MOON Ch 22

Fortunately, it was not a hard floor, so it did not break, but the glass that had been filled to the brim was emptied helplessly, and roll, roll. It rolled over the wooden deck.

As Chaeon looked down at her white T-shirt and shorts, whose ends were entirely soaked beyond repair, and raised her head with an absurd face, Taeha let out a sigh-like sound with an expressionless face.

“My, my.”

“What’s this? After taking the trouble to bring it, you spilled all of it again?”

Even as the woman sitting next to Taeha chuckled as if it were quite a thing and offered an irritation-laced scolding, Taeha’s gaze remained sticky and fixed solely on Chaeon. His smooth lips stretched out into a faint smile.

“An accident.”

“…”

“I suppose it needs to be cleaned up?”

Taeha whispered softly.

An accident?

No. It was deliberate. Because he was someone who rarely made mistakes.

This was, definitely deliberate… Though she could tell intuitively, there were too many watching eyes present in this place to make an issue of it and cling to it.

Chaeon’s pale hand picked up the glass rolling around on the deck. Sending an invisible, resentment-laden glance at Taeha, who was looking down at her like a languid predator, or as if bored, she left a bow and turned around.

Why, why on earth to me like that…

While walking a few steps with her eyes squeezed shut as she bit her lower lip tightly, fortunately, he did not call Chaeon to a halt again. She could feel his gaze on the back of her head to the point that it prickled. Chaeon’s footsteps quickened as if she were running away.

Looking at the back of Chaeon, who was leaving the place as if taking to her heels, Heeseung, who was sitting on the deck, whistled softly.

“Fucking— pretty.”

She is pretty.

She also knows how to grate on a person’s nerves quite well.

Answering inwardly, Taeha held a sip of cocktail in his mouth and swallowed a sneer.

To go from the staff quarters toward the main house, anyone had to pass through this path without fail. At this hour, the only place Yoon Chaeon would go while smiling foolishly like a moment ago was just one place in the main house. That somehow strangely rubbed him the wrong way.

“Besides, there was a girl like that, so why didn’t I know until now…”

“Kwon Heeseung.”

A low, sunken voice called out to Heeseung, who was flippantly unable to take his eyes off Chaeon.

“Huh?”

“She’s nineteen.”

Heeseung, who pondered Taeha’s cool single remark with a blank face for a moment, only then whispered with an ‘oh dear’ face, “Ah, nineteen years old.”

“Wow, fuck. She really was a baby.”

He didn’t even feel like pointing out the vulgar remarks that followed any further. As expected of a guy who couldn’t keep his act together whenever he saw a woman in a skirt—good grief.

A command of language that degraded one’s own dignity on its own would ultimately become one’s own face at any time. At any rate, a relationship formed not through his own wholehearted friendship, but through family connections. Since it wasn’t a deep relationship either, Taeha chose the direction of saving his words.

Taeha, who carelessly turned his head while running a hand through his hair that harbored moisture, soon stopped his gaze at his own feet.

“…”

It was a heart-shaped leaf. Something that had no reason to be lying here as if stranded—thud. His coolly sunken gaze stared quietly at it.

‘Young master, I looked into that male student named Kang Gyuhwan a bit.’

‘Tell me.’

A few days ago, Ms. Kim, who visited his study, reported to him about the male student who had met Jang Yeonjun. While he had been tuning out the report without finding anything particularly interesting for a few words, his ears perked up at the story he heard near the end.

‘And, he attends the same school as a female student he grew up with together since childhood. Her name is Choi Hyeji. However, this female student is a bit…’

When he cast a glance as if telling her to continue, Ms. Kim scratched her cheek sheepishly and continued speaking.

‘It seems her obsession with that male student is unusual. There is a story that if there are girls who approach him even a little, or seem to be somewhat close, she linched them like that. It seems she belongs to the bully type in school as well.’

Sometimes human intuition works out well in strange places, and there are times when one suddenly thinks they want to pick up small pieces scattered about as if they were nothing. And if one connects the petty things picked up in that manner, a very distinct form is bound to be made.

‘It seems Ms. Chaeon is also the type to lead a very quiet school life, but it seems there were quite a few male students who hit on her in the meantime. It seems she rejected most of them. However, this male student named Kang Gyuhwan was uniquely persistent toward Ms. Chaeon…’

Jang Yeonjun, who would display a bizarre obsession whenever he was fixated on anything, and Yoon Chaeon, who caught the eye of such a Jang Yeonjun. Kang Gyuhwan, whom Jang Yeonjun met. Choi Hyeji, who was obsessed with Kang Gyuhwan…

Ah.

Snicker. A leak of laughter burst out naturally. Doesn’t this become much messier and funnier than he thought if it turns out like this?

Recalling that moment in the study, a peculiar smile hung on the corners of Taeha’s mouth again.

Inexperienced and young Yoon Chaeon. Not even knowing what kind of rope she held onto now.

However, he intended to just watch as it was. To create the picture Taeha himself wanted, considerable patience was needed. Every time she got hurt in her heart due to that, she would head toward Jang Yeonjun as if seeking solace in the future too, right?

He had to let her think that tender deception and selfish obsession were a very special interest. Fooled by that, if a moment comes when Yoon Chaeon also considers Jang Yeonjun special, and it is confirmed that Jang Yeonjun’s interest is not temporary… at that point, Chaeon was a chess piece to be placed on his board.

