Chapter 5: Seducing the Married Woman
The neighborhood pharmacy wasn't far from the villa. The pharmacist handed over the birth control pills and gave Hyun-soo a quick glance, but said nothing else and completed the transaction. A small box in a plastic bag. When he arrived in front of the building with it, the first-floor front door was slightly ajar. It meant Jung Na-yeon was waiting.
“You’re back?”
Jung Na-yeon peeked her head from inside the entrance.
“Yes, I got it.”
With her hair let down, when Hyun-soo extended the plastic bag, her hand quickly snatched it.
“Thank you… I’m sorry for asking you to buy this.”
She stuffed the pill box into her apron pocket and fixed her gaze on the floor.
“Didn’t the pharmacist ask anything weird? Didn’t he look at you strangely?”
“I did look, but he didn’t ask anything specific.”
“Really?”
The smell of onions was already wafting out from the kitchen, as if she had received the text about chicken stew.
“Chicken stew, right? I had ingredients so I started right away without buying anything.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.”
Jung Na-yeon turned toward the kitchen and walked away.
The apron strings were tied at her waist, and at the moment she turned, the curves of her body revealed under the t-shirt vividly recalled the memories from last night. Jung Na-yeon seemed to feel that gaze and slightly shrugged her shoulders.
“What are you staring at like that?”
“Because it’s sexy.”
“Looking at a woman who cooks with those eyes, I can’t eat.”
It was a scolding from her mouth, but her voice was trembling.
Standing in front of the pot, Jung Na-yeon stirred the chicken stew while showing her back.
She stirred the ladle, paused for a moment, then added in a small voice.
“From now on, start from the beginning. If you keep making me buy these things every time, I’ll really get angry.”
“Start from the beginning?”
She realized the meaning of the words herself and placed the ladle down, covering her face with both hands.
“What kind of nonsense am I saying right now…”
She gripped the apron strings and lowered her head. Her face was blushing red. The fact that she had said she would do it from now on made Jung Na-yeon unable to stir the pot for a while.
“That word is good? Hehe…”
Hyun-soo’s lively tone from behind added to her embarrassment.
“And instead of condoms, it’s better to take birth control pills. I like it raw.”
Jung Na-yeon’s shoulders stiffened instantly, and not only her face but her neck also flushed red. The words “I like it raw” were too direct.
“W-what kind of talk is this coming from here so openly?”
“I’m just answering what you said, auntie.”
Hyun-soo grinned and replied lively, making Jung Na-yeon even more embarrassed.
“Do you even know how bad birth control pills are for the body? It affects hormones and there are many other bad side effects…”
Jung Na-yeon rambled on, but her expression was full of embarrassment.
“Instead of taking it every day, there’s the low-dose one, right?”
Jung Na-yeon barely opened her mouth toward the pot.
“I can go to the gynecologist and get a prescription…”
The speed of turning the ladle became unnecessarily fast.
“But there’s only one gynecologist in this neighborhood, and the director is in the same golf club as my husband…”
Realistic issues spilled out. If a married woman goes to get birth control pills prescribed, it would end up in her husband’s ears.
Jung Na-yeon finally turned to look at Hyun-soo. When their eyes met, she bit her lips tightly, then said as if spitting it out.
“I’ll look for another gynecologist in a different neighborhood. Even if it’s far, I don’t know the place.”
She knew what that one word meant. She had admitted to herself that this relationship would continue. Jung Na-yeon’s eyes wavered but she didn’t avoid the gaze.
“That sounds good~”
Hyun-soo replied brightly as if it was good.
“Instead.”
Pointing the ladle toward Hyun-soo and putting strength into her voice.
“Take responsibility. If anything happens, you, Hyun-soo, will be responsible. Understood?”
“Of course, that’s natural. I’m the one who takes it. Hehehe…”
“Don’t laugh like that… You’re a pervert.”
While giving a scolding, her expression was not as displeased as the words.
“But I really don’t believe it. I thought you were my tenant, always coming to collect rent, but I never thought you’d actually do it.”
She clanked the ladle against the edge of the pot. Jung Na-yeon’s eyes widened. The words that she thought you were pretty every time you came to collect rent echoed strangely. Jung Na-yeon opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, then continued.
“T-to do it. What am I, some object?”
Her voice was sharp, but the face turned away told everything. The flush spreading over her cheekbones couldn’t be hidden by the apron.
“What if I say it like that…”
“Because I like it~ hehe…”
“And don’t call me auntie.”
Jung Na-yeon turned again and closed the pot lid with a clatter.
“Call me Na-yeon or noona. Auntie is… unpleasant.”
Actually, it wasn’t that she was unpleasant, but the distance and reality of the man who had taken her in made her feel scared.
The fact that a married woman was embraced by a 27-year-old man made her feel pathetic yet secretly not displeased.
“Every time you came to collect rent, did you really look at me like that?”
