Chapter 141: If There Were Two [R-18]

Even as they left the department store and were about to go their separate ways, Seojin insisted she would at least send him the money, but Woo-chan blocked her path with his hand.

“This is the price for my meddling.”

The world outside had grown dark. The earrings she wore still rested on her earlobes, their weight neither heavy nor light.

Standing before her front door, Seojin curled her toes. She leaned her back against the wall, lowered her head, and slowly touched one of the earrings.

“Wouldn’t it weigh on your mind less if there were two of them?”

His words echoed in her head again.

Is it… really okay to accept this?

After taking a moment to steady her breath, just before stepping inside, Seojin finally opened the case, carefully removed the earrings, and placed them in the small jewelry box.

Click. With the sound of the lid closing, her freedom was shut away once more.

But when she opened the door and entered, she couldn’t find him anywhere in the house.

“Rio… Rio?”

No answer came.

The house was far too quiet, and the scent of his cigarettes and cologne was faint.

She stood there for a long time.

Clutching the strap of the shopping bag in her hand, she felt no need to call his name again. The words caught in her throat and were swallowed.

Eventually, Seojin headed to the master bedroom. Their space.

The place where he had first put earrings on her, and where, night after night, she became entangled with him and had everything taken from her.

Seojin considered placing the shopping bag in the powder room, but then, as if possessed, she opened the door to the walk-in closet.

She gazed at the earrings Rio had first given her, still neatly placed on the display shelf designed just for her.

Two pairs of earrings from the same brand… with similar designs.

Rio’s absence did more than simply empty the house; it left her very existence suspended in a void. He didn’t return, even as dawn approached.

And so, Seojin’s words were silently swallowed with no one to hear them.

Outside the window, the sky had begun to pale.

Seojin reached out and checked the time on her phone. 6:23 AM.

There was still an hour until her alarm would go off. But knowing she would only be more tired if she fell back asleep, Seojin slowly sat up, her eyes still hazy as if not fully awake from her dreams.

Her disheveled hair and slip rustled softly.

As she quietly placed her feet on the floor, thinking of getting a glass of water, her eyes widened slightly at a familiar scent.

…The smell of cigarettes.

“…When did you get in?”

Her voice was raspy, her mouth dry. Rio, who was sitting in the living room, turned his head.

He was lounging on the sofa with his legs crossed. He raised the hand holding his cigarette and smiled faintly.

“Just now.”

There was no mention of where he had been last night or who he had been with. Seojin’s gaze briefly brushed across the collar of his shirt.

A faint, rose-colored mark.

She approached him from behind, stopping quietly behind the sofa with the backrest between them. She brought her face to his fingertips as he casually held out his hand.

His hand caressed her cheek. Seojin closed her eyes and let out a long breath.

“…Sleep well?”

Rio asked tenderly in his characteristically low voice.

He thought nothing of caressing her face to greet the morning, his hands still carrying the touch of another woman.

Seojin did not open her eyes.

Crunch.

After an early shower to wake herself up, Seojin took a bite of freshly made toast.

She chewed for a moment before lifting the coffee cup beside her. The bitter aroma of freshly brewed machine coffee seeped onto her tongue.

Rio, lying on the living room sofa scrolling through his phone, remained silent. His eyes were open, but his indifferent gaze seemed to be fixed on some point in the previous day.

“Are you sure you don’t want any?”

At Seojin’s cautious question, Rio answered curtly without looking up from his phone.

“I drank too much yesterday. An empty stomach is better.”

“…Okay.”

Seojin pressed her lips together slightly. The silence was too awkward to try and start another conversation.

As if he didn’t have a care in the world in his own home, he stood up and began to unbutton his shirt, one by one.

Perhaps because of the air purifier, the air was thick with a mixture of perfume, alcohol, and cigarette smoke.

Once the bathroom door closed and the sound of the shower started, Seojin quietly remained at the dining table and finished the last piece of toast.

She set her cup down and let out another low sigh.

She silently chose her work clothes and changed. A simple, solid-colored shirt and a modest H-line skirt.

