CHAPTER 82

Fear and tension intertwined, threatening to buckle her knees multiple times. The overwhelming fear of being grabbed and dragged away at any moment kept breaking her will to run. Each time, Leeseo clung to the cold railing, stubbornly resisting, refusing to stop despite the relentless pursuit.

Thud-thud-thud. The noisy sound of footsteps chasing her down the stairs gradually approached, enveloping her body. It felt so terrifying that she thought she might faint.

She quickly pulled out her phone from her pocket, gauging her distance from Minhu, and frantically dialed Jieun’s number from the recent call history.

Ring-ring-ring-ring.

To her despair, only the ringing tone continued. Trying to manipulate the phone while running downstairs, her foot got entangled in the process, causing her body to tilt. She barely managed to avoid falling down the stairs by clinging to the railing.

Ring-ring-ring-ring.

Please. Please.

She chanted desperately as her heart sank lower and lower with each step down the stairs. The continuous waiting tone and the hurried footsteps mixed disorientingly.

Your call cannot be completed at this time. Please leave a message after the tone. Call charges will be applied.

Leeseo gritted her teeth as the mechanical sound came through on the other end of the phone. Exhausted and overwhelmed, her body lost its strength, and she staggered weakly.

At that moment, the only thing filling her mind was Kwon Taegyeom’s phone number. She couldn’t understand why, in this desperate situation, the only person who came to mind, someone she had parted with over a month ago and couldn’t even see anymore, was him.

The distance from Seoul to here was not something that could easily be covered. Even if she were to ask Taegyeom for help, it was clear that he wouldn’t be able to save her right now. Yet, in this urgent situation, despite being an entirely inappropriate figure to think of, his presence dominated her panicked consciousness.

Leeseo, Leeseo.

The sound of Minhu chasing after her, teasingly calling out to her, had somehow become disturbingly close. There was no more time to hesitate. The urgent priority was to avoid being caught by Minhu and get out of his sight.

Leeseo clutched her phone tightly in her hand and ran down the two flights of stairs at once. She expected to find someone waiting for the elevator in the hallway on the first floor, but the damp corridor, cool with moisture from the falling rain, was eerily empty.

Passing by the elevator, she headed towards the entrance. In that brief moment waiting for the automatic door to open, Minhu also arrived on the first floor.

“Leeseo, don’t try to run away after what you did to my balls. Where do you think you’re running off to? S**t, you’re the one who’s gonna make sure it stays up or not.”

The door opened. Without hesitation, Leeseo threw herself into the darkness where raindrops poured down like a torrent. Thick raindrops fell on her hooded head.

Just a little more.

If she could run a little further, she could escape safely to the convenience store at the intersection.

“I caught you! I caught you! Huh? I really caught you!”

The sound of mocking laughter trailed behind her as she ran through gritted teeth. Despite running with all her might, her legs could only manage this speed, and she resented her own inadequacy. Even after delivering a blow to his vulnerable spot, she was captured so easily.

She tightly closed her eyes. Despair engulfed her consciousness. Raindrops that clung to her wet eyelashes rolled down like tears.

Then, a hand grabbed her hair from behind. Her scalp was painfully pulled, and at the same time, her body, which had been rushing forward, came to a sudden halt.

Thud!

She collided head-on with a solid wall—or so she thought. Until the solid wall gently embraced her, pulling her towards itself. Until then, she didn’t even realize that the thing she had hit was a person.

The warmth that didn’t match her current situation enveloped her whole body like tears. Dazedly, Leeseo lifted her head from where it was buried in the other’s chest. Her lips parted unconsciously as she stared at the man’s rain-soaked face.

At that moment, she felt a hand gently cup her face.

It was Kwon Taegyeom.

How did you… No, why?

Her lips trembled, and she couldn’t muster the courage to speak. Taegyeom’s gaze, which had traversed to her lips, cheeks stiffened with fear, eyelashes clinging with tears, and moist eyes, shifted to the hand that was still holding her hair.

“What’s going on? Who are you?”

Minhu asked rudely, but compared to when he was alone with Leeseo, there was a noticeable softening in his demeanor.

He had already been instinctively intimidated by Taegyeom’s towering height, which seemed to stand a head taller than him, his broad shoulders, which exuded an air of imposing authority, and his bulk, which made him seem like an unbeatable opponent to anyone who saw him.

