CHAPTER 33

Going through such experiences consecutively, it was highly likely that trauma had developed. Taejun now understood why the signals he’d been sending her had been bouncing off of her.

‘Minhee’s trauma, combined with her youthful appearance, manifested itself as a complex. With that defense mechanism, she completely ignored the intentions of the men who approached her.’

Simmering irritation and intense displeasure at the boys for leaving Minhee to deal with the situation they had created weighed heavily on his mind.

‘There shouldn’t be such a situation again, but if I ever see it happen, I’d feel like punching them in the face.’

Seated on Taejun’s lap with her legs swinging playfully, Minhee tilted her head and tipped the wine glass in her hand before he had a chance to stop her. Dark red liquid flowed from the clear glass to her lips.

As soon as he plucked the empty glass from her hand and set it on the small side table next to the couch, Minhee’s head bobbed. Then she leaned against his chest, apparently feeling the effects of drinking much more than her usual limit.

The heat of her intoxicated body clung to him, offsetting the slightly cooler temperature of the room. Lost in thought, Minhee buried her head in his shoulder, her hot breath tickling the nape of his neck.

“Sigh. Honestly, it was embarrassing. How ridiculous it must have been. A guy I dated and even lived together with turned out to be gay. People didn’t openly mock it, but you could hear whispers behind our backs. Taejun, if you want to laugh, go ahead. I understand it sounds like dark comedy.”

“Not really.”

“After that, I was afraid to meet guys. So, afterward, I just had countless one-sided crushes. It felt safer.”

“…One-sided crushes?”

“Yes. I would swoon from afar, like admiring a celebrity, and loving someone secretly is my specialty.”

“Who?”

“There are too many… I briefly liked the bartender at the sports bar in front of the school, and for a couple of months, I had a crush on the personal trainer at the local gym. Oh, and the school principal too—”

“Who??”

Looking at Minhee’s innocent face, seemingly unaware of what she was confessing, Taejun raised an eyebrow.

“Ben Anderson, the school principal at Aster School. Brown hair, brown eyes, and when he smiles, he gets wrinkles like this around his eyes. Don’t you know him? It’s weird. You should know him…” 

Minhee’s voice trailed off as she talked about Ben Anderson.

‘She must be really drunk. She had a crush on Ben Anderson?’

Taejun asked Minhee with a feeling as if a thorn was stuck in his throat. There was something he needed to confirm.

“So… do you still have a crush on Ben Anderson?”

“No. I like someone else now. No, actually, I don’t. I like him, but I’m not supposed to like him, but I do, so I won’t like him.”

“What?”

“Ugh. Why is my head so heavy? Stop shaking it. Just be quiet for a moment!”

“Sigh.”

Minhee urged Taejun not to move, even though she was the one who was babbling like a jellyfish. Taejun, who was sitting motionless, burst into laughter. She struggled for a moment to sit upright but quickly gave up and leaned back against him.

“Being born without even a tiny bit of sexy charm in a country full of hot women is like a congenital disease. It can’t be fixed.”

Minhee rambled on like she was talking to herself.

“Can I experience s*x before I die? It would be nice if there was someone I could practice on for seducing men.

Sinking into his arms and fiddling with his shirt, pieces of truth slipped out of her mouth in a stream of consciousness. He was intrigued by the way she spoke as if she were drunk and had no end to her thoughts.

So he didn’t feel like stopping her. Clearly, it might be a serious matter for her, but Taejun felt a tickle in his chest as he listened.

“At this rate, I’m scared that I’ll never have a real relationship, and I’ll end up living and dying as a wrinkled, skinny, grandmother with only a cat. Huhu.”

Mumbling indistinctly, Minhee grabbed the hem of Taejun’s shirt and buried her face, letting out a sob that welled up from deep within her.

“If I die and no one finds me for a while, who’s going to feed the cat? Ugh…”

“Do you have a cat?”

“No, well, sniff, if I die, the cat probably won’t eat me just because it’s hungry, right?”

Taejun forced his breathing down to keep from bursting out laughing.

‘What kind of cute drinking habit is this?’

Watching Minhee, who clung to his shirt and cried while complaining about the betrayal of a non-existent cat, he couldn’t help but shake his shoulders, eventually bursting into laughter disguised as a cough.

Startled by the sudden sound, Min-hee let out a ‘hic’ and tensed up like a cat with its fur er*ect, straightening up from where she was leaning.

