Chapter 3

Again, putting on a foolish-looking expression, Lee-jin asked. She needed to know whether he was trying to open a path for her to survive, or whether he was probing her true intentions.

“Just what I said. When you spend time with glamorous women drenched in perfume, there are times when you start missing innocent girls who smell like soap. Well, in that regard, you…….”

Once again, Kwon Ki-joo’s persistent gaze slowly swept over Lee-jin from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. His red tongue wet his lips as if savoring the thought, and the corners of his mouth twitched upward.

But to Lee-jin, Kwon Ki-joo’s languid gaze felt like a snake. Hiss, hiss, a venomous snake flicking its tongue, slowly driving its prey into terror before swallowing it whole.

“……seem to pique my interest quite a bit. A stalker act from an innocent twenty-three-year-old woman who knows nothing of the world. When would I ever get to experience something like that?”

“No, I, um…….”

“You’re not glamorous, but you’re pretty enough, so it doesn’t seem like I’d be losing anything.”

“…….”

“So go ahead and do as you please. I’ll play along. Ah! Even if I notice you, am I supposed to pretend I don’t know?”

“No, you really don’t have to go that far…….”

Lee-jin had not even finished answering when Kwon Ki-joo rose from his seat just like that. The shadow cast by his huge presence loomed over her as if a pitch-black tidal wave were about to swallow her whole.

As Lee-jin looked up at Kwon Ki-joo’s face, so high above it felt as though her neck might snap off, she fully realized that he was a large man with a height close to 190 cm and a solid build. It felt as though two eyes were nowhere near enough to take all of him in.

“I was just bored, so thanks to you, I won’t be anymore.”

For some reason, Kwon Ki-joo seemed to have come to the conclusion that keeping her alive would be more entertaining than killing her right here and now.

She had no idea what he was plotting, but thanks to that, Lee-jin had managed to stay alive. She decided she would think later about how frightening it was, in another sense, to wonder how long that would last.

“Make sure she gets home safely. If she gets so much as a scratch, my fun will be spoiled.”

“Yes, Boss.”

Though he had spoken without even turning his head, Manager Kang answered promptly, as if he knew those words were directed at him.

Still keeping that persistent gaze fixed on Lee-jin, a gaze that was becoming more and more unbearable to face, Kwon Ki-joo smiled again.

“See you again, Song Lee-jin.”

The predator, full already yet unwilling to let the prey before his eyes go just like that, curled his lips into a grin, then passed her by and left the warehouse.

As people rushed out all at once and the creak of the warehouse door opening and closing rang out, Lee-jin bit down on her lips over and over to keep herself from losing her senses.

Once the relief of having survived, for now, washed over her, worry immediately followed over how she was supposed to deal with this. Kwon Ki-joo had clearly said he wanted to see her again. Not that she should disappear from his sight forever.

Confessing to Kwon Ki-joo that she liked him had been a kind of gamble. It was based on her guess that if he had intended to kill her, he would not have bothered having her dragged before him in the first place.

He was a man with all sorts of crazy labels attached to his name, but perhaps he really did keep at least one principle well: not laying a hand on women.

Thinking that she had probably used up all the luck she had in her life today, Lee-jin quietly let out a sigh.

“Get up.”

Manager Kang, who had remained behind with one or two others, pushed up his glasses and spoke to Lee-jin in a cold voice.

Even if her head was still attached to her neck, she had to get home and feel safe first. This place was too terrifying.

“Ah…….”

But as Lee-jin rose from the chair, her legs gave out completely, and she sank back down onto the floor. Only now did a shivering cold she had not even noticed until then come crashing over her all at once, and her teeth began to chatter.

She had thought she had held out fairly well. She had even dared to hope. But Kwon Ki-joo was still far too much for her to handle.

“Want me to help you?”

When Manager Kang asked again in a voice that held no kindness at all, Lee-jin shook her head. Then she grabbed the chair she had been sitting on and struggled to pull herself up.

Once she barely managed to stand on her trembling legs, a sudden wave of dizziness spun through her head.

