Chapter 411 |
Side Story (28)
Choi Jeokhyeon had never really told me much about his family.
“From now on, this is your home.” “You didn’t even ask the rest of your family before bringing us here like this?” “Haha, I live here alone. So you don’t have to worry.” “…You live alone in a place this big?”
Normally, wouldn’t stories about one’s family naturally come up in everyday conversation?
I had mentioned my mother or father in front of Choi Jeokhyeon a few times, but he had never done the same. At first, I even wondered if the guy didn’t have a family at all, if he’d just hatched from an egg all on his own like Bak Hyeokgeose.
‘Well, it was just a crazy thought I had and laughed about to myself, anyway.’
‘He’s probably not on good terms with them.’
After that, I intentionally avoided asking about his personal life. Unless it was about Seo Yuseong, I also refrained from talking about my own parents as much as possible. It’s not just that I’m not nosy enough to pry into other people’s business; I also figured there was no reason to poke around if it clearly made him uncomfortable.
Despite that effort, there was a time when I ended up taking a direct hit to Choi Jeokhyeon’s private life.
One day, the doorbell kept ringing, along with the sound of someone repeatedly entering the wrong door lock password.
Still buried under the blanket, I checked the time. It was around eight, which felt a bit early for a visitor.
At the time, I had been working on music until dawn and had only just fallen asleep after sending Seo Yuseong off to school. Already on edge from exhaustion, I pressed a pillow over both ears and groaned.
“F**k, there’s no one home. No one…….”
Choi Jeokhyeon had already left for work, and Seo Yuseong was at school. There shouldn’t have been anyone left who could even open the door, so who on earth was being so persistent? They were even messing with someone else’s door lock without a second thought.
If you thought about it rationally, it could have been a pretty dangerous situation.
“A delivery?”
Unfortunately, my brain wasn’t functioning well from the extreme fatigue. With only one thought in mind—stop the noise as quickly as possible—I staggered up and, completely defenseless, opened the door.
Before I could even process what was happening, my cheek burned hot.
The uninvited guest had slapped me.
“Who are you?! Do you even know where you think you’re barging into!”
A woman’s shrill voice rang out.
‘Oh…….’
I wondered what kind of morning drama this was.
I was so dumbfounded I didn’t even feel angry. To think that getting slapped would be the very first thing I’d face upon waking. I had shut down my love life before it ever even opened, so I never thought something like this would happen to me.
‘She must’ve come knowing Choi Jeokhyeon wasn’t here. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been bold enough to just swing her hand at me like that.’
Clutching my aching back, I ran a hand through my messy hair and looked down at her. She was petite, barely reaching my shoulder.
Seeing that, I didn’t even feel like fighting. Letting out a small sigh, I spoke in a hoarse but relatively gentle voice.
“Who are you to be making a scene in someone else’s house?”
I gradually straightened my back, which I’d been holding half-bent because of the disc pain. As my height rose, so did her gaze. When the door opened fully, revealing a frame as broad as the door itself, and my deep voice delivered the final blow, her face turned completely pale.
“…Seo Yutae?”
From the look of it, she had been too worked up to even check who I was before slapping me. The moment she realized I was a man, she seemed flustered. She must have been completely certain that the person inside was a woman.
Which meant … judging by the situation, this young lady had chased her way here looking for something like Choi Jeokhyeon’s lover.
‘Oh, f**k, this isn’t good.’
My head started pounding, and my stomach churned.
The thought that Choi Jeokhyeon would burst out laughing if he heard about this disgraceful incident irritated me.
‘Let’s just bury this. Nothing happened.’
Now that she’s realized she made a mistake, it would’ve been nice if she’d said, “Oops, I made a mistake. I’m sorry”, and left.
But the woman, dressed head to toe in luxury brands, must have had too much pride for that. Instead, she snapped again.
“Someone else’s house? I’m the person who’s to become Choi Jeokhyeon-ssi’s fiancée. Am I not even allowed to come to my own fiancé’s home?”
A fiancée.
In the 21st century.
‘Does time flow differently for chaebols?’
It was shocking news, but I didn’t particularly want to hear about Choi Jeokhyeon’s personal affairs from someone other than him. So I brushed off her words and tried to close the door again.
“I see. Please head back now. I haven’t slept.”
Whether she was angry at my insincere attitude, offended by my commanding tone telling her to “head back”, or irritated by the unnecessary information that I hadn’t slept, she froze for a moment. Then her face turned bright red, and her body trembled.
“How dare you! A low-class like you! Who do you think you are!”
‘Wow, this is my first time hearing someone say ‘how dare you’ and ‘low-class’ out loud.’
Come to think of it, I wasn’t even sure how to define what Choi Jeokhyeon was to me.
Guardian? Sponsor? Friend? Family?
None of those quite fit.
I leaned lazily against the doorframe, thinking for a moment, and then spoke with a slow, relaxed smile.
“Well, you could just ask him yourself.”
At that, the woman’s face contorted even further.
I had been trying to treat her kindly, since she might become part of Choi Jeokhyeon’s family.
