Still Beautiful
I slept like a log.
Maybe it was thanks to knocking back a few drinks with Sol last night and crashing hard, but my condition felt incredibly light.
I stretched and got out of bed.
After a quick wash, I headed down to the first floor where the workers had already swarmed in and the renovation was in full swing.
"Oh my, Director! Good morning, sir!"
"Yeah. Thanks for all your hard work, everyone. Have you all eaten?"
I exchanged light greetings with the site foreman and took a quick look around the studio.
Cha Sua didn't seem to have arrived for work yet.
The construction was progressing quickly and smoothly, so there wasn't really anything I needed to micromanage.
I changed into comfortable workout clothes and light running shoes, then stepped out the front gate.
The morning air was refreshing.
I started jogging lightly along the Gyeongui Line Forest Path in Yeonnam-dong.
Since it was a weekday morning, watching the hurried footsteps of people rushing to work made for a rather pleasant, leisurely run.
Everyone looks like they’d rather die than go to the office.
I chuckled to myself and picked up the pace.
The course ran along the Gyeongui Line Forest Path to the turnaround at Hyochang Park Station, then back to the Yeonnam-dong mansion.
Sweating it out like this and managing my stamina was essential.
After all, I was already thirty-two… sob sob.
But I was still young, right?
The moment I got home, I took a full shower.
I grabbed a cold bottle of water from the fridge, chugged it down, and sprawled out on the living room sofa.
Might as well check my phone.
There was one new message in the notification window.
Hmm. Something from Jihye.
She’d been whining yesterday evening about having plans with her fiancé, so what was this about first thing in the morning?
Probably slacking off at work already.
I opened the message and nearly spat out the water I was about to drink, bursting into a hollow laugh.
She’d sent a single photo.
From the background, it was clearly the women’s restroom at her company—pristine white tiles.
A selfie taken in front of the mirror.
She’d hiked up her neat H-line office skirt all the way to her waist, capturing a full lower-body shot that left her legs completely exposed.
And she wasn’t even wearing panties.
This was honestly ridiculous.
My gaze naturally drifted between her legs.
A perfectly smooth, hairless pussy.
And right above that plump mound, she had pressed bright red lipstick firmly against her skin and written a message with painstaking care.
Wow… Jihye, you really are something else.
Did you really do all that at home before getting dressed for work?
Or did you sit on the toilet in the company restroom and write on your own pussy with lipstick?
Either way, it was fucking insane.
I read the text attached below the photo and laughed out loud.
[I’m going on a date with my fiancé after work today, but I’m going like this♥]
“Hahahahaha!!”
Laughter burst out of me.
Yesterday I’d blown off the stream and told her to have fun with her fiancé.
So this was her way of trying to get my attention—planning this cute little event all by herself.
While she was out having dinner and linking arms with the guy who’d become her husband, she’d be secretly savoring the depravity of having my name written on her pussy, dripping wet the entire time.
She really was both adorable and a total headache.
I leaned back deep into the sofa and tapped out a reply on my phone, feeling good.
[You wrote it so fucking neatly. What if someone sees under your skirt during the date? You’ve got some balls lolololol]
The reply came back in less than a minute.
[I absolutely won’t show anyone!! We’re just going to eat, have one quick drink, and head home lol I’m pretty, right? Praise me, hurry!!]
I could clearly picture her acting all clingy, begging for compliments.
The poor bastard who was going to marry her still hadn’t gotten to fuck his own wife.
What can you do? How pathetic.
[Yeah, you’re pretty lol But did you really write that with lipstick? What are you gonna do when your pussy gets wet during the date lololol]
[Yes!! I’m gonna be dripping the whole time thinking about you, Oppa!! You have to reward me later hehe T_T]
[Lolol okay. By the way, how long has it been since you last fucked your boyfriend?]
[Umm… I don’t know… lololol Because I’ve been too busy fucking you, Oppa… hehe.]
As expected. I was fucking her way more than that fiancé of hers.
Sigh. Poor guy.
What can you do? Keep working hard on those dishes.
