Chapter 24
Mr. Choi said he would work out with her as well.
Lee Shin-ah smiled brightly and answered, pleased.
“What brings you here? You always disappear without a trace, hehe.”
“Actually, watching you, ma'am, has inspired me. I've been neglecting my own fitness lately, too.”
Lee Shin-ah smiled and nodded.
The two of them headed to the fitness center together.
“Huff... huuh! Hup! Huuuh...!”
Lee Shin-ah kept stealing glances at Mr. Choi as he worked out.
Just as she had expected, Mr. Choi had a remarkably well-trained body.
Firm pectorals, broad shoulders, and even the back muscles visible through his tank top.
He looked like a man with quite a bit of workout experience.
“Hup! Huuuh....”
Each time he completed a set, the small muscles beneath his skin flexed with elastic strength.
Lee Shin-ah swallowed hard and stole another glance at his body.
In particular, whenever his nipples showed through the opening of his tank top, a tingling sensation ran through her entire body.
‘What's wrong with me? Ever since I saw that photo last time, I've kept having strange thoughts...’
Was it because she had become more interested in bodies?
Or was it because she had finally realized that she was a woman too?
The favor of countless men.
The greedy looks they sent her.
The obscene photos they sent to show off for her.
Lately, Lee Shin-ah had been falling into those things.
As they say, a late-blooming passion can be frightening; her belated feminine pride was suddenly rearing its head.
Or perhaps it was because she hadn't had sex in nearly three years.
She no longer felt any sexual desire for the husband she'd spent decades with, and the two of them had naturally begun avoiding sex.
But she had thought it didn't matter.
She and her husband understood each other, and he always supported her wishes.
He was someone whose presence warmed her heart.
Wasn't that very aspect of him what had made her decide to marry him in the first place?
“Are you having trouble concentrating?”
Just then, Mr. Choi approached her.
Lee Shin-ah hastily composed her expression and answered with an awkward smile.
“Ah, um, I was just thinking about something else. Haha...”
“Yes. I was going to use the machine next to you-.”
“Ah! Yes. I guess I should take a break too.”
Mr. Choi sat down at the machine beside her and began pulling its handles.
His ragged breathing and the heat radiating from his body reached her where she stood.
A strange desire began to stir in Lee Shin-ah's chest.
‘Haaah. Get a hold of yourself. Focus, focus.’
Lee Shin-ah shook her head vigorously and began pulling the machine's handles again.
*
Three days later, at a quiet café.
Lee Shin-ah stared at the two men before her with a stunned expression.
Then she looked again at the dozens of photographs spread across the table.
She couldn't believe it.
“Th-this... this... what is this...? H-how... These are composites, right? Aren't they?”
“..... I'm sorry.”
“What is this... This makes no sense. It makes no sense!!”
Lee Shin-ah shouted and breathed heavily through her nose.
The people around her stared at her.
The detective-agency employees spoke with awkward expressions.
“F-first... please calm down...”
“Do I look like I can calm down right now?”
The reason Lee Shin-ah was this furious.
It was because of the unbelievable photographs scattered across the table.
Photographs of Lee Ha-young, who had been her son's girlfriend, kissing her husband.
Photographs of the two of them entering a motel together.
Photographs of them holding hands.
Could this possibly make any sense?
Why was that girl Ha-young making such a vulgar display.....
“Th-this... These are composites, right? Aren't they? These are composites...”
She was so furious that her head spun.
She couldn't think straight.
It felt as though dark clouds had gathered inside her head.
She was so upset and furious that tears streamed down her face.
“That can't be. It can't be....”
She said it, but she desperately wanted to believe it wasn't true.
Yet the evidence was far too clear.
Her husband and Lee Ha-young, smiling affectionately.
Lee Ha-young with her arms around her husband's neck, kissing him.
Eventually, one of the detective-agency employees spoke.
“We can't believe it either. We were tracking Lee Ha-young when.... We never expected to discover something like this.....”
“.....”
Lee Shin-ah gathered her thoughts.
Should she go confront her husband right now?
Or should she go beat the hell out of Ha-young first?
Could her son's breakdown have been caused by her husband's affair after all?
Her fists clenched tightly.
“I'll... I'll contact you later...”
Lee Shin-ah put the photographs into her bag.
She stormed out of the café and breathed in the night air.
Yet even then, the heat in her head wouldn't cool.
She entered a bar.
“Welcome~”
She ignored the greeting.
She walked straight to an empty table, pressed the call button, and ordered a bottle of soju.
“Um.... What would you like with it...?”
“Just give me anything.”
“...Yes. Then I'll bring you our most popular dish~”
Sensing her mood, the employee quickly got out of her way.
Before long, the soju arrived, and Lee Shin-ah uncapped it and drank straight from the bottle.
If she didn't do at least this much, she couldn't calm her pounding heart.
“Haaah..... How could...”
Lee Shin-ah wiped away the tears streaming down her face with her sleeve and took another drink of soju.
No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't understand.
No, she couldn't believe it even after seeing it with her own eyes.
Her husband was absolutely not the kind of person who would do something like that.
He had been someone who had eyes only for her.
Why on earth?
‘How... how could you do this? You're our child's father. How could you... with someone so young...’
-Ring ring.
Just then, her phone began ringing.
Lee Shin-ah glanced at it.