Until then, he intended to imprint clearly on Chaeon who the owner of Songbaekwon was while staying here, whether she liked it or not. So that she could never forget.

The gaze picking up the leaf that had fallen in an unexpected place was unusually deep.

∞ ∞ ∞

The sensation of wet clothes clinging to her skin was unpleasant. As soon as she returned to her room, Chaeon threw off her wet T-shirt over her head and took off her shorts as well. It felt like an act of not merely flinging off clothes, but shaking off something else as well. For instance, the persistent gaze that followed behind her back all the way here.

‘If she’s living here freeloading as a servant’s daughter, she’s a servant.’

That single sentence that seemed to say her position was merely that much. The gaze that looked at Chaeon as she bent her body to the floor and picked up the glass. He was a person who was always accustomed to looking down on Chaeon like that. At the same time, the woman who sat at eye level beside Taeha and pushed cookies into his mouth suddenly popped into her mind. Her chest was about to feel uncomfortable again, as if she were motion-sick.

Chaeon, who shook her head, covered her cheeks with both hands and let out a long sigh. She didn’t want to keep thinking of him. She just wanted to go to Yeonjun quickly. Because inside the cozy room, talking with him, reading books, and sharing trivial stories, it felt like her mood would improve even a little. Because he was a person who made Chaeon peaceful like that.

Chaeon, who pulled on a pair of jeans and wore a freshly washed white T-shirt over them, opened the vocabulary notebook again to take out the leaf she had tucked inside to show him.

“Uh…”

However, mercilessly, the leaf tucked between the pages she was last looking at was gone without a trace. Chaeon, who stared blankly at the empty page, recalled the fact that she had dropped this vocabulary book once at the pool earlier.

Of all times.

Leaves with that kind of shape weren’t even common. Though the person she actually wanted to show it to was someone else, she dropped it in a completely unexpected place. At any rate, a person like Jang Taeha would merely look down on such things as petty and trample them underfoot. A helpless sigh leaked between her lips.

And, Jang Taeha’s profile as he accepted and bit into the cookie held in the hand of the unfamiliar woman sitting next to him… Why did that keep popping up? Chaeon closed her eyes tightly and shook her head.

It felt as though she had lost her mind somewhere along the way.

∞ ∞ ∞

Knock, knock.

When she knocked on the door while exhausted as if she had been through something extraordinary, Yeonjun opened the door for her.

“You’re here?”

Cough. Yeonjun, who let out a small cough, pulled up the neck portion of his white turtleneck knit sweater near his mouth and gestured with his hand as if telling her to come in. Having said that he had a constitution that caught colds frequently, he would cough whenever the weather got even a little capricious.

Perhaps because he was wearing a white knit sweater, his face, which looked exceptionally pristine, smiled gently as he looked at Chaeon, but strangely today, even upon seeing that appearance, she couldn’t smile like usual. Yeonjun, who noticed Chaeon’s state that was different from usual, sat down close in the seat next to her while holding a mug. The subtle fragrance of coffee wafted from the glass where steam rose in billows.

“Did something happen?”

“Pardon?”

“Your expression isn’t very good, Chaeon.”

“Ah…”

Uniquely in front of him, whatever it was, it felt as though she could never hide it and was always caught. Chaeon laughed sillily and shook her head. No matter how bad the relationship between the two of them was, there was no need to deliberately talk about unpleasant stories regarding Taeha to Yeonjun.

“It’s just…. The CSAT is coming up soon, so maybe that’s why I’m a bit troubled. Thinking that I have to get good grades.”

“…”

Yeonjun, who looked at Chaeon as if worried, burst into a small laugh at the test taker’s concern that was more serious than thought.

“That can happen. Because I was like that too before taking the CSAT.”

“I heard you were extremely good at studying.”

“Still, the fact that you get nervous is similar. Because results don’t necessarily scale proportionally to effort.”

Chaeon also nodded her head at those words as if agreeing. Because there were quite a few times for her too when the results were not satisfying compared to the effort and time put in.

“Let’s eat figs. Mrs. Kwon even drizzled honey on them. Have you ever tried them?”

Indeed, on the plate, dark reddish-pink fruits were appetizingly cut into bite-sized pieces.

“I tried them just once when I was little.”

“They say right now is when they taste best.”

Yeonjun smiled as he picked up a fig with a fork for her. Chaeon felt her heart become peaceful as always at that kindness. Smelling the subtly wafting coffee scent, even her sunken mood from a moment ago seemed to dilute. Taking in the soft fruit he offered, a mysterious taste—resembling a water-filled plum while wafting the scent of grass as well—crumbled inside her mouth.

“It’s super sweet…”

“Eat a lot.”

Yeonjun, who was looking at Chaeon eating neatly while chewing away, quietly set the coffee cup down on the table and asked:

“Chaeon, what do you want to do after taking the CSAT?”

His gaze that stared quietly was somehow deep. Because it was a nuance asking seriously, Chaeon also rolled her eyes and replied after contemplating a bit.

“I don’t have grand plans, but…”

“Yeah?”

“I want to go back to Seoul and find a job. And let my mom rest a bit.”

“…You’re going to Seoul?”

For a moment, Chaeon thought that Yeonjun’s gaze had turned somewhat cold.