Chapter 109: Change of Heart (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 109: Change of Heart (5)
“Hey, wake up.”
It was a later morning than usual.
Shin Yu-jeong, nestled in my arms, shook me awake.
“Let go of me, you punk. Don’t you want breakfast?”
A scale appeared in my still-groggy mind.
Eating breakfast made by Shin Yu-jeong vs. sleeping in while holding her in my arms.
The answer came quickly.
“Maybe it’d be better to just sleep in like this…”
“Hmph… N-no, I said wake up!”
“Aww.”
What a shame.
I was so close to getting away with it.
I released the arm that was holding her tight, got up, and stretched.
“Hnnngh…”
My body and mind were usually clear when I woke up, but today they felt exceptionally so.
To be precise, it was more like a deep sense of satisfaction had been added to my clear body and mind.
The girl, who had also gotten up and was stretching, said to me,
“Come down in thirty minutes.”
“You don’t need help?”
“Yeah.”
After her short reply, Shin Yu-jeong slipped on her slippers and left the room.
Being alone after being with her felt strangely lonely.
Is this what they mean when they say you don’t notice someone’s presence until they’re gone?
We were only together for a day, but I felt a bit wistful.
My mouth felt stale, so I got up to brush my teeth, but my dick, furious since morning, was standing tall inside my pants, making its presence known.
“Ah…”
It’s normal to be hard in the morning, but today it was much harder and stiffer than usual.
The reason, I figured, was yesterday.
“Ah, that was so good.”
Tsk.
Just thinking about yesterday left a deep sense of regret.
It seemed like the perfect moment.
“To think I got rejected…”
I had followed the steps faithfully.
Starting with her butt, I touched her breasts, lightly caressed the nape of her neck, and finally, my hand even reached her pussy as I gradually set the mood.
Just when I thought the mood was ripe and was about to start the real deal, I was suddenly shut down.
“Is this what they call karma?”
The reason was something I’d said offhandedly in the past.
My past self, who had said he would create a special atmosphere to make up for her disappointing first time, had ruined everything.
“Aigoo, you idiot.”
And that’s why I was in this mess.
If my past self were here, I’d punch him square in the face, but I couldn’t, damn it.
“I’ll be more careful with my words from now on…”
Bitterly engraving this lesson in my mind, I calmed myself down and settled my erection.
I really wanted to just get one off, but I forced myself to hold back.
Because I’d sworn off masturbation for the rest of my life.
I couldn’t waste precious sexual energy on something like self-pleasure.
“Hup! Hoo!”
After loosening up my stiff body, I headed downstairs on time.
As soon as I opened the door, a spicy and savory smell wafted to my nose.
The strange thing about her was that the smell, at least, was on par with the ajumma’s cooking.
The problem was that the taste fell far short.
“What kind of stew is it today?”
“Hehe, soft tofu stew.”
Her confident answer and smile were impressive.
If only the taste was even a quarter as good as her confidence…
I sat at the table, and a bowl of rice, packed down tightly, was placed in front of me.
Thanks to her forearms, armed with practical, compressed muscles, the amount of rice in that one bowl was beyond imagination.
“Hey, try the stew first. It turned out fucking great today.”
“…Alright then.”
I scooped up a spoonful of the red stew and brought it to my mouth.
Slurp.
“Ahem.”
Spicy, and salty.
“How is it? Delicious, right?”
This was really tricky.
If it were completely terrible, I could hit her with a sharp critique, but it wasn’t that either.
How should I put it… It was a kind of badness that made you think it might be delicious if only the seasoning were adjusted.
Seeing Shin Yu-jeong sitting across from me, her eyes sparkling like a puppy’s, my heart softened.
Yeah, how could I be so harsh to someone who woke up early just to make me breakfast.
Remembering my past where I couldn’t even get a single meal, everything felt blissful now.
“It’s good. It’s delicious, but… the seasoning is a little, just a tiny bit, strong. If you’d used a little less, it would’ve been perfect.”
“Really? Let me see…”
She took it well when I mixed a little advice with a base of praise.
Then she tried a spoonful of the stew and made a satisfied face.
“Yeah, you’re right. If the seasoning were a little lighter, this would’ve been amazing.”
“…Right?”
Maybe what needed to change wasn’t the seasoning, but her sense of taste.
I shoveled the rice into my mouth, occasionally taking a spoonful of stew.
Even though the stew was a bit of a miss, it didn’t really get in the way of eating the meal.
Because all the side dishes on the table were made by the ajumma.
As the meal was ending, Shin Yu-jeong asked me with a look full of expectation.
“So, between my mom’s stew and my stew, which one is more delicious?”
“……”
I’m grateful you made me meals for the past few days, but that’s going a bit too far…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It was the day before the midterm exams.
We trained late into the night for a final check and returned home.
“Go on in.”
“Alright.”
Completely exhausted, we coolly parted ways downstairs.
I watched Shin Yu-jeong open her door and go inside before turning to head up the stairs to the rooftop.
“Ugh, I’m so tired.”
Today had been a pretty tiring day, even for me.
After my morning classes, I pushed my body hard in the training room, and once all classes were over, I did position and coordination training with my teammates.
It seemed even my body, with its monstrous recovery ability, couldn’t handle this much abuse, and my recovery was slow.
Maybe that’s why my steps felt so heavy.
Tomorrow is the start of midterms, so I should wash up quickly and sleep to be in top condition.
As I organized my thoughts and finally reached the rooftop…
“You’re back?”
