My Brother's Friend Wasn't a Guy - Chapter 16

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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16.

“I had no idea you could be so smooth.”
Lee Jin fixed Kang Hyun with a stern look, though her flushed cheeks undermined the effect entirely. Despite the sharpness in her eyes, there was no bite to it.
She didn’t realize how that expression only kindled something primal in him.
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m not usually like this. It’s just you.”
Rather than releasing her, Kang Hyun drew her closer still, holding her as though his hands had moved of their own accord—a pure reflex—which allowed him to speak with absolute certainty.
He pressed his lips lightly against her cheek, then the corner of her mouth. Her stern expression crumbled away as if she’d never worn it at all.
“W-what about the coffee?”
“On second thought, I don’t need it.”
Kang Hyun tilted her chin up with one hand and kissed her deeply. Their lips met, their breath intermingled.
He pursued the kiss with relentless intensity, as though he meant to dissolve her sweet lips entirely.
Lee Jin shuddered as the lawless intruder invaded her senses. The overwhelming force of his kiss stole her ability to think.
Chills raced across her skin, then warmth pooled low in her belly, her body dissolving into sensation and back again in endless waves.
“Mm…….”
A soft, unbidden sound escaped her lips, though she was too lost to register it. How long had they been like this?
“Breathe.”
Kang Hyun pulled back and let out a quiet laugh. Lee Jin, already gasping for air and trembling at the edge of her limit, couldn’t manage a response.
“You’ll get better at it with practice.”
So he was saying he intended to keep kissing her?
Lee Jin blinked like a broken doll, and the sight was so endearing that whatever resolution Kang Hyun had mustered simply evaporated.
“What? You don’t like progressing gradually? If you’d rather master it all at once…….”
As he leaned in for another kiss, a startled Lee Jin shoved against his chest. Not that it moved him one inch.
Kang Hyun’s gaze lingered for a long moment on her hand, small and trembling against his chest.
“Hah…….”
He exhaled a long, deliberate sigh and released her.
Lee Jin hesitated, surprised that he’d let her go so easily when her pushing hadn’t budged him at all.
“No good. I need coffee after all.”
His sudden change of mind seemed strange, but Lee Jin quickly moved to dispel the awkwardness.
“Right, understood. Just give me a moment.”
The moment she left with the coffee, Kang Hyun pressed his palms against his face with evident displeasure, as though wrestling with something unbearable.
“Hardly an amateur move.”
He’d meant to sweep her away like a storm, to shake her to her core—and instead he’d been the one caught in the tempest. And all because she insisted on being so beautiful.
He clicked his tongue and looked out the window. The weather had turned brilliant and warm, spring giving way fully to summer.
He studied the clear blue sky, the brilliant sunlight, the steady flow of cars and pedestrians below, drawing himself back to composure.
By the time Lee Jin returned with the coffee, he had schooled his expression into perfect calm.
Lee Jin crossed her legs and set the cup down slowly on the table, observing Kang Hyun as he sat absorbed in something, arranged as gracefully as a photograph.
His composed face made her efforts to shake off the lingering warmth of that kiss seem rather foolish.
But the thought dissolved like mist the instant she realized what he’d been studying—her Portfolio.
“How did you find that?”
“Didn’t you leave it here for me to see?”
“Oh, well…….”
Lee Jin’s mind raced as she remembered what had happened earlier.
She’d been holding the Portfolio to move it elsewhere when Baek Jin Hee had made a fuss, so she’d set it down momentarily. After that, when Kang Hyun arrived, she’d forgotten about it entirely.
She watched his expression as she asked cautiously.
“Did you see everything?”
The sketches of the Cheongjeok Celadon pieces were meant for him to see anyway, so that didn’t matter. What concerned her was the separate sketch she’d tucked at the very back of the Portfolio.
“Yeah, I saw it all.”
The hope she’d harbored—that he might not have flipped through to the very end—shattered completely.
“Just from the sketches, I can already picture how beautifully these ceramic pieces will complement the Cheongjeok Celadon. You’re truly remarkable.”
Kang Hyun smiled warmly and praised her. Lee Jin was now certain he’d missed the sketch she’d tucked behind—otherwise, why would he only mention the ceramics?
“They’re only sketches still. The finished pieces need to be even better.”
Ceramic work always demanded an arduous process.
A single satisfying piece often emerged only after countless repetitions of the same steps. This had taught Lee Jin humility as second nature.
She masked her embarrassment with a smile, retrieved her Portfolio from his hands, and carefully turned to the last page.
But the sketch she’d placed there was gone?
Seeing her surprise, Kang Hyun let out a soft laugh and pulled a single sheet of paper from his jacket pocket.
“Looking for this?”
“……!”
Lee Jin reached out hastily to intercept the sketch, but her smaller frame betrayed her, and she failed.
“Wasn’t that supposed to be for me?”
“No, it wasn’t!”
She gazed ruefully at her short arms and waved her hand uselessly through the air where it had frozen mid-reach.
“So you drew my face to admire it all by yourself?”
“That’s not it either!”
Embarrassment flushed Lee Jin’s face crimson.
While sketching the pottery, Kang Hyun had drifted into her mind unbidden, and she’d ended up drawing him.
Her drawing skills weren’t exceptional, but it had turned out decent enough that she couldn’t bear to throw it away, so she’d tucked it in among the others.
She denied his accusation and circled the table to his side. Sitting across from him with the table between them, there was simply no way for her to wrench anything from his grasp.
“I just drew it for fun. It’s not even that well done.”
Lee Jin hung from his arm, trying to snatch the sketch back. Instead of struggling, he simply surrendered it to her.
“Still, I’d like to keep it. Could you not give it to me?”
“Huh?”
Lee Jin went rigid, her eyes blinking rapidly. With that face, he’d made such a wistful, pleading expression. Surely that counted as cheating.
Though the sketch had returned to her hands, she felt as though it no longer belonged to her. While she hesitated, Kang Hyun pulled her toward him.
Suddenly finding herself on his lap, Lee Jin fidgeted awkwardly, unsure what to do with herself.
“I’ll keep it and pass it down through the generations as a family heirloom…….”
“Absolutely not!”
Seeing her look of alarm, Kang Hyun chuckled once, his eyes crinkling as he spoke.
“Then I’ll just look at it myself.”
Resistance was futile against a man who could enchant people with a single smile. Lee Jin exhaled shortly and nodded.
Only then did she realize how awkward her position was, and she tried to slide off his lap.
But he wouldn’t let her go, so she couldn’t escape his embrace.
He held a slow smile and gazed at her lips as he asked.
“What happens when we’re pressed this close together?”
Lee Jin recalled what had happened earlier and answered hesitantly.
“Conditioned Reflex?”
“Good memory.”
He praised her, then traced her lower lip with his thumb—a soft stroke—before pressing his lips to hers.
He would regret biting these forbidden lips soon enough, but unfortunately, Kang Hyun had never possessed the option of refusing her lips.

