So You Knew Me All Along

It was the very instant Tae-kyung tilted his head to capture her lips.

He faltered, then swallowed down his aching desire and spoke in a low, sunken voice.

"Go home. That's enough."

A vivid flush of anger stood out on Tae-kyung's forehead as he let her shoulders fall from his hands.

But Seo-ah could not understand him at all.

Wasn't this what Kang Tae-kyung wanted? He's the one who told me to try whatever it took.

"I said go."

Only when that low voice scraped past her throat like a blade did the startled Seo-ah manage to respond.

"……I'm sorry?"

Her eyes were still brimming with tears.

Tae-kyung squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying not to see the desperation swimming in them.

"Have I……."

He forced down the emotion surging up inside him for a long moment, then spoke again.

"Have I ever wanted anyone badly enough to sleep with them out of pity?"

His gaze, lifted with effort, settled on her.

"How can you say something like that so casually……."

"Director!"

Seo-ah grabbed at him urgently, but it was no use.

Tae-kyung swept up every bill he'd thrown across the table and crammed the lot into the small bag she'd brought with her.

"Just hear me out. Please?"

Ignoring the way she clung to him, Tae-kyung seized her wrist and pulled her along.

"Director, please!"

Wrenching her hand free, Seo-ah crumpled to the floor and clung to his leg.

"Just once. Give me one more chance. Please? I'll do better. I'll really try, Director!"

What is she so pitiful and pathetic about.

Chewing at his lip, his face twisted — and then, as if some final thread of reason had snapped, Tae-kyung hauled her roughly to her feet.

"If you want it that badly, fine. Let's do it. Sex."

He grabbed her slender wrist with rough force and headed straight for the bedroom.

Then he shoved her down onto the bed and climbed over her body in a single motion.

"How exactly would you 'do well'? Do you even know anything? You'll do whatever I tell you, is that it? Huh?!"

Before that coldly blazing fury, Seo-ah hurriedly pushed herself up on her elbows and looped her arms around his neck.

Then she took his lower lip between her own.

"What are you……"

Tae-kyung's words never made it any further.

Her small tongue had already slipped past his guard and into his mouth.

What the—!

It was a reversal he had never expected.

"I'm…… sorry I'm still so clumsy at this."

Face flushed crimson, eyes heavy-lidded and dazed, the neckline of her dress now slipping perilously low across the swell of her chest — in that state, Seo-ah began trailing soft kisses across his face, here and there, as if to soothe his fury.

"Please…… calm down, Director."

"Ha……."

A ragged groan escaped Tae-kyung.

On the forehead of the woman who gazed up at him so steadily, breathing out her sweet fragrance, beads of nervous sweat had gathered one by one without her noticing.

What if I just…… took her like this? Pried open those red, plump lips and devoured that little tongue that had wandered through my mouth a moment ago?

And then — what kind of moan would come spilling out of Jin Seo-ah's mouth?

He was tracing her cheeks with his fingers, lost in that heavy, lingering fantasy, when—

"Shall I…… take it off now?"

"What?"

"My dress. I'll take it off."

Left alone, this woman really would go all the way.

"Ha, seriously……."

His trousers were already straining to their limit.

But he let out the sigh that escaped him despite himself, took her by the arms, and sat her up on the bed.

"……Director?"

Tae-kyung pretended not to hear her.

He gathered the straps of her slip dress, which had slid completely off her shoulders, and eased them back into place.

Then he picked up her bag for her, took hold of her wrist, and walked to the door of the suite.

"From now on, find yourself some other kind of work. No matter how generously I look at it, you've got no talent for this."

Tae-kyung opened the door and, at long last, pushed her out into the corridor.

"D-Director, wait—! Director!"

SLAM!

And so the door to Kang Tae-kyung's suite shut for good.

"Director, please. Please……?"

Cast out of the room, Seo-ah called out any number of times more, but not a single sound came from within.

A thousand thoughts raced through her head.

Had I been too forward? Had banking everything on Se-yeon's word, playing up my virginity like that, come off too cheap?

Or was the problem that I kept flinching, comparing him at every turn to the Kang Tae-kyung I'd seen at the funeral — finding myself silently denying the man from Se-yeon's stories without even realizing it?

Why on earth did I hesitate over some trifling connection that meant nothing? If I was going to get thrown out like an idiot anyway.

"Ha……."

