Chapter 502: The Ugly Truth (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 502: The Ugly Truth (1)
A towering figure, nearly two meters tall.
Bulging muscles covered his massive frame.
A square, thick jaw and sharp, piercing eyes.
These features instilled a certain prejudice in those who saw him.
That he must be rough and violent.
But they would be wrong.
Anyone who had ever spoken with him knew.
They knew just how meticulous and cool-headed he was.
So why was he now filled with such a messy heat?
The reason was Han Ju-yeon.
He had just reunited with the woman he had loved unrequitedly for ten years, the one he had let go before he could even properly confess.
And in the most unexpected of places.
To Morgan Paul, the encounter felt incredibly sweet.
‘Maybe she and I are destined to be.’
So sweet that he began to think it was his destiny to be with her.
He approached her, his heart full of joy.
“Ju-yeon!”
He called her name with vigor.
“Morgan…?!”
Though surprised at first, she soon greeted him warmly as well.
Yes.
“Ju-yeon… by any chance, have you thought about coming back…?”
That was, until he asked her to return.
From that point on, Han Ju-yeon’s demeanor turned cold.
“I’m sorry, Morgan. I’m not going back.”
It was a shock.
From the moment she joined the guild to her very last contract, he and the guild had done their best for her.
They gave her the best treatment in the industry and granted every request she made.
And yet, she rejected him so coldly.
That was when it started.
The messy heat began to fill his mind.
“I want to talk with you a little more.”
“I’m sorry. I have nothing more to say.”
His desperate plea was met with a frigid refusal.
The more she refused, the more he burned.
And that led to this.
He unconsciously reached for her, as she now refused to even look his way.
Smack!
His hand was pushed away by a man who had appeared out of nowhere—Kim Do-jin.
A stinging pain shot through the back of his hand.
“Careful, or you might lose a wrist.”
And on top of that, a provocative remark from a junior so far beneath him.
Normally, he would have quickly recognized his own fault and accepted it.
The other man’s words were sharp, but he had been the cause.
But not now.
“Lose my wrist…?”
It surged.
The rage of a man rejected and abandoned by the one he loved.
“You’d need more skill than that to pull it off.”
He unleashed it on the man who had been chosen by the woman he loved.
A fierce pressure, as if crushing him from above.
But Kim Do-jin paid it no mind and ran his mouth.
“What do you say? Should I cut it off for you? The Saintess is here, so at least you won’t be permanently crippled.”
It was a hair-trigger situation, ready to explode at the slightest provocation.
Just as the Saintess, realizing the gravity of the situation, was about to step in and stop them.
“Both of you, stop!”
Han Ju-yeon, who had been standing behind Kim Do-jin, suddenly jumped out and stood between them.
Instantly, the aura that had been slowly dominating the area vanished as if it had never been there.
The two men, unable to bear the thought of harming her, had withdrawn their auras.
Seizing the opportunity, she took control of the situation with an angry expression.
“What do you think you’re doing? Have you forgotten where you are?”
“Uh, um.”
“Well…”
The two men were flustered.
For a moment, they had forgotten.
They had forgotten just what kind of event this was.
“It would be quite a spectacle if a huge fight broke out here, wouldn’t it.”
At her sharp criticism, both men lowered their heads.
They keenly felt their mistake.
This was a one-night festival where world-renowned figures gathered to laugh and chat.
What would have happened if they had started a fight and ruined the mood in a place like this?
‘I almost made an enemy of the whole world.’
‘I was almost screwed.’
It was no exaggeration.
If the people gathered here joined forces to ostracize them, the pressure would have been immense.
The dizzying thought sent a chill down his spine, and Morgan, having regained his composure, bowed his head to Han Ju-yeon.
“…I’m sorry, Ju-yeon.”
A sincere apology delivered in a much softer tone.
“My desire to bring you back got the better of me. I wanted to talk more calmly… but I ruined everything.”
A clean admission and apology.
Seeing her old colleague belatedly return to his usual self, Han Ju-yeon’s anger subsided slightly.
“Haa… I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”
“No. It’s my fault for clinging to you so persistently even after you said no.”
Han Ju-yeon smiled softly at his humble attitude of taking all the blame.
“Hehe… Now you finally seem like the Morgan I used to know.”
“Ugh, don’t tease me. Even I’m surprised at myself.”
Watching this, Kim Do-jin was dumbfounded.
‘What the hell is this?’
The two who had been arguing just moments ago were now chatting in a friendly atmosphere, as if nothing had happened.
“It’s a shame. The others miss you a lot, too.”
“You should have brought them with you.”
“They refused. Said they hate this kind of event.”
“True… they were all a bit eccentric, so they never liked places like this.”
“They were.”
He couldn’t just jump in.
Their conversation was filled with memories that only the two of them shared.
Stuck in a situation where he could do nothing, only an ugly jealousy burned within him.