A curated and tidy neatness. After composing herself out of habit, she glanced at the bathroom he had entered. It was clear he was soaking in a hot bath to relieve his fatigue.

Her guess was correct. Steam was seeping from under the door. Rio was submerged halfway in the tub, his head tilted back and his eyes quietly closed.

His slow breaths rippled across the water’s surface. Seojin turned and walked away without so much as a small goodbye.

Passing through the powder room, she headed for the walk-in closet.

Looking down at the display case, she saw his earrings on the first row.

And on top of the display case was this—the gift she had received from another man last night.

Seojin paused for a moment and took a small breath. Then, she slowly reached out her hand.

She opened the small case. Inside lay a pair of earrings with two delicately shining silver lines.

He had told her not to treat them as precious but to wear them casually. It would only be polite to wear them at least once to show him.

Seojin swept her hair to one side and put on the earrings in front of the mirror.

Click—

The quiet sensation of them fastening to her earlobes.

The earrings, a blend of restraint and elegance, were beautiful as they dangled beside the long line of her neck, but her expression was nearly blank.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror for a moment.

Then, expressionlessly, she took another quiet breath.

By the time she came out of the walk-in closet, Rio was out of the bathroom. He stood for a moment in the hallway, the heat still clinging to his body wrapped in a robe.

He was looking at his phone, a damp heat rising to his neck, when his eyes met hers.

But for Rio, there was something else besides her gaze. Something sparkling caught his eye between the long, dark strands of hair beside her face.

He said nothing and simply gestured for her to come closer.

As Seojin approached, he raised a hand and tucked her hair behind her ear.

The silver earring that hung just below her earlobe came into view.

—This season’s line.

For him, giving gifts to his women was a daily affair. With his keen eye for fashion, he recognized that the design hanging from her ear was different from the curved one he remembered giving her.

An unfamiliar earring… on her, a woman who had no interest in adornment.

He lowered his hand and slowly raised an eyebrow. Then, he just laughed it off.

“They look good.”

His hand traced down her jawline and lightly brushed her neck.

“You look a little different today.”

Seojin briefly lowered her gaze.

It seemed Rio hadn’t recognized them. A sense of relief washed over her, but it wasn’t theft or fraud, and she couldn’t quite name the feeling.

“…Yes.”

The earrings remained on Seojin’s ears all day.

They weren’t like clothes, which one had to wear to cover their body.

It was her first time wearing such an expensive accessory to the office, and it felt strange. During the short moments walking down the hallways between meeting rooms or making coffee in the break room.

Whenever someone’s gaze drifted even slightly below her neckline, Seojin would subtly lower her head, trying to cover the earrings with her hair.

No one was actually staring at her, but even the most casual glances, which normally went unnoticed, felt sharper today.

I feel like… they keep looking at them.

The gaze of her team leader, the eyes of the associate from a partner company who asked a simple question after a meeting—it felt as if they all skimmed past the space just below her earlobes.

Rio said nothing. His reaction from that morning was all there was.

After that, he acted as he always did, with his usual tone and expression, sometimes winking when their eyes met as he glanced at her.

…It was a definite improvement over the distress from his escapades the night before.

She found herself in front of the bathroom mirror, a place that had become a frequent refuge today. Seojin tilted her head slightly to look at the side of her face.

When she pushed back her long hair, the earring was clearly visible.

“……”

What if she dropped it? What if it got scratched? The thoughts spiraled, but in the end, she looked at her reflection, pressed her lips together, and nodded.

“If you leave it, it’s simply left behind.”

She decided to just let it be, as Woo-chan had said.

To pretend not to care. To get used to a day where such things happened.

She didn’t run into Woo-chan at the office.

A part of Seojin wanted to show him that she was wearing his gift, but she never had a reason to leave Rio’s side, and Woo-chan had no desire to see Rio outside of work.

Besides, it wasn’t like Woo-chan to speak to his secretary, Seojin, about personal matters in a professional space like the office.

Ultimately, it would have to be a meeting after work.

Coming out of the changing room, Seojin walked toward him as he waited in the lobby, wearing the gift that had captured her attention all day instead of Rio.

Translated By: Meher (RaidenTL)

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