I still didn’t understand why she was that angry.
It felt unfair.
‘If you’re his fiancée, you should obviously be asking him. Why take it out on an innocent bystander like me…….’
She shouted a few more things, I think, but honestly, I was too sleepy to remember. If she had been a man, I might have dragged her out and thrown her aside, but I couldn’t exactly do that. All I could do was rub my heavy eyelids and ignore her yelling as best I could.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
The one who finally stopped the rampaging woman was Choi Jeokhyeon.
It was definitely a time when he should have been at the office. Seeing as he’s back at the house, he must have either checked the CCTV or gotten a report from the bodyguard who’d been put in an awkward position by the fiancée’s intrusion.
“Saehwa-ssi!”
The fiancée called out brightly, but as if he didn’t hear her at all, Choi Jeokhyeon frowned at the sight of me standing there in only a robe and pushed me back inside.
“Go in.”
It was a welcome sound to hear.
It was the middle of a freezing winter, and I had been starting to feel like I might actually freeze to death.
While Choi Jeokhyeon stood at the door blocking the woman, I yawned widely and went back inside. I expected raised voices to follow, but strangely enough, I couldn’t hear any. The person who had been screeching like an angry cat in front of me, had she suddenly turned into a shy maiden?
‘The power of love really is great.’
Brushing it off like that, I sat down on the sofa and began dozing again.
Not long after, Choi Jeokhyeon came into the house.
“Don’t sleep here. Go sleep in the bed.”
I was slightly startled by the hand gently shaking my shoulder.
I wondered if it was really okay to send his fiancée away that quickly when she’d come all the way to his front door.
‘I’m sure he’ll take care of it just fine on his own.’
I slowly lay down sideways on the sofa and, with a faint trace of laughter in my voice, quietly asked,
“So, you have a fiancée?”
“…It was just something my family arranged on their own.”
“She must not trust you much if she ran all the way here. Try treating her better.”
I meant it as a joke, but Choi Jeokhyeon’s expression remained stiff.
Later, I heard that the fiancée was the only daughter of a prominent conglomerate chairman, and that there had been several talks of a strategic marriage between the families. Given the times we live in, it would be hard for them to force it if both sides adamantly refused, but apparently that unstoppable young lady had fallen head over heels for Choi Jeokhyeon, which made things awkward.
‘Choi Jeokhyeon doesn’t seem interested in the slightest. Is she just the one-sidedly clinging to him?’
This incident seemed to have happened after the fiancée got wind of information that Choi Jeokhyeon, who wouldn’t even spare her a glance, had bought a pile of gifts for someone and reserved a lounge. She must have gone into a frenzy.
‘Well, with that face, it’s only natural to be tempted.’
Surprisingly enough, Choi Jeokhyeon was extremely popular.
Romantically speaking.
Most people failed to see his true nature.
Unlike Seo Yuseong, he was meticulous to a fault. His gentlemanly and dignified manner, the air of untouchability about him, his looks inherited from his stunningly beautiful mother, his prestigious family; every element that made up Choi Jeokhyeon would seem attractive to ordinary people.
Naively so, without realizing how dangerous he could be.
‘In the end, they’ll just be used and discarded.’
Choi Jeokhyeon knew that it was easy for him to gain other people’s goodwill, and sometimes he even took advantage of that. But in this case, things seemed to have flowed in a direction he hadn’t wanted.
‘Just how head-over-heels is she to have chased him all the way here? And an elegant lady like that, no less.’
I quietly looked up at Choi Jeokhyeon as he ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh.
Then I absentmindedly muttered,
“Once you meet someone you love and start a family, I suppose you’d have different priorities in your life…….”
Silence fell for a moment.
I was hit by a sudden surge of embarrassment for no apparent reason.
‘Wow. That’s mortifying.’
When a friend or sibling gets married, don’t you sometimes feel a little sad, like they’re suddenly being taken away from you? If Seo Yuseong ever got married, I’d probably lock myself away in a temple.
Anyway, I knew it was a childish feeling, so I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it had slipped out before I realized it.
“Hahaha!”
The guy, who had been staring at me with wide eyes, suddenly he burst into laughter.
“What. Why are you laughing?”
He was looking at me like I was being ridiculous … no, ridiculous wasn’t quite the right word, but I didn’t even want to think about what it was. Either way, the way he was watching me was getting on my nerves.
My whole body felt itchy and restless, like something was lodged under my skin.
I sprang up from the sofa and glared at him. Choi Jeokhyeon barely managed to stop laughing.
“I’m not getting married. I’m not planning to date, either. I’m busy enough as it is. So don’t imagine strange things on your own.”
“…Who said I was?”
I couldn’t understand why he was saying those things, nor did I know why he was laughing. I frowned deeply and turned my head away. Then, the smile faded from Choi Jeokhyeon’s face, and his expression grew serious.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
He strode over, trying to check my slightly swollen cheek, but I waved him off and pushed him away. Soon, though, he caught me in his grip and forced me to look him right in the face.
“It’s nothing. Why are you making such a big deal out of something so trivial?”
