Chapter 9

“I heard you were in a bad mood the whole time today because of what happened with Manager Yeom, Boss, so I was really tense, but then I saw you smiling in front of that girl earlier, and I wondered what was going on.”

“My stalker.”

“What? Excuse me?”

“A stalker. She says she fell for me at first sight. So these days she’s been diligently following me around.”

As he recalled Lee-jin in the warehouse, shouting that she liked him, a smile escaped to the corners of Ki-joo’s mouth. Just when she had become harder and harder to catch because she seemed confident in at least one thing, hiding, he had finally had her dragged into the warehouse with some effort.

Manager Kang still clearly hated it, but Ki-joo found all of this rather amusing.

“And you just left her alone? Seriously, what’s gotten into you? No matter how I look at it, she didn’t seem like your type at all……. Have your tastes changed, by any chance?”

“Why would my tastes.”

“How should I put it, that girl looked so innocent, like if she got mixed up with a bad man just once, she’d hand over everything she had and then completely fall apart.”

“She’s a boxer, though?”

“Do girls who throw punches not have pure hearts? Usually the ones who do rough sports are soft-hearted inside.”

“So what’s your conclusion.”

“I’m saying don’t bother her for no reason. Because you’re the worst kind of man in the world, Boss.”

That girl is pitiful, Seoran added quietly, and Ki-joo let out a low laugh.

Though she clicked her tongue as if feeling sorry for the girl, Seoran seemed certain. The Kwon Ki-joo she knew would never stay interested in a girl like that for long. His tastes were far too firm and far too well-known.

But as Ki-joo’s laughter went on, Seoran’s pretty eyes, full of suspicion, turned back to him. As if asking Why, Ki-joo flicked his eyebrow, and Seoran delicately furrowed her beautiful brow.

“Don’t tell me you’ve already touched her?”

“You call me a bad man, then turn me into outright trash? Even I don’t touch girls who look like they’d be a hassle afterward.”

“Hm, really?”

Seoran let out a curious little hum, showing a strange sort of interest. When Ki-joo kept staring at her with the same smiling face, Seoran, wearing a slightly contrary expression, muttered almost to herself,

“But honestly, I kind of want to see it. Kwon Ki-joo of all people getting swayed around in the hands of a girl like that.”

“You mean that?”

“She looked pretty enough earlier, didn’t she? And seeing how fresh-faced she still is, she looks young too. Looking at the way her innocent eyes sparkled while she stared up at you, she seemed to like you a lot, so if you try to shake her off later, you might have a hard time.”

At Seoran’s words, Ki-joo let out a snort without realizing it. Sparkled, my foot. She had looked like she was half out of it from exhaustion.

“Anyway, don’t be too kind to that girl.”

Seoran spoke in a firm voice as she filled his empty glass again.

“If you, of all people, who never treat anyone specially, start treating a girl like that well, I think I’ll get jealous.”

“The great Oh Seoran getting jealous. I’m honored.”

At Ki-joo’s words, which sounded almost mocking, Seoran’s face twitched petulantly once again.

The reason Seoran had never minded the countless women by Kwon Ki-joo’s side was because their situations were not really any different from hers. In front of Kwon Ki-joo, everyone was the same.

But now that Ki-joo was doing something unlike himself, that plain and unimpressive-looking girl had begun to bother her a great deal.

She was the kind of woman he should have gotten rid of from in front of him long ago, if only because she was troublesome. Not someone he should be amused by after hearing such pathetic words as that she had fallen for him at first sight and was following him around.

“Why, am I not allowed to be jealous?”

“You ought to consider the other party when you do it. As you said, could a worn-down woman like you really dare compare yourself to ‘a girl like that’?”

“You never know. Once people fall for girls like that, they can have an even harder time getting out. Girls like that don’t calculate. They give everything they have to give. And when the end comes, they turn their backs and leave without a trace of regret.”

“…….”

“So you should be careful too, Boss. Don’t look down on her and end up getting led by the nose.”

“I’ll keep your advice in mind.”

With a small laugh, Ki-joo raised his glass to his lips again. He liked the fierce sensation of strong liquor sweeping down his throat.

“By the way, I guess she’s not completely innocent after all. She must know exactly what kind of person you are, Boss, and yet she still follows you around. Maybe she’s just pretending to be innocent to catch your interest. Kids these days are sly.”

Seoran, sitting close against him and waiting on him, spoke the words like a mutter meant to be heard. Ki-joo simply listened with a calm face to the sharp criticism directed at a woman much younger than Seoran.

Watching the men who seemed to be losing themselves more and more as they buried themselves in soft flesh as if they had somehow regained their youth, Ki-joo slowly emptied his glass. When even Seoran, who had been sniping, fell silent, his thoughts had already returned to Lee-jin.

It was funny how she claimed to like him while following him around with such an unwilling face.

Maybe she was not the cute or sweet type, because even when she made her confession, Lee-jin had been endlessly stiff. It seemed he was not quite sane either, since he had told her to keep following him simply because it was amusing to watch.

Whether she was dragged into the warehouse and seated before him, whether she confessed that she had fallen for him at first sight, or whether she was startled by his telling her to keep up the stalking, Lee-jin was always busy darting her eyes around.

Exactly like someone who wanted to escape this situation.

‘Still, seeing that she’s alive and well and even exercising, I guess there were no aftereffects.’

It was exactly one year ago that he had seen Lee-jin abandoned among a pile of trash.

Ki-joo, who had never really felt much pity for anyone, had called 119 for the girl who was wheezing as if she were about to stop breathing at any moment, purely on a whim.

Perhaps what had caught his eye, as he held onto the flesh hanging loose as though it might fall off at any second and struggled for breath, was simply that Lee-jin’s life was a long one.

That young girl, lying there like filth and covered in blood just like himself, had suddenly looked rather pitiful. It also felt too cruel for someone to die without even having lived through twenty percent of her life.

He had taken dozens of stabs from a sashimi knife and would surely not survive the night, but all he had really thought was something idiotic like this: if he did one good deed before dying, maybe at least he could avoid being reborn as an animal in the next life.

‘Maybe she won’t even recognize her lifesaver.’

When he had asked her why she was following him around, part of him had wondered, but as expected, Lee-jin did not remember. Since she had barely been breathing and had no consciousness at the time, that was only natural.

Ki-joo thought that when he got rid of Lee-jin later, he would at least make sure to tell her that much. It was absurd that the person involved would not know about one of the few good deeds he had committed in his life.

* * *

“Just do it like usual, like usual.”

Sang-pil was speaking right into her ear like an enthusiastic coach, but Lee-jin could not hear him properly.

Though the basement of Roxana, usually packed with people and noisy, was eerily quiet today, Lee-jin instead felt dazed as if she were surrounded by noise.

Kwon Ki-joo was sitting right in front of her. Beyond the flashy drapes, in the makeshift waiting room for fighters, Kwon Ki-joo had shown up again.

Dressed in an elegant suit and looking at her from right up close, Kwon Ki-joo looked like a scout who had come to approach a promising athlete.

[I had nothing to do and was loafing around, and then I happened to remember that your match was today.]

When Kwon Ki-joo said that lightly, having read her unspoken question about why he was here, Lee-jin thought that she ought to smile brightly. Since the person she idolized had personally come to see her. As though this were something unbelievable, she ought to tremble with emotion.

But her frightened muscles would not obey.

She was already on edge from worrying the whole time about getting beaten up before the match, and Kwon Ki-joo was looking at her with an openly teasing gaze.

What was more, the biggest problem was that if Kwon Ki-joo showed up here, there was a truckload of people who would find that inconvenient.