Chapter 12

In the gaze they exchanged, Mimi winked one eye.

“By the way, what’s the new job? I hope it’s a handsome man.”

When Mimi swiftly changed the subject and asked, Sang-pil spoke without smoothing out his furrowed brow.

“This won’t be an easy job either. But each person’s share will be more than satisfactory.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a man named Kim Seong-hyeok who’s running for mayor in the upcoming local election. Apparently he’d built up enough connections in the central party that he’d been considered a strong candidate until now. But then some unexpected heavyweight threw his hat into the ring, and I hear his balls shrank.”

“Who’s the rival?”

“Jang Hwan-sik, four-term. Everyone knows his face, right? He’s a man famous for his showmanship.”

“Then the person we’re going to work on is that Assemblyman Jang Hwan-sik?”

“That’s right.”

While Sang-pil and Wonjae were talking, Mimi, who had no interest in politics at all, busily moved her fingers over her smartphone for a while, then let out a shrill scream.

“Then don’t tell me the person I have to deal with this time is this old man?”

Turning her phone toward the group, Mimi did not hide her horrified expression.

On the square screen was a man in his sixties wearing a deliberately benevolent smile. While Lee-jin idly thought he did not seem that terribly old, Sang-pil nodded.

“Isn’t this too much? Instead of handsome Kwon Ki-joo, it’s an old geezer like this?”

“It’s easy for you. It’s not your first time.”

“If it’s some politician, then it’s obvious what I’ll have to do. F*ck, my face is going to get sold again.”

Just as Mimi said, jobs like this usually all followed a similar course. Most likely, a video featuring Mimi would be used to make him step down on his own.

Still, at least with men like this, it was a relief that they usually did not blow it wide open in public.

“According to the client, he’s the type who really likes women, drinking, and gambling, so there should be plenty of openings. Since the party nomination review period is coming up soon, they asked us to hurry a little.”

Gathering the three of them close, Sang-pil explained the rough plan. They could not simply throw her body into it headfirst, so Lee-jin had to move first.

Because of Kwon Ki-joo’s whim, Lee-jin was now under Sang-pil’s suspicion, and she had no choice but to follow his will. That was irritating.

* * *

For the next three days, Lee-jin kept an eye on Assemblyman Jang Hwan-sik. Fortunately, since he was the National Assembly member for this district, both his office and his home were not far away. Perhaps because the nomination was approaching, it was not hard to find Assemblyman Jang, who kept showing his face here and there.

And at night, she went back to wandering around near Kwon Ki-joo’s businesses.

If she happened to run into him again like last time, she had something she wanted to say, but perhaps he was busy, because he was nowhere to be seen. It was the first time in all the time she had been following him that she had gone three whole days without seeing even a trace of him.

“Ah, the weather’s nice.”

After finishing her report on Assemblyman Jang and leaving the Vigilante Group office, Lee-jin stood in the middle of the street for a moment, wondering where she should go.

Mimi had gone to get a massage, and Sang-pil and Wonjae were discussing what remained to be done. Lee-jin, whose body still ached from the aftereffects of the recent match, used that as an excuse to leave the office. But in truth, she did not really have anywhere to go.

Lee-jin lifted her head and looked up at the sky. The sky at three in the afternoon was brilliantly clear.

At times like this, Kwon Ki-joo would not appear either, so she could not exactly volunteer to be a stalker. In the end, Lee-jin took heavy steps toward home.

Dohyang-dong in broad daylight was quiet and dull. A brief lull before the neighborhood, which had burned all night, began boiling again. At times like this, it could almost look like a place where ordinary people lived.

On the way home, Lee-jin stopped by the mart for a moment to buy groceries. Between following Kwon Ki-joo and, the moment the match ended, going right back to tail Assemblyman Jang, her refrigerator had been left completely empty.

Still, since all this was something she did just to scrape by and live, Lee-jin thought she should at least eat meat to comfort herself for all her hard work, so for the first time in a while, she bought samgyeopsal and then left the mart.

Once you got away from the center of Dohyang-dong, you came to the hillside slum where poor people like Lee-jin lived.

