CHAPTER 2: Island of Pleasure (Part 4)

After crying all night and tiredly falling asleep, Moon-kyeong woke up the next day with a clear head. There was no room to think about how crazy she must have appeared to him.

I live like this to keep myself from going crazy. You can never understand.

“What does it matter whether I live like this or not?”

Her heart felt like a crumpled sheet of paper, but Moon-kyeong tried to pull it back together.

She sent photos to Hye-ran and endured long days in the prison-like practice room.

There were no breaks. She couldn’t just let the day flow like a wheel.

On Wednesday, she didn’t go to the cafe. She gave up the luxury of a cup of coffee and headed to the practice room early in the morning.

A message arrived from Lee Hee-jin.

<Found the target! Thanks. See you at the next Saint Petersburg gathering.^^>

Closing her phone, Moon-kyeong scratched her forehead. She couldn’t help but wonder about the elusive identity of Seo-jun.

* * *

After sleeping and waking up, Moon-kyeong found that her entire body was swollen from the instep to the soles of her feet.

Frowning at the intense pain that came rushing in, her face wrinkled. Although it was something she experienced every time, the pain never became familiar.

Only after she finished her morning practice did she stop by the hospital for physical therapy.

The transition from spring to summer came quickly. The unpredictable summer weather in dynamic Moscow was truly capricious.

Aside from the fact that the weather in Moscow is a bit more fickle these days, life hasn’t changed much for Moon-kyeong. Oh, of course, the biggest change was that now when she went to the gatherings, Hee-jin no longer ignored her.

After finishing physical therapy and leaving the hospital, Hee-jin called her.

“Hello?”

• We’re going to the club tonight with the others. Are you coming too?

“What time?”

• I haven’t decided yet. I’ll text you.

“Okay.”

As she sent the changed schedule to Hye-ran and turned around, her gaze caught a familiar Asian man.

Despite knowing that the person wasn’t Kim Seojun, sometimes her head would spontaneously turn at the sight of a similar silhouette.

It had been over six months since she hadn’t gone to the cafe on Wednesdays.

Moon-kyeong never asked Hee-jin about what happened with Kim Seojun after that day. 

It was right not to bring up any topics that might provoke her, so Moon-kyeong never felt curious about Kim Seojun afterward.

Lee Hee-jin liked that very thing about her.

Though her face was refined and pretty, Moon-kyeong could appropriately adjust to people’s moods without being pretentious or overly casual.

And she understood Hee-jin’s words properly. In a nutshell, what she said could be summarized as knowing one’s place.

Late at night, when she received a call and went to the club, Hee-jin was as usual, halfway through being tipsy.

Despite the stench of alcohol wafting through her nostrils, Moon-kyeong smiled as if she didn’t care. Hee-jin handed her the bottle she was drinking from, placed her hand on Moon-kyeong’s shoulder, displaying their friendship.

“Welcome, Moon-kyeong.”

“Did you guys get together early?”

“Yeah, we met a couple hours ago and had a drink beforehand while eating.”

Hee-jin slyly mentioned that the chaebol family members secretly met two hours earlier among themselves.

Moon-kyeong accepted the offered drink without changing her expression. Although a sharp scent of cigarette smoke wafted from the beer bottle’s opening, she consumed it without hesitation.

With her other hand that wasn’t on her shoulder, Lee Hee-jin lightly touched Moon-kyeong’s forehead

“As expected. This is why I like you.”

She led Moon-kyeong to a room on the second floor, where the royal family, men and women alike, mingled with each other.

Their eyes focused on Moon-kyeong at the sight of a fresh new face.

“Who?”

To be precise, they were asking which family she belonged to.

“Congressman Seo Jae-woo.”

Ah. With a short sigh, the gazes concentrated on Moon-kyeong dispersed one by one.

Seo Jae-woo was a rather unfamiliar name to those who thought that not all members of parliament were the same.

As soon as they realized that she was the daughter of an unremarkable family, their gazes completely shifted away from her.

At that moment, Moon-kyeong thought, it would be nice if her Mom could see this. She wanted to show her mother, even if it had to be recorded on video, that her daughter’s status was only this much.

“Sit over there.”

“Okay.”

Lee Hee-jin pointed out where Moon-kyeong should sit.

Their conversations at the bar were dull and boring. It was mostly about which family member was dating whom. It turned out that person was a huge playboy but was incredible in bed.

That sort of thing. It was very different from the stories of heirs in dramas.

Shares and whatnot. Whose father’s business was like this or that. It was very different from what Moon-kyeong had expected.

Well, after all, everyone here is just in their twenties, barely hitting twenty-one. They talk about youth.

“Youth, indeed.”

Unable to join in on their conversation and lost in her own thoughts for a moment, a familiar name caught Moon-kyeong’s ear.

“Hee-jin, what happened with Kim Seojun?”

While she would roll her eyes at other guys’ stories, dismissing them as nothing special. But when it comes to Seojun, she’d say that he’s something else when you get to know him.

Hee-jin, who casually uttered such words, faltered at the end of her sentence.

“Oh…… Kim Seojun?”

“Yeah, you said you’d fuck him in a month. Is it still not done? Why is there no update?”

Hee-jin gulped down the strong vodka and slammed the glass down on the table, her brow furrowing.

“He’s gay.”

“Wow. Did he say that himself?”

“Yeah.”

The eyes of those who had been anticipating the update on Kim Seojun’s story turned into disappointment.

Despite the fact that it was completely unrelated to whether he liked men or women, Moon-kyeong’s expression was no different from theirs earlier.

Wondering why they were suddenly disappointed, Moon-kyeong gave a silly smile. Hee-jin looked at her directly and asked.

“Seo Moon-kyeong, why are you suddenly smiling?”

Moon-kyeong cleared her throat without showing any signs of embarrassment.

“It’s my first time drinking vodka, and it tastes worse than I thought.”

“Ah.”

“Can I have something else instead?”

Lee Hee-jin laughed.

“Why are you even asking about that? Do whatever you want.”

Moon-kyeong chose a relatively low-alcohol drink instead of vodka, opened a bottle, and took a sip.

With a blurry gaze, she turned towards the door, wondering how else he could endure this seemingly never-ending boredom.