“…….”
I tried to get past the moment with a curt remark, but the atmosphere turned so chilling that I couldn’t bring myself to say another word.
Later, I heard in bits and pieces that the engagement had been broken off.
I knew Choi Jeokhyeon disliked people who couldn’t maintain a proper distance, so at first I simply thought, ‘I figured as much’, and didn’t give it a second thought. But when I ran into that woman later and she glared at me like she wanted to kill me, I began to wonder if their relationship had cracked because of me.
My name must have come up when he ended things. I mean, no matter how promising a young heir to a conglomerate he was, wouldn’t it be off-putting to hear that he had taken in and was raising a fully grown man out of nowhere?
It also seemed like he was spending what little free time he had entirely with me.
People say that having a friend who’s too close actually makes someone a less-than-ideal marriage prospect.
‘…Am I blocking Choi Jeokhyeon’s path to marriage?’
Ever since then, Choi Jeokhyeon’s marriage issue remained like a lingering burden in my heart. That was why I thought it was a relief when he met Camilla. But even that turned out to be a misunderstanding, so my worries only grew.
And so, the story returns to the present.
“Wait, I’m talking to you right now, and you suddenly…….”
At the sharp sound of the woman’s voice, it suddenly occurred to me that I might have interrupted something important. Choi Jeokhyeon wasn’t even in front of me, yet I hurriedly shook my head and gave a thumbs-up into the empty air.
“No, it’s not that urgent. … G-good luck with your blind date. Fighting!”
Then, through the speaker, I heard a strangely subdued voice.
“…What?”
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Translator’s Corner:
My HONEST reaction when I first read this chapter:
LIKEEE YUTAE I CANT EVEN DEFEND YOU ANYMORE ???? LIKE WHY ARE YOU SAD BECAUSE YOU WONT BE JEOKHYEON’S #1 PRIORITY ANYMORE IF HE EVER GET MARRIED AJHFHJFVJHHJVFV I just know Choi Jeokhyeon is happy HAPPY
Anyway guys, fifth day at work adkjfjjvfjfvgkf Going home at midnight aside, I’m pretty anxious I’ll get fired for not being pretty enough ??? like, you know, it’s an iPhone store, and they have their segmented branding, so you have to show up flawless at work. But I really don’t know a thing about makeup asdfghjkl ok this sounds a lot like pick me , but I really ??? dont ?/? to learn you have to buy them first and they’re pretty expensive. I mean, ok I know things like powder and lipstick, but the skincare prep ??? I really know nothing T_T
In the first place, come to think of it, this job isn’t even pay me enough to demand all that? Like, no kidding, if we calculate it to daily wage, I basically got paid $4/day, and that’s 10 working hours ???? And so far there at least 5 people bought the phone (not calculating those who just walked out without buying anything), it’s kinda crazy how so much money went through my hand as payment daily, when even my upcoming monthly wage won’t even make me able to afford those phone????? (even my tw months wage won’t do tbh. wow it’s so crazy now that i think about it. this is only a branch store too. the owner and higher ups must be really rich, isn’t this basically just modern slavery ??? I mean, yes, my country’s currency is on the weaker side, but that wage is also only half of the local minimum wage set by the government …. and they expected the store with 3 underpayed employees to sell 300 phones in a month ????)
Talking about phone, it’s also the reason I ended up taking the job despite knowing it’s basically modern slavery. I saved the money from the wishlist well (thank you, everyone), but I’m not financially reckless enough to spend them to buy new phone right away when I didn’t have a job yet … since you never know when an emergency will come. But my phone lately has been bootlooping like crazy and I guess it’s really nearing its end so my original plan is to buy new one after I got my first paycheck in a month … but now I’ve been thinking about just buying phone for my uncle (he’s single, unmarried, and doesn’t have a child, and basically has been acting like a father figure to me for the last year) since it’s been months since his phone dead and there’s literally no entertainment in this kind of quiet village if you don’t have a phone or tv …. and my plan now changed to just buy my own after I got my second paycheck. I know this is like counting my chicken before they hatch, but, like, wow, thinking about surviving in this for two months T_T I’m anxious ….. handling expensive phones daily also made me nervous. I hope I don’t get fired for not meeting the appearance standard for at least two months …
And now I’m regretting postponing going to hospital for a checkup all this time while I’m jobless … now I have something urgent to check but I can’t go to hospital since I just dont have the time asdfghjkl there’s a lump ? wart ? idk what it is exactly, in my chest area, right in the middle, and this evening I found it bleed … red blood too … all this time I was having this “If I die then I die” mindset but maybe I’m fake af because I panicked when I saw blood right in the middle of my chest asdfghjkl if there’s any doctor somehow here, please tell me it’s nothing serious asdfghjkl
And if you read this to the end, how do I apply eyeshadows ??? can I just spread them in my eyelid without adding them to under my eye too ??/ I’m afraid I’ll look like a clown …. I’d appreaciate if anyone can give me an answer in 4 hours because I have to wake up to go to work at that time asdgdlk