At the familiar voice, my drooping head lifted.
A wooden bench on one side of the rooftop.
She was sitting there.
“…Ajumma.”
It looked like she had just finished her trip.
Judging by the suitcase standing next to the bench.
Her expression, having returned from a rather long trip, was… peculiar.
Whether it was from fatigue or something else.
It felt like a hint of unease was lurking beneath her calm expression.
“Have you been well?”
“Yes, well…”
“Have you been eating properly?”
“Yu-jeong took good care of me.”
“I see.”
A dry, flavorless conversation passed between us.
We exchanged only relatively unimportant questions, excluding the things I was really curious about, the core issues.
The fact that she was here without even taking her suitcase home meant she had steeled her resolve.
I didn’t know how it would end, but since I started this, it was right for me to take the lead here as well.
“How was your trip?”
“…It was good.”
As if to prove her words, a faint smile bloomed on her lips.
“It was so good I regret not having gone sooner.”
And a faint trace of regret was mixed in.
“Do-jin.”
“Yes.”
“Ajumma… I also went to Haenam.”
“Haenam… you mean.”
I vaguely remembered.
Haenam was definitely… where the ajeossi was working.
Whatever her purpose, she wouldn’t have gone all that way just for sightseeing.
She probably met her husband and spent time with him.
“Is the ajeossi doing well?”
Asking what kind of time they spent together seemed too direct, so I phrased it a bit more circuitously.
She nodded.
“He’s doing very well.”
I thought she just meant he was healthy and well.
Until I heard the rest of the story.
Why her husband wasn’t coming home, how he was living there.
Finishing her words with a weak, somewhat pathetic expression, she looked up at me.
I asked her,
“Why did you just leave?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m asking why you just left without even getting angry after hearing something like that.”
After dedicating herself to protecting her family and her husband, she was treated like that. How could she just walk away?
I just couldn’t understand it.
She should have cursed them out, or grabbed those two by the hair and ripped it out.
Shouldn’t she have done something?
To me, who was making an annoyed face out of anger, the ajumma said,
“About being treated that way… I figured getting angry after the fact wouldn’t change anything.”
“……”
“The moment I learned his true feelings, the relationship was already broken. What good would getting angry do? If I wanted to remember what little memories we have left fondly… I thought it was better to end things there.”
The ajumma got up from the bench and approached me, continuing.
“And the reason I stayed quiet even after seeing him freely grope another woman… is because I don’t have the right to say anything.”
“Ah.”
It was my fault.
I was the one who made it so she couldn’t get angry and had to leave.
I had approached her, and she had been helplessly swept up, losing her justification.
She, who I was looking at with pained, apologetic eyes, stared right back at me and shook her head.
“I’m not blaming you. It takes two to tango, you know. If I hadn’t taken the hand you offered, this wouldn’t have happened… so we should see it as both our faults, right?”
“…Is that so.”
She patted my shoulder a few times and then told me the rest of the story.
She said she wanted to come straight back to me without looking back, but she didn’t.
Because she didn’t want to seem like a woman who makes choices in a fit of anger.
She saw and enjoyed all the things she couldn’t while raising her daughter alone, and at the same time, sorted out her feelings.
“I waited for you because I think I can give you an answer now.”
She reached out, caressed my cheek, and asked.
“Do-jin, do you think I’m pretty?”
“Yes,” I answered immediately.
Because there’s nothing more foolish than hesitating on a question like this.
“Then… in that case.”
Her hand, gently covering my cheek, and her voice began to tremble at the same time.
Her pitiful gaze held back tears that looked ready to spill at any moment.
“I… I don’t need you to go all the way. Just until I get old, sick, and become useless as a woman… no, just until the moment I no longer look pretty in your eyes is fine… will you love me just until then?”
The answer she must have reached after struggling through long nights alone during her trip, trying to hold back her tears—her desperate heart was conveyed to me.
Her time and my time flow differently.
My young, Awakened body will react slowly to the passage of time, while the ajumma, already in her mid-forties, will quickly lose her body’s elasticity no matter how hard she tries.
She knew this too, and because she was worried, she proposed this compromise.
I pulled the woman, who was forcing back her tears in front of me, into my arms.
As she said, no one in the world dreams of having a relationship with a grandmother or grandfather.
But that didn’t mean I planned to abandon her when the time came.
“Ajumma.”
Held in my arms, she raised a fist and lightly hit my arm.
A cute sign of displeasure.
“…Jeong-hee?”
“……”
Seeing as she didn’t react to the change in address, she seemed to like it.
I whispered into her ear.
“I’ll do as you say. If you no longer look pretty to me… I’ll tell you honestly.”
But that’s never going to happen.
“From now on… people might start calling you a witch.”
At the sudden mention of a witch, her face, buried in my chest, peeked out.
An expression of confusion.
I moved endlessly closer to her face and whispered continuously.
“Because you’re going to get much prettier, and younger.”
Until when?
“For as long as you’re with me.”
If you keep getting younger while everyone else gets older, what else would you be but a witch?
The goal of my second life has already been set.
Do whatever I want, and have whatever I want.
If I want a star in the sky, I’ll make it fall just to have it.
…Of course, I don’t actually want a star; it just means I’ll make the impossible possible.
Seo Jeong-hee is the same.
Now that I finally have her in my arms, I don’t have the slightest intention of letting her grow old and lonely.
Even if it means turning back time.
But I don’t have the ability to turn back time right now…
I guess I’ll have to do some stealing soon.