Chapter 2
The most important thing when picking a fight is knowing where to draw the line.
If you cross the line with a man, all that does is signal that you want a fight,
but with a woman, you get saddled with a troublesome label like stalker or whatever.
“⋯Tsk.”
The woman who had been running on the treadmill for about thirty minutes, her ponytail flying, shot me a sharp glare through her sweat-soaked face, then gathered her things.
Seeing how easily she reacted to such a slight provocation, I figured she was easier prey than I’d expected.
Of course, her figure was anything but pathetic.
“⋯Seriously, what a pain.”
Her habit of grumbling to the very end was definitely annoying, but one look at her figure made that feeling disappear.
Her breasts? At least among the women I’d seen in person, they were the biggest.
Her ass? Not quite a match for her breasts, but the way it clung to those leggings, it was plump enough to be perfect for spanking.
Her thighs? Sturdy enough to look like they’d bulge out through fishnets, while her ankles and calves were slender.
I wasn’t exactly inexperienced, but I’d hardly even met, let alone slept with, a woman like her.
Even the celebrities who occasionally came to throw out first pitches were all beanpoles; glamorous ones were rare.
Besides, the more I looked at that rebellious attitude, the more her merits—hidden from me beneath my hostility—began to fill my mind, one by one.
Just like when she was with the team, that beige long hair still stood out, unchanged.
Her sharp gaze seemed to ask whether I could knock her down.
Even the beauty mark beneath her left eye suited her rebellious eyes and was very much my type.
On top of that, I liked her mindset.
Working out in a white tank top and nothing but black leggings at a gym mostly full of men, sweating buckets—she knew perfectly well how much she turned them on.
A woman with her guard up too high is hard to coax.
A woman who takes the trouble to dye her hair nicely and work hard on her figure is much easier to talk to.
The kind of conversation bodies have.
‘⋯Can I hook her?’
Fsshhh.
Not long after she disappeared, I too finished my workout and headed for the showers.
As the water beat down on me, I carefully considered how to hunt my prey, drawing on the instincts I’d developed as a player.
The unfortunate part was that I didn’t know much about her.
All I knew about her personal background was that she was my age and had joined the club in 2016.
Oh, and I’d also heard that she was General Manager Seo’s daughter and that her younger sister was an idol.
I knew she was fucking pretty and popular; she was so famous to begin with that it would have been impossible not to know.
I hadn’t thought to dig up any more information, nor did I want to.
I didn’t even know whether she’d graduated high school or college.
Well⋯, judging by her age, she’d almost certainly only had a high school diploma.
Of course, what kind of life she’d lived and what circumstances she was in were none of my business.
There was only one thing I wished for.
“W-What⋯? What did I⋯.”
I hoped at least that trembling look I’d seen earlier was the real her.
I didn’t dislike hot-tempered women, but a woman who was hot-tempered in bed was hard to coax.
Whether boiled or grilled, it was obvious that tender meat was easier to cook.
Someone with a strong core and a sturdy mentality wasn’t easy to strip and devour.
But in my experience,
people who usually acted like that tended to be soft on the inside.
If they were solid inside, they wouldn’t need to go around bristling.
If I could just get her to meet me halfway, I could take hold of her and make her dance.
So please,
just show yourself.
Getting physically close is hard,
but getting emotionally close isn’t difficult at all.
***
March 2, one day later.
The gym.
If there was one difference from yesterday⋯,
I’d done a little something with my hair.
That was it.
“Hello, Ms. Seo Ha-eun.”
“⋯Hello.”
The woman was still drinking water at the same time as yesterday.
I brazenly greeted her with a shameless expression, and although she wrinkled her face as if dumbfounded, she returned my greeting.
⋯She seemed to have an even stronger ego than I’d expected.
I thought she’d flat-out ignore me.
“You came again today. I didn’t expect you to.”
“Excuse me. Why are you pretending we’re close⋯.”
“We used to work together. Is it so wrong to act a little friendly? You sure are harsh just because you’ve retired.”
“⋯You know perfectly well I dislike you. Stop talking to me.”
“I don’t like you either. But after saying you disliked me, you came again at this hour, so I can’t exactly not talk to you.”
To anyone else, it would have sounded like childish bickering.
While scraping her nerves raw, I tried to impose the absurd idea that ‘running away means losing.’
In the end, what mattered was how she felt.
No one liked having their life changed because of someone they hated.
“Haa⋯. If you came to the gym, then just work out, Mr. Kang Juhyeok.”
“You don’t need to worry about that; I’ll take care of it myself. I was bored while stretching, so I thought I’d talk to you.”
“Ha, seriously. What a pain⋯.”
“If I annoy you, you could stop coming at this hour. I’ve been coming here longer than you, so you leave.”
“What am I, a child⋯? This is a gym I paid to register at, so why should I leave?”