The caller was ‘Mr. Choi’.
Come to think of it, it was time to film for YouTube.
-Click.
“Yes... hello.”
A brief silence followed.
Eventually, Mr. Choi spoke.
“You don't sound well.”
“..... I'm sorry. Something came up, so I need to take today off.”
“... Did something happen?”
“No, I'm just a little tired.”
Silence again.
She could hear his breathing through the phone.
Then he spoke.
“... Ma'am. I'm in charge of your son's psychological treatment, and cooperation with you is important for his sake. If something is troubling you, I can help.”
Lee Shin-ah remained silent.
She simply thought about the man called Mr. Choi.
What kind of person was he?
When she thought about it, he had many qualities she found quite likable.
First of all, she was deeply grateful for how he did everything he could to treat her son,
and she appreciated how he had opened the path to a new challenge for her and carefully supported her at every step so the process wouldn't be too difficult; she also liked how he strictly separated his personal and professional lives and never crossed the line.
So Lee Shin-ah impulsively blurted out these words.
“...Would you keep me company for a drink tonight?”
“.....”
Silence.
For a while, Lee Shin-ah waited anxiously.
Eventually, he answered.
“Where are you?”
*
Lee Shin-ah and Mr. Choi went somewhere for a second round.
The second venue was Mr. Choi's villa.
She wanted to drink more but didn't want to go home, so Lee Shin-ah had insisted on coming here.
Mr. Choi spoke.
“I brought you to my place for now, but aren't you being awfully careless? This is a house where a man lives alone.”
At Mr. Choi's curt remark, Lee Shin-ah snorted.
“Hee~ You, sir? Hehe. It's not as if you're interested in me anyway. You just do your own thing and disappear every day—what are you talking about~”
“..... For now, please sit. Just—”
Mr. Choi said that and went to his wine cellar.
He took out the finest wine he had prepared for today and smiled viciously.
‘I've almost got her. Hehehe. Don't make a mistake.’
How long had he endured for the sake of this day?
How hard had he worked to suppress the lust boiling inside him and pretend to be indifferent?
Now he only had to endure a little longer.
If he stimulated the hole in that bitch's heart and made her defenseless, then filled it with his cock, the game would be over.
Once he could get his cock inside her, the rest would be easy.
Mr. Choi barely suppressed the heat in his cock as he approached Lee Shin-ah with the wine.
“Uh... Isn't this Château Mouton Rothschild?”
Lee Shin-ah looked surprised the moment she saw the wine.
Mr. Choi answered with a smile.
“You know a lot about wine.”
“Yes.... Are you sure it's okay to open this here....”
“It's a wine worthy of you, ma'am.”
Lee Shin-ah blushed again.
Although she was illegitimate, she had been a member of a chaebol family and knew very well how rare and expensive this wine was.
“Here. Please, have some.”
Depending on its vintage, the wine could cost hundreds of millions of won.
Mr. Choi poured the precious wine into an empty glass without the slightest concern.
Lee Shin-ah watched the wine fill the glass and asked,
“What did you used to do, sir?”
“..... I did the same thing. I worked in this line of business.”
“I don't understand. Why would someone like you help me in this underworld for such pocket change...”
Come to think of it, it was strange.
Mr. Choi's fee had been twelve million won.
At first glance, that might have seemed like a lot of money, but if a specialist like Mr. Choi accepted only twelve million won for four months of work, it was practically pro bono.
Just considering the fitness trainer and editor he had hired, she wondered whether he had anything left over at all.
“More importantly, ma'am. Now you should tell me. What happened?”
But he never talked about himself.
She didn't even know his name.
Even bringing this up now made his intentions obvious: he clearly wanted to extract only the information he needed and send her home.
Lee Shin-ah felt a little hurt, so she glared at him and opened her mouth.
“Then tell me about yourself, sir. If you do, I'll tell you about myself, too.”
A childish provocation.
A rude remark.
Something the usual Lee Shin-ah would never have said.
But there was a huge hole in her heart right now.
To fill it, she had drunk on impulse, called him on impulse, and come to his house on impulse.
So now it was time to impulsively dredge up his past.
“We agreed to be drinking buddies tonight. But do you realize I've been the only one talking about myself all this time? Why won't you tell me about yourself? Why do you live alone in this huge mansion, why do you work for such pocket change, and why are you soㅡ.”
kind to me.
She barely managed to swallow the words she was about to say.
Lee Shin-ah bit her lower lip.
Whenever things became this difficult, her husband had always been there beside her to comfort her.....
“Let's have a drink first.”
Just then, Mr. Choi raised his wineglass as if proposing a toast.
Lee Shin-ah glared at him for a moment, then raised her own glass.
-Clink.
The two wineglasses clinked.
They drank the wine.
Mr. Choi calmly savored the aroma and emptied his glass,
while Lee Shin-ah glared at him as she drank.
Lee Shin-ah drank steadily until her glass was empty, then set it on the table.
-Thud.
“I'm sorry for imposing tonight.”
Lee Shin-ah rose to her feet.
She wasn't in the mood to enjoy the wine like this.
No, to be honest, she was a little angry at Mr. Choi.
She didn't want to think about why.
Because it hurt her pride.
“When I was in the United States.”
Just then, Mr. Choi suddenly began speaking.
Lee Shin-ah's body stopped mid-turn.