Unhealthy - Chapter 6

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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 6. Impulsive Kiss

“…It doesn’t hurt anymore, right? Are you okay?”

At Hae-yeong’s question as she naturally reached out to touch his forehead, Taejun’s brow furrowed instantly.

“School.”

He said curtly.

“Don’t you need to drink water?”

The two were having completely different conversations.

The dim flickering of the incandescent bulb illuminated them.

Taejun felt that her questions were making him even more uncomfortable.

“Go, now.”

Though Taejun spoke coldly, Hae-yeong immediately rejected that command.

“I don’t want to.”

Taejun’s eyebrows twitched subtly.

“Then do whatever you want.”

At that short answer, Hae-yeong hesitated and looked at Taejun’s face.

Tears welled up again in the eyes of Hae-yeong, who bit her lips tightly.

“You were really mean.”

Her voice was small, but the emotion contained within it was enough to shake him.

“How scared I was, how frightened I was…”

Tears finally spilled from Hae-yeong’s bloodshot red eyes.

The unstoppable waves of emotion continued to wash over her.

“I…”

As Hae-yeong was about to continue speaking, suddenly rough fingertips that still carried a cold air touched her eyelids.

“I understand, so stop crying.”

Surprised, Hae-yeong raised her head and her gaze met with Taejun’s as he quietly looked down at her.

Her eyes were like the dawn sky tinged with blue light, or like the deep blue sea.

“Are you really okay?”

Hae-yeong asked with a barely trembling voice. Her hand still couldn’t leave his face.

Their gazes became deeply entangled.

Her round forehead, her blue eyes like a transplanted sea, her nose bridge rising at just the right angle, her lips that appeared slightly darker from being wet with tears – all came into view one by one.

“You need to leave now.”

What kind of disgusting thoughts was he having about a kid he’d known since childhood.

Taejun was disgusted with himself.

Hae-yeong didn’t even move.

“Don’t provoke me like that.”

Her touch was excessively gentle. It was careful and warm like the first snow falling on frozen ground.

“I don’t hate you, oppa.”

Taejun’s chest tightened strangely.

He couldn’t understand An Hae-yeong, who wouldn’t fall away no matter how much he pushed her.

At this point, she should be angry from wounded pride, but why.

Why, you.

Taejun grabbed the hand that was caressing his cheek.

“It’s troublesome if you carelessly touch a man without knowing how scary they can be.”

His voice was low and quiet, but somehow languid and precarious.

Hae-yeong felt her hand caught in his grip and pressed her lips tightly together.

However, her gaze didn’t waver.

“What happens if I touch you?”

Hae-yeong’s voice was quiet, but it contained a challenge deeper than fear.

It was a ridiculous provocation. When Hae-yeong first set foot in this house, she was nothing but a little thing, and that thought remained unchanged even now.

But, why.

Why are you saying such nonsense and provoking people?

What would you do if I just charged at you?

Just stepping outside this house, there are countless bastards with heads full of garbage thoughts, so why does this house’s little puppy An Hae-yeong have not even a grain of wariness.

Acting so cheaply toward a bastard with a rotten mental state – does she really not know what kind of treatment she might receive?

Taejun’s pupils slowly dilated.

Hae-yeong neither pushed Taejun away nor shook off his touch.

Instead, she moved her body closer and asked.

“What… happens.”

Taejun’s languidly scattered eyelids closed and opened as he gripped her hand even more tightly.

The warmth of the small hand felt in his grip subtly shook him.

He pressed his body close as if he was about to place his lips on hers.

The pain from his wound was clearly expressed on his face, but he didn’t stop.

Just when their lips were about to touch, Taejun stopped moving and lifted his closed eyes.

“This is what happens.”

Thud.

Their lips touched.

A silence as if even the air had stopped enveloped the space between them.

Taejun’s face crumpled fiercely, not having expected that what started as an attempt to frighten her would continue so absurdly.

But in that instant, her warmth seeped in like wind brushing past his ear.

“I will.”

Hae-yeong swallowed her dry saliva and continued.

“I won’t run away.”

She shouldn’t have done that.

He shouldn’t have been swayed by the provocation of a fearless, reckless girl.

He pressed his index finger against Hae-yeong’s forehead as she tried to touch lips again, pushing her away.

“Don’t crawl up to me.”

Taejun slowly lowered his eyes and added his next words.

“If you crawl up to me one more time, I really won’t go easy on you then.”

Whether she properly heard that deadly warning or not, Hae-yeong just looked at him with an innocent face.

It felt like the end of a rope he’d been holding was slipping away.

He was the one who had grabbed and shaken it, but it seemed like he was the one who had been shaken instead.

***

Taejun didn’t notice the natural changes as warm spring passed, sweltering summer went by, autumn with its beautiful colored leaves swept past, and winter came.

Seasonal changes were meaningless to Taejun’s eyes. Everything looked equally colorless. But after that kid entered the house, he began to see the colors of the seasons.

An Hae-yeong, who was picked up as if rescued from a pile of trash, was quite uncomfortable living as a dependent in someone else’s house, but she wasn’t completely unable to adapt.

Compared to the environment she had lived in, she was untroubled as a person and optimistic, which made Hae-yeong rather fascinating to Taejun. It was true that he had watched her grow remarkably with each changing season.

For him, who had never found any pleasure in life, An Hae-yeong was quite an interesting spectacle.

Every time she quietly avoided his gaze, Taejun felt a strangely suppressed emotion.

It was like groping through empty air without being able to find the end of a broken thread.

Though he had placed her there with his own hands, he couldn’t shake off his anxiety for even a moment.

If Hae-yeong’s determination to somehow survive by settling down should ever turn into rebelliousness and she left the house, all the plans he had proposed to Gi Chairman could fall apart.

Meanwhile, though quite a long time had passed since Hae-yeong had asked him for help, she hadn’t brought up independence again or pestered him about it since the basement incident.

During this time, Taejun was assigned to Je-won Group’s management support department and was incredibly busy.

Overtime became routine, and the quiet of the night roads on his way home made his head even noisier.

That day was also a late evening homecoming. While passing between the high-end villas with sparse streetlights, a familiar shadow caught his eye.

The scenery visible through the car window was a mixture of winter night’s characteristic blue light and dark gray, cold and quiet.

Among it all, Taejun gazed for a moment at a particularly shining shadow.

It was Hae-yeong.

Taejun parked his car by the roadside and hesitated for a moment.

Should he get out, or should he just pass by.

While briefly contemplating, Gi Jae-jun came into view approaching the shadow with light footsteps. Taejun watched his blood relative, whose thoughts and actions were excessively frivolous, with expressionless eyes.

In his hands were two canned drinks.

“Just like a damn mutt.”

Taejun took out a cigarette from his cigarette case and slowly rolled down the window.

After lighting it and taking a deep drag of smoke, Taejun shifted his gaze to An Hae-yeong’s face.

Her shoulders looked smaller as if they had grown thinner, and a faint fatigue lingered on her expressionless face.

“I failed, so now she’ll probably cling to Gi Jae-jun and ask for favors. Vulgarly offering her body in the process.”

Taejun muttered briefly while holding his cigarette.

He knew that the people working in the house subtly looked down on Hae-yeong.

For instance, until she came to university, there were occasions that required adult participation like parent-teacher conferences, but An Hae-yeong never once asked anyone in the household for help.

However, Taejun had already been having people report on An Hae-yeong’s daily routine for a long time.

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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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