“If you collapse here, it’ll be troublesome for both of us.”

“I know.”

She insisted on it first without even knowing exactly what she meant by that. At that, Manager Kang let out a dry sigh.

The look in his eyes was thoroughly cold, as though he found something about her deeply displeasing, but he did not seem inclined to voice it aloud.

“Follow me. I’ll take you.”

Manager Kang turned around, but the men who remained stayed exactly where they were. Knowing they would not move until she followed, Lee-jin forced her heavy feet forward with difficulty.

There was a mountain of things she wanted to say to Mimi and Wonjae, but Lee-jin wanted to go home like this and sleep deeply for about ten hours first.

* * *

“But you came back alive and in one piece, didn’t you? Then isn’t that enough?”

The next day, after hearing about Lee-jin’s exhausting day, Mimi merely shrugged as if it were no big deal. She did not even bother lifting herself from where she was reclining in a suggestive pose on the worn-out sofa in one corner of the moldy-smelling Dohyang-dong vigilante office.

“Kwon Ki-joo let you live. Even though we were prepared for all our necks to be on the line the moment you got caught. So isn’t that promising?”

“Were you even listening to what I said properly? He already knew everything about me. He might even know about you and Wonjae too. Maybe even what we’re trying to do.”

“As long as we still haven’t been exposed, that’s all that matters, Song Lee-jin. No matter how incredible Kwon Ki-joo is, do you think he can uncover people like us that easily when we don’t even show ourselves on the surface?”

“I told you. It doesn’t feel like he’s just acting on a whim. It even seemed like he intended to watch and see how far I’d go.”

“Wow, look at you, a mind reader. You can tell something like that just from a person’s eyes? Why don’t you set up shop, then?”

“Hey, Choi Mimi.”

“And besides, don’t you think you don’t need to look at it so pessimistically?”

“What.”

“Maybe Kwon Ki-joo was really drawn to someone like you.”

Mimi’s gaze, still lacking any seriousness, playfully swept over the face and body of Lee-jin, who sat across from her. She even nodded as if her own opinion seemed fairly reasonable.

If she was going to say that, she could at least wipe the mocking smile off the corner of her mouth first.

In the end, Lee-jin turned her eyes away from someone she could not reason with and let out a sigh. The possibility that Kwon Ki-joo had really taken an interest in her was probably not even 1%. Why would he, Kwon Ki-joo of all people, possibly be interested in her?

[I’m keeping an eye on you, so you’d better not do anything unnecessary.]

That was what Manager Kang, who had brought her home the day before, had said while openly showing his hostility. Whatever Kwon Ki-joo’s reasons had been for letting her go, he had not even tried to hide that he did not agree with it at all.

In truth, Lee-jin felt the same way. Kwon Ki-joo’s suspended judgment over her was unsettling and frightening.

“That bastard said he wanted to see you again?”

Wonjae, who had been unable to hide his worried look the whole time, asked. When Lee-jin nodded, he muttered, “F*ck,” under his breath, then added in an uneasy voice,

“This feels a little bad……. I mean, if you didn’t get caught with any real evidence, then sure, I could believe he let you live on a whim, but saying he wants to see you again is a bit…….”

“That’s what scares me too.”

Only then did Lee-jin realize she had been chewing on her nails without noticing, and she lowered her hand as she spoke. Hearing him say he wanted to see her again was scarier than hearing him tell her to keep up the stalking.

“Um, if we told Boss Nam that we can’t do this job anymore…… that wouldn’t work, right?”

At Lee-jin’s words, Wonjae naturally made a troubled face. She knew. They had already received the advance payment, and nearly all of the portion that had gone to them had already been spent replacing Wonjae’s equipment.

It was not a small amount, so if they wanted to pay it back, the three of them would have to take whatever work they could get for months.

“I was just asking. Since Kwon Ki-joo has already found out about my existence, I thought maybe Boss Nam would understand.”

“Is there any need for that? Since you’ve already been exposed, why not just use that as it is?”