[Lololol Jihye. You’re not seriously planning to keep sending me pictures and updates even during the date?]
[Yup!]
She really was a piece of work.
[Alright. Do whatever you want.]
I let out a small chuckle and turned off the phone screen.
Even without me giving any orders, she was out there entertaining herself like this.
She really, really loved this kind of play.
Jihye really wasn’t normal. Cute little thing.
Anyway, thanks to that unexpectedly cheerful morning event, my mood improved even more.
Might as well tackle some of that backlog of work today.
I got up from the sofa and headed to my workspace.
I turned on the PC and sat down in front of the monitor.
The photos of Sol I’d taken last time.
There were some from Dumulmeori, but the main ones were obviously those.
The photoshoot I’d done while she was streaming as Lucy—turning on the VVIP stream, putting her in various outfits, and capturing her as the real Lee Sol.
Those were the broadcast photos that had helped me complete the quest.
I’d boldly promised to finish editing them all and send them over within the week, so it was time to get started.
I inserted the memory card, opened the folder, and scrolled through Sol’s original photos.
Hmm. Even looking at them again, they really were on another level.
Was this really the same kid who used to hole up in her room wearing oversized hoodies, eating cup ramen all day?
The aura of Lee Sol captured through my camera lens overflowed with visual appeal as a subject.
The way her eyes would awkwardly avoid the lens at first, only to eventually stare straight into it.
I grabbed the mouse and began adjusting the exposure and tweaking the color grading bit by bit.
I refined her skin tone slightly and emphasized the contrast of light, turning an already decent original into something that looked like it belonged in a fashion magazine.
Her face and body didn’t need any liquify work at all.
I liked it.
Once I finished the entire set and handed it over, Sol’s self-esteem would probably shoot through the roof.
She’d probably go crazy changing her SNS profile picture and setting them as her wallpaper.
Just imagining her cute reaction made the corners of my mouth lift without me realizing it.
I immersed myself in the work with genuine enjoyment.
How long had I been staring at the monitor?
My shoulders felt stiff, so I turned my head and realized the view outside the window had already grown dark.
It was already evening. I’d been so focused I hadn’t noticed the time passing.
I stretched and was about to set the mouse down when the phone I’d tossed on the desk lit up.
Buzz—. It was the second message from Yang Jihye.
[Oppa! I’m meeting my fiancé and we’re on our way to dinner! Sneaky shot from the car♥]
Wow. Crazy Jihye. She really was reporting in every single step.
I smirked and tapped on the photo that came with the message.
The background was the dark interior of a car, passenger seat.
The composition caught the fiancé’s forearm on the steering wheel at the edge of the frame.
Right beside him in the passenger seat, Jihye had slightly lifted the hem of her skirt and taken a shot between her legs.
It was a bit dark inside the car, but the lipstick marks on her bare pussy from that morning were still clearly visible.
The guy who was about to become her husband was sitting right next to her, hands on the wheel and eyes forward.
And right beside him, she was lifting her skirt and sending me a picture of her pussy.
She really had some massive balls.
She was even crazier than I’d imagined, and I loved it.
Ha. As expected, our Jihye was my first pussy and my eternal little sister.
Thinking about it now, I should’ve just fucked her senseless back when she used to come to my place during my manager days.
Or maybe not? If I’d started back then… would I have gotten the same level of pleasure and sense of depravity I had now?
She might’ve just stayed as my personal fucktoy instead of meeting that boyfriend of hers.
Ah well. No point dwelling on the past. It was over and done with.
I’d been busy filming my own romance with my girlfriend back then too.
Of course, she dumped me because she couldn’t see a future…
Come to think of it, I wondered how my exes were doing.
What would their reaction be if they knew I’d become the kind of person who sucked in capital like this?
It suddenly made me curious.
Especially the one I’d dated for over six years—how was she doing these days?
…Snap out of it, Siwoo.
You’re not seriously thinking about doing something with her now, are you?
…But this might be the last remaining trace of that pathetic Han Siwoo.
When I was young, I’d always been confident and bold, but as I got older and money got tighter, I gradually turned into a loser.
