CHAPTER 39

A brief shower had fallen in the evening but had already stopped, leaving behind the scent of w*t earth in the air.

The mansion’s path back to her room was freshly soaked. The damp earth swallowed the sound of her footsteps in silence, and the grasshoppers that had been suffering under the heat of the past few days, seemed to welcome the news of rain and chirped energetically.

As Leeseo paced the ground slowly, she suddenly looked up and stopped in her tracks when she spotted Jingyeom standing in the shadows.

Ah.

She took a sharp breath. As the clouds shifted, the moonlight peeked through. The man’s face, hidden in the darkness cast by the trees, slowly revealed itself.

Leaning back against a wooden post, Kwon Jingyeom held an unlit cigarette between his lips, silently contemplating. Leeseo, after confirming Jingyeom’s face, exhaled the breath she had been holding.

For a moment, she thought that it was Kwon Taegyeom that had been waiting for her. She involuntarily let out a dry laugh. She was amazed at herself for making such a ridiculous and unreasonable mistake. By now, she was irritated with herself for constantly thinking about that him.

It was hard to find any resemblance between Kwon Taegyeom and Kwon Jingyeom. Perhaps it was because of their mother’s influence or the fact that they had lived in different environments for a long time, but it was difficult to find any similarities between them. Even their atmospheres were distinctly different.

Jingyeom had a sharp, doll-like face with no double eyelids, yet his eyes were large and deep. It was an inheritance from Mrs. Shin Joo-ah’s sensitive and beautiful face.

Jingyeom was also tall enough that Leeseo would have to tilt her head up to look at him, but she had never felt the overwhelming sense of inferiority that she felt when looking at Taegyeom. It was the same with anyone else.

Leeseo often found herself feeling unusually flustered when standing in front of Kwon Taegyeom, so much so that she sometimes wondered if he was working magic.

When Kwon Taegyeom’s presence bore down on her with a languid and sensuous gaze, it felt distinctly different from the weightiness that came with tall men. His eyes, sensual and indifferent at times, would suddenly blaze with intense blue heat, as if he could effortlessly overwhelm people in an instant.

Every inch of Kwon Taegyeom’s physique was meticulously crafted and refined by nature or of a higher being. Like a work of art, every nook and cranny of his body seemed to make him extraordinary.

The chiseled straight lines were intense, and rare soft curves could capture one’s attention effortlessly, giddy eyes were bound to linger. Whether it was the subtly curved lines of his lips or his long, fluttering eyelashes, the striking features were impossible to miss. Even in the tiniest details of his body, there was an indiscernible allure.

For instance, the elegant tips of his ears and the neatly trimmed fingernails were places where gazes often lingered, whether intentionally or not.

Despite becoming intimately involved with Taegyeom, Leeseo hadn’t lost her objective perspective. From the very beginning, she had considered him exceptionally handsome, maybe even more so than necessary.

If she could find anything in common with them, it was that they both had terribly arrogant temperaments; they were brothers by blood, after all.

That said, there should be no reason for her to mistake the man standing in the shadows casted by the trees for Kwon Taegyeom. Above all, Taegyeom was a man who had no interest in standing around aimlessly, waiting for someone with no clear purpose.

So she couldn’t understand why she made such a pathetic mistake, as if she was expecting something.

Leeseo erased her expression and started walking again. Jingyeom, who noticed her a beat later, quickly snatched the cigarette he was holding in his mouth with a somewhat anxious gesture.

It had been quite a while since Leeseo last encountered Kwon Jingyeom. It was the first time since Chairman Kwon’s family had returned from a trip to Namhae, at least two weeks had surely passed.

Occasionally, Jingyeom would wait for Leeseo with unresolved issues, but at some point, he just stopped coming. During that time, she hadn’t realized his absence.

Her and Jingyeom’s daily routines did not overlap much, and technically, they weren’t close enough that they needed to see each other. Besides, her attention had been elsewhere lately.

Unlike his usual confident and casual attitude, Jingyeom hesitated, staying in the shade of the trees and was pacing somewhat awkwardly. After scratching the back of his neck, tilting his head, and idly kicking the ground with the tip of his foot, he glanced up at Leeseo.

