CHAPTER 71

“I can’t bear to let this physical relationship drag on, it’s becoming burdensome. This is all I ever wanted from the beginning. Just because we’re sleeping together doesn’t mean we’re exchanging feelings together. Saying that it’s just gonna be for a while. When I return to school in September, and leave the mansion, there won’t be any reason to see each other anymore.”

Taegyeom let out a bitter laugh. His lips, adorned with a disappointed smile, curved prettily, but his cold eyes didn’t laugh.

“I’ve always drawn a line, saying ‘Let’s just enjoy it until then’. You might feel it’s one-sided, but we’re just sleeping together, anyway. It’s funny to say it’s the end when we didn’t really start anything properly. I have nothing more to ask for now. You’ve done everything you can with my body, haven’t you?”

“So, you’re tired of it? You’ve done everything you can with your body, and that’s why you begged me to c*m inside you?”

She could feel his searing anger in the air. Just as her shoulders were about to slump from the ferocity, a hand reached out. She was yanked off her precarious feet and her vision shook violently.

“Ugh!”

With a thud, Taegyeom agilely climbed onto her body thrown onto the bed. His restrained movements resembled a predatory beast aiming for the opponent’s throat. Placing both hands beside Leeseo’s face, he looked down at her trapped beneath him and spoke with a sneer.

“You begged me to do it inside, to impregnate you. After making me go crazy with those soaked eyes, now what?”

“That… I just wanted it like that.”

At the last moment, she didn’t want him to pull out. She just wanted him inside until the end. She felt stupidly pleased with herself for thinking such a stupid thing, for feeling so completely one with him.

“I didn’t make that request with such thoughts, but there’s no need to act like you’re the only one who got the short end of the stick.”

“Right. You didn’t get the short end. You said it was good, your eyes rolled back, and I filled you up with my c*m. So, are you satisfied?”

Taegyeom whispered as he pressed down on Leeseo’s lower abdomen. As the substantial pressure increased, the thick s*men, trapped inside, flowed out through the gaps. The sensation of viscous fl*id flowing along the buttock groove and wetting the panties was vividly felt.

“Ugh. Don’t press… stop.”

“You drew a line? That we won’t be seeing each other anymore once you leave the mansion? Your ridiculous plan, there were many moments when you could have told me, not just kept your mouth shut and counted the days.”

“What difference would it make if I told you? We’re just sleeping together anyway…….”

“Just sleeping together? You don’t have feelings for me? Don’t make me laugh. You can’t even look straight into my eyes on this subject.”

Taegyeom grabbed Leeseo’s chin, forcing her to look at him. She twisted her head in rebellion, but his strong grip pressed her chin, preventing any movement.

Their gazes tangled in the air. Her eyes burned. She forced the corners of her eyes to close as she tried to convince herself that the force of his violent oppression was only causing physiological tears to well up in her eyes. Taegyeom stared at her as if piercing through, asking,

“While you were so full of thoughts of stopping whatever we have, did you f*ck me one last time, like a final farewell?” 

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“That’s generous. Giving me a last supper. You think I’m going to believe something as ridiculous as that, like we’ve done everything we have with each other’s bodies and we should stop now?”

Taegyeom said through gritted teeth.

“You think I don’t know who you’re talking to and why you’re acting like this?”

Leeseo’s reddened eyes widened in surprise. Taegyeom stared down at her lips, which were parted in shock, then rolled his eyes and pushed himself up. He sat down by Leeseo’s feet, and after lying there like a corpse for a moment, she quietly got up too and leaned her back against the headboard.

The pale moonlight spread over her cheeks, which had stiffened to an almost pitiful extent Imagining how she endured Kwon Kyungrok’s malicious words with such a shattered expression brought a pain that seemed to tear at the heart.

[Instructions to bring Hyun Leeseo in discreetly].

Taegyeom recalled the message that came from an unidentified number. Although the subject line was omitted, there was no need to ask who it referred to. Director Gong Jihoon was the so-called spy he had carefully cultivated for a long time, starting from the United States.

Leeseo, who had been staring into space with a vacant expression, let out a deep sigh. Her calmly settled expression seemed somewhat relieved.

Taegyeom felt the twisting sensation in his stomach spread painfully, and it was undeniably clear that Leeseo was letting go of him completely. 