The hand that held onto her hair gradually loosened. But Minhu, whose pride was bruised by the realization that he had been picked on, raised his head in warning.

“If you’re just a stranger, just go your own way. Don’t needlessly interfere in lovers’ quarrels between a man and a woman.”

It was a courage squeezed out of the thought that he couldn’t just turn around and leave without gaining anything, considering exposing himself like this. Minhu tried his best to appear larger, puffing out his chest and straightening his shoulders.

The man, with a perfectly expressionless face that was difficult to gauge, looked down at Minhu as if bending him to his will. His perfectly handsome features shone brilliantly under the streetlight, illuminated by the pouring rain. Lips that had been set in a straight line slowly parted and the man spoke in a hushed voice.

“If you touch her, you’re dead.”

“…What?”

“Son of a b*tch.”

Thud!

In the fleeting moment when the man’s arm reached out, an immense pain slashed across Minhu’s jaw. It was a level of agony he had never experienced before. Before he could even comprehend what had happened, Minhu lost consciousness and fell backward. His vision plunged into darkness in an instant.

Leeseo automatically covered her widely open mouth with both hands, watching as Minhu crumpled to the ground. The human, like a persistent tick, who had been chasing after her, even though he had scrambled to his feet, now lay sprawled lifelessly on the pavement after Taegyeom’s punch.

It was hard to believe, even witnessing it with her own eyes. Despite feeling a deep sense of relief for escaping the horrifying situation, there was also a profound sense of emptiness.

“Are you okay?”

Taegyeom, who had knocked out Minhu had already turned away from the insignificant presence lying on the ground and completely turned towards Leeseo. His calm gaze moved slowly and carefully, as if inspecting her, taking in every inch of her.

As his eyes swept over her soaked hair clinging to her cheek, her reddened skin, and her intermittently trembling lips, his expression gradually cooled. Seeing the clearly outlined upper part of her chest and the line of her bra, revealed due to the thoroughly wet T-shirt, Taegyeom gritted his teeth, cursing softly under his breath.

F*cking bastard. I’m going to kill you.

Controlling his emotions, he took off his suit jacket. Then he draped it over Leeseo’s shoulders. She shuddered at his touch, but she didn’t push him away or reject him, just gave him a blank look.

Even as he pulled the front of his jacket tightly around her to prevent her body from losing any more heat after being soaked in the rain, she stared at the now unconscious Minhu on the ground. In her trembling eyes, a mixture of disgust and fear rippled in small waves.

In the extreme situation of being chased by a madman, it was natural for her to still be terrified. It had been horrible and frightening, she was still half out of her mind, but even knowing all that, she couldn’t bear to look at him.

Whether it was hatred or resentment, any negative emotion that emerged from her, he wished it to be directed towards himself and to no one else. A blindly selfish desire bubbled up in him, almost unreasonable.

To possess everything about her, to be the only one she saw. Therefore, he wished for no one else to look at her.

Pathetic bastard.

Taegyeom swallowed a short sigh then cupped both of Leeseo’s cheeks in his hands, pulling her to look at him. They were cold, without a trace of warmth, and it almost made him angry.

He clenched his teeth, his jaw muscles tensed as he caressed her cheek with his thumb several times. Taegyeom, still holding her cheek, spoke calmly.

“I’ll make sure that bastard can’t wander around you again. Go inside your house.”

Leeseo’s confused eyes suddenly widened. Panic and fear flashed across her pale pupils once more. She didn’t want to be alone. She grabbed Taegyeom’s clothes without realizing it, her head shaking horizontally.

“Stay with me, please.”

Upon hearing her words, Taegyeom’s expression seemed momentarily weary. His face contorted as he let out a ragged breath and finally pulled her into a tight embrace.

In an instant, her body was swept away. Tears welled up in her eyes from the crushing embrace.

His large back, hugging her as if to completely overpower her, was shaking unbelievably. He buried his head in the nape of her neck and spoke with a broken voice.

“You’re really… something to me…”

A tidal wave of indescribable emotions washed over him.

Now, she was finally in a safe place. She could feel Taegyeom’s body heat against hers, even though he was just as drenched in the rain.

His hard body and his strong arms that seemed to protect her no matter what, held her close, and as if that weren’t enough, he reassured her of his presence.

“In front of you, I feel like a fool with no answers.”