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Episode 2: Living as a Dependent
Her gaze was fierce and her tone was overbearing.
“You’ve pawned your life to me now.”
Her voice, sharp and clipped, betrayed the effort to suppress her emotions.
“If you’re going to act up, do it properly.”
In an instant, her position, straddling Taejun, was reversed.
“If not, then lie still and take it.”
As if to prove that her being able to lie on top of him calmly had all been because he allowed it, her world flipped. Suddenly pinned beneath him, Hae-young was forced to look up at him.
“Don’t mess with me and drive a person crazy with your antics.”
Taejun’s low voice brushed past Hae-young’s ear, sending a cool shiver down her spine. His eyes were as cold as ice, but Hae-young could vaguely glimpse the unrestrained, writhing desire lurking in their depths.
Their lips met briefly in a ssak sound, then parted, only to meet again in a deeper kiss. Unwilling to lose, she moved her tongue as if skilled, but his firm tongue overpowered her, entwining with hers with a painful intensity.
At the sensation of them violently intertwining in her mouth, Hae-young’s body tensed involuntarily, and a burning sensation spread through her skin, consuming her entire body. Hae-young’s breath hitched, caught in her throat. She could feel vividly the weight of Taejun, who loomed over her.
Finding it difficult to breathe, she tried to push against his chest, but the more she pushed, the closer he pressed his body against hers.
“If I was going to stop, I wouldn’t have even started.”
Barely creating a sliver of space between them, Taejun tightened his grip on her waist and murmured. His breath brushed across her cheek, sending a shiver down her spine – a chill so cold it raised goosebumps.
The foretold fate was merciless, and the feelings she couldn’t entirely abandon ultimately held Hae-young captive.
In her life, she had learned only two things: good people inevitably end up losing, and life is fundamentally a solitary journey.
The man who had etched this immutable law into her heart was Ki Taejun He was dreadfully insolent, unwholesome to the point of being vulgar, and tenaciously persistent.
Only after giving him her entire body and soul did she finally realize the sordid intentions behind Ki Taejun and his family taking her in and raising her.
It happened at an unexpected moment, in the worst possible way, one she had never anticipated.
In the spring of her final year of high school, her father passed away.
Hae-young never knew what her father did for a living or how he earned money. She worried about him because his comings and goings were irregular and he often came home seriously injured, but at the same time, she respected him deeply for taking on any difficult job for the sake of his family. At least, she did until she accidentally discovered that her father was part of a secretive organization.
At first, she thought he belonged to a covert agency like the NIS. But as she grew older and realized the true nature of his work was illegal, she could no longer accept any allowance from him. She couldn’t bring herself to use money whose origins she didn’t know, just because it was convenient.
Her stepmothers changed every year, but from the fifth one onward, Hae-young stopped speaking to her, using adolescence as an excuse.
So, she naturally assumed her relationship with her father would also become distant. But he remained consistently devoted and affectionate towards his daughter. Because of that, Hae-young couldn’t bring herself to truly hate him.
Only after her father died did everything become clear. The work he did, the kind of person he was. Her father, who had always been gentle and carefree with her, had lived as the vice president of a shell company run by gangsters.
Every corner of their comfortable life had been touched by her father’s hand, and suddenly, she was abandoned alone in the world.
“I’m Ki Taejun from Jae-won Group.”
After crying until her eyes were completely raw and swollen, she looked up at the man who was speaking to her.
“The Vice President asked me to look after his daughter.”
The man approached, saying her father had requested he ensure her safety while he was alive. Hae-young instinctively recoiled. He was a dangerous man, doing the same kind of work as her father. He looked to be only around his mid-twenties, with a youthful face.
“You’ll have a hard time without a guardian right now. Accept the help, even if you’re reluctant.”
Her stepmother, who had been living off her father, didn’t even show her face at the funeral home, and her father, an orphan, had no close relatives or siblings. It was then she realized her father and stepmother were merely “cohabitants” who hadn’t even officially registered their marriage.
With not a single adult to turn to for help, her destination as a minor was already decided.
She hadn’t expected much kindness from living as a dependent in someone else’s home, but every family member, including Chairman Ki, was excessively kind to her. They treated her like a difficult guest. However, there was exactly one person who paid her no attention and showed no reaction whatsoever.
She had taken the hand of the man who told her to accept help even if she was reluctant, but he didn’t bother to hide the fact that he was the one who was reluctant.
Was he a university senior? To Hae-young, who had just become a high school student, Tae-jun was an impossibly distant adult.
Everyone was kind to her, almost as if they had agreed upon it, but for the same reason she couldn’t freely use her father’s money in the past, she couldn’t blend in with them and live comfortably. Perhaps it was just childish defiance, as if to protest that they were only living with her because of her father’s last request and couldn’t turn him away, she sometimes found herself trying to talk to him, driven by some inexplicable impulse.
Yes, she admitted it. It was a trivial provocation. It was a mix of dissatisfaction towards a person who didn’t acknowledge her existence, anxiety about possibly being thrown out, and a faint curiosity.
“Um…”
Ki Tae-jun was always like that. He didn’t pay her any mind, but he didn’t avoid her either. It was puzzling how he would raise one eyebrow as if somewhat displeased, yet still lend an ear to what she had to say next.
“I’ve settled into school life now, so I’m thinking of trying to live independently near the campus. It feels a bit awkward to keep imposing like this, and I also want to reduce commute time to focus on my studies… But I’m not sure how to bring it up to the Chairman…”
As aloof as Ki Taejun was, he never seemed like the type to be two-faced. At the very least, if he disliked something, he showed it immediately. However, the person whose intentions were hardest to read in this house was Chairman Ki himself. He certainly took her in without any fuss and was kind to her, but his kindness felt strangely hollow. Perhaps that was why Hae-young couldn’t fully let down her guard around Chairman Ki.
Large bodyguards always followed him, he smoked cigarettes so strong they made her nauseous, and sometimes he would look at her with a slightly unsettling gaze – these things made her increasingly uncomfortable.
Originally, she had planned to move out as soon as she entered university, but she had failed once due to Chairman Ki’s strong opposition. So, after much thought, she decided to ask Taejun for help. After all, it was Taejun who had brought her into this house, so she felt a bit mischievously justified in holding him jointly responsible.
Taejun’s gaze slowly swept over Hae-young. It was a detached, cold look, as if he were regarding a random weed sprouting in a field.
“…Is it not possible?”
If he would just say yes or no, but he remained silent, as if he had forgotten how to speak.
“Is there a reason I should help you?”
His voice was as composed as ever, but for some reason, the air in the room instantly grew heavy.
“You’re the one who brought me into this house, so I was hoping you would take some responsibility for that.”
Taejun, who had been about to light a cigarette, pushed it back into its case and slowly approached Hae-young.
“Who’s responsible for you?”
“You are. You’re the one who brought me here.”
A faint, twisted smile played on his lips.
“You seem to be seriously mistaken about something, so let me set it straight. It’s true I stepped in because I owed your father a debt, but I have no obligation to take responsibility for you.”