For a moment, when one side of Jingyeom’s shadowed face was faintly visible, Leeseo vaguely guessed why he hadn’t shown himself publicly for a while. A long bruise ran from his eyebrow bone to his temple. The bruise seemed a bit old as it was fading in color, but it was still recognizable.

“Are you going home?”

Aware of Leeseo’s gaze, Jingyeom raised his hand to touch near his eyebrow, seemingly trying to cover the bruised area, but this gesture only drew more attention to it.

“You’re still working late. Why are you working so hard, you’re just trying to earn some money for school anyway.”

“…….”

“I was told not to show up at that fantastic house of yours, so I waited here quietly.”

Jingyeom chuckled, his lips curling upward. He spoke in a teasing tone, yet his eyes seemed to seek approval as he looked at her.

She had once warned him not to come back to her place late at night, unannounced. Since then, she had been on alert for any unexpected visits from him. True to his word, he hadn’t crossed the line again, but she had no intention of praising him for it.

Leeseo regulated her breathing, trying to control the fatigue that was settling over her. Apparently sensing her reluctance to engage in a conversation, Jingyeom quickly lowered the hand that covered his face and walked out from under the tree’s shadow.

“Let’s talk.”

He opened the door to the glass greenhouse and gestured inside. A few times before, Leeseo had helped him with problem sets, but today his hands were empty.

Curious about what he wanted to discuss, she looked at him with questioning eyes. Jingyeom furrowed his brows slightly, as if trying to provoke sympathy  from her in some way.

“I’m… having trouble.”

The words that came out of Kwon Jingyeom’s mouth were unexpected, considering his usual spontaneous and carefree lifestyle that didn’t seem he had anything to worry about. It was possible that he was just making excuses, but his expression was darker than usual. His teasing tone was absent.

Leeseo grasped the transparent door and pushed past Jingyeom inside the greenhouse. She fumbled for the light switch along the wall and, after a few flickers, an orange light illuminated the interior.

As she walked inside, she looked closely at Jingyeom’s face as she pulled out a chair from the worktable. He smiled, frowning in embarrassment as he realized her gaze was on his brow bone. He gently rubbed the bruise with his index finger.

“The old man is still full of energy. I thought he’d retire soon, but…”

Leeseo knew that the old man Jingyeom was referring to was his father, Chairman Kwon Kyungrok. Her gaze lingered on his face, near his eyebrow, where she could see faint bruises. Memories of his childhood resurfaced.

A chubby, young Jingyeom with rosy cheeks and burst lips, tears staining his face. He had buried his face between his knees and, when he looked up with a bruised and swollen face, his face was covered in tear stains. The little boy’s eyes widened, as if he hadn’t expected her to see him in such a state, but then he rolled his eyes in displeasure and scurried away. That little boy, who had once followed her around the mansion, seeking her attention, had vanished into thin air, replaced by a defiant young boy who looked at her with challenging eyes.

Perhaps it had started around that time. Jingyeom, who had constantly trailed behind her, considering she’s the only one close to his age in the mansion, and enjoyed teasing her, began to shoot her challenging glares out of the blue.

Had it been to protect his wounded pride, having his weaknesses exposed, or to demonstrate that he was no longer interested in playing with her? Whatever the reason, the younger Jingyeom’s defiant gaze was no longer present in the now adult Jingyeom.

After going through the hardships of battling and hardening oneself through time, pain eventually dulled, like a thick callus forming over a wound. Jingyeom’s face remained emotionless, as if he had hardened himself to the pain of his past.

“It just so happened that the old man was out on the golf course at the time, and happened to be holding a golf club. Bad luck. I usually don’t mess up my face like this.”

Leeseo, aware that he was talking about the Chairman, listened closely. Jingyeom’s voice had a hint of amusement, as if he found the situation somewhat comical. Judging by the now-faded bruise that stretched from his browbone to his temple, it looked more like a bruise from a long pole or something, but the golf club was more than she expected.

“I don’t think he knew it was going to be like this, but he swung it around with such gusto that his hands were shaking afterward. It’s almost as if he’d taken a drug beforehand, considering how cautious he is of how mother would react.”

If the Chairman had intended to harm with the golf club, it wouldn’t have ended with just a bruise. Perhaps he just missed a mark or swung it merely as a threat but accidentally hit him. Jingyeom seemed to remember the situation at that time and chuckled in recalling it.