through.  

 

“CEO Min Ihan has secured funds. It looks like Jang Yoon-ha provided the money.”  

 

“So that’s why he moved to New York—to meet Jang Yoon-ha?”  

 

“Yes. Apparently, Jang Yoon-ha’s condition for providing the funds was pregnancy.”  

 

“Holding onto his stepsister while refusing to divorce his legal wife, yet still fucking around—how ridiculous.”  

 

“Also, it seems he’s found out about the problem in Vietnam. He arrived there yesterday. What should we do now?”  

 

“Pull out from the financial dealings. But start taking down the branches one by one—first Southeast Asia, then China.”  

 

“Understood. I’ll report back once it’s done.”  

 

After ending the call, Mun-hwon lit his cigarette. Exhaling a stream of smoke, he kept his eyes fixed on Jun-hyun.  

 

Should I take care of that bastard too?  

 

He felt like smashing his face in, but there was no justification for it.  

 

Bringing someone down just because of his own mood? Not for money or honor, just purely out of personal spite?  

 

That wasn’t something a cold and rational man like Mun-hwon would do.  

 

“Moon Soo-ah… You’re good at bewitching people, aren’t you? That bastard seems completely out of it too.”  

 

Muttering to himself, he noticed a subtle tremor in Jun-hyun’s gaze. Those weren’t the eyes of someone simply waiting for someone. It was a gaze filled with regret and disappointment.  

 

Which meant one thing—Moon Soo-ah had run away.  

 

At that realization, a smirk spread across his lips. She’s still within my grasp. Should I make her suck me off first this time, or should I eat her out first? At best, she’d go back to school and hide in a lecture hall or a club room again.  

 

How long should I wait this time? Four hours? Five?  

 

Catching her too quickly wouldn’t be fun. The longer she spends running away, the more she’ll get a thrill out of it and try escaping again.  

 

Last time, he had caught her too early—on the second attempt—so she ended up locking herself in her room for over two weeks. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.  

 

Just as he was about to take another drag from his cigarette, he caught his own reflection in a nearby café’s window.  

 

A young man staring straight ahead with a cigarette between his lips. His slightly upturned eyes and languid lips looked exactly like Go Hye-jung’s.  

 

“You really can’t escape your bloodline.”  

 

Suddenly, he recalled something she had said in an interview with a magazine.  

 

“Back when you were a rookie actress, there were scandalous rumors about you. A lot of people still believe them to be true. Could you clarify?”  

 

“I know, right? Some people still think they’re real. They say I had an affair with a certain corporate chairman and even had his son. But I want to set the record straight again: acting is my greatest passion. If I were that obsessed with men, wouldn’t I have remarried long ago and quit acting?”  

 

She had always repeated the same words. That she loved acting and that all the past rumors were false. That the one-year hiatus she took as a rookie actress was simply because she had wanted to study abroad in the United States.  

 

She even produced school records to prove her innocence.  

 

Watching that broadcast, Mun-hwon had only laughed in disbelief. The very period when she was supposedly in the U.S. coincided with his own birth year.  

 

Her son had grown up into a man standing right here, and yet she had spoken with such confidence, without a trace of guilt or pain.  

 

Now he understood why she had been ashamed of him. Why she had always insisted on having a manager present whenever they met, never allowing the two of them to be alone.  

 

The day he finally understood everything, Mun-hwon had been unable to sleep from the sheer agony of it.  

 

Go Hye-jung again.  

 

Lately, she had been invading his thoughts more and more, resurfacing the buried pain in his chest.  

 

And it was all because of Moon Soo-ah.  

 

The words she had spoken kept triggering memories of Go Hye-jung.  

 

“That would be hell! Being trapped by Min Ihan, spending my whole life doing whatever he wants—I’d rather die! Even if it’s just for a single day, I want to live freely. I’d rather run away and sleep with you than be locked up by him for the rest of my life!”    

 

She could have just lived comfortably under the protection of a wealthy man. But Moon Soo-ah, like Go Hye-jung, had a strong sense of independence. Women like them could never live under a man’s shadow.  

 

I imagined what it would have been like if Go Hye-jung had chosen a different life. What if she had become Chairman Min’s hidden woman?  

 

Would things have been better?  

 

At the very least, if that had been the case, Go Hye-jung wouldn’t have died, and I wouldn’t have ended up as a gangster.  

 

But knowing Go Hye-jung’s personality, she wouldn’t have lived long. She wouldn’t have been able to endure the suffocation and would have run away somehow.  

 

Go Hye-jung, who never wanted to live under someone else’s shadow, would have tried to make her presence known at all costs. And Chairman Min would have found her troublesome and tried to crush her.  

 

The same would have applied to me. No matter how much money there was, could I have lived as an illegitimate son in that family?  

 

No, it’s all an unnecessary hypothesis.  

 

Chairman Min toyed with Go Hye-jung and discarded her, never intending to take in her son. So why, in the midst of all this, do I miss Go Hye-jung?  

 

That face I had tried so hard to erase. Seo Mun-hwon opened his phone’s internet browser and searched for her. He clicked on a photo of Go Hye-jung from when she was around thirty, the era people called her prime.  

 

She, who had never once smiled at Seo Mun-hwon, was smiling on the screen. Just as Moon Soo-ah had smiled so brightly at Jun-hyun a little while ago.  

 

“Fuck.”  

 

His lips spat out a curse as his mood soured once again.  

 

He bit down on his cigarette and took a deep drag, but this time, his mood didn’t improve at all.  

 

***

 

It was a bright summer day. The air was dry, free of humidity, and filled with the scent of summer. On a summer evening when the sky blazed red with the setting sun, her father was painting.  

 

“Dad, what are you drawing?”  

 

Ten-year-old Soo-ah asked, and her father smiled.  

 

“Italy’s Florence. Out of all the places I’ve traveled, it was my favorite. The Duomo Cathedral at sunset was magnificent. I’m painting while recalling that moment.”  

 

“Why are you drawing so many?”  

 

“I’m making multiple sketches first, and when I’ve organized my ideas, I plan to work on a large piece.”  

 

Soo-ah stared intently at the drawing before speaking to her father.  

 

“I want to visit Florence too.”  

 

“Alright. Let’s go together. We’ll definitely go. When should we go? Should we leave tomorrow?”  

 

“You’re busy painting, Dad. Let’s go when I turn twenty.”  

 

“Why twenty?”  

 

“By then, I’ll be grown up. I’ll earn money from a part-time job and buy our plane tickets.”  

 

Her father chuckled.  

 

“Thanks to my daughter, I’ll finally get on a plane. Soo-ah, thank you.”  

 

He then went to the storage room and brought out several sketchbooks.  

 

“I have some sketches from my trip to Florence. Want to see them together?”  

 

“Yes!”  

 

Soo-ah eagerly opened her father’s old notebooks. Inside were various scenes of Florence. A couple enjoying coffee by the roadside, a front view of the cathedral, and breathtaking panoramic views from its rooftop.  

 

“Wow. This is amazing. I want to draw as well as you, Dad.”  

 

“When you get a little older, how about we travel together and paint?”  

 

“I’d love that!”  

 

Her father held out his pinky, and Soo-ah linked her finger with his, beaming with happiness.