The Textbook of a Lover - Chapter 39

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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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39.
Seong Do-a sat on the sofa with the TV playing. She wasn’t really watching it—she’d just turned it on.
Nothing on the screen registered in her mind.
‘They’ve finished dinner by now, surely.’
Maybe they’d stopped by a café nearby afterward. There were plenty of pretty coffee shops around Hyunsin Department Store.
“Stop it. Stop thinking about this, Seong Do-a.”
Do-a shook her head vigorously. She was the one who’d told him to go, and now she had no idea what she was doing anymore.
She picked up her phone trying to distract herself, then set it down and cycled through the TV channels from one to three hundred. She was heading to the kitchen to get some cold water, had just placed her cup under the dispenser, when—
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Do-a’s hand froze.
‘……Could it be.’
Her heartbeat climbed to her throat. But then Do-a laughed at herself.
“There’s no way he’d find his way to our apartment. Besides, he should still be with Na-hui.”
Even thinking that, she checked the intercom with a tense flutter in her chest.
Her hopes died the moment she saw the screen. Her face hardened rapidly.
The face reflected in the intercom was none other than Woo Gyeong-jun.
Woo Gyeong-jun was pressing the doorbell relentlessly. Do-a had no choice but to open the front door wearing only a thin cardigan.
Then she led the man standing there toward the empty lot within the apartment complex.
Once Do-a confirmed there was no one around, she looked directly at the man before her and spoke.
“What are you doing? Why are you here?”
Woo Gyeong-jun opened his mouth.
“Seong Do-a, just how much of an idiot are you?”
“What?”
“How stupid do you have to be to let Na-hui steal another man from you? Why did you let Yoon Cha-gyeong get close to Na-hui!”
Heat surged up from the depths of Do-a’s chest.
‘So Na-hui and Cha-gyeong really did…….’
Something felt caught in her throat. If Woo Gyeong-jun was this angry, did that mean the two of them really had ended up like that.
“This whole mess happened because you don’t even know your place, meeting with Yoon Cha-gyeong. You don’t even realize he’s playing with you. What man would ever seriously like someone like you!”
Do-a clenched her teeth.
“So what? If you’re angry at Na-hui, go take it up with her. Why come here and throw a pathetic tantrum at me?”
“What? Pathetic?”
“Yeah! Pathetic doesn’t even begin to cover it. You’re absolutely pathetic.”
“You call that talking……!”
Woo Gyeong-jun, losing all reason, shoved Do-a roughly against the brick wall between the empty lot and the building.
He blocked her vision completely, casting an oppressive shadow over her.
The moment his hand shot up through the air, Do-a instinctively turned her head and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Ahhhhh! It hurts!”
At Woo Gyeong-jun’s unexpected scream, Do-a opened her eyes to find Yoon Cha-gyeong—she had no idea when he’d appeared—gripping his wrist hard enough to crush it.
“Ow, ow! My hand! My wrist!”
Do-a wondered if she was dreaming. But if not, then why was he even here?
“It hurts! Can’t you let go?”
But now wasn’t the time to think about that.
“Ch-Cha-gyeong, please stop! You’re really going to cause an accident!”
Do-a grabbed Yoon Cha-gyeong’s arm desperately. Then she wrapped her palm around the back of his hand to try to make him release his grip on Woo Gyeong-jun.
Yoon Cha-gyeong’s shoulders trembled slightly. When Do-a applied more pressure, the cold, sharp force gradually eased, and his strangling grip on Woo Gyeong-jun’s wrist loosened and fell away.
“Ahhhhh!”
At the same moment, Woo Gyeong-jun—who’d been pushing back with his strength—lost his balance and simply collapsed onto the ground.
A dull thud echoed through the empty lot.
Covered in dirt, he struggled to his feet, gripping his creaking lower back and shrieking.
“I’m pressing charges for this! Director, surely this isn’t right. I’m going to take this to court!”
‘Charges? Has this guy lost his mind over charges? He tried to intimidate me and got his kicks out of it—did he think I’d just let it go?’