Jung Na-yeon asked quietly while showing her back. She opened the lid again, and her hand turning the ladle slowly had strength in it.
“Was there any reason to lie? Every time I saw you, I really thought you were pretty. That’s why I did what I did yesterday. If you had known, you would have approached faster.”
She paused briefly, and her shoulders trembled slightly.
“If you had known, you would have approached faster…”
She swallowed the end of the sentence. Even Jung Na-yeon didn’t understand what “approached faster” meant.
She turned down the flame and slowly turned around. Her eyes were a bit moist at the edges, but it wasn’t tears. Her gaze was one where complex emotions rose to the surface and sank repeatedly.
“I said I’d take responsibility. Don’t forget.”
She lightly touched Hyun-soo’s chest with her hand.
“If my husband finds out, I’m really done. My whole life too.”
It was a heavy statement, but the eyes looking up at Hyun-soo already carried belief.
“The chicken stew still has a bit more to go. While that’s happening, do the dishes. The morning bowls are still in the sink.”
“Sure.”
Hyun-soo willingly stepped forward and rolled up his long sleeves.
With the sound of water flowing in the sink and a cheerful whistle, the first-floor residence was filled. Jung Na-yeon pretended to watch the chicken stew and listened to the sound. A man whistling while singing as he did the dishes. The man who had moved roughly on her body last night was now doing the dishes and whistling. Jung Na-yeon’s lips involuntarily curled up.
Her husband hadn’t done the dishes even in the early days of marriage.
He hadn’t been asked to, and he hadn’t expected it.
Yet this man did it before being asked, humming. That strangely made one side of her chest flutter.
After the dishes were done, the sound of the bathroom door closing was heard. Jung Na-yeon placed the ladle down and looked toward the hallway.
A thin line of light was coming out from under the door of the bathroom where the light was on.
She was using her own house’s bathroom, but another man was using it.
Not her husband, but another man.
That fact suddenly came vividly to Jung Na-yeon.
She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms.
A strange gaze lingered on top of the bathroom door.
It was strange.
It wasn’t unpleasant.
Someone entering her space. Using her dishes, her bathroom, eating her food. The house that had felt empty for two years now had the scent of a person.
When was the last time her husband used this bathroom? Three weeks ago?
Jung Na-yeon’s gaze brushed over the wedding photo hanging on the living room wall and then returned to the bathroom door.
The sound of the chicken stew bubbling filled the kitchen.
Jung Na-yeon adjusted the apron strings and muttered to herself.
“I’ll take out a new towel.”
Then she laughed at her own words.
The landlady worrying about towels for the tenant. But her feet were already heading toward the closet where the towels were. She took out a clean yellow-green towel and hung it on the handle in front of the bathroom door. The sound of running water came from beyond the door, and Jung Na-yeon quickly returned to the kitchen and opened the pot lid as if nothing had happened.
The bathroom door opened, and Hyun-soo’s footsteps headed toward the living room.
When Jung Na-yeon peeked from the kitchen, Hyun-soo had already settled in the middle of the sofa, holding the remote control.
“I’ll watch some TV.”
With legs crossed, leaning back against the sofa, changing channels, it looked like he had lived in this house for several years.
He seemed to have wiped his hands with the yellow-green towel hanging on the door handle.
Jung Na-yeon bit her lip.
That naturalness was annoying, and at the same time, it warmed one corner of her chest.
“It’s still a while away, so watch it leisurely~”
Jung Na-yeon, answering as if to Hyun-soo, reduced the flame under the pot to low and leaned her shoulder against the kitchen door, looking at the living room.
Hyun-soo’s profile.
The blue light from the TV screen flowed along his jawline.
A 27-year-old man and a tenant.
The man who had probed every corner of her body last night, held her inside, and said casually this morning that he liked it after eating breakfast.
That man was now watching TV on the sofa where her husband had sat.
Jung Na-yeon’s gaze slowly slid from Hyun-soo’s broad shoulders to his neck, then back to his jawline.
“The man who took me.”
That word rang in Jung Na-yeon’s mind.
But the problem was that she didn’t dislike it.
Jung Na-yeon wiped her hands and naturally walked into the living room. She sat on one side of the sofa.
Keeping some distance between them.
Pretending to watch TV, but her eyes kept going sideways.
Every time Hyun-soo changed channels, her fingers moved.
The hand that had grabbed her waist last night. The hand that had unclasped her bra. Jung Na-yeon looked down at her own hands resting on her knees.
Her heart seemed to be beating fast.
“The chicken stew needs to simmer for another 10 minutes or so.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Jung Na-yeon answered while facing the TV.
“About the towel… did you use it?”
“About the one hanging?”
“Yeah.”
“It seemed like you hung it for me to use, so I used it.”
“I see…”
It was an unnecessary question. She asked even though she already knew the answer.
Because conversation was needed.
Something that would make the time of sitting on the same sofa with this man feel natural.