The Woman Who Needs Comfort
“We… seem to have something we need to talk about.”
The voice was low and clear.
Hye-na lost her words for a moment, then quietly nodded.
She turned to Yeonwoo.
Unable to meet his eyes, she said,
“Oppa… could you give us a little space? No… go inside first. I’ll contact you later.”
Yeonwoo looked at her expression and spoke with a worried tone.
“Are you going to be okay?”
At that, the woman standing by the door curled her lips in a mocking smile.
“What? Afraid I’ll eat your girlfriend alive?”
The words were tossed lightly, but her gaze pressed down on Yeonwoo as if pinning him in place.
Yeonwoo’s face hardened.
Hye-na hurriedly nodded and took his hand.
“I’m fine.”
Yeonwoo bit his lip as if steadying his breath.
He looked at Hye-na once more, then reluctantly nodded.
“Alright. I’ll be outside.”
Yeonwoo slowly opened the café door and stepped out.
Only then did the woman begin to walk forward.
There was no hurry in her steps, nothing to hide.
She came up to the counter and stood face-to-face with Hye-na.
“You. Are you seeing my husband?”
It was a question full of certainty.
A face that already knew the answer.
Hye-na instinctively shrank her shoulders.
Her hands clenched the edge of her apron.
“Ah… that’s…”
“That’s what?”
She cut Hye-na off mid-sentence.
“While you’re sleeping with my husband… you act all sweet and friendly when you meet me? You’re something else.”
“Ma’am… it’s not like that…”
“Just a fuck buddy? Or did you actually delude yourself into thinking you were his girlfriend?”
Her voice rose a little, yet no real emotion rode on it.
It was so calm it felt even more cruel.
Hye-na opened her mouth, then closed it again.
The color drained from her face until she looked pale, and the rims of her eyes quickly turned red.
Like a child caught in a crime, her gaze dropped to the floor.
Eun-ju watched her for a moment, then let out a short sigh.
She looked exhausted, but there was no pity.
“I know everything. What kind of man my husband is. And how he approaches girls like you.”
She spoke as if she could almost understand Hye-na for a second.
“But… I have no intention of forgiving you. You’re a grown adult too, and you started this knowing he was a married man.”
Hye-na could say nothing in reply.
Because it was the truth.
“It must have felt good. Give him your body once… and the grades… the scholarships… all just fall into place…”
Eun-ju slowly circled her as she continued.
“You didn’t actually think he loved you, did you? You don’t look that naïve…”
“…”
“There are two more besides you. The women he’s seeing right now… so don’t get any ideas.”
Hye-na’s hands trembled.
“If you want to keep seeing him, go ahead.”
Eun-ju added it casually.
“It’s your freedom. A pretty body like that… you should sell it while the price is still high.”
Hye-na shook her head quickly.
“No… I’ve completely ended things with the professor. Really… I don’t see him anymore.”
Eun-ju listened, then slowly looked Hye-na up and down.
As if appraising her worth.
“You bitch. Did that bastard come here today?”
“That’s…”
“Forget it.”
It was final.
“I just… wanted to confirm. You’re just one of his toys anyway… what could you have done? But from now on, you’d better watch yourself.”
Hye-na’s shoulders shrank even smaller.
“You thought you were meeting my husband behind my back. Maybe you even thought he might leave me and marry you.”
“That’s… not it. Ma’am… I really ended it.”
“Don’t get cocky. Just because you say it’s over doesn’t mean it’s over. It ends when he decides it ends. What could you possibly do?”
Eun-ju smiled.
“His tastes really are… varied, my husband… If you’re curious about the others he’s seeing, just say so. I’ll give you their numbers. We could all get together and form a little club while we’re at it.”
Eun-ju stared at Hye-na for a while longer, then turned her back.
And as if nothing had happened, she left the café with only the click of her heels echoing behind her.
Her husband’s affairs—
to Eun-ju, they weren’t even worth the emotional energy.
Hye-na stood frozen in place, unable to make a single sound… unable to offer a single word of protest.
From under the streetlight across the road, Yeonwoo quietly watched Eun-ju leave the café.
Her expression never changed, yet somehow a lonely feeling clung to her.
Yeonwoo hesitated for a moment.
Inside the café was Hye-na, left alone.
Should he go back to Hye-na, or follow the woman who stood at the other center of this tangled web?
In the end, Yeonwoo calculated the various situations in his head, executed the Connect command on Hye-na, and decided to follow Eun-ju.
He quietly trailed after Eun-ju as she walked without a single misstep.
Once he confirmed she was heading toward her parked car and opening the door, he called out to her.
“Excuse me, ma’am.”
Eun-ju’s steps stopped.
She slowly turned toward the sound and looked at Yeonwoo.
“What is it?”
Her voice was still haughty.
The moment Yeonwoo focused on her,
her status window activated.
Emotion Value:28[AUTO]
Name:???
