Chapter 189: Your First Love Isn't Beautiful (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 189: Your First Love Isn't Beautiful (6)
Build-up.
A term for the process of laying down steps, one by one, to achieve a final goal.
Of course, my true goal had been to get revenge on Kim Jeong-hun, but now, things had changed slightly.
“So… you’re saying you want to go after both Kim Eun-bi and her friend at the same time?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Kim Eun-bi and Ryu Jin.
I found myself wanting to conquer both friends, who were as different on the inside as they were on the outside.
Whether Kim Jeong-hun screamed in agony during the process or not…
Well, that was his problem.
When I told Jo Yun-kyung about what happened at the club and my newly established goal, her reaction was quite amusing.
“Are you crazy about women?”
Crazy about women? How could she say something so harsh…!
“I think so?”
Yeah, I guess I am.
Before, I never felt much of anything even when talking to a beautiful woman, but things were very different these days.
How should I put it… The moment a woman catches my eye, all sorts of lewd thoughts start to flood my mind.
Thanks to that, I’m well aware of how much I’ve changed, but so what?
Life is short no matter how you live it. Might as well fill it with things that are as stimulating and intense as possible.
I’ve tried living a bland life, conscious of what others thought, and I learned that not a single person gives a damn.
“And what on earth was that last line?”
“What line?”
“That cringey line about one chance encounter being a coincidence and a second being fate!”
“What’s wrong with it? I thought it wasn’t bad.”
“It is bad, really bad! No, it’s just lame! It’s crap, pure crap!”
“……”
Her vehement tone, delivered with a shudder as if she found it utterly repulsive, made my shoulders slump.
Was it really that bad…?
I thought I’d done a pretty good job, subtly emphasizing the idea of destiny.
“You’re thinking it was fine, aren’t you?”
“…No?”
“Get that thought out of your head! It was awful! The worst! It wouldn’t have even worked on our parents’ generation!”
It worked just fine back then, you brat.
This is exactly how I managed to snatch up Han Ju-hee, the greatest beauty of her time, you know?
Screaming internally, I asked her in a sullen tone.
“Anyway. Are you going to help me plan this or not?”
There’s no point arguing over spilled milk; it’ll only make me feel worse.
People have to move forward.
Now was the time to decide on our next move.
“…Give me a minute.”
She sat perched on the edge of the bed, lost in thought.
Her lips mumbled and twitched several times, a sign she was considering various possibilities.
After a long moment, she shook her head with a self-deprecating smile.
“Ha… I’m suddenly hit with Sage Time.”
Jo Yun-kyung, complaining about a sudden reality check.
What’s with her all of a sudden?
“First I become a fucktoy… and now I’m sitting here thinking up ways to seduce two women.”
“Uh, well.”
When she put it like that, I could kind of see where she was coming from.
I’d probably be hit with a reality check too.
But just because I understood didn’t mean I had any reason to console her.
“So, are you going to give up now?”
At my casually tossed question, she shook her head with an annoyed expression.
“Who said I’m giving up? I just had a moment of post-sex clarity, that’s all.”
“Ah, I know that feeling well.”
It seemed post-sex clarity was something both men and women experienced.
“From what you’ve told me, the atmosphere itself definitely… seems like there’s an opening to work with.”
“I wouldn’t have even brought it up if it seemed impossible.”
I’m not the type to force things either.
I smelled a certain possibility in the air back then, which is why I decided I needed another brain to help me think.
Then, she crossed one leg over the other and began to rebuke me.
“But that last line was a definite minus. So much so that we can’t use our final plan.”
The “final plan” she was referring to was the third encounter we had planned after the club.
I remembered we had thought of a way to run into Kim Eun-bi naturally by going to the orphanage she frequently visits and pretending to be doing volunteer work, then striking up a conversation.
“Hey, why can’t we use it?”
“Because you went on about fate and destiny, that’s why! If you run into her at the orphanage now, anyone would realize the situation isn’t natural at all!”
“……”
She keeps leaving me speechless.
It seems I was in the wrong.
I shouldn’t have forced the idea of destiny into her head.
She was already a woman who dreamed of a fateful encounter; it would have been better to just let her come to that conclusion on her own.
“So… do you have an alternative?”
“I do. A way to make it perfectly plausible.”
Jo Yun-kyung smiled, full of confidence.
It made me curious.
What could she possibly be thinking to be smiling so confidently?
* * *
She felt restless.
For days, Kim Eun-bi hadn’t left her house, and her emotional state was far from good.
It was the result of everything that had happened.
There was the man who kept popping into her head, and there was Ryu Jin, who had kissed him.
“Ugh…”
The memory of that moment was seared into her mind.
It was so vivid that whenever she closed her eyes, the scene would play out on the back of her darkened eyelids.
“I wonder… what it felt like?”
She was curious.
What did it feel like to kiss him?
When she had witnessed the scene herself, she couldn’t see Ryu Jin’s expression at all.
