Unhealthy - Chapter 12

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 12. The Person I Was Waiting For

Seo I-jeong briefly looked down at her hand left hanging in the air, unable to reach Hae-yeong, then stood side by side next to Taejun.

“Taejun, was Hae-yeong the person you were waiting for here?”

Then she gestured with her chin and asked. Whether that woman was the one he was supposed to meet at this fancy event today.

“No, I’m…”

Taejun gently grabbed Hae-yeong’s shoulder as she tried to deny it, wanting to escape from this situation immediately.

Not stopping there, he even turned her around directly and led her to the table, personally pulling out a chair for her.

“What are you doing, not sitting down.”

Though he didn’t force her to sit in the chair, his gesture of nodding toward the chair while urging her next action was quite deliberate.

Hae-yeong, who had been staring blankly at this scene, had to steady her breathing and take her seat.

Though she desperately wanted to run away, acting on her emotions while Seo I-jeong was watching could create strange misunderstandings instead.

Sitting awkwardly across from Taejun, Hae-yeong gripped her skirt tightly and turned her eyes toward the window.

“Choose whatever you want to eat.”

Due to Taejun offering the menu in a friendly manner, Hae-yeong reluctantly met his eyes.

“Anything is fine.”

“There’s no menu item called ‘anything.'”

“…”

Hae-yeong didn’t answer and just stared blankly at the menu with furrowed brows. Then Taejun signaled to the manager who was waiting nearby.

“We can get the chef’s recommendation.”

Honestly, in this situation, it seemed like her stomach wouldn’t accept even the most amazing dish.

After Taejun finished ordering the chef’s recommendation course and stared at her intently as if trying to find even the smallest flaw on her face, Hae-yeong couldn’t bear it and lowered her head.

Behind her, she could feel Seo I-jeong’s piercing gaze stabbing into her back, while in front, Taejun’s persistent eyes followed her every move, scrutinizing her thoroughly.

“How’s school going?”

Gi Taejun would sometimes suddenly ask unexpectedly mundane questions that didn’t suit him.

There were times when he would suddenly appear on the way to or from school offering meaningless kindness by saying he’d give her a ride, or late at night he’d unexpectedly visit her room bringing trendy desserts and other uncharacteristic behaviors.

Perhaps today too, he had simply called her just to casually ask how she was doing, and maybe she was the one who had misinterpreted it on her own.

When her thoughts reached that point, she felt utterly pathetic for having been filled with vain expectations all day.

“Just okay.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘just.’ Either it’s good or it’s not.”

“It’s not like I won’t attend just because it’s hard, and it’s not like everything’s great just because it’s manageable.”

Seemingly displeased with her vague answer, Hae-yeong threw back a sharp, defiant response to Taejun’s follow-up question.

Until the main course arrived, a conversation close to an interrogation continued, with Taejun asking and Hae-yeong answering much later.

Even when she pushed the appetizing-looking food into her mouth, it felt exactly like chewing grains of sand.

Her stomach was churning so much that she couldn’t even touch the steak, when Taejun cut a piece of steak and placed it on Hae-yeong’s plate.

“When father returns from his business trip, I’m planning to discuss marriage with him.”

At the words that came from Taejun’s mouth as he quietly chewed and swallowed the well-cut piece of meat, Hae-yeong felt a sudden dizzying vertigo.

She already knew well that Taejun had been regularly going on blind dates with daughters of various companies.

Though these meetings were mainly arranged under pressure from Chairman Gi, even without such reasons, Taejun was known as someone who didn’t restrict his meetings with anyone as long as there were clear business benefits.

However, unexpectedly, his relationships with them usually ended as one-time meetings or were concluded in ways that were settled on Taejun’s end, with relationships ending short-term.

Therefore, she had thought that the marriage talks with Seo I-jeong were also just being pushed by Chairman Gi alone, and would fizzle out because Taejun wasn’t interested.

Since romance and engagement were luxuries for people of their class anyway, it was obvious that any marriage could proceed swiftly once the parties involved and both families agreed.

However, if he had already made up his mind to join hands with that side, was there really a need to bring her to such a place to announce it?

She was at a loss for words, not knowing whether this was belated courtesy regarding their physical relationship last night, or a silent warning to quietly bury what had happened.

“Yes, congratulations.”

Well, was he expecting congratulations? So thoughtless and shameless.

“You should receive congratulations too. It’s your marriage.”

Hae-yeong repeated the sentence that she heard but couldn’t digest at all, then asked back in a tone mixed with shock.

“…What does that mean? My marriage?”

“Exactly what I said. I’m going to discuss our marriage, yours and mine.”

“Yours and mine… us? Our marriage, you mean your marriage with me?”

“That’s right.”

Shrugging his shoulders, he leaned his body diagonally toward Hae-yeong, moved closer to the table, and continued his next words secretly.

“Were you planning to take my virginity and run?”

No matter how much he lowered his voice, Hae-yeong kept looking around restlessly, worried that people nearby might hear Taejun’s strange and vulgar statement.

With her face burning red, she pointed the knife she had been gripping with trembling hands from anger.

“Wh-who said anything about getting married.”

“Not just once, but several times we—”

“Stop, stop it.”

Belatedly discovering the tip of the knife she was pointing at Taejun, Hae-yeong quickly relaxed her grip like someone who had realized their criminal act.

“Let’s go somewhere quiet to talk. Here… there are too many people.”

Moreover, Seo I-jeong was right nearby.

Judging by how affectionately she had been acting toward Taejun, she was certainly interested in the marriage talks too.

If such a conversation leaked out, it would obviously become a controversy beyond just unpleasantness.

If words got twisted wrongly, it could easily become a matter of controversy.

“People, who?”

Taejun belatedly turned his eyes and slowly scanned the surroundings. Most people were just focused on their meals or absorbed in their own conversations.

“What, is there someone you know?”

At Taejun’s arrogance as he calmly continued eating while asking, Hae-yeong felt a dizziness beyond resentment and closed and opened her eyes.

“I think there might be some misunderstanding, so let me say that yesterday’s incident… I think it was impulsive. It wasn’t something done under the influence of alcohol, but anyway.”

Taking a breath, Hae-yeong lowered her voice a bit more and added her next words.

“It’s perfectly possible to get carried away by the atmosphere. Don’t worry about it. I have absolutely no intention of asking you to take responsibility or clinging to you.”

“Impulsive?”

Taejun’s expression, which had remained unchanged throughout, instantly darkened.

As he suddenly fell silent after putting down his fork and knife on the table, a chilling shiver crawled up Hae-yeong’s spine.

“If not that, it’s not like there’s anything else that could explain our relationship.”

“What kind of relationship do we have.”

Gi Taejun asked back instead. What kind of relationship do we have.

Age twenty-one. Though it was true that she had lived safely under his protection since age fifteen, now these situations only felt overwhelming.

Though she had gotten upset like a child at Seo I-jeong’s words, when she thought about it, they weren’t exactly wrong either.

In her position of living as a dependent in someone else’s house, what pride did she have left to act so sensitively?

In others’ eyes, her appearance would only look trivial and ridiculous.

Her relationship with Gi Taejun should also be just that of protector and protected. She shouldn’t covet or desire anything more than that.

It was a connection where she would appropriately repay the kind-hearted Chairman Gi who had taken in and raised her when she had nowhere to go, and leave when the time was right.

When her thoughts reached that point, her mouth felt bitter for no reason.

“We were protector and protected. Now we’re not even that.”

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