Chapter 152
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 152
Chapter Title: Past (9), The Season When the Rose Wilts (2)
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#Past (9), The Season When the Rose Wilts (2)
The old tyrant in a young body sat with his chin propped up. He wore nothing. Sticky, slick. The sounds rising from below were drenched. She was an expensive woman. Every action was refined and vulgar. When their eyes met, she smiled with her gaze. Beautiful. It was no easy task with her mouth so full. Yet even then, she rolled her tongue. A secret seduction that didn't show on the surface. Movements detached from her elegant appearance. Her mouth was hot.
But the expected reaction was absent. The tyrant was cold. His skin chilled to the bone. One of the women he'd been with had said it: like a cold-blooded animal. Scary, like he wasn't human.
At that time, the tyrant had sneered inwardly. Humans are cold creatures by nature.
In any case, he had issues with sexual function. Before ravaging bodies, he'd thought it was just old age. No, he'd believed that. That trading his youth would bring back the life he'd lost. That he could start everything over.
‘I wanted to become a new me.’
Go Geoncheol hated his past self. Looking in the mirror made his blood boil. The face of a fool. An idiot who couldn't even keep hold of his own woman. At the scene where the affair was exposed, the woman who had been his wife laughed like a maniac. Look at yourself now, she'd said. As if anyone could truly love a wretched thing like you.
Ah, that sharp laughter. It throbbed in his head every time he recalled it. A memory that replayed on its own. He couldn't turn down the volume in his mind. Hahaha, hahahaha! It grew louder and louder until it became an indistinguishable roar. Like the rumble of rolling stones. Rumble rumble rumble.
Slap! Chairman Go Geoncheol blinked. The gritty pain on his thigh. A faint handprint lingered on his pale, chilled flesh. It was the work of the woman below. She shifted her position. Her upward gaze was submissive, her caressing touch dominant. With her free hand, she swept back her hair. Her white, slender neck came into view. Tilting her face slightly, she smiled brightly and spoke.
“You're too much. Thinking about someone else while you're with me.”
“Don't get ahead of yourself.”
“Am I wrong?”
The chairman scowled. But he didn't get angry. It wasn't easy to find a woman tolerable enough to keep by his side. Other women made him nauseous just seeing their naked bodies. Especially unbearable were their smiles, thicker than makeup and more revolting than perfume. Emotions clumsily concealed that only highlighted the ugliness beneath.
This woman at least knew how to smile decently. He sensed her honest acceptance of her own filth. Her mixed-race features were fine too. The more different from his ex-wife, the better. Thanks to that, he could tolerate having her around. She was the least repulsive among the loathsome ones. No need to chase her away in anger. Habitual rage was something to overcome anyway. For his new life.
Sshhh, sshhh. A white hand moved over sensitive spots. Like playing an instrument. The variations carried light petulance and seduction. The soft friction felt like a bow stroking strings. But even masterful skill couldn't revive a dead instrument. The resonating chamber wasn't empty. It was packed tight with jagged stones, leaving no room for any performance to deepen.
The tyrant demanded.
“Keep doing what you were doing.”
The woman pouted.
“Let me rest a bit. My jaw hurts. Keep this up, and my face'll get all thick.”
Then she climbed up coquettishly. Pressing her whole body against him, appealing her body heat to the cold-blooded man. Her hands kept at it. Straddling his firm thighs, she kissed his cheek, nibbled his earlobe, and asked.
“Do you like my mouth?”
The chairman answered honestly.
“It's unpleasant.”
“What's that supposed to mean.”
The woman puffed her cheeks. She showed just the right amount of sulkiness.
But it was the truth. Closing his eyes and feeling it, it really was filthy. Like something inhuman, a slimy, dirty mollusk clinging to him. An act that triggered extreme revulsion. And yet, he found himself laughable for demanding it repeatedly. Like a child picking at a scab on a not-yet-healed wound.
“If you hate it, why do you keep asking for it?”
“None of your business. Just do as you're told.”
“Sigh, fine. But not now. Sometimes just leave it to me.”
I have other pleasures to offer you. Her sweet whisper sent a chill down the tyrant's spine.
A literal chill. There were times when such whispers dominated him. An old winter's cold invaded the hot room. The temperature gap between reality and memory sharpened the broken man.
That particularly harsh day had been his daughter's birthday. The father had been extremely busy and couldn't be there. He wasn't supposed to be home. But an important meeting got postponed. He didn't take the plane. Bad luck. Back then, he'd thought it fortunate in a way, but in the end, it was the worst. The child who should have been celebrated stood alone in the snowing garden. Shivering faintly. Clutching a doll. What doll was it? No, it didn't matter. She'd been out there a long time. Her hair and both shoulders were blanketed white.
The father asked.
“What's wrong? Why are you out here alone? Hm?”
The youngest daughter was the one who never fit in with the other kids. He'd thought it was just shyness. She was often melancholic, spoke little. Seemed to have no friends. It was normal for her to sit hugging a doll for hours. But seeing her alone outside on the day she should be celebrated felt off.
Hearing her father's voice, the daughter startled violently. When he hugged her tight, she cried and said.
“Don’t go inside.”
Even stranger. He went in quietly. No servants in sight. The butler aside, no maid on duty either. The inside was hot. But his bones were cold. His ears rang from his pounding heart, but he didn't miss the sounds from the bedroom. His steps caught on scattered clothes. Things shed layer by layer while moving. Not from one person—breath caught in his throat. The women's clothes were familiar, the men's too. But the ones further in weren't the chairman's own.