“Woo Gyeong-jun! I’m going to press charges against you too.”
“What? What are you charging me with?”
“You tried to hit me. You raised your hand.”
“That was just a threat! I didn’t even touch you! And when did I ever hit you?”
“Who knows what would’ve happened if Cha-gyeong hadn’t been here. And did you not know that threats are a crime too?”
“Wow, Seong Do-a, your judgment really is completely clouded. You’ve got your eyes so twisted toward this man that you’re defending violence?”
“Having your wrist grabbed is violence?”
“That’s not even the real issue here! I’m telling you, that man was in a restaurant with Na-hui just before this. You don’t even know that, and you’re taking his side. He’s playing both you and Na-hui. Open your eyes!”
Do-a’s lips opened once, then closed.
“So what? If you’re upset with Na-hui, go settle it with her. Why come here and make a scene?”
“If it weren’t for you, if you hadn’t met with Yoon Cha-gyeong in the first place, Na-hui would never have met him!”
“What kind of logic is that? If Na-hui truly cared about you, it shouldn’t matter who I’m with.”
“How can it not matter!”
That was when it happened.
“You lack that much confidence in Kang Na-hui.”
A low voice cut through Woo Gyeong-jun’s pathetic thrashing like a blade through darkness.
Yoon Cha-gyeong pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped his fingers—the ones that had just gripped Woo Gyeong-jun’s wrist.
Then, with a gaze cold enough to freeze, he looked at Woo Gyeong-jun and spoke.
“You lack the capacity to keep even one woman because you’re insufficient, and yet you come all the way here to cause a scene. I fail to understand it.”
“Wh-what……?”
Woo Gyeong-jun’s complexion turned the color of cement in an instant.
His face filled with the befuddlement of someone whose deepest wound has been struck.
Yoon Cha-gyeong didn’t stop there. He drove another sharp blade into Woo Gyeong-jun’s fragile pride.
“Your girlfriend gravitates toward another man because you’re lacking, yet here you are venting your anger in the wrong place. Why is that?”
“This—this……! Back at the restaurant too, you called me a fraud posing as a fiancé, and what do you even know about me that gives you the right to be so disrespectful……!”
“I know everything: a base creature who two-timed, switched partners with depravity, and extorted the dowry before fleeing. What else do I need to know?”
Yoon Cha-gyeong’s dark eyes grew even colder and sharper.
Unable to respond to his cutting edge, Woo Gyeong-jun turned his arrow toward Do-a and spoke.
“Seong Do-a! I told you to stop spreading nonsense! Keep ignoring my warnings. I won’t sit still for it!”
Having taken a blow to his pride from Yoon Cha-gyeong, Woo Gyeong-jun vented his anger on Do-a one last time, then turned and fled into the darkness.
Heavy silence fell over the empty lot once more.
Do-a watched Woo Gyeong-jun’s figure disappear completely into the dim alley. A hollow laugh escaped from deep in her chest.
‘I gave my precious twenties and my blood-earned dowry to a creature like that.’
It felt like watching the greatest embarrassment of her life unfold before her eyes. Rather than anger, a devastating emptiness crashed over her.
‘…… Fine. At least the bastard saved my life once. I’ll count that as what I paid him.’
She was comforting her aching heart with that thought—calling it the price of her life—when.
“Your standards really are terribly low.”
A low voice cut in from behind her.
Do-a flinched and her lips trembled. She had nothing to say in her defense.
But Yoon Cha-gyeong’s words didn’t end there.
“Your standards are low. And on top of that, you have no sense of danger.”
“……What danger are you talking about?”
She could accept that her standards were low.
But what did he mean about her having no sense of danger?
When Do-a looked confused, a fine line etched itself between Yoon Cha-gyeong’s brows.
“Why did you meet with Woo Gyeong-jun at this hour? He calls, and you come out to this dark, empty lot without a shred of caution?”
Yoon Cha-gyeong asked in a voice grown even lower. It was clear he was suppressing anger.
“What was I supposed to do? He was pressing my doorbell like a madman in the middle of the night.”

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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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