Chapter 22.1

Chapter 22.1

“Would you like to order food? Is there anything you don’t eat?”

“No, I can eat everything.” Goyo scrunched up her nose and took another sip of her drink.

“That’s a relief. Since you didn’t get up, I ordered whatever I wanted.”

Jae-heon leaned towards her, extending his arm. A sharp pain flared where his hand brushed her collarbone.

“You seem to bruise easily.”

“Oh, um… yes.”

As Jae-heon touched the nape of her neck, Goyo recoiled like a turtle retreating into its shell. The spot stung with every graze of his fingers, likely from a forming bruise.

“I didn’t think you’d be this delicate.”

“I do bruise more easily than others.”

Even when Yoon-gun gripped her wrist just a little too hard, it left a bruise.

Sometimes, she found bruises she couldn’t remember getting. In a way, it was a blessing. No matter how insane Lee Yoon-gun was, he never hit the same bruised spot twice.

‘He’ll hit me again.’

The thought of Lee Yoon-gun made her whole body ache.

She had ignored his calls all day. How badly would she get beaten this time? Hopefully, not bad enough to end up in the hospital.

Come to think of it… she was on a call with Lee Yoon-gun. ‘Did I hang up?’

Startled, Goyo rummaged through her bag and pulled out her phone. The sight of the black screen brought a sigh of relief. She must have ended the call unconsciously as she put her phone away.

That was a relief, but then…

[Who the hell are you with right now?]

[Hey Goyo, are you ignoring my calls to chat with some other guy? Is that it, you bitch?!]

[You whore! Who the hell are you screwing around with?!]

“…Sigh.”

Her phone was flooded with messages. Just looking at the chat window, which was essentially Lee Yoon-gun’s emotional garbage dump, made her head throb.

‘They say you can’t ignore your instincts.’

Living like trash, he seemed to have figured out her situation from just the man’s voice he heard before the call ended. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to know who that man was.

Is it fortunate, though? It seems like a big deal either way. With Lee Yoon-gun’s personality, he would never let it slide.

“What’s wrong?” Jae-heon, noticing Goyo’s unusual reaction, paused mid-sip to ask.

“It’s nothing.” Goyo quickly masked her expression. At that, Jae-heon clicked his tongue and resumed drinking. She glanced at him briefly.

The amber liquid flowed through his slightly parted, soft lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed in a sharp, triangular motion.

“What to do?”

The thought slipped out of her frustrated mind. Jae-heon gave a dry laugh and asked,

“Just curious, do you like Lee Yoon-gun?”

“What? N-no, what are you talking about!”

Although Lee Yi-taek had openly declared he would raise her like a daughter, they were not legally related, so misunderstandings were inevitable. Some even bluntly asked if Lee Yi-taek planned to make her his daughter-in-law. To Goyo, it was a horrific and absurd notion.

Jae-heon’s tone was calm and emotionless as if he was merely stating a fact.

But his ice-crunching betrayed his displeasure. The one truly bothered by the misunderstanding was Goyo.

“Lee Yoon-gun and I aren’t like that. Please don’t misunderstand.”

Even as she explained, Goyo couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity. “You saw it back then, didn’t you?”

“At the Han-Young Resort, where Lee Yoon-gun treated me like a dog,” She said.

Even a thoughtless person couldn’t possibly like someone who didn’t see her as a human.

“I have never once thought of Lee Yoon-gun as a man!” Her tone came out sharp.

It wasn’t Jae-heon’s fault, but thinking about her situation made her feel bitter. She knew exactly how she looked in Jae-heon’s eyes. A woman who leeches off someone else’s family and crawls into the bed of a stranger at the behest of her guardian.

“Lee Yoon-gun is… family.” The excuse scratched her throat as if it were filled with thorns.