She blinked her blurry eyes rapidly and looked up at him in bewilderment as if she were seeing him for the first time. It was a look that said, “Why are you here?”

What had obviously started out as a serious and sincere conversation, disoriented by the lethal dose of alcohol that was slowly creeping into her system, Taejun keenly caught the opportunity to delve into it within that chaos.

“Don’t cry. Instead, practice seducing men on me.”

Minhee’s upper body jerked and tilted. Taejun quickly wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to her feet.

“Huh? What practice??”

Minhee’s gaze, slower than usual, lingered on Taejun’s arm wrapped around her waist for a moment before slightly parting her lips and looking up at him.

“I… I think I’m too drunk. I think I just heard something…… what did you say?”

Taejun raised himself from the backrest he’d been leaning against. His broad shoulders stretched out at right angles, and Minhee flinched and jerked her head back.

“You were just crying a minute ago about how you’ve never been in a relationship or had s*x and you’re afraid you’re going to die a wrinkled, unattractive old lady living with a……cat, so you said you needed practice seducing men, and I’ll be your practice partner.”

Taejun summarized Minhee’s stuttering sentences slowly as if he were dealing with someone who couldn’t understand him. Minhee’s large eyes, already pouring out like a waterfall, squinted suspiciously.

‘I said that, in front of this man?’

The hairs on the nape of her neck stood up as if cold water had been poured over her entire body. The alcohol buzz had clearly dissipated. She chewed on her lip, her mind racing like a night fog as she realized she’d been rambling on and on about something just moments ago. Her vision blurred for a moment.

“Oh, I think I went crazy… I said that, didn’t I? I did.”

It was bad enough that she’d gotten drunk on wine and blurted out her dark history of complexes to not just anyone but Rose’s uncle, employer, and the object of her one sided-crush, Taejun, but to unabashedly admit that she wanted to have s*x and be in a relationship was truly shameful.

If she could, she wanted to crawl somewhere and never see the sunlight again. She wished for tomorrow’s sun never to rise, and this room to be forever plunged into darkness.

“That… please forget about it. It’s just, um, drunken talk. I don’t need a practice partner—”

Minhee’s voice cracked as she covered her face with her hands.

“You said you needed it, so let me help you.”

Taejun abruptly cut off Minhee’s words.

“……You’re kidding, right? I didn’t know you could tell a joke like that. Wow…… that’s funny, ha……ha, ha!”

“Do you think I’m joking?”

Minhee examined his expression. There was no sign of laughter on his expressionless, serious face.

“No, but…”

Minhee’s whispering voice slithered in.

“Think about it carefully. You’ve already faced the problem, figured out what the issue is, analyzed the situation from multiple perspectives, and found a solution, right?”

“I did?”

Taejun nodded firmly at Minhee, who blinked in confusion.

“Yes. So, the next step is to devise a meticulous plan and execute it. If the solution involves practicing how to appeal sexually to someone of the opposite s*x, then I’m offering to help.”

‘Is that how it works?’ 

Taejun’s strangely persuasive logic lured Minhee like a fog settling down on a dark road, faintly sparkling like distant streetlights.

‘Yeah, I guess it all makes sense, but-’

“…So, why? Why would you be my practice partner, or rather, how could I possibly be in such a situation with you?”

“Do you have another practice partner?”

“No! Not like that, but…….”

As Minhee stumbled over her words, the subtle wounds across Taejun’s eyebrows twitched.

“If I were to answer the ‘why,’ I’d say it’s a repayment for giving me and Rose our normal lives back.”

‘Is that the entire reason?’

Taejun’s inner voice mocked him.

‘I can’t just say, “I’ve been wanting to have s*x with you for weeks now, just looking at you makes things tense down there.”‘

Taejun lightly brushed aside the guilt that stabbed at the back of his mind like a dull knife. Familiar with surviving alone from a young age, he knew that when an opportunity presented itself, he had to act quickly.

Opportunities were like fleeting illusions; if you missed that moment, it was over. If Minhee hadn’t brought it up first, Taejun would have proposed a similar relationship to her in his own way. Now that the trap was set, it was time to pull her in.

“The deadline is until the end of the tenancy agreement. I’ll be your partner for as long as you want to experiment and practice on whatever topics, scope, and methods you need to practice. However, on the condition that we won’t bind each other using this as an excuse, and there won’t be any demands for a relationship beyond this.”