The man’s shoulders and back, as broad as the Pacific Ocean, had completely hidden her slender frame.
She recalled the moment she had faced him.
“Heehee… heh.”
Her heart had nearly stopped when she heard a line that sounded like it came straight out of a drama or a movie.
…Of course, unlike what she’d seen in the media, it felt more cringey than romantic.
“Just who is he…?”
Her mind filled with questions about him.
The basics, like his name, age, and job, but also whether he had a girlfriend, and his personal tastes.
She wanted to meet him and ask him everything, from one to ten.
But she couldn’t.
“Haa… will I really ever see him again?”
He clearly had no lingering attachment to or interest in her.
Otherwise, there was no way he would have suggested a future meeting without exchanging any contact information.
The person she was interested in wasn’t interested in her.
The thought that he might be more interested in her friend than her made her feel utterly miserable.
And that feeling became a psychological barrier, preventing her from readily contacting the friend who had been calling her almost daily.
“Should I just go out…? If I wander around somewhere, maybe I’ll run into him… Of course not!”
Kim Eun-bi buried her face in a pillow and thrashed about wildly.
Just then, someone knocked on her door from outside.
Knock, knock!
“Nuna, can I come in for a second?”
It was her younger brother.
She quickly sat up, straightened her messy clothes, and called out towards the door.
“Yeah, come in!”
“Excuse me for a moment, then.”
Kim Jeong-hun entered the room.
Her eyes were drawn to her brother’s neat attire, as if he had plans.
“You look great today. Do you have plans?”
At her compliment and question, Kim Jeong-hun frowned.
“What are you talking about, Nuna? You and I were supposed to go see a movie today.”
“Ah…!”
A fragment of a past memory instantly surfaced, flustering her.
Today was indeed the day she was supposed to go to the movies with her brother.
Worse, she had been the one to arrange it, practically dragging her reluctant brother into it.
“S-Sorry! It totally slipped my mind.”
As Kim Eun-bi scrambled up from the bed, Kim Jeong-hun watched her with suspicious eyes and spoke.
“You’ve been acting really weird lately, Nuna. You keep forgetting things, you’re clumsy… Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
At his words, Kim Eun-bi frantically waved her hands and shook her head.
“N-N-No! Nothing’s wrong… It’s just… V-Vacation is almost over! That’s why, yeah.”
Despite her hasty excuse, the suspicion in Kim Jeong-hun’s eyes didn’t fade.
After a moment, he averted his gaze as if he had no choice, let out a small sigh, and asked her.
“So, what are we doing about our plans? If you’re tired, I can just cancel the tickets.”
Kim Eun-bi hesitated for a moment at his question.
Honestly, she didn’t want to go.
Her mind was so full of distracting thoughts that she felt she wouldn’t be able to focus on a movie right now.
However.
“Uhm… no, it’s fine. I’ll get ready in a flash, so just wait in the living room for a bit.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say she didn’t want to go to her brother, who had dressed up so nicely for plans she had forced on him.
“Okay, got it. We still have some time, so take it easy and come out when you’re ready.”
“Okay.”
The moment Kim Jeong-hun left the room, she hurriedly began to get ready.
A quick wash, some light makeup, a simple outfit…
Although she’d said she would go, her lack of motivation made her do everything half-heartedly.
Nevertheless, thanks to the power of her natural beauty, she finished getting ready and headed downstairs.
“Jeong-hun, I’m ready!”
She forced her voice to sound as bright as possible, trying to push away the thoughts of the man that filled her head.
‘Let’s just have fun for now!’
It was a rare outing with her brother, after all.
Besides, since she was the one who suggested it, it was only polite to have a good time.
With a slightly brighter expression, she got into Kim Jeong-hun’s car and headed to the movie theater.
The movie they were seeing was a huge hit from decades ago, now being re-released with improved video quality.
It was a romance fantasy where the male lead, who had lived for hundreds of years under a god’s curse, meets the female lead—his fated partner who can break the cycle of his life—falls passionately in love, and finally meets death with her.
“…This is definitely a movie you would like, Nuna.”
Kim Jeong-hun smiled wryly after reading the synopsis.
It was a movie that perfectly suited his sister, who, unbefitting of her age, dreamed of a fateful love.
They bought popcorn and drinks, showed their pre-booked mobile tickets, and entered the theater.
“This is going to be fun, right?”
“Huh? Oh… yeah.”
She was chattering on about the movie’s plot to a somewhat indifferent-looking Kim Jeong-hun, waiting for the movie to start, when it happened.
“So, the male lead is inevitably destined to fall in love… huh?”
Her gaze drifted to a couple sitting together three rows in front of her.
To be precise, in row F, three rows ahead of her own row I.
A woman with an incredibly familiar back and a man with a broad back that felt strangely familiar.
Just as a strange suspicion began to rise in her mind like a heat haze…
“Ah, it’s starting.”
The movie began.