Unhealthy - Chapter 26

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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 26. Complete Usurpation

At Taejun’s languid joke, Hae-yeong buried her forehead against his shoulder with a flushed face.

The firm pulse and body heat transmitted through his shirt finally began to push away the fear that had consumed her.

Taejun slowly stroked down Hae-yeong’s spine and brought his lips close to her ear.

“Whether father takes you as a daughter-in-law, or whether Jae-jun wants you as his wife, none of that matters.”

Taejun very carefully kissed Hae-yeong’s swollen eyelids.

It was an adult’s comfort that was terribly domineering yet strangely tender.

Hae-yeong felt the strength in Taejun’s arms as they tightly embraced her waist, and swallowed the dangerous thought that she wouldn’t mind being trapped forever in this aesthetic prison he had created.

Taejun pulled Hae-yeong, who couldn’t stop trembling finely in his arms, even deeper into his embrace.

In truth, he had never once completely surrendered Hae-yeong to his father’s grasp.

Luring her to this hellish house under the pretext of protection, and observing Gi Chairman’s greed while hiding behind the mask of indifference, had all been for the sake of complete usurpation like today.

He defined this emotion to himself as a kind of pitiful compassion stemming from guilt.

It was merely belated atonement for Hae-yeong’s blood relatives that his father had erased, or perhaps charitable mercy toward a lost young beast.

Taejun deceived even himself by wrapping the desire boiling within him in respectable words.

However, in Taejun’s eyes as he looked down at Hae-yeong burying her face in his embrace and seeking solace, there lurked a thirst that could never be explained by compassion alone.

Atop the castle of greed that his father had spent a lifetime carefully building, Taejun was devouring Hae-yeong—his father’s most cherished and final stronghold—in the most secretive and destructive way.

It was the son’s castration of his father, a vicious usurpation disguised as salvation.

Taejun hoped his breath touching Hae-yeong’s ear would become an indelible brand on her soul, as he wore a smile deeper than darkness at the corners of his mouth.

“Remember this. Father may have chained your ankles, but the right to hold that key and destroy you belongs only to me.”

In the finally completed deceptive peace, Taejun slowly stroked the hair of Hae-yeong who had fallen asleep on his lap.

The arrogant predator did not yet know that this would be the beginning of a vicious love that would lead him to ruin.

***

At the hour when dawn mist had settled thickly.

Hae-yeong opened her eyes narrowly and looked up at Taejun who had fallen asleep holding her in his arms.

Realizing this was her room, she looked around in surprise, but there were no dangerous signs anywhere in the room.

Only Taejun’s steady breathing filled the silence.

Taejun’s face without glasses was truly unfamiliar yet strangely beautiful, so Hae-yeong stared at him for a long while as if enchanted.

Thump, thump. Taejun’s stable heartbeat transmitted through their touching chests finally brought deep tranquility to Hae-yeong’s parched inner self.

As the momentary peace lifted, Gi Chairman’s cold and calculating gaze from last night floated through her mind.

Why had Gi Chairman readily permitted the marriage with Jae-jun without a grain of hesitation?

Hae-yeong curled up very small in Taejun’s embrace and fell into thought.

Gi Chairman was never a benevolent elder.

He was both a merchant who thoroughly calculated profit and loss, and a cold-blooded man who had never shown warm affection even to his own blood, Jae-jun.

The reason such a man had eagerly accepted Jae-jun’s proposal under the fine pretext of ‘keeping daughter-like Hae-yeong as a daughter-in-law by his side’ was obvious.

It was a declaration that he would never let her leave this household, and the beginning of thoroughly calculated bondage.

When her thoughts reached that point, a chilling shiver ran down her spine. If Gi Chairman truly cherished her, he should have supported her unconditionally, whether it was independence or love.

Or he should have tried to protect her even by giving up his most beloved eldest son Taejun.

Becoming the wife of Taejun, who held real power in Je-won Group, would have been the most certain protection for Hae-yeong.

Nevertheless, Gi Chairman had played the card of Gi Jae-jun despite Taejun’s opposition.

Hae-yeong instinctively realized this was not because Gi Chairman wanted to accept Hae-yeong herself as family, but a scheme to use the relatively easier-to-control second son Jae-jun to bind her forever under his dominion.

To Gi Chairman, she was neither a beloved daughter nor a cherished niece.

For Gi Chairman, the very existence of ‘Hae-yeong’ was clearly both a symbol of enormous interests he didn’t yet understand, and a valuable trophy that must never be handed over to others.

‘Could the talk about looking for my aunt also have been a trap to reassure me?’

Hae-yeong closed her eyes, feeling the strength in Taejun’s arms as they held her tightly.

In this place full of enemies, only Taejun, who defied Gi Chairman’s will to protect her, felt like her sole hope.

Hae-yeong closed her eyes tightly and buried her nose in Taejun’s nape.

She quietly felt his body scent seeping in deeply.

Had she ever felt such complete security from another person who wasn’t her father in her life?

The experience of the floating particles in her heart settling down from just one person’s body scent alone was unfamiliar.

Lest this warmth scatter like dawn mist, Hae-yeong embraced Taejun’s waist even more fully.

***

Taejun wrapped Hae-yeong in the blanket and carefully laid her down in the center of his bed.

It was Taejun’s own fastidious yet possessive measure to avoid exposing her defenseless curves as she slept in thin pajamas without a bra to others.

Having finished preparing for work by precisely adjusting his tie knot in a straight line over his crisply ironed shirt, Taejun slowly approached Hae-yeong who was blinking in the pouring morning sunlight.

The light scent of cologne and Taejun’s characteristic heavy presence quickly permeated the air.

“You said you have no classes today. Want to come with oppa?”

Taejun lowered himself toward Hae-yeong and asked quietly.

Hae-yeong pulled the blanket up to her chin, unable to even attempt to fix her disheveled hair from sleep.

“…No. Where would I be following you to? Without any justification. People would criticize.”

Taejun silently surveyed the realistic concerns in Hae-yeong’s eyes, then slowly brushed away the stray hairs scattered over her forehead and twisted his lips.

His gaze seemed to penetrate her anxiety diagonally, as if he understood it all.

“There is a justification, you know.”

“What justification?”

“A field trip.”

“That again.”

When Hae-yeong rolled her eyes as if incredulous, Taejun stared at her pupils with persistent intensity, trapping her gaze.

She felt a dominance that was both tender and impossible to defy.

“Just endure for a few days. We can stay together at the Jongno house on the weekend.”

“Is that also a field trip?”

“Yeah.”

“…What if we really get caught?”

As the concentration of anxiety in Hae-yeong’s voice deepened, Taejun fell silent for a moment and grasped her cheek fully with his large palm.

Hae-yeong’s shoulders flinched as his cool touch made contact.

“Hae-yeong.”

“…”

“We’re already caught. Does yesterday feel like a dream?”

It was a deliberately firm admonishment.

Taejun reminded her once again that last night’s conversation was not something to simply brush aside.

Hae-yeong bit her lip and lowered her head.

“You refused though. You said we’d talk about it again, but… he’s someone who will never permit it. The chairman.”

“I’ll handle that.”

“…”

Taejun concluded the conversation with clarity and arrogance, as if putting a final stamp on approval documents.

It was a terribly clean certainty that wouldn’t allow even the slightest variable.

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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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