Chapter 17

Moreover, beside a woman with a bluish bruise on her cheek stood a man who was simply impossible not to look at.

“A benefactor better than a pr*stitute.”

Drying her hair with the hair dryer, Lee-jin muttered the name Wonjae had arbitrarily given her.

What was done was already done. Going to him to protest and get angry was the second issue; first, she had to think about facing Kwon Ki-joo again.

When she came out of the bathroom in a shower robe, the clothes she had taken off were gone, and a single dress had been laid neatly on the bed. When Lee-jin approached and picked it up, she saw the underwear hidden beneath it.

“How on earth did they know my size?”

It was a pale pink dress with quite feminine lace fluttering on it, something she had never once worn in her life.

Lee-jin frowned without realizing it. The thought that this might somehow be Kwon Ki-joo’s taste made her feel awkward.

Knock knock-.

Just then, a quiet knock sounded at the bedroom door. Lee-jin, who had been spacing out, was startled enough by even that small sound to shiver.

“Y-yes?”

“Ma’am, may I help you get dressed for a moment?”

“Oh, yes.”

When Lee-jin answered at the polite woman’s voice from outside the door, the door opened and someone came in.

The employee, with her neat appearance, hotel uniform, and gold name tag, wore an elegant smile.

“Since the zipper of the dress is in the back, it seemed you might have difficulty putting it on by yourself. Boss Kwon told me to assist you.”

“……Yes. Um, by any chance, the clothes I took off……”

“We requested the hotel laundry service, so you should be able to receive them back within an hour at the latest.”

Thinking that the refined-looking employee before her had probably seen even her worn-out underwear, Lee-jin felt as if her ears were burning.

But the professional concierge, without any change in expression, continued to regard Lee-jin with the same polite gaze.

“May I help you get dressed?”

When Lee-jin hesitated for a moment, not knowing what she should do, the employee asked once more with a gentle expression. Then, the moment Lee-jin took hold of the tie of her shower robe, she skillfully turned around and busied herself straightening the bed sheets once again, giving her time to put on her underwear in the n*de.

For something prepared in a hurry, the underwear fit her well. But Lee-jin’s hands, as she pulled the dress up, kept hesitating and fumbling.

She was a little concerned about what expression Kwon Ki-joo would make when he saw her come out wearing these clothes.

“I’ll help you.”

The concierge, coming up behind her, gathered Lee-jin’s long hair and carefully moved it forward, then slowly pulled up the zipper.

“How did you know my size?”

“That’s my job. While working here, we sometimes get guests who make requests like this. Do the clothes we prepared fit you well?”

“Yes. The underwear fits perfectly too. And the dress is…… very pretty.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

After arranging her hair properly once more, the concierge quietly left the bedroom, leaving behind words of thanks for visiting their hotel.

Now all that remained was for her to go out and face Kwon Ki-joo with the dress she was wearing for the first time in her life fluttering around her.

Lee-jin stood holding the doorknob and took a deep breath three or four times. It felt a little strange that the first person to see ‘Lee-jin in a skirt,’ whom Mimi and Wonjae had wanted so badly to see, would be Kwon Ki-joo.

Click, as she opened the door, Lee-jin belatedly realized that although she was curious what she looked like, she had not checked a mirror even once. But with her eyes already meeting Kwon Ki-joo’s through the open gap, she could not close it again.

“Whew-whistle-!”

Seeing Lee-jin come out after changing clothes, Kwon Ki-joo let out a playful whistle like some idle playboy. Perhaps Manager Kang had stepped out at some point, because Kwon Ki-joo was alone.

Wearing a suit in a slightly deeper color than before and carrying it off perfectly, Kwon Ki-joo was sitting in a lax posture with both arms stretched across the broad sofa back. He sat there with his legs spread carelessly as he looked at Lee-jin with a shameless expression. He looked exactly like a loafing thug.

Ah, come to think of it, that man really is a thug.