I didn’t even want to meet people… and after the girlfriend who had supported me left, it got even worse.
Maybe that’s why. I wanted to show her.
That the guy she threw away was now living boldly and successfully again.
To be honest, I could admit there was also a part of me that wanted to show her so she’d regret it.
You’re still pathetic, Han Siwoo.
Yeah.
I really was pathetic.
So I wanted to see her.
To see how she was living now.
And if I was being completely honest… I wanted to see her again too.
Lingering feelings.
Yes, there had always been a lingering attachment left in a corner of my heart.
We’d been together for over six years starting from our early to mid-twenties, and even though we had no money at all, we’d constantly talked about getting married.
But reality was cruel.
No matter how hard I hustled with my camera from the very bottom, there was no sign of improvement.
From a woman’s perspective, with thirty approaching and no vision in sight with me, it was only natural for her confidence in marriage to crumble.
Especially since she only got more capable and earned more money as she got older.
So naturally, her heart grew distant and she left me.
I didn’t resent her.
It was entirely because I lacked the ability.
But that was exactly why I wanted to show her even more.
That I was doing well now.
If she still carried any burden in her heart, she could let it go.
And… if only a little, I wanted her to regret it.
I picked up the smartphone on the desk.
Since we’d been together for over six years, even if I’d deleted and blocked her contact, the eleven digits of her phone number were engraved clearly in my mind.
If I looked her up on social media, I’d quickly learn how she was doing.
Or if I just added her number to the messaging app, her profile picture would probably pop up.
I stared blankly at the empty screen for a moment, then slowly moved my fingers and began dialing the familiar number.
010…
Slowly, but without hesitation, I entered all eleven digits.
I hit the sync button and waited a moment. In the messenger’s new friends list, three painfully familiar letters appeared.
[Seol Sojeong]
She hadn’t changed her number…
She was two years younger than me, so she was exactly thirty this year.
Same age as Cha Sua.
I suppressed the subtly trembling emotions and tapped on her profile picture.
The circular frame expanded, filling the screen with Sojeong’s brightly smiling face.
The background was a rather stylish shop interior.
She was wearing a neat designer apron, posing in front of a mirror while holding a pair of scissors.
Her status message read:
[One-person shop. Reservation only. Director Seol Sojeong.]
She was running a hair salon.
Back in the early days of our relationship, she was always preparing for her designer promotion exam and would practice cutting on my head every night.
After she became a full designer, she’d been on a winning streak.
I knew she’d do well.
Now she was a director who had opened her own proper shop.
The person in the photo had traded the youthful freshness of her twenties for a noticeably mature and relaxed aura.
She was still beautiful.
No, maybe because she was a director now and making decent money, she gave off even more elegance than before.
On a whim, I searched her name and the salon name on social media.
Her personal account linked to the salon’s promotional page came up right away.
The feed was filled with glamorous styling photos and occasional everyday shots taken at nice cafés or hotel lounges.
There were no visible traces of a boyfriend… at least from a quick scroll.
Well, she could be hiding it well or using a separate personal account.
I scrolled down slowly, taking in Sojeong’s face one by one.
She really was living incredibly well.
Back when I was surviving on cup ramen, struggling to pay off my camera lens installments, and miserably scraping the bottom after getting dumped.
She had been shining like this, steadily building her career.
Even as a corner of my chest throbbed, the corners of my mouth still rose.
I’m glad you look happy.
I’m happy now too.
I’m not sure if this is true happiness.
But compared to those rock-bottom days, I’m incomparably happy.
It was time to let go of the lingering feelings that had been trapped deep inside my heart for so long.
Let’s tie up the knot on those memories that were so painfully yet beautifully overwhelming.
I’ll shake off the last of my pathetic self right here…
And return completely.
As the confident, always-relaxed Han Siwoo I used to be.
I turned off the phone screen and ran a hand through my hair.
Come to think of it, with everything going on lately, my hair had gotten pretty messy.
I checked tomorrow’s schedule… there was an opening.
Whew. Time to go get it neatly trimmed.
To show her the successful thirty-two-year-old Han Siwoo.
