Chapter 4.2

Chapter 4.2

At Gukyun’s casual reply, Heeju turned her head to look at him. Now that she noticed, he was only wearing a silk robe over his bare body. The robe, a deep ash color, clung softly to his large, imposing frame, matching the color of his eyes.

“Why am I… here?”

“Don’t you remember? You collapsed yesterday. Malnutrition.”

Gukhyun chuckled as if he found it amusing, grabbed Heeju’s wrist and pulled her towards him. Her entire arm followed limply.

“Planning to starve to death this time?”

He said, playing with her pale, slender wrist. Despite looking like someone with cold blood running through his veins, his hands were surprisingly warm.

His calloused fingertips gently caressed the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist. Heeju, suddenly feeling a wave of dizziness, responded in a weary voice.

“Does it matter?”

“It matters a hell of a lot.”

“What’s it to you? Are you my dad or something?”

“If I shove my d!`ck inside you, won’t that make me a bastard?”

“….”

Heeju was speechless, her words stuck in her throat. What kind of person was this? She had never met someone like him before.

“If you like a bastard, I’ll play along.”

At Gukhyun’s words, Heeju involuntarily recalled yesterday’s memories. The sound of his rough, wet squelches lingered vividly in her ears.

“I think that’s enough already…”

“Is it?”

Gukhyun smiled slyly and suddenly tightened his grip. Heeju winced and instinctively yanked her hand away from his. The spot where he had grabbed her throbbed and quickly turned red with his handprint.

“What the hell, that hurts.”

Heeju glared at Gukhyun, clutching her reddened wrist. She suspected that he had tried to break her wrist. If she hadn’t pulled away, it probably would have snapped in two.

“I thought you enjoyed the pain.”

Gukhyun’s eyes seemed to ask, “Isn’t that right?” before he pulled Heeju’s hand back towards him. Then, with a mockingly gentle gesture, he blew softly on the reddened skin.

Giving the disease and the cure, huh?

As Heeju looked at him with an incredulous expression, he lightly pressed his lips to her wrist, his eyes locking onto hers.

“Baby.”

His unusually vivid pupils gleamed with a dark light. The terrifyingly captivating sanpaku eyes. Heeju could now vaguely understand the old saying about meeting a tiger in the deep mountains and freezing in place at the sight of its piercing gaze.

“I know you want to die because you’re tired of living and life sucks.”

“…”

“But even if you die, you should pay off your sister’s debt first.”

As Gukhyun released her hand, Heeju’s arm dropped limply to her side. A strange ringing began to gnaw at her inner ear. She thought only her head was messed up, but now even her ears were acting up. Heeju stared at Gukhyun with unfocused eyes.

Was it 200 million? No, 300 million?

This mysterious man had suddenly appeared and saved her from what could have been a fatal situation, all because of her sister’s debt. Why had her sister taken out a loan from a loan shark in the first place?

After her sister’s death, the hardest thing for Heeju to bear was realizing that she knew almost nothing about her sister. She had believed that as long as they had each other, everything would be fine. Her own complacency now seemed horrifying.

Why didn’t you tell me anything? How could you leave me and die alone?

She had so many questions, but there was no one left to answer them.

“I went through the trouble of saving you, and now you’re refusing to eat and being uncooperative. Don’t you think that makes me feel a bit hurt?”

“Are you pissed because my sister borrowed money from you and then just died?”

“You can pay it back, so why would I be pissed?”

“So you locked me up here to make me pay off the debt?”

At Heeju’s words, Gukhyun rubbed his forehead and let out a low chuckle.

“Don’t be naive. If I wanted to lock you up, I wouldn’t be treating you this nicely.”

His deep ash-colored eyes scanned Heeju arrogantly. He wasn’t wrong. Since coming here, Heeju had been living a peaceful and lazy life.

It was only yesterday that she learned his name was Kwon Gukhyun, that he was a relentless man who could stitch up his own flesh without anesthesia, without flinching, and that he was crazy enough to m@st!rbat3 in front of others without a care.

“What I’m doing isn’t imprisonment, it’s protection. If I leave you alone, you’ll just crawl out and dive into the sea again, won’t you?”