Chapter 134: A Twenty-Year-Old’s Shifting Baseline [R-18]

“He said he’d be right here…”

Seojin’s voice grew small without her realizing it.

Woo-chan, flipping through his tablet, gave a slight nod but didn’t offer a proper reply. Instead, he let out a short sigh that seemed to say, Tell me about it.

Several more meetings had passed since then. The conference room, which she had meticulously prepared, was devoid of even quiet music.

There was only the hum of the ventilation fan, the ticking of the clock’s second hand, and Seojin’s gaze, which kept darting away in the awkwardness.

“……”

The silence made it even more uncomfortable.

She had gone looking for Rio earlier, but he’d just kept smoking, saying it was best to spend as little time as possible with a stiff like that, showing no intention of coming down.

The text she’d received today after asking when he would arrive was much the same.

[Rio]
Just one more stick.

Seojin lightly clenched and unclenched the hands resting on her lap before speaking awkwardly.

“Um, you… you work out, right?”

Woo-chan looked up. His eyes were a clear, dark black, and they watched her from beneath thin eyelids with a calm, observant gaze.

“…Yes.”

It was a short answer, but it wasn’t a rejection. Seojin forced a smile, trying to dispel the silence that had only grown stranger.

“I was just curious about your routine. Someone with a frame… as good as yours… um, do you have a personal trainer or something…?”

If she were still a man, it might have seemed like genuine interest in his muscles. But coming from the Seojin of today, the words sounded like a clumsy attempt at flirting. Woo-chan let out a very brief laugh through his nose, almost like a snort.

So artless.

“A bit of everything. This line of work requires stamina.”

“Ah…”

Embarrassed, Seojin lowered her head. Her fingers kept tracing the handle of her mug. Forgetting it was empty, she brought the cup to her lips again, only to put it down when she felt nothing but its lingering warmth.

After a short pause, Woo-chan spoke quietly.

“You haven’t been doing your morning runs lately, have you?”

Seojin’s head snapped up with a start. She stared at him, her eyes wide like a startled rabbit’s.

“Huh, that… How did you…”

Woo-chan didn’t answer right away. Instead, he closed his tablet, set down his pen, and said, “Our routes are similar. I used to see you running all the time… but I haven’t seen you lately.”

Seojin bit her lip and looked away.

She hadn’t even been running for that long, and now she felt ashamed for looking like she had no willpower after bringing up the topic of workout routines.

“Ah… Right, that’s…”

She folded her hands on her lap.

“I switched to swimming recently…”

Her voice trailed off, sounding like an excuse. She wanted to find a hole to crawl into and hide her burning face.

“Swimming is good, too. Better for the joints.”

There was a line between them that he didn’t cross.

“Yes…”

Seojin turned the mug in her hands. By now, even the residual warmth had almost completely faded. She felt a sense of relief that she hadn’t made a mistake, thanks to his measured response.

To Woo-chan, what she did wasn’t of any great interest; it just meant she wouldn’t be interfering with his own running routine anymore.

“How has the Junior Director been lately?” Woo-chan asked, crossing his arms as if in thought. The slow breath he exhaled was one of weariness with the man.

“He always seems the same on the days I see him.”

Caught between two men who clearly didn’t get along, Seojin didn’t know how to answer. She mumbled, wetting her lips.

“He’s… healthy, and doing well.”

The moment the words left her mouth, she felt a pang of embarrassment.

Perhaps it was because she knew that wasn’t what he was asking.

“Aren’t you sick of it?”

There were no flowery words, no sarcasm. Just a solid blow hidden behind the polite inquiry.

Seojin blinked, unable to hide her bewilderment. The question was so direct that it struck her more deeply than any emotion could.

“…Huh?”

While she was asking for clarification, Woo-chan uncrossed his arms and glanced at his wristwatch. Time, meanwhile, kept passing.

“You have to give up quite a lot to work with a person like that. Your energy, your emotions. When that repeats… it’s only natural to get sick of it.”

He knew she didn’t have many options, what with Rio’s womanizing and her being bound to him through an auction that was tantamount to servitude. But a person’s heart was their own.

It was a system where a string of nameless women were attached to him in a state of subjugation. And within that system, Seojin had been functioning as Rio’s ‘possession’ for quite some time.

Even so.

She moved as she was told, never questioning a relationship that bordered on a violation of human rights.