On one side, glittering entertainment establishments were raking in money by the armful, and yet if you went just twenty minutes farther from there, you reached the bottom. She wondered if there was any other neighborhood as strange as this.

“Well, thanks to that, I get by.”

After passing old commercial buildings covered all over in tacky tiles and turning the corner, the familiar uphill road came into view. Without a word, Lee-jin began climbing the road, where potholes marked the asphalt and stagnant dirty water of uncertain origin had pooled here and there.

If she climbed like that for about five minutes, she would see ‘Rona Beauty Salon,’ and if she went into the alley just beyond it, the multi-household home where Lee-jin lived would appear.

The deposit was 10 million won and the monthly rent was 200,000 won. It was an old one-room-style house, and Lee-jin’s room was on the second floor.

Since the sun had not set yet, she thought to herself that she would first take a nap, then grill samgyeopsal for dinner in the evening, and after that go out to look for Kwon Ki-joo or something, and as she was sorting out her thoughts while walking, she suddenly noticed a pitch-black car parked in front of Rona Beauty Salon.

It was a luxury sedan not easily seen in this neighborhood. The moment she checked the license plate at the thought of no way, Lee-jin stopped in place.

It was Kwon Ki-joo’s car. There was no long tail of accompanying vehicles, just the single car Kwon Ki-joo usually rode in.

Perhaps they had spotted Lee-jin from over there too, because with a click, Kwon Ki-joo got out from the back seat. Walking toward her, he was dressed not in a suit, but in a comfortable-looking knit top and slacks.

Even seeing him again after three days, the man was still frighteningly handsome, and in an instant he dominated the surroundings.

“Hi.”

The low voice that had come right up in front of her greeted her. Lee-jin quickly bowed her head.

She was deeply confused. Did stalking targets usually keep showing up on their own like this?

“Hello.”

“Looks like you were out?”

“Yes. ……But what brings you here?”

“I got curious about how my champion was doing, so I came by, but there was no one home. So I was waiting. But then…….”

Trailing off, Kwon Ki-joo stared fixedly at Lee-jin’s face. Under that gaze, which seemed to hold a person in place completely, Lee-jin could not even bring herself to look away, and then he strode closer.

Isn’t this too close? Before Lee-jin even had time to panic, Kwon Ki-joo’s hand touched her cheek.

“You won, and still you look like this. Your pretty face is all ruined. Tsk-.”

Kwon Ki-joo was big in every way, and his hands were large too. Every time Lee-jin saw him smoking, she had thought that if she got hit by that hand, she would go flying in one blow.

But the hand of Kwon Ki-joo touching Lee-jin now was incredibly careful and gentle.

Kwon Ki-joo slowly, deliberately caressed Lee-jin’s cheek, where bluish bruises still remained. His languidly lowered eyes drifted together along her cheek, following the path of his thumb.

At the physical closeness, near enough that she could feel his breath, Lee-jin’s face turned red in an instant.

“That bruise is going to last quite a while. If I’d known this would happen, I shouldn’t have let her go back with all her limbs intact.”

Staring intently at Lee-jin’s flushed face, Kwon Ki-joo clicked his tongue lightly once more as he spoke. At that moment, as though cold water had been poured over her, Lee-jin suddenly came to her senses.

“What? Wh-what do you mean?”

Lee-jin asked with startled eyes, but Kwon Ki-joo only smiled with an expression that said who knows, and only then slowly withdrew his hand.

His hot, soft fingers passed over Lee-jin’s cheek and jaw as though tracing over them again, pulling away very slowly. At that strangely suggestive touch, Lee-jin felt as though her heart had dropped with a thud.

During that brief moment when Kwon Ki-joo’s hand rested on her, for the first time Lee-jin vividly felt him as a ‘man.’ She was startled even by herself, for finding such an obvious fact newly strange.

So the only thing she could do now was somehow quickly disrupt this atmosphere.

“Um, ah, have you been very busy lately?”

Twisting the hands she had clasped together, Lee-jin desperately changed the subject. So that before Kwon Ki-joo noticed anything else, he would only find her reddened face amusing.

“Why?”

“I kept looking for you, Boss, but I couldn’t find you.”