Chapter 50

Na-Yool reflexively flinched at his glaring and tried to justify herself.

“To begin with, things got even more complicated because of you Mr. President.”

“You have to say it right. It got to this point because of your ridiculously low standards.”

“…I am not talking about that basic matter.”

“When I look at you and get reminded of it, I’m still dumbfounded.”

“You are just a third party. Surely you won’t be as much as I am.”

“If it even makes you dumbfounded, then what about me?”

It was a bold “so of course I would be more dumbfounded” argument. Briefly convinced by the logic of it, Na-Yool almost apologized out of her mind, before barely managing to press it down deep inside.

“Personally, it’s up to you to feel however you want regarding my failed love relationship, but—”

“—Right.”

His interruption of her words at his own convenience stirred her resentment.

“Shouldn’t you at least know how things went? Since you very pleasantly fired it up on purpose…”

“Like you said earlier in front of that loser, I tried to help you.”

“I only said that for Sang-Hoon, that oppa—”

“That loser.”

“—for that loser to hear it, and gloss things over to try clearing up the misunderstanding you created.”

Si-Jin did not miss to rectify her again, rightfully so. Satisfied with her diligent self-correction, he turned his relaxed gaze towards her.

Then, as if he still had something else to rectify that he was not happy about, he spread his thumb and index finger apart and pressed her cheeks between them in a funny way.

Na-Yool unintentionally continued speaking with a pouty face.

“From start to finish, you never were of help, Mr. President.”

“Do I have to help?”

What kind of rubbish was it now? Na-Yool raised and squinted her dizzy eyes to see Si-Jin’s blurry face more clearly, which slowly bobbed from side to side.

“Me?”

“……”

“To you?”

“What nonsense is that?” Na-Yool’s thoughts came out of her mouth without a filter. Si-Jin grinned at her with a hazy but – and she was sure of it – impertinent expression.

What more could she talk about with such a weird being… Na-Yool shook her head and pulled out her plump-looking face captured in Si-Jin’s grip.

“If it was not for you, we would have been done sooner!”

“Right, it would have been nice if we hadn’t been held in that coffee shop all night.”

“Who was the one who misled the whole conversation with strange remarks…!”

“Indeed, that was me.”

Far from soothing Na-Yool’s wrath, his innocent acknowledgement was like pouring fuel on the fire.

“See! Because of you…!”

“Think about what I said to that bastard.”

“I do not even want to think about it again.”

“Come on, carefully think it over with that small brain of yours.”

“My brain is not small! It’s big…! Don’t underestimate it!”

“Even if it’s small at best…” Si-Jin muttered as if he could not understand her. Na-Yool fumed sorrowfully.

“To Sang-Hoon op-… no, to that loser, you said a lot of things that were easy to misunderstand…”

“First of all, we actually slept together so it’s not really a misunderstanding.”

“It’s not what is important—”

“Secondly, does this bastard still have any right to misunderstand?”

“Whether he does or not, I do not want to give him any pretexts. If he harasses me more to vent his anger, or makes up stories about me being a cheater and spread it around, I—”

“I did not give him pretexts, the bastard created them himself.”

“……”

“If the problem is that bastard, don’t look for the cause in yourself. That’s exactly what being stupidly kind is.”

Si-Jin’s words rang a bell in Na-Yool’s mind, warning her not to make more mistakes, not to wrong anyone else.

Five seconds later, it hit her. She blinked and said: “Excuse-me Mr. President, but I am pretty sure I said the cause was you.”

“You and I are a package.”

“Since when?”

“In this case.”

“Ahh. I could not be more speechless…”

“Those ugly rumors, you just need to spread some around, even dirtier ones.” What kind of boss but Si-Jin would encourage his employee to slander her ex-boyfriend with nasty gossip in order not to lose to them. “I’ll ask for a lawyer, so sue him if you want.”

“On which charge would I even…”

“Listen here. It could just take you a trip to the police station right now with your cellphone to put that bastard behind bars.”

“……”

“I simply said our relationship was ‘exactly as what it looks like’. I never said that we are dating, nor mentioned the fact that we slept togeth—” [T/N: Remember? He is self-quoting his answer from when Sang-Hoon asked why they were holding hands in the coffee shop]

“—Stop…!”

“Anyway, that bastard judged based on what he saw.”

His proud demeanor reflected he did not feel like he tricked anyone at all. Then why answer with ‘exactly as what it looks like’ sitting next to her with his conceited face if not to push Sang-Hoon’s buttons? However, Na-Yool gave up refuting.

“… I was just saying… I am simply hoping for you to know you have not been helpful, and that in the future you will refrain from unnecessary meddling.”

As the cold wind hit her face and heated up by her drunkenness, for a moment, a very short one, her conscience seemed to have returned. Na-Yool slightly propped her body up while she exhorted him in a quiet voice.

But Si-Jin immediately pressed on her shoulders to force her down, and she was back to diligently sitting on the chair as if she never got up.

Na-Yool was shortly bewildered, processing what just happened as she looked at Si-Jin’s hands placed on her shoulders, when his voice fell over her head.

“Well, I have a different opinion.”

“I do even more. Anyway, whatever the case, since you are tired there is no need to drive me back so just go straight to your home and I will take a taxi here…”

“Who said they will drive you back home?”

Just when 3~4 drunk passersby walked in front of them, Si-Jin’s polite formal speech came back in a composed manner. Of course, it was a detail that Na-Yool could no longer notice.

“Then what am I waiting for then?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“…Where?”

“Our home.” [T/N: “our” is often use in Korean to say “my”]

“…By our home, you mean not my house but…”

“There is no us between us. So logically wouldn’t ‘our home’ be about mine?” sighed his voice, visibly scorning her frustrating lack of common sense.

“I obviously got confused because you made an absurd suggestion.” retorted Na-Yool dumbfoundedly.

“I did?”

His question seemed to imply “not you?”. Na-Yool deflected the sneaky attack.

“Why would you take me to your home? What kind of relationship do we have for you to think I would just agree to visit an unrelated man’s house…”

“Is sex nothing to you, Ms. Kim Na-Yool?”

Na-Yool momentarily was at a loss for words at the straight-up words that unexpectedly came back to her face. Si-Jin carried on with its usual smirk, as if uninterested in whether she would confirm or not.

“I can’t believe you thought of going back home by yourself.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“How is that a problem—”

“Can’t you picture it? The sight of that bastard hovering around the entrance of your apartment.”

Until now, it certainly has not been out of the ordinary. ‘It’ being the worst situation that was in Na-Yool’s expected range…

“Him taking out a knife with the resolve to kill you and himself both together upon breaking up.”

“……”

“Kidnaping, imprisoning, assaulting, raping you or setting you on fire.”

“……Pardon?”

“Can’t you rationally picture it?”

Si-Jin’s ‘rational’ listing had drastically turned her normally clingy ex-boyfriend into the worst kind of dating abuse perpetrator ever seen on the news.

Na-Yool mumbled, stunned by his extreme example.

“Those kinds of things, they are only in the news…”

Although she wanted to say only in the news could such things happen, Na-Yool involuntarily felt a chill taking over her body. These people too probably were fine when they dated. If Sang-Hoon turned out to be like them, his personality changing for the worse…