Woo-chan didn’t intend to meddle too deeply.

But his words and his gaze carried the weight of what he saw, and the standard of minimal human dignity he believed in.

“Because you’re a person, too.”

Seojin couldn’t say a word.

“—Hey.”

Even as Rio entered right on cue, Seojin simply stood up quietly to greet him, curling her empty fingers into a fist.

“Were you having fun with my secretary?”

In all the time she had been with him, Seojin had never stopped to think about why she accepted all of this so readily.

Once the question was raised, the feeling it brought was too foreign, too frightening. The interruption of that thought was, for her, a great relief.

The meeting proceeded smoothly under Woo-chan’s direction. As always, he was neat and precise, showing no emotional fluctuations.

As someone who also held an American accounting license, he naturally took a leading advisory role in the practical discussions about acquiring overseas properties for the subsidiary—a company that was never intended to be confined to Korea from the start.

Watching Woo-chan, Seojin just continued to take notes quietly.

She didn’t laugh at Rio’s jokes. When he casually tapped her knee or brushed the back of her hand while pretending to look at documents, she merely gave a placid nod.

Woo-chan paid no mind to their dynamic. In fact, it was more accurate to say he was pointedly ignoring it.

Precise figures, estimates, sale timelines, tax benefits.

As the necessary information was exchanged, a part of Seojin’s mind was still tracing the afterimage of the question Woo-chan had asked.

‘Because you’re a person, too.’

That unnecessary comment was now replaying in her mind. Like a song heard for the first time, a melody caught somewhere that unintentionally plays in your head all day.

Aren’t I sick of it? Was I ever a person who could decide such a thing?

“—Secretary Kang?”

Seojin looked up at the sound of Rio’s voice. He flicked his fingers, asking for the documents. She handed them over, neatly arranged in order.

And in that moment, for a brief instant, Woo-chan’s gaze rested not on Rio, but on her hand as she passed the papers, before flickering away.

A short, silent observation.

That alone was enough to make Seojin feel the earlier emotion resurfacing.

Fortunately, the meeting didn’t last long.

With the click of the conference room door shutting, Woo-chan quietly departed.

In his absence, a strangely heavy air remained, though it wasn’t cold.

Seojin paused, her fingertips resting on the documents she was organizing. Rio leaned his chair all the way back, watching her, then slowly approached.

Rio traced the inside of Seojin’s slender wrist with his index finger. His touch moved dispassionately along the path of the veins visible beneath her thin skin.

“Did that stiff give you a hard time while I was gone?”

It wasn’t a truly worried question. Just a remark tossed out in his typical Rio fashion.

Seojin shook her head.

Her lips remained sealed as she held a slightly heated breath. Then, without hesitation, she buried herself in his embrace.

It was something she rarely did during work hours. The documents and pens still lay unorganized on the desk, but Seojin just quietly pressed herself against his chest.

“Whoa there.”

Rio’s hand lightly brushed over her hair.

Seojin just nuzzled against him, burying her face between the buttons of his shirt. His scent, his warmth. And a desperate wish for the words spoken by someone other than him to quickly fade away.

“Just because. I just… wanted to hold you…”

Her voice was small, but her actions spoke with more sincerity. Her small, light face pressed against Rio’s chest, rubbing against him as she moved slowly.

The smell of cigarettes, and the deep, cool scent of a man’s cologne. Rio’s shirt was steeped in all of it.

Seojin closed her eyes, breathing it in, and thought,

I wish my scent… would linger on him, too.

For her, who wore no perfume, it was perhaps a reckless wish. But it was always so easy for Rio’s scent to cling to her.

She thought she’d only had thoughts like this after meeting his other woman for the first time. It was a desire that only brought pain. Something she could neither grasp nor protect.

Our relationship isn’t normal, after all.

The feelings she couldn’t voice were expressed by burying her face deeper into his shirt.

“Is my little secretary getting hot and bothered?”

Soon, Rio’s hand touched the line of her face.

His cool fingers traced her jawline, slowly lifting her head.

The moment their eyes met lasted only a few seconds, but in that brief time, there was a craving and a hunger that even Seojin herself couldn’t comprehend.

As his face drew near, Seojin slowly closed her eyes, and with her small lips, she claimed his, brimming with desperate passion.

Translated By: Meher (RaidenTL)

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