Sorry
"Sorry"
Guilty: [I'm doing… well, I guess? How about you?]
It had been a truly eventful stretch, but things could finally be called going well.
Guilty: [I moved. To Hayeon City.]
Come see me, then. I miss you.
For a while now? Don't tell me — had she been opening Tender all this time just to check my profile?
"You're way too obsessed with me, you know? We need to respect each other's separate lives too."
That was what I'd said to her on the day we broke up.
Who knew that after the breakup, her obsession would curdle into lingering attachment.
Guilty: [So you were just waiting for me to message first.]
Not just the distance between us — she'd been checking even that.
Guilty: [I didn't know it could do that lol whoa]
Is that how it looked? In truth, I'd stopped logging in about a week after we broke up.
Or more precisely, I couldn't. Because my wife had found out about the affair.
I spent about a minute debating whether to call her "you" or "Yejin" before finally sending my reply.
Guilty: [That's right. After that, I kept going back and forth on whether to reach out to you, Yejin.]
If my memory served, she'd once said she liked being called "Yejin." That I was the first person to ever call her something so tender.
Because I missed you. Because we broke up without so much as a kiss, without even sleeping together, and it gnaws at me.
Guilty: [I wanted to tell you I was sorry.]
Once again, it was Han Yu-jae's public face that had seized control of my fingertips.
Han Yu-jae's inner self was filled with nothing but thoughts of devouring her. Leave the typing to a creature like that, and he was bound to hang himself.
There it was. Her signature move. Or no — should I say, women's signature move?
I served up the answer I'd prepared in advance.
Guilty: [I told you, remember? That it felt like you were hiding too much from me. You kept hiding your phone screen, and you wouldn't show me that novel you were serializing.]
Han Yu-jae's public face had now picked up the weapon known as the empty compliment.
Guilty: [I probably should have shown you. Should have told you about the novel I was writing.]
And that wasn't all. I had a shield called "the lie" ready to go, too.
The novel, sure, that was fair enough. But would she be saying the same thing if she found out what I'd really been hiding — that I was a married man?
The moment her message met my eyes, the conscience slumbering deep in my heart began to smolder awake.
My sin is far beyond what a simple apology could smooth over.
The truth is, back then I was a married man. From the moment I met you, I was already sleeping with two fuck-buddies on the side.
A piece of trash like me is the last person who should ever have met Kim Ye-jin. Someone with no right to meet her at all.
Guilty: [I miss you.]
Han Yu-jae's public face, in the end, trampled that budding sprout of conscience while wearing Satan's winter coat. Thoroughly. Utterly.
Ah. That guileless woman would absolutely run the hundred-odd kilometers between us if she had to.
To fall for me one step further. To be devoured by me.
My sprout of conscience, already torn to shreds, delivered its final words to me.
"Tell her you'll come. To Seoul."
Even Satan has enough decency to honor a dying wish, so I hurriedly began to type.
Guilty: [Then maybe I'll head up to Seou—
Just as I was about to finish typing, Yejin's message arrived first.
Han Yu-jae's conscience, faced with this message, probably couldn't even close its eyes in peace.
Ah. Chaerin told me, didn't she. Don't live like that.
So why was I stepping on the same rake all over again? Is human greed truly limitless, doomed to repeat the same mistakes?
Guilty: [A confession? What kind?]
Oho. Now that was intriguing.
Guilty: [I was actually thinking of heading up to Seoul soon. If I do, you can come visit Hayeon City whenever.]
Guilty: [In the meantime I should get to know Hayeon City better. Gotta show you around when you visit.]
Guilty: [??]
Guilty: [What about work? You can just suddenly take leave like that?]
If I remembered right, she'd been working at a boutique in Hongdae for over three years.
Guilty: [Oh no…]
Guilty: [Sounds good!]
And so the day of reckoning was set — the day after tomorrow.
"Whew…"
I lay down on the bed and let out a long sigh.