Age:???
Occupation:???
Issue:???
Unlike her calm demeanor, the number was quite high.
It was another reminder that what people showed and what they felt were often different things.
Yeonwoo needed to use her.
Only then could he obtain information about Professor Yeon through her, and set up some means of controlling him later.
He wanted to learn as much as possible about her this time.
Even if it meant taking her body…
Yeonwoo issued a command in his mind.
Emotion value manual conversion. Target 80. Rise 3 points per minute.
Emotion value is gradually rising.
“I need to know what you said to Hye-na… and what the situation is right now.”
“Hye-na’s boyfriend?”
“Yes…”
“I don’t think I have anything to tell you. Ask Hye-na. About the things she’s been getting up to lately…”
“Professor Yeon Jeong-ho… in other words, your husband. Is this related to him?”
In that instant, Eun-ju’s expression wavered.
Then she cast a look that seemed to re-examine Yeonwoo from the start.
“Huh? You know about Hye-na’s relationship with my husband?”
“Roughly…”
“And yet… you’re still seeing Hye-na? You’re something else too…”
She let out a slightly mocking laugh.
“Everyone has their own circumstances, I suppose. Just like how you keep your marriage going even knowing about your husband and Hye-na.”
“Our relationship… isn’t as simple as yours…”
“Then I think I need to hear more about it.”
Emotion Value: 42
Once Eun-ju’s number passed forty, her eyes began to waver.
She had crossed the threshold where she could still hide her emotions behind her face.
“Is that so? Then… talking out here like this is a bit awkward…”
She glanced around and lowered her voice.
“It’s not a conversation long enough to go somewhere private either… so just get in the car for a moment.”
Eun-ju pointed to her car as she spoke.
“Yes… alright.”
The heavily tinted interior cut them off from the outside world.
Inside Eun-ju’s black sedan, the distinctive scent of leather mixed with her faint perfume.
Eun-ju sat in the driver’s seat, started the engine, and raised the temperature inside the car.
Emotion Value: 48
Eun-ju strangely felt her emotions growing more intense.
That surge of feeling made her sense a peculiar kinship with this man who somehow seemed to know her shameful parts, her pain…
or rather, this young man who might be in an even harder position than her own.
Of course, what had triggered it was Yeonwoo’s invisible hand of emotion manipulation, but Eun-ju had no way of knowing that.
Yeonwoo watched Eun-ju’s reactions as the number rose.
She began explaining her husband’s relationship with Hye-na, and the wounds she had suffered because of it.
Things she had never been able to tell anyone out of sheer shame.
Yeonwoo nodded along, repeatedly responding as if he fully empathized with her current feelings.
Those expressions of empathy drew out the stories locked inside her.
Eun-ju’s emotions burst forth as if the final line of defense had collapsed.
“I… I really…”
Her voice began to tremble.
In front of others she had always pretended to be the most composed, yet in the end she was just a woman with a cheating husband.
Because of social status and face, she had never been able to freely reveal it to anyone…
All those tangled, complicated feelings poured out in front of Yeonwoo.
Emotion Value: 60
The corners of her eyes grew damp.
“Why does he make me like this? What did I do wrong?”
The words kept tumbling out one after another until she suddenly stopped and covered her face with her hands.
Her shoulders trembled slightly.
Yeonwoo gently reached out and offered a light touch, a soft pat on her back.
It was neither strong nor prolonged, yet that momentary contact became warm comfort for the isolated Eun-ju.
Eun-ju shivered faintly at the touch.
When she lifted her head, her eyes were full of tears.
To this man she had thought of as completely uninteresting, someone of an entirely different status, just an ordinary, insignificant young guy…
she was now
more honest than she had ever been with anyone.
And for the first time, she felt she was being completely comforted by someone.
Now she wanted that comfort to sink in deeper, hotter.
She wanted to melt the wreckage of her collapsed pride in his arms.
I want him to hold me? I must be crazy… Why am I like this? What am I thinking? He’s a man who looks at least ten years younger than me.
“Ahem… ahem…”
She cleared her throat and wiped away her tears.
Emotion Value: 72
“I got a little emotional. I’m sorry. Anyway, that’s the situation. I think I’ve said everything… so now… please get out of the car…”
Before the polite ending of “please” could fully leave her lips, Yeonwoo’s mouth moved toward hers.
It was sudden, but it was never a situation she couldn’t have avoided.
She could have turned her head, raised a hand to stop him, or cried out.
But she did nothing.
She closed her eyes.
As if she had been waiting for Yeonwoo to do exactly that…
And she accepted his kiss.
The kiss never lost its gentleness even as it grew deeper.
Yeonwoo’s hand moved from her back to her shoulder, along the line of her neck, then to her chin, tracing a secret path of caresses.
Every single touch made her skin burn hot.
The feeling of being comforted was transforming, in an instant, into something else entirely.