A man who knew her past, a past he knew nothing about.
His woman, laughing and chatting happily with that man.
The thought that she might leave him if he made one wrong move flashed through his mind.
‘What if I just step in right now and tear them apart…?’
He barely suppressed the sudden impulse.
Forcibly separating them would be pointless.
It would only reveal his own base jealousy, something he didn’t want others to see.
“Hmm, this is difficult.”
Kim Do-jin couldn’t get his bearings, overwhelmed by a base jealousy he had rarely felt before.
But one thing was certain.
“…This isn’t fun.”
This banquet, an event everyone dreamed of attending at least once in their lives, had become dreadfully boring.
Kim Do-jin immediately turned and walked out of the banquet hall.
And so, his second time attending the Star Cluster Assembly since Son Si-woo's time came to an end.
*
When you’re standing, you want to sit. When you’re sitting, you want to lie down.
Thus, from the moment they are born until the moment they die, humans are beings who constantly desire more.
She was no different.
At first, she thought that just being with him, in any way, would be enough.
And she was, in fact, happy.
How could she not be happy? She had broken through a relationship she never dared to dream of and developed a bond that, while not clearly defined, was no different from being lovers.
However, she had realized something too late.
The moment a person becomes satisfied, they are bound to stagnate.
And stagnation, in other words, means being left behind.
While others struggle to take even one step forward, if you just stand there blankly, aren’t you falling behind? Aren’t you ultimately being weeded out?
The same was true for relationships.
‘I can’t stay like this.’
She could feel it without hearing or seeing.
She could feel the progress of the other women in Kim Do-jin’s life.
Those who had been neck and neck with her just a few months ago had now pulled noticeably far ahead.
While she was reveling in the happiness of being with him, they had refused to be satisfied and had constantly pushed forward.
From that realization, a dizzying sense of crisis surged within her.
‘It’s not time to stop yet.’
She began to walk again.
But at her current pace, she would never catch up to those ahead of her.
So she decided to pull them out.
The dark fantasies she had written in her diary whenever she was bored back in America.
The various desires she had wanted to fulfill at least once if she ever became his lover.
The passionate lovemaking on the plane was one of them.
And the moment she coincidentally reunited with her old colleague, Morgan Paul, at the Star Cluster Assembly, she decided to enact her second desire.
“…This should be enough.”
“Hehe, you did well.”
As soon as the act was over, Morgan Paul looked down at Han Ju-yeon, who was staring only at the spot where Kim Do-jin had left, as if he himself didn’t even exist. He smiled bitterly.
“You’re a truly cruel woman.”
“Oh my, am I?”
“Using a man who loved you for ten years just to provoke another man’s jealousy… is there anything more cruel than that?”
To her, it may have all been an act, but to him, it was not.
He had loved her for ten years.
He had sincerely regretted letting her go and had missed her dearly, right up until the moment she asked him to put on this act shortly after they reunited.
That’s why the taste in his mouth was so bitter.
He had never dreamed that his ten-year unrequited love would end so cruelly.
Han Ju-yeon’s gaze turned to Morgan.
“I’m sorry, Morgan. Just remember me as the worst bitch in the world.”
A sincere apology.
But what pained Morgan’s heart even more was the will contained within it.
A firm, yet somehow twisted will that didn't care if she was remembered that way by others, so long as she could capture the heart of the man who had just left.
“You tried for ten years to win my heart.”
“…I did.”
“I endured for twenty years to be with him.”
She left because they could never be together.
And yet, unable to let him go completely from her heart, she had spent twenty years cherishing that feeling.
They say that distance makes the heart grow distant, but that wasn't true for her.
So, she returned to her homeland, deciding it was better to at least see his face as much as she wanted.
And then, she stumbled upon an opportunity.
A golden opportunity to take him without any hesitation and live with him as a lifelong partner.
After tasting a bit of that dizzying fruit, she became even more engrossed, and even more twisted.
She wanted to light a fire in his heart, even if it meant using a slightly stronger sweetener.
Even if it gave off an ugly stench, she wanted the flames of his passion for her to burn fiercely.
And she had finally succeeded.
By using the heart of a grateful man who had loved her for ten years as mere kindling.
Now, it was time to let that flame catch onto her.
“It has to be him, Morgan. So please, forget about me now.”
“…I will.”
“I’ll pray you meet a woman much better than me. Goodbye, then.”
Han Ju-yeon quickly finished her farewell and walked away.
For a moment, the sincere blessing in her final words seemed to soothe the terrible pain of his heartbreak.
“Wait… twenty years?”
Feeling puzzled, he immediately took out his smartphone and searched for Kim Do-jin.
The search results listed his age as 22 in Korean age.
Which meant.
“…She’s had her eye on him since he was two?”
Thud.
The smartphone fell limply to the floor.
The abyss he had accidentally stumbled upon plunged him into a crucible of shock.