My long-awaited meeting with Yejin was all but confirmed, and that filled me with a giddy joy — while at the same time, a worry crept in about whether I might wound her pure-hearted devotion all over again.
Of course, there was one outstandingly effective method I possessed for blowing such worries away in a single stroke. Namely, dirty thoughts.
Say, for instance, recalling the sweet blackberry scent that used to drift faintly from the nape of Yejin's neck.
If I were to trail my lower lip gently along that slender, fragrant throat and press a warm breath into it — what kind of moan would she let out…
Well, the moment my imagination wandered down paths like these, my cock naturally sprang to attention. From that point on, whichever region of the brain had been presiding over worry and anxiety simply found itself short on blood supply.
I hastily yanked down the shorts I was wearing and began to pump my cock.
Yejin's pussy would be tight, no doubt about it. And that type always feels it that much more intensely.
Who knows — I might even be able to train her into my little slave.
Just as I was approaching the edge, my phone buzzed.
[Bzzzzzz― Bzzzzzz― Bzzzzzz―]
Three vibrations or more meant a call, unmistakably… but who on earth would be calling at this hour?
Swallowing hard at the ominous premonition that swept over me, I checked the phone —
'Yeon Ha-jeong'
Ha… this insolent little brat, for real.
"Hello?"
The instant I answered, Ha-jeong launched straight into a coquettish purr.
"Teacherrrr♡"
"Why are you calling me at this hour of night? Shouldn't you be studying?"
"I was studying. Until all that noise kept coming up from downstaiiirs."
"…What?"
No way.
"Teacher, do you happen to… masturbate?"
Unbelievable. Just how shoddily was this dump of a villa built, that the soundproofing was practically nonexistent?
Shock rooted me in place, and for a long while I couldn't answer at all.
"…Thought so♡"
"I was NOT!"
[…I was NOT!]
Had my roar of denial truly been that loud? That it shot straight up through the ceiling, entered Ha-jeong's phone mic, and then echoed back to me through my own speaker a beat later?
"Kyaaa!"
[…Kyaaa!]
Ha-jeong's startled scream likewise struck down from the ceiling first, then reverberated through my phone speaker one beat behind.
So absorbed was I in this genuinely bizarre experience that it took me far too long to remember to be concerned for her.
"…Oh, right. You okay?"
She'd warned me before to be careful with loud noises, since sudden sounds sometimes startled her badly. And I'd gone and flagrantly ignored that warning.
"Sorry…"
Not ten minutes after apologizing to Yejin, and now I was apologizing to Ha-jeong too. Truly, a life full of things to be sorry for.
Ha-jeong had apparently gotten sulky in the meantime, her voice dropping a few degrees.
"…It's fine. I'm the one who teased you first. Anyway — it's confirmed for tomorrow, 7 p.m."
"Huh? What is?"
"Your interview, Teacher. I went ahead and set the subject as math, roughly, so just keep that in mind."
Ah, what on earth am I going to do with this little tyrant.
"See you tomorrow♡"
"Wait, what's that supposed to—! Hey! …Hello?"
Even the timing of hanging up the call was dictated by this despot. The fat Baekdu-bloodline landlady upstairs was surely clicking her tongue in solidarity.
I immediately pounded hard on the bedroom wall. Praying, desperately, that my fury might reach her.
Whereupon my phone buzzed twice. A text message, without a doubt.
Instead of a reply, I heaved out a deep sigh. Even that seemed to reach the apartment above, because a faint ripple of laughter drifted down from the ceiling.
The Han Yu-jae of that moment failed to grasp what that laughter meant. But now, I think I understand. Why she sneered as she looked at me.
That's right. All I ever had to do was refuse.
To say I had no interest in playing the private tutor. To tell her that if she wanted to learn how to write a novel, she should find another teacher. That was all it would have taken.
And yet — why did I get so worked up that I meekly played along with her provocation?
The Han Yu-jae of that moment couldn't even begin to guess the reason.