Chapter 104: This Is My Personal Contact Info
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 104: This Is My Personal Contact Info
“Is that not allowed?” Young-eun asked.
“It’s not that it’s not allowed. But why so suddenly?”
“After letting you go like that yesterday, I thought about it all day.”
Young-eun’s eyes as she looked at me were straighter and more sparkling than ever.
“I’m still not exactly sure what my feelings for you are, Jae-ho… but I was definitely jealous. Of the relationship between you and Hyun-kyung.”
“……”
“I felt envious thinking about how she could comfortably video call you like that, something I couldn’t do. I think… that’s why I intentionally provoked her. Because of my jealousy.”
“Are you okay now?”
“Of course. I’ve said everything I wanted to say. Now, isn’t it time for your answer?”
“My answer?”
“You can refuse if you want. You can say that personal contact is a burden, or that you’d prefer to keep a professional distance between us. I won’t be hurt at all if you say that.”
Uh… your face says you’d be hurt immediately, though?
I couldn’t bring myself to say that out loud.
“Fine. I have no reason to refuse personal contact with you, Young-eun.”
“Hehe, is that so?”
Young-eun let out a little hum, pretending to be nonchalant. Her voice was clearly excited. She bit her lip hard as if trying to suppress a leaking smile and held out her hand to me.
“Then, could you give me your phone?”
“My phone?”
“Yes. Please unlock it, too.”
I gave it to her, though I wondered why. I handed the phone over to Young-eun.
“You had me saved as ‘Actress Yoo Young-eun’?”
“Ah, yeah. I don’t usually change names once I’ve saved them.”
“Is that why your tone always felt so distant?”
Young-eun muttered in a voice so small it was almost inaudible while staring intently at the phone.
“What was that?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
After tapping away at the phone for a moment, Young-eun handed it back to me.
“Here.”
“What did you do?”
“I put in my personal cell phone number.”
“You have another phone?”
“Of course. I carry separate ones for work and personal use. So I deleted the old number and put in the new one.”
Taking the phone from Young-eun, I checked the contact she had saved.
“Young-eun… Noona?”
“Hmph, hee! Heh!”
Did I just hear a strange sound? I turned my head toward the sudden wheezing sound coming from beside me. However, Young-eun was just looking at me while clearing her throat; there was nothing else.
“You saved it as ‘Young-eun Noona’?”
“You don’t have a problem with it, do you? I’m a year older, after all. I’m twenty-five, and you’re twenty-four. We’re already close enough to call each other comfortably, so what’s the big deal?”
“I mean, that’s true, but…”
“Try saying it once.”
“Say what?”
“Nu… Noona.”
After she finished speaking, Young-eun cleared her throat again.
“Ahem, if we’re going to be in contact personally, it’ll be weird to keep calling each other ‘Jae-ho-ssi’ and ‘Young-eun-ssi’ every time.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Uh, well…”
Wow, this is actually really embarrassing. Changing how I address someone—especially saying the word ‘Noona,’ which I rarely use—was much harder than I thought.
Young-eun kept her lips pressed tight, staring intently at my face. Her eyes widened and her pupils contracted. I could see her fair face gradually turning red.
“Um… Young-eun Noona?”
“Gasp! C-can you do it just one more time?”
Since she was reacting even more intensely than I was, I felt even more embarrassed. This was driving me crazy. My face felt so hot that the whole room seemed to be warming up.
“Young-eun Noona, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Young-eun said, nodding her head up and down. “It definitely sounds better when you call me that.”
“How… are you going to call me, Noona?”
I felt like it would take a long time to get used to this. Every time the word ‘Noona’ left my lips, a corner of my chest felt ticklish, like I’d just eaten a cloyingly sweet chocolate cake.
“Jae-ho…?”
The tone of her voice was different.
“That… would be better.”
I couldn’t look Young-eun in the eye. My heart raced like crazy at the sound of her soft voice tickling my ears.
Thump, thump.
This was a completely different sensation from when Young-eun used to practice acting and looked at me while playing a character in her first love. Back then, even the name was different. I realized for the first time today that hearing my own name could be this embarrassing.
“Is this okay?”
“You’ve naturally switched to informal speech, too.”
“It’s weird to call you by name but still use formal language. You can speak comfortably to me too, if you want.”
“Got it.”
“Hic!”
Young-eun inhaled sharply and swallowed hard.
“It… it definitely sounds good.”
An awkward atmosphere, different from before, settled between us. It was definitely different. Was it just my imagination that the air felt strangely soft and mellow?
Clink.
I took a sip of my tea, which had gone cold a long time ago. Is there anything else to talk about? I looked around, trying to force a topic of conversation. Young-eun seemed to be doing the same.
“What happened to your eyes?” I asked, pointing to her bright red, swollen eyes. Anyone could tell she had been crying.
“You finally noticed.”
“The mood wasn’t right to ask earlier.”
“I just… cried a little yesterday while reflecting on my mistakes when you didn't pick up. I thought the swelling would go down by morning, but it’s lasting longer than I expected.”
That was a lie. At the very least, it wouldn't be this obvious unless she had been crying just moments ago. Did she want to hide that she had just been crying? Or was she not saying anything because of her habit of hiding her weak side? Whatever the reason, there was no need to point out her lie.
“Don’t cry anymore. We’ve cleared up all the misunderstandings.”