“If you don’t want to leave, then work out while talking to me like this. Honestly, I’m a little uncomfortable too, but I want to work out somewhere with the air conditioning blasting while the sun’s blazing, so I’ll put up with it. You put up with it too.”
“Sigh⋯.”
There was no need to analyze her face as she glared daggers at me, her eyes brimming with irritation.
I could easily read both the tremendous hostility she felt toward me and the anger of someone who refused to lose.
At least that woman would keep answering back instead of running away every time I picked a fight with her.
Until I was the one to yelp and back down in our verbal sparring.
“How’s the club these days? I haven’t been back since I retired.”
“Excuse me. Stop pretending we’re close, and stop talking to me. It’s annoying⋯.”
“Seeing you work out with me at this hour, you must have plenty of free time. Isn’t opening day coming up?”
“That has nothing to do with you, Mr. Kang Juhyeok.”
“Why wouldn’t it? I was with that team for about six years, after all. Seeing an employee slack off like this might even rekindle my lost sense of loyalty to the team.”
“⋯I quit, so I don’t know.”
“Ah, I see.”
As I smoothly kept the conversation going, I was able to learn things I hadn’t known at all, one by one.
For one thing, she had definitely still been with the club until the day I was released.
Well, there was nothing more painful than continuing to do work you didn’t want to do, so I didn’t think it was strange that she’d quit.
I didn’t know everything about how she’d been treated after that,
but judging by the way rumors about me had spread, she probably hadn’t exactly been treated like a princess.
If she’d been treated well, she wouldn’t have quit and be working out in broad daylight.
Her smooth skin made it look like she wasn’t working nights, so she was probably unemployed.
Kindred spirit. Kindred spirit.
“Did you quit your job and move here?”
“⋯Yes.”
“Housing is expensive around here. You must be well-off.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Why did you move to Mokdong after quitting your job? I could understand it if you’d moved here while you still worked for the club, but⋯.”
“I told you, it’s none of your business. ⋯Stop talking to me and mind your own business.”
Still, if that was the case, it did raise a question.
An unemployed woman who had quit a perfectly good job moving to expensive Mokdong clearly suggested something.
Even if I’d originally lived here, she’d moved to Mokdong after quitting a job in Mokdong.
A woman who’d worked for three years at most—where on earth had she gotten that kind of money?
Common sense suggested her parents had bought it for her, but she’d quit the club job her own father had pulled strings to get her, so that didn’t quite add up.
Then again, even if she were doing something risky, why would someone from a wealthy family need to?
Once I eliminated the possibilities and thought it through, what remained was⋯.
“So do you live over by those apartments? A new building just went up⋯.”
“What does where I live have to do with you? Sigh⋯. I humored you enough, so that’s enough, isn’t it? Please get lost. How long are you planning to keep stretching?”
“You’re supposed to warm up your body for a long time. Besides, mine isn’t exactly in perfect shape.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Kang Juhyeok. What exactly are you scheming⋯.”
“I told you, it’s nothing like that. I’m just talking to you because I’m bored.”
“⋯Do you have no sense of social cues?”
“Of course I do. That’s why I’m talking to you. I figured I might get some perks if I became friends with you, Ms. Seo Ha-eun.”
“⋯Perks?”
“No, I mean, if I became friends with a celebrity’s family, I could get autographs and stuff, right? I’m a fan of your younger sister, too.”
Could that be her younger sister?
Seo Jia.
If even I knew her name and songs, that meant she must be making quite a bit of money.
By appearances, that would make her look like an older sister sponging off her celebrity younger sister, which was shabby, but not exactly unusual.
If anything, I desperately wanted this woman to be in such a shabby state.
“⋯You’re talking to me because of something like that?”
“That’s not the only reason, but it is one of them. Can’t say it’s no reason at all, can I?”
“Get lost, please. Don’t say things that make me feel bad.”
“What’s unpleasant about that? I said I’m a fan of your younger sister.”
See?
The moment her younger sister’s name came up, she deeply furrowed her brow.
That wasn’t an expression she could make simply because she disliked me.
It was the wound left by a hard scratch across her pride.
Could anything damage one’s self-esteem more than living off a successful younger sibling?
From what I’d heard, the sisters had appeared on an audition show together, but only the younger one had been scouted by an agency.
If it were me, I’d sooner end up on the street out of sheer rage than ask a younger sibling for help, even if I had one.
Of course, this woman⋯.
“Sigh⋯. Excuse me, Mr. Kang Juhyeok. You have absolutely no intention of listening to me, do you?”
“No.”
“⋯If I gave you Jia’s autograph and told you never to talk to me again, would you stop?”
“Huh?”
“I’ll give you the autograph you want, so get lost. Get away from me.”
“Ah, well⋯. If you’re offering, I’ll gratefully accept it and leave.”
“I’ll get it for you when I have time, so please don’t talk to me from now on. I’m asking you.”
She did seem pretty good at prying open a hand, though.
Her younger sister’s hand.