***

Cheon Eun Jung made her major announcement when the family gathered in one place.
“I have something I need to tell you all.”
Immediately, a flood of looks washed over her—the kind that asked what trouble she’d caused this time.
Cheon Mi Jin, the eldest, had been groomed early as the designated successor to Osung Group and was undergoing heir training.
Cheon Woo Jae, the youngest, had only recently returned from abroad after completing his piano studies.
Cheon Eun Jung, sandwiched in the middle, had nothing particularly remarkable about her. The only distinction was that she’d inherited her father’s temperament most closely—she couldn’t abide injustice and would flare up in protest, having stirred up domestic and external disturbances a few times.
Cheon Eun Jung had always resented this.
The only thing the family expected of her was a strategically advantageous marriage that would benefit the company, and even that sentiment had grown lukewarm lately.
‘What’s wrong with me, anyway?’
She exhaled sharply through her nose and spoke with haughty pride.
“You know how I went on a formal meeting with the youngest son of Munsung Group recently?”
“Wait—don’t tell me you fought with him?”
“You didn’t kick him in the shins because he was hitting on you, did you?”
She couldn’t fathom why they always jumped to such dire conclusions. What exactly had she done to deserve this?
Cheon Eun Jung sighed deeply and spoke with deliberate clarity.
“I’m saying I’ve decided to formally date the youngest son of Munsung Group.”
“What?”
“Why?”
“How is that possible?”
“Can that even happen?”
The skeptical responses that poured in were incomparably more dismissive than before, and Cheon Eun Jung bristled.
“Why is everything a question mark? Can’t you answer with an exclamation point instead?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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