The door wasn't locked. Not even closed. How urgent must they have been. Just pushed to. Gasps leaked through the gap. The chairman peered through. Both were people he knew. One was his wife, the other his brother-in-law. His wife clung to his brother-in-law's lower body.
“You're thinking of someone else again. Who is it? Some woman more attractive than me.”
The present intruded on the past. Go Geoncheol looked at the sulky woman. His answer was impulsive.
“My daughter.”
“What?”
The woman clutched her stomach and laughed. Laughed until she was exhausted. Complaining her stomach hurt, wiping tears.
“What's so funny?”
“Can't help it? Your secretaries tremble in fear, you make disgusted faces even with a woman like me in front of you, you've got this amazing body and yet you're tormented by erectile dysfunction, and in the heat of such desperate sex, you suddenly think of your daughter. My god! Chairman, so this is what you're like?”
And she laughed again for a long while. The chairman said.
“I don't want sex.”
“Then what do you want?”
To take it back. The chairman swallowed unnecessary words.
If it were just wanting sex, he'd have used pills. He had plenty of fast-acting ones. They wouldn't create nonexistent desire, but engorged spongy tissue would react sensitively. Humans are built that way. Nothing but functional, inefficient meat lumps.
But the chairman wanted a new beginning. He wanted to reclaim everything his ex-wife had taken. Libido was one of them. Libido itself meant nothing. It was hideous and base. Yet even something so contemptible had to be recovered first. Even if he discarded it after reclaiming it.
Once shaken off, he planned never to relate to women again.
The impatient present dug in differently.
“If it's your daughter, she's the new chairwoman of Nakwon Group, right? She was really pretty. How do I compare?”
Ignore her? The chairman suppressed a sickening surge of anger. He'd thrown out every woman his aides brought. This one was the last. He needed to handle her differently from the others.
‘Stimulation, you say?’
The doctor's words every meeting: he needed mental stimulation.
“She takes after her mother.”
“Eek, then I can't win.”
“You're much better.”
The woman burst into laughter again. Go Geoncheol pondered once more. Stimulation.
The doctor had suggested virtual reality as treatment. He could experience impossible intensities and varieties endlessly without physical strain. Absurd. The partner always had to be real. That "real" was indistinguishable by senses anyway, but wasn't it always he who assigned meaning? Fakes couldn't intrude on his new life. It had to be fiercely his own.
‘That woman still dominates me.’
Along with rage, familiar regret flooded the tyrant. He should have killed them more horribly. Both. Then maybe no such aftereffects now. Why, to him, an efficient man like him, had love such a malfunction occurred? That woman wasn't worth it.
“Eek, scary face. Nope, won't work. I'll head out now. Got some gains at least.”
The woman on his lap kissed the old boy's forehead and withdrew with a smile.
Even dressing, she was graceful. Indeed the pinnacle of the current entertainment world. But he only felt she was beautiful. Flat thoughts passed. How much did it cost to bring her? Something other than money? What was her name...?
“What do you mean, gains?”
His belated question came as she was fully dressed again. In a pure elegance untouched by prior decadence. She tilted her head and smiled.
“You said I'm prettier than your daughter. That's huge progress.”
“……Get out.”
But she approached with light steps. Closing the distance slowly, she overlapped lips with the old boy. A graze once, a peck twice, deep and long thrice. The tyrant barely endured the final disgust. His hands twitched on the armrests.
“Know what?”
The woman said.
“I have a lot of money. Of course, pocket change compared to you, but enough to cover my care even after death. Life's just preparation for the afterlife these days.”
A few steps away, the story continued.
“So I didn't come for money. I just wanted to keep doing this in life. Until I retire satisfied. I don't want to die without really living.”
“Seeking sponsorship?”
“Yeah. As you know, being an entertainer's tough now. Can't compete with cost-effective electronic bitches. They can't fully replace humans, but with preset scripts and direction, they're not so different. My place is shrinking.”
“…….”
“Might have to find something else, but no. I don't want that. This is my life. Change the life, and it's not me. Gotta live once before dying. Thought I'd do anything for that. Even if I get young again like you, Chairman, I couldn't have this life.”
The chairman lost interest in the lengthening tale. Humans obsessed with function were a dime a dozen. Fools. A life dominated by something isn't real life. Must dominate everything. The means is money. The ultimate opportunity cost. Thus, economic life is the right life.
The chairman waved his hand.
“Handle that with my secretary. They'll take care of it.”
“Eek. Think about why I'm telling you this.”
The woman playfully furrowed her brow.
“I find you fascinating right now, Chairman. Initial purpose doesn't matter anymore.”
“You're just a tool.”
“I know. I feel it. But I can be a cherished tool.”
“If you try.”
“I am.”
And this time, she truly withdrew, bidding farewell.
“Call me again. Next time, call me by name.”
The chairman felt a bitter displeasure.
============================ Author's Afterword ============================
#Q&A
Q. zkqkel: @ Author, your updates often come at dawn. Is that when your innocence is fullest?
A. Nah... It's just that my writing speed is slow. Super jealous of authors pumping out 30k characters in 10 hours.
Q. Guaaaaak: @ How the heck do you pronounce that Russian name lol
A. Vladimir.
Q. 나나나냥: @ Author, take care of your sleep schedule. We need you healthy to keep canning novels for years.
A. I'm finishing one piece and wasting the next day in exhaustion more often. I know I shouldn't... haha. Thanks for worrying.
Q. 7월해군: @ When's the print version? 😭 Wanna buy it right away.
A. Work's in progress, they say. Probably volume 1 next month?