All that left her lips was a sigh brimming with regret and despair.

She had done the very best she could, as much as her desperation allowed — and it had still come to this.

"I ruined everything myself……"

Her legs gave out, and she slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, despairing that the chance she had thrown away would never come twice.

Then the door that had seemed sealed against her burst open without warning.

"Huh?"

Startled, Seo-ah scrambled to her feet.

She had cried so much in the meantime that her mascara had smeared into a dark blur around the edges of her eyes.

Tae-kyung stood in the doorway holding a jacket, tilting his head as though something about the sight displeased him.

Tsk. He clicked his tongue in irritation, tossed the jacket over her head, and shut the door again.

"……?"

Dragging the jacket down off her head and upper body, she gripped it in both hands and simply stood there, utterly bewildered.

"Why would he……"

Why had he suddenly covered her with his jacket?

Before she could even begin to puzzle out his intentions, the door swung open once more.

"I give you a jacket to wear, and you just carry it around?"

"I'm sorry?"

With a short exhale through his nose, he snatched the jacket back, shook it out, and smoothed the wrinkles flat.

"The air's still chilly and you came out here without a single coat? Walking around at this hour dressed like that — you were asking for trouble."

Tae-kyung draped the jacket over her shoulders and turned the collar up around her neck.

"……"

Still unable to grasp why he was doing any of this, Seo-ah could only blink.

"And you call yourself capable of work. Unbelievable."

At the sight of her, Tae-kyung let out a hollow laugh and shook his head in resignation.

"Come with me."

Taking the wrist that hung swallowed in his jacket sleeve, he headed for the elevator.

Midway there, he lifted her wrist slightly to look at it and gave a faint frown.

Then he simply kept walking without a word.

Watching behavior she couldn't begin to fathom, Seo-ah had no choice but to follow in silence.

So that she wouldn't be cast aside a second time.

And the next time she came back to herself, they were already in the underground parking garage.

Only when they reached the black luxury sedan parked at the far end did Tae-kyung release her wrist.

He opened the passenger door and said, with no small trace of annoyance,

"What are you standing there staring at? Get in. It's cold."

"Oh — yes!"

Seo-ah answered at full volume and climbed into the car.

Only then did Tae-kyung settle into the driver's seat with a weary expression.

"Give me your address."

At his question as he worked the navigation system, Seo-ah blinked at him blankly.

"I'm driving you home, so call out your address."

At this abrupt change in his behavior, unease washed over her all over again.

"Why? Why all of a sudden……"

"Because you're getting on my nerves."

"I'm sorry?"

"Lin. Ha……"

Tae-kyung let out an exasperated groan and squeezed his eyes shut.

Then, a moment later, he murmured quietly,

"I really can't keep up with you."

Heaving another sigh, he turned his gaze on her.

"Look here, Ms. Jin Seo-ah."

BOOM!

At the sound of her own name, called without the slightest warning, her heart plummeted to the very bottom of that parking garage.

So great was the shock that even pressing both hands over her mouth couldn't stifle her ragged breathing.

"We go way back, you and I. You got caught. Simple as that."

Her eyes, blown wide open, shook without mercy.

"You recognized me from the very start. Didn't you?"

"Director, I — that is……"

"Why are you doing this to me? What are you hoping to get out of this? Do you seriously work there — at that kind of place? You, Jin Seo-ah, doing work like that?"

"I didn't…… I didn't know. I never dreamed for a second that you'd recognize me, so……"

Under the barrage of his questions, fired off like rounds from a machine gun, Seo-ah could hardly answer any of them.

The corners of Tae-kyung's mouth twisted.

"Is that why you acted so desperate? Why? For what? Did you really need the money? Or what exactly is going on between you and Director Seo? Are you a spy?"

"No! No, it's not like that……"

Flustered, Seo-ah finally just bowed her head.

Right up until the moment he'd thrown her out, she had never once noticed that he'd recognized her.

Since when? Since when had he known — and pretended not to?

Or had he, rather, thrown her out because he'd recognized her?

Because of their history. Because even a person you'd only glimpsed once could count as someone you knew. And because it made it that much easier to haul out the moral yardstick.

And what does he know, anyway……

In that instant, a bitter, self-mocking laugh and a surge of shame rose up in her together.

Because she could not deny, even to herself, that this kind of thinking was nothing more than denial — a defense mechanism against the shame of what she had done.