“If you knew, it would have been faster to talk. Is there any other reason we’re wasting time and having this tiring argument?”

“If you were going to make such a decision to break up with me like this, you should have told me!”

“Selfish. I know. Thoughtless. No empathy whatsoever.”

With each word, his lips hardened, and his gaze turned colder. His jaw muscles moved strongly as he clenched his teeth. Leeseo summoned all her strength, met Taegyeom’s eyes, and spoke.

“I can’t even lift my face just because I got caught without caution and got dragged to that place. The humiliation I faced from your father, someone who lives for their own ego like you wouldn’t understand.”

No, it’s a lie. It felt like my heart was going to break. Somehow, the humiliation that turned my head upside down didn’t seem to matter at all.

The malicious words I heard, the despicable anger of Chairman Kwon, and the determination to end as pleased- I never wanted you to know.

‘He’ll die more miserably than his mother.’

Her vision blurred with tears. Taegyeom’s silhouette began to blur and fade, like a filter.

“Denying my very existence, demeaning me, treating me like a stinking piece of garbage. Why do I have to listen to that because of you?”

It was nothing like that. As Taegyeom’s face paled, losing all its vitality, it felt like her chest was tearing apart. The words she spat out to wound him came back to her in full force, ripping her heart into pieces.

“What I had to hear and endure in that situation, do you want me to turn a blind eye to it? For what?”

Something hot surged up to her throat. Pushing her grief down, she forced each word out.

“To stay by your side so desperately, to go to such lengths? I’m sorry, but no.”

“….”

“I’m not desperate for you.”

The room fell silent for a moment. The air surrounding the two of them grew chilly.

Anger, shock, devastation, emptiness, betrayal, and countless negative emotions overflowed dangerously in his unblinking eyes as he stared off somewhere on the wall.

Leeseo left him to mull over the stinging words she’d spoken and quietly rose from the bed. As she passed by Taegyeom’s side, she felt a strong grip on her wrist.

“I’m desperate for you.”

“…….”

“Isn’t that enough?”

Her eyes fluttered open and closed, his deep voice piercing like a thorn.

“I know about the shame, humiliation, and pain you’ve experienced because of me. I understand that there’s nothing I can do to ease that. I know that someone like me, born from dirty blood, shouldn’t dare to have any ambitions with you.”

“….”

“Even though I know all of that. Even though I know, I can’t let you go.”

Her head felt dizzy. She didn’t wish for him to blame himself. 

I’m not even worth it. Why would you?

Leeseo coldly flicked her wrist away from Taegyeom’s grasp and said,

“Mr. Kwon Taegyeom, get a hold of yourself.”

“….”

“You’re getting married.”

Taegyeom raised his bloodshot eyes. As always, his eyes held a strange power. The kind of eyes that completely tied Leeseo down, making her unable to move.

“You want me to leave you and marry another woman?”

A lump formed in her chest, once again. It was absurd. Even now, when she desperately wished to part with him, the thought of him standing beside another woman filled her with indescribable jealousy.

“No.”

A glimmer of hope appeared in Taegyeom’s eyes at her brief response. Leeseo bit her lip and continued.

“I don’t care.”

The faintly dampened hope disappeared without a trace, replaced by despair.

“Whether you continue to rise to places I can’t reach by marrying someone who can be of help to you, or you confront your father and fall into an abyss from which you can never recover, it’s none of my business. Don’t drag me into your family disputes for no reason.”

“I don’t care about the marriage, I’ll handle it. Just stay by my side.”

Leeseo, her lips already red from torment, bit down forcefully.

“Are you telling me to become your mistress?”

“Do you think I would treat you like that?”

Taegyeom’s face, devoid of any expression, lashed out with a heartless tone. The calmness in his eyes revealed just how angry he was.

She shouldn’t have said that, knowing how long he’d been angry, hurt, and tormented by the relationship between his mother and Shin Joo-ah. Leeseo feared continuing this self-destructive conversation, which only left deep scars. It was burdensome and suffocating.

She spat out the words with a feeling akin to pulling a tightly stuck dagger away from the skin, now fused into one.

“Mr. Kwon Taegyeom, you really don’t understand, do you? Don’t you get it? I don’t like you anymore. I’m sick and tired of you.”

“It doesn’t matter as long as I like you.”

Leeseo sucked in a breath. She felt like she was talking to a wall.