“I won’t. And I won’t let things like that happen again.”
There was a firm resolve in Young-eun’s voice.
Silence again. Had I ever been this awkward with Young-eun? I knew I should just say something, but the words wouldn't come out. It felt like I had regressed to my puberty years.
“What are you going to do about Hyun-kyung? Looking at the match earlier, she seemed to be struggling a lot.”
“Ah… she’s not picking up my calls.”
Young-eun sighed at my words.
“When someone’s mental state is wounded, they definitely need treatment, right?” After saying that, she looked at me. “I’ll book a flight for you. Go see her.”
“Huh?”
“I want to apologize in person, but… I think that might actually shake her mental state even more.”
“You want me to go see Hyun-kyung?”
“You said you’re her rehabilitation trainer. You should go and help her.”
“Uh… are you sure?”
Just a moment ago, she had said she impulsively picked a fight because of her jealousy toward Hyun-kyung. Jealousy and envy. She had escalated things out of frustration from seeing things she couldn't do herself. For that same Young-eun to tell me I could go see her…
“It’s fine. I’ve gained confidence.”
“What kind of confidence?”
“Confidence that I won’t lose you to another woman.”
Wow, that confidence. Was this the pride of a chaebol’s daughter? Or perhaps the self-esteem of a successful celebrity?
“I have to show my ‘Noona’ side at times like this.” Young-eun smiled brightly at me. “Go. You have to take care of your athlete. I’ll book you a business class seat.”
It probably wasn't just my imagination that I saw a glow behind Young-eun for a moment.
“In exchange, come to me as soon as you get back. I’ll find a restaurant for us and be waiting.”
This… is a date request, right?
“That’s right. It’s a date request,” Young-eun answered, as if reading my mind.
*
After Jae-ho left.
“Phew.”
Young-eun leaned back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling.
“I didn’t make any mistakes, did I?”
She retraced the words she had said. However, because she had been so nervous, she couldn't even remember exactly what she had said. Considering her usual meticulous nature, this was unthinkable.
Originally, this meeting was arranged by asking her grandfather, Chairman Yoo Taek-soo, so she could apologize for yesterday’s events. It was supposed to be a meeting without any special feelings. She thought it would be a bad move to go to Jae-ho’s house when he wasn't answering her calls, so she had asked Chairman Yoo for help.
It was supposed to be just a place to apologize. But every time she recalled the sight of Jae-ho’s back as he walked out angry at her for what she did to Hyun-kyung, her heart ached. She realized she never wanted to see him leave coldly like that again. After replaying that scene in her head several times, she had burst into tears without realizing it.
It was a sudden outburst of tears that even surprised Chairman Yoo. At that moment, Young-eun realized.
‘I’ve fallen for Jae-ho much deeper than I thought.’
She had no intention of playing games or testing the waters half-heartedly. At the same time, she didn't want to approach him in a way that felt like a burden. That’s why she intended to start with personal contact. She would gradually get closer to Jae-ho and eventually capture his heart entirely. No man had ever failed to fall for her charms.
“He called me… Noona.”
Young-eun recalled Jae-ho’s lips as he added ‘Noona’ after her name. The way those glistening lips parted and said, ‘Young-eun Noona.’
“They looked so soft.”
A desire to press her lips against his rose within her.
Slap!
“Get it together, Yoo Young-eun.”
Young-eun slapped her own cheeks and organized her thoughts.
“Don’t get excited for no reason. If you approach him clumsily, you’ll only fail.”
He was a man overflowing with charm. Naturally, there would be many women around him. There were already four women she knew of. All of them seemed to have their own feelings for Jae-ho. They were all potential competitors.
‘I can win against all of them.’
She was certain. She was confident that if he fell for her charms, she could fend off a truckload of other women. She was that confident in her own appeal. That was why she had sent Jae-ho to Hyun-kyung. No matter how charming a sports star she was, she would still fall far short of Young-eun herself.
“But what if that woman tries to jump him?”
The thought made a surge of anger rise within her.
‘Then it’s a direct confrontation.’
The front page of the entertainment news would be decorated with the names of Young-eun and Hyun-kyung. A street fight between two stars.
*
“Interesting.”
Chairman Yoo shrugged his shoulders and twisted the corners of his mouth into a smirk.
“Is something the matter, sir?”
“Secretary Choi, you knew I’ve been struggling with shoulder pain every day, didn’t you?”
“That is why you always call for experts for massages, sir. You never miss your manual therapy or physical therapy sessions either.”
“And yet, right now, I don’t feel that pain at all.”
Secretary Choi looked up and asked the Chairman, “Is it because of that young man? The one named Choi Jae-ho.”
“Indeed. I received a shoulder massage from him this afternoon.”
Just the fact that the shoulder pain was gone made him feel twenty years younger. Chairman Yoo laughed lowly and swung his shoulders, feeling the lightness of his body. His arms, which he usually couldn't raise above his shoulders, moved up freely and smoothly.
“At this rate, I might be able to go play golf soon.”
Heh heh heh.
He thought it might be okay to start up the hobby he had forgotten for a long time.
“That young man is quite gifted.”
On the scoreboard in Chairman Yoo’s mind, a ‘plus’ point was etched for the prospective grandson-in-law.
“It might not be so bad.”
“What are you referring to, sir?”
“My granddaughter’s eye for men. Hahaha!”
Chairman Yoo laughed out loud.