“When you dress like that, you look like a completely different person.”

Kwon Ki-joo rose from his seat and strode toward Lee-jin, who was standing there stiffly, as he spoke.

Lee-jin briefly worried over something pointless, wondering whether her face, bare of even makeup, might clash with the pretty dress.

“I don’t usually wear skirts, so it feels a little…… awkward.”

While Lee-jin spoke as if making excuses, Kwon Ki-joo looked at her as though he had become some kind of critic and made a slow circle around her. Hmm, Kwon Ki-joo, who had been making a low sound in his throat, came to stand on her left side and then suddenly stopped short.

“By the way…….”

Lee-jin, who had kept shrinking in on herself, turned her gaze toward Kwon Ki-joo, who was no longer moving. He was looking at her left forearm.

When she lowered her eyes, she saw a bluish bruise showing beneath the short sleeve.

It was something that always happened after Roxana’s matches, so Lee-jin had not paid it much mind, but when Kwon Ki-joo’s gaze continued to linger there, she quickly tugged her sleeve down.

He probably had not seen it, but above the bruise there was a scar. A knife wound about 8 centimeters long that started from her shoulder. It was the kind of scar that would raise a lot of questions if found on a female boxer who used her fists, and it was so old that even she herself now forgot about it from time to time.

So Lee-jin hurried to cover it before Kwon Ki-joo could notice the suspicious scar and ask about it.

Fortunately, perhaps he had not discovered the scar, because instead of that, he merely slowly rubbed the bruise on her forearm with his fingers, just as he had stroked her cheek when he came to her house last time. A strange sensation rose wherever his fingers traced.

For the first time, Lee-jin realized that just because she had experienced something once did not mean everything would become familiar.

“Even if you wear pretty clothes, the champion’s symbol doesn’t disappear, does it?”

“I-it’ll fade soon. There aren’t any other injuries, so it’s fine.”

“Then is this some different kind of temptation?”

Lee-jin looked again at her own left shoulder, where Kwon Ki-joo’s sticky gaze remained fixed, and was startled. She had pulled her sleeve down to hide the scar, only to expose the bra strap near her shoulder.

Startled, Lee-jin hurriedly pushed the strap back beneath the shoulder line of the dress. In that brief moment, Kwon Ki-joo’s hand also fell away.

“No, that’s not…….”

“I am safe, right?”

“Pardon?”

“Now that I think about it, I really am fearless. Being alone in a hotel room with a stalker. Who knows what I might be subjected to.”

“That’s a bit……. Wouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“Really? Still, it seems you are at least aware that you’re here with a man?”

Speaking with a bright smile, Kwon Ki-joo sat on the armrest of the single sofa right in front of him. That brought him almost to eye level with the standing Lee-jin.

As he looked at Lee-jin’s face, which was gradually beginning to flush, Kwon Ki-joo’s gaze deepened in color.

“Is this your first time too?”

“What…… do you mean?”

“Coming to a hotel with a man. Trailing along this defenselessly, even changing your clothes, and then looking at me so seductively like that.”

“You have quite a talent for describing a situation that is nothing special in a very strange way.”

As though her heart, which had stopped, had begun beating again, it started pounding noisily in her chest, and Lee-jin forced a smile as she answered as if nothing were wrong.

The moment she thought the worry she had felt in the elevator might become reality, her palms suddenly filled with sweat.

“This is a dangerous enough situation, Song Lee-jin. In this wide room, there’s no one else here to help you. No matter how much boxing you’ve done, someone your size is enough for me to overpower with one hand.”

Saying that, Kwon Ki-joo stretched out his arm as if to say, look, then wrapped it around Lee-jin’s waist and pulled her in at once. Lee-jin was dragged over helplessly by the overwhelming force, and Kwon Ki-joo laughed.

“If it’s your first time, then it’s an honor. If it’s habitual, then you’re cunning.”