Unhealthy - Chapter 56

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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 56. Mutual Virginity

Around the same time, inside the managing director’s office at Jiwon Group headquarters.

Taejun, who was conducting a brief meeting with Secretary Lee, kept glancing at the time instead of looking at the documents.

Finally, when he was practically burying his nose in his phone screen, Secretary Lee, who had been silently reading the report, couldn’t stand it anymore and spoke up.

“Instead of doing that, why don’t you contact her first?”

Taejun’s brow furrowed instantly as he had been unable to concentrate throughout the meeting, fidgeting with his phone in his palm.

“What did I do?”

“You’ve been looking at your phone the whole time.”

“I’m expecting a call from somewhere.”

“She went to school, just now.”

“Really…?”

Even though Taejun hadn’t even mentioned who he was talking about, when Secretary Lee suddenly reported Hae-yeong’s whereabouts in detail, he cleared his throat awkwardly and turned his head away to overcome his embarrassment. Secretary Lee’s perceptiveness, seeing right through him, felt particularly uncomfortable today.

“Oh, would you like to go see those houses I told you to look into?”

“It’s not a house for me to live in, so Hae-yeong should see it.”

“Then you can look at them together on her way home from school later.”

“…I suppose so.”

When Taejun acted indifferently as if talking about someone else’s business, Secretary Lee pursed his lips and made a displeased expression.

“Why are you making that face?”

“Well, it’s just… you seem a bit dishonest.”

“Me? In what way and how?”

“Yes. Just, you know, if you like her, say you like her, if you miss her, say you miss her. How nice would it be if you expressed yourself more openly? I know it’s difficult given your personality, but it’s frustrating for everyone watching.”

At Secretary Lee’s pointed criticism, Taejun was momentarily at a loss for words and fell into contemplation.

His face reflected in the window felt unfamiliar. For someone who had lived his entire life hiding and deceiving, transparent emotional expression was the most difficult problem in the world.

“Young people these days are like that. They prefer certainty rather than push and pull. Hae-yeong is probably waiting too.”

At Secretary Lee’s words, Taejun pretended to be nonchalant and shifted his gaze to the documents, but his mind was already filled with scenes of the campus where Hae-yeong would be walking.

He had written to contact him if she missed him, but admitting that he was actually the one waiting for contact was truly embarrassing.

Taejun eventually put his phone face down and tried to continue the meeting with a deliberately stern voice.

***

Hae-yeong, who had lost track of time while catching up on her studies, only left the library when the closing announcement was made.

While massaging her stiff neck and stretching lazily, Hae-yeong checked her phone out of habit and froze in place.

“Oh, it’s already ten o’clock.”

She had planned to contact him first around the time Taejun would finish work, but she had been so absorbed in the pressure of final exams that she didn’t realize how much time had passed.

Hurriedly calling Taejun while walking briskly across the campus through the night air, a long shadow overlapped with hers under the streetlight.

When startled Hae-yeong quickly turned around, Taejun was silently following behind her with his phone to his ear, as if he had been standing there from the beginning.

“Yes, I answered the phone.”

At his leisurely appearance answering the phone with one hand in his pocket, Hae-yeong opened her mouth and asked back.

“…What, what is this.”

“I guess you finally started missing me. Seeing as you’re calling when it’s almost ten o’clock.”

When Taejun showed a deliberately hurt expression, Hae-yeong shook her head vigorously and whispered through the receiver she hadn’t hung up yet.

“If I called every time I missed you, Gi Taejun’s phone would catch fire.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.”

At Taejun’s answer, Hae-yeong lifted her phone to press the end call button, took a step closer, and looked up at him as she asked. His eyes, visible through his hair slightly disheveled by the night breeze, were particularly deep and affectionate.

“How did you come?”

“By car.”

“No… I mean, why did such a busy person come all the way to school?”

“After work, waiting for my girlfriend on the way home from work is common, isn’t it? I heard this is what people usually do.”

“G-g-g-girlfriend?”

Hae-yeong was so startled that she severely stuttered. She never dreamed that the word ‘girlfriend’ would flow so naturally from Taejun’s mouth.

“…Isn’t that right?”

At the strange anxiety mixed in his voice, Hae-yeong swallowed quietly.

The man who was always confident and cold was looking at her with eyes hoping for confirmation over just one word.

“We’re not… officially dating or anything. Just, we’ve always needed something from each other… that’s all we’ve shared.”

“What does officially dating mean? Do we need to write a contract? Or should I get it notarized?”

“Well… I don’t know either. You would know better. You must have dated many women.”

“I haven’t.”

Taejun’s answer was firm and without hesitation. Like his work style that allowed no margin of error, his answer was also without unnecessary words.

Hae-yeong looked at him with suspicious eyes.

She couldn’t believe that such a perfect man had been alone, rejecting all the countless temptations in that fierce social circle and business world.

“…Liar.”

“You’re the only woman in my entire life. You were the first, and probably will be the last.”

Taejun’s unexpected confession settled heavily into Hae-yeong’s heart through the night air.

At the weight carried in each word he uttered, Hae-yeong caught her breath for a moment, then as if enchanted, she also blurted out a confession.

“Me too. You’re my first too, oppa.”

At Hae-yeong’s answer, a very slow smile spread across Taejun’s previously indifferent face.

It was closer to the relief of someone who had received a long-sought answer rather than the leisure of a victor.

“Ah, mutual virginity.”

“…Hey, why would you say such things in a place like this.”

Hae-yeong blushed and looked around.

Although there were no students passing by due to the late hour, her heart pounded as if it would burst at Taejun’s explicit word choice.

“No one’s here. And it’s the truth.”

Taejun took another step closer and wrapped his arms around Hae-yeong’s waist.

“Whether it was a forcibly arranged relationship or a tragic connection created by circumstances doesn’t matter anymore. How we started isn’t important.”

Though she had been swept away by the massive and precarious wave that was Gi Taejun and drifted here, she finally felt like she was standing side by side with him on a calm horizon.

“I was thinking of going to look at houses, but it’s too late now.”

“Houses? Oh, the house I’m going to live in… that’s fine, I can look at it alone. You’re busy.”

“If I leave it to Hae-yeong, you’ll probably get scammed again.”

“What happens if I get scammed?”

“You’ll die, by my hand. The scammer will die, and you’ll get in trouble for being scammed.”

At Taejun’s half-joking threat, Hae-yeong burst into laughter. Then, remembering the bandage wrapped around his waist, she looked up at him with a deliberately stern expression.

“Always getting stabbed and going around. Who are you going to kill?”

“You’re right.”

“Did you take your medicine? The one the hospital said to take twice a day.”

“I took it.”

“You take good care of yourself even without me.”

When she was at the hospital, Hae-yeong had even set phone alarms to remind Taejun to take his medicine every hour. But now that they had returned to their respective daily lives, even such small acts of care felt like a luxury, and she felt secretly disappointed.

“So I can get better quickly.”

“…Oh, that.”

Hae-yeong rolled her eyes for a moment, then realized it was what she had said that night when she had clung to him crying while holding his hand when he was asleep.

She had thought Taejun was asleep, but apparently he had heard everything she said even in that confused state.

“It didn’t mean anything special. That was just… habitual worry, so don’t misunderstand.”

“I didn’t misunderstand.”

“Actually, I was worried…”

When Taejun agreed too easily, Hae-yeong became embarrassed instead and belatedly confessed the truth.

Fidgeting with the hem of his clothes, Hae-yeong added.

“If oppa never opened your eyes again, I was going to die with you. Because I’m sick and tired of being left alone.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who’s going to die?”

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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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